Isaiah 24

[knox]

Do you think that all the weird weather events and the huge earthquakes are from this scripture. Every day there is some kind of new record set. And what about everything that is melting at record speeds. Did anyone read The Lion, The Witch and Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis - Remember when the white witch was in charge of Narnia and their were whispers that Aslan was on the move. Remember the world of the white witch began to melt. May C.S. Lewis was on to something.

Isaiah 24


The LORD's Devastation of the Earth

1 See, the LORD is going to lay waste the earth and devastate it; he will ruin its face and scatter its inhabitants--
2 it will be the same for priest as for people, for master as for servant, for mistress as for maid, for seller as for buyer, for borrower as for lender, for debtor as for creditor.
3 The earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered. The LORD has spoken this word.
4
The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the exalted of the earth languish.
5 The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant.
6 Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth's inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left.
7 The new wine dries up and the vine withers; all the merrymakers groan.
8 The gaiety of the tambourines is stilled, the noise of the revellers has stopped, the joyful harp is silent.
9 No longer do they drink wine with a song; the beer is bitter to its drinkers.
10 The ruined city lies desolate; the entrance to every house is barred.
11 In the streets they cry out for wine; all joy turns to gloom, all gaiety is banished from the earth.
12 The city is left in ruins, its gate is battered to pieces.
13 So will it be on the earth and among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, or as when gleanings are left after the grape harvest.
14
They raise their voices, they shout for joy; from the west they acclaim the LORD's majesty.
15 Therefore in the east give glory to the LORD; exalt the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, in the islands of the sea.
16 From the ends of the earth we hear singing: Glory to the Righteous One.
But I said, I waste away, I waste away! Woe to me! The treacherous betray! With treachery the treacherous betray!
17 Terror and pit and snare await you, O people of the earth.
18 Whoever flees at the sound of terror will fall into a pit; whoever climbs out of the pit will be caught in a snare.
The floodgates of the heavens are opened, the foundations of the earth shake.
19 The earth is broken up, the earth is split asunder, the earth is thoroughly shaken.
20 The earth reels like a drunkard, it sways like a hut in the wind; so heavy upon it is the guilt of its rebellion that it falls--never to rise again.
21
In that day the LORD will punish the powers in the heavens above and the kings on the earth below.
22 They will be herded together like prisoners bound in a dungeon; they will be shut up in prison and be punished after many days.
23 The moon will be abashed, the sun ashamed; for the LORD Almighty will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before its elders, gloriously. Praise to the LORD

[Joshua's Gen]

Originally posted by knox
And what about everything that is melting at record speeds.

This intrigued me.

WHAT IS melting at record speeds??
Ice caps?

I think this is a picture of immediately before the second coming.

[knox]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/970325.asp?0cv=CB10&cp1=1


Arctic ice shelf breakup reported

Largest ice shelf in region was solid for 3,000 years

By Maggie Fox


WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 — The largest ice shelf in the Arctic, a solid feature for 3,000 years, has broken up, scientists in the United States and Canada said Monday. They said the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, on the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada’s Nunavut territory, broke into two main parts, themselves cut through with fissures. A freshwater lake drained into the sea, the researchers reported.



Only 100 years ago the whole northern coast of Ellesmere Island, which is the northernmost land mass of North America, was edged by a continuous ice shelf. About 90 percent of it is now gone.

LARGE ICE ISLANDS also calved off from the shelf and some are large enough to be dangerous to shipping and to drilling platforms in the Beaufort Sea.
Local warming of the climate is to blame, they said — adding that they did not have the evidence needed to link the melting ice to the steady, planet-wide climate change known as global warming.
Warwick Vincent and Derek Mueller of Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, and Martin Jeffries of the University of Alaska Fairbanks lived at the site, flew over it and used radar satellite imaging for their study.
Writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Vincent’s team said all of the fresh water poured out of the 20 mile (30 km) long Disraeli Fjord.
This in turn has affected communities of freshwater and marine species of plankton and algae, said Mueller, a graduate student who has studied the tiny creatures.
Only 100 years ago the whole northern coast of Ellesmere Island, which is the northernmost land mass of North America, was edged by a continuous ice shelf. About 90 percent of it is now gone, Vincent’s team wrote.

The area has been getting warmer, they said. A similar trend in the Antarctic has caused the break-up of huge ice shelves there.
“There’s a regional trend in warming that cycles back 150 years,” Mueller said in a telephone interview. “I am not comfortable linking it to global warming. It is difficult to tease out what is due to global warming and what is due to regional warming.”
Records indicate an increase of four-tenths of a degree centigrade every 10 years since 1967. The average July temperature has been 1.3 degrees Celsius or 34 degrees F —just above the freezing point — since 1967.
Climate change has affected ocean temperature, salinity and flow patterns, which also influence the break-up of ice shelves in the Antarctic. “It’s not just as simple as it gets x degrees warmer and the ice melts this much,” Mueller said.
Warmer temperatures weaken the ice, leaving it vulnerable to changed currents and other forces.


http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/951928.asp

Arctic summer ice melting over time

Shipping, oil benefit but is it sign of manmade warming?


OSLO, Norway, Aug. 13 — Higher temperatures will melt most of the Arctic’s summer icecap by the end of the century, according to a study released Wednesday.


The study showed a thinning of the icecap from 1920-1940 was caused by natural climate fluctuations.

THE THREE-YEAR international study indicated that ice around the North Pole had shrunk by 7.4 percent in the past 25 years, with a record small summer coverage in September 2002.
“The summer ice cover in the Arctic may be reduced by 80 percent at the end of the 21st century,” said Norwegian Professor Ola Johannessen, the main author of the study funded by the European Commission.
The Arctic Barents Sea north of Russia and Norway could be free of ice even in winter by the end of the century, he said. Johannessen works at the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center in Norway.





“This will make it easier to explore for oil, it could open the Northern Sea Route (between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans),” he said.
Moscow and Norway reckon the Barents Sea could be a promising new area for oil and gas. The Northern Sea passage could save shippers about 10 days on a trip from Japan to Europe compared to traveling through the Suez Canal.
Johannessen said that the report, released ahead of peer review, also indicated that a recent thinning of the polar icecap was linked to human emissions of gases like carbon dioxide blamed for blanketing the planet.


But the study showed a thinning of the icecap from 1920-1940 was caused by natural climate fluctuations, such as ocean currents and winds, rather than by a build-up of greenhouse gases.
Johannessen said the new survey added to evidence of a gradual thinning of the icecap and gave firmer signs that human emissions, such as exhausts from cars and factories, were mainly to blame.
Climate experts say that polar areas are heating up more than other regions.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/726247.asp

Staggering end to Antarctic ice shelf

U.S., British researchers tie rapid collapse
to warming trend
A NASA satellite image shows the thousands of icebergs created by the Larsen B ice shelf collapse. Brownish streaks are rocks and glacial debris exposed from the former underside and interior of the shelf. Click PLAY to see the collapse over time.


By Miguel Llanos
MSNBC

March 19, 2002 — A massive Antarctic ice shelf has collapsed into the sea, shattering into thousands of icebergs and alarming researchers by the speed with which the process unfolded. Described by one researcher as “staggering,” the rapid collapse offered fuel for the debate over whether global warming is to blame.


‘We knew what was left would collapse eventually, but the speed of it is staggering.’
— DAVID VAUGHAN
British Antarctic Survey scientist U.S. AND BRITISH government agencies confirmed the collapse of what’s known as the Larsen B ice shelf. Some 1,255 square miles of the ice shelf disintegrated between Jan. 31 and March 7, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center reported Tuesday.
“The shattered ice formed a plume of thousands of icebergs adrift in the Weddell Sea,” the center said, adding that over the past five years, Larsen B lost nearly twice that amount and is now about 40 percent the size of what it used to be.
Before it broke apart, the shelf was 650 feet thick and about the size of Rhode Island.
Scientists with the British Antarctic Survey first predicted in 1998 that it would eventually collapse, and satellite images over the years suggested as much. The process accelerated over the last month, with the single largest piece calving on March 5.

720 BILLION TONS
David Vaughan, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey, noted that since the 1998 prediction, “warming on the peninsula has continued and we watched as piece by piece Larsen B has retreated.”

“We knew what was left would collapse eventually,” he said in a statement, “but the speed of it is staggering.” It’s hard to believe, he said, that 720 billion tons “of ice sheet has disintegrated in less than a month.”
The U.S. center noted that 720 billion tons is enough ice for 290 trillion 5-pound bags.
The British Antarctic Survey said its scientists would be researching when such an event last happened and which ice shelves are threatened in the future. Earlier studies found four other ice shelves had been retreating in recent years.
The researchers emphasized that ice shelves themselves would not raise sea levels because they were already floating in water. However, because shelves hold back ice sheets on the continent, their collapse could allow ice on the ground to slowly move into the sea, thereby raising sea levels over time.

‘CLOSER TO THE LIMIT’
Ted Scambos, a glaciologist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said in a statement that the Larsen B collapse “gave us the information we need to reassess the stability of ice shelves around the rest of the Antarctic continent. They are closer to the limit than we thought.”
“Loss of ice shelves surrounding the Antarctic continent could have a major effect on the rate of ice flow off the continent,” Scambos added.
The center, located at the University of Colorado, noted that the next shelf to the south, the Larsen C, “is very near the stability limit, and may start to recede in the coming decade if the warming trend continues.”
“More importantly,” it said, is what might happen with the giant Ross Ice Shelf, the main outlet for several major glaciers draining the West Antarctic Ice Sheet — which is 6,000 feet thick, covers an area the size of Mexico and contains enough water to raise global sea levels by 15 feet.
“The warmest part of the giant Ross Ice Shelf is in fact only a few degrees too cool in summer presently to undergo the same kind of retreat process,” the center said.

New cracks in Larsen B were observed in the weeks prior to the sudden collapse.


GLOBAL WARMING DEBATE
Both the U.S. and British agencies attributed the collapse and other retreating shelves to warmer temperatures over the last half century.
That would fit in nicely with arguments made by environmentalists and many scientists that manmade emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are causing global warming. Greenpeace, for one, called the collapse “a harbinger of global warming.”
The weakening of the Larsen B ice shelf was first noted in the late 1990s. This 1997 photo shows people dwarfed by one fissure.
Others, including some scientists, say it’s possible that any warming is due to natural shifts, not manmade causes, and that further studies are needed before taking global action to reduce emissions.
The agencies did not enter the debate over what has caused the warming around the Antarctic Peninsula.
The British Antarctic Survey limited its observation to earlier studies that found the peninsula has warmed by 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 50 years — much faster than global warming worldwide or even in other parts of Antarctica. The peninsula is the Antarctic area closest to southern Argentina and Chile.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center said studies had estimated that Larsen B had existed for at least 400 years and probably since before the end of the last major ice age 12,000 years ago.
“This is the largest single event in a series of retreats by ice shelves in the peninsula over the last 30 years,” the center said, attributing them to “a strong climate warming in the region.”
In comments to MSNBC.com, Scambos was careful not to tie the collapse to manmade emissions of greenhouse gases, and noted that computer models actually predicted different regional effects from those gases.
But he added that the collapse was so sudden in geological time that it’s not clear it was due to natural causes either.
What’s needed, he said, are improved computer models, more sampling of ice cores for climate changes and continued tracking of ice shelves and sea ice.
“The tools are there,” he said, “we need to apply them.”

COOLING IN SOME AREAS?
Other studies have actually suggested some Antarctic areas might be cooling.
One study reported new measurements showed the ice in West Antarctica was thickening, reversing earlier estimates that the sheet was melting. The Antarctica Peninsula extends from West Antarctica.


The researchers said the thickening, if not merely part of some short-term fluctuation, represented a reversal of the long retreat of the ice.
Another recent study concluded that Antarctica’s harsh desert valleys — long considered a bellwether for global climate change — have grown noticeably cooler since the mid-1980s.
Air temperatures recorded continuously over a 14-year period ending in 1999 declined by about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the polar deserts and across the White Continent, that paper said.
Scambos questioned that data but also acknowledged that “the only area showing an unambiguous warming trend is the Antarctic Peninsula.”

SEPARATE ICEBERG BREAKS
In another development on Antarctica, the National Ice Center on Monday confirmed reports that a mammoth iceberg — some 40 by 53 miles in size — had broken away from a section of the continent in the Amundsen Sea.

The iceberg was designated B-22 and is larger than the state of Delaware. It remained relatively close to the continent and was not described as an imminent threat to shipping.
Icebergs are named for the section of Antarctica where they are first sighted. The B designation covers the Amundsen and eastern Ross seas and the 22 indicates it is the 22nd iceberg sighted there by the National Ice Center.
Scambos said the B-22 was part of a regular cycle of iceberg creation off Antarctica, and not tied to warming. A much larger iceberg was created off the Ross ice shelf two years ago, he added.
The B-22 is likely to get grounded near the continent, Scambos said, but could last quite a few years.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[knox]

HERE ARE SOME MORE


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3077422.stm


Last Updated: Thursday, 4 September, 2003, 12:31 GMT 13:31 UK


Kazakhstan's glaciers 'melting fast'

By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent


The political stability of a key central Asian state could be imperilled by climate change, researchers say.

I think we have to say that climate is affecting the glaciers

Dr Stephan Harrison, University of Oxford
They say glaciers are melting so fast in parts of Kazakhstan that the livelihoods of millions of people will be affected.

They found the area's glaciers were losing almost two cubic kilometres of ice annually during the later 20th Century.

With regional temperatures rising, they believe climate change is responsible.

The scientists, led by Dr Stephan Harrison of the University of Oxford, reported their findings at the annual conference in London of the UK's Royal Geographical Society and Institute of British Geographers.

They concentrated on the Zailiiskiy Alatau range of the northern Tien Shan mountains, which stretch through Kazakhstan and its neighbour Kyrgyzstan, and into China (the name means "the celestial mountains").

The mountains, which run for 2,000 km (1,250 miles) along the north-west edge of the Tibetan plateau, form an important climatic barrier between the Siberian and central Asian air masses.

Long observation period

There are 416 glaciers in the region, covering 510 square km (197 square miles).

TIEN SHAN RANGE

The Tien Shan range runs across China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan
Dr Harrison and his colleagues, from the University of Newcastle, UK, von Humboldt University, Germany, and the Kazakh Academy of Sciences, say they have been losing nearly two cubic km of ice a year between 1955 and 2000.

Between 1974 and 1990, the glaciers lost 1.28% of their volume each year.

The Tuyuksu glacier, 30 km (18 miles) south of Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, has been monitored by the country's scientists since 1902, with less detailed observations dating back to the 1870s.

Since 1923 it has receded by nearly a kilometre, losing about 51 million cubic metres of ice.

The team says these changes have serious implications for river runoff, and therefore for Almaty's water supply.


The glaciers keep the plains alive
Many of the rivers which supply the irrigation schemes essential to agriculture are fed by glaciers and permafrost in the upper ranges of the Tien Shan, so the livelihoods of millions of people will be affected.

The authors say not only Kazakh agriculture and development will be jeopardised but the political stability of a swathe of central Asia, as many of the rivers and glaciers cross state frontiers.

Warming up

Kazakhstan uses about 90% of its water for irrigation, with an efficiency of only 40-60%, and it is adding 9,000 hectares (22,000 acres) to the irrigated area every year.


Many Kazakhs face a drier future
The scientists say the glaciers' "consistent pattern of retreat over the latter part of the 20th Century... is associated with a small but pervasive rise in mean annual temperatures".

Dr Harrison said: "The effects of global warming on glaciers are not just of interest to scientists, as glacial retreat has profound political, economic and social repercussions."

He told BBC News Online: "I think we can be certain the reason why the Tien Shan glaciers are melting is climate change.

Uncontaminated evidence

"We have the climate records themselves, which go back to early last century. Sceptics often argue that records of this sort are contaminated by the proximity of urban centres.

"But these records are from glaciers 3,000 m (9,800 feet) up, nowhere near any towns or cities.

"They're confirmed by the evidence from tree rings, which preserve a record of climate conditions as they grow, and by the meteorological records.

"Taking all three together, I think we have to say that climate is affecting the glaciers."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1035130,00.html

Melting glaciers spell water crisis

Paul Brown
Thursday September 4, 2003
The Guardian

Temperature changes and lack of snow are causing 90% of the world's glaciers to retreat and some to disappear completely, with potentially catastrophic consequences for communities that rely on the meltwater for irrigation, hydroelectric schemes and drinking, glaciologists agreed yesterday.
Research in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas all pointed to the same conclusion: that climate change is causing increasingly rapid melting of the ice.

Only Scandinavian and Alaskan glaciers are holding their own or increasing. In both cases this is due to increased snowfall, also caused by climate change.

Although it has been known for some time that glaciers are in retreat, this is the first time that such a large body of evidence has been brought together, and with such uniform results.

The loss of ice will increase sea levels worldwide.

In the Alps, where summer temperatures have risen by 2.1C since the 1970s, summer flows in glacier-fed rivers have doubled.

David Collins, professor of physical geography at the University of Salford, said this year glaciers were melting more than he had ever seen.

"Temporarily, it might be seen as good news for summer flows," he said. "After all the extra water from the glaciers this summer has meant hydroelectric dams have been topped up so they can run on maximum power.

"It helps to make up for the nuclear stations that had to close because of the heat. But in the longer term, when the glaciers disappear, there will be no meltwater at all, and it will reduce as the glaciers get smaller and survive only on the highest mountains."

But he emphasised that it was not just the higher temperatures that were causing the problem.

The increase in the number of atmospheric high pressure systems in the Alps in the winter had caused considerable a reduction in snow. As a result the glaciers were not being replenished.

In contrast, the change in track of Atlantic depressions meant that extra rain was falling in England and more snow in Scandinavia, so despite the fact that it was getting warmer there too, the glaciers were growing.

Stephan Harrison of the Oxford University school of geography and environment said in Africa most glaciers would disappear completely in 20 years.

A paper on the Ruwenzori mountain range, between Uganda and Congo, showed that the glaciers which feed the headwaters of the Nile were now so thin that they would soon disappear.

Dr Harrison's own paper, on the glaciers on Kazakhstan, which provide drinking and irrigation water to the country's largest city, Alma-Ata, show that two cubic kilometres of ice (2.6bn cubic yards) a year have disappeared from 416 glaciers in the region every year since 1955.

"They are retreating so fast they are leaving piles of rocks and debris behind that dam up the meltwater," he said.

"There is a real danger of disastrous dam bursts hurling rocks and debris on the settlements below."


http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planetearth/pumpkin_planet_021205.html


Earth Gets Fatter Thanks to Faster Glacial Melting
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 02:01 pm ET
05 December 2002




Accelerated melting of Earth's glaciers in recent years has forced the planet to let a notch out of its belt as its midsection gains girth, according to a study released today.

The increased water flowing into the oceans each year since 1997 is equal to a square block of ice that would cover much of Utah, accounting for about half of a mysterious equatorial bulge first reported in August.

The other contributing half appears to involve changing ocean currents that have redirected water from polar regions to tropical areas.

The puzzling redistribution of mass actually involved a measurement of Earth's gravitational field.

Earth has never been exactly spherical; it has always been somewhat pumpkin-shaped. Since the last Ice Age, though, the planet has gotten rounder and rounder as ground beneath the polar regions, relieved of the weight from ice, rebounds.

Between 1997 and 1998, however, that rounding tendency suddenly reversed, satellite data showed, and the equator seems to have been getting fatter ever since. Scientists who announced the reversal could not explain it, but they were nearly certain the answer was in the oceans.



Images




The retreat of the South Cascade Glacier in the Washington Cascade Mountains is evident in these two photographs, from 1928 and 2000.







Estimated mass change in glaciers outside Antarctica or Greenland, referred to as sub-polar and mountain glaciers.




More Stories


Mysterious Shift in Earth's Gravity Suggests Equator is Bulging






The new study seems to confirm that suspicion.

"Our solution to the puzzle is rather straightforward, and involves redistribution of water mass from high to low latitudes, in quantities sufficient to counteract the ongoing effects of post-glacial rebound," said Jean Dickey, a researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who led the latest work.

The study found less water in the so-called Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and more water in the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans. The results are laid out in the Dec. 6 issue of the journal Science.

Long-term changes in ocean currents may well be normal, like extended versions of the El Nino cycle, but researches don't have data over long enough time periods to know what exactly goes on.

The melting of mountain glaciers, on the other hand, is of greater concern to scientists pondering the extent and effects of global warming. Other research teams have catalogued the phenomenon in many regions of the planet. Evidence continues to mount that a warming atmosphere is fueling accelerated melting worldwide.

"The enhanced glacial melting amounts to several hundred cubic kilometers of water per year during the time of the most rapid changes [1997-98]," Dickey told SPACE.com. "The transport [of water] toward the equator in the ocean had a similar magnitude."

Dickey's team worked with data supplied by the scientists who made the original discovery of the planet's swelling midsection. They also analyzed recent data on the oceans, land ice, the atmosphere, and groundwater. The study did not consider possible effects of polar ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, for which not enough information was available.

Dickey cautioned that the study is not entirely conclusive, as the changes in sea level are measured in millimeters and represent a "daunting task" that requires numerous corrections to account for various known factors, such as natural short-term fluctuations.

[knox]

OK - I'm Done - could not resist this one



http://www.sunspot.net/news/printedition/bal-te.alaska21feb21,0,1530548.story?coll=bal%2Dpe%2Dasection



In Alaska, they'd 'kill for snow'
Warmth: Mild temperatures disrupt winter sports and hurt business.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Marego Athans
Sun National Staff
Originally published February 21, 2003



ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Somewhere up in the heavens, they evidently thought it would be a joke: Let's switch the winters on people and see what happens.

We'll sock the mid-Atlantic, where a dusting of snow can cause mass hysteria, with 2 feet-plus in a single weekend. And we'll leave Anchorage with the second-warmest winter since record-keeping began in 1915.

Hence, the bizarre turn of events in this normally white and frigid region, which springs to life each winter with cross-country skiing, snowmobile races, sled dog competitions and ice climbing.

With a warm wind known as the "pineapple express" wafting up from Hawaii, the Palmer Golf Course outside of town opened for business a few weeks ago. Flowers began peeking through the thawing soil as the temperature hit a virtually unheard-of 45 degrees on Feb. 6. And a few bears apparently thought it was time to end their hibernation and venture out of their dens.
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When Alaskans heard reports this week of Easterners digging out after that huge snowfall - as much in a matter of days as the 28.6 inches that have fallen here since October - there was grumbling.

"I thought, they get all this snow they don't want and we're desperate here," said Jon Little, a musher who has to travel 90 minutes in his truck just to reach a trail where he can train his dogs for the Iditarod, the famed sled dog race that had to move its starting point more than 300 miles northward to frostier Fairbanks. "We'd kill for 28 inches."

"I play in the snow. I live for it," he said. "It's like being a farmer who can't get rain. A fisherman who can't fish. You live in Alaska, where it's supposed to be snowing. It's extremely frustrating."

For much of Alaska, this year's "unwinter" is nothing less than a disaster, forcing the cancellation of dozens of sled dog races and the rerouting of the Iditarod for the first time in its 31-year history from its normal starting point in Wasilla, 50 miles northeast of Anchorage.

A prestigious skiing event, the U.S. Alpine Championships, was moved from the nearby Alyeska resort to the Lower 48.

"We don't have Johns Hopkins up here; you don't come here for the famous museums or fine arts - you come here for nature and the outdoors," said Paul Denkewalter, owner of Alaska Mountaineering and Hiking, whose business is off about 40 percent this month. "When people here complain about the snow, you look at them like, what planet did you come from? The more snow the better. ... A mild winter is anathema."

The change in the Iditarod's route has sent mushers scrambling to relocate their drop-off points for food and supplies before the March 3 start. And dogs are spraining shoulders and hamstrings while training on uneven trails instead of running smoothly on the snow.

"It's the most miserable thing that can happen to a dog musher," said John Rasmussen, race manager of the Alaska Sled Dog and Racing Association. "You get all set up, you raise your dogs, they're the right age, and all of a sudden you have no snow, no training, nothing."

Restaurants, lodges and bars along the traditional route that rely on the thousands who come to the race will lose out.

"It's been a financial disaster," said Joe Delia, 73, one of the Iditarod's founding trailbreakers. He lives in Skwentna, a remote area 70 air miles northwest of Anchorage.

In a typical winter, the way to reach the area is by plane or snowmobile. But this year, torrential rains flooded the rivers. They were too dangerous for boaters, and the area was all but marooned for weeks. The rivers are now frozen, but with the race rerouted, the area's fishing lodges will lose the hundreds of customers who regularly come to watch, providing about one-third of the lodges' annual income, Delia said.

Even the National Weather Service's Anchorage office is stumped for a scientific explanation for the big thaw. Forecasters steer clear of blaming global warning but observe that, for some reason, balmy weather in Alaska often means the opposite in the Lower 48 states.

"There always seems to be a flip-flop," said specialist John Stepetin. "It's not scientific, just something we've noticed over the years."

The pineapple express rolls into Alaska several times a year, but seldom with such a warming effect. This year, it produced nine straight days of temperatures in the 40s, a veritable heat wave. The normal daytime high for this time of year is about 27.

For a few days in Anchorage, people were walking around in T-shirts and construction work that never happens in the winter was humming along.

Snowplow businesses switched to their summertime jobs, such as roofing and pipe-thawing. "What weather? There is no weather," said Dave Bates, owner of Alpine Roofing and Property Maintenance, who usually gets 50 calls a week to plow snow and this year has had two.

Snowmobile sales are way off, said Chuck Jones, a salesman at Marita Sea & Ski. "It's hard to get the public excited about buying machines when there's no place to drive," he said.

Kincaid Park, normally blanketed with snow and buzzing with cross-country skiers, was deserted yesterday. The only signs of life were Chad Hesson, 30, and his fiancee, Chanda Dorn, 26, checking out locations for their June wedding.

They complained that they usually skate two or three times a week in the winter but can't this year because the ice has been too thin and even the rinks are spotted with puddles.

Ricky Prince, a groomer with the Nordic Ski Club, was using a front-end loader to lay a cross-country trail on a bare track for a coming race.

"You didn't bring any snow, did you?" he asked a visitor from the East.

"People are in grief," said Doug O'Harra, a reporter at the Anchorage Daily News. "Nobody remembers ever looking out the window in February and seeing green grass. The fact that there's no snow and it's warm is just mind-boggling."

To be fair, there are people here who welcome the break - though they're careful not to say it too loudly.

Ice climber Jon Cobb, 27, said although he has to drive two hours to find the ice this year, that area, which is normally cold and miserable, is now lots of fun: "Instead of my pick ricocheting off the ice and breaking, there's lots of 'hero ice,' ice that can make anyone look like a hero."

But most Alaskans are like Joyce Yerkes, who lives with her husband in a cabin on Shell Lake, about 90 miles from here. "We're used to dealing with the snow," she said. "We don't shovel snow so much as we just pack it down and move on top of it."

They sought to commiserate with the snowbound East.

"When I heard about [the Eastern storm] I thought, 'I hope they enjoy it,'" said Joyce Barnett, 52, a physical therapist. "I hope it distracts them from the national political issues. We don't worry so much about that here, the terrorism. We're so removed. But we do worry about the snow."

[msjagcat777]

quote from knox:
Do you think that all the weird weather events and the huge earthquakes are from this scripture.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes!:nod
I agree that this chapter in Isaiah refers to earthquakes, volcanos, weather and possibly meteorites or comets that cause possible damage also.

[col311]

Originally posted by knox
Do you think that all the weird weather events and the huge earthquakes are from this scripture. Every day there is some kind of new record set. And what about everything that is melting at record speeds. Did anyone read The Lion, The Witch and Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis - Remember when the white witch was in charge of Narnia and their were whispers that Aslan was on the move. Remember the world of the white witch began to melt. May C.S. Lewis was on to something.

Isaiah 24


The LORD's Devastation of the Earth

1 See, the LORD is going to lay waste the earth and devastate it; he will ruin its face and scatter its inhabitants--
2 it will be the same for priest as for people, for master as for servant, for mistress as for maid, for seller as for buyer, for borrower as for lender, for debtor as for creditor.
3 The earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered. The LORD has spoken this word.
4
The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the exalted of the earth languish.
5 The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant.
6 Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth's inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left.
7 The new wine dries up and the vine withers; all the merrymakers groan.
8 The gaiety of the tambourines is stilled, the noise of the revellers has stopped, the joyful harp is silent.
9 No longer do they drink wine with a song; the beer is bitter to its drinkers.
10 The ruined city lies desolate; the entrance to every house is barred.
11 In the streets they cry out for wine; all joy turns to gloom, all gaiety is banished from the earth.
12 The city is left in ruins, its gate is battered to pieces.
13 So will it be on the earth and among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, or as when gleanings are left after the grape harvest.
14
They raise their voices, they shout for joy; from the west they acclaim the LORD's majesty.
15 Therefore in the east give glory to the LORD; exalt the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, in the islands of the sea.
16 From the ends of the earth we hear singing: Glory to the Righteous One.
But I said, I waste away, I waste away! Woe to me! The treacherous betray! With treachery the treacherous betray!
17 Terror and pit and snare await you, O people of the earth.
18 Whoever flees at the sound of terror will fall into a pit; whoever climbs out of the pit will be caught in a snare.
The floodgates of the heavens are opened, the foundations of the earth shake.
19 The earth is broken up, the earth is split asunder, the earth is thoroughly shaken.
20 The earth reels like a drunkard, it sways like a hut in the wind; so heavy upon it is the guilt of its rebellion that it falls--never to rise again.
21
In that day the LORD will punish the powers in the heavens above and the kings on the earth below.
22 They will be herded together like prisoners bound in a dungeon; they will be shut up in prison and be punished after many days.
23 The moon will be abashed, the sun ashamed; for the LORD Almighty will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before its elders, gloriously. Praise to the LORD


I think this is directed toward the end times, during the trib. But that's just my opinion