C.I.A. Sharing Secret Spy Satellite Data With Climate Scientists

Secrecy cloaks the monitoring effort

NY Times | Jan 4, 2010

By WILLIAM J. BROAD

The nation’s top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government’s intelligence assets — including spy satellites and other classified sensors — to assess the hidden complexities of environmental change. They seek insights from natural phenomena like clouds and glaciers, deserts and tropical forests.

The collaboration restarts an effort the Bush administration shut down and has the strong backing of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In the last year, as part of the effort, the collaborators have scrutinized images of Arctic sea ice from reconnaissance satellites in an effort to distinguish things like summer melts from climate trends, and they have had images of the ice pack declassified to speed the scientific analysis.

The trove of images is “really useful,” said Norbert Untersteiner, a professor at the University of Washington who specializes in polar ice and is a member of the team of spies and scientists behind the effort.

Scientists, Dr. Untersteiner said, “have no way to send out 500 people” across the top of the world to match the intelligence gains, adding that the new understandings might one day result in ice forecasts.

“That will be very important economically and logistically,” Dr. Untersteiner said, arguing that Arctic thaws will open new fisheries and sea lanes for shipping and spur the hunt for undersea oil and gas worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

The monitoring program has little or no impact on regular intelligence gathering, federal officials said, but instead releases secret information already collected or takes advantage of opportunities to record environmental data when classified sensors are otherwise idle or passing over wilderness.

Secrecy cloaks the monitoring effort, as well as the nation’s intelligence work, because the United States wants to keep foes and potential enemies in the dark about the abilities of its spy satellites and other sensors. The images that the scientific group has had declassified, for instance, have had their sharpness reduced to hide the abilities of the reconnaissance satellites.

Controversy has often dogged the use of federal intelligence gear for environmental monitoring. In October, days after the C.I.A. opened a small unit to assess the security implications of climate change, Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, said the agency should be fighting terrorists, “not spying on sea lions.”

Now, with the intelligence world under fire after the attempted airliner bombing on Christmas Day, and with the monitoring program becoming more widely known, such criticism seems likely to grow.

A senior federal official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, defended the scientific monitoring as exploiting the intelligence field quite adroitly.

Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences and a member of the monitoring team, said the program was “basically free.”

“People who don’t know details are the ones who are complaining,” Dr. Cicerone said.

About 60 scientists — mainly from academia but including some from industry and federal agencies — run the effort’s scientific side. All have secret clearances. They obtain guidance from the National Academy of Sciences, an elite body that advises the federal government.

Dr. Cicerone said the monitoring effort offered an opportunity to gather environmental data that would otherwise be impossible to obtain, and to do so with the kind of regularity that can reveal the dynamics of environmental change.

“It’s probably silly to think it will last 50 years,” he said of the program in an interview. “On the other hand, there’s the potential for these collections to go on for a long time.”

The C.I.A. runs the program and arranges for the scientists to draw on federal surveillance equipment, including highly classified satellites of the National Reconnaissance Office.

Officials said the effort to restart the program originated on Capitol Hill in 2008 after former Vice President Al Gore argued for its importance with Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who was then a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee; she became its chairwoman in early 2009.

The Obama administration has said little about the effort publicly but has backed it internally, officials said. In November, the scientists met with Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director.

“Director Panetta believes it is crucial to examine the potential national security implications of phenomena such as desertification, rising sea levels and population shifts,” Paula Weiss, an agency spokeswoman, said.

The program resurrects a scientific group that from 1992 to 2001 advised the federal government on environmental surveillance. Known as Medea, for Measurements of Earth Data for Environmental Analysis, the group sought to discover if intelligence archives and assets could shed light on issues of environmental stewardship.

It is unclear why Medea died in the early days of the Bush administration, but President George W. Bush developed a reputation for opposing many kinds of environmental initiatives. Officials said the new body was taking on the same mandate and activities, as well as the name.

“I’m extremely pleased with what’s been happening,” said Michael B. McElroy, an atmospheric scientist at Harvard University and a senior member of the group. “It’s really first-rate.”

Among the program’s first responsibilities has been to assess earlier Medea projects to see which, if any, produced valuable information and might be restarted or expanded.

Dr. Untersteiner of the University of Washington said that in June the government posted some imagery results from that assessment on the Web sites of the United States Geological Survey in an area known as the Global Fiducials Library, which advertises itself as an archive of intelligence images from scientifically important sites.

Among other things, the online library displays years of ice imagery from six sites inside the Arctic Circle, including the Fram Strait, the main route for icebergs moving from the Arctic basin into the North Atlantic.

Scientists consider the Arctic highly sensitive to global warming and are particularly interested in closely monitoring its changes as possible harbingers.

In July, the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences released a report that praised the monitoring.

“There are no other data available that show the melting and freezing processes,” the report said. “Their release will have a major impact on understanding effects of climate change.”

Dr. Untersteiner said the federal government had already adopted one of the report’s recommendations — have reconnaissance satellites follow particular ice floes as they drift through the Arctic basin rather than just monitoring static sites.

For this summer, Dr. Untersteiner said he had asked that the intelligence agencies start the process sooner, “so we still see the snow cover, maybe in early May.”

Such research, Dr. Untersteiner said, promised to promote understanding of the fundamental forces at work in global climate change, including the endless whorls and gyres of polar ice.

“We still have a problem with ice mechanics,” he said. “But the dynamics are very revealing.”

Much of U.S. is cold and getting colder

CNN | Jan 5, 2010

By Jim Kavanagh

CNN iReporter Supriya Shridharan spotted this frozen fountain outside a senior living facility in Roswell, Georgia.

(CNN) — Another wave of Arctic air, colder than the current one, will plummet southward over the eastern two-thirds of the nation starting Wednesday, forecasters say.

Little Rock, Arkansas, could see an actual temperature of 10 degrees and wind chill of 20 below zero on Friday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

The high temperature will be in the 20s on Thursday and Friday in Dallas, Texas, where consecutive days that cold have not happened since 1998, the weather service said.

“What’s unusual about this is the length of the cold snap,” CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano said.

“Typically across the South you’ll get a two- to three-day cold snap, and then temperatures will moderate,” he said. “But we’re getting reinforcing shot after reinforcing shot, and that pattern doesn’t look like it wants to break down until at least next week.”

A homeless man was found frozen to death in Kansas City, Missouri, where the temperature was 1 degree Tuesday morning, and Salvation Army officials said they desperately need donations of hats, gloves and socks, CNN affiliate KCTV reported.

The temperature is not expected to rise above zero in Kansas City on Friday.

A winter storm watch is in effect for Kansas City, where 2 to 4 inches of snow and near-blizzard conditions will be possible on Wednesday afternoon, CNN meteorologist Sean Morris said. A winter storm watch has also been issued for Memphis, Tennessee, where 2 to 4 inches of snow will be possible from late Wednesday evening into Thursday morning.

A dusting of snow will be possible in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, Morris said.

At least four cold-related deaths have occurred in Tennessee. One was an 81-year-old Alzheimer’s patient who apparently wandered outside during the night wearing nothing but a bathrobe, police said. John Anderson’s body was found in his driveway Monday morning.

The Salvation Army shelter in Lubbock, Texas, is making room to let more people in out of the cold, CNN affiliate KCBD reported.

“In general the shelter is able to handle whatever comes up, so that part isn’t a problem,” Salvation Army Capt. Mike Morton told KCBD. “It’s just getting folks to come in, and for whatever reason, folks have an idea that they don’t want to come into the shelter. That’s their decision, but when it gets single digits it’s time to start seeking shelter.”

Shelters in Jackson, Mississippi, were reaching capacity, CNN affiliate WLBT reported.

“We’ve heard that emergency overflow shelters are going to open and maybe some of our usual people will go there. Now we have one couch and seven sleeping bags left,” Wilbert Logan, director of Billy Brumfield House, told WLBT.

New Jerusalem Church in Jackson was opening its doors to help the homeless.

“We had one of the gentlemen tonight who lives under the bridge. … He’s never been to a shelter, and he said, ‘You know, Miss Liza, my bones can’t handle it anymore,’ ” New Jerusalem Church spokesperson Eliza Garcia told WLBT.

The frigid air reaches all the way to central Florida, jeopardizing berry and citrus crops.

Hard freeze warnings were in effect Tuesday morning for much of northern Florida and parts of other Gulf Coast states, according to the National Weather Service.

“For Florida, they’re going to see the coldest stretch in 15 to 25 years,” Marciano said. “They get freezes like this, but they don’t get them for this length of time, and that’s the danger that will probably wear the farmers out.”

Florida citrus growers were relieved that Monday night wasn’t as cold as forecast, sparing their crops for at least one more day.

“We actually were a couple of degrees warmer last night, so we came through with no reports of damage at this point,” said Andrew Meadows, spokesman for Florida Citrus Mutual, a trade group representing about 8,000 growers.

Growers are spraying water on their trees to form a protective coating of ice, Meadows said. As long as temperatures don’t drop below 28 degrees for more than four hours, damage should be minimal, he said.

However, forecasters say colder air is on the way.

“Tonight’s going to be another anxious night,” Meadows said. “I’m sure a lot of growers will be pulling all-nighters.”

Charlotte County, Florida, planned to open a cold weather shelter Tuesday evening, CNN affiliate WINK reported. Other counties were taking similar steps.

Shoppers at clothing stores were were clearing racks of warm coats, CNN affiliate WKMG in Orlando, Florida, reported.

“There is nothing. We were at Target, Sears, JCPenney, all over. This is my last resort,” shopper Ann Marie Reyes told WKMG.

Burlington Coat Factory said its Orlando area stores are completely out of men’s gloves and have very few hats and gloves for kids.

Lows reached the teens Tuesday morning in parts of Alabama, according to the weather service. Record lows were expected in many areas across the South, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said.

The Weatherization Trust, a nonprofit group in Omaha, Nebraska, stepped in to help a family whose furnace quit in the midst of the freeze, CNN affiliate KETV reported.

Tracy O’Boyle and her family have been using an oven to stay warm, but the nonprofit group has procured a replacement furnace, to be installed by the end of the week, KETV reported.

“We’re just grateful we’re going to get the furnace in a few days,” O’Boyle told KETV. “We’ve already lasted more than a week without one and it’s been really cold.”

The temperature in Omaha was 14 below zero Tuesday morning.

Share your photos, video of winter weather near you

A large restaurant burned to the ground Monday in Indianapolis, Indiana. Firefighters’ efforts were hampered by frozen fire hydrants, CNN affiliate WRTV reported.

The northern Plains could see wind chills of 20 to 30 below zero through Wednesday, Myers said.

“Some locations could see temperatures 30 to 40 degrees below normal” on Thursday across parts of the Plains, upper Midwest and Ohio River Valley, Morris said. By Friday morning, afternoon highs will struggle to make it above zero, he said.

In Minneapolis, Minnesota, the temperature was minus 7 Tuesday morning. In Chicago, Illinois, it was 17, with a wind chill of 6. In Birmingham, Alabama, it was 20 degrees, but the wind made it feel like 8 degrees.

A winter storm warning for moderate to heavy snowfall was in effect into Tuesday afternoon in parts of northwestern Washington state, northern Idaho, Montana and northern Wyoming, the weather service said.

Moderate to heavy snowfall also is possible in much of North Dakota from Tuesday to Wednesday, the weather service said.

More snow and icy conditions as Britain faces ‘one of coldest winters in 100 years’

More snow and freezing conditions are causing travel chaos Photo: PA

Britain awoke to more snow and freezing conditions today causing further travel chaos and disruption as the country faces one of the coldest winters in 100 years.

Telegraph | Jan 5, 2010

By Murray Wardrop

With up to 4 ins of snow due to fall in parts of the country today, heavier deluges are predicted to hit many others later this week wreaking havoc on roads, railways and at airports.

MeteoGroup said up to 6ins (15cm) of snow could end up lying over “wide areas” by Friday, with the south experiencing “significant or even major difficulties to infrastructures, particularly transport”.

Temperatures fell as low as 14F (-10C) across southern England overnight, with no end in sight to the freezing weather.

Stephen Davenport, senior meteorologist at MeteoGroup, said: “This is stretching the limits of short to medium term forecasting but so entrenched is this cold-weather pattern that it seems only a major upheaval in the atmosphere will bring a return to something milder.

“Should conditions continue in a similar vein then by March we might just be looking back at one of the coldest winters of the last 100 years.”

He added: “There are more immediate concerns in the shape of a very snowy spell this week.

“Heavy snow showers or more widespread snow will continue to move across northern and eastern areas of Britain, bringing further accumulations of several centimetres in places and causing notable disruptions to transportation.

“And the highly-populated south is likely to see snow that will at times be widespread, persistent and severe enough to bring significant or even major difficulties to infrastructures, particularly transport.

Ten train services between London and Leeds on the East Coast Main Line were cancelled today.

Several London to Glasgow services on the line were also stopping at Edinburgh, with a number of others affected.

The line operator said it would be operating a revised timetable today due to the adverse weather conditions.

Budget airline easyJet cancelled a number of flights on its European network, including two between Luton and Milan.

The Highways Agency also said the A66 in Cumbria was closed in both directions between the junctions with A1 and A685. The closure is expected to last for several hours.

Manchester Airport said it had closed due to heavy snow and Liverpool Airport is also experiencing difficulties.

Passengers are being urged to check their flight status with the airline.

Glasgow Airport said it was open , but heavy snow and icy conditions across the Britain would result in delays and cancellations.

Travellers were also being advised to check with their airline.

Today a band of snow will move down from Scotland bringing showers to northern England, northern Wales and possibly Northern Ireland.

By midafternoon it will have reached the south east and by the evening there could be disruptive snowfall in the south, the south Midlands and south Wales.

The Met Office warned of heavy snow in the Scottish highlands, Wales, northern England and the Midlands.

Temperatures will barely top freezing during the day, with London set to be the warmest at 37F (3C). Manchester could possibly touch 34F (1C), Glasgow will hover around 32F (0C) and Cardiff 36F (2C).

Commuters suffered more disruption yesterday as they returned to work after the Christmas break, with thousands of schoolchildren enjoying an extra day off due to the weather.

Yesterday the AA was experiencing its busiest ever day, with the organisation on schedule to attend more than 25,000 breakdowns over the 24 hours.

The AA also warned that the roads were likely to be even busier today when worsening weather conditions combined with the return to school in many areas.

Grit stocks in England are holding up according to the Highways Agency, but Fife council in Scotland had to have several hundred tonnes of salt and grit delivered by the Scottish government after supplies ran low.

A Scottish Government spokesman said Fife Council received 250 tonnes of salt and grit yesterday following a delivery of 50 tonnes the day before.

Highland Council also said it had used 30,000 tonnes of salt over the past three weeks – more than the total it used during 2006/7.

The prolonged cold weather in Scotland has also led to a temporary ban on shooting certain bird species – the first time such a measure has been imposed in 13 years.

Yesterday, overrunning rail engineering works caused 60-minute rush hour delays to trains in and out of London’s Liverpool Street station.

And on London Underground there were part-suspensions on the District and Hammersmith and City lines due to signal failures.

Even the fountains in Trafalgar Square iced over in the sub-zero temperatures.

Elsewhere Merseyrail services were delayed by up to 30 minutes and rail passengers were hit by poor weather in Scotland which led to delays between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Buses replaced trains between Ormskirk and Preston and between Boston and Skegness in Lincolnshire, while a signalling problem near Dagenham Dock in Essex led to delays on services to and from Fenchurch Street station in London.

New Year freeze, avalanches leave trail of death across Europe

Fishing boats are stuck in ice in the northern German harbour town of Greetsiel. AFP

AFP | Jan 4, 2009

PARIS — A cold snap across Europe killed 13 people in Poland over the New Year as avalanches and skiiing accidents left at least 10 others dead in the Alps, police and rescuers said Monday.

As temperatures plunged to minus 25 degrees Celsius (minus 13 Fahrenheit) in Poland at the start of the year, the number of cold-related deaths rose to 122 so far this winter, police said.

Most victims were homeless men aged 35 to 50 who died of hypothermia while drunk, they said.

In the Swiss Alps avalanches killed at least five people with three others missing, emergency services and police said.

The first avalanche hit on Sunday in the central Bernese Alps, killing one skier. Emergency services were searching survivors from another avalanche that struck half an hour later.

Eight helicopters carrying doctors, rescuers and avalanche dogs were despatched to the disaster site and pulled out eight people alive.

Some of the survivors were in a critical condition and three died later in a hospital, including a doctor who had arrived to treat people following the first avalanche.

Rescuers also found the body of a hiker buried in the snow while three other people — two Swiss and a German — were reported missing, police said in a statement.

Emergency services were unable to restart the search on Monday amid the difficult weather conditions, said Theo Maurer of Switzerland’s mountain rescue services.

In western Switzerland’s canton of Valais, a mountain guide and his client were hit by an avalanche on Sunday, officials said.

The guide was able to get out alive but his client died, with the body found buried under 80 centimetres (32 inches) of snow.

Steady snowfall overnight and all day Monday led to several road accidents and caused rare delays in the Swiss public transport system.

A 32-year-old German tourist was killed in eastern Switzerland’s Ofen mountain pass, after her motor home collided head-on with a car that skidded on black ice, police said.

Several accidents were also reported on the busy motorway linking the cities of Lausanne and Geneva.

A metro line in Lausanne was disrupted for two hours on Monday while in Geneva, public buses were running with delays.

In western Austria rescue officials said they found the bodies of two German skiers, aged 18 and 19, who had fallen into a ravine.

Another avalanche hit mountains on France’s border with Italy on Friday, killing three people, French police said.

Western Europe is shivering through one of its coldest winters in decades with heavy snowfalls causing serious disruption to road, rail and air traffic over the Christmas and New Year holiday periods.

In southern France a number of high-speed trains were delayed for up to two and a half hours near Cavaillon and in the Lyon region, state railway operator SNCF said after France’s second city was blanketed by 10 centimetres (four inches) of snow.

At Lyon’s Saint-Exupery airport 13 flights were canceled.

The nearby Alpine city of Grenoble recorded 20 centimetres (eight inches) of snow, a figure unseen since November 2005, causing serious disruptions on roads.

French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand was in hospital overnight Sunday after skidding on black ice with his scooter, the ministry said, but he was expected to resume his work later Monday.

In Britain, some 60 revellers were stranded for three days at the Tan Hill Inn, England’s highest pub, standing 1,700 feet (518 metres) above sea level, in the northern Yorkshire Dales after snowstorms on New Year’s Eve.

A snowplough on Sunday finally broke through the more than two-metre (seven-foot) snow drifts, ending the revelry, dubbed Britain’s longest-running New Year’s Eve party by newspapers on Monday.

Vermont snowfall hits all-time historic record depth

Vermonters embrace record snowfall

CNN | Jan 4, 2010

By Edmund DeMarche

Paul Tamasi, owner of Angelina's Pizzeria in Cambridge, Vermont, uses a snow blower Sunday outside his eatery.

(CNN) — Chris Giard’s kids figured school was going to be closed. After all, a 40-year-old snowfall record was shattered over the weekend, as Burlington, Vermont, saw some 33.1 inches of snow — the greatest in its history.

Giard’s kids figured that would translate into no school Monday. And they knew just the man to lobby: Giard is the director of facilities for the Burlington School District, the man who makes the decision to close the school because of inclement weather.

But sadly, Giard’s children — and the rest of the 3,600 children in the district — were packed off to class Monday.

“The city did a great job cleaning the streets,” said Giard. “It’s Vermont in the winter; we’re going to get snow.”

Since last week, the National Weather Service had warned Vermonters of the storm poised to strike the Champlain Valley.

iReport: Pizzeria in Cambridge, Vermont, snowed under

It was forecast to arrive on Saturday morning, bringing eight to 14 inches of snow. But a low-pressure storm over Nova Scotia retrograded and moved west toward Maine and New Hampshire, bringing increased moisture, lowered temperatures and strengthened northern winds — all key ingredients for a lot of snow.

“When you consider all these elements, it’s not surprising we got hit with more snow than anticipated,” said Eric Evenson, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service in Burlington, which is perched on the shore of Lake Champlain. “But it wasn’t a heavy snow — it was pretty light and easy to manage.”

Vermonters, perhaps accustomed to cold temperatures, seem to have embraced the storm, and call the snow light, fluffy and beautiful.

Michael Townsend, executive editor at the Burlington Free Press newspaper, said the snowfall was more picturesque than treacherous. “It was gorgeous,” he said. “When I woke up, the snow was up to my waist in the front yard. There wasn’t a lot of wind. It was just pretty to look at.”

Eleven inches fell between 10 p.m. Saturday and 1 a.m. Sunday.

Charlie Yerrick, the director of skiing at the Trapp Family Lodge that sits just to the east of Burlington in Stowe, said for the third straight year, the snowfall has been ideal. “The more the merrier,” he said, while he caught his breath after shoveling at the resort.” I see the sun peeking out right now and I’m going to get my camera and take some pictures.”

Steve Goodkind, Burlington’s director of public works, said snow removal is an important function of the city’s government, which allocates $500,000 a year for removal of about 73 inches the city typically receives.

He said the weekend’s snowfall probably hurt the city’s budget since he was forced to more than double snow crews. What’s more, the snowfall occurred on a holiday weekend and lasted for two days.

“Was this the worst snowfall I’ve seen here?” asked Goodkind. “No. On Valentine’s Day, 2007, we were hit hard with a blizzard that had heavy snow. But this was definitely something.”

Goodkind has planned a “snow dump” for Monday night; trucks remove snow from city streets and dump it into a large former oil tank farm in the city.

Fletcher Allen Health Center, the area’s main hospital, has contingency plans in place in the event of a large snowfall, but was not forced to implement them, said spokesman Mike Noble, because the storm was slow-moving and happened on a holiday weekend when only a small number of patients were hospitalized.

Colder temperatures often assist in a snow’s fluff factor. The ratio varies, but in general, the colder the temperature, the less moisture is needed for higher amounts of snow. Colder temperatures in the teens can increase snow amounts by five inches, said Evenson.

“The low-pressure storm made the temperature drop,” said Evenson. “That’s why we had fluffy, pretty snow.”

Scott Whittier, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Burlington said, “We’ve endured snowfall like that before, but this was a substantial storm. It’s historic.”

Crude oil, natural gas stocks gain with record low temperatures across America and Asia

U.S. Indexes Up 1%; Record Low Temperatures

ticker.com | Jan 4, 2010

10:00 AM New York – U.S. stocks followed the gains in Europe and Asia. Two separate reports in China suggest a robust manufacturing expansion and India reported better than expected data. Crude oil and natural gas gained after record low temperatures in the U.S. and record snowfalls in China and Korea.

U.S. stocks head higher in the early trading after crude oil, natural gas and metals gain.

Freezing weather in the U.S. prompted a rise in futures of the crude oil and natural gas of more than 2%. Immediate month futures for crude oil increase to $80.35 a barrel and natural gas jumped more than 5% to $5.82 per mBtu.

Meteorologists are forecasting record low temperatures in Northern and Eastern regions of the U.S. for today and tomorrow. Heavy snow fall in China and South Korea grounded airplanes at airports in Beijing and Seoul.

Gold increased 1.3% to 1,111.25 per ounce and Copper increased to $7,487 a ton in London trading.

A private estimate of manufacturing industry in China and India showed a faster than expected increases in December. The purchasing managers’ index after adjusting for seasonal swings increased to 56.1, the highest read since the tracking began in April 2004 by HSBC Holdings and Markit Economics.

The official measure release by China on January 1 indicated that manufacturing expanded at the fastest pace since February 2008.

Record low temperatures down to minus 39F hit Iowa

Subzero temperatures have been the norm across the state.

Radio Iowa | Jan 4, 2010

Iowans are returning to school and work after a holiday weekend of sub-zero temperatures. Meteorologist Miles Schumacher, at the National Weather Service, says several low temperature records were broken over the weekend, including Atlantic with 29-below this morning, though other places were even more frigid.

Schumacher says, “The coldest that we saw was in the Spencer-Estherville area on Saturday morning with temperatures dropping as low as 37-below and that was within a degree of the coldest in the whole United States.”

A wind chill advisory is in effect for much of Iowa this morning, as some areas are in the 30s and 40s below zero.

Schumacher says there likely won’t be any warming up this week across Iowa as highs are expected in the single digits and teens.

Subtle changes are taking place in the weather pattern but he says there may be some warmer air arriving late this weekend or early next week. Schumacher says there is also a chance for some snow in parts of Iowa this week, likely Wednesday into Thursday. He says it should generally only bring between one to four inches across the state, but the big concern is the strong winds behind the system that could blow the fluffy snow and create hazardous driving conditions. It follows two large snowstorms last month, the snowiest December on record for Iowa. Some areas of the state still have more than 24-inches of snow on the ground.

Weather Service meteorologist Rick Chermok from the Valley, Nebraska, office predicts up to six inches of snow will fall with the system moving into the midwest from Canada. Light powdery snow is predicted again, but with the wind, near blizzard conditions could be seen.

His advice is for travelers to make their trek before Tuesday night because of blowing snow and dangerously cold wind chills. Chermok says the temperatures are flirting with breaking records. Normal highs are around 30 with normal lows around 10, so we’re looking at a good 25-30 degrees below normal.

The meteorologist says he feels that if we’re going to have cold weather, it may as well be record breaking…but feels it’s “starting to get old.” He says we can look forward to next week’s temperatures in the 20s and perhaps we’ll see a day or two in the 30s.

Heavy snows and record low temperatures caused by global warming, claim Chinese government officials

Extreme weather linked to climate change, say Chinese

The Age | Jan 5, 2010

by JOHN GARNAUT, BEIJING

FREAK snowstorms and record low temperatures sweeping northern China are linked to global warming, say Chinese officials.

But this week’s dump appears to have no link to the Chinese Government’s relentless efforts to manipulate the weather, which have prompted decades of experiments designed to modify the micro-climate.

Beijing’s first attempt at weather modification involved a fighter-bomber dumping 200 kilograms of dry ice or common kitchen salt – depending on the source – into the clouds to break a drought in 1958, following an edict from Mao Zedong.

Today, China has about 2000 weather modification offices, which bomb the skies with silver iodide to induce rain.

No officials have claimed credit for inducing or amplifying the snow dump, in contrast to November 1, when Beijing recorded its earliest winter snowfall in 22 years.

The Beijing Weather Modification Office later admitted that it had fired 186 rockets into the air to break the drought.

The office also claimed some credit for turning oppressive smog into a brilliant blue sky just in time for China’s National Day military parade on October 1.

And it blasted the sky with 1104 rockets to keep the rain at bay for 2008’s Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.

The Southern Weekend newspaper reported that the program had previously been halted in 1980, after a decade in which 169 people were killed and 410 injured due to unspecified weather manipulation-related accidents.

Beijing winters are normally cold but arid, with only a a light dusting of snow. On Sunday, the city experienced up to 33 centimetres of snow, its biggest dump since 1951, immediately followed by the harshest Siberian winds in decades.

Yesterday more than 2 million Beijing and Tianjin students received the day off school because traffic had been thrown into chaos.

Tomorrow morning the mercury is forecast to plunge to minus 16 – a 40-year low – following a daytime maximum of minus 8.

The head of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, Guo Hu, linked this week’s blizzard-like conditions to unusual atmospheric patterns caused by global warming.

Russia’s far-eastern island of Sakhalin has also been paralysed by five days of blizzards and avalanches, cutting off links to the mainland and burying a train, along with three railway workers, under snow drifts three metres deep.

Blizzards hit the island off the eastern coast of Siberia on New Year’s Eve, when an avalanche forced a diesel locomotive and snowplough off their tracks, and continued on Friday, when three workers sent to repair the damage were swept up, according to the Russian state news service RIA Novosti.

It’s not just Britain shivering as record snow hits China and South Korea

Police stand guard at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Temperatures are expected to fall to -18C in the Chinese capital by tomorrow night. Photograph: Joe Chan/Reuters

guardian.co.uk | Jan 4, 2010

by Tania Branigan in Beijing, Sam Jones and agencies

British commuters may have shivered, cursed and slid as they headed back to work after the Christmas break today, but the UK has been spared the worst of the cold weather that is gripping much of the northern hemisphere, bringing freezing temperatures and record snowfalls to parts of north Asia, Europe and the US.

The punishing winter weather has brought transport chaos to China and South Korea and claimed at least 60 lives in northern and eastern India.

Reports suggest that the states of Punjab, Bihar, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have borne the brunt of the freezing temperatures in India. “We are looking into the deaths and in the meantime have asked local authorities to arrange bonfires in the evening for the homeless,” said a government official in Bihar, who added that all schools had been closed.

A heavy blanket of fog in New Delhi forced airport authorities to cancel or delay dozens of flights from the capital and train services were also disrupted.

In China more than 2.2 million pupils in Beijing and nearby Tianjin enjoyed a day off as officials took the rare step of closing thousands of schools. Temperatures in the Chinese capital are expected to fall to –18C on Tuesday night, with predictions they could reach –32C in the northernmost parts of the country by Wednesday morning.

In Beijing authorities mobilised more than 300,000 people to clear the streets after Sunday’s blizzard dumped 8cm (3in)of snow – the most in the capital in a single day in January since 1951.

The city’s normally bustling shopping districts were empty. “It’s been a real pain,” said He Wenhua, 19, from the south-western city of Chengdu. “I’m here on holiday and I can’t get to any of the main sights.”

Changping, near the Great Wall, saw more than 20cm of snow, according to China’s National Meteorological Centre.

A wholesale market in Beijing told state media the prices of several vegetables had risen by 10% to 50% because of transport problems. There were also concerns that the weather could destroy crops and cause other economic damage.

But Yi Xianrong, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told Reuters there would be no significant damage. “This won’t have any impact. It’s too small and local,” he said. “In fact, all the snow could be a positive thing for agriculture in northern China, which is usually so dry … the melted snow will help feed crops in spring.”

Officials will also be concerned about the strain the cold weather will place on China’s gas and oil supplies. There have been gas shortages in the last two months as demand has risen in the unusually cold weather. More snow is expected this week.

In Seoul a blizzard dumped more than 25cm of snow today – the heaviest snowfall since Korea began conducting meteorological surveys in 1937, the state weather agency said.

In Switzerland police said three people were still missing after two successive avalanches hit the Bernese Oberland.

They declined to give the victims’ nationalities, saying only that three people had died in the first avalanche, while the doctor sent to help them had become engulfed by the second and had died later in hospital. Eight people were rescued, some seriously injured.

The US is also experiencing an unusually chilly winter, with cold and windy weather along the east coast and record low temperatures in southern states such as Georgia, Alabama and Florida.

Northern China Braces for Lowest Temperatures in Half a Century

Bloomberg | Jan 5, 2010

Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) — Temperatures in northern China may fall to the lowest in half a century today as the Chinese capital recovers from the heaviest snowfall in almost six decades.

Beijing temperatures are forecast to drop to as low as minus 16 degrees Celsius (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit) tonight, according to the China Meteorological Administration. Northern China may have 50-year low temperatures today, China Central Television reported yesterday.

The Chinese capital was hit by the heaviest daily snowfall since 1951 on Jan. 3, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Premier Wen Jiabao called on local authorities that same day to ensure food supplies, agricultural production and the safety of transportation, Xinhua reported.

Beijing Capital International Airport had reopened all of its three runways by 12 p.m. local time yesterday, the China National Radio reported. The airport canceled more than 500 flights, CCTV reported. Fifteen highways in northern China remained closed as of 4 p.m. yesterday because of snow, according to the Ministry of Transportation.

Elementary and middle schools in the Chinese capital and the neighboring city of Tianjin were also shut because of snow and low temperatures, the city governments said.

A train from Hohhot, Inner Mongolia’s capital, to Tongliao city resumed operation at 5:53 p.m. yesterday after being stuck for 21 hours on the railway because of snow, the National Radio said.

Parts of Hunan and Jiangxi province may be hit by heavy snow today, according to the weather bureau. The provinces of Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Liaoning, Hunan and Jiangxi may have snow tomorrow, the administration said.

Beijing is forecast to be sunny today and tomorrow, according to the China Meteorological Administration.

Suburban areas of the Chinese capital received more than 33 centimeters (13 inches) of snow on Jan. 3, the Beijing Daily reported. Tianjin got as much as 20 centimeters of snow, CCTV reported.