By Steven Goddard,
There has been a lot of talk about the hot weather in Moscow over the last couple of weeks. This normally gets reported as the “hot weather in Russia.” But Russia is a big country, and much of it has been experiencing cold temperatures.
The Caucuses and nearby Kazakhstan have been getting hit by one cold wave after another – as seen in the video below.
Closeup of Kazakhstan below, showing temperatures 10-15C below normal near lake Balkash.
This past winter was one of the coldest on record in Siberia.
Record Low Temperatures Grip Siberia
I R K U T S K, Russia, Jan. 22
Winter in Siberia is usually spectacular and always very cold. But this winter has been relentless. Week after week, temperatures have been dipping to 50 below zero. Siberians are accustomed to the cold, but they were completely unprepared for temperatures this low
In further bad news for Kazakhstan, Alberto Contador is leaving team Astana at the end of the year.
Ryan Maue adds from his Florida State University weather map page, NCEP GFS forecast maps of 2-meter temperature anomalies for the globe and selected regions of the world. The anomalies are based upon the new NCEP CFSR reanalysis which extends from 1979-2009, and has the distinct advantage of being based upon a relatively recent incarnation of the NCEP GFS model (so sorta apples to apples). The climatological averages are based upon a 21-day centered average during the past 30-years. While western Russia bakes, the far east and Europe enjoys fall-like temperatures.
NCEP GFS Global Temperature Anomaly Forecasts
Also, Invest 91L in the central Atlantic is becoming better organized and is poised to develop into a Tropical Depression during the next couple of days. Current long-range models put the disturbance east of the Bahamas in 6-days.
Doh! Found that missing heat….
…It was stored in the ice.
Just wasn’t hot as we all thought it was. 😉
Totally aside from the human tragedy involved, “excess winter deaths” is an interesting phenomena. One has to keep in mind, however, that its not the same as dying of heat stroke or freezing to death – even for those direct deaths, however, I gather that cold causes about twice the number of deaths that heat does. It includes deaths that are caused by increased numbers of pneumonia and other illnesses that are more common in the winter. IIRC, even deaths from heart attacks are higher in the winter. As best I know there is no corresponding ‘excess summer deaths.’
With regard to changes over time:
Jimbo, you’re probably not reading it wrong. I’m going off of somewhat vague memory here, but I believe that is attributed to having far more energy available, and the concomitant increase in living standards, better housing, better nutrition, along with advanced medical technology running the gambit from ‘simple’ flu shots to ICU’s with respirators, I would expect that ‘excess winter deaths’ in any developed nation probably have decreased since the 50’s.
I’d hate to know what the direct deaths due to cold were in Mongolia this past winter. Let alone the ‘excess winter deaths’ which somehow I suspect would be difficult if not impossible to even calculate there. They apparently lost a fifth of their livestock, some 10 Million animals to the cold.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/20/mongolia-nomads-livestock-winter-poverty
John F. Hultquist,
As far as I know, “Whisper of the Stars” is a poetic legend. Water vapor that we breath out into the cold air almost instantly becomes part of that air (Siberian air in winter is very dry, most of the moisture falls down as snow, and stays on the ground). I never heard any crackling or tinkling sound, even when it was minus 46°C.
But there’s one thing that’s real — though many people don’t believe me. As children, we used to play hockey on ice, even when it was quite cold. We had our own unscientific “criterion” to decide if it was too cold to play: one or two of us would spit, as far as possible (5 to 6 yards, I guess) over the ice. If we would hear then a distinct crackling sound of ice falling on ice, we would decide that it was too cold to play (usually it happened if temperature was somewhere below 36-38°C).
One needs to be careful in Siberian winter. When I was in my twenties, I used to go skiing alone into the forest, though I never had a stamina of a good skier. One beautiful, crispy sunny day, about minus 25°C, with lots of fresh snow everywhere, I started out a bit late, and somehow went much farther than was good for me. I lost my way in a dusk, and spent hours trying to find my way back home. It soon became very dark and cold. Probably, I became somewhat delirious — I remember distinctly hearing low plangent voices talking to me from the snow banks under the black firs, calling and threatening at the same time — but I forced myself not to stop, walking in some kind of automatic hysteria, remembering my grandparents’ words who always warned me that the most dangerous thing in Siberian winter is to stop and to fall asleep in the snow. I don’t remember how I got home but I did. The next two weeks I spent in bed, in high fever. Since then, I sort of lost any interest in skiing alone in the forest.
My son is visiting Siberia (Novosibirsk) now and won’t be in Smolensk for a few weeks. I’d ask him what is going on but he doesn’t even have dial-up where he is. When he gets to Smolensk he says he may have 56KbS occasionally. Quite a come down from the 10 MbS he is used to here.
What looked like it would be a year of record crop yields in the midwest USA earlier this year is going to turn out average. Battered by solar wind and cooked by triple, or nearly triple, digit temperatures. Cannot access agricultureonline.com right now, hope its not gone like StormX-change, its getting really difficult to monitor crop progress reports other than the USDA. I like hearing it from the actual farmers.
But my own eyes have seen (some of it immature) corn roasting and turning quite brown in the fields, and any late beans look, well, rather badly stunted and thin. Its very dry and hot in the lower plains and Mississippi delta states.
“Estimated 40000 excess deaths from cold in UK last winter. RT-mod”
This does not mean what you think it means. When people die, they have to die some time of the year; somewhat more of them do in winter than in summer. This is completely normal. If people died at the same rate the year round, around 150,000 would die in the winter in a typical year. If 190,000 died instead that would be labelled “40,000 excess deaths”. As it happens, total deaths have been unusually low this year at only around 500,000 reported, so the winter deaths (with the “40,000 excess”) amount to only around 165,000 (which is just 15,000 above the historic year-round average rate and well below the historic rate for winter deaths). It was a cold winter, but that had very little if any impact on the death rates. People were not “dying of cold” (or only a very few in exceptional circumstances, like mountain climbers getting lost). There’s no story here.
Paul Birch says:
August 2, 2010 at 5:52 am
total deaths have been unusually low this year at only around 500,000 reported, so the winter deaths (with the “40,000 excess”) amount to only around 165,000 (which is just 15,000 above the historic year-round average rate and well below the historic rate for winter deaths).
Bogus manipulation of data doesn’t change the fact that there were a lot more cold related deaths in the winter season than heat related deaths in the hottest summer . Cold kills, and not just lost mountaineers.
I suspect Paul writes from a PC in a nice centrally heated house with sufficient income for his piped gas. I’m fed up with the carbon tax and just axed up 2.5 tonnes of seasoned timber for my new woodstove with backboiler.
tallbloke says:
August 2, 2010 at 6:03 am
“Bogus manipulation of data doesn’t change the fact that there were a lot more cold related deaths in the winter season than heat related deaths in the hottest summer .”
There were neither. Temperature as such kills very few people in the UK (or anywhere else probably). Hot or cold. The reasons for the “winter excess” are much more subtle, and largely psychological and epidemiological.
“I suspect Paul writes from a PC in a nice centrally heated house with sufficient income for his piped gas. ”
Like almost everyone else in this country. Pensioners especially (this is the demographic with the highest disposable incomes). Relative to income, it is much cheaper to heat houses today than fifty or a hundred years ago. We are also better fed. Which is why we wear fewer and lighter clothes. Look at the old films; everyone wore a hat; nowadays you seldom see one.
Paul Birch says:
August 2, 2010 at 7:11 am
I seem to remember reading that these figures atributed to deaths from cold are in fact carefully adjudged and appear as such on the death certificate as a contributary cause.
Like almost everyone else in this country, Pensioners especially (this is the demographic with the highest disposable incomes). Relative to income, it is much cheaper to heat houses today than fifty or a hundred years ago. We are also better fed. Which is why we wear fewer and lighter clothes. Look at the old films; everyone wore a hat; nowadays you seldom see one.
What absolute b@ll@cks. Many pensioners in this country have disgracefully small state pensions – especially some of those who live alone. Others are terrified that the inflation which annually eats away at their income, and the now pitiful return on their savings, exacerbated by thieving bankers who drop their interest rates to fractions of a percent, will, if they live a few more years, leave them unable to eat as well. UK govt. is currently soaking the pensioners living from savings and fixed income by using 5% inflation and interest rates of 1.5% to cure the financial disaster and save the banks – no-one is bothered by the death of the poor pensioners and it seems least of all you.
stevengoddard said on August 1, 2010 at 1:56 pm:
As I’ve said it before:
At least our “local” meteorologists get it, namely at WNEP-16 (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton). The weekday morning guy Joe Snedeker does his weekly science-type Wham Cam segments where he asks random people something, usually weather related, then presents the answer with the science involved for understanding it.
For the latest one he was asking What is the average temperature of the planet? (56°F BTW) This was last week when we had a “heat wave” of 85-90°-ish days. Snedeker told the one guy how the global temperature is going up, as it has since the last ice age, which is called global warming. During the after-segment segment, they flashed a familiar Hansen-type graph and, paraphrasing here, Snedeker said by the grid used by NOAA the temperature has gone up by about a degree over the last 150 years, and how much of that is tied to man is the question.
The segment is worth watching, geology types might like it. They were at a public pool with exposed smooth bedrock with glacial scrapes. Snedeker was saying how that place was under a mile of ice just 10-15,000 years ago.
Some months ago, Noreen Clark, the weekend morning meteorologist, helpfully informed us how, given all the cloudy days in Pennsylvania, solar is not a good choice around here. She had charts. This while the station was running their still-ongoing “Power to Save” earth-friendly segments and highlighting solar systems, as sold by certain advertisers…
As an interesting item, when you call up their main Weather page you’ll find a Weather Underground national map. Also, their team has overruled the models for their forecasts, and about a week ago was memorable when a rainmaking system delayed coming in then dwelled quite a while. “All the models had it wrong!”
Just to speculate, I think they might also read WUWT. But not (Un)Real Climate. They’re a pretty smart bunch. 😉
roger says:
August 2, 2010 at 1:55 pm
“I seem to remember reading that these figures atributed to deaths from cold are in fact carefully adjudged and appear as such on the death certificate as a contributary cause.”
The deaths specifically attributed to cold on death certificates are quite distinct from the winter excess, and very much fewer in number.
Time and Greenpeace about Russian heatwave…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599200808100
In this propaganda piece, reporter Simon Shuster wonders if Russia’s stand on Global Warming has changed since the deadly forest fires and the heatwave. A few extracts are gems of ignorance and bias:
“But while overconsumption of vodka is a familiar scourge in Russia, extreme heat is not, and as the worst heat wave on record spawns wildfires that are destroying entire villages, Russian officials have made what for them is a startling admission: global warming is very real. ”
Shuster should go back to school and learn Koppel’s climate zones for a start: yes a simple geography course will remind him that the area of Russia that is experiencing the heatwave is in a continental climate known for strong contrasts, very cold winter and very hot summers. The same Shuster was no where to be seen when western Siberia experienced 3 months of -30C last winter…
“Two months before Copenhagen, state-owned Channel One television aired a documentary called The History of a Deception: Global Warming, which argued that the notion of man-made climate change was the result of an international media conspiracy. A month later, hackers sparked the so-called Climategate scandal by stealing e-mails from European climate researchers. The hacked e-mails, which were then used to support the arguments of global-warming skeptics, appeared to have been distributed through a server in the Siberian oil town of Tomsk, raising suspicion among some environmental activists of Russia’s involvement in the leak.”
Proof? Who cares Shuster would not be bothered…
“Broadly speaking, the Russian position has always been that climate change is an invention of the West to try to bring Russia to its knees,” says Vladimir Chuprov, director of the Greenpeace energy department in Moscow. ”
Here comes an unbiased source…
“Medvedev has not been the only person in Russia to link the ongoing heat wave to climate change. Alexei Lyakhov, head of Moscow’s meteorological center, tells TIME it is “clearly part of a global phenomenon” that is hitting Russia. “We have to start taking systemic measures of adaptation. It’s obvious now. Just like human beings at one point took steps to adapt to the Ice Age, we now have to adapt to this,” he says, citing cuts to carbon emissions as one of the necessary adaptations. ”
Yes it is called an El Nino year but our reporter writes in such a manner that the source is saying what he probably never said…
“Now that Medvedev is also acknowledging the effects of climate change, Russia’s official line on the subject could start to change, Chuprov says. But he warns that convincing the public of the threat from global warming may be difficult. “The status quo can change quickly in the minds of bureaucrats if the leadership gives the signal. But in the minds of the people, myths are much more difficult to uproot,” he says. ”
Again the last word is given to Greenpeace… but russians scientists are not gullible and know that they live in a continental climate, they also understand that high pressure agglutinations are at the source of the increasing contrast between seasons in contradiction with the global warming hysteria that Shusters and TIME in clear partnership with Greenpeace are flogging in the west.
Re posts by Paul Birch on excess winter mortality.
Paul, excess winter mortality is not a random thing, nor is it somehow independent of weather. Excess winter mortality, and even morbidity I believe, has been a very long known phenomena, and is directly tied to the ambient temperature. The colder the climate is, the higher the rates of death. Most, but not all, of the deaths are from either respiratory or circulatory causes. The largest number occur in the elderly, but there are consistent rates across all age ranges. From one study:
The article goes on to discuss various aspects such as cold homes, ‘fuel poverty,’ differing rates in different nations, etc.
If I recall correctly, in the USA, you get higher excess winter deaths the further north you go. This may have to do with vitamin D levels, or other factors also. But there is no question that the colder the winter in a particular nation, the higher the number of excess winter deaths, when you compare over a number of years.
Correction: I shouldn’t have said “the colder the climate is,” I should have said, “the colder the season is in a given nation.”
The greatest excess winter deaths are apparently seen in countries with relatively mild climates. This is suspected to have something to do with our bodies acclimation to cold… in mild climates, we don’t have much chance to acclimate to cold, especially if we mainly stay inside when it is cold – typical work days in heated offices, home in heated cars, to heated houses…. Still the point is that excess winter deaths are directly linked to cold and not a random thing – you look at one year in a particular nation, with an average winter temperature that year, and then look at other years in the same nation and if the weather is colder, you get more excess winter deaths, and vice versa.
TomRude,
Add to this that Tomsk is not an “oil town.”
Rational Debate says:
August 3, 2010 at 10:08 am
“Correction: I shouldn’t have said “the colder the climate is,” I should have said, “the colder the season is in a given nation.” ”
Precisely. It’s not the temperature. It’s the season. Winter is the season for dying. If there were no seasons, people would still die at pretty much the same average rate. Most of the winter excess is from people who would probably have died within six months or so anyway. If more people die this winter, fewer will die next summer.
“Still the point is that excess winter deaths are directly linked to cold and not a random thing – you look at one year in a particular nation, with an average winter temperature that year, and then look at other years in the same nation and if the weather is colder, you get more excess winter deaths, and vice versa.”
It’s not random. But temperature isn’t the driver (for more than a small fraction of cases). What matters most is the amount of sunshine. Shorter, dismal days and longer nights sap our strength and fighting spirit, leaving us more vulnerable to infections and less able to throw them off. They also promote the spread of diseases, in part, perhaps, because less sunshine means less UV to sterilise airborne germs.
My conjecture is that the historical observation that for human civilisation “warm periods are good, cold periods are bad” may be seeing the same thing. It’s not the temperature – since we do quite nicely in a wide range of temperature zones – it’s the amount of sunshine, important both for our psychological well-being and for agriculture. More rain and less sun equals less food. It is no accident that sunshine is a symbol of happiness. “Bring me sunshine, in your smile, Bring me laughter, all the while, In this world where we live, there should be more happiness … Bring me fun, bring me sunshine, bring me love.”
This would be consistent with Svensmark’s hypothesis, in which the cooler periods are the result of more cosmic rays producing more clouds and thus less sunshine.
As for last winter in the UK, it was a cold one, but not a particularly dark one. The total number of winter deaths was on these figures somewhat lower than the average. The “winter excess” only appeared on the high side because the total deaths last year were unusually low too.