Freezing weather brings transport chaos

The Met Office said temperatures fell to as low as minus 10 C overnight with as much as 25 centimeters of snow predicted to fall in some areas as the weather front spreads south.

There were severe warnings of heavy snow and widespread icy roads across Scotland, northern, central and western England, while more heavy snowfall was expected further south and in London later on Tuesday and today. Manchester Airport was closed until 12 p.m. because of heavy snow, and flights were being cancelled at Leeds Bradford and, Glasgow Airports.

“We have taken this decision, as we want to ensure that safety is maintained on the airfield for our airlines and passengers,” a Manchester Airport spokesman said.

“A further decision about snow clearance on the airfield will be taken at that time taking into account the weather forecasts for the rest of the day.” Many train services across Britain suffered cancellations and delays with severely reduced services on the East Coast mainline from Scotland and northern England to London because of the poor weather.

Motorists were advised to take care if they had to travel, and the Highways Agency said “continuous salt treatment” was being carried out at high-risk areas.

The AA said it expected Monday to have been its busiest day ever for breakdowns with 25,000 call-outs. High demand for gas prompted Britain’s network operator National Grid on Monday to warn consumption may have to be cut, which encouraged producers to increase flows into Britain.

The Met Office has said it expected the freezing conditions -- caused by winds coming from the north and east instead of the more usual west and southwest -- to continue into late January after one of the chilliest Decembers on record.

Australia baked under hottest decade on record because of global warming

Australia experienced its hottest decade on record from 2000 to 2009 due to global warming, the nation’s bureau of meteorology said on Tuesday, as annual summer bushfires again burn drought lands and destroy homes.

The average temperature in Australia over the past 10 years was 0.48 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, said the Bureau of Meteorology said in its annual climate statement. And 2010 is forecast to be even hotter, with temperatures likely to be between 0.5 and 1 degrees above average.

“We’re getting these increasingly warm temperatures, not just for Australia but globally. Climate change, global warming is clearly continuing,” said bureau climatologist David Jones.

“We’re in the latter stages of an El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean and what that means for Australian and global temperatures is that 2010 is likely to be another very warm year -- perhaps even the warmest on record.” Environment Minister Peter Garrett used the report to attack opposition politicians for blocking the government’s key climate policy, a carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) aimed at reducing greenhouses gases causing global warming.

“Australia is one of the hottest and driest inhabited places on earth and our environment and economy will be one of the hardest and fastest hit by climate change,” said Garrett.

“Today’s statement finds that the patterns of the last year and the decade are consistent with global warming. It [passing the ETS] is in the national interest and it is in the interest of the world,” he said in a statement. The government has promised to reintroduce its ETS legislation to parliament in February, a move which may trigger an early election in 2010 if the legislation is again defeated.

An election is due in late 2010.

The year 2009 will be remembered for “extreme bushfires, dust-storms, lingering rainfall deficiencies, areas of flooding and record-breaking heatwaves,”said the bureau. In fact, 2009 was Australia’s second warmest year on record, with the annual mean temperature 0.90 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, driven by three record-breaking heatwaves that caused Australia’s most deadly bushfires, killing 173 people. Sydney Reuters