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Severe winter weather will continue to disrupt travel across Europe today as airports at cities including Geneva, London and Edinburgh remain shut and Eurostar trains operate a limited service amid heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures.

London’s Gatwick airport, the U.K.’s second busiest, will remain closed until at least 10 a.m. local time today, according to its website. Geneva airport, which closed on Nov. 30, won’t open until at least 6 a.m., while Edinburgh airport won’t open its runway until at least 6 a.m. and Dublin airport remains shut.

The earliest widespread snowfall in Britain since 1993 has frozen over roads, disrupting traffic, with freezing weather likely to last until at least Dec. 8, according to British Weather Services. Temperatures are expected to drop as low as minus-14 degrees Celsius (seven degrees Farenheit) in northwest Scotland this morning, while London and southeast England will see temperatures of about minus-3 degrees Celsius, the U.K.’s Met Office said on its website.

Eurostar Group Ltd., which runs high-speed trains between London, Paris and Brussels, canceled seven of its services between London and Paris for today and five between Paris and Brussels because of weather conditions, spokeswoman Lesley Retallack said by phone late yesterday. The company usually operates up to 18 daily services between London and Paris and up to 10 between Paris and Brussels.

Strong Tailwinds

Snowfall in Munich yesterday led the airport operator to clear two runways in turn, increasing cancellations to at least 250 and causing delays of more than an hour to 40 flights, spokesman Florian Steuer said. Frankfurt airport shut a runway because of strong tailwinds, and about 60 flights were called off as planes were stuck at other airports last night.

British Airways Plc said it canceled flights to New York from London City Airport yesterday, while the carrier’s planes out of its Heathrow hub were departing normally.

Parts of the U.K. may see as much as 50 centimeters (20 inches) of snow by this morning, the Met office said. The southeast of England had 10 centimeters of snow as of last night.

London temperatures may decline as low as minus-6 degrees Celsius on Dec. 3 from yesterday’s minus-5 degrees, according to CustomWeather Inc. data. The minimum averaged 7 degrees above zero over the past 10 years, the data show.

Power for next-day delivery in the U.K., Europe’s biggest gas user, rose as much as 35 percent to its highest level since January 2009 yesterday as natural gas costs increased and the weather conditions boosted demand. French day-ahead electricity jumped to its highest level in five weeks.

By bloomberg.com

Work is carried out to clear heavy snow around Edinburgh Airport. Photographer: Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images

As prospects dim for a major agreement on capping pollution worldwide, deforestation, renewable energy and other smaller steps that target global warming will take center stage at a United Nations meeting next week, observers predict.

Beginning Monday in Cancun, Mexico, the 12-day United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will pick up where last year’s Copenhagen meeting left off: a global community seeking the fairest way to deal with a warming world.

“I would not look for any major agreement,” says energy expert Reid Detchon of the United Nations Foundation, which supports U.N. causes. “I would look toward small agreements for progress being made.”

At last year’s Copenhagen meeting, world leaders did not come up with a successor treaty to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The protocol committed 37 industrial nations and the European Union — excluding the U.S. — to lowered greenhouse gas emissions, and measures designed to help limit global surface temperature warming to less than a 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit increase over pre-industrial levels. In the last century, these temperatures have risen about 1.3 degrees, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A non-binding Copenhagen “Accord,” which would continue the Kyoto effort, brokered by President Obama, has since picked up pledges from 138 countries to cut emissions, including a 17% U.S. cut by 2020.

“Cancun is going to answer the question of whether that agreement was progress or the beginning of the end,” says Jonathan Lash of the World Resources Institute (WRI), an environmental think tank in Washington, D.C. Along with seeing whether the Copenhagen Accord can be made part of the successor agreement to Kyoto, Lash and others are looking to forge agreements on:

• Deforestation — An agreement on financing and monitoring measures would preserve forests. Timber losses contribute to carbon dioxide releases to the atmosphere, causing perhaps 12% to 17% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to WRI.

• Clean energy — Steps toward agreement on “technology transfer” of more-efficient energy production methods to poor nations, which would keep patents protected was one outcome of a recent Major Economies Forum meeting in Washington.

• Money — Developed nations pledged $30 billion from 2010 to 2012 to help poor ones pay for cleaner energy and prevention of deforestation, as well as infrastructure to adapt to inevitable climate changes.

Todd Stern, the Obama administration’s special envoy on climate change, said in October at a University of Michigan speech that “many countries are arguing that we should capture the so-called ‘low-hanging fruit’ — the ‘easier’ issues on which there is less discord.”

But Stern said that just signing those agreements without addressing emissions cuts and ways for verification “is a non-starter for the United States.”

In particular, Stern charged that “Chinese negotiators have acted almost as though the (Copenhagen) Accord never happened,” in backing away from its commitments. China’s representatives complained that Western nations have for decades avoided commitments made in 1992 to limit emissions.

Hanging over the meeting is the question of whether an upcoming congressional fight over Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, required by a 2007 Supreme Court decision, will hinder the Obama administration from delivering on its 17% cut goal.

By usatoday.com

A worker plants oil palm seed in Sumatra, Indonesia. The palm oil business is causing deforestation.

Typhoon Megi cleared the Philippines’ main island and headed toward China on Tuesday, and authorities said initial estimates showed around 105,000 tons of the region’s unmilled rice crop had been damaged.

The agriculture department’s early assessment that around 10 percent of the Cagayan valley’s annual crop had been damaged was well below a worst-case scenario of more than 230,000 tons. The area accounts for about 12 percent of national production.

Megi, known locally as Juan, was a category 5 super typhoon with winds in excess of 250 kph (155 mph) when it slammed into the east coast of north Luzon shortly before noon on Monday.

The national disaster agency put the death toll at seven, a low tally for such a strong typhoon in the country. Fuller assessments of the damage were expected on Tuesday, although the typhoon had cut power and communications in many areas.

After clearing the Philippines, Megi is expected to regain some strength over the South China Sea. Tropical Storm Risk’s (www.tropicalstormrisk.com) projections show the storm is expected to turn away from Vietnam toward China, with the center passing between Hainan island and Hong Kong.

Angelito Banayo, administrator of the National Food Authority (NFA) told Reuters on Monday the government’s worst case scenario was Megi could damage 232,169 tons of unmilled rice crop in the north with only 30 percent of it able to be harvested.

The Philippines is the world’s biggest rice importer and damage from the typhoon could see it buy more than had been expected for 2011, which could push up international prices.

By reuters.com

The roof flies off a house as super typhoon Megi, known locally as Juan, hits Ilagan City, Isabela province, northern Philippines, October 18, 2010.

Tropical Storm Matthew made landfall over Nicaragua Friday afternoon and pushed through to Honduras, bringing with it a threat of heavy rain, flash floods and mudslides.

The weather system was centered about 80 miles (130 kilometers) west of the Nicaraguan town of Cabo Gracis a Dios Friday evening and was heading west at 15 mph (24 kph). Its maximum sustained winds had quickened slightly to 50 mph (85 kph), according to the Miami, Florida-based National Hurricane Center.

The governments of Nicaragua and Honduras dropped a hurricane watch they had issued earlier for parts of their countries. Tropical storm warnings remained in effect, as did a tropical storm watch for the coast of Belize, the Hurricane Center said.

The weather system could dump between 6 and 10 inches of rain over portions of Nicaragua and Honduras, with up to 15 inches falling in isolated areas, forecasters said. Both those countries are mountainous and have in the past suffered from treacherous rain-triggered mudslides.

“Torrential rains will be the biggest threat for the next few days,” the Hurricane Center said.

Track-prediction maps indicate that Matthew, the 13th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, will continue westward over the next 48 hours or so, taking it across Honduras and into Belize and Guatemala.

Forecasters say the storm could weaken and become a broad area of low pressure by Sunday.

It could regain strength once it moves back over warm Gulf of Mexico waters and head north toward the United States.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Lisa strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane, the center said, becoming the seventh hurricane of the season.

As of 7 p.m. ET, the center of Lisa was about 385 miles (615 kilometers) northwest of the Cape Verde Islands and was heading north in the Atlantic Ocean. The storm’s maximum sustained winds had quickened to 75 mph (120 kph).

There were no watches or warnings in effect associated with Lisa. The storm could continue to strengthen in the coming day, the Hurricane Center said, before weakening by late Saturday as it heads out over cooler Atlantic waters.

By the CNN Wire Staff

Tropical Storm Matthew could linger for days over Central America with torrential rains.

Residents boarded up windows, farmers hurriedly harvested vegetables and tourists vacated hotels in eastern Taiwan on Saturday as the island braced for its first typhoon this season.

China and Taiwan warned that Typhoon Fanapi was strengthening before its expected landfall on Sunday on Taiwan’s eastern coast.

Taiwan issued an alert that heavy rains and mudslides were possible and warned ships to expect dangerous sea conditions. The government ordered fishing boats to return to their docks.

Interior Minister Chiang Yi—hua said authorities would evacuate villagers later Saturday from mountainous regions prone to landslides.

Authorities released water from a reservoir to allow more room for the expected torrential rains to gather, Mr. Chiang said.

Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau said the typhoon was expected to pack winds of between 96 and 110 miles per hour (155 and 177 kph) at landfall.

Officials said tourists vacated hotels in Hualien in eastern Taiwan where Fanapi was expected to land, while residents boarded up windows and piled sandbags at their doors.

In Keelung city in northern Taiwan, fishermen watched the overcast sky after docking their boats.

China’s National Meteorological Centre said Fanapi could be the strongest the country has seen this season. It was expected to hit China’s eastern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian on Sunday night or Monday morning.

Fanapi would be the 11th typhoon to hit China this year. Seasonal flooding in China has been the worst in a decade.

Flooding from Typhoon Morakot killed 700 people in August last year in Taiwan’s worst storm in half a century.

By thehindu.com

Chinese fishermen hurry to unload their catch from a fishing boat in the winds of approaching Typhoon Fanapi in Keelung, northern Taiwan, on Saturday.

Low-lying areas along Veracruz, already waterlogged from weeks of rain, were evacuated as the storm came ashore, shutting down the busy seaport. It weakened as it moved inland.

Hurricane Karl pounded Mexico’s Gulf coast with 115-mile-per-hour winds and torrential rains Friday, swamping the already waterlogged port of Veracruz and prompting flood alerts across central Mexico.

The storm, which soaked the Yucatan Peninsula this week before strengthening into a Category 3 hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico, came ashore about nine miles north of Veracruz.

By late afternoon, there were no reports of injuries or severe damage. Televised images showed pounding surf, felled trees, toppled billboards and streets turned into muddy rivers.

The storm came as tourists flocked to the port city during the Independence Day holiday weekend in Mexico. Within a few hours, the hurricane had weakened to Category 1 as it moved inland.

Mexican officials evacuated thousands of residents from low-lying areas and shut the Veracruz seaport, one of Mexico’s busiest. Flights were suspended to the city’s airport, and the main federal highway was closed as a precaution.

Officials urged residents to stay indoors as Karl churned toward the country’s interior. More than half a dozen states and the densely populated metropolitan area that includes the capital, Mexico City, were on alert for intense rains and possible flooding.

President Felipe Calderon warned that Veracruz could get as much as 8 inches of rain, and heavy downpours inland could cause flooding and mudslides over the weekend.

Soaking rains were the last thing coastal Veracruz state needed. More than 100,000 residents already had evacuated their flooded homes because of weeks of rains that overwhelmed rivers and swamped dozens of low-lying towns.

Veracruz Gov. Fidel Herrera warned residents early Friday that Karl could be the worst storm to hit the state since he took office in 2004.

Civil-protection officials were bracing across Mexico’s broad midsection, from coastal Tamaulipas to landlocked Puebla and Morelos, south of Mexico City. Because it is surrounded by mountains and has spotty infrastructure, the capital is prone to widespread flooding and power failures even during normal rainstorms.

Karl was a tropical storm when it crossed the Yucatan Peninsula this week, flooding 25,000 homes in the state of Quintana Roo, home to the beach resort of Cancun. In the neighboring state of Campeche, 11 communities were declared disaster zones.

By Ken Ellingwood

Waves buffet Maracaibo beach in Nautla, in the state of Veracruz. Hurricane Karl, a Category 3, made landfall on the Gulf coast at the start of the busy Independence Day holiday weekend.

A new report released on Thursday says international efforts to protect the ozone layer are a success and have stopped additional ozone losses.  The joint World Meteorological Organization and U.N. Environment Program report is the first comprehensive update in four years.

The ozone layer protects life on Earth from harmful levels of ultraviolet rays.  Scientists say the shield was thinning during the latter part of the 20th century because of ozone depleting chemicals, such as chlorofluorocarbons found in refrigerants and aerosol sprays.

To save the ozone layer, the international community signed the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which went into effect in 1989.  The treaty calls for phasing out production and consumption of ozone depleting substances.

World Meteorological Organization Research Department Director Len Barrie says the treaty is working.

“It has protected us from severe ozone depletion over the past decade, global ozone, including ozone in the polar regions,” Barrie said. “It is no longer decreasing, but not yet increasing.  There is, secondly, new information about the two-way link between ozone depletion and ozone processes, et cetera, and climate change.  This is a very important advancement in our knowledge.”

The report says many substances that deplete the ozone layer also are potent greenhouse gases.  Therefore, it says, the Montreal Protocol has provided substantial benefits by reducing climate change.

Atmospheric Environment Research Division Senior Scientific Officer Geir Broothen of the World Meteorological Organization says the ozone layer is projected to return to 1980 levels by the middle of this century.

“This most recent assessment, this 2010 assessment, actually predicts a bit earlier recovery than we foresaw in the 2006 assessment,” Broothen said. “And this is linked to this climate change impact, and that increased amounts of greenhouse gases like CO2 [carbon dioxide] and so on in the upper stratosphere will actually speed up the recovery at least in middle latitudes.”

The report says the Montreal Protocol also has direct benefits for public health.  It says that without the treaty, ozone depleting substances had the potential to increase ten-fold by 2050.  And, this in turn, might have led to up to 20 million more cases of skin cancer and 130 million more cases of cataracts.

In addition, the report says, the thinning ozone layer would have caused damage to human immune systems, wildlife and agriculture.

By voanews.com

Smog covers downtown Los Angeles, 28 Apr 2008

Tropical Storm Karl hit Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Wednesday and could reach hurricane strength once it enters the Gulf of Mexico, potentially threatening major Mexican oil installations.

Mexican state-run oil giant Pemex had not curtailed any operations but said it would monitor Karl’s progress as it approached operations in the Bay of Campeche, where the bulk of Mexico’s 2.55 million barrels per day of oil is produced.

Karl lost strength as it moved inland and had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph at 7 p.m. local time, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

By early evening, it was 50 miles southeast of Campeche on the west coast of the Yucatan peninsula and was expected to weaken to a tropical depression before it entered the Gulf of Mexico.

Karl is then forecast to regain strength as it crosses the southern Gulf of Mexico before making landfall again on Saturday near the Mexican port of Tuxpan, where Pemex unloads much of the gasoline it imports. “Karl could become a hurricane by Friday,” the center said in a statement.

Hundreds of mostly Mayan villagers were evacuated as Karl dumped rain and brought strong winds to the Yucatan, civil protection authorities said.

The storm also knocked out power to tens of thousands of people throughout the mainly rural area. Majahual, home to a large cruise ship port, bore the brunt of the storm as it made landfall, but no serious damage was reported.

CANCUN SPARED

Cancun, a top beach destination for U.S. and European tourists, was untouched by the storm, which was also likely to pass far south of U.S. oil and natural gas platforms in the northern part of the Gulf of Mexico.

Two hurricanes, Igor and Julia, also raced across the Atlantic Ocean but posed no immediate threat to land or energy interests along their projected tracks.

Igor, described by the Miami-based hurricane center as “large and powerful,” was 1,015 miles southeast of Bermuda with 135-mph (210-kph) winds, making it a dangerous Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

Julia weakened to a Category 3 storm, with 125-mph (205- kph) winds, 665 miles west-northwest of the Cape Verde Islands and was moving northwest.

The 2010 hurricane season has been more active than average, with 11 named storms so far, including four major hurricanes, but damage has been relatively limited as several storms have fizzled out in the Atlantic Ocean.

The rapid early strengthening of many storms this year near the coast of Africa has pushed them on northwest tracks away from vulnerable areas. But with two months left in the hurricane season it is too early to say there will not be another dangerous storm, hurricane expert Rick Knabb with The Weather Channel told Reuters.

“We need to wait until the season is over, before we can make a judgment on the forecasts,” Knabb said.

By Isela Serrano

A fallen palm tree is seen on a street in Chetumal as Tropical Storm Karl hits Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, September 15, 2010.

Three people died after Typhoon Kompasu hit central South Korea Thursday morning, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

Kompasu also halted much of the metropolitan area’s subway service, toppled trees and caused widespread power outages, the agency said. Airlines canceled or diverted domestic and international flights.

According to Yonhap: A flying roof tile killed an 80-year-old man in Seosan, South Chungcheong province. A broken tree branch fatally struck a 37-year-old man in Bundang, on the southern outskirts of Seoul. And an electrical engineer was electrocuted while trying to restore electricity in Mokpo, 255 miles (410 kilometers) south of Seoul.

Kompasu also unleashed torrential rain and strong winds on North Korea Thursday, according to the state-run KCNA news agency. The typhoon was expected to further devastate crops in secretive North Korea, which has been gripped by food shortages.
As of late afternoon Thursday, Kompasu was carrying maximum winds of 55 miles per hour and had moved away from both Koreas.

By the CNN

People walk past booths damaged by Typhoon Kompasu in Seoul, South Korea, on Thursday.

As flood waters rose in Pakistan’s Sindh province submerging more towns, the country’s authorities have evacuated over 150,000 people, worsening the national catastrophe.

A government spokesman said on Saturday that residents of the town of Shahdadkot are fleeing to higher ground as waters from the freshly swollen Indus river overflowed its banks, submerging dozens of more towns in the south, the Times of India reported.

Pakistani authorities are meanwhile struggling to shore up an embankment holding back a growing tide on the edge of the town.

As the latest surge approached, Jamil Soomro, a spokesman for the provincial government, said that it had, within the past 24 hours, evacuated more than 150,000 people from the interior parts of Sindh.

According to officials, the floodwaters nationwide are expected to recede in the coming days as the last river torrents empty into the Arabian Sea.

Already, 600,000 people are in various relief camps that were set up in Sindh province during this past month’s flooding.

Meanwhile, doctors say that requests in the country’s camps have been mounting for more medicine and updated equipment to treat the victims.

“In the camp the necessary things we need are medicine and equipment. If we have updated equipment, then we can treat the patients well,” said Gulzar Hussain, a doctor struggling to run a field hospital at a government technical college in Nowshera, 27 miles east of Peshawar in the country’s northwest.

By Presstv

Pakistan flood survivors sit on high ground as they wait for rescue at the flooded area in Tando Hafiz Shah on August 21.