http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/MonthTDeptUS.png

Hope that winter will end this week!

However, the cold weather this past winter took a huge toll on wildlife.

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) – A record number of big-game animals perished this winter in parts of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming from a harsh season of unusually heavy snows and sustained cold in the Northern Rockies, state wildlife managers say.

“Elk, deer and moose — those animals are having a pretty tough time,” said Wyoming Game and Fish biologist Doug Brimeyer.

Snow and frigid temperatures in pockets of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming arrived earlier and lingered longer than usual, extending the time that wildlife were forced to forage on low reserves for scarce food, leading more of them to starve.

Based on aerial surveys of big-game herds and signals from radio-collared animals, experts are documenting high mortality among offspring of mule deer, white-tailed deer and pronghorn antelope.

http://www.fox59.com/

h/t to Richard C Savage

Rising sea levels could lead to a mass migration and displacement similar to what we saw in Pakistan’s floods last year.

Admiral Mike Mullen – Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

According to Europe’s Envisat, It will take more than 1,000 years for sea level to rise one metre. Almost as big a threat as six year old blonde girls in pigtails carrying explosives to airports in their knickers.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/plot/rss/from:1998/trend

By contrast, 2010 was a warm spring and had below normal tornadoes.

Another Ice Age?

Monday, Jun. 24, 1974

In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims. During 1972 record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in centuries. In Canada’s wheat belt, a particularly chilly and rainy spring has delayed planting and may well bring a disappointingly small harvest. Rainy Britain, on the other hand, has suffered from uncharacteristic dry spells the past few springs. A series of unusually cold winters has gripped the American Far West, while New England and northern Europe have recently experienced the mildest winters within anyone’s recollection.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html

http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf

So relax. A bit. But my guess is you’ll feel better in the future if you turn out the lights and turn off the furnace.

Here is a side splitter.

The battle for GW belief is mostly over, and denying has won in our democracy. The model predictions will evolve. The predictions (like 60% some comfort & economic problems, 10% negligible, 10% catastrophic changes) are from quite conservative scientists — they’ve underestimated warming/change effects so far. Let’s hope they forgot some obscure factor that makes them an overestimate this time.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/robertbrown

Exactly which planet is their ivory tower located on?

Temperatures declining since 2001. Sea level no higher than five years ago. Arctic ice growing since 2007. Record winter and spring snow. No hurricanes in almost three years in the US.

Warming forecasters got everything wrong so far this century, so they just ramp the rhetoric up higher – to stave off their obsolescence a little longer.

Osama bin Laden dead: Yes, SEALs were in on the raid, but aides hail Obama’s office bravery.

According to another one of those White House briefings of reporters designed to suck up all available credit for good news, President Obama’s homeland security advisor reveals that it was a really tense time in the air-conditioned White House as unidentified U.S. Navy SEALs closed in on the world’s most wanted man after midnight a half a world away.

“Minutes passed like days,” says John Brennan, who bravely stood with press secretary Jay Carney before reporters and TV cameras today chronicling his boss’ weekend heroics.

The heavily-armed commandos flying in a quartet of darkened Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters more than 100 miles into Pakistan were probably listening to their iPods and discussing the NFL draft.

“The concern was that bin Laden would oppose any type of capture operation,” said Obama’s Sherlock Holmes. So U.S. troops were prepared “for all contingencies.”

In fact, this weekend was such a tense time in the White House that Obama only got in nine holes of golf. But he still managed to deliver his joke script to the White House Correspondents Assn. dinner Saturday evening.

Sunday was, Brennan revealed to his eager audience, “probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of times in the lives of the people assembled here.” Poor poor bureaucrats. Extra Tums all around. Did someone order dinner?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/