Video - Mark Steyn rebukes democrats in climate hearing: ‘You’re effectively enforcing a state ideology’

HT And Source: Wattsupwiththat.

Video - Global warming being blasted away by lowest solar activity in four centuries?

We appear to be headed for conditions similar to the Maunder Minimum, says this video from Suspicious0bservers. This low in solar activity comes after what was likely the highest solar activity in the last 3,000 years. HT: NewIceAge.

Here are a few observations from the video:

The primary concern is famine.

In the 1630s, two million people died due to famine in India. At about the same time, huge portions of Europe developed famines, including Poland, Ireland, England, France. In the early 1660s, India went two years without a single drop of rain. In 1680, famine killed 80,000 people in Sardinia. A famine in the 1690s killed 15 percent of the Scottish population. Two million dead in France during that same period. During the same decade, more than 100,000 peopole died in Sweden and Estonia. At the turn of the century, two million more people died of famine in India. Just a few years later, Eastern Prussia lost 40 percent of its population to famine. Look at the chart in this video to see how quickly the climate changed. We are currently experiencing changes even faster than those.

The harsh winters like 2010 in Europe, or 2013 in North America, will become more prevalent, the video continues.

This brings up some important questions.

How long before travel and commerce are interrupted? How long before agriculture suffers like it did 400 years ago? How long before the plagues and disease that come with famine rise again?

“If Toronto’s Pearson International Airport weather station doesn’t hit 30.0ºC before the end of August — and it’s not looking like it will — this will be the first consecutive July and August that Pearson has not hit 30.0ºC+ since records began at Pearson in 1938 — that’s 76 years of data,” says Weather Network meteorologist Dayna Vettese.

Hmmmm....On a personal note , for the last 24 months temp where i live have been about 4-5 degrees BELOW normal average, so much for global warming..... Google the term 'De Vries cycle'.

Chinese Study - Has solar activity influence on the Earth’s global warming?

SCIENCE: Has solar activity influence on the Earth’s global warming? (Beacon).

Posted on June 10, 2014

A recent study demonstrates the existence of significant resonance cycles and high correlations between solar activity and the Earth’s averaged surface temperature during centuries.

by Staff Writers of Terra Daily

Copyright 1995-2014 – Space Media Network
published on Tarra Daily 9 June 2014
republished here under the term of Fair Use

Image:
This shows comparisons between the 11-year running averaged Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) and the temperature (T) anomalies of the Earth (global, land, ocean). Image courtesy Science China Press. For a larger version of this image please go here.

A recent study demonstrates the existence of significant resonance cycles and high correlations between solar activity and the Earth’s averaged surface temperature during centuries. This provides a new clue to reveal the phenomenon of global warming in recent years.

Their work, entitled “Periodicities of solar activity and the surface temperature variation of the Earth and their correlations” was published in CHINESE SCIENCE BULLETIN (In Chinese) 2014 No.14 with the co-corresponding authors of Dr. Zhao Xinhua and Dr.

Feng Xueshang from State key laboratory of space weather, CSSAR/NSSC, Chinese Academy of Sciences. It adopts the wavelet analysis technique and cross correlation method to investigate the periodicities of solar activity and the Earth’s temperature as well as their correlations during the past centuries.

Global warming is one of the hottest and most debatable issues at present. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claimed that the release of the anthropogenic greenhouse gases contributed to 90% or even higher of the observed increase in the global average temperature in the past 50 years. However, the debate on the causes of the global warming never stops.

Research shows that the current warming does not exceed the natural fluctuations of climate. The climate models of IPCC seem to underestimate the impact of natural factors on the climate change, while overstate that of human activities. Solar activity is an important ingredient of natural driving forces of climate. Therefore, it is valuable to investigate the influence of solar variability on the Earth’s climate change on long time scales.

This innovative study combines the measured data with those reconstructed to disclose the periodicities of solar activity during centuries and their correlations with the Earth’s temperature.

The obtained results demonstrate that solar activity and the Earth’s temperature have significant resonance cycles, and the Earth’s temperature has periodic variations similar to those of solar activity.

This study also implies that the “modern maximum” of solar activity agrees well with the recent global warming of the Earth. A significant correlation between them can be found.

As pointed out by a peer reviewer, “this work provides a possible explanation for the global warming”.

Related Links  Chinese Academy of SciencesClimate Science News – Modeling, Mitigation Adaptation

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Source.

NASA image shows extensive 'record level' ice coverage of the Great Lakes

NASA image shows extensive 'record level' ice coverage of the Great Lakes.HT :Weathernetwork.

Last year, ice covered about 38 per cent of the Great Lakes, which was a dramatic jump from 13 per cent in 2011-2012.

"The extreme freezing of the lakes is an unusual sight for residents, and has brought tourists flocking to certain locations, such as the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, where Lake Superior’s thick ice has thousands trekking about one mile across the lake to visit spectacular frozen ice caves," NASA says.

The extensive ice coverage however, interferes with marine commerce, boating and fishing, all of which depend on navigable waterways.

"It also closes the lakes to migratory birds which flock here in the winter time," adds NASA.

Related:  Great Lakes ice cover reaches 20-year high.

Great Lakes ice cover reaches 20-year high.

Great Lakes ice cover reaches 20-year high. HT: SunNews.


The Great Lakes are more iced over than any time in the past 20 years.

Registering at 88.4% ice coverage Friday -- up from 60% on Jan. 29 -- the world's largest cluster of freshwater lakes is almost entirely frozen over.

The all-time record is 94.8% in 1979. The last time they came this close to being fully frozen was 1994, when ice cover hit 90.7%.

Last year's ice cover maxed out at about 38%.

Lake Ontario remains mostly unfrozen, however. The lowest of all five, it was at 41.4% ice cover Friday.

Lake Superior was 94%, Michigan 80.8%, Huron 95% and Erie 95.6%. The increased ice cover may slow the spring thaw in nearby regions, keeping farm crops dormant longer. It also poses challenges to the shipping industry.

The data is from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich.More detail can be found here

"Global Warming on Steroids" - The Great Lakes are now 79% ice covered.

"Global Warming on Steroids" - The Great Lakes are now 79% ice covered.HT: Anthony Farnell.

Combine all the open water left and it's less than the size of Lake Michigan.

Do the Great Lakes freeze in the winter?

The Great Lakes do freeze, but not completely. According to Ray Assel of the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, ice cover on the Great Lakes varies from lake to lake and year to year. For example, in a year with normal temperatures, 25 percent of Lake Ontario will be frozen over, while up to 90 percent of Lake Erie will be frozen. However, wind and water movement over bodies of water as large and deep as the Great Lakes make it unlikely the lakes have ever frozen over completely for any significant length of time.

The Great Lakes have come close to freezing over completely during the extremely cold winters of 1976-77, 1977-78 and 1978-79, with up to 90 percent ice coverage. However, Assel says that severe winter air temperatures are not necessary for large ice cover on the lakes. A cool summer and fall can result in below normal water temperatures by late fall. Extensive ice cover can then form with only average winter temperatures.

As for the Niagara Falls, the volume and speed of the water flowing over the falls prevents them from freezing, as does the ice-boom at the mouth of Lake Erie. The ice-boom is a series of floating steel pontoons extending across the river from Buffalo, New York to Fort Erie, Ontario. It prevents ice from clogging the river and hydroelectric intakes by helping an "ice bridge" (a stable ice cover) to form at the mouth of Lake Erie. Before the installation of the ice-boom in 1964, the American side of the falls froze over in 1909, 1938 and 1949 because ice jams upstream reduced the water flow. Ice bridges can also form below the falls when ice goes over the falls and freezes to the edges of the gorge, resulting in a buildup of ice (as thick as fifty feet in some places) stretching across the entire river. For photographs of historical ice bridges on the falls, go to Edsen Breyer's Postcard Museum.

According to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.

Let’s look at each individual lake.

Lake Superior - Almost frozen over (92 percent covered with ice).

Lake Michigan - Now 51 percent covered with ice. Coyotes were seen walking on the ice just offshore of Chicago this week. This makes us wonder if the lakes freeze over totally, will animals from Canada be able to cross over Lake Huron or Lake Superior, and enter Michigan.

Lake Huron - Ice cover rocketed up an additional 14 percent this week, climbing to a total ice cover of 86 percent. At that rate, Lake Huron could be almost frozen over, or frozen over by the end of next week.

Lake Erie - The shallowest of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie has an average depth of 62 feet and a maximum depth of 210 feet. It also has the least volume of any Great Lake, with 116 cubic miles of water. So it should come as no surprise that Lake Erie is 96 percent covered with ice.

Lake Ontario - Although Lake Ontario is the smallest Great Lake when it comes to surface area, its  average depth of 283 feet makes it the second deepest Great Lake behind Lake Superior. Lake Ontario actually holds more than three times the amount of water when compared to Lake Erie. Lake Ontario is only 32 percent covered in ice.

Will ice continue to grow?
The ice cover should continue to grow at a rapid rate based on temperatures expected in the next few weeks.

It is going to be close, but we may be living in a historic winter with regards to amount of Great Lakes ice.


See entire article, along with photos of individual lakes : http://www.mlive.com/weather/index.ssf/2014/02/great_lakes_added_11_percent_i.html

For a look at current and historical Great Lakes surface and ice cover, go to GLERL's Great Lakes Surface Environmental Analysis pages.Hmmm......So the last time they were completely frozen over was 10,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice age.

Video - Horseshoe Falls in Winter.