Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology says global warming bullshit

A bone-chilling cold wave with temperatures as low as 42 below zero shut down schools for thousands of youngsters Monday, sent homeless people into shelters and put car batteries on the disabled list from the northern Plains across the Great Lakes. At least six deaths were linked to the cold weather.

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The cold was accompanied by snow that was measured in feet in parts of upstate New York.

"Anybody in their right mind wouldn't want to be out in weather like this," Lawrence Wiley, 57, said at Cincinnati's crowded Drop Inn Center homeless shelter, where he has been living. Monday lows were in the single digits.

With temperatures near zero and a wind chill of 25 below, school districts across Ohio canceled classes. "We have a lot of kids that walk to school. We didn't think it was worth the risk," said Sandusky City Schools Superintendent Bill Pahl.

It was so cold that Toledo, Ohio — 5 above zero at noon, up from 4 below — even closed its outdoor ice rink. "The irony is not lost on us," said city spokesman Brian Schwartz.

With a temperature of 12 below zero and wind chill of 31 below, Wisconsin's largest school district, Milwaukee Public Schools, also shut down, idling some 90,000 children. In upstate New York, 34,000 kids got the day off in Rochester because of temperatures near zero. Schools also closed in parts of Michigan and Illinois. A few schools closed even in Minnesota, where February cold is the norm and people are accustomed to coping.

Temperatures dropped below zero in Minnesota on Saturday morning and were expected to remain there until sometime Tuesday, the weather service said. Subzero temperatures blanketed the Minneapolis-St. Paul area for 63 straight hours — the longest stretch since 2004 — ending Monday afternoon.

In northern Minnesota, the temperature crashed to 42 below Monday morning at Embarrass, 38 below at Hallock and 30 below at International Falls, the weather service said.

This is the largest single event in a series of retreats by ice shelves in the Peninsula over the last 30 years. The retreats are attributed to a strong climate warming in the region. The rate of warming is approximately 0.5 degrees Celsius per decade, and the trend has been present since at least the late 1940s. Overall in the Peninsula, extent of seven ice shelves has declined by a total of about 13,500 km2 since 1974. This value excludes areas that would be expected to calve under stable conditions.

Acid rain, the environmental consequence of burning fossil fuels, running factories and driving cars, has altered soils and reduced the number of sugar maple trees growing in the Northeast, according to a new study led by Cornell University researchers.

The rate of warming is approximately 0.5 degrees Celsius per decade, and the trend has been present since at least the late 1940s.