Thursday, December 07, 2006

No winter in Europe?

"Central Europe is experiencing its warmest winter in 500 years and the Alps haven't been this warm in over a millenneum. Ski resorts are suffering, as are the bears.Only two weeks before the official start of winter, Europe is sweating. An unusually warm autumn -- which was last week credited for Germany's fourth quarter economic surge -- is forcing ski resorts to market hiking holidays, and bears to seek out places cold enough to hibernate.

Indeed, Germany is experiencing its warmest autumn in 500 years. Germany's average temperature from September to November this year was 12 degrees Celsius (54 degrees Fahrenheit), a full 3.2 Celsius degrees higher than the median temperature from 1961 to 1990."
[snip]
"Böhm attributes the warming trend during the last two decades to greenhouse gases produced from the burning of fossil fuels. Fossil fuel consumption "has led to ever higher temperatures since the 1980s, and the models indicate that it's going to get even warmer in the future," he said."

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