https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/2016-was-australias-4th-warmest-year-o...

Heavy snowfall and below-freezing temperatures have swept across Europe causing more than a dozen deaths, as well as grounding flights and crippling ferries in Italy and Turkey.

• Officials report at least 17 weather-related deaths in three countries
• Poland experiencing temperatures below - 20 degrees Celsius
• Turkey, Greece, Belgium also hit by the cold snap

The cold conditions in Poland has killed at least 10 people in the past few days, according to officials who said temperatures in some areas had dropped below -20 degrees Celsius on Saturday.

In Belgium, one man died when his truck slid off a highway.

Sub-freezing temperatures in Italy were blamed for the deaths of a half-dozen homeless people, while heavy snow and high winds resulted in re-routed flights, delayed ferries, cancelled trains and closed roads, media reported.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-08/icy-weather-gripping-europe-turns-...

Most people who study global warming like I do would have predicted a 80 per cent chance of a harsh European winter. I did it in my books. The warming of the north pole and a very warm autumn in Europe plus the slowing down of the northern jet stream had to come to this. The upper atmosphere cold is mixing with the surface air between latitudes of 40 to 65 degrees north. This is due to an acceleration of the convection currents between high altitude and surface air WITH A sluggish jet steam. Do the sum. Suddenly the cold from the top comes to the bottom, like a warming saucepan.

Severe-to-extreme heatwave conditions are predicted to hit central and southern Queensland and northern New South Wales for three days from Friday, with temperatures forecast to crack 40 degrees Celsius in some parts.


Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) senior forecaster Michael Knepp said dry air coming from western Queensland would send temperatures soaring over the weekend.

"We are looking at a possible heatwave with temperatures especially in western [Brisbane] suburbs remaining in the high 30s possibly getting to 40-41 for an extended period of time for five or six days," he said.

Many towns south of the Queensland border and west of the Great Dividing Range will endure several days of temperatures above 40.

The BOM predicts a top temperature of 44 in Moree, Walgett, Brewarrina and Bourke on Saturday, and those towns are set to remains in the low 40s on Sunday and Monday.

read more:

http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/bom-forecasts-queensland-northern-nsw...

MOSCOW Jan 7 (Reuters) - Russia's Gazprom said on Saturday its daily supplies of natural gas to countries outside of the former Soviet Union have reached a record high due to cold weather in Europe.

Gazprom pumped 615.5 million cubic metres of gas to countries outside the former USSR borders on Jan. 6, beating its previous record hit on Jan. 5 by nearly 1 million cubic metres.

"We have reached a totally new level of gas exports in conditions of a cold snap, lower extraction volumes in Europe and higher demand for gas on the energy market," Gazprom's CEO Alexei Miller said in a statement.

Gazprom delivers around a third of EU's gas, and the recent spike in European demand boosted Gazprom's supplies through Nord Stream pipeline to an all-time high of 165.2 million cubic metres in the past few days, up from 160.75 million cubic metres on Jan. 1., Gazprom said.

read more:

http://af.reuters.com/article/idAFL5N1EX09G

From The American Conservative — Rod Dreher:

We have hardly had a winter in Louisiana. We had two cold days, but that’s it. It’s been warm here all winter long. I have spent most days in January outside in a t-shirt. It’s miserable. Mosquitoes are lingering. Nobody really likes very cold weather, I don’t suppose, but the summers are so long and punishing here that we love a respite from the heat, however short it is. This year, it hasn’t been hot, exactly, but it has been warm — so warm that it feels that we’ve not had a winter at all.

So I wasn’t all that surprised to read this news today:

Marking another milestone for a changing planet, scientists reported on Wednesday that the Earth reached its highest temperature on record in 2016 — trouncing a record set only a year earlier, which beat one set in 2014. It is the first time in the modern era of global warming data that temperatures have blown past the previous record three years in a row.

The findings come two days before the inauguration of an American president who has called global warming a Chinese plot and vowed to roll back his predecessor’s efforts to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases.

The data show that politicians cannot wish the problem away. The Earth is heating up, a point long beyond serious scientific dispute, but one becoming more evident as the records keep falling. Temperatures are heading toward levels that many experts believe will pose a profound threat to both the natural world and to human civilization.

More:

Since 1880, NOAA’s records show only one other instance when global temperature records were set three years in a row: in 1939, 1940 and 1941. The Earth has warmed so much in recent decades, however, that 1941 now ranks as only the 37th-warmest year on record.

The modern era of global warming began around 1970, after a long stretch of relatively flat temperatures, and the past three years mark the first time in that period that three records were set in a row. Of the 17 hottest years on record, 16 have now occurred since 2000.

I feel that many of us are like the Mayor of Amity in Jaws: ignoring the threat because the cost of facing it realistically is too high.

Did you know that ExxonMobil (then just Exxon) knew about anthropogenic global warming 40 years ago? From the NY Review of Books:

In 1977, for example, an Exxon scientist named James Black gave a presentation to the company’s Management Committee. He explained, accurately, what the “greenhouse effect” is and how measurements of atmospheric CO2 that had been taken since 1957 showed it was steadily increasing. And, although emphasizing that climate science still had to deal with untested assumptions and uncertainties, he said that “current opinion overwhelmingly favors attributing atmospheric CO2 increase to fossil fuel combustion.” “Present thinking,” Black added a year later, “holds that man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.”

read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/heat-and-futility-global-warming/

Here in Sydney, January is running HOT. Possibly about 5 degrees Celsius above average since January 1. Say it was about 31 degrees around 8 PM with a humidity level between 70 and 90 per cent. A few nights ago, it was about 32 degrees C at three in the morning... I will post my view on the absent "southerly busters" which cools this city in Summer, in opposition to the warmish Nor'easter sea breezes. Most of the winds we have had have been HOT Westerlies.

NSW has endured a record-breaking summer.

Moree, near the Queensland border, is on a sweltering streak where the mercury has topped 35C for the past 41 days. It was 36C at 2:00pm today.

READ MORE:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-05/sydney-weather-heatwave-temperature-to-pass-40c/8242228

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-10/scientists-warn-extreme-weather-is-a-result-of/8258616

Firefighters are warning of dangerous fire conditions across many parts of New South Wales, with temperatures in the high 30s and mid-40s expected over the next few days.

The Bureau of Meteorology was expecting the area of temperatures 45C or hotter would be roughly the size of NSW today and tomorrow, with a slightly smaller area on Sunday. 

Today's hottest temperature is expected in the western NSW town of Hay, where the mercury is set to hit 47C. The nearby township of Ivanhoe is forecast to be hotter tomorrow at 48C.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-10/australia-heat-wave-catastrophic-f...

See also:

see also:

http://www.smh.com.au/video/video-news/video-national-news/heatwave-brin...

And should you read : "A server weather warning from the Bureau of Meteorology..." please read "A severe weather warning from the Bureau of Meteorology..."... I believe the young ones at the IT department or at the "digital resources" are more illiterate than we old folks who learnt "riting and rithmetics" on tablets made of stone...

And by the way:

New Yorkers brave monster snowstorm

February 9, 2017

New York City hit a record high of 62 degrees on Wednesday before getting hammered by heavy snow on Thursday that shut down schools, emptied roads and canceled flights across the region.

http://nypost.com/2017/02/09/new-yorkers-brave-monster-snowstorm/#1