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Arctic temperatures at 44,000-year high due to greenhouse gases

The average summer temperatures in the eastern Canadian Arctic are the highest they have been in any previous century in the past 44,000 years — and perhaps the highest in 120,000 years — reflecting what scientists call an unprecedented warming of the region due to climate change, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder. “This study really says the warming we are seeing is outside any kind of known natural variability, and it has to be due to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” Gifford Miller, a study leader, said in a joint statement from the school and the publisher of the journal Geophysical Researcher Letters , which published the findings this week. The study, according to the statement, is the first direct evidence that the present warmth in the Canadian Arctic exceeds the peak warmth there when Earth’s last glacial period ended about 11,700 […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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If New York Freezes in January Blame Siberian Snow Now

Snow falling over Siberia is raising the prospect for frigid temperatures in New York come January. The weather half a world from Central Park can set off atmospheric events that result in icy air descending from the North Pole in December and January, driving U.S. temperatures down and natural gas and heating oil use up, according to Judah Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at Atmosphere & Environmental Research in Lexington, Massachusetts . “It’s the best winter predictor that we have,” Cohen said in a telephone interview. “We haven’t made a forecast yet, but we’re watching it closely and the snow cover has definitely been above normal so far.” The more ground covered by snow across northern Europe and Asia at the end of October, the greater the chances of triggering a phenomenon known as the negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation . That would flood North America, Europe and […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Australian Wildfires Damage Asciano’s Rail Network – Update

By Rhiannon Hoyle SYDNEY–Rail and port operator Asciano Ltd. (AIO.AU) said wildfires raging across eastern Australia had damaged its rail network there, disrupting its coal-haulage operations even as it forecast an improvement in full-year profits. A spokesman for the company said Friday that one of Asciano’s rail lines–which transports coal from the Blue Mountains west of Sydney to the coast, largely for export to Asia–closed on Oct. 18 as fires broke out in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state. The line should be back up-and-running next week, he said. “The recent bush fires have caused extensive damage on the Western line in southern southeast Australia and will impact volumes hauled in October,” Asciano said in a stock exchange filing. Asciano hauls coal across New South Wales state, including from several big mines in the Hunter Valley, to export facilities like the Port of Newcastle, the world’s largest coal […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Australian Wildfires Damage Asciano's Rail Network – Update

By Rhiannon Hoyle SYDNEY–Rail and port operator Asciano Ltd. (AIO.AU) said wildfires raging across eastern Australia had damaged its rail network there, disrupting its coal-haulage operations even as it forecast an improvement in full-year profits. A spokesman for the company said Friday that one of Asciano’s rail lines–which transports coal from the Blue Mountains west of Sydney to the coast, largely for export to Asia–closed on Oct. 18 as fires broke out in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state. The line should be back up-and-running next week, he said. “The recent bush fires have caused extensive damage on the Western line in southern southeast Australia and will impact volumes hauled in October,” Asciano said in a stock exchange filing. Asciano hauls coal across New South Wales state, including from several big mines in the Hunter Valley, to export facilities like the Port of Newcastle, the world’s largest coal […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Australia, U.N. spar over wildfires and climate change

OSLO (Reuters) – Australia’s prime minister accused the U.N.’s climate change chief on Wednesday of "talking through her hat" when she drew a link between wildfires raging in his country and global warming. Firefighters were battling about 60 fires burning across New South Wales state, with strong winds fanning blazes in the Blue Mountains, a major commuter area of small towns west of Sydney. Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N.’s Bonn-based Climate Change Secretariat, told CNN earlier this week that there was "absolutely" a link between climate change and wildfires. She hinted at a possibility of linking the Australian fires to global warming, saying: "The World Meteorological Organization has not established a direct link between this wildfire and climate change yet." Conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott rejected any suggestion that the blazes in Australia were the product of rising carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels such as […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple