Extreme Alaska cold grounds planes, disables cars Buzz Up Send Email IM Share Digg Facebook Newsvine del.icio.us Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Bookmarks Print By STEVE QUINN, Associated Press Writer Steve Quinn, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jan 8, 5:59 am ET AP – Elisabeth Habermann, with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, skis from the race trail in the subzero … Slideshow: Alaska copes with extreme temperatures JUNEAU, Alaska – Ted Johnson planned on using a set of logs to a build a cabin in Alaska's interior. Instead he'll burn some of them to stay warm.
Extreme temperatures — in Johnson's case about 60 below zero — call for extreme measures in a statewide cold snap so frigid that temperatures have grounded planes, disabled cars, frozen water pipes and even canceled several championship cross country ski races.
Alaskans are accustomed to subzero temperatures but the prolonged conditions have folks wondering what's going on with winter less than a month old.
National Weather Service meteorologist Andy Brown said high pressure over much of central Alaska has been keeping other weather patterns from moving through. New conditions get pushed north or south while the affected area faces daily extremes.
"When it first started almost two weeks ago, it wasn't anything abnormal," Brown said. "About once or twice every year, we get a good cold snap. But, in this case, you can call this an extreme event. This is rare. It doesn't happen every year."
Temperatures sit well below zero in the state's various regions, often without a wisp of wind pushing down the mercury further.
Johnson lives in Stevens Village, where residents have endured close to two weeks of temperatures pushing 60 below zero.
The cold has kept planes grounded, Johnson said. Food and fuel aren't coming in and they're starting to run low in the village, about 90 miles northwest of Fairbanks.
Johnson, whose home has no heater or running water, said he ventures outside only to get more logs for burning and to fetch water from a community facility. He's been saving the wood to build a cabin as a second home, but that will have to wait a few years now because the heat takes precedence.
"I've never seen it this cold for this long," he said. "I remember it 70 below one time, but not for a week and a half."
In Anchorage, Alaska's largest city, residents are used to lows of about 10-degree temperatures in January — not 19 below zero, which is what folks awoke to Wednesday morning.
Temperatures finally settled to about 10 below at midday, but that was cold enough to cancel races in the U.S. Cross Country Ski Championships.
Skiers won't compete unless it's warmer than 4 below zero, but the numbers have ranged between 10 below and 15 below.
That has led to four days of canceled or postponed competition with organizers hoping to get a set of races under way on Thursday, the event's final day.
Meanwhile, in Juneau, the state's capital is enjoying balmy weather by comparison with lows in the single digits.
Does anyone think that the ice is melting and the polar bears are starving?
Flint Journal's John Tomlinson Read more by him If you're wondering why North America is starting to resemble nuclear winter, then you missed the news.
At December's U.N. Global Warming conference in Poznan, Poland, 650 of the world's top climatologists stood up and said man-made global warming is a media generated myth without basis. Said climatologist Dr. David Gee, Chairman of the International Geological Congress, "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?"
I asked myself, why would such obviously smart guy say such a ridiculous thing? But it turns out he's right.
The earth's temperature peaked in 1998. It's been falling ever since; it dropped dramatically in 2007 and got worse in 2008, when temperatures touched 1980 levels.
Meanwhile, the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center released conclusive satellite photos showing that Arctic ice is back to 1979 levels. What's more, measurements of Antarctic ice now show that its accumulation is up 5 percent since 1980.
In other words, during what was supposed to be massive global warming, the biggest chunks of ice on earth grew larger. Just as an aside, do you remember when the hole in the ozone layer was going to melt Antarctica? But don't worry, we're safe now, that was the nineties.
Dr. Kunihiko, Chancellor of Japan's Institute of Science and Technology said this: "CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or the other ... every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so." Now why would a learned man say such a crazy thing?
This is where the looney left gets lost. Their mantra is atmospheric CO2 levels are escalating and this is unquestionably causing earth's temperature rise. But ask yourself -- if global temperatures are experiencing the biggest sustained drop in decades, while CO2 levels continue to rise -- how can it be true?
Ironically, in spite of being shown false, we must now pray for it. Because a massive study, just released by the Russian Government, contains overwhelming evidence that earth is on the verge of another Ice Age.
Based on core samples from Russia's Vostok Station in Antarctica, we now know earth's atmosphere and temperature for the last 420,000 years. This evidence suggests that the 12,000 years of warmth we call the Holocene period is over.
Apparently, we're headed into an ice age of about 100,000 years -- give or take. As for CO2 levels, core samples show conclusively they follow the earth's temperature rise, not lead it.
It turns out CO2 fluctuations follow the change in sea temperature. As water temperatures rise, oceans release additional dissolved CO2 -- like opening a warm brewsky.
To think, early last year, liberals suggested we spend 45 trillion dollars and give up five million jobs to fix global warming. But there is good news: now that we don't have to spend any of that money, we can give it all to the banks.
John Tomlinson is a local conservative columnist for The Flint Journal.
Maine recently broke its all time record cold temperature. Do not call it "global warming" everyone laughs at that-the new Krat term is "climate change". Hillary said that will be her biggest concern as the new Sec of State! Seriously! Not Islamo-terrorists, not Taliban, not Al Quida, not protecting our borders and culture. Pathetic-Bless Senate Vitters the only Senator that had the smarts to vote NO! on her confirmation.
It's time to pray for global warming, says Flint Journal columnist John Tomlinson by John Tomlinson | Flint Journal Columnist Monday January 19, 2009, 4:20 AM
If you're wondering why North America is starting to resemble nuclear winter, then you missed the news.
At December's U.N. Global Warming conference in Poznan, Poland, 650 of the world's top climatologists stood up and said man-made global warming is a media generated myth without basis. Said climatologist Dr. David Gee, Chairman of the International Geological Congress, "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?"
I asked myself, why would such obviously smart guy say such a ridiculous thing? But it turns out he's right.
The earth's temperature peaked in 1998. It's been falling ever since; it dropped dramatically in 2007 and got worse in 2008, when temperatures touched 1980 levels.
Meanwhile, the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center released conclusive satellite photos showing that Arctic ice is back to 1979 levels. What's more, measurements of Antarctic ice now show that its accumulation is up 5 percent since 1980.
In other words, during what was supposed to be massive global warming, the biggest chunks of ice on earth grew larger. Just as an aside, do you remember when the hole in the ozone layer was going to melt Antarctica? But don't worry, we're safe now, that was the nineties.
Dr. Kunihiko, Chancellor of Japan's Institute of Science and Technology said this: "CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or the other ... every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so." Now why would a learned man say such a crazy thing?
This is where the looney left gets lost. Their mantra is atmospheric CO2 levels are escalating and this is unquestionably causing earth's temperature rise. But ask yourself -- if global temperatures are experiencing the biggest sustained drop in decades, while CO2 levels continue to rise -- how can it be true?
Ironically, in spite of being shown false, we must now pray for it. Because a massive study, just released by the Russian Government, contains overwhelming evidence that earth is on the verge of another Ice Age.
Based on core samples from Russia's Vostok Station in Antarctica, we now know earth's atmosphere and temperature for the last 420,000 years. This evidence suggests that the 12,000 years of warmth we call the Holocene period is over.
Apparently, we're headed into an ice age of about 100,000 years -- give or take. As for CO2 levels, core samples show conclusively they follow the earth's temperature rise, not lead it.
It turns out CO2 fluctuations follow the change in sea temperature. As water temperatures rise, oceans release additional dissolved CO2 -- like opening a warm brewsky.
To think, early last year, liberals suggested we spend 45 trillion dollars and give up five million jobs to fix global warming. But there is good news: now that we don't have to spend any of that money, we can give it all to the banks.
John Tomlinson is a local conservative columnist for The Flint Journal. He lives in the Genesee County area. You can e-mail him (mailto:jtomlinson@flintjournal.com). Read more columns by John Tomlinson (http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/voices/index.ssf/john_tomlinson/).
Hey Kev...isn't that the same article that shadow posted?
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
that's ok...it was an excellent read!! So thanks to both of ya's!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
George Will Is planet cooling? warming? Make up your mind already! George Will is a nationally syndicated columnist.
A corollary of Murphy’s Law (“If something can go wrong, it will”) is: “Things are worse than they can possibly be.” Energy Secretary Steven Chu, an atomic physicist, seems to embrace that corollary but ignores Gregg Easterbrook’s “Law of Doomsaying“: Predict catastrophe no sooner than fi ve years hence but no later than 10 years away, soon enough to terrify but distant enough that people will forget if you are wrong. Chu recently told the Los Angeles Times that global warming might melt 90 percent of California’s snowpack, which stores much of the water needed for agriculture. This, Chu said, would mean “no more agriculture in California,” the nation’s leading food producer. Chu added: “I don’t actually see how they can keep their cities going.” No more lettuce for Los Angeles? Chu likes predictions, so here is another: Nine decades hence, our great-great-grandchildren will add the disappearance of California artichokes to the list of predicted planetary calamities that did not happen. Global cooling recently joined that lengthening list. In the 1970s, “a major cooling of the planet” was “widely considered inevitable” because it was “well established” that the Northern Hemisphere’s climate “has been getting cooler since about 1950” (The New York Times, May 21, 1975). Although some disputed that the “cooling trend” could result in “a return to another ice age” (the Times, Sept. 14, 1975), others anticipated “a full-blown 10,000-year ice age” involving “extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation” (Science News, March 1, 1975, and Science magazine, Dec. 10, 1976, respectively). The “continued rapid cooling of the Earth” (Global Ecology, 1971) meant that “a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery” (International Wildlife, July 1975). “The world’s climatologists are agreed” that we must “prepare for the next ice age” (Science Digest, February 1973). Because of “ominous signs” that “the Earth’s climate seems to be cooling down,” meteorologists were “almost unanimous” that “the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century,” perhaps triggering catastrophic famines (Newsweek cover story, “The Cooling World,” April 28, 1975). Armadillos were fleeing south from Nebraska, heat-seeking snails were retreating from central European forests, the North Atlantic was “cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool,” glaciers had “begun to advance” and “growing seasons in England and Scandinavia are getting shorter” (Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 27, 1974). Speaking of experts, in 1980 Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford scientist and environmental Cassandra who predicted calamitous food shortages by 1990, accepted a bet with economist Julian Simon. When Ehrlich predicted the imminent exhaustion of many nonrenewable natural resources, Simon challenged him: Pick a “basket” of any five such commodities, and I will wager that in a decade the price of the basket will decline, indicating decreased scarcity. Ehrlich picked five metals — chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten — that he predicted would become more expensive. Not only did the price of the basket decline, the price of all fi ve declined. An expert Ehrlich consulted in................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar02000
Former astronaut speaks out on global warming By Associated Press Sunday, February 15, 2009 - Added 17h ago
E-mail Printable (53) Comments Text size Share (5) Rate SANTA FE, N.M. - Former astronaut Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the moon and once served New Mexico in the U.S. Senate, doesn’t believe that humans are causing global warming.
"I don’t think the human effect is significant compared to the natural effect," said Schmitt, who is among 70 skeptics scheduled to speak next month at the International Conference on Climate Change in New York.
Schmitt contends that scientists "are being intimidated" if they disagree with the idea that burning fossil fuels has increased carbon dioxide levels, temperatures and sea levels.
"They’ve seen too many of their colleagues lose grant funding when they haven’t gone along with the so-called political consensus that we’re in a human-caused global warming," Schmitt said.
Dan Williams, publisher with the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, which is hosting the climate change conference, said he invited Schmitt after reading about his resignation from The Planetary Society, a nonprofit dedicated to space exploration.
Schmitt resigned after the group blamed global warming on human activity. In his resignation letter, the 74-year-old geologist argued that the "global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making."
Williams said Heartland is skeptical about the crisis that people are proclaiming in global warming.
"Not that the planet hasn’t warmed. We know it has or we’d all still be in the Ice Age," he said. "But it has not reached a crisis proportion and, even among us skeptics, there’s disagreement about how much man has been responsible for that warming."
Schmitt said historical documents indicate average temperatures have risen by 1 degree per century since around 1400 A.D., and the rise in carbon dioxide is because of the temperature rise.
Schmitt also said geological evidence indicates changes in sea level have been going on for thousands of years. He said smaller changes are related to changes in the elevation of land masses — for example, the Great Lakes are rising because the earth’s crust is rebounding from being depressed by glaciers.
Schmitt, who grew up in Silver City and now lives in Albuquerque, has a science degree from the California Institute of Technology. He also studied geology at the University of Oslo in Norway and took a doctorate in geology from Harvard University in 1964.
In 1972, he was one of the last men to walk on the moon as part of the Apollo 17 mission.
Schmitt said he’s heartened that the upcoming conference is made up of scientists who haven’t been manipulated by politics.
Of the global warming debate, he said: "It’s one of the few times you’ve seen a sizable portion of scientists who ought to be objective take a political position and it’s coloring their objectivity."
For alarmists, everything signifies global warming
I was glad to find some balance in your Feb. 13 article, “Surprises likely in bird count.” You quoted an opposing opinion near the end. But does the gist of the article make sense? Would a snowy owl, more at home in northern Canada, come down here because of global warming? The Pine Siskin you showed winters in a range that includes Canada and the northern United States. Did these birds fly south to escape the heat up north? I am not familiar with the Audubon Society report, but if it relies on the same type of cherry-picked subsets of data that James Hanson (global warming alarmist of NASA Goddard) deceptively manipulates, it is not science. We have been told that less ice signifi es global warming, and that more ice signifi es global warming; that higher temperatures signify global warming and, yes, even that lower temperatures signify global warming. Since Al Gore’s famous prediction after Katrina of more frequent and more powerful hurricanes because of man-made global warming, tropical storms in the United States have been down 50 percent. I have seen similar data for hurricanes, severe hurricanes and total tropical storm days. The extremists concede that what is now Wyoming was at one time buried under a mile of ice, and at another time was home to palm trees. How is it that the small variations we have seen recently are not only called “unprecedented,” but “manmade?” Such claims are unscientific-based on faith, not data. When the alarmists say that the time for debate is over, remember: It is usually those whose arguments will not stand up under scrutiny who call for an end to debate.
Arctic Sea Ice Underestimated for Weeks Due to Faulty Sensor Email | Print | A A A
By Alex Morales
Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.
The error, due to a problem called “sensor drift,” began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That’s when “puzzled readers” alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site.
“Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality- control measures prior to archiving the data,” the center said. “Although we believe that data prior to early January are reliable, we will conduct a full quality check.’’
The extent of Arctic sea ice is seen as a key measure of how rising temperatures are affecting the Earth. The cap retreated in 2007 to its lowest extent ever and last year posted its second- lowest annual minimum at the end of the yearly melt season. The recent error doesn’t change findings that Arctic ice is retreating, the NSIDC said.
The center said real-time data on sea ice is always less reliable than archived numbers because full checks haven’t yet been carried out. Historical data is checked across other sources, it said.
The NSIDC uses Department of Defense satellites to obtain its Arctic sea ice data rather than more accurate National Aeronautics and Space Administration equipment. That’s because the defense satellites have a longer period of historical data, enabling scientists to draw conclusions about long-term ice melt, the center said.
“There is a balance between being as accurate as possible at any given moment and being as consistent as possible through long time-periods,” NSIDC said. “Our main scientific focus is on the long-term changes in Arctic sea ice.”
Dems' Climate Change Power Grab Hidden in Spending Bill by Rep. Doc Hastings Posted 03/04/2009 ET
Rep. Hastings is the ranking member on the House Natural Resources Committee.
Using a massive $410 billion spending bill as a cloak, Democrat leaders in Congress have been caught attempting to create almost limitless new federal powers to regulate climate change without any public notice, public comment, or public debate. The provision slipped into this bill would allow the Department of Interior to regulate all greenhouse gas emissions across the entire country based on the listing of the polar bear as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Democrats are distorting the intention of the ESA to give the federal government vast new climate change powers, and are trying to do it behind the backs of the American people by exempting their actions from multiple federal laws requiring public notice and participation in government decisions.
What is especially alarming is the significant threat this provision poses to job creation and our economy. All economic activity that results in greater greenhouse gas emissions would be in jeopardy of lawsuits. To illustrate the far-reaching potential economic consequences of this provision, it could even be used to stall, halt or block the “shovel ready” job-creating projects in the trillion dollar economic stimulus bill.
Unfortunately, House Democrats would not allow me to offer an amendment to strike out this provision. It’s now up to the Senate to take action this week to remove this dangerous language.
We all want to conserve and protect the polar bear. There’s no argument on that point. This provision, however, is not about the polar bear, but rather using the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species in order to regulate greenhouse gas activities throughout the U.S.
As the Washington Post commented last year, “Though the polar bear deserves protection, the Endangered Species Act is not the means and the Fish and Wildlife Service is not the agency to arrest global warming.”
Under this provision, any project or action that increases carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emissions could face potential lawsuits if they do not consult with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service regarding potential impacts on global warming and harm of the polar bear. In certain circumstances, the Fish & Wildlife Service could stop the activity.
This reaches far beyond the scope of polar bears in the Arctic and could put jobs and economic activity across the entire nation at risk. Projects that could be targeted include energy production, agricultural practices, increases in livestock numbers, or construction of new buildings and infrastructure projects such as schools, roads and bridges.
Think about it. A new factory that will create jobs is going to be built in the Midwest, do they really need to seek permission from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to ensure that construction won’t harm polar bears in Alaska?
This provision threatens the creation of new jobs in every state and can do real harm to our already troubled economy.
But don’t take my word for it. In 2007, an environmental group published an article explaining a strategy on how to use Endangered Species Act lawsuits to stop individual projects emitting greenhouse gases. It selected the polar bear as a test case because it is a “high-profile” species, an “iconic example” of a species that causes a “media frenzy.”
Democrats evidently know this provision is extremely controversial, so they slipped it into this spending bill without any hearing, debate, or consideration by the Natural Resources Committee. Evidently, Congress is not to be entrusted with an open and transparent process to consider the Democrats’ proposal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in the midst of the worst economic recession in decades.
This policy rider has no business being snuck into law through this massive spending bill. It deserves to be debated, and it deserves to be taken out of this legislation before it’s enacted.
Last week, the junior Democrat senator from Alaska wrote to Senate Democrat leadership expressing his deep concern and objections to this provision, stating that it should be removed from this legislation. That’s exactly what should be done, and I encourage everyone to contact your senators and tell them to oppose this Democrat grab for vast new climate change powers.
Logged
Maine recently broke its all time record cold temperature. Do not call it "global warming" everyone laughs at that-the new Krat term is "climate change". Hillary said that will be her biggest concern as the new Sec of State! Seriously! Not Islamo-terrorists, not Taliban, not Al Quida, not protecting our borders and culture. Pathetic-Bless Senate Vitters the only Senator that had the smarts to vote NO! on her confirmation.
