Attention Drudge Report: No Winter in Canada!!!

Yeah, Drudge Report always runs weather stories. They comb the world for unusual weather phenomena.

Today, for example, they are linking this article:

Barcelona hit with heaviest snowfall in 25 years

I would like to give a modest suggestion for a headline to the editors at Drudge. It is:

Canada Gets No Winter

or

Not a Single Snowflake to Be Found in Canada

Today is March 9. Forecasts across the country call for highs above freezing across the board, with very mild overnight lows slightly below freezing. In the far north, normally the land of perpetual -20, -30, -40 temps, the mildness continues.

Forecast high today in Whitehorse: -2, Yellowknife: -3, Iqaluit: -15.

Woo-hoo.

The high temperatures have been in effect throughout most of the country ALL WINTER. There was a nice little two or three-week period of snowy days, just to give us a white Christmas here in Montreal, but that has been about it. There have only been a few days that a Montrealer would call cold all winter.

This coming weekend is the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Montreal. Normally one of the biggest St. Patrick's Day Parades in the world, if not the biggest, I predict this year will top them all. Accuweather is calling for a high of +8 C Sunday, which should mean a huge crowd in the 100s of thousands.

Here's an idea - announce a demonstration to protest inaction over global warming and call it for downtown Montreal on parade day - LOL. That would be on a par with the disinformation tactics practiced by the Drudges and Fox Newses of the world.

Where did winter go? I would like to see a story on that in Drudge. Like it will ever happen.

   

Can You Reverse Climate Change By Having a Tea Party?

Just as climate change deniers had begun to breathe easy, convincing themselves that, based on repeating the word "climategate" a few million times, global warming no longer exists, a few minor irritants have begun to cloud the crystal clear, cool air of Denierland.

First the obvious, like, Winter Olympics are supposed to occur in snow, eh? You may say, "yeah but Vancouver is always warm in winter..." But what some people may not know is that it has been balmy throughout Canada. Today in Montreal: +5 C with sun, clouds and rain. In fact, there are usually a few stretches of -20 and we have barely had anything of the sort this year. On one of the first days of the Olympics, you cold barely find a below freezing high in any city in Canada. Bizarre.

As if to confirm our curiosity, the UAH Globally Averaged Temperatures recently came out and, guess what? It was worldwide the warmest January on record.

You see that blue dot on the very right? I don't know how anyone can look at this graph and think that they can have a tea party or post pictures of every snowflake that falls in Texas and it will make global warming go away.

As if this all isn't enough, we also get the news that an iceberg the size of Luxembourg has been chipped off of Antarctica. Amazingly, the iceberg that struck this ice "tongue" to remove it from the ice cap was itself some 97 km long and has been around since it calved off the ice cap in 1987. Obviously it takes these things a while to melt. According to one source, there is enough fresh water in an iceberg this size to supply water for the population of the world to have non-stop tea parties for about a year.

This iceberg may not have a direct connection to global warming. And, then again, it may.

Northern Pole of Inaccesibility Slams the Door on Human World Domination

The Northern Pole of Inaccessibility is no longer accessible, if it ever was. But, it is one, if not the one, natural challenge that is left to conquer.

Is nature turning the tide on humankind? Have we reached our Waterloo? Our Stalingrad?

By all appearances, yes. The erstwhile overland trek across the dark ice to the heart of the Arctic, at the farthest Arctic point from land, is apparently soon to become a side trip to Waterworld or, more aptly, Slushworld.

Extreme adventurer Jim McNeill, a.k.a. the Ice Warrior, first attempted to conquer the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility in 2003 and was turned back by an attack of flesh-eating disease. A second attempt, in 2006, was stymied by equipment failures and disintegrating ice.

Now, a planned 2010 attempt has been abandoned just days ahead of departure, due to the "worst conditions" for Arctic winter ice in decades.

McNeill said, "The risks of early failure, of cold injury and of needing to be rescued are too high to justify setting out. I believe to venture out in the current conditions would be foolhardy and not achieve any of the scientific and adventurous aims we have and could possibly endanger lives unnecessarily.”

The map of the route illustrates how satellite tracking has revealed a multitude of fissures still in the ice, as well as large masses of ice still in motion, rendering the crossing extremely dangerous, if not impossible.

The Ice Warrior website optimistically states that the attempt has been "postponed", as opposed to cancelled. However, we do wonder what the likelihood of this expedition ever being completed is.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center, which charts Arctic sea ice extent, has shown the ice extent in the Arctic at or near its all time low throughout the entire winter, from October onwards. Last summer's low ice mark was the third lowest in recorded history.

The likelihood seems strong that the possibility of trekking to the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility will soon be gone, because the ice will never be good enough again.

What does that mean in the greater scheme of things? It certainly may signal the beginning of the end of human conquests of the natural world. Although Ice Warrior calls the Pole of Inaccessibility the last frontier, I wouldn't be so sure about that. What about the journey to the center of a live volcano? or to the worlds that exist only on microscope slides?

Whatever the case, to my knowledge, this may be the first time that the door has been slammed so rudely, with such finality, on human ambitions.

To read more into it than that may be a mistake. Is it going to mark a true Waterloo - a turning of the tide? Will it be the end of adventurers? Of adventure? Of course this event alone is not something that will change the course of world history. But the way things are going - the way individuals are marginalized in the interest of the greater good of large institutions; the way freedoms are glossed over in the interest of dubious security measures; the way public opinion is manipulated and information is fabricated... it becomes easier to imagine a world where human ambition is crudely harnessed to little more than its own demise.

Ocean Acidification - Global Warming's Evil Twin

As Charles Clover writes in today's Times Online, there are other consequences of rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, in addition to global warming.

Approximately 25% of the co2 produced each year is absorbed into the oceans. This has lessened the impact of global warming, to be sure. However, the down side is that this has caused an increase in acidity of the oceans of about 30% since the beginning of the industrial age.

NOAA states in their May 2008 "State of the science fact sheet for ocean acidification" that:
"The oceans have absorbed about 50% of the carbon dioxide (CO₂) released from the burning of fossil fuels, resulting in chemical reactions that lower ocean pH. This has caused an increase in hydrogen ion (acidity) of about 30% since the start of the industrial age through a process known as “ocean acidification.” A growing number of studies have demonstrated adverse impacts on marine organisms, including:

• The rate at which reef-building corals produce their skeletons decreases.
• The ability of marine algae and free-swimming zooplankton to maintain protective shells is reduced.
• The survival of larval marine species, including commercial fish and shellfish, is reduced."

Since increased acidity is only one of the problems facing the oceans, many of the ecosystems are in dire straights. The situation with the coral, for instance is already critical - many say beyond hope.

Glacier Gone - Eco art for our times

Tatiana Iliina has the 18th Glacier Gone painting available for purchase.




The Glacier Gone series is one of Tatiana's most successful series of eco art. This is a large canvas, 30x36 inches, done with a painting knife.

Hard to believe that glaciers are melting and disappearing at an alarming rate, with the -26 January morning we've got going on out there today!