World Weather Roundup

From the “weather is not climate department”

Lots of odd weather events going on worldwide.

  • Snow in Brazil
  • Freeze in Boliva kills wildlfe
  • Heatwave and fires in Russia – but it is not global warming

=========================

Record Cold Grips South America

Merco Press – August 5, 2010

Snow in Brazil

Light snow storms in Brazil were concentrated in areas of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina. O Globo network aired snow flakes falling in early morning, cars covered with a thin white coating and some roads dangerously slippery because of ice.

In Argentina the phenomenon extended to Northern provinces, geographically sub-tropical while in the Patagonia and along the Andes snow reached over a metre deep, isolating villages and causing yet undisclosed losses to crops and livestock.

After a harsh weekend, Argentina’s National Weather Forecast Service announced the cold weather is expected to stay until Thursday although it could again reach a freezing peak over the coming week-end.

On Wednesday a northbound cold front hit the Patagonia and central Argentine regions. In Patagonia, minimum temperatures went as low as minus 10 Celsius with even lower numbers in snowy regions, while maximum temps were in the range of zero to 7 Celsius.

In Uruguay the power record consumption was reached on Wednesday at 20:45. The lowest temperatures were registered in the north and west of the country: minus 7 Celsius.

“The last time something of this magnitude happened was 47 years ago”, said governor Costas.

========================

Bolivia has been hit by an unprecedented cold wave, which has wiped out fish, turtles, and even dolphins in rivers, ponds and lakes around the country. The rivers are now surrounded with the stench of dead carcasses. And this comes only days after snowfall in Buenos Aires.

See: http://www.boliviabella.com/1-million-fish-dead-in-bolivian-ecological-disaster.html

========================

Russia – It’s not global warming

Fires and smoke in eastern Siberia
click to enlarge - Image NASA MODIS

Numerous large forest fires were burning in Russia’s Far East on July 19, 2010, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead and captured this photo-like image. Actively burning areas that MODIS detected are outlined in red, while thick smoke shrouds the forested landscape below. The body of water at lower left is a bay at the northeastern end of the Sea of Okhotsk.

Clusters of red outlines indicate areas with unusually high surface temperatures, each associated with actively burning fires. Most of the fires send their plumes to the southwest, but others blow to the northeast and northwest, indicating the variable wind direction in the region. A thick plume of intensely gray smoke, measuring hundreds of kilometers wide, can be seen stretching across the Bering Sea, completely obscuring the water in some areas.

In the lower center of the image lies the Kamchatka peninsula. A triangle of three hotspots, which do not appear to be associated with smoke, are located at the base of the Klyuchevsky volcano. This snow-covered volcano was reported to have experienced two eruptions in June, spewing jets of incandescent lava and ash clouds several hundred meters into the sky.

========================

h/t to WUWT readers Max Hugoson, Scarlet Pumpernickel, Ag Foster, John from CA

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rbateman
August 7, 2010 10:56 pm

What mechanism is at play causing the pressure cells to stop moving?
This phenomenon is clearly global in nature.
The cold wave in S. America.
The fires in Russia and British Columbia.
The continued downpours in Pakistan.
The Low off the Pacific Northwest in place of the traditional High.
The 80N temps below normal all summer.
The sparcity of tropical storms so far.
About the only thing moving is cold water pouring into Nino 3.4.
What is this, and has it happened before?
I’d like to call it global weather paralysis.

Doug in Seattle
August 7, 2010 11:01 pm

Who is the RTV talking head on the Russia story? It like she’s right out of some NJ community college.

Bulldust
August 7, 2010 11:06 pm

Isn’t it rather embarrassing to have a news reporter that is so incredibly dim? Which channel is this? Maybe I am showing age somewhat, but I find I have less tolerance for ignorance as the years pass.

rbateman
August 7, 2010 11:16 pm

According to the Cato Institute man, the anomaly is the position of the Jet Streams.
Who was that that said the Sun is responsible for the Jet Streams getting moved north/south?

August 7, 2010 11:21 pm

To have a good idea of snow in Brazil (values of 10”in two days), see http://www.metsul.com/blog/

August 7, 2010 11:42 pm

Doug in Seattle: August 7, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Who is the RTV talking head on the Russia story?
Dina Gusovsky.
It like she’s right out of some NJ community college.
Close — Pace University in NY.

UK Doug
August 7, 2010 11:50 pm

Yes the interviewer is somewhat “precious” – (and I went out with a girl in 1967 who had that exact same hairstyle) but if you listen to the fatherly responses to the gushing “We have to blame something” of the interviewer – you do get a very positive handle on how to deal with the gushing naivety of those who are only comfortable “if they can blame something”
The recent poll was cited and the conversation from my recollection and as such the wording will not be accurate but the section appears about 3 min in from memory and it goes something like this;-
“So who is exaggerating all this catastrophe?” (Interviewer after being put right about the true number of hurricanes and catastrophic climate events)
“Scientists”
“But we have to blame something”
“Look, the recent gallop poll showed that most Americans believe that Global warming is real, that man has an effect on the planet and that Global warming has been exaggerated”
“So who is saying that?”
“The Climate change scientists and Al Gore – 20 ft walls of water etc. – have you ever seen his film?”
…………………………
As such this interview is an excellent put down of all those who want to believe (I mean really BELIEVE!) in AGW = Catastrophe.
The interviewer comes across as ill informed gushy and wanting to exaggerate whereas the truth when set out in a logical and well mannered deflates the hype and spin with a few well chosen truths!
The ridicule of Al Gore with the 20 foot wall of water quote is something I will remember for a bit – that alone makes it worthwhile sitting through the gushing school kid type interview.

Michael Schaefer
August 8, 2010 4:03 am

rbateman says:
August 7, 2010 at 11:16 pm
According to the Cato Institute man, the anomaly is the position of the Jet Streams.
Who was that that said the Sun is responsible for the Jet Streams getting moved north/south?
————————————————————————–
rbateman, I think you are really up to something here.
To me it looks like the jet streams in both hemispheres have been repositioned to lower latitudes recently. That would explain a lot of the recent weater phenomenons – including the harsh last winter in the northern hemispere and the actual harsh winter in the south, then actually cool summer in many areas in the northern hemisphere, the actual lack pf precititation which supports forrest fires in Russia / Siberia, but also the huge deluges in Monsoon-areas like Pakistan, India and parts of southern China, due to a clash of hot/humid air already sitting in the south and cold-dry masses of air traveling from the north deep into the south, driven by the northern jet stream.
I think, we need a real-time device monitoring the actual positions of the jet streams in the northern and southern hemispheres actually, as well as to compare their respective positions over the past years, to get a better impression of what’s going on with them.
Any suggestions?

John of Kent
August 8, 2010 4:28 am


rbateman says:
August 7, 2010 at 10:56 pm
What mechanism is at play causing the pressure cells to stop moving?
This phenomenon is clearly global in nature.
The cold wave in S. America.
The fires in Russia and British Columbia.
The continued downpours in Pakistan.
The Low off the Pacific Northwest in place of the traditional High.
The 80N temps below normal all summer.
The sparcity of tropical storms so far.
About the only thing moving is cold water pouring into Nino 3.4.
What is this, and has it happened before?
I’d like to call it global weather paralysis.”
If you read Weather Action’s website, you will see that Piers Corbyn forcast many of these events using his solar weather technique. He has a theory that certain solar weather events affect the earths weather via modulation of the jet streams. Piers also says that all this weather has occurred before on the earth. Weather repeats itself.

August 8, 2010 4:28 am

@rbateman says:
August 7, 2010 at 11:16 pm
“According to the Cato Institute man, the anomaly is the position of the Jet Streams.
Who was that that said the Sun is responsible for the Jet Streams getting moved north/south?”
Guilty.I also said the solar `spikes` that Piers and I predict weather events from, force snakeyness or loopyness of the jet streams by increasing vorticity.

John of Kent
August 8, 2010 4:40 am

http://www.weatheraction.com/
Piers has interesting things to say about climate change!

Sean
August 8, 2010 4:43 am

RBateman,
Look at the temperatuer distributions in July from UAH posted at Roger Pielke Sr.’s page: http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/my-comments-on-the-university-of-alabama-at-huntsville-july-2010-lower-tropospheric-temperature-analysis/. There is pattern of warm regions in the upper midle lattitues separted by cold regions which you might expect if the Jet Stream is has a stronger than normal North:South component and is stable (or stuck depening on your point of view). I recall reading something a year ago that when the sun comes out of a minimum some odd things happen with the polar vortexes and the cold air at the poles which is normally at low pressure and just stays up there converts to a high pressure region and starts influencing weather in the temperate regions. We are certainly at this stage now with the solar cycle and a couple of years ago we had the lowest solar wind recorded and the height of the upper atmosphere was the lowest ever recorded. So if I were compentent enough to really look for a “why” of a stonger north south component of the jet stream, I’d look for a coupling of things happening at the poles (possibly driven by solar changes) with the big swings in the ocean temperature patterns.

Günther Kirschbaum
August 8, 2010 4:51 am

Michael Tobis has an excellent article that puts the situation in Russia in context.

Caleb
August 8, 2010 4:55 am

While I struggle to comprehend some of the more complex descriptions of how the weather works, I tend to also resort to a very simple idea of how the “weaker sun” might effect things.
What I look for is land masses to cool more swiftly than the sea. After all, this is something we see on a daily basis by our coasts, when night’s “land breeze” gives way to a “sea breeze,” as the land warms more rapidly than the sea, and then see the opposite occur after sunset, as the land cools more rapidly than the sea.
In fact the sea has such an inertia that I expected to see the oceans effected little by the “weaker sun,” and for the PDO and AMO to go their merry way. In my simple way I looked for the “weaker sun’s cooling” to be most pronounced over land masses, which effects the Northern Hemisphere more than the Southern.
Lo and behold, last winter my simple-minded expectations seemed to verify, as the land masses in the Northern Hemisphere did seem to cool more than expected. However I am surprised to now see corridors of cold shooting northward over the smaller and more narrow Southern Hemisphere land masses, during their winter. I would have assumed the ocean’s effect would overwhelm the land’s effect, down there.
Regarding rbateman’s question, “What mechanism is at play causing the pressure cells to stop moving?”
My guess is that there is a bigger-than-normal contrast between the land-masses and oceans. That makes the jet stream loop north and south in a fashion that is conducive to blocking patterns. Less contrast would tend to encourage a nice, flat zonal flow in the jet stream, where storms hurry west to east at a nice clip.
It is the loopy jet stream that creates extremes, like the warmth in the far east and far west of Russia, as the middle has stayed pretty cold this summer.
Last winter the pattern got stuck in loops that brought cold right down to Florida, even as it was milder than normal in Eastern Canada and Greenland. Last winter we in New Hampshire were right on the fringe of the Canada-Greenland “warmth,” and there were actually more sub-zero mornings down in Virgina than up here in New Hampshire. It was pretty amazing how that pattern stuck and held and barely budged until spring.
Besides the contrast between land masses and oceans, this winter there is going to be quite a contrast between the Pacific, which is abruptly colder, and the Atlantic, which seems in the peak of an AMO warm-upswing. I suppose hurricanes could suck a lot of the Atlantic’s heat up between now and winter, but if they don’t, and the Atlantic stays warm, the jet stream will be encouraged to preform some remarkable loops, and we could have a pretty loopy winter.
I think it will be very interesting to watch. It has everything to do with cycles of the seas and the sun, I think, but we can expect the typical fuss about Global Warming.
The young gal in the video reminds me of one of my daughters. Give her a break. She’ll learn. And we’ve always known that, one of these days, we’d have to hand power over to a new generation.

August 8, 2010 4:59 am

It is worth noting that as of August 4, there are 6,093 forest fires burning in Canada covering 2.6 million hectares (6.5 million acres). Fires in Russia cover 300,000 acres.
http://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/en_CA/index

August 8, 2010 5:02 am

Correction to last post—there were 6,093 fires as as of August 4 for 2010—116% above normal

August 8, 2010 5:51 am

@rbateman says:
August 7, 2010 at 10:56 pm
You still got my temperature/precipitation forecasts I gave you back on the El Nino thread?
re. mid August temp` drop, the circulation patterns should all change from mid August for 2-3 weeks.

Henry chance
August 8, 2010 5:54 am

Great comments from pat Michaels. We didn’t have these global problems before we had tv cameras. Russian wheat crop is down 30% and price is up more than that. So most still make money.
Russia has enough land to quintuple crop acreage. Capitalism works with agriculture industries and communism interfers with agriculture industry performance.

Henry chance
August 8, 2010 5:55 am

The fires are in Europe and not the Asian side of Russia. What is the weather pattern east of the urals?

M White
August 8, 2010 5:58 am

Some weather in Minnesota, luckily nobody was killed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10906956
Tornado destroys Minnesota farmhouse

August 8, 2010 6:21 am

@Caleb says:
August 8, 2010 at 4:55 am
“Last winter the pattern got stuck in loops that brought cold right down to Florida, even as it was milder than normal in Eastern Canada and Greenland.”
That`s right. It seems to me that a pivotal issue, is the points or areas of exchange between sub-tropical and polar air, get stuck geographically for long periods. Have a look at the animations here, ; http://www.pa.op.dlr.de/arctic/index.html

Amino Acids in Meteorites
August 8, 2010 6:37 am

Argentina is importing record amounts of energy as the coldest winter in 40 years drives up demand…..Electricity supplied from Brazil and Paraguay rose to a daily combined record of about 1,000 megawatts….peaked at 20,396 megawatts three days later….Shipments of liquefied natural gas are set to double this year….demand is exacerbating a shortage that began six years ago…..
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-03/argentina-colder-than-antarctica-spurs-record-power-imports-shuts-plants.html

BillD
August 8, 2010 6:48 am

The Russian weather is really much more extreme than the South American examples. The previous record for Moscow was about 98 oF in 192os. Now they are having day after day above 100 oF. Supposedly, climate warming would benefit agriculture in northern Russian and Canada, offseting declines at more southern locations. Doesn’t seem to be working out as expected.

Roger Knights
August 8, 2010 6:54 am

“one likely contributor to the seriousness of the outbreak was a change in Russia’s laws, under Putin’s direction, that dismantled Russia’s fire protection service. This explanation is getting wider play as the fires continue to burn.
“In brief, the law privatized anti-forest fire activities. Russian state-employed fire rangers were eliminated on state land. Instead, those leasing the properties–Russian forest product companies–were “responsible” for detecting and fighting fires.
“But Russia being Russia, such “responsibility” is wholly theoretical.
…………..
“A part of the Russian Academy of Sciences predicted this immediately upon passage of the law. They were very prescient.”
http://seekingalpha.com/article/219409-russia-down-down-down-in-a-burning-ring-of-fire

899
August 8, 2010 6:56 am

And now the magic questions:
[1] How long have the forests in the Russian/Siberian area been allowed to grow with dense undergrowth?
[2] What is the frequency of Russian/Siberian forest fires?

rbateman
August 8, 2010 7:05 am

Ulric Lyons says:
August 8, 2010 at 5:51 am
I looked through some of the El Nino related threads, couldn’t find it, but I do remember your prediction.
Maybe Anthony or a mod can find it.
Mid-August is not yet here, so in about a week the loopy-loops will finally move.

rbateman
August 8, 2010 7:19 am

I watch the level of solar activity as seen by the visible sunspot area, which has climbed back up to 80-90% of the levels attained in 2 peaks, mid January and mid March 2010.

John Blake
August 8, 2010 7:19 am

Why is Railroad Bill Pachauri still squatting and blowing atop the IPCC? Delenda est UN-o!

Cassandra King
August 8, 2010 7:34 am

What is amazing is the news blackout by the MSM regarding the bitter southern hemisphere winter.
The fires in Russia and the floods in Pakistan are all over the news but nothing from the south, could there be a consensus at work in the media and news wire services?
The MSM is tightly controlled but I didnt realise just how tight.

Günther Kirschbaum
August 8, 2010 8:00 am

bitter southern hemisphere winter.
How bitter is your winter compared to previous winters, Cassandra?

Belarus’ new all-time extreme heat record gives the year 2010 the most national extreme heat records for a single year–seventeen. These nations comprise 19% of the total land area of Earth. This is the largest area of Earth’s surface to experience all-time record high temperatures in any single year in the historical record. Looking back at the past decade, which was the hottest decade in the historical record, Seventy-five countries set extreme hottest temperature records (33% of all countries.) For comparison, fifteen countries set extreme coldest temperature records over the past ten years (6% of all countries).

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/archive.html?year=2010&month=08
Puzzling, eh?

Pascvaks
August 8, 2010 8:07 am

Ref – Rogerio Maestri says:
August 7, 2010 at 11:21 pm
“To have a good idea of snow in Brazil (values of 10”in two days), see
http://www.metsul.com/blog/
_________________________________
Thanks Rogerio! You know, if I lived down there I’d celebrate Christmas in June or July and Easter in October or November. The World is really, still, bigger than most of us realize. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

August 8, 2010 8:11 am

rbateman says:
August 7, 2010 at 10:56 pm
“”What mechanism is at play causing the pressure cells to stop moving?”
Lunar declinational tidal movements of the atmosphere, the peak angle at culmination, in the 18.6 year period was back in 2005 (remember all of the hurricanes due to the resultant global atmospheric turbulence as the tide turned?)
“This phenomenon is clearly global in nature.”
Yes of course it is..
“The cold wave in S. America.”
Just happens to arrive as the moon goes to maximum North culmination, and the polar surge up from the South slides up the lee ward side of the Andes, to form the secondary tidal bulge.
“The fires in Russia and British Columbia.
The continued downpours in Pakistan.
The Low off the Pacific Northwest in place of the traditional High.
The 80N temps below normal all summer.”
The continued decline in the lunar declinational angle at the 27.32 day pattern of culminations, is approaching the same angle as the apparent solar declination angle at its annual declination of ~23.5 degrees, the syzygy of the two combining tidal forces in mid winter or summer (pick a hemisphere) will cause the total combined tidal bulges to become larger and more mobile. (Like we saw last winter in the northern hemisphere, now in the Southern winter, and again this next Northern winter)
“The sparsity of tropical storms so far.”
That is an effect of the timing of the synod conjunctions with the outer planets, Saturn on March the 22nd 2010, brought in a nice load of heavy rain, tornadoes and flash floods globally. Now with no other outer planet heliocentric conjunction until they are all clumped together August 20th till September 24th, the additional power inducted into the tropical storm engine has been lacking. Leaving us with just the lunar declinational tidal meridional pulses that brought us Bonnie and Colin as pulses of tropical moisture with out the ion energy content to drive the peak precipitation that drives them into cat 2 – cat5 storms. They are waiting till the ionic discharge of the global atmosphere post synod conjunctions, expect the stronger storms to start on 20th and run to 28th of August, 2010, and start up again September 21st and run through end of the month, with some after thoughts due to continued further discharges, coinciding with the lunar declinational culmination angle peaks, both North and South.
“About the only thing moving is cold water pouring into Nino 3.4.
What is this, and has it happened before?
I’d like to call it global weather paralysis.”
It is a combination of the slow solar cycle activity, with the descending culmination angle of the lunar declination, and the outer planets Saturn /Mars this last spring, and Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter, and Venus all clumped into the fall for the next couple of years. The huge clumps of strong hurricanes seen in 2005 will not be back as long as the outer planets Neptune and Uranus are drifting apart and progressing into the fall, instead we will be experiencing their effects as more East coast and European snow storms of increased intensity. Given also that there will be no outer planet assisted forced intrusions of warm moist tropical air masses, during the next several Northern winters, expect cold and blustery to be the norm for a while (about 15 to 20 more years.) You will see your breath, but not feel the CO2?
*You had to ask didn’t you?*

Michael Schaefer
August 8, 2010 8:21 am

899 says:
August 8, 2010 at 6:56 am
And now the magic questions:
[1] How long have the forests in the Russian/Siberian area been allowed to grow with dense undergrowth?
[2] What is the frequency of Russian/Siberian forest fires?
——————————————————————————–
1. Nobody is EVER taking care of ANY dense undergrowth in the siberian taiga and boreal forests.
2. Approximately every 200 years any given patch of siberian forest will experience a forest fire. The forests are used to that and are adapted to it – so much so, that certain species of conifers can’t disseminate anymore WITHOUT having their seeds exposed to a fire first, which guarantees a blank, properly fertilized ground underneath the parent tree.

Martin Brumby
August 8, 2010 8:23 am

Yeah, everyone’s got tired of ‘the 2003 death of a zillion French People, proof of the dreadfulness of cAGW and confirmation of the need to move to a “low carbon economy” NOW (even if the technology just doesn’t work).’
2003 is just so passé.
So it is great that they’ve found another warmista icon to carry round whilst they beat a slow drum and wail into their bandanas.
After all the “coldest winter for a generation” in the UK and the Dzud in Mongolia and what’s happening now in South America is just local weather.
We can forget them.

Michael Schaefer
August 8, 2010 8:25 am

While we still have early August, it rather feels like late September here in Germany.
This summer s****s! (self-snip)

Douglas DC
August 8, 2010 8:36 am

@Caleb -El Nino controlled the Weather in the Pac NW Hence the Global Warming
Winter Olympics in Vancouver-one of the most idiotic venues ever for the
Winter Olympics. -Why not say, Coos Bay Or. or Aberdeen Wa.? That said,
now with Nina in the seat, we are going to see a very serious winter, I fear. Normally
the East USA is warmer, but that may not happen this year. Beware the Polar Jet.
Now to attend my green tomatos…..

August 8, 2010 8:57 am

If you read Weather Action’s website, you will see that Piers Corbyn forcast many of these events using his solar weather technique. He has a theory that certain solar weather events affect the earths weather via modulation of the jet streams. Piers also says that all this weather has occurred before on the earth. Weather repeats itself.
So where are we now? Seems like August 2000 to me. Solar cycle 23 was ramping up. Eyjafjallajökull had loaded the troposphere with water vapor, volcanic gasses and particulate. The stratosphere cleared from sulfates. El-Nino had given way to La Nina. Katla did not blow her top.
So we should be roasting by 2015 to 2017, unless a major volcano blows her top. Then we fall into another solar minimum and the volcanoes erupt and we do it all over again. Only it seems to swing harder from one extreme to the other the deeper the minimums go.

tallbloke
August 8, 2010 8:59 am

rbateman says:
August 7, 2010 at 10:56 pm (Edit)
What mechanism is at play causing the pressure cells to stop moving?
This phenomenon is clearly global in nature.
The cold wave in S. America.
The fires in Russia and British Columbia.
The continued downpours in Pakistan.
The Low off the Pacific Northwest in place of the traditional High.
The 80N temps below normal all summer.
The sparcity of tropical storms so far.
About the only thing moving is cold water pouring into Nino 3.4.
What is this, and has it happened before?
I’d like to call it global weather paralysis.

I think the recent big Sudden Stratospheric Warming event in Antarctica may have something to do with it. The SSW in the north last year had a blocking effect on weather systems too.

August 8, 2010 9:14 am

“rbateman says:
August 7, 2010 at 11:16 pm
According to the Cato Institute man, the anomaly is the position of the Jet Streams.
Who was that that said the Sun is responsible for the Jet Streams getting moved north/south?”
Moi.
But I qualified it by saying that the primary short term influence on the jet stream positioning (in fact the average latitudinal position of all the air circulation systems) is the global net rate of energy flux from the oceans (heavily biased towards ENSO)
That is then modified from above by the level of solar activity which operates over longer time scales to affect the energy flux from stratosphere to space.
The climate outcome is the result of that constant interplay. The oceanic effect dictates the size of the equatorial air masses and the solar effect dictates the size of the polar air masses.
“The observed climate is just the equilibrium response to such variations with
the positions of the air circulation systems and the speed of the hydrological
cycle always adjusting to bring energy differentials above and below the
troposphere back towards equilibrium (Wilde’s Law ?).”
from here:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=5497
and also published on this site a while ago.
I’m quite sure it will become blatantly obvious before long.

Rob Wilson
August 8, 2010 9:14 am

All this talk of temperature extremes, i had a quick look at when record temperatures were reached. It may surprise some people in which years the hottest temperatures in each continent were recorded:
Europe: 1977
North America: 1913
Asia: 1942
Oceania: 1960
South America 1920
Africa: 1922
Antarctica: 1974
The African record set in 1922 was the hottest temperature ever recorded:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Highest_temperature_ever_recorded
Obviously, hot or cold records are broken somewhere in the world all the time but that is not evidence of “climate change”. No continental record has been broken for over 30 years.
Also, if the planet is warming then i am surprised that the hottest temperature on record was nearly 90 years ago.
Any thoughts?

August 8, 2010 9:23 am

Hey Robert, Goji Berry juice is excellent for mood, mind & memory along with other health benefits. Eye health, endurance, etc…
Think also Déjà vu last cycle… by 2000 the glowbull warming alarmists had scared the ‘ell out of us, the glowbull cooling alarmists had scared the ‘ell out of us and we actually went on to some stable weather patterns for a while.
Damn alarmists!

August 8, 2010 9:30 am

Michael Schaeffer said:
“I think, we need a real-time device monitoring the actual positions of the jet streams in the northern and southern hemispheres actually, as well as to compare their respective positions over the past years, to get a better impression of what’s going on with them.”
Bingo !!
“If my contentions are correct then a calculation of the average position of all the jet streams at a specific
time should be linked to the state of the global atmospheric energy budget at that time.
If the jet streams are tracked for a while and then their average positions compared with observed global
atmospheric temperature changes it should be possible to calculate the approximate jet stream position at
which the globe shifts from atmospheric warming to cooling or back again.
Once that has been established then the distance the jet streams move poleward or equatorward from that
point should reveal the speed of the ongoing warming or cooling process.
And of course a movement of the jet streams back towards the point of changeover will give early
warning of a new change in trend.
It should be done and done now. There is too much at stake for proper scientific enquiry to continue to be
suppressed.”
from here:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=2499
“The Unifying Theory of Eath’s Climate”.
January 8th 2009

Rex from NZ
August 8, 2010 9:34 am

I recall that 18 months ago various media types in this part of the world were
blaming “global warming” for the Victorian bush fires in Australia. We did not
however hear a peep from them when another 12 months passed with no repeat
of those tragic events, despite the fact that the weather should have been warmer,
according to their own propaganda.

Al Gore's Holy Hologram
August 8, 2010 9:46 am

The RT shouldn’t employ squeeky voiced airheads to debate important subjects.

rbateman
August 8, 2010 9:47 am

Cassandra King says:
August 8, 2010 at 7:34 am
Giving them a mouthful of helium, just prior to the MSM delivery, would win a Pulitzer for the Ultimate non-answer.
Now, that’s Tight.

rbateman
August 8, 2010 10:06 am

Stephen Wilde says:
August 8, 2010 at 9:14 am
After looking at your NCM, the following strikes me as significant:
1.) The time spent with higher solar activity vs lower solar activity
2.) If solar incoming during low activity is reduced via more dense atmosphere, does the Earth continue to lose via Blackbody radiation at the same rate, or at a higher rate than incoming?
I know that shorter cycles spend more time at higher activity levels, and the opposite is true with longer cycles.
I don’t know the answer to #2.

MartinGAtkins
August 8, 2010 10:15 am

BillD says:
August 8, 2010 at 6:48 am
The Russian weather is really much more extreme than the South American examples. The previous record for Moscow was about 98 oF in 192os. Now they are having day after day above 100 oF. Supposedly, climate warming would benefit agriculture in northern Russian and Canada, offseting declines at more southern locations. Doesn’t seem to be working out as expected.
Thank the modern world we have trains, planes boats and trucks to move resources too were we need them. These weather events can play havoc with local production of our basic subsistences.
Russia Wheat Export Ban Pushes Prices Near 2-Year High.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/08/russia-export-ban-pushes-wheat-prices-near-two-year-high.html
Gosh! A two year price high. It’s obviously time to destroy all those CO2 burning transport systems and replace them with windmills and photo voltaic cells. That way we can have mass starvation all year round and sod the weather,

DirkH
August 8, 2010 10:31 am

Günther Kirschbaum says:
August 8, 2010 at 8:00 am
“[…]countries set extreme hottest temperature records (33% of all countries.) For comparison, fifteen countries set extreme coldest temperature records over the past ten years (6% of all countries).
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/archive.html?year=2010&month=08
Puzzling, eh?”
To help you, UHI is called Urban HEAT island effect for a reason.

Annei
August 8, 2010 10:31 am

Rex from NZ: Quite so. The tasteless hype in the wake of Black Saturday last year was going on about global warming. I was disgusted at the time. This year no one has chosen to acknowledge that temperatures in Victoria have been cooler than usual. I was over there from the UK in January and early February and was positively chilly some nights, needing a blanket on the bed. I virtually never needed a fan on for long and recall only one day when the temperature topped 40C.
Our family are telling us of their cold winter now, with plenty of rain. The pigs had to be moved as there was nowhere left unflooded in their pen!
Now, here in the UK, in what passes for summer, we are being told we are having a heatwave. Eh? What heatwave? Are the MSM trying to indoctrinate the masses into believing in a heatwave? We have had warmish days at times, and it has been pretty dry, but we have not had the AC-needing sort of days experienced in 2006 (and 2003) and for a couple of days early last (BBQ?) summer. I am still needing blankets at night, sometimes 3 or 4 layers thereof. Heatwave? My foot.

Enneagram
August 8, 2010 10:36 am

Stephen Wilde says:
August 8, 2010 at 9:30 am
It should be done and done now. There is too much at stake for proper scientific enquiry to continue to be suppressed.”
quote from Kristian Birkeland’s monograph Norwegian Aurora Polaris Expedition 1902-1903:
(Chapter VI. On Possible Electric Phenomena in Solar Systems and Nebulae)
http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.ph … nd_Nebulae
Kristian Birkeland wrote:We will now pass on to experiments that in my opinion have brought about the most important discoveries in the long chain of experimental analogies to terrestrial and cosmic phenomena that I have produced. In the experiments represented in figs. 248 a-e, there are some small white patches on the globe, which are due to a kind of discharge that, under ordinary circumstances, is disruptive, and which radiates from points on the cathode. If the globe has a smooth surface and is not magnetised, the disruptive discharges come rapidly one after another, and are distributed more or less uniformly all over the globe (see a). On the other hand, if the globe is magnetised, even very slightly, the patches from which the disruptive discharges issue, arrange themselves then in two zones parallel with the magnetic equator of the globe; and the more powerfully the globe is magnetised, the nearer do they come to the equator (see b, c, d). With a constant magnetisation, the zones of patches will be found near the equator if the discharge-tension is low, but far from the equator if the tension is high.
And: First Global Connection Between Earth And Space Weather Found
09.12.06
Weather on Earth has a surprising connection to space weather occurring high in the electrically-charged upper atmosphere, known as the ionosphere, according to new results from NASA satellites.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/space_weather_link.html
What this means is, the earth acting as a cathode it is subjected to a variable current from the Sun, which when strong makes the jet stream get closer to the poles, while when low jet streams will migrate equator ward.

August 8, 2010 10:47 am

@Stephen Wilde says:
August 8, 2010 at 9:14 am
“But I qualified it by saying that the primary short term influence on the jet stream positioning (in fact the average latitudinal position of all the air circulation systems) is the global net rate of energy flux from the oceans (heavily biased towards ENSO)”
That`s ok then, as I have said that the jet streams postions in the short term, and ENSO in the short term, are both responding to short term changes in the solar signal, and responding very differently depending on the season.

August 8, 2010 10:51 am

rbateman asked:
” If solar incoming during low activity is reduced via more dense atmosphere, does the Earth continue to lose via Blackbody radiation at the same rate, or at a higher rate than incoming?”
Good question because it shows that you understand the basic issues. The point is however that in the stratosphere where ozone is present the chemical reactions there between ozone and solar shortwave radiation disrupt both the convective and conductive processes from below and the radiative effects from above. I think that that is an important unresolved issue. Which is the correct sign (positive or negative) of the ozone effect on energy transfers from the oceans below and energy transfers to space above.
The Blackbody concept does not apply because we are dealing with a Greybody with variable internal influences on the level of Greyness.
The oddity seems to be that for my NCM to be correct the rate of energy loss from stratosphere to space needs to be faster when the sun is active and slower when the sun is quiet.
It has to be that way in order to achieve the required temperature change at the tropopause and it is that which affects the polar pressure distribution in the troposphere.
Now I know that that is the opposite of the conventional wisdom. An active sun is supposed to warm the stratosphere via the reactions with ozone but in fact during the late 20th century the stratosphere cooled whilst the sun was more active. Now it is warming a bit with the sun newly less active.
That conundrum was supposed to have been solved by the idea that our ozone depleting CFCs were disrupting the natural order of things but look here:
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070924/full/449382a.html
I think the truth is that the increased solar activity actually instigates more ozone destroying reactions so ozone decreases naturally and the stratosphere actually cools naturally during a period of active sun. The opposite when the sun is quiet. For my NCM to work as it is the sign has to be changed from positive to negative as regards the stratospheric temperature reaction to a more active sun.
My requirement meets observations but only if the CFC speculation is taken back out of the equation.
That is a critical issue for my NCM so it needs to be resolved definitively but as yet that has not been done.
One can only get a more positive polar oscillation if the inversion at the tropopause weakens and that requires a cooler stratosphere. The opposite for a more negative polar oscillation.
In favour of my proposition is a whole raft of observed realities. The only discrepancy is that CFC aspect which in my opinion was ‘invented’ to account for an observation that was not understood at the time namely a cooling stratosphere at a time of a more active sun. I think it was a guess too far.
I didn’t set out to attack the CFC idea and the Montreal Protocol but as I see it that is all logically inconsistent with the wider set of real world observations.
Interesting times.

August 8, 2010 10:55 am

Ulric Lyons says:
August 8, 2010 at 10:47 am
Hi Ulric.
We aren’t looking at quite the same things. I’m trying to work out the climate variations throughout the interglacial whereas you are trying to use solar events to anticipate weather and possibly shorter term climate events.
Sometimes we overlap but not often.
Regards, Stephen.

August 8, 2010 12:51 pm

Thank goodness at last someone talks some sense on TV, you could almost feel the new readers disappointment that the CATO guy didn’t blame global warming, bet you wouldn’t of seen this on the BBC?
regards
rob

John F. Hultquist
August 8, 2010 1:33 pm

Surprise. Summer can be hot and dry. Forest fires are not new. I remember this one and I was in Pennsylvania at the time. 1950.
http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/078/mwr-078-09-0180.pdf
Here is the Introduction:
“During the latter part of September 1950, an extensive
layer of smoke originated from forest fires in the Canadian
Provinces of British Columbia and Alberta. Subsequently
it spread over large areas of Canada and the
eastern United States. The resulting unusual appearance
of the sky and sun and the diminution of normal daylight
caused widespread interest among meteorologists and the
public alike. This report …”

August 8, 2010 1:43 pm

@Stephen Wilde says:
August 8, 2010 at 10:51 am
“I think the truth is that the increased solar activity actually instigates more ozone destroying reactions so ozone decreases naturally and the stratosphere actually cools naturally during a period of active sun. The opposite when the sun is quiet.”
More UV creates more ozone, more sunspots, more UV, more ozone;
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ozone/additional/science-focus/about-ozone/ozone_cycle.shtml (just when you need it most)
Anyway, this is a weather-roundup, and discussion of recent jet stream positions, not an inter-glacial perspective !

Bruce Friesen
August 8, 2010 2:11 pm

A comment re the jet stream, and anomalous locations thereof: That was my talking point at a soaring competition recently – that the anomalous location of the jet stream, dragging a succession of low pressures along to the south of us, was the cause of our weather woes.
The contest weather briefer put considerable effort into educating me, with charts and graphs and stuff, to understand the jet stream was a symptom not the core cause – a symptom, or a consequence, if you like, of the boundary between air masses. He stated our problem – lousy soaring weather for day after day due to low pressure areas passing south of us instead of the seasonal norm of north of us – was due to anomalous locations of the boundaries between the Polar and Arctic Continental and Pacific airmasses.
A distinction without a difference, perhaps, but perhaps a more useful way to consider things.

Mike G
August 8, 2010 2:24 pm

Rob Wilson says:
August 8, 2010 at 9:14 am
All this talk of temperature extremes, i had a quick look at when record temperatures were reached. It may surprise some people in which years the hottest temperatures in each continent were recorded:
Europe: 1977
North America: 1913
Asia: 1942
Oceania: 1960
South America 1920
Africa: 1922
Antarctica: 1974
The African record set in 1922 was the hottest temperature ever recorded:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Highest_temperature_ever_recorded
Obviously, hot or cold records are broken somewhere in the world all the time but that is not evidence of “climate change”. No continental record has been broken for over 30 years.
Also, if the planet is warming then i am surprised that the hottest temperature on record was nearly 90 years ago.
Any thoughts?
———–
My thought is they’ve been too busy spinning everything else and just haven’t gotten around to adjusting these number, yet. Give them time.

Mike G
August 8, 2010 2:36 pm

I checked the temperature on weather.com while at a softball tournament yesterday in Tallassee, AL. Wx.com had it at 99F. It was hot but nowhere near that hot. So, I went to my car and generated a few lbs of CO2 driving up the highway to the local store (to get the kind of beverage they just won’t sell at a youth softball tournament) just so the temperature sensor could adjust to the ambient. It was 91F. So, then I checked Montgomery, AL on wx.com (using my phone) and it was 99F (40 miles alway). So, wx.com was reporting Montgomery temperature (very high UHI in the Montgomery sprawl with massive amounts of air national guard tarmac at the airport temperature sensor location. Checking a closer town on Wx.com, I found the temperature at Auburn, AL to be being reported as 91F, in agreement with my Honda’s temperature sensor (as affected by direct sunlight on the roadway, off course).

August 8, 2010 2:54 pm

Ulric Lyons said:
“More UV creates more ozone, more sunspots, more UV, more ozone;
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ozone/additional/science-focus/about-ozone/ozone_cycle.shtml (just when you need it most)
Anyway, this is a weather-roundup, and discussion of recent jet stream positions,”
The jet stream position is affected by the strength of the inversion at the tropopause which is affected by stratospheric temperature which is affected by ozone reactions.
UV is involved in ozone destruction too and the balance of the creation and destruction effects is far from clear even from the link you supplied.
The cooling of the stratosphere when the sun was active and the slight warming now that the sun is less active suggests that the balance of ozone creation and destruction may be different from that usually proposed.
Especially in light of the more recent findings that the chlorine reaction from CFCs may not be large enough to account for the observed ozone reduction when the sun was more active.
The jet stream positioning is therefore directly linked to the ozone issue and the response of ozone to a more or less active sun.

Tenuc
August 8, 2010 3:27 pm

Ulric Lyons says:
August 8, 2010 at 1:43 pm
[@Stephen Wilde says:
August 8, 2010 at 10:51 am
“I think the truth is that the increased solar activity actually instigates more ozone destroying reactions so ozone decreases naturally and the stratosphere actually cools naturally during a period of active sun. The opposite when the sun is quiet.”]
“More UV creates more ozone, more sunspots, more UV, more ozone;
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ozone/additional/science-focus/about-ozone/ozone_cycle.shtml (just when you need it most)…”

The paradox is that stratospheric ozone is both created and destroyed by ultraviolet radiation, and this is a complex process which depends on the UV wavelength. Only when ozone has migrated to the poles does concentration start to increase – this from August until spring, when the long polar night protects ozone from decomposition.
I would guess that in years when the jet streams are more towards the equator, the rate of migration to the poles will be slower. There are further complication in this process, as other substances in the atmosphere, such as Cl, also act to catalyse ozone destruction, as do ice crystals in the stratosphere.
Not sure what this leads to regarding weather/climate, but perhaps a change to ozone balance over a number of years could lead to a change in climate/weather regime?

Leon Brozyna
August 8, 2010 3:57 pm

The English language service of Russian TV ( RT.com ) has done us a great service by providing us with a parody of a news interview. That chick behind the desk looks like (and I’ll be polite and not give my first impression of her) she’s all set to take off for a night of clubbing as soon as her stint at the desk ends.
Here’s a fact being reported right now at Drudge:
Global tropical cyclone activity remains at 30-year lows…
http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/
I know … the poor girl probably will think that the story just isn’t sexy. With her attitude, she’ll probably go far in the lamestream media.

August 8, 2010 4:43 pm

@Tenuc says:
August 8, 2010 at 3:27 pm
“The paradox is that stratospheric ozone is both created and destroyed by ultraviolet radiation, and this is a complex process which depends on the UV wavelength.”
By what ratio? is there allways less at solar minimum?

JMM
August 8, 2010 6:17 pm

[2] What is the frequency of Russian/Siberian forest fires?
——-
Check out http://www.kommersant.ru/ISSUES.PHOTO/DAILY/2010/138/03D138.gif
Russia has pretty regular wildfire seasons (as you would expect from such a massive forested (and peat-bogg-ed) landmass. This year still isn’t a record-breaker for number of fires or area burned; just that most years, the fires happen on the other side of the Urals, where only Chukchi see them. This year *seems* bigger mainly because it’s happening in the densest-populated part of the country.
But as fire seasons there go, it’s really not terribly remarkable.

toyotawhizguy
August 8, 2010 7:02 pm

I recall hearing a California fire official interviewed by ABC news in 2007. The official blamed the large number of California wildfires on “global warming”, and stated that southern California temperatures had been 4 degrees F warmer than normal that summer. (This is another blatant example of taking a temporary aberration in a regional weather pattern and incorrectly labeling it global warming) Even if there is an ambient temperature of +100 degrees F, it still requires a spark or other ignition source to raise the temperature of tinder by 351 degrees F to +451 degrees F to obtain ignition. While a few degrees temperature ramp-up can slightly increase the probability of a fire, the real cause of a rash of wildfires is lack of precipitation and a lack of moisture, or in some cases the match of an arsonist or careless camper. Wet timber does not burn, no matter how many times a spark is thrown at it.

August 8, 2010 9:13 pm

The Asian continental record was in fact broken this summer, according to Jeff Masters.

John from CA
August 9, 2010 3:16 am

Jet Stream Position – US
http://www.weatherimages.org/data/imag192.html
300 millibar Height Analysis
Northern Hemishere
http://www.weatherimages.org/data/imag499.html

John from CA
August 9, 2010 3:40 am

A couple more Jet Stream links:
Jet Stream Analyses and Animations
Northern Hemisphere
http://squall.sfsu.edu/scripts/nhemjetstream_model.html
Southern Hemisphere
http://squall.sfsu.edu/scripts/shemjetstream_model.html
.5 – 5 day Jet Stream Forecasts
http://squall.sfsu.edu/crws/jetstream_fcsts.html
Numerical Model Forecasts: A Caveat
http://squall.sfsu.edu/crws/ensemble_fcsts.html
Beware: the accuracy of numerical weather forecast models typically declines the farther into the future they go.”

Commsguy
August 9, 2010 3:27 pm

Any link to the record being broken by Jeff Masters or is this the Gospel according to AGW?

mark.r
August 10, 2010 1:19 am

This is what the Russian President Medvedev: say out the heatwave.
“None of us can say what the next summer will be like. The forecasts vary greatly. Everyone is talking about climate change now. Unfortunately, what is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past. This means that we need to change the way we work, change the methods that we used in the past.”
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/53704

August 10, 2010 10:34 am

What a Ditz! But the RT babe is at least an honest parody of what network news has become.

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