Transitory Impact of AO is the ‘Good News’

The Bad News?
More Permanent Changes May Be Occurring!

Impact of Arctic Oscillation on Winter Temps

[Stay Tuned …]

Click image to enlarge. See  Kingdom United by Ice for detailed data and charts. Image Credit: NASA EO.

NASA image compares December 2009 temps to the average December temps between 2000 and 2008. Blue (red) for colder (warmer) than average land surface temps.

The Arctic Oscillation (AO), a climate pattern, impacts  winter weather in the Northern Hemisphere. The Arctic is dominated by a low-pressure air mass, while the mid-latitudes (around 45 degrees North, about the latitude of Montreal, Canada or Bordeaux, France) are governed by high pressure systems.

The strength of the high- and low-pressure systems oscillates. Weaker than normal systems cause the pressure difference between the two to decrease, allowing Arctic air to escape south and warmer air north. A weaker-than-normal AO is defined as “negative.” Strong high and low pressure systems characterize positive AO.

AO was strongly negative during Dec 2009. This image  observed by MODIS on NASA’s Terra satellite shows cold Arctic air impacting land surface at midlatitudes, while Arctic land, like Greenland and Alaska, was much warmer than usual. NASA Earth Observatory image by Kevin Ward. Caption by Holli Riebeek. Edited by FEWW.

See    Kingdom United by Ice for detailed data and charts

Related Links:

• Kingdom United by Ice
• El Niño
• 2010 Disasters

• Pacific storm moves across the Northwest
• State of Emergency in Oklahoma, S. Dakota, Texas
• Winter Officially Starts Today!

• Deadly Weather in Your Area?
• UK Flooding

December Snowstorm Only a Cat 3 on NESIS Scale

NOAA Ranks December Snowstorm a Category 3 on the Northeast Snowfall Impact 5-tier Scale

Snowfall accumulation from the Dec. 18-21, 2009 storm. (Credit: NOAA). [Click image for High Resolution]

NOAA says the Dec. 18-20, 2009 system that dumped heavy snow from the mid-Atlantic to southern New England, was only a Category 3 or “Major” winter storm on its Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale,  NESIS.

NESIS ranking uses data provided by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, which are based on

• How much snow falls in the area (must deposit at least 10 inches)
• Scale of the area impacte
• Population of the impacted area

NESIS ranks these storms on a five-tier scale ranging from Category 1 “Notable” to Category 5 “Extreme.”

“While snowfall from the December storm ranked in the top ten for Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia, the storm only provided a glancing blow to the New York City and Boston metropolitan areas and overall affected a relatively small area. This led to it being classified as a Category 3,” said Louis Uccellini, director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction – a division of NOAA’s National Weather Service – and co-developer of NESIS with Paul Kocin also with NCEP in Camp Springs, Md. Both Uccellini and Kocin are published winter weather experts.

“Last month’s storm was one of only five in the past decade that ranked Category 3 or higher,” added Kocin. The others being: December, 2002 (Category 3); February, 2003 (Category 4); January, 2005 (Category 4); February, 2006 (Category 3) and February, 2007 (Category 3).

Category 5 storms or  the  ‘Superstorm’ top the NESIS scale the only two storms rated Cat 5 occurred on March, 1993 followed by the ‘Blizzard of ’96‘ in January, 1996. The scale was devised in 2004 and it catalogs storms since 1888, NOAA said.

Lynching in 21st Century: UNACCEPTABLE!

Submitted by TEAA

Indian Man Attacked, Set Alight in Melbourne, Australia

Racist Attacks Against Indian students in Australia Escalate

An Indian man is in a serious condition in a Melbourne hospital after being attacked and set alight by a gang of men, a news bulletin said.

Jaspreet Singh, 29, was attacked in Essendon, northwest Melbourne, and set alight. He is said to have received 15 percent burns, the report said.

The attack comes only days after two other recent murders. An Indian graduate student, Nitin Garg, 21, was stabbed to death in the city last week. Three days ago the Australian police revealed that the partially-charred body of yet another Indian student had been found on December 29.

Shortly after the murder of Mr Garg, the Indian government issued a travel advisory to the 70,000 [90,000?]  students who study in Australia.

It’s believed that up to 60 Indian students in Australia were either murdered or died of other, mostly unnatural causes in 2009.

Related Links:

• Indian man attacked and set alight in Melbourne
• Racists and Liars
• Australian Soldiers Massacre Afghan Children
• Afghan war ‘kills three kids a day’

• Ku Klux Klan cartoon angers Aussies
• Blog Quiz: Murder of Indian Students
• Aussies compete with pakeha to kill Indians
• New Zealand has total contempt for Asians, especially the Vietnamese, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese and Indians.
• A reply to a young Indian doctor who was considering working in New Zealand