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NEW YORK: Crude oil fell below $59 a barrel Wednesday, registering its biggest drop in 20 months as mild U.S. weather curbed demand for heat and traders bet that fuel supplies had risen. Home-heating demand in the Northeast, the region responsible for 80 percent of U.S. heating-oil use, will be 43 percent below normal through Wednesday, said Weather Derivatives, a forecaster based in Belton, Missouri. And U.S. fuel stockpiles probably rose last week, according to a Bloomberg News survey. "The entire focus is on the weather," said Tom Bentz, an oil broker with BNP Paribas Commodity Futures. "It looks like...

GRANTS PASS, Ore. - Using fire scars on nearly 5,000 tree stumps dating back 450 years, scientists have found that extended periods of major wildfires in the West occurred when the North Atlantic Ocean was going through periodic warming. With the North Atlantic at the start of a recurring warming period that typically lasts 20 to 60 years, the West could be in for an extended period of multiple fires on the scale of those seen in 2002 and 2006, said Thomas W. Swetnam. He's the director of the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research at the University of Arizona and...

Despite the long term warming trend seen around the globe, the oceans have cooled in the last three years, scientists announced today.

I am very doubtful on these numbers, in 1936 Springfield, IL had 25 days above 100 and 69 days above 90 and had an average summer temperature of 94. This year we had one hot week with temps in the high 90's and August was cool.

As sure as the sun rises in the east, when a heat wave engulfs the continental United States, it dawns on the media that “global warming” may be to blame. Such was the case with CBS’s Bob Orr on the July 31 “Evening News,” when the reporter consulted with Pew Center on Global Climate Change’s Jay Gulledge. “The average global temperature is getting hotter due to global warming,” Gulledge told Orr. “Gulledge says there’s no longer any serious debate” on climate change, Orr added. A short time later, Orr’s story was cut short just as Gulledge was explaining his theory...

SACRAMENTO Triple digit temperatures smashed records across California Saturday, straining thermometers and air conditioners and prompting dozens of scattered electricity outages that left residents sizzling. A major Northern California power plant tripped off line as temperatures climbed, trimming electricity reserves below acceptable levels and prompting the state's grid manager to declare a "stage one emergency" while calling for conservation. No relief was expected until at least midweek from a weather front that sent temperatures soaring even along the normally cool California coast and brought Midwest-style humidity steaming into the usually arid Central Valley. Heat records were set throughout the San...

SACRAMENTO Sierra Nevada snow levels are far above normal as warm temperatures hit California and flood-wary residents wait for the spring runoff, but officials predicted Thursday that reservoirs would be able to handle the extra water. The state Department of Water Resources said its last check of the 2005-2006 rainy season found a Sierra snowpack that averaged 180 percent of normal water content for this time of year. Levels were higher than that average in the northern Sierra 207 percent of normal and lower in the central and southern parts of the mountain range 169 percent and 175 percent, respectively....

Freezing temperatures hit northern Florida on Monday morning and snow made mountain highways treacherous in the Appalachians as the first big cold wave of the season swept southward. Even North Carolina's Outer Banks got a rare seaside dusting of snow, and more than 2 feet fell near the Great Lakes. The blast of Arctic air one day before the official start of winter drove temperatures in the Florida Panhandle down to 31 degrees at Crestview, 32 at Pensacola. The Florida citrus industry had no major worries because damage is seen only when readings stay at 28 or lower for at...

Jan. 27, 2004 — In a prehistoric battle for survival, Neanderthals had to compete against modern humans and were wiped off the face of the Earth, according to a new study on life in Europe from 60,000 to 25,000 years ago. The findings, compiled by 30 scientists, were based on extensive data from sediment cores, archaeological artifacts such as fossils and tools, radiometric dating, and climate models. The collected information was part of a project known as Stage 3, which refers to the time period analyzed. The number three also seems significant in terms of why the Neanderthals became extinct....

A new analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years. Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star's activity in the past. They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth's climate became steadily warmer. This trend is being amplified by gases from fossil fuel burning, they argue. 'Little Ice Age'Sunspots have been monitored on the Sun since 1610, shortly after the invention of the...

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Summer temperatures in the Arctic have risen at an incredible rate over the past three years and large patches of what should be ice are now open water, a British polar explorer said on Monday. Ben Saunders, forced by the warm weather to abandon an attempt to ski solo from northern Russia across the North Pole to Canada, said he had been amazed at how much of the ice had melted. "It's obvious to me that things are changing a lot and changing very quickly," a sunburned Saunders told Reuters less than two days after being rescued...

(CBS) For years, CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, scientists have tried to understand the dynamic nature of Yellowstone National Park. "It's beautiful up here, everybody should see this at one time or another," says one appreciative observer. Scientist Lisa Morgan may have unlocked one piece in the puzzle, deep below the park's biggest lake. "It is kind of the last unmapped frontier in Yellowstone National Park," says Morgan. What she found looks more like the surface of the moon. Using sonar she's identified a massive bulging dome the size of seven football fields. The only other underwater dome in...

BRITISH troops have been flown home from Iraq as casualties of the heat amid claims they are being forced to live in squalid conditions. There are 12,000 UK frontline peacekeeping troops in southern Iraq, and it is said their conditions have not improved markedly since hostilities ended three months ago. Personnel from units within 19 Brigade, which took over from the Desert Rats of the 1st UK Armoured Division in Basra last month, have contacted The Herald to complain about the lack of basic welfare for the soldiers patrolling the streets of Iraq's second city. Concerns include tents with no...

Soldiers battle storms and rising temperatures By Andrew Buncombe in Camp Coyote, Kuwait 14 March 2003 British and American troops massing close to the Iraqi border are struggling against dust storms and rising temperatures as the political wrangling over a strike against Saddam Hussein continues. While Washington and London insist their soldiers can fight in all weathers, military planners would prefer to launch a strike before temperatures soar in as little as six weeks. As such, the ideal window of opportunity for action is fast closing. A huge storm ripped through the isolated desert camps about 50 miles north of...