Story submitted by Eric Worrall
In further indications of global warming induced cold, Niagara Falls has frozen over for a second time this winter.
With even colder conditions forecast, it looks unlikely to thaw anytime soon.
Which model predicted that global warming would cause vast waterfalls to freeze solid in winter?
h/t Ice Age Now
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Someone on Daily Mail comment section noted that if you look closely at the Niagara Falls photos, you can just make out The Maid of the Mist trapped in the ice, filled with a terrified band of Global Warming advocates trying to prove all this ice was faked.
LOL!!
bushbunny says:
March 4, 2014 at 7:02 pm
The Aborigines nearly all around Australia mainland, then moved to coastal regions rather than inland to harvest sea food as well as other coastal or river resources. Never short of fresh water even in the interior where they knew where to get water as some water holes began to dry up.
>>>
Prior to the melt Austral not only had no mainland glaciers it was actually extremely dry and covered in large part by sand dunes and gibber plains, and most the Great Barrier Reef lagoon area was a wide coastal dune field. It’s why Frazer Island is the largest sand Island and why Cape Flattery north of Cook town has 300 to 400 foot high sand dunes of almost pure silica that probably provided the silica in you computer’s CPU.
Australia was bone-dry in the interior and wracked by huge dust storms due to the lack of veg to protect soil (why our soils suck, no loess) and the sub-tropical high anti-cyclones became tropical and very strong (windy). And if you look at SAT images of Oz you can actually see the anti-cyclonic swirl in the dunes over the whole continent field. (aeolian fine detritus in Tasman Sea seds and NZ Alpine glaciers … red dust deposits from the outback).
So the Aboriginals would have (mostly) clung to the coastal more vegetated fringes. The Interior was like the sandy Sahara, but extremely cold too. Wasn’t until the the thaw that moisture levels came up and plants could colonize and freeze the dunes insitu, where we see them now.
tchannon says: “Nick Stokes ploy
As y’all know hot water freezes faster”
Hilarious!
I remember a reading study & test package we had in 3rd grade, where you picked a story, read it, then answered some questions. One story had Niagara Falls freezing in the 1930’s. As the story went, that year an ice dam upstream on the river actually stopped the water flowing for 2-3 days. Went home and told my mother the story and her response, “Yea, I saw that as a young girl.” Her grandparents lived in Beamsville, about 30 miles from the falls.
This is what she would have seen. http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1554068/thumbs/o-NIAGARA-FALLS-FROZEN-900.jpg.
So is it climate change when it keeps repeating?
You mean the NOAA police did not confiscate their cameras? It was probably too cold to go out for enforcement efforts.
With cold being the new hot, we might also expect water to flow up the falls next and with explanations from John Holdren at the WH.
KevinK: from the NF tourism site “Some people may not realize that between 9 pm and 8 am only 50% of the water that could go over Niagara Falls is diverted to produce electricity at hydro plants below the falls. The water is diverted by an open cut canal and tunnels located above the falls to these plants on both the U.S. and Canadian side of the border at Lewiston, New York and Queenston, Ontario. In the winter months another 25% is diverted allowing only one quarter of the water that could flow over Niagara Falls to do so.”
I believe the maximum amount of water that can flow nowadays is 80%. A few years back an environmentalist petitioned to have no diversion for 1 day every year. This was quickly quashed by the engineers who pointed out that this would wash away the various buildings and structures (e.g the MotM docks) and vegetation that have “sprouted” on the banks of the river since diversion started.
P.S. if you are in NF in the summer the Canadian Falls are neat to see first thing in the morning — when the sun is up and the diversion is at it maximum.
KevinK says:
March 4, 2014 at 8:36 pm
Crispin;
“The flow can literally be turned off at will with a combination of the reservoir and the turbines.”
Sorry, but that is nonsense. There are “water intakes” upstream of the falls on both sides (USA and Canada). They can “siphon off” some of the water (about 10% at most), but they cannot “turn off” the Falls at will.
taken a bit too literally.
I talked with a person who handles the Canadian side of things. A certain amount is mandated to go over the falls for the tourists. all the rest is split equally between Canada and the US. They could put more to the turbines but are not allowed to. in the past they did turn off the falls to clean up and inspect the area below the falls.
Lets Blame it on Russia….
Here’s and interesting article I found from February 2012 from a Russian Scientist predicting an ice age in 2014.
“Forecasters predict that a new ice age will begin soon. Habibullo Abdusamatov, a scientist from the Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences considers that the sharp drop in temperature will start on the Earth in 2014.”
“According to the scientist, our planet began to “get cold” in the 1990s. The new ice age will last at least two centuries, with its peak in 2055.”
http://russia-ic.com/news/show/13717
Thank you Anthony. They’ll make a pleasing series of desktop background pictures – to be alternated with the story of the ship of fools.
I was in NF around Xmas 1962(??) and the American Falls were completely frozen over- I could see no water.
Someone who lives there can tell us if that is a common occurrence.
Ian M
A few years back I was told that the Scottish ski industry was doomed. Now I am told that one resort is looking at options for opening for summer skiiing! It’s worse than we though and snowfall are a thing of th past in the UK. PS their ski lifts could not run due to depth of snow! Dr. Viner, the most excellent climate modeler, failed. Yet he is rewarded for his failure. What kind of country is the UK????? Rewarding failures!!!
@ur momisugly M. Hastings
“What is the criterion” or “what are the criteria”.
General;
” in the past they did turn off the falls to clean up and inspect the area below the falls.”
Yes indeed, back about 1968 (or maybe 69). I did visit it when it (the “American Falls” only, not the much larger “Canadian” or “Horseshoe Falls”) was “turned off”. It required a temporary coffer dam upstream of the falls to divert the flow over to the Horseshoe Falls side. The water intakes for the Hydro project DO NOT have the capacity to turn off the Falls, no way, no how.
And;
“They could put more to the turbines but are not allowed to.”
Yes, there are international treaties (or maybe just agreements) about the volume of water each side can take from the main flow. And yes they flow more water in the daytime for the tourists enjoyment, And yes the turbines have a bit of “headroom” or extra capacity above the treaty limits. But again the hydro plants at Niagara Falls are not now, never where and never will be capable of “turning the falls off”.
Cheers, Kevin.
Mike, Ok, I retract my 10% figure. And I still assert that the ability to “turn off” the Falls with the hydro plants does not exist. Throttle it back yes, but OFF, NO.
There was a case back in the 50’s (maybe the 60’s) when an unpowered work barge broke away from it’s moorings above the falls with 2 (maybe more) workers on board. Since this was on the Canadian side, the hydro operators “violated” the treaty and let the maximum amount of water flow to the hydro project to slow down the flow. The workers also removed “drain plugs” in the bottom of the barge to intentionally sink it. Luckily these maneuvers worked and the barge foundered above the Falls. The workers where rescued via ropes shot out to the barge with cannons (I believe this was before the widespread use of helicopters). The barge is still there being too difficult to salvage.
Cheers, Kevin.
bushbunny,
Water starts to freeze at 0C and finishes freezing at 0C. Pure water thus has a freezing point.
But when you add a solute to water, the solution starts to freeze at one temperature and finishes freezing at another somewhat lower temperature. A solution, therefore, has a freezing range.
Here is a phase diagram for the salt-water system:
http://www.chemguide.co.uk/physical/phaseeqia/salteutect1.gif
You can see that in a solution with around 10% salt, water will start to precipitate out as ice when the temperature drops to approximately -10C. And while that ice precipitates out of solution, the concentration of salt remaining in solution must increase. Thus, when the temperature of the system drops to around -21C, there will be 23.5% of salt remaining in solution.
At that point, the remaining salt and water precipitate out as a mechanical mixture of salt and ice crystals.
There is always 23.5% left at the end point, btw, as you can see on the graph. That point is called the eutectic, meaning “easily melting.”
If you had started the experiment with a 23.5% eutectic solution, you wold find only one freezing point, as with pure water, but at -21C. (easily melting)
Less than 23.5% is a hypo-eutectic solution, with water freezing out first as temperature drops
More than 23.5% is a hyper-eutectic solution, with the salt freezing out first.
And so the reason we put salt on icy roads is to convert a system with a freezing point of 0C into one with a freezing range that ends at the easily melting -21C.
You can throw some virtual salt at some virtual ice on this page if you want:
http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/solutions/faq/why-salt-melts-ice.shtml
😉
Ok, here is the barge I mentioned before;
https://maps.google.com/?ll=43.07286,-79.07041&z=17&t=h
If it was possible to “turn off” Niagara Falls, why did the workers on the barge intentionally sink it to save their lives ?
Cheers, Kevin.
Thanks all for info. Actually 39,000 years ago, Lake Mungo (SA) was full of water with plentiful billabongs etc. Now it is literally desert and no surface water. When sea water encroached the land after the big melt, this in fact increased precipitation and produced eventually the monsoon climate up north. You all now, that the shape of Australia that 50 miles from the coast precipitation reduces but elevated mountain ranges, like the great divide, do get more rain. We get a lot of rain here, but unlike Tamworth we have a massive dam, (Malpas) that is rarely less than 80% full. But the water is alkaline and a bit hard. Doesn’t worry the large fish though.
“Yes”, “no”, and “absolutely no” and “sort of” depending on how much you think your audience wants you to exaggerate the claim.
Now that I have confused you …Let me explain things so you really get confused.
The American side of the falls is divided from the Horseshoe falls by the island, so the two water flows are completely separate. Several times, the US side HAS frozen solid – since it has less flow, more slow water over “rapids” and thinner streams it can freeze easier than the deeper, wider, faster Canadian side. Above, a writer (you ?) pointed out a coffer dam that blocked flow completely on the US side while they “experts” tried to figure out if they were going to re-landscape the whole falls and re-build it as it used to be in the 1800’s before erosion.
The Canadian side can’t really be completely closed off. The dams themselves upstream of the Horseshoe falls don’t go completely across and aren’t high enough. They are more like weirs (partial blocks of the river with the top of the weir just underwater) to divert water into the old power plant inlets, but not dam the whole river. Also, the older power plants took water from right above the falls from the Niagara River itself or from canals adjacent to the river. Those plants are all closed now and the water inlets are waaaaay upstream of the Niagara falls with controlled inlets nearer the side of Lake Eire than the falls themselves. (The Adam Beck inlets are actually on the Welland River off of the side of the Niagara.)
So, if both the US and Canadian power plant openings were suddenly completely opened 100% like the old power plant “throttle valves” were opened when the barge was floating downriver, nowdays the water already in the Niagara River would just keep flowing. Less after a few minutes (15-20) as the Lake Eire water didn’t flow into the Niagara entrance itself, but never zero.
The two very large power plants now running (one on the US side and two on the Canadian side) are fed by huge underground tunnels past the falls to a point a long way downstream off the falls themselves. There is more height difference then from Lake Eire surface (not after the rapids of the Niagara) and also the outlet of the new power plants is substantially lower than the bottom of the falls. More height difference = more energy out from the same flow of water. Technically, the US plant has a forebay (a water inlet area directly fed from the underground “pipes”) a upstream water pump/hydro-power plant (the Lewiston Pump-Gen plant), the 1900 acre artificial pumped storage “pond”, and the Robert Moses Power plant.
Volumes to show this:
202,000 cubic feet/second normal river flow, normal years no hydro power generated.
April to October, 100,000 ft^3/sec MUST flow during daylight hours for the tourists, and 50,000 at night. So, the plants and their tunnels were designed to use that much water (100,000 ft^3/sec maximum) and no more. So, roughly half of the water flow can be diverted now. Since the US-Canada treaty prevented any more from being used, why build very expensive larger pipes (46 feet x 65 feet is a big “pipe!) if they could never be used? Why build bigger turbines and control valves than what could ever be used? And, if the treaty were going to get thrown out (war maybe or whatever) then it is easier to build another power plant then then build a “too big” plant that may never get used at any time.
But arithmetic never stopped propagandists from claiming the whole river could be diverted. And, in the future, it “might” be able to be diverted. But not now.
Breath deep, the gathering gloom. CO2 exhaled with every breath, we are all doomed. Evolution has went astray and we are now just a twisted array.
We are just a half hour from Niagara Falls here in Western New York State. This morning, March 6th, it was -12 F — that’s MINUS 12 degrees Fahrenheit. Typical temperatures usually range in the 30’s & 40’s at this time of year.
Slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch …