The more dramatic situation is reported in North Carolina, where because snow and ice have created an immense traffic jam in both directions of the highway, with thousands of people trapped and hundreds of abandoned cars in the middle of the roadway .
Just as had happened two weeks ago near Atlanta , Georgia. Over half a million homes and businesses were left without electricity due to power outage caused by snow and ice. President Barack Obama has declared a state of natural disaster in Georgia and South Carolina, sending federal aid. And the spate of bad weather is moving to the northeast, where heavy snowfalls are expected in Boston, the capital Washington and New York.
The scenario is rather catastrophic. In the capital all federal offices have been closed. Everywhere schools have been closed. At least 800 thousand people remained in the dark and cold for the blackout. New York woke up completely whitewashed, and the snow has caused delays mainly to Metro lines , although some schools and many offices have regularly opened. In Washington, completely paralyzed, has been also suspended the bus service for what is expected to be the worst snowfall of the year . The governors of the states in emergency have urged citizens to avoid to travel unless absolutely necessary.
At the same time , prolonged and violent storm fronts are flooding Europe. Between storms and floods burst, the UK has to deal with the most disastrous winter in modern history. Tens of thousands of hectares flooded and thousands of people displaced. The damage is huge and likely to rise after hour by hour. The problem is that other storms are forming and they will be striking in the next few days, so we have to prepare to other disasters. The accused for excellence is always the same, namely the Canadian lobe of the polar vortex, which in addition to having flooded half of Europe (including Italy), has deprived the continent of the winter season.
Only the north African anticyclonic comebacks made us avoid the worst, but in the rest of western Europe the nightmare continues (none of the respondents from the British TV remembers a so rainy winter).
We have already talked about the ruinous effects of the wide-spread current totally uncritical approach to the climate change issue (here) and we have also analyzed and commented some air temperature, ice sheet temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide data (here), which unveil the fallacy of the global warming religion.
The current events should lead us to think that the dreaded global warming scenario is unrealistic. Rather, we should begin to consider the opposite hypothesis.
Dr. J. Kirkby [head of the CLOUD Experiment at CERN in Geneva] warns that another Maunder Minimun is possible within a short time (here)
After all there are plenty of clues about possible global cooling.
1.Gulf Stream and Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC).
Dr. D.A. Smeed and collegues have recently published (here) a study on the decline of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).
AMOC has been observed at a latitude of 26 ° North, since April 2004.
The AMOC and its components are constantly monitored by the combination of a transatlantic array of moored instruments with submarine cable based measurements of the Gulf Stream and satellite-derived Ekman transport. The series has recently been extended to October 2012 and the results show a downward trend since 2004. From April 2008 to March 2012, the AMOC has remained at an average of 2.7 Sv (in Sverdrup units, 1 Sv = 10^6 m^3s^-1), weaker than in the first four years of observation (with a reliability of 95% which is the reduction of 0.3 Sv or more ). The Ekman transport reduced by about 0.2 Sv and 0.5 Sv of the Gulf Stream, but most of the change ( 2.0 Sv) is due to the medium of the ocean geostrophic flow.
The change in the average geostrophic flow represents a strengthening of the oceanic flow south above the thermocline. The increased flow of warm waters south is balanced by a decrease in the lower flow south of the North Atlantic, with a depth of less than 3000 m.
The low transport in the North Atlantic deep water slowed down by 7% per year (with a reliability of 95% and a rate of greater slowdown of 2.5% per year).
The authors has interpreted the relationship of AMOC changes to the climate of the North Atlantic. Although the model simulations relate the forecasts of AMOC decrease to the increase of greenhouse gases of the order of 0.5 Sv per decade in the 21st century, their findings show that the actual change is by far greater. The amplitude of the AMOC change suggests that they mainly depend on some periodic variation rather than on anthropogenic factors.
2.Solar magnetic field.
The solar magnetic field is now close to turning and this would lead the sun to a long hibernation. The main points, which make us understand clearly that we are at the point of no return are different:
2.1. The migration of the coronal holes towards the sun poles.
The coronal holes or CHs (Coronal Holes), are always located in the polar regions during solar minimum. As the solar cycle progresses the latitude of CHs run down to the equator in the phase of maximum, and then up again when the star returns to the minimum.
Figure 1. Coronal holes and active region map.
2.2. The Global Magnetic Field (GMF), has stabilized, while the one of the northern hemisphere is regressing.
This is a summary of what appears from a reading of the magnetic poles, where the North Field (NF), in 6 months is back from +11 to +7, (remember that after the reversal should progress at a speed mailed instead of regress). It is a very serious signal that is confirmed by the almost absence of magnetic activity in the northern hemisphere.
The regression of northern hemisphere has led, in turn, all the GMF to the stall (+12). The stalling of the entire magnetic field is visible to everyone (since June 2013, ie, from the reversal, it has risen by just 12 points, that is just one third compared to other solar cycles with a heavy stop in last 2 months).
At this point it remains active only southern hemisphere. But we must keep in mind that the activity in this hemisphere is playing with 2 years of delay compared to the northern one.
3. The contraction of Heliosphere.
The solar wind is the thermometer that measures the (magnetic) health of the star.
In recent months there has been a sharp contraction of the heliosphere. Except in the presence of front-earth coronal holes, the solar wind has remained well below the 400 km / s, with a peak daily minimum of 250/260Km/s (typical speed of the deep minima). This also makes us understand what is the real intensity of this solar cycle.
Figure 2. When New York Harbor Froze Over
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| Pieter Bruegel. New York Harbor, 1780 |
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