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Last month, we are told, the world enjoyed “its hottest March since records began in 1880”. This year, according to “US government scientists”, already bids to outrank 2014 as “the hottest ever”. The figures from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were based, like all the other three official surface temperature records on which the world’s scientists and politicians rely, on data compiled from a network of weather stations by NOAA’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN). But here there is a puzzle. These temperature records are not the only ones with official status. The other two, Remote Sensing...

Hackers knocked out the Russian presidency's website several times on Friday and brought down the central bank website, the Kremlin press service said. "A powerful cyber attack is under way on the (Kremlin) site," a Kremlin spokeswoman said, adding that the attack was continuing and security experts were trying to prevent further disruptions.

Secretary of State John Kerry warned of serious repercussions for Russia on Monday if last-ditch talks over the weekend to resolve the crisis in Ukraine failed to persuade Moscow to soften its stance. Kerry will travel to London for a Friday meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ahead of a Sunday referendum vote in the Crimea region to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. U.S. and European officials argue that Moscow is orchestrating the referendum and waging an intimidation campaign with thousands of Russian troops controlling the region. If Russian-backed lawmakers in Crimea go through with the...

The Version 5.6 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for November, 2013 is +0.19 deg. C, down from +0.29 deg. C in October (click for full size version): What the graph shows is that if you take the average global temperature for the lower stratosphere from 1981 to 2010, last month (November, 2013) the global temperature is .19C above this average, or just under 1/5 of one degree.

The global average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly cooled a little more in February, 2012, again not unexpected for the current La Nina conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean (click on the image for the full-size version):

CROTON FALLS, N.Y., Feb. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Amy Bishop, a mother of four and a Harvard-educated biologist, used a handgun to fatally shoot three fellow biology professors and injure three others during a departmental staff meeting on the University of Alabama-Huntsville campus on Feb. 12. Bishop, the alleged shooter, was upset that she had been denied tenure by the university. No students were involved in the shooting. In response Andy Pelosi, the Director of the Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus, issued the following statement: "We offer our condolences to the families of the victims and the entire University of...

If Bill Delahunt had done his job, three Alabama families wouldn’t be in mourning today. Period. If then-Norfolk District Attorney Delahunt, his staff or the police hadn’t been negligent, corrupt or both back in 1986, Amy Bishop would have been prosecuted for killing her brother. Based on what we know now - and what investigators knew then - probably some charge of manslaughter. But at the very least, Bishop probably would have had a felony gun conviction on her record, teaching her a tragic personal lesson. Instead, the political culture of Massachusetts taught her something very different: It’s not what...

In , 2002, Bishop walked into an International House of Pancakes in Peabody with her family, asked for a booster seat for one of her children, and learned the last seat had gone to another mother. Bishop, according to a police report, strode over to the other woman, demanded the seat and launched into a profanity-laced rant. When the woman would not give the seat up, Bishop punched her in the head, all the while yelling "I am Dr. Amy Bishop." Bishop received probation and prosecutors recommended that she be sent to anger management classes, though it is unclear from...

One of the survivors of Friday's deadly shooting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville said she tried to talk Amy Bishop into putting the gun down. "The first thing I said was, 'Amy, think about my grandson, think about my daughter," Dr. Debra Moriarity, UAH's graduate school dean and a member of the biology faculty, said today. "I said, 'Amy, you know I've helped you, I'll help you again. It's me, it's me." "Part of my brain thought she'd go, 'Oh, it's Deb,' and she'd quit." But Moriarity said Bishop, an assistant professor, never responded. So Moriarity crawled through...

University of Alabama in Huntsville biology professor in custody regarding deadly shooting at faculty meeting By Patricia C. McCarter February 12, 2010, 5:45PM HUNTSVILLE, AL -- A biology professor is in custody in connection with three fatal shootings on the University of Alabama in Huntsville campus Friday afternoon, according to a UAH official. Dr. Amy Bishop, a Harvard-University trained neuroscientist, was taken into custody, and her husband has been detained. They have not been charged with a crime. According to police, three people were killed and three were wounded when the shooter opened fire during a biology faculty meeting on...

I give my thoughts on the recent UAH shooting then provide a look at the snow forecast for the next few days. Yep, more snow for many who have already seen a large amount. Snow will even make it back into the South.

Confirming what many of us have already noted from the anecdotal evidence coming in of a much cooler than normal May, such as late spring snows as far south as Arizona, extended skiing in Colorado, and delays in snow cover melting, (here and here), the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) published their satellite derived Advanced Microwave Sounder Unit data set of the Lower Troposphere for May 2008. It is significantly colder globally, colder even than the significant drop to -0.046°C seen in January 2008. The global ∆T from April to May 2008 was -.195°C

Way down a dusty gravel road, tucked deep in Redstone Arsenal, right at the border's edge, hails a story that verges on legend, of a gun so big and so fast that people question its existence. It's said that people often talk about it in hushed tones, almost giving it a mythical feel. The tale has only grown over the years. "Every once in awhile, there will be someone, someone who works on the arsenal, who'll say, 'I hear you've got a big gun down there,' " says Brian Akins, research scientist and range engineer at the Aerophysics Research Center...