No snow equals more depression in Moscow
Posted in Ecological Collapse, Political on 01/02/2007 08:16 pm by admin A winter Napoleon dreamed of — record highs in Moscow December oddities pop up across Europe
– Peter Finn, Washington Post
Thursday, December 21, 2006
(12-21) 04:00 PST Moscow — Scattered flurries teased Moscow on Tuesday afternoon with the promise of a real winter, the birthright of a city whose people take pride in trudging through snow and in ice fishing and cross-country skiing in a white countryside beyond the outer beltway.
The winter of 2006 has yet to arrive, however, and Muscovites are deeply discombobulated. “I want snow. I want the New Year’s feeling,” said Viktoria Makhovskaya, a street vendor who sells gloves and mittens. “This is a disgusting winter. I don’t like it at all.”
Moscow is not alone in the unexpected warmth — it stretches across Europe.
Preliminary data from Britain’s national weather service and the University of East Anglia show that 2006 has been the warmest year in Britain since weather record-keeping began in central England in 1659.
Without snow to brighten the short dark days, “people are beginning to feel depressed,” said Andrei Babin, a Moscow psychotherapist.
Meteorologists blame extremely strong and long-lasting hurricanes over the Atlantic Ocean, but they also say the clement weather is linked to global warming.
“We have been monitoring weather for 150 years in Moscow, and we haven’t seen anything like this,” said Dmitry Kiktyov, deputy head of the Hydrometeorological Center of Russia. “I think it’s time to change our temperature norms because the climate is changing and the last decade was very warm, much warmer than all previous decades.”
Trees are sprouting leaves in Switzerland. Low-altitude ski resorts across the Alps look more like springtime meadows.
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