From tips:
That Arctic Sea Ice seems firm enough:
http://phys.org/news/2013-05-russians-russia-canada-north-pole.html
Russian explorers headed home Thursday after proving it is possible to drive from Russia to Canada across the North Pole, in buses with bloated tires over drifting ice, using a pickaxe to clear the way.
Their two-and-a-half-month hitherto untried odyssey aimed to road test the hand-crafted vehicles on ice and water, conduct a few scientific experiments, and bring together a band of adventurers drawn to the vast and pristine Arctic, expedition leader Vassili Ielaguine said during a stopover in Ottawa.
At the “speed of a (farm) tractor” or about 10 kilometers per hour (6.2 miles/h) and carrying three tonnes of donated diesel fuel and supplies, they traveled more than 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) in 70 days from the Russian archipelago Severnaya Zemlya (or Earth North), after being dropped off by a Russian icebreaker, to the pole and then to Resolute Bay in Canada’s far north.
Their two bright red vehicles were built around two-liter Toyota diesel engines and using old parts from prototypes that some of the team had used back in 2009 to drive from Russia to the North Pole and double back.
During this trip, the seven men came across a handful of polar bears, which “did not appear to be aggressive,” said Ielaguine, as well as seals. But it was a group of mustachioed walruses on the Canadian side that left the biggest impression on the wary travelers.
They also had an opportunity to see “exceptional aurora borealis light up the entire sky,” he said.
[…]
In Resolute Bay, they were given a warm welcome, and a garage to store their trucks while the team flew home to rest and prepare for another leg of their grand adventure.The vehicles are to be retrieved next February and driven West across the Bering Straight and back to Russia.
So about that “melting Arctic”… Seems to be solid enough to drive trucks over it.
In New York, it’s snowing this “Summer”:
(The start of summer is subject to a variety of cultural choices. It varies by country and by location. In much of the USA, the Memorial Day Weekend is the “unofficial” start of summer, with graduation ceremonies out of the way and often with nice hot weather for outdoor BBQs and beach parties…)
Memorial Day weekend storm dumps up to 3 feet of snow on New York, Vermont ski mountains
By Associated Press, Published: May 26
WILMINGTON, N.Y. — A Memorial Day weekend storm has dropped three feet of snow on a New York ski mountain near the Vermont boarder.
Whiteface Mountain spokesman Jon Lundin says 36 inches of white powder has blanketed the nearly 5,000-foot tall mountain in the Adirondacks. That has forced the Olympic Regional Development Authority to close Whiteface Veteran’s Memorial Highway on the backside of the mountain.
Lundin says the snow began lightly falling Saturday and steadily dropped Sunday, finishing in the evening. He didn’t know if the 3-foot snowfall was a record for Whiteface.
It’s not just the USA, though.
Southeast shivers through record cold while west rejoices as rain finally falls
by: Brian Williams
From: The Courier-Mail
May 23, 2013 12:00AMBRISBANE shivered through its coldest May day in 33 years yesterday.
The good news is that it will be warmer today.While city-slickers reached for their winter woollies the drought-hit west rejoiced as rain finally fell. Trinidad, a property between Windorah and Charleville, recorded 44mm and Thargomindah had 43mm.
Brisbane recorded a maximum of just 17.6C, the coldest May day since 1980 and almost 7C below average.
Weather Bureau forecaster Matthew Bass said it was the city’s coldest day since June 27 last year.
It was the coldest May day on record at Coolangatta, which recorded a high of just 16.5C.
“We had a clear night, then cloud moved over so that prevented any major heating,” Mr Bass said. “Then that combined with rain and a little evaporation cooled things down a bit.” Mr Bass said temperatures would remain 5C to 6C below average in the interior into the weekend.
Meanwhile back in Europe:
Germany Now Recording Coldest Spring In 40 Years! “…Climate Experts Running Out Of Arguments…”!
By P Gosselin on 27. Mai 2013
The recent weather in Germany indicates everything but global warming and widespread drought, which climate experts have been telling us would be the case unless we stopped burning fossil fuels fast.
[…]
Today the online Augsburger Allgemeine reports that the statistics for the 2013 German meteorological spring (March-April-May) have been 95% tabulated and show that this year’s German spring is the “coldest in in decades“. The Chiemgau24 news site reports that it is the coldest spring in 40 years.This past weekend, snow even fell in parts of Germany at elevations down to 600 meters.
No reasons are cited as to why the spring 2013 is so cold. The Arctic is covered with ice and so it can’t be an exposed Arctic sea disrupting atmospheric patterns.
And the UK:
http://www.lbc.co.uk/snow-in-may-white-stuff-hits-parts-of-uk-72079
Snow In May: White Stuff Hits Parts Of UK
Wednesday, 15th May 2013A blanket of snow has covered parts of the UK as the country reels from a spate of unseasonably cold weather.
Hilly areas in the Pennines and Scotland suffered some of the worst conditions, receiving a mixture of sleet and snow.
Snow also fell overnight on higher ground in north Wales, Dartmoor and Exmoor – while around 5cm (2in) is estimated to have settled in the hamlet of Anchor, on the Shropshire-Wales border.
Sky News weather producer Joanna Robinson said: “It’s fairly unusual to get snow in May, but it’s certainly not unheard of.
Maybe not “unheard of”, but certainly it MUST be “unheard of” if we are burning up with exceptional Global warming… And no, that canard about the Arctic being uncovered so making more snow is just not going to fly here…
“In fact, back in 1996 snow affected Dartmoor in early May, which led to the Ten Tors challenge being abandoned.
“Although the stormy conditions have now passed, the outlook remains unsettled and rather cool.”
While snowfall in May had been historically rare, parts of the UK have experienced it over each of the last four years.
The snow and sleet came after winds of up to 65mph battered some areas of the UK, with coastal regions worst hit.
Not exactly a one time only freak event, either…
I’m sure there are other samples as well. Frankly, though, having snow and cold spread from Australia across the North Pole and into Germany and the UK then on over to New York (and we are under cold cloud with rain threatened, almost unheard of here on what is often a very hot BBQ day), this is clearly a wide spread cold year.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but here is the ocean surface temperatures. Whole lot of blue on that anomaly map:
26 May 2013 sst_anom
Not a whole lot of yellow and red to offset all that blue, either…
So cold, and going to stay that way a while.
Musings from the Chiefio 
Thanks, E. M. Smith, for another reminder of how little mankind, especially leaders of the scientific community, grasps our total dependence on the Sun – the creator, destroyer and sustainer of all atoms, lives and worlds in the solar system.
Little do they know that in hiding experimental data and observations, they destroy the ability of mankind to adapt and to evolve as solar-induced conditions change.
http://tgrule.com/2013/05/22/climatology/
Click to access Resolution_Advancement.pdf
Now all we need is a cherry on the cake to make it really interesting and with a cherry I mean a nice volcanic eruption, maybe like beauty: Copahue Moved to Red Alert Status http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/eruptions/
omanuel says:
28 May 2013 at 12:48 am
Thanks, E. M. Smith, for another reminder of how little mankind, especially leaders of the scientific community, grasps our total dependence on the Sun – the creator, destroyer and sustainer of all atoms, lives and worlds in the solar system.
Little do they know that in hiding experimental data and observations, they destroy the ability of mankind to adapt and to evolve as solar-induced conditions change.
http://tgrule.com/2013/05/22/climatology/
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Resolution_Advancement.pdf”
Don’t create you own alarmist BS omanuel when stating:
Today world leaders face these harsh consequences of that 1945 decision
o A growing world population
o A diminishing supply of fossil fuels
Growing world population is not a problem and deminishing supply of fossil fuels is simply not true.
Please stick to the facts and stay away from Club of Rome and Agenda 21 Bull Shit.
@ omanuel, Besides that, I think we all know the message you bring to the world by now.
I know this isn’t my blog so I take full responsibility for this remark but the fact that you use any opportunity to repeat the same message over and over again, at least by me is regarded as a lack of respect and an insult to my intelligence. So please try to widen your scope a little bit to keep things interesting. No hard feelings, just bored.
Recently, I showed the same SST anomaly to my sister trying explain that with colder oceans, the weather pattern would be cooler. She replied something like “I was layman and didn’t have the “expert” credentials. Who were my experts?”. She didn’t believe that I could study and understand enough to know for myself. Her experts were AGW and later essentially stated “I believe in AGW”.
There were big showers in Southern Belgium last week – driving along they were habitually hitting our windshield as sleet. There was snow in the more upland areas and France has experienced unusual late frosts. Meteo France is forecasting a cold summer: http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/a-year-without-a-summer/
Currently, here in normally-sunny SW France, it’s 11.5°C outside and somewhat damp. I’d have been expecting somewhere 25-30°C and sunny. Whatever happened to those nice warm times the AGW folks were promising? Mind you, I remember back in the 70s that we were being promised a new Ice Age arriving around now, but at that time it wasn’t anything to do with CO2 or anything Humanity had done and that there was nothing we could do about it except prepare for a colder climate. Maybe they got it closer, though I don’t see an Ice Age arriving for quite a few centuries.
Didn’t look at a UniSYS map for a while. Don’t remember it ever being so cold.
(And it is indeed cold here in Germany; on the weekend we had snow above 600 meters. It was 7 deg C in lower areas so the lapse rate would lead to 0 deg C at 600 or 700 m.)
Pingback: These items caught my eye – 28 May 2013 | grumpydenier
A song of Springtime in Germany: link
BBC’s Top Gear travelled to the North Pole by dog sled and Toyota in 2007. It’s cold up there.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007v18p
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear:_Polar_Special
It is 7:30am and we have warmed up to 57° F (14° C) in North Carolina (L = 35.7° N )
I started to look at the daily highs for my rural station and a quickie look showed
Highs in the 80’s for 1990 & 2001 but no highs in the 90’s
(1990 had 25 days over 80°F and 2001 had 17 days over 80°F)
For 2002 there were six days with temps over 90.
For 2004 there were 17 days with temps over 90 with two days at 98. (ten days between 80 & 90)
In 2007 we are back to two days over 90.
For 2008 and 2009 there are no days over 90.
2010 had 3 days at 91°F,
2011, five at 91 and one 95,
2012 only one at 91°F
And this month, 2013 we have had only eight days above 80°F
So yes it has been very cold for May in North Carolina.
Graph Solar Cycle 23 & 24
Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/catalog/climind/AMO.html
From Icecap:
short term: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/cdas_ao_nao_daily.png
And just for the laugh:
CO2
I am impressed that in this day and age where everything is staged and financed with millions/billions of dollars, these Russians basically did their feat on a shoestring with “stock” cars. I only hope that America has not lost that spirit.
Speed says:
28 May 2013 at 11:27 am
“BBC’s Top Gear travelled to the North Pole by dog sled and Toyota in 2007. It’s cold up there.”
Only the magnetic North Pole; still, very funny.
Yes, but it is a warm cold. The other day I was looking at the NSDIC graph of Antarctica sea ice extent. The graph started from 1979 to the present. This last summers sea ice melt shows close to being a record since 1979 for the least melting in the time frame of the graph. I do not see this being talked about. Plus, in looking at those 34 years, there is a distinct cooling trend that has been building through the entire series, less summer loss with more winter gain. I was arguing with a warmist about the poles and that led me to take a longer look at current info. This also made me wonder ‘Does the South Pole lead the way by cooling first, which is then followed by cooling in the NH years later?’.
Svensmark’s hypothesese provide a good model of the alternating warming & cooling phases at the poles.
Adam Gallon says:
28 May 2013 at 7:56 pm
Thanks for the info.
goldminor, take a look at what the “Bipolar Seesaw” may actually mean ( “Bipolar Seesaw” = the Arctic warms as the Antarctic cools)
Discussion of paper at WUWT: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/02/can-we-predict-the-duration-of-an-interglacial/
Related discussion: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/05/on-“trap-speed-acc-and-the-snr/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/30/the-antithesis/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/16/the-end-holocene-or-how-to-make-out-like-a-madoff-climate-change-insurer/
The alternate view:
So the solar insolation glacial inception threshold can vary. Going back to the first paper Can we predict the duration of an interglacial?
All of this evidence of cooling should doom the climate change fraud.
84 degrees F here in NW FL today. Pleasant breeze but no snow yet. We do currently have a long term rainfall deficit.
Mt. St. Hellen’s is states top polluter since it woke up. http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/107791/mount_st_helens_is_states_top_polluter/
It would be nice to have some more insights what other volcano’s currently active add to the SO2 budged but it must be considerable.
Humanity is just a fly on an elephant’s ass.
Unfortunately SO2 monitoring from space, introduced by ESA and NASA to detect volcanic eruptions and provide aviation warnings and environmental observations (detecting Anthropogenic SO2 emissions don’t result in random available data on a daily basis (like a weather report). There is a lag of several day’s or there is simply no data available at all, so I couldn’t find any St. Hellen\s data via these system.
But what I did find was a map from 2012 showing immense SO2 emissions over Ethiopia’s Arte Ale volcano. I have the impression SO2 observations from space failed to “light up” the industrialized area’s and therefore wasn’t the “mighty tool from heaven” for the Warmists providing them with the arguments to close our industries, power generation and further shackle humanity.
http://www.temis.nl/aviation/
http://sacs.aeronomie.be/alert/index.php
http://sacs.aeronomie.be/archive/month/index_VCD_month.php
http://so2.gsfc.nasa.gov/
There are quite a few volcanoes in eruptive states at the moment. The Kamchatka volcanoes have been constant for about 6 months now. Copahue just went from orange to red alert yesterday. There are others threatening and there are some that are just showing early signs, like Mt St Helen, Mt Lassen, Mt Ranier, Mt Hood in southern Oregon, plus a few lesser known names. So the Cascadia chain of volcanoes has potential. Mt Lassen last erupted in 1915 and it is a super volcano. The Aleutians and Alaska have several in active eruptions recently and others that are threatening. Iceland’s Katla is being closely monitored plus a few others in that group. High potential danger to Europe with Katla.
Gail Combs says:
28 May 2013 at 9:02 pm
——————————-
That is a lot of data to mull over. Thank you for the detailed thought. That really fills in a lot of blank spots. So 3K years ago, give or take a bit, would have seen a greener Sahara Desert. Turning points in humanities walk through time. Our technology should give us the ability to survive the changes, but that will be dependent on healthy interactions between affected nations.
Now it is all down to the ticking clock lining up all the right events to start the next phase. Is there a Maunder minimum close by? or a Dalton? The Spoerer was similar to the Dalton in that the main event was about 30 years, whereas the Maunder goes for a full 60 years. It strikes me though that the grand minimum will be one of the components necessary to initiate the steeper move into glaciation. This could also be just another grand minimum coming. The glaciation could still be another cycle or two away. Anyway, it looks like I have a few more days of reading your posted links to help round out the thoughts.
{No reasons are cited as to why the spring 2013 is so cold.}
Of course not.
@R. de Haan (28 May 2013 at 3:31 am)
omanuel says:
Don’t create you own alarmist BS omanuel when stating:
Today world leaders face these harsh consequences of that 1945 decision
_ o A growing world population
_ o A diminishing supply of fossil fuels
Growing world population is not a problem and deminishing supply of fossil fuels is simply not true.
Your conclusion may be based on false propaganda from energy companies.
Of course, I may be wrong too. But I know for a fact that new ethanol plants are being built in Iowa today to convert food-stuffs for humans (corn) into fuel, and the world population of humans is at an all-time high.
Please help me understand this paradox, if it is not the path to disaster.
And the Giro de Italia was posponed on last Friday because of snow. Then Saturday: Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) placed an icy cherry atop his sweet lead in the Giro d’Italia on Saturday, soloing to victory in the snow atop Tre Cime di Lavaredo. Great cycling weather in Italy.