Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
ATHENS EXPERIENCED A rare snowfall today, two days after Greek officials said three people had died following stormy weather and freezing temperatures across the country.
Temperatures reached minus 23 degrees Celsius in the north of the country, and authorites confirmed that schools will remain closed on Wednesday, the town hall of northeastern Kozani told the ANA news agency.
The snowfall in Athens prompted authorities to close schools and courthouses, while many public offices and banks provided minimal services.
Many employees stayed away from work as the snow created traffic problems for a populace unused to driving in the freezing conditions.
But Antoine Viredaz, a Swiss researcher visiting from Lausanne, was delighted by the unexpected snowfall.
“I was not really expecting that much snow, but it’s great,” he said.
Dozens of refugees housed in tents at a migrant camp in northern Greece protested their harsh living conditions as temperatures in some areas sunk to minus 20 degrees Celsius.
Snow was also reported on many of Greece’s islands, and a new cold snap is forecast in the country from Thursday.
On Sunday, Greek officials said that the freezing conditions had claimed three lives.
Rescue services have received dozens of calls to help people trapped in their cars or homes by heavy snowfall.
And on Saturday, firefighters rescued a pair of French hikers stranded in a forest on the island of Lesbos.
The poor weather has also disrupted travel, forcing highway closures and coastal ferry and intercity train cancellations.
On Friday, a Ryanair flight bound for northern Thessaloniki was rerouted to Timisoara, Romania, because of poor visibility.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Gets cold : global warming pay more taxes
Gets hot : global warming pay more taxes
@Year Zero: Global warming is causing Sudden stratospheric warming.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_stratospheric_warming
@TamuMassif2019: Need something a bit more rigiourus than Wikipedia
@iComment: How about this?
Zhang, J., Tian, W., Chipperfield, M.P., Xie, F. and Huang, J., 2016. Persistent shift of the Arctic polar vortex towards the Eurasian continent in recent decades. Nature Climate Change, 6(12), p.1094.
In winter, colder Arctic air is normally locked by strong winds tens of kilometers high in the atmosphere, known as the stratospheric polar vortex, so that the cold air stays locked in the Arctic. Due to rapid heating of Arctic, these winds the Polar Vortex has weakened, allowing cold Arctic air that normally stays locked in Arctic to seep further south into Europe and parts of US. This is all due to global warming and not that global warming does not exist as denier propaganda maintains.
@GO GREEN: But it’s clearly cooler in Athens. Don’t be telling porkies
@GO GREEN: so is this permanent?
@GO GREEN: at last a clever answer
@PC Principal: I explained it the best I could – if you want more detailed information you can find it here. https://www.aer.com/science-research/climate-weather/arctic-oscillation/
@GO GREEN: Actually Sudden Stratospheric warming occurs once every two years and has nothing to do with the warming of the arctic. One in every two warmings result in a split of the polar vortex but this does not mean ireland or any other country is guaranteed to get a severe cold snap.
@Toby Fish: @Toby Fish: The more the Arctic melts, the more frequent this will happen, at least for the next few years, but the Arctic is in its death throes, 95 percent of the Arctic’s oldest ice is already gone. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a25475717/arctic-oldest-ice-already-gone/ Without ice to reflect heat back into atmosphere and with increasing melting of frozen methane hydrates and methane from melting perma frost – global warming will spiral out of control abruptly.
@eoinohara89: It has everything to do with a warming Arctic. I do agree with you that is not guaranteed to give a cold snap, but makes it more likely.
@GO GREEN: can this be reversed at this stage? I’m genuinely curious and you seem to be learned in the subject
@Toby Fish: Its possible to stop the worst of global warming, if emissions are reduced in the next few years, some say 12 years, but that is a bit optimistic, after that it will be too late. Problem is, emissions are rising not decreasing, as population increase world demand more oil not less.
@GO GREEN: so overpopulation is the real problem here. Many developing and let’s call them overpopulated countries don’t have the infrastructure for renewable energy or resources. The planet can’t sustain the amount of people living on it and with the way humans exploit the earth. Taxing citizens of developed countries won’t make up for the amount of pollution carried out by developing countries. The population of Africa is booming with more than half of global population growth expected to come from that continent alone.
How can this be addressed?
@Toby Fish: crickets
@Toby Fish: Fortunately on cost alone, solar energy is already cheaper than coal in countries like India, China. https://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/Indias-Coal-Paradox.html Storing green energy is already feasible in places like S Australia and there has been such innovation that even solar energy can be stored in liquid form https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2018/ee/c8ee01011k Even in Africa going off the grid with solar is increasingly feasible. All good news but winning on green energy is loosing if it happens too late.
@Toby Fish: well the catholic church removing its ban on contraception might help ! many of africas developing regions follow the catholic faith -a removal of the ban on contraception would not only help reduce the population but also the rise of sexually transmitted diseases like aids and hepatitis c .
@Eric Davies: The catholic church teaches that condoms cause HIV etc. I don’t know if the pope has personal experience of condom use, but he sounds as if he has some expertise https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/the-pope-was-right-about-condoms-and-hiv-49253
@Eric Davies: Poverty reduction and education would help. However, the West is endeavouring to maintain the empire through exploitation even if it causes the collapse of complex civilization.
These events have happened countless times in the past millions of years.
The ‘monied’ people just want more money…
It is the Artic Vortex breaking down and allowing Artic Air South…Has been around for a long time before climate change…
@iComment: Good to get a scientist’s view even if this scientist cannot spell Arctic.
@iComment: No, it’s changing and the effects are unrepresented. Here’s what scientists say…
“The wintertime Arctic stratospheric polar vortex has weakened over the past three decades, and consequently cold surface air from high latitudes is now more likely to move into the middle latitudes.”
The Arctic Polar vortex is changing and this causes cold Arctic air to move much further south than normal, bringing colder air (the winter of 2010-11 was an example of when the Arctic Polar vortex moved south over western Europe).
“Here, through the analysis of various data sets and model simulations, we show that the Arctic polar vortex shifted persistently towards the Eurasian continent and away from North America in February over the past three decades.”
The Arctic Polar vortex has moved towards the Eurasian continent i.e towards Russia.
“This shift is found to be closely related to the enhanced zonal wavenumber-1 waves in response to Arctic sea-ice loss, particularly over the Barents–Kara seas (BKS).”
This change is related to the loss of sea ice at the North Pole (see here: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2019/01/Figure3a.png), in particular the ice loss north of Norway, Sweden and western arctic Russia.
“Our analysis reveals that the vortex shift induces cooling over some parts of the Eurasian continent and North America which partly offsets the tropospheric climate warming there in the past three decades.”
This change in the Arctic Polar vortex is locally counteracting the effects of increasing global temperature, over the Eurasian continent and North America, particularly in Winter.
Reference:
Zhang, J., Tian, W., Chipperfield, M.P., Xie, F. and Huang, J., 2016. Persistent shift of the Arctic polar vortex towards the Eurasian continent in recent decades. Nature Climate Change, 6(12), p.1094.
Climate change is a con.
@Faughanside: A fake new account with no followers posting on here to tell us “Climate Change is a con”.
All the little bots come out of the woodwork.
Climate change is a fact. Human activity altering the planet’s climate is also a fact.
@Seán Ó Briain: how do we fix it Sean? who are the biggest polluters?
@Faughanside: so there was never an ice age huh?
@Toby Fish: cows
@Kerrie Roche: eat them up quickly.
@Faughanside: you’re some fcuken idiot aren’t you? Sure you know better than all the scientists don’t you? Moron.
@Toby Fish: One big contributor is the American military. But getting to net-zero emissions before 2030 needs societal change including a rethinking of priorities about what is important in life.
.-23 in Greece is almost unbelievable we in Europe are just not prepared for these low tempetarures
It’s currently 2c in Athens.
n. Greece has record low of -29c?
Get the facts.
@Jack Creegan: 16 degrees on Thursday.
Global cooling,
@Porter Mechanic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_stratospheric_warming
https://youtu.be/2YaLbJIycVE. Link with CO2 levels is not established
@iComment: The link with CO2 levels is established – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ3PzYU1N7A
Alot of small snowballs in Greece at the moment
Don’t tell Trump
Hope the vast number of refugees who fled war in the last two years still living in tent cities are safe and warm.
@Derek: The NATO politicians who caused all this human displacement and misery by destroying Libya and almost destroying Syria are certainly safe and warm.
misleading article makes it seem like Athens had those temps.
Greece thunder,
Greece lightening.
Sunk?
have your say