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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17xh_VRrnMU Do electric cars really help the environment? President Obama thinks so. So does Leonardo DiCaprio. And many others. The argument goes like this: Regular cars run on gasoline, a fossil fuel that pumps CO2 straight out of the tailpipe and into the atmosphere. Electric cars run on electricity. They don't burn any gasoline at all. No gas; no CO2. In fact, electric cars are often advertised as creating "zero emissions." But do they really? Let's take a closer look. First, there's the energy needed to produce the car. More than a third of the lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions from an...

An expansion of Europe's forests towards dark green conifers has stoked global warming, according to a study on Thursday at odds with a widespread view that planting more trees helps human efforts to slow rising temperatures. Forest changes have nudged Europe's summer temperatures up by 0.12 degree Celsius (0.2 Fahrenheit) since 1750, largely because many nations have planted conifers such as pines and spruce whose dark color traps the sun's heat, the scientists said. Lighter-colored broad-leafed trees, such as oak or birch, reflect more sunlight back into space, but have lost ground to fast-growing conifers, used for everything from building...

An incredible cloud formation which appeared over the skies of Portugal has been dubbed the 'hand of God'. The cloud took the form of a fist from Heaven with a hand holding a fireball as it dominated the skyline across the island of Madeira on Monday. And weather blogger Rogerio Pacheco, 32, could not believe his luck when he looked up at the clouds while commuters made their way to work in the morning rush hour...

DENVER - A developing winter storm is taking aim at Colorado, and it has the potential to be the biggest snowstorm of the season so far, for Denver. The El Niño weather pattern has delivered storms right into our "sweet spot" a few times since November, but Denver has only officially registered more than 3 inches of snow three times. It will take about 8 inches to take the title. That would beat the 1-day storm total from the middle of December. Denver’s only storms this season to measure more than 3 inches of snow: 7.7" December 15 4" November...

If you live somewhere that experiences all four seasons, your mood, like your skin, may be taking a beating right now. People love to complain about forced holiday gatherings, but the fact is they provide company and copious amounts of sugar at a time when you’d probably otherwise mope around the house unshowered, eating Cheetos and grumbling about how it’s dark at 5 p.m. Now that Christmas and New Year’s are long gone, we’re faced with the reality that there are two excruciating months to go until the official start of spring, when humans are known to smile just on...

"High pressure literally means there's more air in the atmosphere above you. And it pushes down on the air. And when it does that, it compresses it, and it literally heats up through compression," said Bill Patzert, climatologist for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge. That mass of high pressure "needs to flatten out and go away" for storms to return to Southern California, said National Weather Service meteorologist Dave Bruno. But that doesn't mean hopes for an El Nino-style Southern California winter have been dashed. Experts say it might be simply too early for El Nino-influenced rains...

My review: This book is fascinating on so many levels but one of the most interesting, and unexpected, is the government-science collusion in the study and manipulation of WEATHER and climate. Bernard Vonnegut, Kurt's brother was a scientist at GE. Kurt worked there in the public relations department (as did later Ronald Reagan). The author herself never claims this however, it is not hard to see the connection to this early government manipulation and hold over climate science and the origins of "climate change" came from government funded studies of weather by GE (General Electric) in the post war years....

January 2016 The El Niño of 1951-52 was a weak one and there was little snow until later in the winter. The Movie, The Finest Hours is about two ships that sunk off Chatham Massachusetts, the Pendleton and the Fort Mercer. The sinkings were on February 17, 1952. It seems like February 17 is a time when a lot of major storms occur. It also happens to be my mom's birthday. At the time, my dad had not met my mom, but it was a very memorable day for my dad. Looking at the weather map, we can see why...

fter months of campaigning and jockeying for position, the 2016 Presidential Election season officially gets underway Monday, Feb. 1, with the Iowa Caucuses. Voters from Iowa's 99 counties will meet in caucus as the first step to determine who will represent the state at the Republican and Democratic national conventions. However, a winter storm moving from the Intermountain West is likely to cause snow to spread over a large part of the central and northern Plains during Monday night and Tuesday.

BEDFORD, Pa. Locked arm and arm with each other, complete strangers saved the life of a driver whose tractor-trailer lost control during the weekend snowstorm and was teetering over the edge of a hillside. It was a mess, dangerous. The truck was smoking, couple hundred gallons of diesel fuel, debris everywhere. People didn't seem to care, they jumped out to help," said Arlyn Satanek who witnessed the incident. Satanek has been driving trucks for years and he's never seen anything like this. On Friday night, inch-by-inch, the snow started to fall and by evening the roads were covered. One trucker...

Link due to copyright. See first post.

Isolated, polluted and – above all – cold, it is a city built on misery and blood. It is also a city of surprising wealth – the reason for its unlikely existence. Norilsk, squatting 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle, has the largest deposits of nickel, copper and palladium on earth and its hellish mines are thriving. Gulag prisoners began expanding the Siberian settlement in 1935 and over the next 20 years, 500,000 slaves took part in its construction . Thousands lost their lives.

From the “fresh melt water will disrupt the planet” department, except that this ongoing alarm has already been debunked by NASA, see: NASA refutes Mann and Rahmstorf – Finds Atlantic ‘Conveyor Belt’ Not SlowingIllustration depicting the overturning circulation of the global ocean. Throughout the Atlantic Ocean, the circulation carries warm waters (red arrows) northward near the surface and cold deep waters (blue arrows) southward. Image credit: NASA/JPL Melting Greenland ice sheet may affect global ocean circulation, future climateUniversity of South Florida and international scientists find influx of freshwater could disrupt the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, an important component of global...

Hi FRiends. I have to travel between southwest Virginia and upstate NY in one shot, tomorrow or Wed. I'm looking for actual road conditions for Rts 81 north, 78 east, 287 north (Jersey) and the NYS thruway past Saratoga. Trouble spots? Road closures? Thanks in advance for info. Lots of mountains in my immediate future and I want to be prepared for battle :)

Receiving the call that school will be closed for a snow day prompts many different emotions. For students and teachers, it's one of the best things about Winter, but for parents it means a full day huddled inside while awful conditions brew outside. We bet when the clever teacher in the video above parodied Adele's hit song "Hello" to cry out for a snow day, she didn't expect a snowpocalypse to arrive. You know how the saying goes: be careful what you wish for! So if you're dreading the arrival of Winter Storm Jonas, here's a little humor (and hours...

"I don't want kids or parents having to go through the snow and possibly trip or hurt themselves," said Anderson. "I had a half-dozen people stop to take a picture because they hadn't seen a chair like this before."

Guest Post by Bob TisdaleSEE UPDATE 1 AT END OF POST: I’ve provided a link to the slides from the teleconference and updated monthly and annual graphs.# # #On January 15th, NOAA Communications notified the media Wednesday: NOAA, NASA to announce official analyses of 2015 global temperature, climate conditions. WHAT: NOAA, NASA media teleconference call announcing 2015 global climate analyses – brief summary remarks – questions and answers WHEN: Wednesday, January 20, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., Eastern Time (U.S.) WHO: Thomas R. Karl, L.H.D., director, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Asheville, N.C. and chair of the Subcommittee...

Full Title:******************************************************************How accurate are findings from the frontiers of climate science? For example, about warming of the oceans.****************************************************************** By Larry Kummer. From the Fabius Maximus website.Summary:  This post looks at an often asked question about climate science — how accurate are its findings, a key factor when we make decisions about trillions of dollars (and affecting billions of people). Specifically, it examines the oceans’ heat content, a vital metric since the oceans absorbing 90%+ of global warming. How accurate are those numbers? The error bars look oddly small, especially compared to those of sea surface temperatures. This also shows how...

When it comes to measuring global warming, it's all about altitude. Temperature readings taken close to Earth's surface -- about 6 feet off the ground -- show a slightly warmer planet than measurements taken from on high by satellites in orbit. And that discrepancy has given ammunition to climate-change doubters. Government agencies and most scientists rely primarily on ground measurements, and they show that 2015 was the warmest year on record. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, NASA, the Japanese and British meteorological agencies and the World Meteorological Organization all use ground data. It's a matter of better accuracy and relevance,...

For an event still several days out, computer models were in remarkable agreement late Tuesday on what could be one of the greatest snowstorms in decades for the region around Washington, D.C. It’s difficult to convey what the models are projecting without appearing to sensationalize the event, but here goes: there is every indication that snow totals on the order of two feet are quite possible across parts of the greater D.C./Baltimore area, with the potential for almost as much in Philadelphia and perhaps a foot toward New York City. Anything over 20 inches at Washington National Airport would be...