High winds on Tuesday broke powerlines in the Black Sea city of Novorossiysk and three small villages, leaving 7,500 people without power amid temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celcius, the ministry's Krasnodar region branch said.

Seventy four people had to seek medical attention, the ministry said in a statement.

An abnormally cold wave sweeping across Central and Eastern Europe over the past week has already lead to dozens of deaths, particularly in the Ukraine, Poland, and Romania.

In Russia, temperatures ranged Wednesday morning from minus 22 degrees Celcius in Moscow to minus 33 degrees Celcius in the Siberian region of Yakutia.

The death toll brought on by the cold stood at 64 people across the country, according to the health ministry.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 09:07:54 AEST Vilnius (AFP) Feb 7, 2012 - Gazprom said Tuesday it was unable to meet a spike in requests for Russian gas brought on by a bitter cold snap in Europe, noting demand has increased by 50 percent.

"During the first week of February demand has increased by 50 percent", Gazprom export director Alexander Medvedev said during a visit to Lithuania.

"Obviously, we could not satisfy all those requests," he told journalists.

Gazprom, already dealing with a cold wave in Russia, had said it could not pump additional gas to Western Europe, after European Union officials and energy firms said the Russian giant's deliveries had dropped in nine EU nations.

On Monday flows returned to normal levels in six EU nations and were improving in Italy, Germany and Romania, according to the European Commission.

But Medvedev insisted European countries had enough reserves to avoid major problems.

"Consumers in Europe did not suffer because gas was taken from underground storage facilities and there are enough reserves for at least 30 days," Medvedev said.

The EU imports about four-fifths of its gas requirements and Russia accounts for about a third of Europe's gas imports, according to EU data.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 09:07:54 AEST Potsdam, Germany (SPX) Feb 03, 2012 - Even if the current weather situation may seem to speak against it, the probability of cold winters with much snow in Central Europe rises when the Arctic is covered by less sea ice in summer.

Scientists of the Research Unit Potsdam of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association have decrypted a mechanism in which a shrinking summertime sea ice cover changes the air pressure zones in the Arctic atmosphere and impacts our European winter weather. These results of a global climate analysis were recently published in a study in the scientific journal Tellus A.

If there is a particularly large-scale melt of Arctic sea ice in summer, as observed in recent years, two important effects are intensified. Firstly, the retreat of the light ice surface reveals the darker ocean, causing it to warm up more in summer from the solar radiation (ice-albedo feedback mechanism). Secondly, the diminished ice cover can no longer prevent the heat stored in the ocean being released into the atmosphere (lid effect).

As a result of the decreased sea ice cover the air is warmed more greatly than it used to be particularly in autumn and winter because during this period the ocean is warmer than the atmosphere. "These higher temperatures can be proven by current measurements from the Arctic regions," reports Ralf Jaiser, lead author of the publication from the Research Unit Potsdam of the Alfred Wegener Institute.

The warming of the air near to the ground leads to rising movements and the atmosphere becomes less stable.

"We have analysed the complex non-linear processes behind this destabilisation and have shown how these altered conditions in the Arctic influence the typical circulation and air pressure patterns," explains Jaiser.

One of these patterns is the air pressure difference between the Arctic and mid-latitudes: the so-called Arctic oscillation with the Azores highs and Iceland lows known from the weather reports. If this difference is high, a strong westerly wind will result which in winter carries warm and humid Atlantic air masses right down to Europe. If the wind does not come, cold Arctic air can penetrate down through to Europe, as was the case in the last two winters.

Model calculations show that the air pressure difference with decreased sea ice cover in the Arctic summer is weakened in the following winter, enabling Arctic cold to push down to mid-latitudes.

Despite the low sea ice cover in summer 2011, a cold winter with much snow has so far not occurred here in Germany. Jaiser explains this as follows: "Many other factors naturally play a role in the complex climate system of our Earth which overlap in part. Our results explain the mechanisms of how regional changes in the Arctic sea ice cover have a global impact and their effects over a period from late summer to winter. Other mechanisms are linked, for example, with the snow cover in Siberia or tropical influences. The interactions between these influential factors will be the subject matter of future research work and therefore represent a factor of uncertainty in forecasts."

It is the aim of the Potsdam researchers to find and analyse further mechanisms and to correctly show the Earth's climate system with the help of these mechanisms in models.

"Our work contributes to reducing the existing uncertainties of the global climate model and developing more credible regional climate scenarios - an important foundation to enable people to adjust to the altered conditions," explains Prof. Dr. Klaus Dethloff, Head of the Atmospheric Circulation Section at the Research Unit Potsdam of the Alfred Wegener Institute.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 09:07:54 AEST Greenbelt, MD (SPX) Jan 30, 2012 - NASA has renamed its newest Earth-observing satellite in honor of the late Verner E. Suomi, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin who is recognized widely as "the father of satellite meteorology." The announcement was made Jan. 24 at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in New Orleans.

NASA launched the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project, or NPP, on Oct. 28, 2011, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. NPP was renamed Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership, or Suomi NPP. The satellite is the first designed to collect critical data to improve short-term weather forecasts and increase understanding of long-term climate change.

"Verner Suomi's many scientific and engineering contributions were fundamental to our current ability to learn about Earth's weather and climate from space," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington." Suomi NPP not only will extend more than four decades of NASA satellite observations of our planet, it also will usher in a new era of climate change discovery and weather forecasting."

The Suomi NPP mission is a bridge between NASA's Earth Observing System satellites to the next-generation Joint Polar Satellite System, or JPSS, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) program. JPSS is the civilian component of the former National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), which was reorganized by the Obama Administration in 2010.

"The new name now accurately describes the mission," said Michael Freilich, director of the Earth Science Division in NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "Suomi NPP will advance our scientific knowledge of Earth and improve the lives of Americans by enabling more accurate forecasts of weather, ocean conditions and the terrestrial biosphere. The mission is the product of a partnership between NASA, NOAA, the Department of Defense, the private sector and academic researchers."

Verner Suomi pioneered remote sensing of Earth from satellites in polar orbits a few hundred miles above the surface with Explorer 7 in 1959 and geostationary orbits thousands of miles high with ATS-1 in 1966.

Suomo was best known for his invention of the "spin-scan" camera which enabled geostationary weather satellites to continuously image Earth, yielding the satellite pictures commonly used on television weather broadcasts. He also was involved in planning interplanetary spacecraft missions to Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Suomi spent nearly his entire career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where in 1965 he founded the university's Space Science and Engineering Center with funding from NASA. The center is known for Earth-observing satellite research and development. In 1964, Suomi served as chief scientist of the U.S. Weather Bureau for one year. He received the National Medal of Science in 1977. He died in 1995 at the age of 79.

"It is fitting that such an important and innovative partnership pays tribute to a pioneer like Verner Suomi," said Mary Kicza, assistant administrator for NOAA's Satellite and Information Service. "Suomi NPP is an extremely important mission for NOAA. Its advanced instruments will improve our weather forecasts and understanding of the climate and pave the way for JPSS, our next generation of weather satellites."

Suomi NPP currently is in its initial checkout phase before starting regular observations with all of its five instruments. Commissioning activities are expected to be completed by March. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the Suomi NPP mission for the Earth Science Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The JPSS program provides the satellite ground system and NOAA provides operational support.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 09:07:54 AEST Jakarta (AFP) Jan 29, 2012 - The death toll from heavy rains and strong winds in Indonesia has risen to 14, an official said Sunday, with the victims of a tropical cyclone crushed by falling trees.

"In total, 14 people died, 60 people were injured," National Disaster Management Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a text message to AFP.

"The 14 killed were crushed by falling trees," he added.

More than 2,300 houses in 35 districts and cities across the central island of Java and resort destination of Bali were also damaged due to heavy rains in the last four days, Nugroho said.

The "massive" rainstorms were brought about by Tropical Cyclone Iggy in the Indian Ocean, south of Bali and the nearby Nusa Tenggara islands, he added.

"But now the Tropical cyclone Iggy has weakened and it's moving away from Indonesia," the official added.

Last week, the Jakarta Globe newspaper reported a ferry carrying more than 200 people, including five Australians, heading to the Gili islands off Bali nearly capsized after being caught in waves up to three metres (10 feet) high, but there were no casualties.

Storms, landslides and floods are common in Indonesia during the annual rainy season, which peaks between December and February.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 09:07:55 AEST Jakarta (AFP) Jan 26, 2012 - Seven people were killed and 51 injured as heavy rains lashed Indonesia, bringing down trees and powerlines and damaging hundreds of homes, an official said Thursday.

"Seven people died, 51 wounded and 1,012 houses were damaged in 23 districts and cities due to rainstorms on Wednesday," National Disaster Management Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said via text message.

"Those killed were crushed by falling trees."

Rainstorms and strong winds were brought about by Tropical Cyclone Iggy in the Indian Ocean, south of the resort island of Bali and nearby Nusa Tenggara islands, Nugroho said.

"Tropical cyclone Iggy resulted in wind speeds of more than 60 kilometres (37 miles) per hour and waves four-to-six metres (20 feet) high in the waters in several parts of Indonesia."

The Jakarta Globe newspaper reported a ferry carrying more than 200 people, including five Australians, heading to the Gili islands off Bali nearly capsized after being caught in waves up to three metres high, but there were no casualties.

Storms, landslides and floods are common in Indonesia during the annual rainy season, which peaks between December and February.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 09:07:55 AEST Port Moresby (AFP) Jan 25, 2012 - As many as 60 people are feared dead after a massive landslide wiped out an entire village in a scene of "utter devastation" in Papua New Guinea, reports and aid workers said Wednesday.

The disaster struck near a huge ExxonMobil liquefied natural gas project in the country's rugged Southern Highlands on Tuesday as people slept, leaving a trail of destruction.

PNG media said 40 bodies had been recovered and another 20 people were still missing.

The director of PNG's National Disaster Centre, Martin Mosi, said it appeared lives had been lost but he could not verify how many.

"The numbers are fluctuating and they need to be verified, but yes, there could very well be casualties," he told AFP.

Mosi later told the AAP news agency that four bodies had been recovered at the site and he was "expecting more."

"I am unwilling to put a number on that until I get confirmation from my team," he told AAP.

Staff from Mosi's office were flying to the scene by helicopter to help coordinate the rescue operation and provide a clearer picture of the disaster.

"It was a big landslide and it covered a big area where there used to be small hamlets, so we are expecting a number of deaths," Mosi added.

The Pacific nation's Prime Minister Peter O'Neill also rushed to the site, near Tari, to offer support and see what help could be provided, an official in his office said Wednesday morning.

Nanduka Yandi, an aid worker for US-based NGO Population Services International, was at the scene of the landslide soon after it happened on Tuesday and said many people were killed, with few escaping the carnage.

"It was really huge. It covered 42 houses and only three or four people managed to escape. Everyone else died," he told AFP by telephone.

"It is quite remote and yesterday there was hardly anyone here to dig out the bodies or help people. People lost their entire families. They are in shock."

Describing a scene of "utter devastation" he said tonnes of mud and stones came down in the landslide and "destroyed the whole area."

He recounted how one guest house owner was not in his home at the time and returned to find his wife, children and mother and father all missing.

An aerial shot of the disaster showed mud and other debris extending for at least one kilometre (half a mile) across a forested area.

Yandi said it had been raining in the area at the time, although some locals quoted by the media claimed the landslide was caused by blasting at a nearby quarry.

A spokeswoman for ExxonMobil said all its personnel were accounted for and it was in close contact with the Natural Disaster Centre.

"We have closed down work in the surrounding area," she said.

ExxonMobil's Aus$16 billion ($16.8 billion) LNG project is due to begin production in 2014 and will see PNG's natural gas sold across Asia for the next 30 years.

An eyewitness, Etape Kembe, was quoted by the Post Courier newspaper as saying the area had a transient population with people routinely turning up looking for work at the LNG plant.

"People from all over PNG live in this place due to the LNG project. It is hard to tell the exact number of people that may be buried alive," he said.

AusAid, the Australian government's aid agency, said PNG had asked it to join an assessment mission to the affected area.

"The outcome of this assessment will determine the need for further assistance from Australia," a spokeswoman said.

Local MP Francis Potape told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation he feared there could be further landslides as the area was still very unstable.

"We could still see rocks still coming down in front of our eyes and we could also see water trapped in the mountainside rushing out," he said.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 09:07:55 AEST Birmingham, Alabama (AFP) Jan 23, 2012 - Tornadoes ripped through the US state of Alabama Monday, killing two, trapping many people in their homes, and leaving a trail of damage as well as tens of thousands without power.

"There has been significant home damage and power lines are down," Lieutenant Jeff Bridges with the town's police department told AFP.

Mike Calamura, 51, was still disoriented hours after a tornado tore off the roof of his Trussville home and knocked down most of his trees.

"I just had a mattress over my head. Completely over my head, and I was just praying," said Calamura, 51.

When he emerged he found the wind had sucked out one of doors of his two-car garage and had blown the other one in.

Nearby resident Rick Sutton gathered his valuables and fled to the basement with his wife and 22 year-old son when he heard the siren.

"The tornado was over in as short as 20 seconds," Sutton said. When he emerged he found his home was still standing, but the roof was gone and the windows were blown out. Trees were toppled on both his house and car.

And yet he was lucky -- about a dozen homes were leveled in a nearby neighborhood.

Governor Robert Bentley's office reported "tornados, severe thunderstorms, hail, and straight line winds" moving into the state. At least seven counties reported damage, he said as he declared a state of emergency.

"I urge Alabamians to heed weather warnings to protect their families, homes and businesses."

Chief Deputy Randy Christian with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department told AFP a 16-year-old boy in the town of Clay and an 82-year-old man in Oak Grove, on the outskirts of Birmingham, were killed when tornados hit their homes.

"We are currently responding to reports of people trapped in their homes" in three other Birmingham locations, Christian said.

The state utility company said some 36,000 customers were without power across Alabama, the bulk in the Birmingham metropolitan area, population one million.

Schools in Jefferson County, where Birmingham is located, were closed for the day, while the Alabama Emergency Management Agency warned of severe storms, tornados and high winds across the state.

"First responders in affected areas are working hard," the AEMA said on its Twitter feed. "AEMA will assess damage when search/rescue complete."

Governor Bentley added that "the severe weather outbreak of last year is still fresh on our minds and is a reminder that we must take the threat of severe weather seriously."

Much of the region is still recovering from damage caused by severe weather on April 27, 2011, when some 240 tornados touched down in Alabama, killing more than 200 people and causing widespread destruction.

The death toll Monday may have been lower because more people took precautions: tornado sirens blared around 3:00 am, sending area residents scurrying into basements and safe areas.

Trussville resident Tyler Frederick, 10, said that the family dog alerted them of the tornado. "We're just glad that we survived," he said.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 09:07:55 AEST New York NY (SPX) Jan 23, 2012 - Meteorologists can see a busy hurricane season brewing months ahead, but until now there has been no such crystal ball for tornadoes, which are much smaller and more volatile. This information gap took on new urgency after tornadoes in 2011 killed more than 550 people, more than in the previous 10 years combined, including a devastating outbreak in April that racked up $5 billion in insured losses.

Now, a new study of short-term climate trends offers the first framework for predicting tornado activity up to a month out with current technology, and possibly further out as climate models improve, giving communities a chance to plan.

The study may also eventually open a window on the question of whether tornadoes are growing more frequent due to long-term climate warming.

"Understanding how climate shapes tornado activity makes forecasts and projections possible and allows us to look into the past and understand what happened," said lead author Michael Tippett, a climate scientist at Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI).

Packing winds of up to 300 miles per hour, tornadoes descend when warm, moist air collides with cold, dry air, creating a vortex as the two masses move around each other.

The U.S. Midwest is the twister capital of the world, where cold air blowing east from the Rockies habitually hits tropical air moving north from the Gulf of Mexico.

Tornadoes appear to be growing more frequent as climate warms, but it is uncertain whether there is a connection; they are small and hard to count, and recently improved reporting may also explain the increase.

Lack of an accurate long-term tornado record makes it hard to know the truth, and has also hampered scientists' ability to relate tornadoes to cyclical weather patterns that could aid in forecasting.

While individual hurricanes can be spotted days in advance, tornadoes appear with much less warning. A tornado watch typically gives only a few hours' notice that dangerous conditions are brewing, while warning of an actual tornado bearing down may give people just a few minutes to get out of the way.

Tippett, a seasonal forecasting expert, had already built statistical models to understand how climate change might affect hurricanes by adding more heat and moisture to the air.

But applying the same methods to something as tiny and complicated as a twister is trickier, said study coauthor Adam Sobel, an atmospheric scientist with joint appointments at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and School of Engineering and Applied Science. "A tornado is not a lot bigger than the house it has just destroyed," he said. "It's a small thing and short-lived."

Combing through 30 years of data, Tippett and his colleagues began looking for patterns linking climate and tornadoes.

By comparing average atmospheric conditions with average monthly tornado counts in regions across the United States, they identified two parameters that seemed closely associated with monthly tornado activity: rain associated with strong updrafts; and helicity, which measures the tendency of winds to spin those updrafts.

They then looked to see if they could "predict" the tornado activity of individual months from 1979 to 2010 from a simple index based on each month's average wind and rain parameters. The index correlated significantly with the observed numbers of tornadoes in all months except September and October.

Moreover, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) system for making seasonal forecasts, known as the Climate Forecast System (CFS), was able to use the index to forecast monthly tornado activity with some success up to a month in advance. This success, especially notable in June, is the first evidence for the predictability of monthly tornado activity.

Harold Brooks, a NOAA tornado expert not involved in the study said the forecast technique worked where others have failed because the CFS produced higher resolution results. "The real breakthrough is that CFS is skillful enough at the right scale," he said.

With greater lead time, communities and relief agencies could prepare, he said. "It's not like the hurricane problem where we can tell people to evacuate. But if I'm a state emergency manager I might be really interested in knowing at the end of March that by the end of April we could have a big problem. You could be better prepared with generators and supplies."

Tippett said the next steps are to improve the index's reliability in the fall; to better understand why the forecasts work; and to apply the index to projections of future climate. "Before you can use an index to diagnose future climate, you have to be confident that it explains the observed variability," he said.

Suzana Camargo, a climate and weather researcher at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, also coauthored the study, which appears this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 09:07:55 AEST Silver Spring, MD (SPX) Jan 24, 2012 - The next generation of the National Weather Services' (NWS) Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS), which was developed, tested and fielded by Raytheon, is now operational at the NWS Omaha Weather Forecast Office.

As the first of 135 forecast sites to upgrade to the new system, this successful implementation initiates the nationwide roll-out of AWIPS II.

AWIPS II, which is represented in Raytheon's participation at the American Meteorological Society annual meeting opening, plays a critical role in the ability of NWS forecasters to make more precise weather, water and climate predictions, and to dispense rapid, highly reliable warnings and advisories that save lives and safeguard property.

"We expect that the AWIPS II software architecture will allow the National Weather Service to reduce information technology sustainment costs and allow greater interoperability and collaboration with neighboring forecast offices, emergency managers and inter-agency partners before, during and after disasters strike," said Don Berchoff, director of the NWS Office of Science and Technology.

"There are also plans to leverage the software architecture to develop more robust data manipulation, mining and fusion capabilities vital to increasing advanced notice of high-impact weather events such tornadoes, flooding and winter storms."

While still retaining a system look and feel that makes the AWIPS evolution nearly transparent to the forecaster, AWIPS II's agile architecture includes several new enhancements:

+ Non-proprietary software that can lead to significant savings on license fees and the administrative costs;

+ Consistent user interfaces across all applications that enable ease of data manipulation by the forecaster;

+ Situational awareness and decision-making visualization;

+ Panning and zooming capability that is user configurable; and

+ Scalability from laptops to servers.

"Its open, service-oriented architecture will allow the National Weather Service to be more responsive to requirements for future weather products and services," said Ron Stefano, vice president of Mission Operations Solutions for Raytheon's Intelligence and Information Systems business.

AWIPS II will also give users outside the weather community, such as interdisciplinary labs, the ability to more easily ingest, process and visualize essential environmental data to support critical mission needs.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 09:07:55 AEST Subscribe to our daily selection of space, military, environment and energy newsletters responseText http://visitor.constantcontact.com/manage/optin/ea?v=0016gbbKsaiGSpQFojVO8ZoHw%3D%3D