Can you imagine going out to this Stevenson Screen in Verkhojansk and taking a reading in – 60C cold? Let’s count our blessing here in the USA and Canada that we don’t have to deal with these kinds of temperatures, yet.
Stevenson Screen at Verhojansk Meteo Station looking ENE
www.rian.ru
Northeast Siberia braces for extreme cold of -60C
15/12/2008 12:45 YAKUTSK, December 15 (RIA Novosti) – Temperatures in the northeast Siberian republic of Yakutia could fall to minus 60 degrees Celsius (minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit) in the next few days, the local meteorological service said Monday.
With average low temperatures in Yakutia dropping below minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight, weather in the town of Verkhoyansk dropped overnight to minus 53 degrees Celsius (minus 63.4 degrees Fahrenheit), while in Oymyakon it reached minus 57 degrees Celsius (minus 70.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
“However, this is not the limit – in the next few days weather in the town of Krestyakh could drop below minus 58 degrees Celsius (minus 72.4 degrees Fahrenheit),” the meteorological service spokesman said.
The spokesman added that the current spell of extremely cold weather was due to an influx of cold polar air masses.
Yakutia has two places that contest the honor of being named the North Pole of cold, or the place where the lowest-ever temperature in the Northern hemisphere was recorded – Verkhoyansk with a record of minus 67.8 degrees Celsius (minus 90 degrees Fahrenheit) and Oymyakon with a minimum of minus 67.7 degrees Celsius (minus 89.9 degrees Fahrenheit).
> Kevin (00:20:18) :
> I’ve done some rudimentary calculations, and it turns out that -60C falls under the
> category of ‘pretty damned cold’.
You obviously missed the latest NASA press release on the “New Revised Temperature Calibration Scale”. Quoting from the source:
“From this point forward all temperatures below -50 C will be officially described as tepid, -50 to -10 C will be warmish, -10 to +10 C will be balmy … “
Currently 2.2 degrees Celsius below the 1960-90 average for December according to CET.
Steven Hill @ur momisugly 09:03:22 :
Is that ‘assessment’ based on raw data, or adjusted numbers?
It makes a difference, you know.
Phil provides us with some data:
I wonder if it is a coincidence that the increase from 12.13.2008 to 12.15.2008 is exactly 20,000.
More NASA alarmism: Two Trillion Tons of Land Ice lost since 2003
C=5(F-32)/9 F=9*C/5+32
Useful shortcut – double the C temp, take 10% of the new number, then add 32 to get F.
“The neat thing about sea level rise is that unlike an asteroid hit, a wealthy society can TAKE A STEP BACK AWAY FROM THE WATER–or follow the Netherlands model of high-tech dikes, etc. What is most galling about this is the Alarmists’ complete and utter lack of faith in humanity.”
We can’t move uphill one foot per century, but we can alter the Earth’s climate to make it colder so that sea levels don’t rise as they have been doing for the last 14,000 years! Such madness is not faithlessness, it is irrational Hubris with a capital H.
Many, many years ago when I first heard about GW, the concern was the drowning of art treasures in Venice. “Why not pack them out to higher ground?” I asked. From the response I got you’d have thought I shot the Pope. No, “we” must thermally adjust the entire planet downwards because “we” made it warmer in the first place.
As if!!!! Hello, Humanity. Warmer is Better. Fewer ice storms, arctic blasts, frozen pipes, frostbite, car wrecks on icy streets, power outages on the coldest day of the year, frozen homeless people, etc. If we can possibly make this planet warmer, we should do that, and sooner rather than later.
Richard Sharpe (09:20:19) :
Phil provides us with some data:
12,11,2008,11678594
12,12,2008,11681563
12,13,2008,11662813
12,14,2008,11640625
12,15,2008,11682813
I wonder if it is a coincidence that the increase from 12.13.2008 to 12.15.2008 is exactly 20,000.
It’s just a consequence of the grid size used to digitize the image is a factor of 10,000.
It’s one thing when it gets cold in Yakutia, when we get snow and ice in San Francisco, one notices. I live in sight of the Bay on a hill and had ice on my porch all morning yesterday and more and colder weather is coming thanks to the extreme cold in Siberia this year. This must be the work of the PDO!
“This year is coolest since 2000”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7786060.stm
“The question for the next decade or so will be whether natural cycles such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation continue to moderate the warming effect of rising greenhouse gas concentrations.”
Aren’t greenhouse gases dominant anymore?
“” jorgekafkazar (20:49:04) :
I’ll gladly give you a quitclaim deed to any part of the “”
Easier yet:
1/ Add 40
2/ Multiply by 9/5 (C->F), or by 5/9 (F->C).
3/ Subtract 40.
Based on the fact that -40 is same; C or F .
As for those Russkys in Siberia, they are pikers compared to their Vostok Comrades who get to deal with almost -90 C (-130 F)
Coldest official is I think -128.8F, and official highest is +136 F (in North Africa). they didn’t happen on the same day, but they very well could have.
Ordinary midsummer (northern) extreme range is over 250 F p-p.
And we are quibbling about hundredths of a degree over decades !
Fiddlesticks !
So NASA lost trillions of tons of ice; seems like there’s far too much drinking going on in that place.
Did somebody explain that ice comes, ice goes, it happens every year.
You wouldn’t believe how many quadrillions of tons of ice NASA has lost since NASA came into existence. Maybe its time to get rid of NASA so we can keep the ice.
We all know that when the arctic ice melts, instead of it reflecting sunlight and increasing the earth’s albedo, it turns into a near black body absorber and funnels all that heat into the ocean.
That’s the science fiction story; which strangely nobody has seen happen; not even last year when Al Gore missed out on all those Kayak Safaris to the North Pole.
First of all, the amount of sunlight that hits the frozen sea ice is not worth a tinker’s damn, so any effect on albedo, which is mostly from clouds, is quite negligible.
Secondly, for the same reason, the amount of sunlight hitting the arctic ocean isn’t worth writing home about, and because of the high angle of incidence, the reflection coefficient is a lot higher that the 2% normal incidence value.
Thirdly; has anyone ever heard of “lake effect” snow in the midwest. You put some warm water in the middle of a bunch of cold air, and you get three feet of “partly cloudy” on your sidewalk.
Opening up all that warmer arctic water in the summer of 2007 has probably created the mother of all lake effect snow deluges. since there is more land in the arctic >+60 degrees, than there is in the Antarctic < -60 degrees, the whole north of the planet has got top heavy with snow.
It’s not my fault that these modellers don’t know how to run a Playstation video game.
Mike D. your
Many, many years ago when I first heard about GW, the concern was the drowning of art treasures in Venice. “Why not pack them out to higher ground?” I asked.
Its not so much global warming that threatens Venice. Its built on a flood plain, in a marsh, just above sea level. They have also been draining the subsurface waters, which causes the soil to compact, which causes subsidence.
But, the worst flood threat comes from the dredging of the shipping channel, around 1900. This allows Adriatic storms to bypass the natural flood control, the marsh, and march straight into the city.
Any global warming, on the other hand, is predicted to actually REDUCE flooding, by increasing the presence of the stationary Adriatic high, which will keep storms away from Venice.
Pamela Gray (20:49:14) :
Record lows and snowfall are coming in from Oregon, Idaho and Washington: […]
Tomorrow will bring more in. I have 9 inches of snow in my front yard in Pendleton.
no No NO! You have 9 inches of ‘Global Warming Induced Anomalous Precipitation’, nothing more 😉
JimB (00:49:18) :
“Denver had a low of -19F last night, breaking the old record of -6F set in 1951.”
Yes…but it’s a dry cold.
ROFLMAO !!!!! How Could You! (Please do it again…)
Perry Debell (06:03:27) :
I have to pay a TV licence fee of £139.50 per year for this garbage.
Youtube my friend, youtube! & you can buy a lot of DVDs for 140 pounds…
Find a place where the temperature is -40 deg. That will be both C and F.
Hence, a different calculation route is:
Step 1 Add 40
Step 2 Multiply by 5/9 for F to C or 9/5 for C to F
Step 3 Subtract 40.
Means you don’t have to remember whether to add or subtract the 32 before or after the multiply. As you would expect, this gives identical answers to the other routes
Alan
Where can you see temperature forecasts for Bering, Barents, … sea?
And if so, does air temperature makes a big difference for freezing the sea at that place, or is it only dependent from sea temperature?
B Kerr (08:42:56) :
The FOX NEWS article – 2 Trillion Tons of Ice Have Melted Since 2003
[…]
I’m terrified, what should I do.
Learn to drink your scotch properly, without ice … (Who needs ice? Hic…)
Richard Sharpe et al:
The press release appears to be an update of Velicogna and Wahr 2006 which uses the GRACE gravity anomaly satellite to determine mass balance of ice sheets. It does not pass the smell test because it uses modeled mass balance (modeled precipitation input- estimated outflow) to determine GIA (Glacial Isostatic Adjustment) which is 80%+ of gravity signal. Neat trick. Using modeled mass balance to determine actual mass balance.
Reminds me of a comment someone posted about taking temperatures at a DEW Line station in the 1960’s. They don’t go out to take a reading! At least you don’t get dressed just to go out to the Stevenson Screen. You look at the window thermometer or take a guess.
I don’t even walk to my mail box on bad days in Virginia…
This is a fascinating question and I have been waiting for someone to explain how it is actually done.
paminator (08:58:13) :
Mercury freezes solid at -38.8 C. There is a thallium/mercury alloy that freezes at -61.1 C, but the range of a calibrated thermometer using this fluid only extends from -55 C up to about +5C. You would need to use a Pentane (-100C) or Toluene (-200C) thermometer, but these only extend up to +30C and have poor accuracy of 0.5 C.
Would someone please be kind enough to explain how low temperatures are measured, and how they were measured in the 1800’s without the use of modern electronics.
Mean while in Sweden we aint freezeing yet .
+4 C / + 39 F today.
Day by day temperature anomalies for December
http://www.smhi.se/cmp/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=11488&l=sv
Monthly mean temperature anomaly for December
http://www.smhi.se/cmp/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=11490&l=sv
Actually while human meddling have made flooding in Venice worse, it is not the basic reason for it. The whole northern Adriatic is sinking, and has been doing so for a very long time. During the last interglacial about 120,000 years ago sea-level was slightly higher than today. In the Venice area the last interglacial sea-level is only known from drill cores, since it is now 130 meters below sea level. So Venice is sinking about one meter per millenium, and has been doing so since long before Homo sapiens arrived in Europe. Short-term you could protect the city with dykes, long-term there is nothing to do except moving, unless the next ice-age arrives first and ties up the water in glaciers again.
About that “lake effect snowfall” near the Arctic Ocean, one theory about how glaciations start is that they are initiated by the Arctic Ocean staying ice-free along the Siberian coast in winter, which dumps so much snow on the Putorana plateau that it does not have time to melt in summer, thereby starting up an icecap. It would not take that much extra snow, since the Putorana is only free from snow about 4-6 weeks a year as it is.