Dramatic storm: Freak Russian hailstorm sends beachgoers screaming on hot summer day

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WATCH: Dust storm engulfs city in Nevada

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Niagara Falls Canada freezes over - Spectacular photos from 2014 polar vortex

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UN Struggles with Data Suggesting No Global Warming

breitbart

By William Bigelow 

The United Nations, ever eager to embrace global warming, has a new climate report to be released that claims scientists are more certain than ever that global warming is real, but now there is hard evidence that global surface temperatures have stabilized over the last 15 years according to the U.K.’s weather-watching Met Office.

In June, David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Foundation wrote, "The absence of any significant change in the global annual average temperature over the past 16 years has become one of the most discussed topics in climate science. It has certainly focused the debate about the relative importance of greenhouse gas forcing of the climate versus natural variability."

Of course, climate change advocates are trying their best to offer an explanation for the lack of global warming; a draft of the AR5 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is due to be published in Oct. 2014, tries its best to address the situation. As Reuters environment correspondent Alister Doyle cited from the report:

Scientists believe causes could include: greater-than-expected quantities of ash from volcanoes, which dims sunlight; a decline in heat from the sun during a current 11-year solar cycle; more heat being absorbed by the deep oceans; or the possibility that the climate may be less sensitive than expected to a build-up of carbon dioxide.

The draft hedges its bets, stating that it has “medium confidence: that the global warming halt is due “in roughly equal measure” to the aforementioned factors.

The U.N. hurriedly tried to hedge its bets, too, saying of the draft:

The text is likely to change in response to comments from governments received in recent weeks and will also be considered by governments and scientists at a four-day approval session at the end of September. It is therefore premature and could be misleading to attempt to draw conclusions from it.

But just as the report stated that 95% of scientists believe that man’s actions cause global warming, climate change advocates quickly reasserted their belief in their omniscience; climate scientist Michael Mann wrote, “The report is simply an exclamation mark on what we already knew: Climate change is real and it continues unabated, the primary cause is fossil fuel burning, and if we don’t do something to reduce carbon emissions we can expect far more dangerous and potentially irreversible impacts on us.”

Polvo del Sahara, causa de los días brumosos en Cuba

tvavila

Calima sobre las Islas Canarias

Por Por Moisés González Yero

La bruma o masa lechosa que causa opacidad en el aire visto a la distancia, en los muy cálidos días que tienen lugar este verano en Cuba, obedece a la presencia inequívoca de nubes de polvo procedente del desierto de Sahara, de lo cual dan constancia las imágenes captada por los satélites.

Desde hace días volvió a ser noticia la llegada al área del Caribe de una nueva nube de polvo sahariano y muchos incrédulos todavía se sorprendieron, publica la Agencia de Información Nacional; y es cierto, cuesta creer la transportación de tanta micromateria viva y mineral, de un lado al otro del Océano Atlántico, a lo largo de miles de kilómetros y a puro golpe de viento, reza en el citado artículo periodístico.

El polvo del Sahara resulta un colosal aerosol que surca anualmente el Atlántico a bordo de los vientos alisios y descarga millones de toneladas de partículas de muy diversa índole en el área del Caribe, el Golfo de México y el sudeste de Estados Unidos.

Sal, hierro y otros metales pesados, sílice, unos 130 tipos de bacterias y hongos, virus (menos estudiados), polen, pesticidas, y materias fecales, figuran entre los componentes de la carga puesta en circulación por las tormentas, no solo de arenas, registradas en los desiertos.

Las que llegan a esta región se originan fundamentalmente en el Sahara y la franja semidesértica colindante del Sahel; aunque también llegan flujos menores procedentes del desierto de Namibia, al sur de África, y de ecosistemas similares asiáticos, como el legendario Gobi.

Científicos desestimaron que esta nueva oleada trajera daños severos a la salud; pero recordaron que en los últimos años el interés por el estudio integral de ese proceso crece a escala internacional y local.

Porque si bien posiblemente esta corriente ocurre desde hace millones de años, la observación y el estudio ha permitido vislumbrar que en las últimas tres décadas ha aumentado en 10 veces la carga de partículas de las nubes de polvo del Sahara, que llegan al Caribe, el Golfo de México y el sudeste de Estados Unidos.

Tal es la opinión del doctor en Ciencias Físicas Eugenio Mojena, investigador del Instituto de Meteorología de Cuba, entidad puntera en el estudio del impacto del fenómeno, que no solo influye en las variaciones del tiempo, el clima, la calidad del aire y en los ecosistemas marítimos y terrestres, sino incluso en la salud humana, de animales y plantas.

En un estudio difundido en Internet, Mojena aseguró que una red internacional de satélites y la observación de superficie permite el trabajo de monitoreo del impacto.

Resaltó el carácter marcadamente estacional de la nube de polvo, cuyo viaje transcontinental suele comenzar a mediados de marzo, con la llegada de la primavera, pero en Cuba, la mayor intensidad se registra en los meses de junio y julio, y a partir de agosto comienza su declive y son muy poco frecuentes los arribos en septiembre.

Massive Greenland glacier collapses as video rolls

Read on science >>

Winter storm in Newfoundland

Spectacular 'cloud tsunami' rolls over Florida high-rise condos

JR Hott / Panhandle Helicopter

Panama City Beach, Florida -- Fog rolls up along the shore of Panama
City Beach, Florida on Feb. 5th, 2012.

JR Hott / Panhandle Helicopter

Panama City Beach, Florida -- Fog rolls up along the shore of
Panama City Beach, Florida on Feb. 5th, 2012.

By Natalia Jimenez, msnbc.com

Helicopter pilot Mike Schaeffer was wrapping up a tour when he spotted this incredible weather phenomenon along the coast of Panama City Beach, Fl. on Sunday. As soon as he landed, he alerted Panhandle Helicopter owner JR Hott of the "cloud form waves," and together they went up for a better view. They moved quickly knowing that it is only in very specific weather conditions that this beautiful effect occurs. While the online community has dubbed this a "cloud tsunami," Hott disagrees with the popular moniker:

I wouldn't call it a "cloud tsunami." The term tsunami implies a natural disaster. The event, while it can form quickly, moves gently and slowly. It isn't something that happens with more than a gentle breeze.

While the images appear non-threatening and peaceful, as an experienced pilot, Hott has been trained to treat all fog and clouds as if they are solid objects. He and Schaeffer were very careful approaching in the air to get a better view. Fortunately, because of the location of the condos, they were able to approach the cloud waves from the side and did not place themselves in the direct path of the fog.

JR Hott / Panhandle Helicopter

Panama City Beach, Florida -- Fog rolls up along the shore of
Panama City Beach, Florida on Feb. 5th, 2012.

JR Hott / Panhandle Helicopter

Panama City Beach, Florida -- Fog rolls up along the shore of
Panama City Beach, Florida on Feb. 5th, 2012.

Meteorologist Dan Satterfield explains this occurrence on his blog:

Cool air offshore was very nearly at the saturation point, with a temperature near 20ºC and a dew point of about 19.5ºC. The air at this temperature can only hold a certain amount of water vapor, and how much it can hold depends heavily on the temperature. If you add more water into the air, a cloud will form, but you can also get a cloud to form by cooling the air. Drop the temperature, and it can no long hold as much water vapor, so some of it will condense out and a cloud will form.

Hott will see this happen a couple times a year, but Sunday's visibility was especially clear and he was able to make all these pictures in only five minutes! He is more amazed at the attention his pictures are getting, rather than with the event itself. "This is not so much a study in photography, but a study in how something can go viral," he said. Hott posted the photos to his company's Facebook page and suddenly he was getting requests for the pictures from all over the world. He is happy with the attention, hoping it inspires some to take a tour with him along the coastline.

JR Hott / Panhandle Helicopter

Panama City Beach, Florida -- Fog rolls up along the shore of
Panama City Beach, Florida on Feb. 5th, 2012.

Canada's stop signs

Warm winter ahead for most Canadians

Warm winter ahead for most Canadians

Wild rides: the 11/11/11 Great Blue Norther and the largest wave ever surfed

By Jason Samenow
You better be ready when a giant wave comes crashing down - not just in the ocean - but also the atmosphere.

Atmospheric wave pattern (reconstructed using modern data) that set up the 11/11/1911 “Great Blue Norther”. A huge dip in the jet stream over the western half of the country and big ridge (rise) over the East set up a volatile transition zone in the heartland. (NOAA (via University of Missouri) ) That’s what happened in Chicago 100 years ago when the temperature dropped from a record high of 74 to a frigid 16 in the same day (November 11, 1911). Even more stunning, Springfield, Missouri nose-dived from 80 to 8 degrees, a precipitous 72 degree drop.
The Chicago Weather Center offers some more background:
One of the most sudden and dangerous cold blasts in American history roared across the Plains and Midwest one hundred years ago today, November 11th 1911. In addition to the historic temperature drop, the storm system known as “The Great Blue Norther” also produced deadly tornadoes that were quickly followed by blizzard conditions.
The incredible blast of cold air arrived on the leading edge of a huge dip in the jet stream, the stormy segment of a long wave in the atmosphere.
“...the cold air mass interacted with a strong jet stream that then uncharacteristically plunged south to the American Midwest and into an existing and unusual warm and moist air mass being funneled into the Midwest by southerly winds from the Gulf of Mexico” according to researchers at the University of Missouri (UM).
In the days before satellite or radar, these researchers found residents had little warning. That was surely the case in Janesville, Wisconsin, where an F4 tornado killed 9 people and injured 50, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
“Within an hour after that tornado struck, survivors were working in blizzard conditions with near zero degree temperatures to rescue people trapped in tornado damage debris,” the NWS wrote.
Patrick Market, an atmospheric scientist at UM, described the Blue Norther as a “rare and unique” event. The closest analog to this storm is one that occurred on January 29, 2008, but wasn’t nearly as strong according to Market and his team.More >

Dust Storm Rolls Through Texas

Tsunami Broke Antarctic Ice Shelf

Discovery News 

Analysis by Kieran Mulvaney

Anyone who saw any of the footage of the devastation wreaked upon Japan by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami - as most of us have done - can have no doubt about the overwhelming power they contained and unleashed. Now researchers have found that the force of the tsunami was so great that it was able to break several pieces of ice, totaling more than twice the size of Manhattan, from an Antarctic ice shelf 8,000 miles from the quake's epicenter.
WIDE ANGLE: Japan in Crisis

Writing in the online version of the Journal of Glaciology, Kelly Brunt of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and colleagues describe how researchers have long suspected that repeated flexing of an ice shelf as a result of forces from a seismic event could lead to the calving of icebergs, but there had been no observations to confirm the theory. And so, shortly after the March 11 earthquake struck, Brunt and colleagues calculated the likely path the tsunami would follow throughout the Pacific basin in anticipation of such an event occurring.
BLOG: Behold, The Floating Ice Island
They focused their attention on the Sulzberger Ice Shelf, on the northeast coast of the Ross Sea south of New Zealand. Remarkably, approximately 18 hours after the tsunami struck Japan, a gap in the clouds above the ice shelf revealed the presence of one large iceberg that had broken off. Recourse to cloud-penetrating radar satellites uncovered the existence of another large iceberg with several smaller ones also breaking away behind them. Brunt and colleagues estimate that by the time the tsunami reached the Antarctic coast, waves were only a foot or so high, but even so, the scientists say the consistency of the swell was enough to cause the icebergs to fracture from an outcrop of ice that had apparently stood unbroken since at least 1965, when it was captured by aerial photographs.
"In the past we've had calving events where we've looked for the source. It's a reverse scenario – we see a calving and we go looking for a source," Brunt said in a press release. "We knew right away this was one of the biggest events in recent history – we knew there would be enough swell. And this time we had a source."

Dust Storm Rolls Through Phoenix

Published on Jul 18, 2011 by AssociatedPress

A giant wall of dust rolled through the Phoenix area on Monday, turning the sky brown, creating dangerous driving conditions and delaying some airline flights. (July 18)

HAARP: Weather Warfare -That’s Impossible Part 3 - Documentary

Uploaded by DMTilian on Apr 20, 2011

Control over Weather cataclysms; earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes & tsunamis as inflictions of War...

Is it a weapon of hostility or a domestic control of population? HAARP?

Fog [niebla] in #Toronto

No, not the Fujiko Nakaya installation of Nuit Blanche fame. A camera-toting CN Tower employee (can you imagine?) snapped some gorgeous shots of our downtown blanketed in a heavy, San Francisco-like cloud cover last week.
More photos in ryandt33's Toronto - City of Clouds photoset.

Why I love Canada???

And the gentle breezes blow,
70 miles per hour at 52 below!
Oh, how I love Canada
When the snow's up to your butt;
You take a breath of winter air
And your nose is frozen shut.
Yes, the weather here is wonderful,
You may think I'm a fool.
I could never leave Canada ,
Cause I'm frozen to the stool.

Haze over Eastern China/ Sattely imagen from NASA

Haze over Eastern China

 

download large image (4 MB, JPEG) acquired February 17, 2011

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Haze hovered over eastern China in mid-February 2011, obscuring the coastlines of Bo Hai and the Yellow Sea. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image on February 17, 2011.

Witness to the storm/ Video

Cold weather means more sex for some

Poll: Cold weather means more sex for some

By Jason Samenow

So the Associated Press (AP) hooked up with Weather Underground to do a poll on weather, moods and sex. The strangest poll questions and results?