Fire & Ice: Worldwide Weather Extremes

The Creation Groans Nature runs riot after Europe's warmest winter AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE - March 16, 2007 Wheat harvested a month early, markets bursting with prematurely ripened produce, animals migrating too soon or not at all -- Europe's warmest winter on record has made nature run amok, experts across the continent have reported. With average temperatures in the three winter months of December through February more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above average in most European countries, the environment's biological clock has been thrown off kilter, they say. In Italy, emerging from the mildest winter in more than two centuries according to Bologna's Institute for Atmospheric Science and Climate, vegetables not normally seen until later in the season -- green beans, asparagus, peas, artichokes -- are already so abundant that merchants can't sell them. In The Netherlands, where winter wheat has been harvested a month earlier than normal, scientists worry that unseasonably high temperatures will increase the risk of grain plant viruses caused by aphids. In neighbouring Germany, half of barley crops in some regions have been hit with a weather-related blight of yellow dwarf disease, carried by fleas that do not normally survive the winter. The Dutch nature observatory Natuurkalender has reported the "chaotic" disruption of normal butterfly lifecycles, with many species emerging from the cocoon far too early. Woodpeckers and swallows have likewise arrived a month ahead of schedule, they observed. In Austria, toads in the region of Styria began their spring migration to summer ponds at least 15 days early, catching environmentalists who last year shepherded thousands of the amphibians across motorways to safety off guard and unprepared. In Sweden -- where temperatures at midweek stood at 10 C (50 F) compared to -10 C (14 F) at the same time last year -- and elsewhere in Scandinavia, melting snows and pollen in January have heralded an untimely spring. This flurry of alarmed observations from across Europe arrive amid predictions by climatologists and weather forecasters that record warm weather is likely to continue through the spring, and perhaps into the summer as well. "The average temperature for the three months of Spring (March, April, May) will be above normal," said French climatologist Michel Schneider, though he did not rule out the possibility of a cold snap or two. Earlier in the year, climate change experts at Britain's Met Office forecast that 2007 would likely be the warmest on record around the world, breaking the record set in 1998. In France, looking further into the future, the state-run weather service predicts that the number of full-fledged summer heat waves -- similar to the one in 2003 that left 15,000 French people dead -- will increase tenfold starting in 2070. The observations also coincides with a report released Thursday by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stating that this winter was the warmest for the entire Northern Hemisphere of the planet since it began keeping records 128 years ago. In Spain, high temperatures and strong winds have already fanned a series of fires around Barcelona in the northeast, and in Valencia further south. And in Greece, agricultural authorities are already forecasting a difficult year due to drought in the bread-basket grain area of Thessaly. - - - - http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070316124440.qp04a6gw&show_article=1 Warm Winters Upset Rhythms of Maple Sugar NEW YORK TIMES - By Pam Belluck - March 3, 2007 MONTPELIER, Vt. - - - -For more than 200 years, Mr. Morse’s family has been culling sweet sap from maple trees, a passion that has manifested itself not only in jug upon jug of maple syrup, but also in maple-cured bacon, maple cream and maple soap, not to mention the display of a suggestively curved tree trunk Mr. Morse calls the Venus de Maple. But lately nature seems to be playing havoc with Mr. Morse and other maple mavens. Warmer-than-usual winters are throwing things out of kilter, causing confusion among maple syrup producers, called sugar makers, and stoking fears for the survival of New England’s maple forests. - - - For at least 10 years some farmers have been starting sooner. But last year Mr. Morse tapped his trees in February and still missed out on so much sap that instead of producing his usual 1,000 gallons of syrup, he made only 700. - - - - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/03/us/03maple.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin January Weather Hottest by Far ASSOCIATED PRESS - By Seth Borenstein - February 15, 2007 WASHINGTON - It may be cold comfort during a frigid February, but last month was by far the hottest January ever. The broken record was fueled by a waning El Nino and a gradually warming world, according to U.S. scientists who reported the data Thursday. Records on the planet's temperature have been kept since 1880. Spurred on by unusually warm Siberia, Canada, northern Asia and Europe, the world's land areas were 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than a normal January, according to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. That didn't just nudge past the old record set in 2002, but broke that mark by 0.81 degrees, which meteorologists said is a lot, since such records often are broken by hundredths of a degree at a time. "That's pretty unusual for a record to be broken by that much," said the data center's scientific services chief, David Easterling. "I was very surprised." The scientists went beyond their normal doublechecking and took the unusual step of running computer climate models "just to make sure that what we're seeing was real," Easterling said. It was. "From one standpoint it is not unusual to have a new record because we've become accustomed to having records broken," said Jay Lawrimore, climate monitoring branch chief. But January, he said, was a bigger jump than the world has seen in about 10 years. The temperature of the world's land and water combined - the most effective measurement - was 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal, breaking the old record by more than one-quarter of a degree. Ocean temperatures alone didn't set a record. In the Northern Hemisphere, land areas were 4.1 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal for January, breaking the old record by about three-quarters of a degree. - - - - http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070215/D8NAE9404.html Chicago: 9th coldest February in 137 years; 4th snowiest since 1929 CHICAGO TRIBUNE - By Tom Skilling, WGN-TV chief meteorologist - February 27, 2007 The cold, snowy weather of February 2007 has extinguished a once formidable 6.4(degrees) winter temperature surplus and done so with remarkable speed. What was once one of the 9 warmest winters on record in Chicago only 6 weeks ago will go down in the books with a meager 0.1(degrees)surplus as the season closes Wednesday night--a statistical "wash." Not only has February been cold, it's been snowy. The weekend's 3.0" at Midway and 4.5" at O'Hare brings each observation site's February snowfall to 21.1" and 20.1" respectively--nearly three times the monthly norm. Midway's tally ranks 4th heaviest of all Februarys since 1929. - - - - http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-0702270141feb27,1,5871706.column?coll=chi-newslocalchicago-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true Tokyo had 1st winter without snow on record KYODO NEWS [Japan] - February 28, 2007 Tokyo experienced the first winter without snowfall on record since 1876, the Japan Meteorological Agency said Thursday. The agency's observatory point in Otemachi, central Tokyo, did not record any snowfall from December to February, the period defined as winter in Japan. Tokyo is more inclined to have heavy snow in early spring than in midwinter but it is not certain if the area will have such weather in March or later because temperatures are expected to remain higher than usual, the agency said. http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/02/28/D8NIPNHO3.html Warmest winter on record for Shanghai AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE – March 2, 2007 Shanghai has experienced its warmest winter on record, but the global warming-induced phenomenon had some unexpected positive spin-offs for China's economic hub, state press said Friday. Average temperatures were 8.1 degrees Celsius (46.6 degrees Fahrenheit), a dramatic 2.6 degrees warmer than in previous years and the highest since records were first taken in 1873, Xinhua news agency reported. The Shanghai Meteorological Bureau said global warming was the culprit, and the figures were in line with other data released in recent weeks showing unprecedented temperature highs throughout China. - - - The China Meteorological Bureau reported two weeks ago that last year was the nation's hottest since 1951, with more than a third of climate observation stations on the Tibet plateau registering all-time high temperatures. It also forecast average temperatures could rise in China by a startling 3.9 to six degrees by 2100, compared with a global estimate from the United Nations of 1.1 and 6.4 degrees. The bureau also predicted more extreme weather for China, including severe rainfall in the heavily populated eastern regions, drought in other areas, and a rapid retreat of glaciers in Tibet. - - - - http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/03/02/070302074550.kmn5qc2f.html

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