Slashdot Mirror

I'm not sure what your definition of bikini weather is, but the current temperature in CFS Alert is -31C with a windchill of -36C. Check for yourself: Environment Canada - Alert, Nunavut

Large parts of the arctic and antarctic are presumed to be warming, even though there are no weather stations within hundreds or thousands of miles.

Really? As one of the IT administrators responsible in part for what I believe is the most northern permanent weather station in the Arctic, I can assure you that there are automated weather stations and professional observers at both poles.

Yet the winter in the Northeast Canadian Arctic and in Greenland has been exceptionally warm.

On New Years Day Nuuk, Greenland set a new all time high of 44 degrees Fahrenheit. The normal high is 20 F. The previous record high was 39 F set 5 or 6 years ago.

On the 6th of January Coral Harbour, Nanavut, Canada at the northwest corner of Hudson Bay had a low temperature for the day of -3.7 degrees Celsius. That sounds cold but the normal low for the date is -34 C so the temperature was 30 C (54 F) above the normal daily low for January. A couple of other factoids:

After New Year’s Day, the town went 11 days without getting down to its average daily high (-26 C).

On both the 5th and 6th, Coral Harbor inched above the freezing mark. Before this year, temperatures above 0C (32F) had never been recorded in the entire three months of January, February, and March.

There's a balance there with your cold.

This is the same government that has destroyed the accuracy of the Census

That is just one example. If you use daily and monthly weather summaries prepared by Environment Canada (in charge of the Canadian weather service), you will quickly discover that they have redefined the daily mean temperature as the median temperature.

Official definition taken from http://climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/Glossary-popup_e.html#meantemp :

"The mean temperature in degrees Celsius (C) is defined as the average of the maximum and minimum temperature during the day."

It has been like this for a few years now and I suppose it is because Mr. Harper's staffers know how to divide by 2 but not by 24. Of course, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has not authorized any Canadian atmospheric scientist to speak out about this, so it has gone unnoticed.

Shades of George W. Bush's war against science! (Recommended read : "The Republican War on Science" by Chris Mooney (Basic Books, 2005, ISBN-13: 978-0-7394-6972-9 and ISBN-10: 0-7394-6972-X).

Interesting, but that same site indicates that the average number of nights in January with a minimum temperature below -30C is 2.1. They don't even bother to list how many average below -40C, but it would be far less than that (10C is a big difference!)

It's quite clear that -40C is not typical for a Tuesday in January in Edmonton- in fact, when it gets that low it gets local press coverage as a notable event, analogous to what this earthquake is getting!

Wikipedia is wrong, must be the 1st time ever.
The table just below the paragraph contradicts it, as does the Environment Canada weppage

record lows for Edmonton City center A.

Jan 20 1943 -44.4C
Feb 08 1939 -46.1C
Dec 28 1938 -48.3C

also exceeded it on Jan 3 2009 -41.9C (at the same weather station.) I'm sure I can find more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonton#cite_note-CCN-45

Check out:
http://climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/climate_normals/results_e.html?Province=ALL&StationName=edmonton&SearchType=BeginsWith&LocateBy=Province&Proximity=25&ProximityFrom=City&StationNumber=&IDType=MSC&CityName=&ParkName=&LatitudeDegrees=&LatitudeMinutes=&LongitudeDegrees=&LongitudeMinutes=&NormalsClass=A&SelNormals=&StnId=1867&

Or if I need something more up-to-date, open the wii opera browser and go to the latest official forecast, which is updated quicker.

Edmonton, Alberta would be the northernmost city in North America, and it's at the same latitude as Liverpool.

Bullshit. There are plenty of Canadian and American cities further north ... heck, there are whole states and provinces and territories ... Alaska, Yukon, Nunavut, NWT, Labrador ...

Here - go to Environment Canada and look at the f'ing map - see all those cities north of Edmonton?

Bzzzt, wrong. Maybe you better spend a few more minutes outside after looking at that computer monitor. It takes awhile for your eyes to dark adapt.

I live in the midwest where we do get a bunch of moisture in the air. While it does affect the transparency of the atmosphere only about 1 magnitude is lost.http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/astro/transpar ence_e.html/

What makes the increased moisture level bad is the local light pollution that now has additional particles (of water) to reflect off creating a 'less dark' sky.