. Earth Science News .
Bewilderment As Russian Winter Shrivels In Face Of Global Warming
Picture taken 13 December 2006 shows the St. Basil Cathedral with decorated Christmas Tree at the Red Square in Moscow. Russia's capital, renowned for its trademark frosty winters, started the calendar winter with the warmest day recorded in December, the state weather monitoring unit said. Photo courtesy AFP.
Picture taken 13 December 2006 shows the St. Basil Cathedral with decorated Christmas Tree at the Red Square in Moscow. Russia's capital, renowned for its trademark frosty winters, started the calendar winter with the warmest day recorded in December, the state weather monitoring unit said. Photo courtesy AFP.
by Sebastian Smith
Moscow (AFP) Dec 14, 2006
There is not quite the drama of a Florida hurricane, or the poignancy of stranded polar bears, but Moscow babushka Larisa Bilik is struggling to sell her wool socks -- and global warming, experts say, is also to blame. The warmest November-December since records began has put Russia's fearsome winter on the back foot.

Mushrooms are sprouting outside Moscow, bears are unable to hibernate, and Bilik, who looks older than her 53 years, is having trouble attracting customers to her stall in the city centre, where she hawks thick socks, slippers and fake fur vests.

"When it's cold, they buy, when it's warm they don't," she says, gold teeth flashing against the gloomy, almost permanent twilight that has oppressed sunless -- and snowless -- Moscow for several weeks.

Gennady Yeliseyev, deputy director of the state's weather service, the Gidrometeocentre, said that since November 20 Russia has experienced the warmest temperatures since records began in the 1870s.

"Average temperatures for the first 10 days of December are minus five degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) and the current abnormalities range as high as plus 10 degrees Celsius (50 Fahrenheit)," he said. "This is the weather we'd normally have in late October."

Scientists here believe Russia has fallen victim to the phenomenon of global warming already blamed for turning European ski resorts into grass meadows, driving exotic fish to British coasts, and whipping up ever more destructive natural disasters.

"The obvious explanation is that very powerful cyclones are forming over the north Atlantic and moving toward the Barents Sea," Yeliseyev said. "But there is also general change to a warmer climate and you cannot deny a link to the greenhouse effect."

Leading weather expert Alexander Bedritskovo said that climate change in Russia is "reality."

Although temperatures will inevitably drop -- wet snow could start falling in Moscow this week, according to forecasters -- weird things are already happening in a country synonymous with harsh, long winters.

In far away Siberia, the ice has begun to melt and break up along a 155-mile (250-kilometre) stretch of the great river Yenise.

At the Moscow zoo, warm temperatures are prompting birds into the love making usually reserved for spring, while the brown bear couple Mushir and Rosa are grumpily insomniac as they wait for snow and hibernation.

"His mood is worse, but she's calmer," zoo spokeswoman Yelena Mendosa said. "She's a female and she deals with his moodiness because she loves him."

Human inhabitants of the capital find the lack of snow a mixed blessing.

"Of course I'm waiting impatiently for winter -- I'm a Russian!" exclaimed economics teacher Nina Babrova, 55, resplendent in one of the few fur hats visible on Moscow's streets.

But joining the huddle of smokers on the pavement outside Soyuz Bank, Vladimir Sharikadze, 20, crossed his fingers that the milder weather would last. "This is great for us smokers. Maybe when winter comes we'll have to give up."

Yekaterina, a 20-year-old student, was also making the most of the phony winter.

While most women are now wrapped in trousers and boots, her legs were clad in nothing but thin tights and a skirt that came well above the knees. "This is easy," she said.

And will she be that brave when the traditional Russian freeze finally strikes? She laughed under her white wool hat.

"You must be crazy!"

Source: Agence France-Presse

Related Links
Beyond the Ice Age
Learn about Climate Science at TerraDaily.com
Weather News at TerraDaily.com

Researchers Identify Driver For Near-Earth Space Weather
Laurel MD (SPX) Dec 11, 2006
New findings indicate that the aurora and other near-Earth space weather are driven by the rate at which the Earth's and Sun's magnetic fields connect, or merge, and not by the solar wind's electric field as was previously assumed. The merging occurs at a spot between the Earth and Sun, roughly 40,000 miles above the planet's surface, and appears fundamental to the circulation of particles and magnetic fields throughout near-Earth space.







  • Aceh Still Lacks Long-Term Plan For Tsunami Recovery
  • New Orleans Remains Vulnerable To Flooding
  • Japan Tightens Building Rules After Quake Scandal
  • Durian's Aftermath: Disease Threatens Homeless Philippine Families

  • 2006 Set To Be Sixth Warmest On Record Says WMO
  • Gingerbread Houses Latest Victim Of Global Warming
  • Global Warming Of The Future Is Projected By Ancient Carbon Emissions
  • More Than 50 Tribes Convene on Global Warming Impacts

  • Europe Ready To TANGO With New EO Constellation
  • COSMIC Provides Better Weather Forecasts, Climate Data
  • China To Launch 22 More Meteorological Satellites By 2020
  • Jason-1 Celebrates Five Years In Orbit - Ocean Data Continues To Flow

  • Stripes And Superconductivity - Two Faces of the Same Coin
  • Russian Capabilities Benefit The Hydrogen Economy
  • Ethylene Suggested For Hydrogen Storage
  • South Korea Builds Largest Garbage-Fuelled Power Plant

  • Malaria Kills 21 People In Flood-Hit Somalia, Toll Climbs To 141
  • Common PTSD Drug Is No More Effective Than Placebo
  • Freed China Activist Says AIDS Problem Far Exceeds Official Data
  • Africa Urged To Break Deafening Silence On AIDS

  • Tiny Bones Rewrite Textbooks
  • Extreme Life, Marine Style, Highlights 2006 Ocean Census
  • New Insights Into The Secret Lives Of Archaea
  • Finding An Answer To Darwin's Dilemma

  • Yellow River Pollution Getting Worse
  • Asian Cities Face Environmental Crises
  • US Regions Paying For Foreign Pollution Warns Business Group
  • Drop In Acid Rain Altering Appalachian Stream Water

  • Ancient Ape Ruled Out Of Man's Ancestral Line
  • Concrete Blocks Used In Great Pyramids Construction
  • Gendered Division Of Labor Gave Modern Humans Advantage Over Neanderthals
  • Genetic Variation Shows We're More Different Than We Thought

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement