The temperature difference from normal over the Arctic averaged over the next five days in the GFS model forecast. (University of Maine Climate Reanalyzer)

(This story published Wednesday afternoon, was updated Thursday morning.)

While the Eastern United States simmers in some of its warmest February weather ever recorded, the Arctic is also stewing in temperatures more than 45 degrees above normal. This latest huge temperature spike in the Arctic is another striking indicator of its rapidly transforming climate.

On Monday and Tuesday, the northernmost weather station in the world, Cape Morris Jesup at the northern tip of Greenland, experienced more than 24 hours of temperatures above freezing according to the Danish Meteorological Institute. “How weird is that?” tweeted Robert Rohde, a physicist and lead scientist atBerkeley Earth, a non-profit organization that conducts analyses of the Earth’s temperature. “Well it’s Arctic winter. The sun set in October and won’t be seen again until March. Perpetual night, but still above freezing.”

This thaw occurred as a pulse of extremely mild air shot through the Greenland Sea.

Warm air is spilling into the Arctic from all sides. On the opposite end of North America, abnormally mild air also poured over northern Alaska on Tuesday, where the temperature in Utqiaġvik, previously known as Barrow, soared to a record high of 31 degrees (minus-1 Celsius), 40 degrees (22 Celsius) above normal.

The warmth over Alaska occurred as almost one-third of the ice covering the Bering Sea off Alaska’s West Coast vanished in just over a week during the middle of February, InsideClimateNews reported. Brian Brettschneider, a climatologist based in Alaska, posted that the overall sea ice extent on Feb. 20 was the lowest on a record by a long shot.

View image on Twitter

Brian Brettschneider@Climatologist49

Today's Bering Sea ice extent was lower than any value from Jan 15th to May 2nd during any of the previous 38 years; and the Feb 20th value was only half of the previous lowest Feb 20 value. #akwx @AlaskaWx @ZLabe

12:08 AM - Feb 22, 2018

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The lack of ice has real consequences for villages along the Bering Sea whose shores are normally protected from big storms and their giant waves. Without the ice as a buffer, waves can hammer the coastline and damage homes and buildings, as this video from the village of Diomede, Alaska, shot on Feb. 20 illustrates:

“Scary stuff, on many levels,” tweeted Rick Thoman, an Alaskan meteorologist.

Zack Labe

✔@ZLabe

February? This is crazy. Retreat of sea ice in the Bering Sea continues - well below the previous record low in the satellite era.

11:05 AM - Feb 21, 2018

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Temperatures over the entire Arctic north of 80 degrees latitude have averaged about 10 degrees (6 Celsius) above normal since the beginning of the calendar year, sometimes spiking over 25 degrees (14 Celsius) above normal (the normal temperature is around minus-22, or minus-30 Celsius).

These kinds of temperature anomalies in the Arctic have become commonplace in winter in the past few years. “[T]he *persistence* of the above average temperatures is quite striking,” tweeted Zack Labe, a PhD candidate in climate science at the University of California at Irvine.

View image on Twitter

Zack Labe

✔@ZLabe

While there is always large variability in the #Arctic winter, the *persistence* of the above average temperatures is quite striking in the last few years.

Average is the light blue line. Gray lines indicate years from 1958-2015 [>80°N latitude; http://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/arctic-temperatures/ …].

7:34 PM - Feb 19, 2018

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This February’s temperatures in the Arctic have been the highest on record, Labe noted.

Some of the most extreme warmth of the year so far is forecast to flood the Arctic in coming days, with a number of areas seeing temperatures 45 to 60 degrees (25 to 34 Celsius) above normal. The mercury at the North Pole could well rise above freezing between Thursday and Sunday.

This next batch of abnormally warm air is forecast to shoot the gap between Greenland and northern Europe through the Greenland and Barents seas. Similar circumstances occurred in December 2016, when the temperature at the North Pole last flirted with the melting point in the dark, dead of winter. We documented comparable jumps in temperature in November 2016 and December 2015.

An analysis from Climate Central said these extreme winter warming events in the Arctic, once rare, could become commonplace if the planet continues warming. A study in the journal Nature published in 2016 found the decline of sea ice in the Arctic “is making it easier for weather systems to transport this heat polewards.”

Arctic sea ice was at its lowest extent on record this past January, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“I have sailed boats through [the Arctic Sea] but never this time of year,” tweeted David Thoreson, an Arctic photographer. “It’s amazing to watch this unfold.”

The record-setting temperatures and lack of ice is exactly what scientists have projected over the Arctic for years and it’s fundamentally changing the landscape.

“Arctic shows no sign of returning to reliably frozen region of recent past decades,” NOAA concluded in its Arctic Report Card, published in December.

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, many women and some men have come forward with their experiences of sexual harassment and assault, shining a light on just how widespread the problem is.

While the growing voices of survivors have forced much of the world to stop and take notice, the numbers of those who have been affected by sexual misconduct have been difficult to quantify.

Now, a new landmark study looking at sexual harassment and assault in the U.S. reveals staggering numbers, with 81 percent of women surveyed alleging they had experienced sexual harassment or assault and a stunning 43 percent of men said they had experienced sexual misconduct too.

The study, released by non-profit organization Stop Street Harassment (SSH) and Raliance, a collaborative committed to ending sexual violence, surveyed 2,000 people last month.

While verbal comments made up the most frequently experienced form of sexual harassment, SSH said an "alarming" number of people surveyed said they had faced more severe forms of harassment and assault.

Among all female respondents, 27 percent–or 1 in 4–said they had survived sexual assault.

Fifty-one percent said they had been purposely sexually touched or groped, 34 percent said they had been followed and 30 percent had been flashed by another person.

Among men, 7 percent, or 1 in 14, said they had been sexually assaulted.

More than half (57 percent) of women and nearly half (42 percent) of men said their first experience of sexual harassment or assault occurred by the age of 17. Thirty percent of women and 22 percent of men said their occurred by age 13.

“The ubiquitousness of sexual harassment in the US is staggering, and the young age it begins is alarming,” Dr. Anita Raj, Professor and Director of the University of California, San Diego, Center on Gender Equity and Health, which provided pro bono data analysis for the landmark study, said in a statement shared by SSH.

“Most girls’ first experiences of harassment occur before they even graduate high school. That is simply unacceptable," Raj added.

Holly Kearl, Executive Director of SSH, said the U.S. will "never be the 'land of the free' as long as millions of people experience sexual violations that cause them pain."

She added that sexual harassment and assault forces many people to "alter their lives in significant ways."

Among those who said they had experienced sexual harassment or sexual assault, 31 percent of women and 20 percent of men said it caused them to feel anxiety or suffer from depression.

Meanwhile, 23 percent of women and 12 percent of men said they felt forced to change their "route or routine" after their experiences.

The national study also looked at where people's experiences of sexual harassment and assault took place, in addition to whether the alleged perpetrators were known to the survivors.

For sexual assault survivors, the first experience and most frequent location identified was usually a private home or residence, the SSH said. Those who had experienced sexual harassment most often selected a public space as the site where their first experience of sexual harassment took place, as well as where it has occurred most throughout their lifetime.

Most sexual assault survivors said their attackers had been someone close to them, such as a family member or a friend, SSH said. Of those who had experiened sexual harassment, most identified a "stranger" as the perpetrator.

Karen Baker, Managing Partner at Raliance, said "everyone has a role to play in being an active bystander and responding to sexual violence wherever it occurs."

“By reexamining our own actions and establishing behaviors of respect, safety, equality, we can create the positive change that will end sexual violence in one generation," she added.

Kearl said she hopes the study's findings will help "move the #MeToo conversation forward in new and broader ways and help create a cultural shift where sexual abuse is no longer the norm."

(newsweek)

The newly elected South African president is seeking to take farm land from white families and give it to blacks for reparations.

During an address at the nation’s parliament in Cape Town, Cyril Ramaphosa made it clear his goal is to give blacks land from white farmers as a way to heal “original sins” that happened many decades ago.

Ramaphosa said he wants to see “the return of the land to the people from whom it was taken … to heal the divisions of the past.”

He plans to confiscate land — without compensation — from white people who own farm land and give it to blacks to make up for injustices that happened hundreds of years ago.

“The expropriation of land without compensation is envisaged as one of the measures that we will use to accelerate redistribution of land to black South Africans,” he said.

Former Zimbabwe President, Jacob Zuma, also supported this effort between 1999-2000 as part of a land redistribution program, and it was so catastrophic that the nation has been relying on handouts from the United Nations’ World Food Program ever since.

Without experienced farmers, the nation quickly went from being a global export leader to not being able to produce enough food for even half of the country.

Aside from that, it is horrifying that Ramaphosa is going to force white families off of their farms, refuse to pay them any compensation, and give their land over to blacks simply because he believes it is owed to them.

Anyone who believes Zimbabwe’s economic model is intelligent is utterly incompetent, and this horrendous action should never be tolerated.

There is no justifiable reason forcing these white families off their land as a way to pay retribution to blacks.

Here’s the full video of Ramaphosa’s remarks, with his comments on taking land from whites and giving it to blacks beginning around the 30:45 mark.

Source: Zero Hedge

(conservativedailypost.com)