Fierce Winter Devastates Parts Of Europe by Eric Westervelt February 13, 20 February 13, 2012 Europe is experiencing its worst winter weather since the eighties. Another snowstorm struck over the weekend — blocking food, urgent deliveries and isolating rural residents. Hundreds of people, mainly the homeless, have died in sub-zero temperatures. http://www.npr.org/2012/02/13/146792418/fierce-winter-weather-hits-parts-of-europe The western edge of Europe looked set on Monday to get some relief from the extreme cold spell that has frozen the continent and left over 500 people dead over the past two weeks. But as temperatures began to rise on the north Atlantic coast, it was still unclear whether the slow advance of that warmer system would bring respite soon to Poland, Serbia, Romania, the Ukraine and other central and eastern European nations that have been most brutally battered by a Siberian cold front that reached from Russia all the way to the U.K. It’s the worst winter onslaught the continent has seen since the mid-1980s. Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/02/13/europes-deadly-cold-spell-a-slight-thaw-but-winter-misery-continues/#ixzz1mK2K96dn The winter of 2010–2011 was a weather event which brought heavy snowfalls, record low temperatures, travel chaos and school disruption to Great Britain and Ireland. It was referred to as The Big Freeze by national media. [2] In the UK it was the coldest December ever, since Met Office records began in 1910, with a mean temperature of -1°C. It broke the previous record of 0.1°C in December 1981. Sweden Many cities in Sweden had their coldest December since the beginning of recording temperatures. The average temperature in Gothenburg was -6.2C. which was 2.5C colder than the old record. In Örebro the coldest temperature in December since 1886 with -26.6C was measured. The coldest temperature that was notified in December in Sweden was -42.1C. in Nikkaluokta Norway Trondheim, Norway's third biggest city, experienced the coldest November since the beginning of recording temperatures in 1788. Especially the last week of November saw temperatures 12–14 degrees Celsius (22–25 °F) below normal.[20] The average temperature in Oslo was -1.7C in November 2010, the coldest since 1968 which had -2.1C.[33] The record low for Norway in November 2010 was measured in Karasjok in Finnmark, the northernmost county, on 27 November, showing −35 °C (−31 °F).[20] Germany Germany experienced its coldest December since 1969.[24] The average temperature was -3.7 °C which was 4.5 °C below the long term mean. This made December 2010 the fourth coldest of the last 120 years. Only 1890, 1969 and 1933 were colder The winter of 2009–2010 in Europe was unusually cold. Globally, atypical weather patterns brought cold, moist air from the north. Weather systems were undergoing cyclogenesis from North American storms moving across the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and saw many parts of Europe experiencing heavy snowfall and record-low temperatures. This led to a number of deaths, widespread transport disruption, power failures and the postponement of a number of sporting events. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_2009–2010_in_Europe
So far this winter has not been too bad, last year was way worse but we still have time for things to go bad LOL
From what I read, Northern Europe took a hard hit last year and this year it is eastern and central europe that is breaking hundred year old records for snow and cold. Snow as deep as 15 feet isolated areas in Romania, Moldova and Albania on Tuesday and turned a power plant in Kosovo into a park of dazzling ice sculptures.In a winter harsher than many can remember, energy workers struggled mightily Tuesday to break the ice that has encapsulated Kosovo's main power station in Obilic. Steam from the plant's vents coated its pipes and buildings with ice and snow, turning them into unworldly, unrecognizable objects of art.Since the end of January, Eastern Europe has been pummeled by a record-breaking cold snap and the heaviest snowfalls in recent memory. Hundreds of people, many of them homeless, have died in the frigid weather and tens of thousands have been snowed in. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/15-feet-snow-buries-eastern-europe-historic-winter-article-1.1022667#ixzz1mUUj6WDa
The pic above reminds me of how our area used to look years ago. 30, 35, 40+ degree temps here in January? Not typical, but this year (and last year) it's been like that... the new norm I guess. It should be zero, 10, and 15 on a warm day. Again though... not proof of Global Warming, only localized abnormally warm temps, but over time that data helps determine patterns that are impossible to see otherwise. Still, if you want to know for sure you could take the temperature at 50 mile intervals throughout the World twice a day, create a Mean temperature for that period using all of that data, then do the same for 20 years and let me know if the average temp is getting colder, warmer, or the same. The overwhelming evidence is that the mean temperature of the World has increased. The debate by some is on whether humans had any impact on that increase. Those people are all idiots. To believe that humans have had absolutely zero impact on the World's general temperature means ignoring all of the data that has been collected over the last dozen or so decades and creating your own fantasy. Whether it's called "Global Warming" (GW) or "Climate Change" (CC), it really doesn't matter, it comes down to whether or not you support regulations on pollution. New laws and regulations (due to a belief in GW or CC) mean companies that pollute may face stiffer fines and a lower bottom-line, but those companies don't care about anything but profit anyway so why should we let them continue to pollute? Is money all that matters?
Featured Videos Around the World: Deadly snowstorm hits Algeria Feb 16, 2012 - 1:26 - Winter weather has caused dozens of deaths in North African nation http://video.foxnews.com/v/1456755178001/\
I was in Tunisia a few years back it was late december and they had a fall of snow in Tunis LOL the 1st apparently for something like 100 years it was the funniest thing I have seen for a long time
The Global warming issue in the United States started out as an attack on the Republican party and the former Bush Administration trying to get the uneducated and easy led sheep like people in the USA to think that the Republicans are destroying the world and only Obama and the democrats open mindness can save us all. After a few rather record cold winters around the world it was changed to Climate change which makes sense since the Climate is always changing. My beef with the whole issue is how stalin/hitleristic the whole thing was in preverting science and facts to push a warped political agenda as well as theft of western resources as hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth are proposed for the futrue with hundreds of millions already gone in various in my pocket type programs. Snow damages Colosseum, Medieval churches in Italy By Laura Allsop, CNN updated 1:39 PM EST, Thu February 16, 2012 London (CNN) -- Heavy snow in recent weeks has already wreaked havoc across Europe -- now it is damaging some of the continent's most recognized historic monuments. The Colosseum in Rome has been forced to shut after small pieces of its walls crumbled away as a result of freezing temperatures. And buildings in the historic walled town of Urbino -- a UNESCO World Heritage Site -- are reported to be at risk of collapse under the weight of snow, following unprecedented blizzards in the area.
The biggest factors we have on earth is overpopulation and anything nuclear. No one wants to address that the people starving is usually in nations that have ten or more kids to a family with more then one wife involved. Not exact numbers but I thing my point is not off the mark by much by either direction. Anyone who has been to the third world, like myself, has seen it. Basic Fact: The more people in an area, the less habitat for anything else to live and the more destruction and pollution of the environment which does not have to be industrial.
Global Warming or Climate Change (or whatever you want to call it) is a hoax perpetrated by liberals, socialists, democrats and environmental loonies like Al Gore for the reasons Andy has stated above.
Excuse me if I ramble a bit here... I can get encyclopedic at times, and this is one of 'em lol I'd agree, and it's only going to get worse. A look into past and future population estimates hints at that. With the population we have now, disasters are bigger than they were in the past, and it's expected to get worse in the future. By that I mean that more and more people will be living in danger zones where things like large landslides, earthquakes, and tsunamis are expected, but rare. The quake off of Sumatra on 12-26-04 is a good example of that, where in the past there were less people living on it's coast so that type of quake/tsunami killed fewer people, then in '04 something like 220,000 to 280,000 people were caught by it, around 170,000 in Sumatra. They were used to tsunamis, just not such big ones. That size happens only so often, estimated at around every 550 to 700 years. The southern section of that same fault evidently has pairs of massive quake/tsunami events (within a 30 year span) every 200 years or so... one happened recently, another is highly likely in the next 25 or so years. There's a city of about 800,000 people living near there who are expected to get hit by the next one. They have few preparations and the death-toll is expected to be in the tens of thousands. Then there's the Japanese quake that killed roughly 16,000 (+ an additional 4,000 still unaccounted for). The Japanese know quakes, they know tsunamis, but they didn't expect this one. It was a thousand year quake, something so rare it's hard to fathom it until it happens and you see it. The reason I say that is because there are many, many other natural events that occur that are like that 1,000 year quake/tsunami. There are many that are even more rare, like asteroid impacts. And with a growing population the death-toll from something like that would be insanely high. Nuclear events (like in Sendai) are hard for the average person to understand. They know it's bad, but they lose focus pretty quickly and ignore it. Some of the particles released during this type of event are hazardous for essentially forever, some for thousands of years, some for a few weeks. The water pouring into the ocean from that event contains all of those, so some of it is safe now, others are diluted enough... are spread across a vast-enough area... that the risk they pose is minimal (to us anyway), but some of it will never be safe, any contact or near contact would be fatal. So no, as much as I like the idea of nuclear energy, the sheer power of it, as much as I like the idea of it I wouldn't want it anywhere on the planet if at all possible, but it's not... it's here and it isn't going anywhere.A big problem with that is we don't take proper care of it... we build these plants to withstand a 100-year event, and we use the lowest bidder lol... It's inevitable then that some plants will see a 1,000 year event, or a million year event, and we'll spread even more particles around. The theory is that such events are highly unlikely. Yep, they are. Sendai saw one though. So I think of nuclear energy as a "Pandora's Box", once it's opened, and it has been opened already, you're ____ed. Going back to overpopulation... food is an issue, but water is a bigger one. Both can be adequately addressed but for one thing: Cost. Money, and greed in particular, is the only thing standing in the way. It's the same thing that keeps those nuclear plants rated to a 100-year event. In Georgia (I think) someone erected a monument that states something like it'd be better to have only 500,000,000 people on the World, that that is the sustainable number. I mention it only since you seem to be thinking along those lines. Right now we have roughly 14 times that number. Sorry for the rambling lol
