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Europe's Danube freezes over, cold snap toll at 460
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og w ash@hogwash AGWHooey
Feb 9, 2012, 7:15:40 PM2/9/12
to
Europe's Danube freezes over, cold snap toll at 460
By Katarina Subasic (AFP) - 5 hours ago
BELGRADE - Thick ice closed vast swathes of the Danube on Thursday,
crippling shipping on Europe's busiest waterway, as the death toll from
bitter cold across the continent rose to at least 460.
As it has every day for nearly two weeks, the brutal cold claimed lives
in several countries and killed dozens more in weather-related
accidents.
The 2,860-kilometre (1,780-mile) Danube, which flows through 10
countries and is vital for transport, power, irrigation, industry and
fishing, was wholly or partially blocked from Austria to its mouth on
the Black Sea.
Navigation was impossible or restricted in Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria,
Romania, Hungary and Austria, as ice covered the river or formed
dangerous floes in shipping lanes.
An official from the Serbian economy ministry said the commercial
repercussions "could be very bad", while infrastructure ministry
official Pavle Galico said shipping would not resume for 10 days.
Bulgarian authorities, who have banned all navigation on the river,
reported 224 vessels stuck in ports, and Ukrainian rescuers in Croatia
reached three crew members on a ship trapped in the ice since Friday.
Temperatures in Bulgaria dropped to a new record low Thursday of minus
28.6 degrees Celsius (minus 19.5 Fahrenheit) in the northwestern town
of Vidin. The country has halted all power exports due to the cold
snap.
So far, 28 people have been killed in Bulgaria as a result of the
weather, including eight who drowned when the icy waters of a small dam
swept through their village of Biser in the southeast.
Serbian railways, meanwhile, said the famed Balkan Express train that
runs from Belgrade to Istanbul would only go as far as Sofia for now
because of the flooding in Bulgaria.
In the Czech Republic, another homeless man froze to death in Kolin,
bringing the country's toll to 25, and forecasters said temperatures
could plunge to minus 40 Celsius in the mountains and minus 25 Celsius
in Prague on Saturday night.
Another blast of freezing weather was also predicted for Italy, even as
soldiers worked to free villages trapped in three metres of snow and
with the death toll from the cold snap already at 43.
Forecasts said freezing winds would pick up later Thursday and bring
more snow on Friday and Saturday to Rome, just recovering from its
biggest snowfall in decades.
The Croatian city of Split has seen a spike in bone fractures in recent
days as hundreds of people have slipped on icy roads.
The city's mayor blamed high taxes on footwear for preventing residents
of the coastal town from buying proper winter boots.
The claim was met with outrage by many inhabitants of Split, where the
city's hospital ran through a two-year supply of plaster in five days.
They said the city had reacted inadequately to the cold snap.
Electricity consumption was peaking in Serbia and state-run power
utility EPS imposed a limit on supply to some large firms, warning that
households and companies could face power rationing if consumption is
not reined in.
Germany was forced Wednesday to draw on its reserves for producing
electricity for the second time this winter.
More than 2,000 roads were blocked in Turkey by heavy snows and frigid
temperatures stretched as far south as north Africa.
In Ukraine, worst hit by the big freeze, ice over the Kerch Strait
linking the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea has trapped 126 boats, 120 of
them foreign, the emergencies ministry said.
Forecasters also said temperatures were expected to plunge further at
the weekend, to as low as minus 30 Celsius in some regions.
While many in Europe were fed up with the bitter cold, residents in the
Netherlands were disappointed with a slight warming in that country
that resulted in a legendary ice-skating race along canals being
cancelled.
The race has not been run since 1997.
In France, police said the body of an 83-year-old man was found near a
forest in the northwestern town of Fougeres. It was at least the
seventh death in the country believed to have been caused by the cold
snap.
The freezing weather continued in France on Thursday, with 52 of the
country's 101 regions on alert for deep cold or snow.
Authorities have warned of possible power cuts after electricity use
hit a record of more than 100,000 megawatts at peak evening times on
Wednesday.
--
Dawlish: Weather is not climate unless I say it is.
By Katarina Subasic (AFP) - 5 hours ago
BELGRADE - Thick ice closed vast swathes of the Danube on Thursday,
crippling shipping on Europe's busiest waterway, as the death toll from
bitter cold across the continent rose to at least 460.
As it has every day for nearly two weeks, the brutal cold claimed lives
in several countries and killed dozens more in weather-related
accidents.
The 2,860-kilometre (1,780-mile) Danube, which flows through 10
countries and is vital for transport, power, irrigation, industry and
fishing, was wholly or partially blocked from Austria to its mouth on
the Black Sea.
Navigation was impossible or restricted in Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria,
Romania, Hungary and Austria, as ice covered the river or formed
dangerous floes in shipping lanes.
An official from the Serbian economy ministry said the commercial
repercussions "could be very bad", while infrastructure ministry
official Pavle Galico said shipping would not resume for 10 days.
Bulgarian authorities, who have banned all navigation on the river,
reported 224 vessels stuck in ports, and Ukrainian rescuers in Croatia
reached three crew members on a ship trapped in the ice since Friday.
Temperatures in Bulgaria dropped to a new record low Thursday of minus
28.6 degrees Celsius (minus 19.5 Fahrenheit) in the northwestern town
of Vidin. The country has halted all power exports due to the cold
snap.
So far, 28 people have been killed in Bulgaria as a result of the
weather, including eight who drowned when the icy waters of a small dam
swept through their village of Biser in the southeast.
Serbian railways, meanwhile, said the famed Balkan Express train that
runs from Belgrade to Istanbul would only go as far as Sofia for now
because of the flooding in Bulgaria.
In the Czech Republic, another homeless man froze to death in Kolin,
bringing the country's toll to 25, and forecasters said temperatures
could plunge to minus 40 Celsius in the mountains and minus 25 Celsius
in Prague on Saturday night.
Another blast of freezing weather was also predicted for Italy, even as
soldiers worked to free villages trapped in three metres of snow and
with the death toll from the cold snap already at 43.
Forecasts said freezing winds would pick up later Thursday and bring
more snow on Friday and Saturday to Rome, just recovering from its
biggest snowfall in decades.
The Croatian city of Split has seen a spike in bone fractures in recent
days as hundreds of people have slipped on icy roads.
The city's mayor blamed high taxes on footwear for preventing residents
of the coastal town from buying proper winter boots.
The claim was met with outrage by many inhabitants of Split, where the
city's hospital ran through a two-year supply of plaster in five days.
They said the city had reacted inadequately to the cold snap.
Electricity consumption was peaking in Serbia and state-run power
utility EPS imposed a limit on supply to some large firms, warning that
households and companies could face power rationing if consumption is
not reined in.
Germany was forced Wednesday to draw on its reserves for producing
electricity for the second time this winter.
More than 2,000 roads were blocked in Turkey by heavy snows and frigid
temperatures stretched as far south as north Africa.
In Ukraine, worst hit by the big freeze, ice over the Kerch Strait
linking the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea has trapped 126 boats, 120 of
them foreign, the emergencies ministry said.
Forecasters also said temperatures were expected to plunge further at
the weekend, to as low as minus 30 Celsius in some regions.
While many in Europe were fed up with the bitter cold, residents in the
Netherlands were disappointed with a slight warming in that country
that resulted in a legendary ice-skating race along canals being
cancelled.
The race has not been run since 1997.
In France, police said the body of an 83-year-old man was found near a
forest in the northwestern town of Fougeres. It was at least the
seventh death in the country believed to have been caused by the cold
snap.
The freezing weather continued in France on Thursday, with 52 of the
country's 101 regions on alert for deep cold or snow.
Authorities have warned of possible power cuts after electricity use
hit a record of more than 100,000 megawatts at peak evening times on
Wednesday.
--
Dawlish: Weather is not climate unless I say it is.
k...@kymhorsell.com
Feb 9, 2012, 9:18:39 PM2/9/12
to
In sci.skeptic AGWHooey <h og w ash@h og w ash> wrote:
> Europe's Danube freezes over, cold snap toll at 460
...
> Europe's Danube freezes over, cold snap toll at 460
Wow. Danube freezes, snow in Istanbul. Sounds like it must be winter in
the Northern Hemispphere.
More interestingly, the Black Sea freezing may be related to
runoff from Turkish and Caucuses glaciers. It isn't very saline
to start with --between 15 to 20% of the sea, depending on location
(middle of the Sea is more saline, generally) -- and it tends to
be near normal freezing during winter. If the salinity is depressed
enough it may allow significant "sea ice" to form.
Must look into the WOD to see what Black Se salinity has been doing
for the past 150 y.
--
[Grasping at magma seeps:]
The tropical oceans are being heated largely
by underwater volcanos and magma seeps.
The heated waters are sending rain or snow
in increasing quantities toward the Poles.
-- Last Post <last_p...@primus.ca>, Feb 6, 2012, 10:43 am
kym
Feb 10, 2012, 5:11:09 AM2/10/12
to
On Feb 10, 1:18 pm, k...@kymhorsell.com wrote:
...
At least the centre of the Black Sea has seen a decrease in both water
temperatures and
salinity since 1920 -- when the first records appeared in the World
Ocean Database.
The graphs are here:
<http://graphs.kymhorsell.com/blacksea-salinity.gif>
and
<http://graphs.kymhorsell.com/blacksea-temp.gif>
(If your ISP or specific IP is associated with unsolicited mail or
other suspicious activities in
some database somewhere then you'll get a 404 from my ISP).
The data for all annual avg of the WOD entries for each year over the
2 deg x 2 deg box
centred at the middle of the Black Sea (the highest salinity generally
-- upto 20% of sea water)
has an extremely high noise content (witness the low R2's < 10%).
Since 1920 the central Black Sea salinity has decreased at a rate of
around .7 points/C --
from around 18.2% in 1920 to around 17.6% of seawater in c2000. Only
some of the tests I've run
show > 90% significance for this trend.
Since 1920 the central Black Sea temperature has also decreased at a
rate of around 3C per
century. All tests for this trend show > 90% confidence (the serial-
corr adjusted procedure
gets a confidence of 98.5%).
With both the water temp and salinity showing a trend decrease, it
seems reasonable to expect
"sea ice" formation in the Black Sea to have increased over time,
given winter water temps are
near freezing and perhaps only the 15-20% salinity of the "sea" water
was preventing it from
freezing in the normal course of events.
--
[The problem with Vostok icecores:]
YOU are the one presenting the "evidence." Your evidence MUST be
performed using proven standards, not untested guesswork.
-- Michael Dobony <sur...@stopassaultnow.net>, 24 Feb 2011 19:49
-0600
...
> Must look into the WOD to see what Black Se salinity has been doing
> for the past 150 y.
...
> for the past 150 y.
At least the centre of the Black Sea has seen a decrease in both water
temperatures and
salinity since 1920 -- when the first records appeared in the World
Ocean Database.
The graphs are here:
<http://graphs.kymhorsell.com/blacksea-salinity.gif>
and
<http://graphs.kymhorsell.com/blacksea-temp.gif>
(If your ISP or specific IP is associated with unsolicited mail or
other suspicious activities in
some database somewhere then you'll get a 404 from my ISP).
The data for all annual avg of the WOD entries for each year over the
2 deg x 2 deg box
centred at the middle of the Black Sea (the highest salinity generally
-- upto 20% of sea water)
has an extremely high noise content (witness the low R2's < 10%).
Since 1920 the central Black Sea salinity has decreased at a rate of
around .7 points/C --
from around 18.2% in 1920 to around 17.6% of seawater in c2000. Only
some of the tests I've run
show > 90% significance for this trend.
Since 1920 the central Black Sea temperature has also decreased at a
rate of around 3C per
century. All tests for this trend show > 90% confidence (the serial-
corr adjusted procedure
gets a confidence of 98.5%).
With both the water temp and salinity showing a trend decrease, it
seems reasonable to expect
"sea ice" formation in the Black Sea to have increased over time,
given winter water temps are
near freezing and perhaps only the 15-20% salinity of the "sea" water
was preventing it from
freezing in the normal course of events.
--
[The problem with Vostok icecores:]
YOU are the one presenting the "evidence." Your evidence MUST be
performed using proven standards, not untested guesswork.
-- Michael Dobony <sur...@stopassaultnow.net>, 24 Feb 2011 19:49
-0600
George152
Feb 10, 2012, 2:09:15 PM2/10/12
to
just to thick..
Boy, aren't we glad that global warming is limiting the effect...
Eric Stevens
Feb 10, 2012, 5:50:09 PM2/10/12
to
Regards,
Eric Stevens
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