City hit by extreme -45 degrees Celsius temperature in north China
January 25, 2012 — Inner Mongolia, China (Reuters)
Temperatures in the city of Genhe, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, north China, reached minus 45 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, the lowest temperature since beginning of the new year.
The year’s winter is predicted to be an extremely cold one, even in the previously warm south of China. Climate change is forcing cold fronts further south every year. Before long, the street will be full of down coats. Winter in South China is becoming long and cold, and heating becomes an urgent concern. Previously, when winter temperatures in southern cities mostly stayed above zero degrees and there was little snow, people could make do with electric heaters.
But the snowstorms and sudden freezes that plagued the South in 2008 showed people that winter there is no longer that easy to cope with. Maybe it’s time for central heating to become standard in the South. But most cities are not prepared for it yet. The distribution of heating is reportedly based on the Qinling – Longhai railway line. The southern side of the line is not provided with heating, because the average temperature is below 5 C for, on average, less than 90 days a year.
The winter is short there, so it costs too much to distribute the heating properly. Besides, coal resources are limited. Therefore, the heating problem of the South has been suspended time and again.
BEIJING: More than 4,000 vehicles and 8,000 people remained stranded Friday as ice blocked a section of the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao freeway caused by a severe cold that swept across southern China, a media report said.
The temperatures dipped to minus three degrees Celsius Wednesday, bringing the traffic to a halt as ice covered the sections of the freeway in Shaoguan county of Guangdong province, China Daily reports.
On Thursday, the temperatures dipped further to minus five degrees Censius, prompting the traffic police to declare an emergency.
The situation worsed Friday as the ice crust got thicker by over five centimeters due to the accumulated snow from the past three days. Meanwhile, police have closed some of the entrances to the freeway.
SHANGHAI (AP) — Communities in central and northern China are facing power cuts and rationing as winter coal supplies fall short of surging demand.
Cold weather and transport disruptions typically cause shortages most years, but the problem has been complicated by coal producers’ unhappiness over price controls that are crimping their profits.
[Snip]
China depends on coal for more than three-quarters of its electricity and also to fuel centralized winter heating systems in northern cities. Spates of unusually cold weather often strain supplies, with power rationing not uncommon.
[Snip]
Meanwhile, unusually dry weather is also hitting hydroelectricity plants, with water levels on average 10 percent below normal.
At China’s Three Gorges dam, the world’s biggest hydroelectric dam, the water flow was 26 percent below normal, the State Grid reports said.
If it’s less than -52 C, it’s too cold for the kids to go to school. The guide left a couple of bananas out at night and in the morning they were frozen solid. He used one to hammer a nail into a piece of wood.
More here:-
Welcome to the Coldest Town on Earth: Scientific American
VietNamNet Bridge – Damaging cold temperatures has hit Sapa town, a famous tourist destination in northern Vietnam earlier than usual, killing many cattle. The weather in Sapa is usually colder than other regions in Vietnam but this year cold weather came early and unexpectedly. The temperature in Sapa began falling on October 25, standing at over 16oC. It dropped to 13.8oC on October 27 and suddenly dropped to 10.2oC on October 28. Local residents have had to drive their cattle to lower areas to avoid the cold spell. As many buffaloes froze to death, buffalo meat is sold for very cheap along the road to Sapa. Ly A Chau and his wife sell buffalo meat at 50,000 dong a kilo. Chau said his family has a mother buffalo and an 8-month-old calf. The calf unexpectedly died of cold weather. He is selling its meat in order to earn some money to recover his investment in the mother buffalo. According to the Lao Cai Hydro-meteorological Forecast Centre, this unexpected cold spell will last for several days. The cold will harm crops and cattle. Forecasters also said that the temperature in northern Vietnam will drop. The temperature in Hanoi will be only 16-18oC in the next few days.
Dependence on borrowed research has cost us, says Jairam Ramesh
He stressed the need to develop Indian research, rather than relying on global scientific data and analysis. “This dependence on borrowed data, borrowed models, borrowed research has cost us politically,” he said, noting that all impact assessments published in India have used a single climate model developed by the United Kingdom’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research. Developing Indian capabilities would mean building human resources, especially the number of doctoral and post-doctoral researchers in this area.
Blindly accepting Western science’s prognosis could have social and economic costs for India, said Mr. Ramesh, pointing to flawed Western research on the Himalayan glaciers as well as on methane emissions from agriculture. “Climate science today is not just a scientific enterprise, but also a political enterprise,” he reminded the scientists. Among his aims, he said, is hosting an international conference on climate science in India and publishing a globally recognised academic journal on climate science.
India’s Environment Minister has blocked the construction of mines, power plants and dams. He’s held up a new airport and describes diesel cars as criminal. He’s even taken Harry Potter to task for promoting threatened owls as pets.
Just 18 months into the job, Jairam Ramesh has turned a once-marginal Environment Ministry into a powerful gatekeeper on India’s road to prosperity.
He’s been called an eco-crusader, a “Dr No” of development and even a buffoon, angering so many investors and politicians that there are constant rumours of his impending dismissal. But his tenacity has fuelled an environmental debate that many say is long overdue.
After two decades of unbridled development, India risks becoming a victim of its own success. It is now the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, with rivers the World Bank has described as fetid sewers and cities among the world’s most polluted.
“Many people in India, particularly the elitist classes, still think ‘grow now, clean later’. We cannot repeat the mistakes of other countries,” Ramesh said.
“I’m no eco-evangelist, but are we serious about implementing our environmental laws or not?”
The US-educated technocrat-turned-politician insists his job, adversarial by nature, is to help correct India’s development course by enforcing long-ignored environmental laws.
US is using climate finance to kill the Indian solar panel industry: CSE
Chandra Bhushan CSE’s deputy director general said “Fast start financing is a US $30 billion fund set up under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The fund adopted at the Copenhagen climate meeting in 2009, is supposed to help developing countries deal with climate change impacts and limit greenhouse gas emissions.”
He said, “The US has been very ingeniously using this fund to promote its own solar manufacturing. The US Exim Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) have been offering low-interest loans to Indian solar project developers on the mandatory condition that they buy the equipment, solar panels and cells from US companies. This has distorted the market completely in favour of US companies.”
Vague legal definitions may allow Indonesia to class forests as ‘degraded’ and ‘rehabilitate’ the land with palm trees and biofuel crops
Indonesia plans to class large areas of its remaining natural forests as “degraded” land in order to cut them down and receive nearly $1bn of climate aid for replanting them with palm trees and biofuel crops, according to Greenpeace International.
According to internal government documents from the forestry, agriculture and energy departments in Jakarta, the areas of land earmarked for industrial plantation expansion in the next 20 years include 37m ha of existing natural forest – 50% of the country’s orangutan habitat and 80% of its carbon-rich peatland. More than 60m ha – an area nearly five times the size of England – could be converted to palm oil and biofuel production in the next 20 years, say the papers.
“The land is roughly equivalent to all the currently undeveloped land in Indonesia,” says the report. “The government plans for a trebling of pulp and paper production by 2015 and a doubling of palm oil production by 2020.”
The result, says the environmental group in a report released in Jakarta today, would be to massively expand Indonesia’s palm, paper and biofuel industries in the name of “rehabilitating” land, while at the same time allowing its powerful forestry industry to carry on business as usual and to collect international carbon funds.
“[Money] earmarked for forest protection may actually be used to subsidise their destruction with significant climate, wildlife and social costs,” said the report.
The report comes at a critical time in global climate talks, due to resume next week in Cancun, Mexico. Forestry and peatland contribute nearly 18% of all global carbon emissions and Indonesia is negotiating a model $1bn forestry deal with Norway and the US. This could save millions of tonnes of climate emissions in return for Indonesia agreeing to a moratorium on future forest and peatland clearances.
But weak legal definitions of “forest” and “degraded land”, have allowed the global logging industry and officials in some governments to take advantage of an ambitious UN forest-reform scheme known as Redd (Reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation). This would pay countries to replant trees and restore land. Indonesia has pledged drastic action to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26% on its own and 42% with international climate aid. If it agrees to a binding deal to limit deforestation, says Greenpeace, this would send a powerful message to other forested countries.
“A strong deal to prevent the destruction of natural forests and peatlands would put the troubled climate talks back on track. But if international money intended to support the protection of forests and peatland is allowed to enable their destruction, any confidence in the UN talks is expected to dissolve,” said a Greenpeace spokeswoman.
The Indonesian and Norwegian governments last night declined to respond until they had seen the report.
North Korea has been hit by the longest cold spell in six decades, raising concerns about this year’s grain production, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper reports.
Temperatures stayed below zero degrees Celsius for 40 consecutive days from December 24, a phenomenon only surpassed by a 62-day streak in 1945, the Tokyo-based Chosun Sinbo said on Tuesday.
The average temperature during the period was 3.1 degrees Celsius lower than last year, it said, and citizens could walk across the frozen Taedong river which bisects Pyongyang.
It quoted North Korean meteorologist Ryu Ki-Yol as saying the chill had frozen soil up to 42 centimetres below the surface, 10cm deeper than last year, causing farmers to worry about crop production this year………….continues
India should bring out more studies on climate-change: Ramesh
PTI | 06:06 PM,Jun 08,2011
Ahmedabad, Jun 8 (PTI) While underlining the need for India to carry out more scientific studies on climate change independently, Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh today alleged that western scientists have more politics and less science on their mind. Speaking after the release of �Discussion paper on Snow and Glaciers of Himalays� prepared by Space Application Centre (SAC), a part of ISRO, Ramesh said here, “There is no alternative to our science, as science is politics in climate change”. “We should have more and more studies by our scientists on climate change and they should be published,” Ramesh said adding, “Or else, we will be led by our noses by western scientists, who has less science on their mind and more politics,” Ramesh said addressing the scientific community here. Ramesh made these statements referring to the controversy over report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), led by R K Pachauri, which said that Himalayan glaciers will melt in next few years. “At that time (when IPCC had declared that Himalayan glaciers will melt fast) also, I had said three points: most Himalayan glaciers are retreating, some are advancing and rate of retreat glaciers is also slowing,” Ramesh said. “Now, this study-paper prepared by the SAC says 75 per cent of Himalayan glaciers are retreating, eight per cent are advancing and 17 per cent are stable,” Ramesh said.
Indian study shows climate change is probably caused by natural factors
In January, India’s Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, said: “There is a groupthink in climate science today. Anyone who raises alternative climate theories is immediately branded a climate atheist in an atmosphere of climate evangelists.
“Climate science is incredibly more complex than negotiators make it out to be . . . Climate science should not be driven by the West. We should not always be dependent on outside reports.”
Indian newspaper The Hindu commented: “A key belief of climate science theology – that a reduction in carbon emissions will take care of the bulk of global warming – has been questioned in a scientific paper released by the Environment Ministry.”
Ramesh made his comments in response to a scientific study released by respected Indian physicist Dr UR Rao, a former chairperson of the Indian Space Research Organisation.
[…]
The report brought out by Rao says that human-induced global warming is much less than is claimed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and that, in fact, most of the observed temperature fluctuations could be attributed to cosmic rays, in particular Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs)………
The thrust of the article gets derailed when it gets to “sullied at home by governance, efficiency and even environmental problems”.
What? “environmental problems”? Surely not? The SMH can’t cope with that.
But the Chinese are not blind to what the SMH relegates to “a contemporary internal Communist Party dynamic”:-
Mr Zhang, whose father was secretary to China’s former premier Zhou Enlai, blasted Chinese policy makers for encouraging Chinese companies to buy foreign intellectual property in order to manufacture vast quantities of renewable energy equipment.
The Chinese-made equipment helps the environment in other nations while leaving China with only financial and environmental costs, he said.
”Lots of solar panels are made in China and the pollution is left in China but they are used overseas,” Mr Zhang said. ”The low-carbon economy, carbon politics and carbon taxes are actually driven by the West as the foundation for a new cycle of the virtual economy.”
Who are the environmentalists here? Looks like the “Chinese sceptics” to me.
2009 Scientific Consensus : El Nino To Become Permanent
Posted on October 30, 2011 by Steven Goddard
4. El Niño Becomes Permanent
If El Niño–a periodic disruption of the ocean and atmosphere in the tropical Pacific–becomes the average state of the region’s climate as global warming progresses, widespread shifts in precipitation patterns (above, homes slide into the sea during El Niño storms in Pacifica, California) will ensue, said a majority of scientists who responded to a climate survey released on March 16, 2009.
Such changes could bring increased drought to Southeast Asia and the Amazon Basin, experts say.
Likewise, the South American coast would likely be heavily slammed with increased floods and changes in the marine food web, which could hurt many fisheries, the study said.
NEW DELHI, 22 DEC: Respite from severe cold wave conditions eluded most parts of northern and eastern regions today as 24 more people succumbed to the extreme weather, taking the nationwide death toll to 114.
The biting cold claimed 13 lives in Uttar Pradesh, eight in West Bengal’s Malda, two in Punjab and one in Haryana as fog blanketed several parts of the region disrupting rail and road traffic.
40-day Harshest Winter Period ‘Chillai Kalan` Begins in Kashmir
Srinagar: The harshest 40-day winter period “Chillai Kalan` begins today amid intensive cold wave that griped the Kashmir valley earlier than the scheduled season.
[…]
Other main towns of the Valley are also experiencing an unusually cold winter as the night temperature has stayed below the freezing point for most of December. Frozen taps have become a common sight in the Valley as a thin layer of ice forms over water bodies due to freezing temperatures during the nights.
Electricity supply has also reduced due to the cold wave as the glacial discharge in the rivers, which fuels power generation projects, has decreased, resulting in unscheduled load shedding for long hours becoming a daily affair.
The early setting in of the cold wave has raised concerns among the residents that Chillai Kalan will be even harsher.
SRINAGAR: Indian Kashmir’s chief minister on Tuesday condemned the shooting dead of a protester by soldiers as “inexcusable” as he moved to prevent a return of deadly civil unrest to the disputed region.
An 18-year-old student was killed and another person was injured by paramilitary soldiers at a demonstration on Monday against power cuts that have caused fierce resentment during freezing winter weather.
[…]
Protests over electricity – a highly political issue in Kashmir – have erupted in recent days following blackouts because of power-generation problems.
Temperatures of minus 14 degrees Celsius have led lakes to freeze and rivers to run lower than usual, causing difficulties for the hydroelectric projects that provide 70 percent of local power.
They can spin it every which way, does not dare hide the finding that the world’s greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade.
The work comes from a survey all the world’s icecaps and glaciers, made possible by the use of satellite data. Overall. And from this, it has been found that the contribution of melting ice outside the two largest caps – Greenland and Antarctica – is much less then previously estimated. Furthermore, the lack of ice loss in the Himalayas and the other high peaks of Asia responsible for most of the discrepancy.
Kyrgyzstan: Harsh Winter Triggers Mass Livestock Deaths | EurasiaNet.org
The hard winter proved inconvenient for city dwellers, and catastrophic for livestock in the highlands. Over 7,500 animals starved to death in Chon-Alai district this winter, according to an official count. Throughout Kyrgyzstan, close to 25,000 animals are thought to have perished due to the prolonged winter. Because cold weather set in early, herders quickly went through their feed for livestock, and heavy snowfall meant that fresh supplies couldn’t reach the region. In areas like Chon-Alai, where the sale and purchase of livestock drives the local economy, the losses have been devastating.
“We have never seen such a winter,” said a villager in Daroot-Korgon, some four bumpy hours’ drive – when the road is clear – from Osh, Kyrgyzstan’s southern capital. “Some people say the winter was bad like this in 1968,” the villager added, going over the deaths for the district: 717 cows, 281 yaks, 328 horses, and 6,202 sheep.
As devastating as the flooding in Kyushu is, it is not unprecedented as all the alarmist sites seem to think, and in fact main-scream-media is promoting.
The number of dead or missing as a result of natural disasters, from the end of World War K to late 1950’s exceeded 1,000 almost every year because of successive big typhoons and earthquakes. Notable among the statistics makers was the Ise-wan typhoon of 1959, which caused the greatest flood damage recorded since the War, with over 5,000 dead or missing. http://www.mlit.go.jp/river/basic_info/english/land.html
So far, the alarmist sites are simply putting up videos and pictures of the flood-ravaged southern island and leaving it to their readers’ avid imaginations to draw the conclusion that this is obviously climate change at work. I can find no editorial to show empirical evidence of increased storm activity, duration or intensity over multi-decadal timescales.
Even this paper, linking climate change to increasing disasters, is weak on substance and big on sweeping generalisations. “As mentioned earlier, the Kyushu region is increasingly confronted with torrential rain exceeding 1,000 mm. Does the tendency in the increase in disaster spread northwards as the climate in Japan becomes more subtropical?”
As bad as this is (Japan Today reports 400,000 evacuees, which is worse than last year’s tsunami), it is probably a 1-in-100-year event. You get that, every now and then. Probably about every 100 years.
This comment after the Japan Today article is interesting: “For me, the rains here are similar to what we used to get on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand” http://www.japantoday.com/member/view/nzsnowman
The BBC (sic!) reports that Sherpas are fed up with alarmist reports and insensitive research work on glacial lakes near Everest (they want more Sherpa involvement and maybe a bigger cut of the dough…)
Great quote:
President of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, Zimba Zangbu Sherpa, said: “The situation has become such that many Sherpas in the region do not even want to hear the words ‘climate change’ these days.”
Down to -50C: Russians freeze to death as strongest-in-decades winter hits
Russia is enduring its harshest winter in over 70 years, with temperatures plunging as low as -50 degrees Celsius. Dozens of people have already died, and almost 150 have been hospitalized.
The country has not witnessed such a long cold spell since 1938, meteorologists said, with temperatures 10 to 15 degrees lower than the seasonal norm all over Russia.
Across the country, 45 people have died due to the cold, and 266 have been taken to hospitals. In total, 542 people were injured due to the freezing temperatures, RIA Novosti reported.
The Moscow region saw temperatures of -17 to -18 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, and the record cold temperatures are expected to linger for at least three more days. Thermometers in Siberia touched -50 degrees Celsius, which is also abnormal for December.
Delhi: Coldest day in 44 years, maximum temp 9.7 degree Celsius
In Uttar Pradesh, the death toll continued to mount, with 15 more people succumbing to the chill in various parts of the state.
Officials said four people died in Muzaffarnagar which remained the coldest place with 0.6 degree Celsius, followed by three in Mathura, two each in Agra, Bulandshahr, Etah and one each in Barabanki and Mirzapur.
With this, the death toll in the state this winter has reached to 107.
China’s Coldest Winter in 28 Years Hurts Wheat Crop, Center Says
The coldest winter in 28 years in China, the world’s largest wheat producer, may hamper the developing winter crop, according the official China National Grain and Oils Information Center.
Southern China will be hit by a new cold front this week, with temperatures dropping to as low as minus 5 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) on Jan. 11 and 12, the China Meteorological Administration said in a statement today. Guizhou and Hunan provinces may experience snowstorms, it said.
Widespread snowfall and lower temperatures since Jan. 2 have affected crops in southern growing regions and along the Huai River, CNGOIC said in an e-mailed report, without giving an estimate on crop damage. Winter wheat usually accounts for about 90 percent of the country’s output, according to Ma Wenfeng, a grains analyst at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant Ltd.
“So far the general growing condition in the winter-wheat areas remains good and snowfalls are usually beneficial for wheat,” Masaid by phone today. “But a drought coupled with low temperatures will hamper growth.”
Two people died and 770,000 people have been affected by record-low temperatures and snow in Inner Mongolia in northern China, Xinhua said yesterday, citing the local government. More than 260,000 people are in need of emergency aid and about 180,000 head of livestock have died, according to the report.
Wheat futures traded in Zhengzhou gained 0.8 percent to 2,592 yuan ($416) a metric ton at 2:24 p.m. in Shanghai, and jumped 13 percent in 2012. The grain in Chicago rose 0.8 percent to $7.53 a bushel after climbing 19 percent last year.
“Last year China by and large had a pretty good wheat harvest as we estimated output of 117 million tons,” Ma said, adding that government data showed a record 120 million tons.
China will produce 120.6 million tons in the 2012-2013 season, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated in December.
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Jan. 9 (UPI) — Bangladesh has recorded its lowest temperatures in nearly 60 years, an unexpected result of global warming, scientists said.
In the capital of Dhaka and elsewhere in the country the temperature dropped to 37.7 degrees F Wednesday, the lowest temperature in the last 57 years,
[…]
Experts are blaming the cold temperatures on more intense cold fronts resulting from global warming melting polar ice.
“Extreme events are on the rise throughout the world and they will continue to increase further due to global warming,” said Aninun Nishat, an environment specialist.
“We’re part of the world. So, we’re also feeling here the pinch of the global warming.”
‘China may become top wheat importer after crops ruined’
(Reuters) – China’s wheat crop has suffered more severely than previously thought from frost in the growing period and rain during the harvest, and import demand to compensate for the damage could see the country eclipse Egypt as the world’s top buyer.
I watched a TV doco ‘Riding The Grain Train’ which was part of a 20,000 tonne wheat shipment from Victoria to New Zealand. In 2011 NZ imported 561,000 tonnes in total (2012, 425,000, 1972/76/77, 0):
“In Japan, the absence of nuclear power has forced utilities to turn to conventional fossil fuels. Tokyo Electric Power, the operator of the wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi atomic plant, almost doubled coal consumption in July after turning to coal- fired plants to meet customer needs.”
The cold weather has claimed another victim after a 68-year-old man was found dead in his home in Buriram province.
Police believe the man had died from the sudden drop in temperature, which reached 13 degrees Celsius on December 19 in many areas of the province.
Uttaradit provincial authorities earlier reported that two people have been killed by the cold weather. Local officials said residents have been struggling to cope with winter temperatures, which dropped to 9 degrees Celsius. Two elderly locals who have been suffering from asthma attacks died as a result of the sudden heat drop.
[…]
The government has so far declared 65 provinces as disaster zones. The Government is now handing out free warm clothing and winter blankets to chilly residents, and any province which has more than three consecutive days of sub 15C temperatures can apply for emergency funding.
‘Cold snap hits east Asia, blamed for more than 65 deaths’
Tuesday Jan 26, 2016 – NZ Herald/AP
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) ” Unusually cold weather in eastern Asia has been blamed for more than 65 deaths, disrupted transportation and brought the first snow to a subtropical city in southern China in almost 50 years. Here is a look at the worst cold weather to hit the region in years:
TAIWAN
Temperatures in Taiwan’s capital of Taipei plunged to a 16-year low of 4 degrees Celsius (39 Fahrenheit), killing 57 mostly elderly people, according to government officials. The semi-official Focus Taiwan news website reported that 85 people had died because of the cold.
Most homes in subtropical Taiwan lack central heating, and the cold caused heart trouble and breathing problems for many of the victims, a city official said. Normally, temperatures in Taipei hover around 16 degrees C (60 degrees F) in January, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau.
The cold snap was blamed in the deaths of 40 people in the capital, Taipei, and 17 in neighboring New Taipei City. The cold front also left 9 centimeters (3.5 inches) of snow on Taipei’s highest peak.
MAINLAND CHINA
Most parts of mainland China experienced their coldest weather in decades over the weekend. The southern city of Guangzhou, which has a humid subtropical climate, saw snow for the first time since 1967 on Sunday.
The cold led to the deaths of four strawberry farmers who died of carbon monoxide poisoning when they turned up the heat in a greenhouse in Anhui province in the east, the Xinhua News Agency reported. A woman died in the southwest after the railings on her 24th-floor balcony broke as she leaned over to look at the first snow in Chongqing in 20 years, sending her plummeting.
The cold spell coincided with the beginning of the 40-day travel rush for the Lunar New Year, which is on Feb. 8 this year, disrupting cars, flights and trains. More than 11,000 passengers were stranded at Kunming airport in southern Yunnan province.
Temperatures fell 8 to 16 degrees Celsius from Thursday to Sunday in parts of north China, and temperatures in central and eastern China were 6 to 8 degrees lower than average, Xinhua said.
The National Meteorological Bureau forecast that temperatures in southern China would drop another 3-8 degrees on Monday.
JAPAN
Heavy snow in western and central Japan left five people dead over the weekend and possibly a sixth on Monday.
Kyodo News service said the victims included a woman who fell from a roof while removing snow, a man in a weather-related traffic accident, another man found under a snowplow and a couple that fell into an irrigation channel, apparently while removing snow.
An 88-year-old woman in western Japan’s Tottori prefecture died after a landslide hit her house before dawn on Monday, Kyodo and other media reported.
The heavy snow stranded motorists, delayed bullet train service and caused flight cancellations.
SOUTH KOREA
Temperatures in the capital, Seoul, fell to minus 18 degrees Celsius on Sunday, the lowest since 2001. On Saturday, Jeju Island received 12 centimeters (4.7 inches) of snow, the heaviest since 1984, and its airport was closed from Saturday until Monday.
The shutdown stranded about 86,000 people, mostly tourists, on the island and forced the cancellations of about 1,100 flights, according to Transport Ministry and airport officials.
Climate change in China’s five-year plan
Kold in Kazakhstan
Extreme cold triggers livestock disaster in Mongolia – UN
Mongolia Cold – Google Search
City hit by extreme -45 degrees Celsius temperature in north China
January 25, 2012 — Inner Mongolia, China (Reuters)
Temperatures in the city of Genhe, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, north China, reached minus 45 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, the lowest temperature since beginning of the new year.
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=city_hit_by_extreme_45_degr_250112
-45 C “extreme”? The ‘dzud’ was -50 C February 2010. See: ‘Extreme cold triggers livestock disaster in Mongolia – UN’
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33645&Cr=fao&Cr1=
China cold front moves south; record low in Beijing
Chinese Freeze Before Gov’t Turns on the Heat
Freezing times south of the heating border
* Source: Global Times
* [08:44 November 01 2010]
The year’s winter is predicted to be an extremely cold one, even in the previously warm south of China. Climate change is forcing cold fronts further south every year. Before long, the street will be full of down coats. Winter in South China is becoming long and cold, and heating becomes an urgent concern. Previously, when winter temperatures in southern cities mostly stayed above zero degrees and there was little snow, people could make do with electric heaters.
But the snowstorms and sudden freezes that plagued the South in 2008 showed people that winter there is no longer that easy to cope with. Maybe it’s time for central heating to become standard in the South. But most cities are not prepared for it yet. The distribution of heating is reportedly based on the Qinling – Longhai railway line. The southern side of the line is not provided with heating, because the average temperature is below 5 C for, on average, less than 90 days a year.
The winter is short there, so it costs too much to distribute the heating properly. Besides, coal resources are limited. Therefore, the heating problem of the South has been suspended time and again.
Ice blocks 4,000 vehicles on China freeway
First Published : 18 Dec 2010 12:16:47 AM IST – IANS
BEIJING: More than 4,000 vehicles and 8,000 people remained stranded Friday as ice blocked a section of the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao freeway caused by a severe cold that swept across southern China, a media report said.
The temperatures dipped to minus three degrees Celsius Wednesday, bringing the traffic to a halt as ice covered the sections of the freeway in Shaoguan county of Guangdong province, China Daily reports.
On Thursday, the temperatures dipped further to minus five degrees Censius, prompting the traffic police to declare an emergency.
The situation worsed Friday as the ice crust got thicker by over five centimeters due to the accumulated snow from the past three days. Meanwhile, police have closed some of the entrances to the freeway.
Chinese endure power shortages as coal runs short
AP Business, Monday December 20, 2010, 9:17 am EST – Yahoo News
SHANGHAI (AP) — Communities in central and northern China are facing power cuts and rationing as winter coal supplies fall short of surging demand.
Cold weather and transport disruptions typically cause shortages most years, but the problem has been complicated by coal producers’ unhappiness over price controls that are crimping their profits.
[Snip]
China depends on coal for more than three-quarters of its electricity and also to fuel centralized winter heating systems in northern cities. Spates of unusually cold weather often strain supplies, with power rationing not uncommon.
[Snip]
Meanwhile, unusually dry weather is also hitting hydroelectricity plants, with water levels on average 10 percent below normal.
At China’s Three Gorges dam, the world’s biggest hydroelectric dam, the water flow was 26 percent below normal, the State Grid reports said.
[Snip]
Cold Periods Caused Population Crashes in China Over the Past Millenium
Lee, H.F. and Zhang, D.D. 2010. Changes in climate and secular population cycles in China, 1000 CE to 1911. Climate Research 42: 235-246.
Siberia: Coldest Place On Earth – Google Search
-50 degrees Celcius!
Did anyone see this 60 Minutes doco?
Chilling Out
It’s not Antarctica or even the top of Mount Everest. It’s actually a tiny village in central Siberia.
In Oymiakon, it’s so cold your eyelashes freeze together and you’re constantly on guard against frostbite.
If it’s warmer than minus 55 degrees Celsius, then it’s a good day.
http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8443420
If it’s less than -52 C, it’s too cold for the kids to go to school. The guide left a couple of bananas out at night and in the morning they were frozen solid. He used one to hammer a nail into a piece of wood.
More here:-
Welcome to the Coldest Town on Earth: Scientific American
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=oymyakon-the-coldest-town
Oymyakon – Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oymyakon
Mongolia: How the winter of ‘white death’ devastated nomads’ way of life
Cold weather in Hanoi, buffaloes freeze to death in Sapa
Last update 30/10/2010 08:00:00 AM (GMT+7)
VietNamNet Bridge – Damaging cold temperatures has hit Sapa town, a famous tourist destination in northern Vietnam earlier than usual, killing many cattle. The weather in Sapa is usually colder than other regions in Vietnam but this year cold weather came early and unexpectedly. The temperature in Sapa began falling on October 25, standing at over 16oC. It dropped to 13.8oC on October 27 and suddenly dropped to 10.2oC on October 28. Local residents have had to drive their cattle to lower areas to avoid the cold spell. As many buffaloes froze to death, buffalo meat is sold for very cheap along the road to Sapa. Ly A Chau and his wife sell buffalo meat at 50,000 dong a kilo. Chau said his family has a mother buffalo and an 8-month-old calf. The calf unexpectedly died of cold weather. He is selling its meat in order to earn some money to recover his investment in the mother buffalo. According to the Lao Cai Hydro-meteorological Forecast Centre, this unexpected cold spell will last for several days. The cold will harm crops and cattle. Forecasters also said that the temperature in northern Vietnam will drop. The temperature in Hanoi will be only 16-18oC in the next few days.
NEW DELHI, November 18, 2010
Dependence on borrowed research has cost us, says Jairam Ramesh
He stressed the need to develop Indian research, rather than relying on global scientific data and analysis. “This dependence on borrowed data, borrowed models, borrowed research has cost us politically,” he said, noting that all impact assessments published in India have used a single climate model developed by the United Kingdom’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research. Developing Indian capabilities would mean building human resources, especially the number of doctoral and post-doctoral researchers in this area.
Blindly accepting Western science’s prognosis could have social and economic costs for India, said Mr. Ramesh, pointing to flawed Western research on the Himalayan glaciers as well as on methane emissions from agriculture. “Climate science today is not just a scientific enterprise, but also a political enterprise,” he reminded the scientists. Among his aims, he said, is hosting an international conference on climate science in India and publishing a globally recognised academic journal on climate science.
India’s ‘Dr No’ battles for eco-friendliness
5:30 AM Saturday Dec 18, 2010 – NZH
India’s Environment Minister has blocked the construction of mines, power plants and dams. He’s held up a new airport and describes diesel cars as criminal. He’s even taken Harry Potter to task for promoting threatened owls as pets.
Just 18 months into the job, Jairam Ramesh has turned a once-marginal Environment Ministry into a powerful gatekeeper on India’s road to prosperity.
He’s been called an eco-crusader, a “Dr No” of development and even a buffoon, angering so many investors and politicians that there are constant rumours of his impending dismissal. But his tenacity has fuelled an environmental debate that many say is long overdue.
After two decades of unbridled development, India risks becoming a victim of its own success. It is now the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, with rivers the World Bank has described as fetid sewers and cities among the world’s most polluted.
“Many people in India, particularly the elitist classes, still think ‘grow now, clean later’. We cannot repeat the mistakes of other countries,” Ramesh said.
“I’m no eco-evangelist, but are we serious about implementing our environmental laws or not?”
The US-educated technocrat-turned-politician insists his job, adversarial by nature, is to help correct India’s development course by enforcing long-ignored environmental laws.
US is using climate finance to kill the Indian solar panel industry: CSE
Chandra Bhushan CSE’s deputy director general said “Fast start financing is a US $30 billion fund set up under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The fund adopted at the Copenhagen climate meeting in 2009, is supposed to help developing countries deal with climate change impacts and limit greenhouse gas emissions.”
He said, “The US has been very ingeniously using this fund to promote its own solar manufacturing. The US Exim Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) have been offering low-interest loans to Indian solar project developers on the mandatory condition that they buy the equipment, solar panels and cells from US companies. This has distorted the market completely in favour of US companies.”
>>>>>>>
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/US-is-using-climate-finance-to-kill-the-Indian-solar-panel-industry-CSE/articleshow/15560445.cms
Indonesia eyeing $1bn climate aid to cut down forests, says Greenpeace
The Guardian, Tuesday 23 November 2010
Vague legal definitions may allow Indonesia to class forests as ‘degraded’ and ‘rehabilitate’ the land with palm trees and biofuel crops
Indonesia plans to class large areas of its remaining natural forests as “degraded” land in order to cut them down and receive nearly $1bn of climate aid for replanting them with palm trees and biofuel crops, according to Greenpeace International.
According to internal government documents from the forestry, agriculture and energy departments in Jakarta, the areas of land earmarked for industrial plantation expansion in the next 20 years include 37m ha of existing natural forest – 50% of the country’s orangutan habitat and 80% of its carbon-rich peatland. More than 60m ha – an area nearly five times the size of England – could be converted to palm oil and biofuel production in the next 20 years, say the papers.
“The land is roughly equivalent to all the currently undeveloped land in Indonesia,” says the report. “The government plans for a trebling of pulp and paper production by 2015 and a doubling of palm oil production by 2020.”
The result, says the environmental group in a report released in Jakarta today, would be to massively expand Indonesia’s palm, paper and biofuel industries in the name of “rehabilitating” land, while at the same time allowing its powerful forestry industry to carry on business as usual and to collect international carbon funds.
“[Money] earmarked for forest protection may actually be used to subsidise their destruction with significant climate, wildlife and social costs,” said the report.
The report comes at a critical time in global climate talks, due to resume next week in Cancun, Mexico. Forestry and peatland contribute nearly 18% of all global carbon emissions and Indonesia is negotiating a model $1bn forestry deal with Norway and the US. This could save millions of tonnes of climate emissions in return for Indonesia agreeing to a moratorium on future forest and peatland clearances.
But weak legal definitions of “forest” and “degraded land”, have allowed the global logging industry and officials in some governments to take advantage of an ambitious UN forest-reform scheme known as Redd (Reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation). This would pay countries to replant trees and restore land. Indonesia has pledged drastic action to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26% on its own and 42% with international climate aid. If it agrees to a binding deal to limit deforestation, says Greenpeace, this would send a powerful message to other forested countries.
“A strong deal to prevent the destruction of natural forests and peatlands would put the troubled climate talks back on track. But if international money intended to support the protection of forests and peatland is allowed to enable their destruction, any confidence in the UN talks is expected to dissolve,” said a Greenpeace spokeswoman.
The Indonesian and Norwegian governments last night declined to respond until they had seen the report.
Icy winds sweep across north-west India
United News of India
Chandigarh/New Delhi, December 10, 2010
Icy winds swept across northwest India which shivered under severe cold conditions and witnessing foggy mornings and low mercury levels today.
Across many areas in the region, the night temperature was at a record low.
Continues……………
http://netindian.in/news/2010/12/10/0009119/icy-winds-sweep-across-north-west-india
China has seen the future, and it is coal
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/29/AR2010122902899.html
Indian deaths due to cold, and still the alarmists don’t get the idea. Warm good, cold bad. Cheap energy good, tax on energy bad.
Temperatures stay below zero degrees for 40 consecutive days in North Korea
February 2, 2011 – 7:06AM – smh
North Korea has been hit by the longest cold spell in six decades, raising concerns about this year’s grain production, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper reports.
Temperatures stayed below zero degrees Celsius for 40 consecutive days from December 24, a phenomenon only surpassed by a 62-day streak in 1945, the Tokyo-based Chosun Sinbo said on Tuesday.
The average temperature during the period was 3.1 degrees Celsius lower than last year, it said, and citizens could walk across the frozen Taedong river which bisects Pyongyang.
It quoted North Korean meteorologist Ryu Ki-Yol as saying the chill had frozen soil up to 42 centimetres below the surface, 10cm deeper than last year, causing farmers to worry about crop production this year………….continues
India should bring out more studies on climate-change: Ramesh
PTI | 06:06 PM,Jun 08,2011
Ahmedabad, Jun 8 (PTI) While underlining the need for India to carry out more scientific studies on climate change independently, Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh today alleged that western scientists have more politics and less science on their mind. Speaking after the release of �Discussion paper on Snow and Glaciers of Himalays� prepared by Space Application Centre (SAC), a part of ISRO, Ramesh said here, “There is no alternative to our science, as science is politics in climate change”. “We should have more and more studies by our scientists on climate change and they should be published,” Ramesh said adding, “Or else, we will be led by our noses by western scientists, who has less science on their mind and more politics,” Ramesh said addressing the scientific community here. Ramesh made these statements referring to the controversy over report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), led by R K Pachauri, which said that Himalayan glaciers will melt in next few years. “At that time (when IPCC had declared that Himalayan glaciers will melt fast) also, I had said three points: most Himalayan glaciers are retreating, some are advancing and rate of retreat glaciers is also slowing,” Ramesh said. “Now, this study-paper prepared by the SAC says 75 per cent of Himalayan glaciers are retreating, eight per cent are advancing and 17 per cent are stable,” Ramesh said.
http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/india-should-bring-out-more-studies-on-climatechange-ramesh/719134.html
Indian study shows climate change is probably caused by natural factors
In January, India’s Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, said: “There is a groupthink in climate science today. Anyone who raises alternative climate theories is immediately branded a climate atheist in an atmosphere of climate evangelists.
“Climate science is incredibly more complex than negotiators make it out to be . . . Climate science should not be driven by the West. We should not always be dependent on outside reports.”
Indian newspaper The Hindu commented: “A key belief of climate science theology – that a reduction in carbon emissions will take care of the bulk of global warming – has been questioned in a scientific paper released by the Environment Ministry.”
Ramesh made his comments in response to a scientific study released by respected Indian physicist Dr UR Rao, a former chairperson of the Indian Space Research Organisation.
[…]
The report brought out by Rao says that human-induced global warming is much less than is claimed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and that, in fact, most of the observed temperature fluctuations could be attributed to cosmic rays, in particular Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs)………
http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/indian-study-shows-climate-change-is-probably-caused-by-natural-factors-2011-07-29
Chinese sceptics see Global Warming as a US conspiracy
http://www.smh.com.au/world/chinese-sceptics-see-global-warming-as-us-conspiracy-20111007-1ldl1.html
The thrust of the article gets derailed when it gets to “sullied at home by governance, efficiency and even environmental problems”.
What? “environmental problems”? Surely not? The SMH can’t cope with that.
But the Chinese are not blind to what the SMH relegates to “a contemporary internal Communist Party dynamic”:-
Who are the environmentalists here? Looks like the “Chinese sceptics” to me.
2009 Scientific Consensus : El Nino To Become Permanent
Posted on October 30, 2011 by Steven Goddard
ENSO has been negative continuously since May, 2010 – and has been negative for 38 out of the last 52 months.
Cold wave unabated; toll climbs to 114
22 December 2011
Press Trust of India
NEW DELHI, 22 DEC: Respite from severe cold wave conditions eluded most parts of northern and eastern regions today as 24 more people succumbed to the extreme weather, taking the nationwide death toll to 114.
The biting cold claimed 13 lives in Uttar Pradesh, eight in West Bengal’s Malda, two in Punjab and one in Haryana as fog blanketed several parts of the region disrupting rail and road traffic.
>>>>>>>>
http://thesop.org/story/20111222/40day-harshest-winter-period-chillai-kalan-begins-in-kashmir.html
40-day Harshest Winter Period ‘Chillai Kalan` Begins in Kashmir
Srinagar: The harshest 40-day winter period “Chillai Kalan` begins today amid intensive cold wave that griped the Kashmir valley earlier than the scheduled season.
[…]
Other main towns of the Valley are also experiencing an unusually cold winter as the night temperature has stayed below the freezing point for most of December. Frozen taps have become a common sight in the Valley as a thin layer of ice forms over water bodies due to freezing temperatures during the nights.
Electricity supply has also reduced due to the cold wave as the glacial discharge in the rivers, which fuels power generation projects, has decreased, resulting in unscheduled load shedding for long hours becoming a daily affair.
The early setting in of the cold wave has raised concerns among the residents that Chillai Kalan will be even harsher.
>>>>>>>>>
http://thesop.org/story/20111222/40day-harshest-winter-period-chillai-kalan-begins-in-kashmir.html
Indian Kashmir chief furious over protester death
SRINAGAR: Indian Kashmir’s chief minister on Tuesday condemned the shooting dead of a protester by soldiers as “inexcusable” as he moved to prevent a return of deadly civil unrest to the disputed region.
An 18-year-old student was killed and another person was injured by paramilitary soldiers at a demonstration on Monday against power cuts that have caused fierce resentment during freezing winter weather.
[…]
Protests over electricity – a highly political issue in Kashmir – have erupted in recent days following blackouts because of power-generation problems.
Temperatures of minus 14 degrees Celsius have led lakes to freeze and rivers to run lower than usual, causing difficulties for the hydroelectric projects that provide 70 percent of local power.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/315940/indian-kashmir-chief-furious-over-protester-death/
Glaciergate no more
They can spin it every which way, does not dare hide the finding that the world’s greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade.
The work comes from a survey all the world’s icecaps and glaciers, made possible by the use of satellite data. Overall. And from this, it has been found that the contribution of melting ice outside the two largest caps – Greenland and Antarctica – is much less then previously estimated. Furthermore, the lack of ice loss in the Himalayas and the other high peaks of Asia responsible for most of the discrepancy.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/glaciergate-no-more.html
Kyrgyzstan: Harsh Winter Triggers Mass Livestock Deaths | EurasiaNet.org
The hard winter proved inconvenient for city dwellers, and catastrophic for livestock in the highlands. Over 7,500 animals starved to death in Chon-Alai district this winter, according to an official count. Throughout Kyrgyzstan, close to 25,000 animals are thought to have perished due to the prolonged winter. Because cold weather set in early, herders quickly went through their feed for livestock, and heavy snowfall meant that fresh supplies couldn’t reach the region. In areas like Chon-Alai, where the sale and purchase of livestock drives the local economy, the losses have been devastating.
“We have never seen such a winter,” said a villager in Daroot-Korgon, some four bumpy hours’ drive – when the road is clear – from Osh, Kyrgyzstan’s southern capital. “Some people say the winter was bad like this in 1968,” the villager added, going over the deaths for the district: 717 cows, 281 yaks, 328 horses, and 6,202 sheep.
http://tomnelson.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/winter-that-wasn-update-from-kyrgyzstan.html
Japan Floods – Is this climate change? Have we passed a tipping point? Should we be waking up to the idea that we have a global crisis on our hands?
As devastating as the flooding in Kyushu is, it is not unprecedented as all the alarmist sites seem to think, and in fact main-scream-media is promoting.
So far, the alarmist sites are simply putting up videos and pictures of the flood-ravaged southern island and leaving it to their readers’ avid imaginations to draw the conclusion that this is obviously climate change at work. I can find no editorial to show empirical evidence of increased storm activity, duration or intensity over multi-decadal timescales.
e.g.: http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/the-new-normal-part-6-250000-evacuated-in-japan-due-to-heavy-rains-scores-dead/
Even this paper, linking climate change to increasing disasters, is weak on substance and big on sweeping generalisations. “As mentioned earlier, the Kyushu region is increasingly confronted with torrential rain exceeding 1,000 mm. Does the tendency in the increase in disaster spread northwards as the climate in Japan becomes more subtropical?”
As bad as this is (Japan Today reports 400,000 evacuees, which is worse than last year’s tsunami), it is probably a 1-in-100-year event. You get that, every now and then. Probably about every 100 years.
This comment after the Japan Today article is interesting: “For me, the rains here are similar to what we used to get on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand” http://www.japantoday.com/member/view/nzsnowman
The BBC (sic!) reports that Sherpas are fed up with alarmist reports and insensitive research work on glacial lakes near Everest (they want more Sherpa involvement and maybe a bigger cut of the dough…)
Great quote:
President of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, Zimba Zangbu Sherpa, said: “The situation has become such that many Sherpas in the region do not even want to hear the words ‘climate change’ these days.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19569256
Down to -50C: Russians freeze to death as strongest-in-decades winter hits
Russia is enduring its harshest winter in over 70 years, with temperatures plunging as low as -50 degrees Celsius. Dozens of people have already died, and almost 150 have been hospitalized.
The country has not witnessed such a long cold spell since 1938, meteorologists said, with temperatures 10 to 15 degrees lower than the seasonal norm all over Russia.
Across the country, 45 people have died due to the cold, and 266 have been taken to hospitals. In total, 542 people were injured due to the freezing temperatures, RIA Novosti reported.
The Moscow region saw temperatures of -17 to -18 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, and the record cold temperatures are expected to linger for at least three more days. Thermometers in Siberia touched -50 degrees Celsius, which is also abnormal for December.
http://rt.com/news/russia-freeze-cold-temperature-379/
Free the carbon! Warm good. Cold bad.
Delhi: Coldest day in 44 years, maximum temp 9.7 degree Celsius
In Uttar Pradesh, the death toll continued to mount, with 15 more people succumbing to the chill in various parts of the state.
Officials said four people died in Muzaffarnagar which remained the coldest place with 0.6 degree Celsius, followed by three in Mathura, two each in Agra, Bulandshahr, Etah and one each in Barabanki and Mirzapur.
With this, the death toll in the state this winter has reached to 107.
>>>>>>>>
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/delhi-coldest-day-in-44-years-maximum-temp-97-degree-celsius/313518-3.html
China’s Coldest Winter in 28 Years Hurts Wheat Crop, Center Says
The coldest winter in 28 years in China, the world’s largest wheat producer, may hamper the developing winter crop, according the official China National Grain and Oils Information Center.
Southern China will be hit by a new cold front this week, with temperatures dropping to as low as minus 5 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) on Jan. 11 and 12, the China Meteorological Administration said in a statement today. Guizhou and Hunan provinces may experience snowstorms, it said.
Widespread snowfall and lower temperatures since Jan. 2 have affected crops in southern growing regions and along the Huai River, CNGOIC said in an e-mailed report, without giving an estimate on crop damage. Winter wheat usually accounts for about 90 percent of the country’s output, according to Ma Wenfeng, a grains analyst at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant Ltd.
“So far the general growing condition in the winter-wheat areas remains good and snowfalls are usually beneficial for wheat,” Masaid by phone today. “But a drought coupled with low temperatures will hamper growth.”
Two people died and 770,000 people have been affected by record-low temperatures and snow in Inner Mongolia in northern China, Xinhua said yesterday, citing the local government. More than 260,000 people are in need of emergency aid and about 180,000 head of livestock have died, according to the report.
Wheat futures traded in Zhengzhou gained 0.8 percent to 2,592 yuan ($416) a metric ton at 2:24 p.m. in Shanghai, and jumped 13 percent in 2012. The grain in Chicago rose 0.8 percent to $7.53 a bushel after climbing 19 percent last year.
“Last year China by and large had a pretty good wheat harvest as we estimated output of 117 million tons,” Ma said, adding that government data showed a record 120 million tons.
China will produce 120.6 million tons in the 2012-2013 season, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated in December.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-07/china-s-coldest-winter-in-28-years-hurts-wheat-crop-center-says.html
Record low temperatures in Bangladesh
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Jan. 9 (UPI) — Bangladesh has recorded its lowest temperatures in nearly 60 years, an unexpected result of global warming, scientists said.
In the capital of Dhaka and elsewhere in the country the temperature dropped to 37.7 degrees F Wednesday, the lowest temperature in the last 57 years,
[…]
Experts are blaming the cold temperatures on more intense cold fronts resulting from global warming melting polar ice.
“Extreme events are on the rise throughout the world and they will continue to increase further due to global warming,” said Aninun Nishat, an environment specialist.
“We’re part of the world. So, we’re also feeling here the pinch of the global warming.”
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2013/01/09/Record-low-temperatures-in-Bangladesh/UPI-16051357767641/#ixzz2HhmPQj4o
‘China may become top wheat importer after crops ruined’
(Reuters) – China’s wheat crop has suffered more severely than previously thought from frost in the growing period and rain during the harvest, and import demand to compensate for the damage could see the country eclipse Egypt as the world’s top buyer.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/07/17/uk-china-wheat-idUKBRE96G00020130717
I watched a TV doco ‘Riding The Grain Train’ which was part of a 20,000 tonne wheat shipment from Victoria to New Zealand. In 2011 NZ imported 561,000 tonnes in total (2012, 425,000, 1972/76/77, 0):
http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=nz&commodity=wheat&graph=imports
NZ has not fed itself in wheat for years and is not immune to price shocks or even shortages of the above nature.
“In Japan, the absence of nuclear power has forced utilities to turn to conventional fossil fuels. Tokyo Electric Power, the operator of the wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi atomic plant, almost doubled coal consumption in July after turning to coal- fired plants to meet customer needs.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/asian-heatwaves-strain-power-health-sectors-20130814-2rv56.html#ixzz2cDq8mImd
50,930 megawatts on Aug. 9. I’m guessing wind isn’t an option.
“I’m guessing wind isn’t an option”
It doesn’t exactly require much guesswork
Wind isn’t an option.
Anywhere
‘Cold snap kills in Thailand’s North’
NNT
The cold weather has claimed another victim after a 68-year-old man was found dead in his home in Buriram province.
Police believe the man had died from the sudden drop in temperature, which reached 13 degrees Celsius on December 19 in many areas of the province.
Uttaradit provincial authorities earlier reported that two people have been killed by the cold weather. Local officials said residents have been struggling to cope with winter temperatures, which dropped to 9 degrees Celsius. Two elderly locals who have been suffering from asthma attacks died as a result of the sudden heat drop.
[…]
The government has so far declared 65 provinces as disaster zones. The Government is now handing out free warm clothing and winter blankets to chilly residents, and any province which has more than three consecutive days of sub 15C temperatures can apply for emergency funding.
http://thainews.prd.go.th/centerweb/newsen/NewsDetail?NT01_NewsID=WNRPT5612200010001
‘Cold snap hits east Asia, blamed for more than 65 deaths’
Tuesday Jan 26, 2016 – NZ Herald/AP
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) ” Unusually cold weather in eastern Asia has been blamed for more than 65 deaths, disrupted transportation and brought the first snow to a subtropical city in southern China in almost 50 years. Here is a look at the worst cold weather to hit the region in years:
TAIWAN
Temperatures in Taiwan’s capital of Taipei plunged to a 16-year low of 4 degrees Celsius (39 Fahrenheit), killing 57 mostly elderly people, according to government officials. The semi-official Focus Taiwan news website reported that 85 people had died because of the cold.
Most homes in subtropical Taiwan lack central heating, and the cold caused heart trouble and breathing problems for many of the victims, a city official said. Normally, temperatures in Taipei hover around 16 degrees C (60 degrees F) in January, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau.
The cold snap was blamed in the deaths of 40 people in the capital, Taipei, and 17 in neighboring New Taipei City. The cold front also left 9 centimeters (3.5 inches) of snow on Taipei’s highest peak.
MAINLAND CHINA
Most parts of mainland China experienced their coldest weather in decades over the weekend. The southern city of Guangzhou, which has a humid subtropical climate, saw snow for the first time since 1967 on Sunday.
The cold led to the deaths of four strawberry farmers who died of carbon monoxide poisoning when they turned up the heat in a greenhouse in Anhui province in the east, the Xinhua News Agency reported. A woman died in the southwest after the railings on her 24th-floor balcony broke as she leaned over to look at the first snow in Chongqing in 20 years, sending her plummeting.
The cold spell coincided with the beginning of the 40-day travel rush for the Lunar New Year, which is on Feb. 8 this year, disrupting cars, flights and trains. More than 11,000 passengers were stranded at Kunming airport in southern Yunnan province.
Temperatures fell 8 to 16 degrees Celsius from Thursday to Sunday in parts of north China, and temperatures in central and eastern China were 6 to 8 degrees lower than average, Xinhua said.
The National Meteorological Bureau forecast that temperatures in southern China would drop another 3-8 degrees on Monday.
JAPAN
Heavy snow in western and central Japan left five people dead over the weekend and possibly a sixth on Monday.
Kyodo News service said the victims included a woman who fell from a roof while removing snow, a man in a weather-related traffic accident, another man found under a snowplow and a couple that fell into an irrigation channel, apparently while removing snow.
An 88-year-old woman in western Japan’s Tottori prefecture died after a landslide hit her house before dawn on Monday, Kyodo and other media reported.
The heavy snow stranded motorists, delayed bullet train service and caused flight cancellations.
SOUTH KOREA
Temperatures in the capital, Seoul, fell to minus 18 degrees Celsius on Sunday, the lowest since 2001. On Saturday, Jeju Island received 12 centimeters (4.7 inches) of snow, the heaviest since 1984, and its airport was closed from Saturday until Monday.
The shutdown stranded about 86,000 people, mostly tourists, on the island and forced the cancellations of about 1,100 flights, according to Transport Ministry and airport officials.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11579484