What is coming in 2012?

There is no doubt that we in a time of change. However, what is to come?

If you take the time to consider all evidence what conclusion would you come to?

We have social unrest, Governments bringing censorship to the internet, austerity measures bringing poverty to 1000's of people. The world is in a terrible state, we have made the world this way. Plus we have climate change, pole shift, solar maximum, asteroids falling to earth, etc... the future does not look rosy!

Currency devalue, economies fail: The Great Depression Is Under-way:

Increasing earthquakes:

Extreme weather conditions:

MOSCOW, April 23 (UPI) — A Russian scientist says the Arctic may be getting colder, not warmer, which would hamper the international race to discover new mineral fields.
An Arctic cold snap that began in 1998 could last for years, freezing the northern marine passage and making it impassable without icebreaking ships, said Oleg Pokrovsky of the Voeikov Main Geophysical Observatory. 

“I think the development of the shelf will face large problems,” Pokrovsky said Thursday at a seminar on research in the Polar regions. 

Scientists who believe the climate is warming may have been misled by data from U.S. meteorological stations located in urban areas, where dense microclimates creates higher temperatures, RIA Novosti quoted Pokrovsky as saying. “Politicians who placed their bets on global warming may lose the pot,” Pokrovsky said.

Temperatures in Russia's Far Eastern republic of Sakha (Yakutia) have plunged to minus 60 degrees Celsius (minus 75 degrees Fahrenheit) and meteorologists warn it could get colder.

In some parts of Europe thermometers show temperatures lower than -39 Celsius. In the Czech Republic weather forecasters warned that night-time temperatures could reach as low as -40 Celsius in the mountains.

A boy sits in front of an ice covered car in Versoix near Geneva February 5, 2012.(REUTERS/Denis Balibouse)

Cars make their way during a snowstorm in Porto Santo Stefano. (REUTERS/Giampiero Sposito)

For the first time in decades, water in the Black Sea near its shores has frozen, the Kerch Strait that links the Azov Sea and the Black Sea is closed to navigation, blocking 125 vessels at anchorage.
In the Romanian city of Buzau, which is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Bucharest, about 23,000 people have been cut off from the outside world by snow.

Layers of snow have literally trapped 38 villages located there. National broadcasters show pictures of houses buried in snow up to their rooftops. The country’s authorities have sent rescue teams with food supplies and other goods for people.

The death toll there has risen to 57 since the start of the cold spell.

In Serbia some 70,000 people remain cut off by the thick snow that has covered the Balkans in the recent weeks.

The Serbian government has taken the decision to reduce power supplies to 2,000 companies.

The state-run power company EPS has called on the public via a national television address to save electricity.

Record low temperatures and heavy snow in Turkey make it difficult to stay warm for more than 140,000 earthquake survivors still living in tents or temporary homes.
Italy faces its coldest temperatures in almost 30 years. In Rome forecasters predict as much as 30 centimeters (11 inches) in of snow over the weekend.
In Paris the authorities have had to dust off the city's only icebreaker to chop up the frozen canals. It has not been used for years, but after temperatures fell to -15 degrees, the ice has locked the waterways.

Pole Shift:

Asteroid may hit on 15th Feb 2012
In 2013 on Feb 15th Asteroid (2012 DA14) will come within 16000 -50000miles of earth, moving closer than the Google satellite. This means in real terms, this Asteroid will either skim our atmosphere or be caught in our orbit and crash to earth.

If Asteroid 2012 DA14 hits it will cause devastation, approx 40-100m in length, the blast being at least 1,000x more powerful than the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.

It could easily destroy any capital city, cause a tsunami, potentially killing hundreds. This is the reality the Government do not want you to know.

An asteroid of the same class as one that allegedly detonated over Tunguska River in 1908.......will pass by Earth next year, flying closer than some man-made satellites, according to NASA. The asteroid, 2012 DA14, will miss the planet by 26,900 kilometers on February 15, 2013, which is closer than satellites in the geostationary orbit of 35,700 kilometers (16,175miles), according to data on NASA’s website that was published on Sunday. 

The asteroid, first detected by the Spanish Observatorio Astronomico de La Sagra, is between 40 and 95 meters in diameter and belongs to Apollo group of near-Earth asteroids, many of which are potential collision hazards. 

Astronomer groups around the world are continuing monitoring 2012 DA14 to determine its size and trajectory. The estimated size of 2012 DA14 places it in the same category as the celestial body that, scientists say, exploded over western Siberia in 1908. 

Though many theories exist concerning the event on Podkamennaya Tunsguska River, the leading explanation is a space body more than 50 meters in size blew up in the atmosphere, the blast being at least 1,000 more powerful than the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.

Read more: http://www.cosmostv.org/2012/03/russia-asteroid-2012-da14-en-route.html#ixzz1o6nUOdco

It is interesting that this may hit in the so called 2012 era, could this be the sign from above? Who knows, only time will tell, but stay prepared and open minded.

Peace..

For up to date info follow me on Twitter: @LifeTimeUs

Our Extreme Weather: Is Arctic Sea Ice Loss Partly to Blame?

Climate change is a real event that is happening now, however in reality it has been a gradual change over years. We have simply reached a period where the affects are very apparent. Unfortunately there is really nothing we can do now, apart from adapt to out new ever changing climate. This is a fact, and it is a foolish to ignore the signs.

– by Jeff Masters in a Wunderblog repost

“The question is not whether sea ice loss is affecting the large-scale atmospheric circulation…. It’s how can it not?” That was the take-home message from Dr. Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, in her talk “Does Arctic Amplification Fuel Extreme Weather in Mid-Latitudes?”, presented at last week’s American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Dr. Francis presented new research in review for publication, which shows that Arctic sea ice loss may significantly affect the upper-level atmospheric circulation, slowing its winds and increasing its tendency to make contorted high-amplitude loops. High-amplitude loops in the upper level wind pattern (and associated jet stream) increases the probability of persistent weather patterns in the Northern Hemisphere, potentially leading to extreme weather due to longer-duration cold spells, snow events, heat waves, flooding events, and drought conditions.

Figure 1. Arctic sea ice in September 2007 reached its lowest extent on record, approximately 40% lower than when satellite records began in 1979. Sea ice loss in 2011 was virtually tied with the ice loss in 2007, despite weather conditions that were not as unusual in the Arctic. Image credit: University of Illinois Cryosphere Today.

Summertime Arctic sea ice loss: 40% since 1980
The Arctic has seen a stunning amount of sea ice loss in recent years, due to melting and unfavorable winds that have pushed large amounts of ice out of the region. Forty percent of the sea ice was missing in September 2007, compared to September of 1980. This is an area equivalent to about 44% of the contiguous U.S., or 71% of the non-Russian portion of Europe. Such a large area of open water is bound to cause significant impacts on weather patterns, due to the huge amount of heat and moisture that escapes from the exposed ocean into the atmosphere over a multi-month period following the summer melt.

Figure 2. The extent of Arctic sea ice loss in the summer July – August – September period in 2007 was about 1.4 million square miles (3.6 million square kilometers) greater than in 1980, according to the University of Illinois Cryosphere Today. For comparison, the lost ice coverage (orange colors) was equal to an area about 44% of the size of the contiguous U.S., or 71% of the non-Russian portion of Europe.

Arctic sea ice loss can slow down jet stream winds
Dr. Francis looked at surface and upper level data from 1948 – 2010, and discovered that the extra heat in the Arctic in fall and winter over the past decade had caused the Arctic atmosphere between the surface and 500 mb (about 18,000 feet or 5,600 meters) to expand. As a result, the difference in temperature between the Arctic (60 – 80°N) and the mid-latitudes (30 – 50°N) fell significantly. It is this difference in temperature that drives the powerful jet stream winds that control much of our weather.

The speed of fall and winter west-to-east upper-level winds at 500 mb circling the North Pole decreased by 20% over the past decade, compared to the period 1948 – 2000, in response to the extra warmth in the Arctic. This slow-down of the upper-level winds circling the pole has been linked to a Hot Arctic-Cold Continents pattern that brought cold, snowy winters to the Eastern U.S. and Western Europe during 2009 – 2010 and 2010 – 2011.

Figure 3. West-to-east jet stream wind speeds at 500 mb (approximately 18,000 feet or 5,600 meters) in the mid-latitudes (40 – 60°N) over North America between 1948 and 2010. During fall (October – November – December) and winter (January – February – March), jet stream winds weakened by about 20%, from 13 – 14 m/s to 10.5 – 11 m/s. Spring (AMJ) and summer (JAS) winds changed little during this time period.

Arctic sea ice loss may increase the amplitude of jet stream troughs and ridges
The jet stream generally blows from west to east over the northern mid-latitudes, with an average position over the central U.S. in winter and southern Canada in summer. The jet stream marks the boundary between cold polar air to the north and warm subtropical air to the south, and is the path along which rain and snow-bearing low pressure systems ride. Instead of blowing straight west-to-east, the jet stream often contorts itself into a wave-like pattern. Where the jet stream bulges northwards into a ridge of high pressure, warm air flows far to the north. Where the jet loops to the south into a trough of low pressure, cold air spills southwards. The more extreme these loops to the north and south are–the amplitude of the jet stream–the slower the waves move eastward, and consequently, the more persistent the weather conditions tend to be.

A high-amplitude jet stream pattern (more than 1000 miles or 1610 km in distance between the bottom of a trough and the peak of a ridge) is likely to bring abnormally high temperatures to the region under its ridge, and very cold temperatures and heavy precipitation underneath its trough. The mathematics governing atmospheric motions requires that higher-amplitude flow patterns move more slowly. Thus, any change to the atmosphere that increases the amplitude of the wave pattern will make it move more slowly, increasing the length of time extreme weather conditions persist.

Dr. Francis discovered that during the early 1960s, a natural pattern in the atmosphere called the Arctic Oscillation increased the amplitude of the winter jet stream pattern over North America and the North Atlantic by more than 100 miles, increasing the potential for long-lasting weather conditions. The amplitude of the winter jet fell over 100 miles (161 km) during the late 1960s, remained roughly constant during the 1970s – 1990s, then increased by over 100 miles again during the 2000s. This latest increase in wave amplitude did not appear to be connected to the Arctic Oscillation, but did appear to be connected to the heating up of the Arctic due to sea ice loss. A warmer Arctic allows ridges of high pressure to build farther to the north. Since temperatures farther to the south near the bases of the troughs are not changing much by comparison, the result is that the amplitude of the jet stream grows as the ridges of high pressure push farther to the north. Thus it is possible that Arctic sea ice loss and the associated increases in jet stream amplitude could be partially responsible for some of the recent unusual extreme weather patterns observed in the Northern Hemisphere. This is preliminary research that has yet to be published, and much more work needs to be done before we can confidently link Arctic sea ice loss with an increase in extreme weather, though

Figure 4. A high-amplitude jet stream pattern observed over the U.S. on December 13, 2011. Instead of blowing straight west-to-east, the jet was contorted into a southward-bulging trough of low pressure that brought cold temperatures and a snow storm to Southern California, and a northwards-bulging ridge of high pressure that brought record warm temperatures to portions of the eastern 2/3 of the country. The axis of the jet stream is marked by the strongest winds (green and light blue colors) at the top of the lower atmosphere (200 – 300 mb pressure level.)

Earlier snow cover melt on Arctic land also increases the amplitude of jet stream troughs and ridges
As Earth’s climate has warmed over the past 30 years, the Northern Hemisphere has seen a dramatic drop in the amount of snow cover in spring (April, May, and June.)Spring is coming earlier by an average of three days per decade, and the earlier arrival of spring has significantly reduced the amount of snow on the ground in May. Less snow on the ground means the land surface can heat up more readily, and May temperatures in Arctic have increased significantly over the past 30 years. Dr. Francis found that the upper-level wave amplitude has increased by over 100 miles (161 km) in summer over the past decade, and this change appears to be connected to the decline in May snow cover. Thus, reduced May snow cover due to global warming may be causing higher-amplitude jet stream patterns, potentially leading to slower-moving weather patterns that favor extreme weather in summer, such as heat waves, drought, and flooding. Note that significant changes to the upper-level atmospheric circulation in spring were not observed, so springtime extreme weather events like the 2011 flooding and tornadoes in the U.S. cannot be connected to changes in the Arctic sea ice or high-latitude snow cover using this research.