[quote=BingoLady]


Fool, there have been MORE destructive Hurricanes before you bought into the HOAX 20 years ago, that humans are causing more destructive hurricanes due to their activity.

http://www.livescience.co...ca-hurricane-katrina.html
1900: The Galveston Hurricane
1928: San Felipe-Okeechobee Hurricane
1935: Florida Keys Labor Day Hurricane
1969: Hurricane Camille
1989: Hurricane Hugo
1992: Hurricane Andrew



Keep drinking the kool aid

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/o...treach/history/#galveston



http://miami.about.com/od/weather/a/hur_facts.htm
What was the deadliest hurricane of all time? The costliest? What state has taken the most direct hurricane hits? How often, on average, do major hurricanes hit the US? I've come up with some stats and facts that may surprise you. How's your hurricane knowledge?

What was the deadliest hurricane on record?

A 1900 hurricane slammed into Galveston, Texas killing 8,000 people. A category 4 hurricane, it struck the island with sustained winds of 140 miles per hour. With no radar, tracking, or predictions, there were no preparations made for the storm. The highest elevation in Galveston in 1900 was 8.7 feet; the 15.7 foot storm surge covered the homes and businesses like an ocean. It cost $20 million at the time; in today's money, the damage would have cost $700 million. After the hurricane, Galveston raised a sea wall and increased the grade of the island to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy.

What was the costliest hurricane on record?

As most of Florida will remember, the costliest hurricane of all time was Hurricane Andrew. Andrew struck in 1992 and devastated the Homestead and southern Miami-Dade areas with sustained winds of over 156 miles per hour. The estimated cost damage was $26.5 billion. After predicting for days that the storm was taking a northerly course, most people in Miami and Homestead were unprepared for the change in path that took in through the Homestead Air Force Base and the Country Walk area. Post-Andrew construction had extremely different standards, including storm shutters being required when selling a new home.

What was the most intense hurricane to strike the US?

Over the Labor Day weekend in 1935, a hurricane struck the Florida Keys. With record-setting low barometric pressure of 892 mb, the tiny island of Islamorada had little chance of avoiding annihilation. 390 died in the event, as the Keys were not yet very populated. Roads, buildings, viaducts, bridges and the railroad were completely wiped out. The Labor Day Hurricane sustained winds are estimated to have reached almost 200 miles per hour.

How often do major hurricanes hit the US?

On average, two major hurricane (cat 3-5) strike every three years; in all categories, about five hurricanes make landfall every three years. On average, a hurricane cat 4 or higher only strikes once every six years. 2004 has been an anomaly.

What was the busiest hurricane season on record in the Atlantic?

In 1995, 11 hurricanes were recorded in the Atlantic. Named storms got all the way up to Hurricane Tanya. Allison, Dean, Erin, Gabrielle, Jerry, Opal, and Roxanne all made landfall in the US.

In the 20th century, how many hurricanes hit the US?

158 hurricanes hit the US from all categories; 64 of these were major hurricanes, categories 3-5. Florida had the most landfalls at 57, with the majority of these being in the northwest and southeast. Texas came in second with 36, and Louisiana and North Carolina tie for third at 25 a piece.

What is the busiest month in the US for major hurricane hits?

By far, September has it; 36 of the 64 major hurricanes hit in September. The next busiest month the August, with only 15.

We are literally saving lives guys, keep up the good work and dont listen to the nay sayers

We are literally saving lives guys, keep up the good work and dont listen to the nay sayers
- the_cause2000

or the ass holes

or the ass holes
- kicksave856

thats a good point kick. or the ass holes

Even if we can save 1 person from a global warming tornado (gwarmado) then I think it's our duty to do so

dumbleganger
- Doppleganger

Pics are of of the man made Typhoon that occurred in the Phillipines last month.

http://www.publicherald.o...rgy-investigations/oil-2/

man made

The 2013 hurricane season just ended as one of the five quietest years since 1960. But don’t expect anyone who pointed to last year’s hurricanes as “proof” of the need to act against global warming to apologize; the warmists don’t work that way.

Warmist claims of a severe increase in hurricane activity go back to 2005 and Hurricane Katrina. The cover of Al Gore’s 2009 book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis,” even features a satellite image of the globe with four major hurricanes superimposed.

Yet the evidence to the contrary was there all along. Back in 2005 I and others reviewed the entire hurricane record, which goes back over a century, and found no increase of any kind. Yes, we sometimes get bad storms — but no more frequently now than in the past. The advocates simply ignored that evidence


read more at
http://nypost.com/2013/12...ing-proof-is-evaporating/

The 2013 hurricane season just ended as one of the five quietest years since 1960. But don’t expect anyone who pointed to last year’s hurricanes as “proof” of the need to act against global warming to apologize; the warmists don’t work that way.

Warmist claims of a severe increase in hurricane activity go back to 2005 and Hurricane Katrina. The cover of Al Gore’s 2009 book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis,” even features a satellite image of the globe with four major hurricanes superimposed.

Yet the evidence to the contrary was there all along. Back in 2005 I and others reviewed the entire hurricane record, which goes back over a century, and found no increase of any kind. Yes, we sometimes get bad storms — but no more frequently now than in the past. The advocates simply ignored that evidence


read more at
http://nypost.com/2013/12...ing-proof-is-evaporating/
- Doppleganger

It's amazing what we can do as a human ace if we just try a little bit to make a difference

Bless us all

- Doppleganger

wtf?

http://www.audubon.org/ne...-wind-farms-says-audubon-

nice
- kicksave856

i miss you

Scary. Insane. Ridiculous. Invasive. Wrong. The Washington Post reports that the FBI has had the ability to secretly activate a computer's camera "without triggering the light that lets users know it is recording" for years now. What in the hell is going on? What kind of world do we live in?

Marcus Thomas, the former assistant director of the FBI's Operational Technology Division, told the Post that that sort of creepy spy laptop recording is "mainly" used in terrorism cases or the "most serious" of criminal investigations. That doesn't really make it less crazy (or any better) since the very idea of the FBI being able to watch you through your computer is absolutely disturbing.

The whole Post piece about the FBI's search for a bomb threat suspect is worth reading. It shows how far the FBI will go with its use of malware to spy on people and reveals the occasional brain dead mistakes the FBI makes to screw themselves over (like a typo of an e-mail address that the FBI wanted to keep tabs on). Good to know these completely competent folks are watching over us by any means necessary. [Washington Post]

http://www.washingtonpost...c-e1d01116fd98_story.html

Study: Earth was warmer in Roman, Medieval times
http://dailycaller.com/bu...al-warming/#ixzz2nSrrNWEw


If you think the Earth is hot now, try wearing plate armor in the Middle Ages.

A Swedish study found that the planet was warmer in ancient Roman times and the Middle Ages than today, challenging the mainstream idea that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are the main drivers of global warming.

The study, by scientist Leif Kullman, analyzed 455 “radiocarbon-dated mega-fossils” in the Scandes mountains and found that tree lines for different species of trees were higher during the Roman and Medieval times than they are today. Not only that, but the temperatures were higher as well.

“Historical tree line positions are viewed in relation to early 21st century equivalents, and indicate that tree line elevations attained during the past century and in association with modern climate warming are highly unusual, but not unique, phenomena from the perspective of the past 4,800 years,” Kullman found. “Prior to that, the pine tree line (and summer temperatures) was consistently higher than present, as it was also during the Roman and Medieval periods.”

Kullman also wrote that “summer temperatures during the early Holocene thermal optimum may have been 2.3°C higher than present.” The “Holocene thermal optimum was a warm period that occurred between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago. This warm period was followed by a gradual cooling period.”

According to Kullman, the temperature spikes were during the Roman and Medieval warming periods “were succeeded by a distinct tree line/temperature dip, broadly corresponding to the Little Ice Age.”

For many years now, there was an alleged scientific consensus that the Earth was warming due to humans releasing greenhouse gases into the air — primarily through burning fossil fuels. However, temperatures stopped rising after 1998, leaving scientists scrambling to find an explanation to the hiatus in warming.

Increasingly, scientists are looking away from human causes and looking at solar activity and natural climate variability for explanations of why the planet warms and cools.

“All other things being equal, adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere will have a warming effect on the planet,” Judith Curry, a climatologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, told the Los Angeles Times. “However, all things are never equal, and what we are seeing is natural climate variability dominating over human impact.”

The Kullman study points to mounting evidence that climate is largely out of human control, as humans were not burning large amounts fossil fuels during Roman and Medieval times.

Some scientists have pointed to solar activity as the predictor of where global temperatures are headed. Researchers have pointed to falling sunspot activity as evidence that the planet will cool off in the coming decades.

“By looking back at certain isotopes in ice cores, [Professor Mike Lockwood of Reading University] has been able to determine how active the sun has been over thousands of years,” the BBC reports. “Following analysis of the data, Professor Lockwood believes solar activity is now falling more rapidly than at any time in the last 10,000 years.”

Others have looked to natural climate systems for explanations for answers to the 15-year pause in global warming.

A study by Dr. Roy Spencer from the University of Alabama, Huntsville found that about half the warming that occurred since the 1970s can be attributed to El Niño weather events, which had a warming effect on the planet.

The Pacific Ocean’s natural warming and cooling cycles last about 30 years, with La Niña cooling being dominant from the 1950s to the 1970s and El Niño warming events dominating late 1970s to the late 1990s. Spencer suggests that the world may be in a La Niña cooling period.

Greenhouse gas levels reach record highs, nothing happens

http://dailycaller.com/20...ng-happens/#ixzz2nSs3zTnR

Scientists have warned that carbon dioxide and methane levels reached record highs in 2012, reports the World Meteorological Organization.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were 141 percent above pre-industrial levels last year.

“As a result of this (increase in greenhouse gases), our climate is changing, our weather is more extreme, ice sheets and glaciers are melting and sea levels are rising,” said WMO secretary-general Michael Jarraud.

Yet the evidence suggests that weather has not gotten more extreme and that sea levels rises have been below United Nations estimates. Furthermore, arctic sea ice reached record levels this year despite much higher greenhouse gas concentrations.

Most importantly, according to skeptical scientists, global temperatures have not risen since 1998 despite findings that global greenhouse gas emissions 35.6 billion metric tons in in 2012 — a record high.

According to research from scientist Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado, hurricanes have not increased in frequency, intensity or normalized damage in the U.S. since 1900. Similarly, Tornadoes and tropical cyclones have also not become more intense or frequent since 1950 and 1970, respectfully.

U.S. floods have not increased in frequency or intensity since 1950, according to Pielke, and droughts have become shorter, less frequent, and smaller over the last century. Globally, floods have changed very little in the last 60 years.

“It is misleading and just plain incorrect to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally,” Pielke said in his testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

On a similar note, Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, the “skeptical environmentalist,” writes: “Historical analysis of wildfires around the world shows that since 1950 their numbers have decreased globally by 15%… The world has not seen a general increase in drought. A study published in Nature in November shows globally that ‘there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years.’”

The world panicked when failed presidential candidate and environmentalist Al Gore said that the “entire north polar ice cap will be gone in 5 years.” He predicted this in December 2008.

However, reports this year indicate that Arctic sea ice coverage was 29 percent greater in September of this year compared to the same time last year — with ice covering 533,000 square miles of ocean more than last year.

The south pole has also fared well, despite rising greenhouse gas emissions. Antarctic sea ice hit a 35-year record high in September — covering nearly 20 million square kilometers of ocean with ice. The previous sea ice coverage record was in 2012, meaning there have been two straight record high years.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data show the sea levels only rose 1.1 to 1.3 millimeters per year from 2005 to 2012. This is actually below the rate of sea level rise from 1954 to 2003.

UN officials hope to use record high greenhouse gas levels and claims of extreme weather to compel the international community to agree to a stronger climate agreement at the next round of major climate negotiations in 2015.

Delegates are already headed to Warsaw, Poland for another round of climate negotiations set for next week, but nothing substantive is expected to come out of this round of talks.

“As we head towards Warsaw for the latest round of climate negotiations, there is a real need for increased ambition by all countries: ambition which can take countries further and faster towards bridging the emissions gap and a sustainable future for all,” said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“However, increased national ambition will not be enough to meet the scientific realities of climate change, which is one reason why a universal new agreement — able to catalyze international cooperation — is urgently needed by 2015,” she added.

A recent UN report found that global temperatures could rise by as much as 8.64 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t cut. However, global temperatures have been flat since 1998, and some scientists have even been going back to the theory that the earth was cooling.

“Attention in the public debate seems to be moving away from the 15-17 year ‘pause’ to the cooling since 2002,” writes Dr. Judith Curry, the chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology.

“There is a very good correlation of sunspots and climate,” writes Professor Cliff Ollier of the School of Earth and Environmental Studies at the University of Western Australia. “Solar cycles provide a basis for prediction. Solar Cycle 24 has started and we can expect serious cooling. Many think that political decisions about climate are based on scientific predictions but what politicians get are projections based on computer models.”

Former Aussie PM: ‘Zealots’ believe in global warming as a ‘substitute religion’

http://dailycaller.com/20...e-religion/#ixzz2nSsFU5ip


Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard had some harsh words for global warming activists, saying they were “zealots” whose cause “has become a substitute religion.”

Howard added that the global warming issue should not allow public policy to become subservient to scientists, who are not experts at crafting laws or anticipating unintended consequences.

“Scientists are the experts in science, judges experts in interpreting the law and doctors skilled at keeping us healthy, provided we take their advice,” Howard said in a lecture at the Global Warming Policy Foundation. “But parliaments, composed of elected politicians, are the experts at policymaking and neither expressly or impliedly should they ever surrender that role to others.”

“You can never be absolutely certain that all the science is in,” he added.

Howard’s comments come after the United Nation’s climate bureaucracy released its most recent report on global warming. The report said it was 95 percent that global warming was manmade, but glossed over the fact that the planet has not warmed since 1998.

Reports also indicated that the Obama administration and several European governments actually pressured UN scientists to downplay the lack of warming or to even omit it all together.

“One has to question whether the [UN’s] approach represents in its totality pure, disinterested scientific enquiry. Because after all it was spawned by a political process,” Howard said.

Howard added that the fervor for action on global warming is dying out as contradictory evidence is casting doubt on previously held theories about mankind’s effect on the planet.

“The high tide of public support for over-zealous action on global warming has passed. My suspicion is that most people in countries like ours have settled into a state of sustained agnosticism on the issue,” Howard said.

“Of course the climate is changing. It always has,” he added. “There are mixed views not only about how sustained that warming is, seemingly it has not warmed for the last 15 years, and also the relative contributions of mankind and natural causes.”

Australia’s conservative Liberal-National Party won a landslide victory in the recent elections, in part due to its platform opposing the country’s unpopular tax on carbon dioxide emissions that was imposed in 2012 by the liberal Labor Party.

“Tony Abbott now has the great responsibility and honour of being prime minister of Australia because a little under four years ago he challenged what seemed to be a political consensus on global warming,” Howard said, adding that Abbott’s stance was “courageous.”

However, the former prime minister’s remarks were challenged by Amanda McKenzie, CEO of the Climate Council,

“Howard’s comments are out of step with 97% of climate scientists from around the world who have found through years of diligent research that climate change is a significant risk,” she said. “The earth continues to warm strongly posing serious economic, health and environmental risks for Australia.

Recently, Abbott engaged in a public debate over the causes of massive brush fires that swept New South Wales. Environmentalists, including failed U.S. presidential candidate Al Gore, attributed the fires to manmade global warming.

Abbott countered that there was no evidence that global warming caused the fires.

“Climate change is real and we should take strong action against it,” Abbott said in a radio interview. “But these fires are certainly not a function of climate change, they are just a function of life in Australia.”

Multiple lines of evidence suggest global cooling

http://dailycaller.com/20...al-cooling/#ixzz2nSsWdf7g

The consensus may be moving away from global warming and towards global cooling: Scientists have been looking at different lines of evidence suggesting that the globe is in the midst of a slight cooling trend for at least the last decade or so.

Whether it’s decreasing sunspots or natural climate variations, some scientists are revisiting older theories from the 1960s and 1970s that the Earth is actually cooling off — bucking the mainstream consensus that the burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet.

Here comes the sun

One line of evidence scientists look at for clues into global cooling is sunspot activity. Low sunspot activity has historically been linked with colder periods in human history such as the period known as the “Little Ice Age” during the 1600s. Higher levels of sunspot activity have been linked to warmer periods like the one from the 1970s to the late 1990s.

Solar activity is now falling faster than any other period in the last 10,000 years, and some researchers have suggested that the planet could cool off in the coming decades.

“By looking back at certain isotopes in ice cores, [Professor Mike Lockwood of Reading University] has been able to determine how active the sun has been over thousands of years,” the BBC reports. “Following analysis of the data, Professor Lockwood believes solar activity is now falling more rapidly than at any time in the last 10,000 years.”

“When we have had periods where the sun has been quieter than usual we tend to get these much harsher winters,” Sunderland University climate scientist Dennis Wheeler told the Daily Express.

This is not necessarily a new discovery, as scientists have been pointing to rapidly falling solar activity for some time now. Last year, Russian scientists said that the world could soon plunge into another Little Ice Age.

“After the maximum of solar cycle 24, from approximately 2014 we can expect the start of deep cooling with a Little Ice Age in 2055,” wrote Habibullo Abdussamatov of the Russian Academy of Science.

The U.K.’s Lockwood also told the BBC that falling sunspot activity raises the risk of entering a new Little Ice Age “from less than 10 percent just a few years ago to 25-30 percent.”

“So the warming we saw, which lasted only from 1978 to 1998, is something that is predictable and expectable,” said Don Easterbrook, professor emeritus of geology at Western Washington University. “When the ocean changed temperatures, global cooling is almost a slam dunk. You can expect to find about 25 to 30 years yet ahead of us before it starts to warm up again. It might even be more than that.”

The United Nation’s climate bureaucracy, however, downplayed the role of solar activity in influencing the Earth’s climate. A recent study from U.K. scientists found that “neither changes in the activity of the Sun, nor its impact in blocking cosmic rays, can be a significant contributor to global warming.”

Aussies buck environmentalists, fight to repeal global warming taxes

http://dailycaller.com/20...ming-taxes/#ixzz2nSsgH5id

Australia’s new conservative government introduced legislation that would eliminate the carbon tax and cut funding to green energy in a series of aggressive moves to scale back the country’s environmental laws.

“We have said what we mean, and will do what we say. The carbon tax goes,” Prime Minister Abbott told Australian lawmakers. “Repealing the carbon tax should be the first economic reform of this parliament.”

The Liberal-National Party swept seats in September’s election in large part due to their opposition to the left-wing Labor Party’s imposition of a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. The unpopular tax was blamed for rising power bills and hurting economic growth. Abbott has touted his party’s bill to repeal the carbon tax as “our bill to reduce your bills.”

However, this is only a portion of the Abbott government’s agenda. The carbon tax repeal plan will also cut $435 million in Australian dollars funding to the country’s renewable energy bureaucracy, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

The move was met with hostility from environmental groups who believe that funding cuts will cause the country to fall behind in the global marketplace.

“The axing of $435 million from ARENA will starve research and development of clean energy in Australia, moving us to the back of the global race for clean tech,” said Tony Mohr, a campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation.

The Abbott government also bucked the most recent round of United Nations climate negotiations in Warsaw, Poland as the Australia’s environment minister and foreign minister will not be attending the meetings. The environment minister, Greg Hunt, has said that repealing the carbon tax will consume all his efforts in the coming months.

“Minister Hunt indicated a month ago at the Sustainable Business Australia forum that he will be fully engaged in repealing the carbon tax during the first two weeks of parliament,” a spokesman for Hunt told the Guardian.

Furthermore, Australia’s conservative coalition is also reconsidering international climate funding. The fund asks developed countries to give developing nations $100 billion per year by 2020. Australia has already kicked in $500,000 last year and $600 million for a precursor to the UN’s Green Climate Fund.

“The Green Climate Fund is currently in the design phase and Australia will consider its longer term involvement in the fund once its design has been further progressed,” said a spokeswoman for the Aussie foreign minister, Julie Bishop.

While Australia’s actions to roll back the green agenda have environmentalists kicking and screaming, the country received praise from Canada’s ruling party — that country rejected a carbon tax in 2008.

“The Australian Prime Minister’s decision will be noticed around the world and sends an important message,” said Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Parliamentary Secretary Paul Calandra. “Our government knows that carbon taxes raise the price of everything, including gas, groceries, and electricity.”

“Greenhouse gas emissions are down since 2006, and we’ve created one million net new jobs since the recession and we have done this without penalizing Canadian families with a carbon tax,” Calandra added.

EPIC FAIL: UN climate talks fall apart as 132 countries storm out
http://dailycaller.com/20...-storm-out/#ixzz2nSsrXfcy

Poor countries pulled out of the United Nations climate talks during a fight over transferring wealth from richer countries to fight global warming.

The G77 and China bloc led 132 poor countries in a walk out during talks about “loss and damage” compensation for the consequences of global warming that countries cannot adapt to, like Typhoon Haiyan. The countries that left claim to have the support of other coalitions of poor nations, including the Least Developed Countries, the Alliance of Small Island States and the Africa Group.

Poor countries have demanded that the developed world give them $100 billion annually by 2020 to prepare for the impacts of global warming, such as heat waves and droughts. Brazil even put forward a proposal last week that would have made rich countries pay for historical greenhouse gas emissions.

“The US, EU, Australia and Norway remain blind to the climate reality that’s hitting us all, and poor people and countries much harder,” said Harjeet Singh, spokesperson for ActionAid International. “They continue to derail negotiations in Warsaw that can create a new system to deal with new types of loss and damage such as sea-level rise, loss of territory, biodiversity and other non-economic losses more systematically.”

Rich countries have so far resisted these proposals. Australia, Europe and the U.S. have all argued that the issue should be addressed in 2015, when the world is set to discuss a comprehensive climate agreement. Developed countries have also banded together to block attempts to create a whole new bureaucracy to handle climate “reparations” to poor countries.

“The EU understands that the issue is incredibly important for developing countries. But they should be careful about … creating a new institution. This is not [what] this process needs,” said Connie Hedegaard, European Union climate commissioner. “The whole financing discussion reflects that the developed world knows it has special responsibility. Most of what has been emitted has been done by us.”

U.S. diplomats were specifically instructed by the Obama administration to oppose any attempts to create an independent fund for climate reparations from rich countries to poor countries.

“A central issue will be whether loss and damage continues to fall within adaptation or whether it becomes a separate, third pillar (alongside adaption and mitigation), which we believe would lead the [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] to focus increasingly on blame and liability, which in turn would be counterproductive from the standpoint of public support for the convention,” reads a State Department memo.

Australian diplomats have also thrown a wrench into the negotiations, as poor countries and activists accused them of not taking the talks seriously. The country did not even send high-ranking officials to the UN summit, saying that they would be busy repealing the country’s contentious carbon tax.

“They wore T-shirts and gorged on snacks throughout the negotiation. That gives some indication of the manner they are behaving in,” said a spokeswoman for the Climate Action Network.

“The carbon tax is bad for the economy and it doesn’t do any good for the environment,” Prime Minister Tony Abbott told The Washington Post. “Despite a carbon tax of $37 a ton by 2020, Australia’s domestic emissions were going up, not down. The carbon tax was basically socialism masquerading as environmentalism, and that’s why it’s going to get abolished.”

Japan has also been seen as bucking the UN’s climate goals by allowing greenhouse gas emissions to grow by three percent. The Fukushima disaster shuttered the island nation’s nuclear power industry and dashed its hopes of lowering greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent below 1990s levels.

Aussie ship returns home after 3 weeks stuck in Antarctic summer ice
http://dailycaller.com/20...summer-ice/#ixzz2nSt5CMlx
Antarctic ice coverage proved to be too much for “Australia’s Antarctic Flagship.”

After three freezing weeks stuck in pack ice off the Antarctic coast, an Australian icebreaker ship was finally able to return home in early December.

The supply ship Aurora Australis departed from the Davis Research Center on the Antarctic Coast on November 12th, but the vessel soon became stuck on pack ice about 180 miles off the Antarctic coast, reports the blog Not A Lot of People Know That. The ship was originally due back in Hobart, Australia on November 16th, but the planned four day voyage was extended to three weeks.

The Aurora has been described as “Australia’s Antarctic Flagship” by the country’s antarctic division, and has the capability of smashing through ice 1.23 meters thick (over 4 feet thick). However, the ship was beset by a thick ice pack that extended 60 miles in every direction surrounding the vessel, according to aerial reconnaissance. The boat was hammered by water and wind temperatures of about -1.8 degrees Celsius.

The three week delay has caused the Australian Antarctic Division to cancel one of the Aurora’s planned resupply voyages to the Antarctic.

“To ensure the Antarctic season can progress with minimal disruption, we have combined the next two voyages into one extended voyage visiting Macquarie Island before continuing on to resupply Casey station,” said Australian Antarctic Division Director, Dr. Tony Fleming

“This will preserve the work plans of the majority of projects scheduled for the Australian Antarctic program for the current season,” Fleming added.

It’s also important to note that while November is generally the beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it is the beginning of summertime in Antarctica. Despite it being summer, the extent of the Antarctic ice sheet was “unusually high” in November, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

“While it is early winter in the Arctic, it is early summer in the Antarctic. Continuing patterns seen in recent years, Antarctic sea ice extent remains unusually high, near or above previous daily maximum values for each day in November,” reports the NSIDC.

“Sea ice extent averaged 17.16 million square kilometers (6.63 million square miles) for November,” the NSIDC notes. “The long-term 1981 to 2010 average extent for this month is 16.30 million square kilometers (6.29 million square miles).”

http://www.utsandiego.com...-palestine-jordan-israel/

Winter wonderland: More than 2,000 US cold and snowfall records set this week

http://dailycaller.com/20...-this-week/#ixzz2nStGyXkg
It’s getting chilly outside! In the past week, the U.S. has experienced more than 2,000 cold and snow records have been set in the past week, according to the National Weather Service and HamWeather records center.

In the past seven days there have been 606 record low temperatures, 1,234 low maximum temperatures and 285 record snowfalls across the country. This is compared to only “98 high temperature records and 141 high minimum temperature records” notes global warming skeptic blogger Anthony Watts.

While the U.S. Southeast was hit with most of the warmer winter weather, the rest of the country has been blasted by cold weather. National Weather Service data shows that the Mid-Atlantic region has been hit with record rainfall and the northeast has seen record snowfall as winter rears its ugly head.

West of the Mississippi River, states have been experience record low temperatures and record low maximum temperatures with some areas also being hit by record snowfall.

According to The Weather Channel, the eastern U.S. is in for more cold weather as “Winter Storm Electra” is right around the corner.

“Fresh off the recent pounding from Winter Storms Cleon and Dion, another round of nasty winter weather is poised to spread through the eastern third of the nation,” the weather forecasters predict. “The Weather Channel has named this system Winter Storm Electra.”

“Winter Storm Electra will kick into gear Friday and head for the Northeast this weekend, with more snow,” the Weather Channel notes. “Warnings, advisories and watches have been issued for the areas that will be affected by Electra.”

Meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are saying that this winter will be colder-than-average across “a small swath of the Northern Plains from northeast Montana into parts of the Dakotas and Minnesota,” reports The Weather Channel, adding that the rest of the country has an equal chance of cold or warm weather.

“A strong Polar vortex should generally confine the cold air to northern latitudes,” said Dr. Todd Crawford of Weather Services International. “This should allow much of the South to bask in a mild winter.”

just realized how this thread is so totally meant to be used with your cell phone or other touch screen device.

you just flick past all of dopps' bullpoop so lightning fast to get to the jokes. (frank) scroll wheels and poop.