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Ice extent for July 2010 was the second lowest in the satellite record for the month. The linear rate of decline of July ice extent over the period 1979 to 2010 is now 6.4% per decade.

Older, thicker ice melting in the southern Beaufort Sea This past winter's negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation transported old ice (four, five, and more years old) from an area north of the Canadian Archipelago. The ice was flushed southwards and westward into the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, as noted in our April post. Ice age data show that back in the 1970s and 1980s, old ice drifting into the Beaufort Sea would generally survive the summer melt season. However, the old, thick ice that moved into this region is now beginning to melt out, which could further deplete the Arctic’s remaining store of old, thick ice. The loss of thick ice has been implicated as a major cause of the very low September sea ice minima observed in recent years.

The havoc has brought total economic losses in the nine provinces to 14.5 billion yuan (€1.7 billion), and affected 535,500 hectares of crops, further blighting food supply in the region. The conditions have also led to the collapse of 68,000 houses.

The meteorological bureau was forecasting more thunderstorms overnight and it was expecting rainfall of 100-180 millimetres in many areas, rising to over 200 millimetres in others.

“The scope and intensity of the rain have increased,” the office said on its website yesterday.This is effectively three times the usual level of rain in the region.Climate change has meant that each year the flooding gets worse, while the droughts are also worsening.

Some early evidence suggests that more acidic water in Hood Canal is brought to the surface during storms, Dewey said. Unlike the ocean hatcheries, where acidity is linked directly to oyster mortality, there may be other factors at play in Hood Canal. “We have some very good scientists working on this,” he said. Oyster hatcheries may be able to adjust their intake water or add chemicals to help the larvae survive, Dewey said, but oysters in the wild are another story. Hood Canal has always been known for its abundant natural production, but that could be changing. Worse, numerous other shelled organisms — including zooplankton at the base of the food web and the many filter feeders that clean the waters — may be affected by the increasing acidity.

The city of Kazan, on the Volga river east of Moscow, was also blanketed in smog on Monday, an eyewitness told the BBC. Marek Zaremba-Pike said Kazan's air "smells of burnt wood and tastes of dust". "Usually we can see the Kazan Kremlin very clearly, but visibility is poor. You can't see it at all, just the river bank." More famous for its bitterly cold winters, the giant country's European part normally enjoys short, warm summers. However July was the hottest month on record. In Moscow, which sees an average high of 23C in the summer months, recorded 37.8C last Thursday.

"Frankly, I was expecting that we'd see large temperature increases later this century with higher greenhouse gas levels and global warming," Stanford climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh, who headed up the research, said in a prepared statement. "I did not expect to see anything this large within the next three decades."

Large-scale storm systems are the dominant weather phenomenon during the cold season in the United States. Although the analysis of these storms is complicated by a relatively short length of most observational records and by the highly variable nature of strong storms, some clear patterns have emerged.112 [Kunkel et al., 2008] Storm tracks have shifted northward over the last 50 years as evidenced by a decrease in the frequency of storms in mid-latitude areas of the Northern Hemisphere, while high-latitude activity has increased. There is also evidence of an increase in the intensity of storms in both the mid- and high-latitude areas of the Northern Hemisphere, with greater confidence in the increases occurring in high latitudes.112 [Kunkel et al., 2008] The northward shift is projected to continue, and strong cold season storms are likely to become stronger and more frequent, with greater wind speeds and more extreme wave heights.68 [Gutowski et al, 2008]

The northward shift in storm tracks is reflected in regional changes in the frequency of snowstorms. The South and lower Midwest saw reduced snowstorm frequency during the last century. In contrast, the Northeast and upper Midwest saw increases in snowstorms, although considerable decade-to-decade variations were present in all regions, influenced, for example, by the frequency of El Niño events.112 [Kunkel et al., 2008]

Then we have this apparently as yet unpublished research presented by Dr James Overland of the NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory at the recent International Polar Year Oslo Science Conference (IPY-OSC) where he was chairing “a session on polar climate feedbacks, amplification and teleconnections, including impacts on mid-latitudes.” “Cold and snowy winters will be the rule, rather than the exception,” says Dr James Overland…. Continued rapid loss of sea ice will be an important driver of major change in the world’s climate system in the years to come…. “While the emerging impact of greenhouse gases is an important factor in the changing Arctic, what was not fully recognised until now is that a combination of an unusual warm period due to natural variability, loss of sea ice reflectivity, ocean heat storage and changing wind patterns working together has disrupted the memory and stability of the Arctic climate system, resulting in greater ice loss than earlier climate models predicted,” says Dr Overland. “The exceptional cold and snowy winter of 2009-2010 in Europe, eastern Asia and eastern North America is connected to unique physical processes in the Arctic,” he says.

Even though these storms occurred during warmest winter on record, I think the best way to talk about it until Overland publishes his work is the way NCAR’s Kevin Trenberth did on NPR (audio here): RENEE MONTAGNE, host:  With snow blanketing much of the country, the topic of global warming has become the butt of jokes. Climate skeptics built an igloo in Washington, D.C. during last weeks storm and dedicated it to former Vice President Al Gore, who’s become the public face of climate change. There was also a YouTube video called “12 Inches of Global Warming” that showed snowplows driving through a blizzard.For scientists who study the climate, it’s all a bit much. As NPRs Christopher Joyce reports, they’re trying to dig out. CHRISTOPHER JOYCE: Snowed-in Washington is where much of the political debate over climate change happens. So it did not go unnoticed when a Washington think-tank that advocates climate action had to postpone a climate meeting last week because of inclement weather. That kind of irony isnt lost on climate scientists. Most don’t see a contradiction between a warming world and lots of snow. Heres Kevin Trenberth, a prominent climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. Mr. KEVIN TRENBERTH (Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research): The fact that the oceans are warmer now than they were, say, 30 years ago, means there’s about, on average, 4 percent more water vapor lurking around over the oceans than there was, say, in the 1970s. JOYCE: Warmer water means more water vapor rises up into the air. And what goes up, must come down. Mr. TRENBERTH: So one of the consequences of a warming ocean near a coastline like the East Coast and Washington, D.C., for instance, is that you can get dumped on with more snow, partly as a consequence of global warming. JOYCE: And Trenberth notes that you don’t need very cold temperatures to get big snow. In fact, when the mercury drops too low, it may be too cold to snow. There’s something else fiddling with the weather this year: a strong El Nino. That’s the weather pattern that, every few years, raises itself up out of the western Pacific Ocean and blows east to the Americas. It brings heavy rains and storms to California and the South and Southeast. It also pushes high-altitude jet streams farther south, which brings colder air with them. Trenberth also says El Nino can lock in weather patterns like a meteorological highway, so that storms keep coming down the same track. True, those storms have been big ones – record breakers. But meteorologist Jeff Masters, with the Web site Weather Underground, says it’s average temperatures — not snowfall — that really measure climate change. There’s more water vapor lurking around the oceans, and whatever the proximate cause of any one snow storm, there is little doubt that global warming means the overwhelming majority of East Coast storms will be sweeping in more moisture and dumping it on the ground.

When plant plankton plummet — like they do during El Nino climate cycles_ sea birds and marine mammals starve and die in huge numbers, experts said.

Worm said when the surface of the ocean gets warmer, the warm water at the top doesn't mix as easily with the cooler water below. That makes it tougher for the plant plankton which are light and often live near the ocean surface to get nutrients in deeper, cooler water. It also matches other global warming trends, with the biggest effects at the poles and around the equator.