Our Changing Climate

See a video produced by Meteorologist Randy Mann back in 2002 for WVNY in Burlington, Vermont that talks about our "Changing Climate" and its possible causes.

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 Possible New Ice Age?

See Robert Felix's 28-minute seminar on the possibility of an upcoming new Ice Age. Program was taped at the March 2007 Harris-Mann Seminar.

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Are We Entering a Period of Sudden 'Global Cooling'?

The total extent of snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere at the end of February was at the highest level since the same period 42 years ago in 1966. The all-time record for extreme snow depths was during the winter of 1887-88.

According to my climatological colleagues in Britain, Japan and the U.S., the winter months of December, January and February were likewise the coldest as a whole since at least the late 1970s, in some cases dating back to either the 1930s or even the 1880s. One area of southeastern China claims that this exceptionally harsh winter of 2007-08 has been the "worst since 1210, nearly 800 years ago!"

As I mentioned last week, large portions of China were literally ‘paralyzed’ in early to mid February by unprecedentedly heavy snowfalls and temperatures at times at record low levels. Tens of millions of Chinese New Year celebrants were left stranded with no food, water or shelter. More than 25,000 miles of power lines in southern China collapsed under the weight of snow and ice in areas that rarely even see the white stuff. The Chinese Government had no way of coping with the unique meteorological event. For example, there were no snowplows and there wasn’t any salt to put on the icy roadways.

The severe winter conditions killed at least 40% of the 2007-08 rapeseed crop (canola), a staple in China. This forced the Chinese to buy our record-high priced $15-a-bushel soybeans to stave off widespread food shortages.

It’s now estimated that the cost of this disaster to the Chinese economy will easily exceed $4 billion. Southeastern China’s losses alone will top $2 billion.

Elsewhere around the Northern Hemisphere, as we also reported in past weeks, the death toll in Afghanistan from this winter’s record cold and heavy snowfalls has climbed to above 1,200 persons. Neighboring Tajikistan, according to various aid agencies, has seen its most frigid winter season in at least 50 years, along with soaring food prices and a massive energy crisis which has threatened a "humanitarian catastrophe of Biblical proportions."

Heavy snowfalls just this past week closed many roads in Greece, Turkey, Syria and Iran. Some of the lowland regions in normally warm southern Iran reported their "first measurable snowfalls in living memory."

In parts of Saudi Arabia, people were amazed when children actually found enough snow in one town to build a large snowman. Rare snows also fell in the lowland areas of Israel where they grow bananas! Cairo, Egypt likewise saw snow.

Blizzards have crippled much of Asia and Europe this winter. Record snowfalls in Japan literally buried many cities causing death and injury to hundreds of persons. Canals and other waterways were closed in Europe due to severe icing conditions. Snow removal crews, in some cases, took nearly two full weeks to clear many roads in Germany, Austria and Poland. The Yorkshire Dales in Britain, normally a mild part of England, were hit this past week by heavy snows and a "cascade of icicles" reminding local residents of the rough winters during World War II.

In the U.S., record snowfalls have hit more than 20 states this winter from Washington and Oregon eastward through Idaho, Iowa, Wisconsin and New England. Rare snows were seen as far south as northern Alabama this past Wednesday, February 27.

Furthermore, it’s not only the Northern Hemisphere that’s experiencing an unusual frigid period. We reported freak snows last July and August in the Southern Hemisphere in places like Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sydney, Australia and even a few flakes were seen in Minas Gerais in Brazil for the first time in recorded history.

Last August 31, the total icepack in Antarctica was "the most extensive since such data began in 1979, at least 8% greater than at its lowest point in February of 1998." Icebergs were seen as far north as New Zealand.

According to Cambridge University scientists, the seven-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit drop in global temperatures in just the past six months has been the most pronounced plunge since the 1.2 degree dip in the year following the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in June of 1991. They blame changes in the decrease in solar radiation for the current sudden cooling. It had nothing to do with rising carbon dioxide levels, one way or the other.

Global warming ‘skeptics’ are inevitably pointing to this harsh winter of 2007-08 as evidence that the planet’s temperatures are no longer rising as the carbon dioxide levels suggest would be the case. Several of my climatological peers are saying that "we’ve begun a period of global cooling that will soon reverse the 30-year uptrend in temperatures since 1978."

Remember, the four decades preceding 1978 were called by most climate experts as "The Little Cooling." My friend, Dr. Iben Browning, in the late 1970s, was predicting ‘a new Little Ice Age,’ an extended period of time when Canada and many parts of northern Europe and Asia would be unable to produce crops due to "critically short growing seasons with frequent freezes," much like what has occurred in the past year or so in many of the world’s major grain producing regions like China, Argentina and the U.S. Record high grain and soybean prices have resulted from these killer frosts on a global scale.

I agree with another climatologist friend, Paul Berenson, who stated on February 21:

"The truth is that it’s still much too early to draw any long-term conclusions from 2008's great freeze. But, it is indeed one of the most startling recent developments to have emerged in the world’s weather patterns for a long time. At the least, it was so unexpected. It raises important questions for millions of people worldwide whose lives have been seriously disrupted by this year’s freezes. To them, the concept of global warming must seem awfully remote."