Alaska is lukewarm slush. The arctic is anomalously warm as a whole (see map below the fold).
Slovenia, in eastern central Europe is, uhhh…hmmm.
Three days of blizzards have inflicted “the worst devastation in living memory” in the small Alpine country of Slovenia, according to local media.
About 50,000 homes lost power as trees and electricity poles buckled under up to six inches of ice after oscillating temperatures caused some snow to melt and then freeze again.
Authorities estimate that roughly half of Slovenia’s forests — about 1.2 million acres — have been damaged.
What’s the ClimateReanalyzer temp difference globe’s base for comparison? It’s got 1979-2000 on there, is that it?
Also, talking of weird, nice little overview from the BBC of the solid stream of strong low pressure systems we’ve been having for over a month and, it turns out, can expect for a couple of weeks more. You’ve probably seen the stories of Somerset being underwater.
yes, the baseline has been criticized as being too recent to give a realistic picture, I believe NASA uses 1950 – 1980, or something like that.
Wouldn’t using 1950-1980 show even greater anomalies?
yes, that’s the point.
the 79 to 2000 does not give a clear enough picture of the change we’ve seen.
Can’t they just feed in the 1950-80 data and “update”. My freakin’ computer does it every time I turn it off (except that the “updates” are seldom “improvements”).
Nice clip from BBC weather. Excellent graphics (and the “parade of lows” is actually a bit scary, especially the one that looped out west to Greenland and then back to the UK for a second shot).
link?
I linked to it above in the first comment. “Nice little overview.” Does the link work for folks outside the UK?
And, dumboldguy, yeah, it’s pretty scary. Here’s a live stream from the Guardian of the effects of the latest one. Many of the other stories on the environment page are covering the impact in the South West and arguments about flood defences etc.
WHOA! The waves in Dawlish are awesome—that pic of the waves breaking on the building with the clocktower is quite spectacular. We hear little of this in the USA, just as we don’t hear much about the weather/climate disasters in Australia. Wonder why?
Worked fine in VA (except that the guy “talked funny”)
Here’s the link:
UK storms: Coastal defences showing strain
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26075896
Yes, I have indeed heard of Somerset being underwater. My nephew lives there, but luckily where he lives is some 200 feet higher than the flood areas, so even though the ground is soggy with all that rain, his home is safe and he is high and dry.
“We hear little of this in the USA, just as we don’t hear much about the weather/climate disasters in Australia. Wonder why?”
Peter’s been doing a great job of covering all the various jetstream-related weirdness – I guess the UK’s quite a small part of that overall picture. But it’s looking pretty dramatic from where I am (and I’m glad to be up North currently!)
This page has a map of what areas in Somerset were flooded on 11th Jan – not sure how it’s looking now but the rain hasn’t stopped coming through since then. Here’s a 360 camera view from a drone of one little bit of that.
All this while the government cuts spending (we’re only 40% through the current spending cut plans it turns out, got another 60% to go) and people argue over the correct policies to adapt. How do we adapt to something so chaotic? This time last year we were under snow, and were again in March.
But let’s wait until we’re reeeaaaally sure that climate change is happening…
Reports for the rest of the region, Rumania, Iran, Turkey, show cold temperatures and snow. Iran has had the worst snowfall in half a century.
http://www.euronews.com/2014/02/04/worst-snowstorm-for-half-a-century-hits-northern-iran/
The driver is as crazy as I am with my jeep!
I’ve driven a fair bit offroad around Slovenia and adjacent countries in all seasons, but I’ve never seen that much devastation before.
Quite shocking.
Rex Tillerson is optimistic on the last couple of months:
Extreme drought in California – “We’ll adapt to that.”
Extreme heatwaves in Austrailia – “We’ll adapt to that.”
Extreme ice storms in the US South – “These are engineering problems, with engineering solutions”
Extreme flooding and ice in Central Europe – “We’ll adapt to that…. Well, you’ll be doing the adapting to that”
“And remember, Exxon will be here to sell you any additional fuel you may need to adapt to all of that and more. It’s a real win win for all concerned”
In some cases, “adapt” may mean close the whole town down and feck orf…
Thank you for that link – I haven’t been through the Queensland outback since 2001 and it wasn’t bad then. We may well see similar situations here in the US – particularly in parts of CA, NV, AZ and TX. Lake Mead, the major source of water for Las Vegas, is 110 feet below full and a drop of another 35 feet will expose the shallowest water intakes and and trigger water rationing (which almost happened in 2010). There is a major tunneling project underway to build deeper intakes before that happens.
I know that no-one of scientific notability will say this latest persistent jet stream configuration is definitely caused by global warming/climate change, but I just wonder what all those people (who know better than s-o-a computer models and the IPPC) do expect to happen, do they just think the average surface temperature will gradually and gently increase, first by 1 deg then 2 then 3 and so on, and the same with sea rise ? (while all weather patterns remain stable, (like in a nice warm pliocene, until the next ice age occurs) until we get control carbon emissions under control – when it will start going smoothly back down again, to an interglacial norm
Greater flooding and droughts have been predicted by many models, that’s obviously happening now (and how), tropical cyclones increasing intensity – seen that (even stated in a paper by the one and only Judith Curry et hubby in 2005).
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2014/01/linking-uk-floods-and-climate-change-a-discussion-notable-by-its-absence/
I’ve had the same thoughts. Everyone is tip-toeing around and being “careful” as we approach (and perhaps have already passed) some unknown tipping points. Perhaps they will derive some satisfaction from being able to say “I knew it would happen” as we all kiss our butts goodbye at some point in the future.
Does a pot gently remain ” calm” when you bring it to a boil? More temperature, more energy, more variation, more violent storms, more flooding. It makes sense and it’s physics. It can only be wishful thinking that causes them to believe fairy tales. You can see the cognitive dissonance on a daily basis. Watch Dave Burton try to talk sea level down and claim sea level will only rise in the center, shore level won’t rise. People con themselves into all kinds of fantasy to avoid the truth. Don’t let it bring you down.
Brrr. Currently 9 F. here in Central Oregon. Normally it is about 43 F. for a mid-day high on this date.
***
Comments about Dawlish, Devon in SW England got me to looking for news. I spotted this remarkable video:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26056696
And the bad news is the big storm of the current series isn’t making landfall until Saturday. Yikes. The homeowner the BBC interviewed is going to have more worries than nappies I’m afraid.
Here is a photo taken yesterday in Ticino, Switzerland (south side of the Alps), where they also had snowfalls almost to the level of what they had 60 years ago.
http://files.newsnetz.ch/bildlegende/136790/1684866_pic_970x641.jpg