Hi-Res Earth 2

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NASA has released a second high-res image of the Earth.

Deadly Freeze in Eurasia

A disturbance in the Arctic Oscillation is allowing frigid air masses to pour down through central Europe and Asia, bringing record cold and snow.

In China, temperatures dropped to -50 celsius in places. Japan is experiencing  freezing temperatures and  several meters of snow, with 65 dead as of Feb 3.

Normally arctic air masses are held in place by the jet stream, which rides the boundary of the colder air of the arctic and the warmer northern hemisphere air masses. The jet stream is powerful when the temperature differential is strong. If the temperature differential decreases, as has been the case lately with the warming arctic, the jet stream weakens and arctic air masses can spill through. This happened last winter over the North American continent; this winter it's happening over Eurasia.

There's another anomaly developing in the arctic. A huge dome of freshwater is building up the result of strong winds whipping up a great clockwise current in the northern polar region called the Beaufort Gyre.
The bulge is some 8,000 cubic km in size and has risen by about 15cm since 2002. It's thought that not only is decreasing sea-ice cover warming the ocean and increasing fresh-water melt, open sea surface waters can be pushed by winds whereas ice covered seas cannot.

"If the spin-up starts to spin down, the freshwater could be released." And that's a worry- so much freshwater suddenly released to the North Atlantic could play havoc with the Thermohaline circulation which keeps the European climate moderate.

Clarifying Cartoon: Weather and Climate

Animated short on statistics from Norwegian infotainment program Siffer. Produced by TeddyTV for NRK.

Camp Igloo at Davos 2012

Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum at Davos said in an interview, "...Shaping the post-crisis world means, above all, to incorporate ecological, global and inter-generational accountability and responsibility into everything we are undertaking, individually and collectively...
What I am saying today is consistent with what I have been saying for many years, but there is one decisive difference: today we have reached a tipping point, which leaves us only one choice – change or face continued decline and misery. " (ref)

New Hi-Res Earth Photo From NASA

(click for 1600 x 1200 desktop-size image)