About 1800 firefighters are battling fifty bushfires ignited by lightning in the Alpine National Park north of Licola and Dargo. The resort is discouraging tourists and others from making non-essential trips up the mountain. Seen by Daily Terra, 2006-12-06
Archive for December, 2006
WMO reports cancelled sports events in Austria, Czech Republic, France, Slovakia and Switzerland caused by warm weather in these countries. With temperatures above 10°C and heavy rain even artificial snow is not an option.
Picture above shows the Alps last and this (right) year by December 1st.
Yahoo! News: 2006-07 World Cup Ski Schedule
Die Zeit: Der Schneekanonier, der Pistenraupenfahrer, der Lawinensprenger
Met Office in UK continues current series of reported temperature records in Europe and according to Guardian it faces a budget cut of at least £5m over next 3 years in climate research.
Quoted from press release:
The Met Office confirms that the autumn 2006 has been the warmest in the last 347 years across central parts of the UK.
Central England Temperature records dating back to 1659 are the longest instrumental temperature records in the world, and autumn 2006 has been warmer than any equivalent autumn since then. The provisional mean temperature this year was 12.6 °C. The previous highest figure for the equivalent period was 11.8 °C, recorded in 1730 and 1731.
The provisional UK-wide mean temperature for autumn was 11.3 °C, beating the previous record set in 2001 of 10.5 °C, in a temperature series that began in 1914.
UK Met Office: Warmest autumn on record - confirmed
The Guardian: It’s hot - but climate research is being cut
Midwest’s first big snowstorm of the season left hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without electricity. The storm was blamed for at least 13 deaths as it spread ice and deep snow from Texas to Michigan. Photo captured by Daily Terra, 2006-12-02
According to Postdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) this meteorological fall (September to November) was 1°C warmer than 1982 the last record holder and 2.5 degree warmer than the average. In Oberstdorf, Bavaria, the thermometer reached a maximum of 21.3°C at 25th November.
Picture above shows global mean temperaures in November from 1961-1990. See more climate diagramms at klimadiagramme.de.
Since March 10th, 2006, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) orbits planet Mars. On board are six instruments and one is the HiRISE camera.
The HiRISE Operations Center (HiROC) at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory started to publish the photos from Primary Science Phase and Transition Phase now at their website.
Picture above was constructed of a 2048 x 7151 pixel image and covers same portion of a delta that partially fills Eberswalde crater in Margaritifer Sinus at two different scales.
The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona.
Filmmaker Geoff Mackley published impressive photos on his website.
Up to 400 deaths are reported. With gusts of 265kph typhoon Durian prompted the evacuation of around 14,000 people, caused ramping floods and landslides, damaged transmission lines and buried houses.
