Posts Tagged ‘cold wave’

Cold – not heat – is the real killer

May 24, 2015

Climate will change as it always has. While there is a religious belief among the radicalised of the true faith that man-made global warming is real, the reality is that there is no signature of man-made global warming that can be distinguished from the natural variations of climate. I have no doubt that whatever change occurs, humans will cope as well as they are able to, and history shows that even glacial conditions have not held back human development. When (not if) the current inter-glacial ends, humans will have access to energy levels and energy intensities magnitudes greater than what was available during the last glacial maximum (20 – 25,000 years ago). And we will have fossil fuels and nuclear energy to thank for that. Hydro Power will virtually vanish during glacial conditions. The more time we have to prepare, and the preparations we make, will determine how well we cope and how many deaths may occur while we do adjust.

It is cold which is by far the more dangerous and which requires the greater preparation. It is far, far better we prepare for the ice age that will undoubtedly come than for any imaginary man-made global warming.

A new paper in the Lancet reports on an analysis of over 74 million (74,225,200) deaths between 1985 and 2012 in 13 countries with a wide range of climates, from cold to subtropical. The results show that moderate cold or heat cause more deaths than extreme weather and that cold kills 20 times more people than heat.

Antonio Gasparrini et al, Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multicountry observational study. The Lancet, May 2015 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)62114-0

The Lancet (press release):

Cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather, according to an international study analysing over 74 million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries. The findings, published in The Lancet, also reveal that deaths due to moderately hot or cold weather substantially exceed those resulting from extreme heat waves or cold spells.

“It’s often assumed that extreme weather causes the majority of deaths, with most previous research focusing on the effects of extreme heat waves,” says lead author Dr Antonio Gasparrini from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the UK. “Our findings, from an analysis of the largest dataset of temperature-related deaths ever collected, show that the majority of these deaths actually happen on moderately hot and cold days, with most deaths caused by moderately cold temperatures.” 

…… Around 7.71% of all deaths were caused by non-optimal temperatures, with substantial differences between countries, ranging from around 3% in Thailand, Brazil, and Sweden to about 11% in China, Italy, and Japan. Cold was responsible for the majority of these deaths (7.29% of all deaths), while just 0.42% of all deaths were attributable to heat. The study also found that extreme temperatures were responsible for less than 1% of all deaths, while mildly sub-optimal temperatures accounted for around 7% of all deaths—with most (6.66% of all deaths) related to moderate cold. …

The study also shows that cold has greater impact in Japan and Italy than in Sweden but that is only to be expected. Warm countries will be more unprepared for cold and vice versa.

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No global warming in Delhi – coldest December in a decade

December 30, 2013

It is missing in the Antarctic where ice levels are at record highs (and it is summer there) and it is missing in Delhi which at 28.6100° N is just outside the tropics (23.4378°S to 23.4378°N).

What global warming?

Where global warming?

It is impossible to have “global warming” if no local warming can be observed. Merely having a computer model say so or some arbitrarily weighted average  produce a number which cannot be observed  is insufficient.

Delhi: City reels under cold wave

Delhi: City reels under cold wave (image IBN News)

Weather is not climate of course, but 17 years of no global warming – while carbon dioxide emissions have continued to increase – is quite persuasive. Man-made carbon dioxide emissions do not drive climate and are clearly irrelevant.

The alarmists and the doom-mongers need to be held accountable for their “forecasts”.

Hindustan Times: The cold wave tightened its grip over Delhi on Monday as the minimum temperature went as low as 2.4 degrees Celsius in the city’s coldest December in over a decade.

The fall in temperature has been triggered by the biting cold in the Leh and Kargil towns in Jammu and Kashmir. Icy winds blowing from snow-clad mountains into the plains of the Kashmir Valley have also added to the intensity of the cold wave. The two towns, Leh and Kargil, recorded the coldest temperatures of the season on Sunday at -17.3 and -16.4 degrees Celsius respectively. 

According to the Indian Meteorological Department’s website, low temperatures are expected to persist for the next 24-48 hours. Mainly cloudy sky with possibility of rain or thunderstorm is expected on New Year’s eve in Delhi, with the minimum temperature possibly around 7 degrees celsius. 

The weather condition has been similar throughout north India. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar also grappled with cold with Lucknow recording a new low of 1.9 degrees Celsius. In Jammu and Kashmir, Srinagar froze at -5.3 degree Celsius while Jammu was at 3.5. In Punjab, the lowest recorded minimum temperature was at 0.8 degrees in Amritsar while Patiala shivered at 2.3 degrees on Monday.

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Global warming missing in South America

September 1, 2013

It’s only weather of course but the current winter in South America affords no evidence of global warming. The heat – if it is there – is extremely well hidden.

  1. It is cold that is far more deadly than warmth;
  2. it is only the availability of affordable energy which can help us ward off the cold;
  3. And it is only conventional energy sources (fossil, nuclear and hydro) whic are both available and affordable

Snow grips South American countries
Chile cold snap deaths total 16
Cold snap kills nine in Argentina

Peru snow state of emergency extended to more regions

The Peruvian government has extended to nine more regions a state of emergency called to cope with unusually cold weather and heavy snowfall. At least two people have died and 33,000 others have been affected by the cold spell, local officials say.

Tens of thousands of animals have frozen to death over the past week. President Ollanta Humala has travelled to Apurimac, one of the worst-hit areas, to oversee the distribution of emergency aid.

The state of emergency would be in place for 20 days, an official statement said. 

The heaviest snow fall to hit Peru in a decade has killed tens of thousands of llamas, alpacas, cattle and sheep, and left farmers destitute. A man died when the roof of his hut caved in under the weight of the snow in southern Carabaya province but the circumstances of the second death were unclear. Three people were rescued on Saturday from the same region after their home was cut off by snow. Rescue workers said the three, two girls and an elderly woman, were suffering from frostbite and snow blindness.

The cold front has also hit Peru’s south-eastern neighbour, Bolivia, and Paraguay, where a combined total of five people have died.

A woman walks along a snowy road on the outskirts of La Paz, Bolivia on 25 August 2013

A woman walks along a snowy road on the outskirts of La Paz, Bolivia on 25 August 2013 (BBC)

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A week of new cold records in Delhi – must be punishment for man-made global warming

January 6, 2013

In spite of the urban heat effect and perhaps because of the religious fanaticism of the global warming pundits, every winter witnesses a significant death toll in Delhi and North India from bitterly cold weather conditions. Cold is the real killer not warmth. It is adaptation to cold which is more difficult and it is what is required.

Delhi schools to be closed till Jan 12 due to cold wave: indiatvnews.com

If instead of the Canute-like arrogance of following a pseudo-scientific religion in trying to arrest climate change, we focused on adapting and coping with the normal and real-life, variations of weather — where the magnitude of these variations  in real time dwarf those of long-term climate change — we would all be better served. It is successfully adapting to the on-going vagaries of weather (during both warming and cooling climate cycles) that has produced the greatest advances in human history. Futile attempts to control what are natural climate cycles is just plain stupid.

Cold records in Delhi: The minimum temperature in Delhi has been recorded at 1.9 degrees Celsius, which is five degrees below normal. The maximum temperature is 12.8 degrees, which is eight degrees below normal. This is the lowest minimum for January in the past five years.

…. On Saturday also, the capital had got no respite from the bitter cold as the minimum temperature settled at 2.9 degrees Celsius – four notches below average. … On Wednesday, the city witnessed the coldest day in 44 years when the maximum plummeted to 9.8 degress Celsius.

Cold wave in North India: The entire North India on Saturday continued to remain in the grip of severe cold, which claimed 11 more lives in Uttar Pradesh, taking the death toll this winter to 140.

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Bitter cold wave in S. America — blamed on global warming!!

August 29, 2010

The bitter cold wave being experienced in S. America does not conform to the Global Warming Religion’s creeds. Facts cannot be suppressed forever and Nature has finally acknowledged one cold event in Bolivia but even here finds a way to contort itself to claim this ” as an example of a sudden climatic change wreaking havoc on wildlife”.

Antarctic cold snap kills millions of aquatic animals in the Amazon. Cold empties Bolivian rivers of fish

dead fish

With high Andean peaks and a humid tropical forest, Bolivia is a country of ecological extremes. But during the Southern Hemisphere’s recent winter, unusually low temperatures in part of the country’s tropical region hit freshwater species hard, killing an estimated 6 million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles and river dolphins.

But the cold wave is not an isolated incident and appears to be widespread over a large part of the southern hemisphere. Der Spiegel (translation in Politically Incorrect) reports today that:

Cold wave in South America: The continent is experiencing one of the harshest winters in many years. Altogether 175 people have died as a result of the bitter cold, according to official statements. Especially affected are the more impoverished population groups who are often poorly protected from the cold by precarious housing that has no heating and are poorly cared for.

In Argentina, such low temperatures haven’t been recorded for ten years. There, 16 people froze to death, another eleven died from Carbon Monoxide poisoning because of faulty stoves. It was also unusually cold in the bordering countries: In Bolivia, 18 people fell victim to the cold, in Paraguay it was five, in Chile and Uruguay there were two each, and in southern Brazil nine people.

In addition, thousands of cattle froze to death in the pastures of Paraguay and Brazil. There aren’t stalls because normally it doesn’t get very cold, even in the winter.

In some regions of Bolivia and Peru, children had school-free days until the end of the week. In the larger cities of the region emergency shelters were opened for people who live on the street. The system for supplying electricity and natural gas were working to capacity in many communties. In Argentina there were even shortages in some provinces.

With La Niña already established the Northern Hemisphere may also be in for another harsh winter.

Further contortions are likely by the religious fanatics to show that it is just further evidence of  global warming !

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