Home/BlogA cold Siberian air mass flowing across the Sea of Japan has caused up to 4 feet of snow on Japan’s main island of Honshu, killing 6 people, and over 1,000 people are trapped by boulders and fallen trees on roads.
Today’s NASA MODIS satellite image shows much of the northwestern side of Honshu covered by snow:
While Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido frequently experiences ocean-effect snow, heavy snow extending this far south is unusual on Honshu, with the current snowcover extending even a little south of the latitude of semi-tropical Tokyo. Another round of heavy ocean effect snow is expected late this week in the same areas.
I am waiting to see the effects of the Icelandic volcano on Northern Europe. It wouldn’t surprise me to see levels of snow we saw back in 2010, the last time a Volcano erupted in iceland. We were told the days of snow were over in the UK, but I don’t believe this to be the case and we could see some serious cooling the next 30/40 years.
Cold Siberian air plus evaporation ought to result in the near-surface of the Sea of Japan getting a bit cooler. I assume most of the H2O came from the sea and not from Siberia. A couple of years ago there were reports of rivers (think ports) freezing on the east side of the Asian landmass. Just long enough ago that I don’t remember much about it.
Meanwhile, the North American Great Lakes have ice. With the Bay of Quinte having ice, even Lake Ontario can be said to be starting to freeze. Maybe that’s a stretch.
I agree if an ash producing eruption occurs although that has not happened yet. That being said, the eruption continues at a pretty high intensity and the caldera continues to subside. Were the caldera to collapse it could resuolt in significant amounts of ash as well as a glacial flood. The following link from the Iceland Met Office provides a good daily update on the eruption and possible outcomes. http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/articles/nr/2947
I have found this blog an informative guide to the Icelandic eruption. http://baering.github.io/ Even though no ash clouds this volcano has been pumping out sulphur for six months or so. At some stage it will effect Northern European temperatures as it did 200 years ago.
Hi Tim,
Yeah! what the IPCC, CAGW and such types really want is another 1815 Mount Tambora like volcanic eruption that drops global temperatures some 3-5 deg centigrade and another year without Summer. It will of course lead to massive crop failures (as it did then), disease and civil unrest but at least the climate weenies will feel secure that someone somewhere cares if the earth warms another tenth of a degree centigrade. Who knows? Due to the large number of horse deaths at the time the bicycle came to be invented. If it happens again the world can be consumed with the problem of how to feed itself again. Progress my lad! Progress!
Have a great day!
“The first two absorption bands of CO 2 is approx. 2μm and 2,8μm (Figure 2). The radiation emitted by the sun. The earth does not emit waves in this regard. Absorbing agents reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface in these bands, which play a role similar to ozone and ultraviolet absorber that protects the earth from the excess of the issue. The amount of energy that can absorb CO 2 in these areas can be estimated at about 4% of the total capacity to absorb carbon dioxide.
Another extent of absorption of CO 2 4 – 4,5μm. Earth emits a minimal amount of radiation. These are the waves on the boundary frequency emitted by the surface of the planet. In part this goes beyond the scope of the issue of the Earth. The graphs showing the amount of radiation emitted by the Earth, we see an almost horizontal line by selecting the energy of the emission wavelength. In this band the carbon dioxide absorbs about 8% of the total amount of infrared which is able to absorb. Due to the fact that the absorption in this band is only a fraction of CO 2 absorption capacity, as well as itself is extremely small infrared emission at this frequency can not be regarded as meaning that the absorption climate because it is the interaction is too little, and maybe even trace.
Fourth clearly marked on the said plot (Figure 2), the absorption band, the scope of the largest infrared absorption by carbon dioxide. It includes a wavelength of about 14μm to 18μm, so it is very large, and in addition to a large amount of radiation – in this field is absorbed approx. 88% of the total absorbed by CO 2 radiation. Infrared absorption peak for CO 2 falls to about 15μm, as shown in the following figure (Figure 3). It was at this fairly large absorption band of environmentalists see their greatest source of influence on the climate. It does not surprise me personally, because they have to search some data in support of their theory. It seems that this is evidence – infrared absorption band of high, but again, this is evidence of perverse. What matters is not the amount of radiation in fact, but its quality, that is the real power of influence. We are dealing here with high radiation wavelength, and the greater the wavelength, the lower the energy. By means of such radiation will not change in any significant way the temperature of the reasons why these wavelengths are not applicable in heating. There frequencies used bordering with visible light (from 0,78μm) and slightly larger wavelength, but those larger than 10μm did not play the role here (although they are present there, because of infrared filaments emit large range of wavelengths). Commissioned by the atmosphere part of such radiation is certainly not lead to a significant increase in the Earth’s surface temperature and will not increase the average temperature of the atmosphere.”
http://ekotest.republika.pl/Efekt%20cieplarniany%20-%20krytyka%20i%20dyskusja%20strona%201.html
It gets very cold in the Northeast US.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_z100_nh_f00.gif
Thanks, Dr. Spencer.
This amount of snow, so far south in Honshu, is impressive. It most be so warm there! 😉
This is terrible! If we don’t “do something” and cool the world off, I can’t imagine the devastation we’ll face.
Hi guy. Great website and nice topic.
Thank you for sharing it.
Best Regards.