Northeast Siberia braces for extreme cold of -60C

Richard deSousa (21:45:32) :
“After reading Lubos Motl’s blog on Steven Chu, the US’s next Secretary of Energy, I’m wondering how this guy ever won the Nobel Prize. Along with his boss, the next president of the US, the gods help us… the US is surrounded by idiots.
http://motls.blogspot.com/”
Richard,
Winder how this guy ever won the Nobel Prize:
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2008/12/wonder-how-gore-got-his-prize.html

Someone must have turned off the hot water pipes?

This report from Russia Today on the coldest town on earth has an interview with a meteorologist who recorded -63C.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOOKhewUF7Y

They are getting close to temperatures where steel shatters like glass.

PearlandAggie (02:59:51) : “Two trillion tons has melted.”
I’m sure this is true. But how much has frozen since then?
The Yin and Yang of ice these days, it can melt and freeze at the same time. Or perhaps all that CO2 lowers the melting point.
Besides, the government has ‘melted’ 4-5 trillion dollars in the last two months. What’s a bit of ice compared to that? Talk about run by idiots.

And I was complaining about +46 degrees F the other morning! BTW, there are still many, many bargains on housing here. And no state income taxes! The tangerines from my tree were delicious this morning and the golf is still only $35 a round right now. What are you all waiting for?

At a pressure of one atmosphere and temperatures below −78°C (-108°F) carbon dioxide will be a solid and it will “snow” dry-ice. For additional more information see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide
The coldest recorded temperature on Earth, -89.2°C (-128.6°F) was measured at Vostok Station Antarctica on July 21, 1983 which is at an altitude of 3,500 m (11,484 ft), so there would be no dry-ice snow at that elevation and temperature. Because of background radiation there are theoretical lower limits as to how cold it can get in the Antarctic or Arctic but the observed values are below the theoretical minimum by several degrees. The chances of seeing it snow dry-ice at sea level are improbable and the dry-ice would sublimate upon contact with the ground but it is fun to speculate on the possibility; which is most likely a direct result of reading too many Hal Clement novels in my misspent youth. On the other hand, we have never had the opportunity to observe polar conditions under the impact of a full ice age, so let’s keep an open mind as to the possibilities during the next 100 years.
In the ice core records has any evidence of dry-ice snow been found and would such records if they did exist be preserved during the drilling and extraction process?
Mike
p.s. Yes I have the three volume Hal Clement anthology collectors set

Why is the sea ice chart going downward?
thanks,
Steve

When the Soviet Army and the Chinese PLA were waging their mini-war along the Amuri river in Northeast China in 1969/70 it was one of the coldest winters ever. The Soviet tankers had to build tents over their tanks to keep out the wind and keep in enough heat from an oil stove so that even with the engine running the fuel didn’t get so cold that it wouldn’t support combustion.
So many soldiers suffered cold weather injuries on both sides that there was hardly any fighting until the cold snap ended. One of the Soviet tankers told me that he was climbing up on his tank one day and the hand hold shattered in his hand when he grabbed it and the charging handle broke off the pintle-mounted 12.7mm. Now that was cold.

“According to USA Today, the coldest temperature ever officially recorded in the USA was -79.8°F – rounded off to -80°F – observed at Prospect Creek Camp in the Endicott Mountains of northern Alaska on Jan. 23, 1971. The Prospect Creek Camp is along the Alaska pipeline about 20 miles north of the Arctic Circle. ”
From July of 1969 to early January of 1971, I was stationed near or at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, right outside of Fairbanks. I left on Jan 10, 1971; the temperature sign at the airport read -47 through ice fog. So I missed that record cold outbreak (Fairbanks hit -70, I believe) by two weeks. But I’ll tell you, anything lower than -30 is, no matter how warmly you are dressed, beyond cold. A run of days when the high temerature never gets above -40 is brutal.

Here are the official readings for Fairbanks from 1971:
http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/FaiData/Files/1971.txt
My -47 memory does not quite tally with the official reading. Also, there must have been a chinook event that day to bring the high temp up so high,