2°C: Beyond the limit : Extreme climate change has arrived in America

LAKE HOPATCONG, N.J. — Before climate change thawed the winters of New Jersey, this lake hosted boisterous wintertime carnivals. As many as 15,000 skaters took part, and automobile owners would drive onto the thick ice. Thousands watched as local hockey clubs battled one another and the Skate Sailing Association of America held competitions, including one in 1926 that featured 21 iceboats on blades that sailed over a three-mile course. 

New Jersey closed Lake Hopatcong after the state
Department of Environmental Protection detected a t
oxic bacteria caused in part by one of the warmest
springs in the past century. 

In those days before widespread refrigeration, workers flocked here to harvest ice. They would carve blocks as much as two feet thick, float them to giant ice houses, sprinkle them with sawdust and load them onto rail cars bound for ice boxes in New York City and beyond. 

"These winters do not exist anymore," says Marty Kane, a lawyer and head of the Lake Hopatcong Foundation. 

That’s because a century of climbing temperatures has changed the character of the Garden State. The massive ice industry and skate sailing association are but black-and-white photographs at the local museum. And even the hardy souls who still try to take part in ice fishing contests here have had to cancel 11 of the past dozen competitions for fear of straying onto perilously thin ice and tumbling into the frigid water. 

Read the story from The Washington Post - “2°C: Beyond the limit : Extreme climate change has arrived in America.”

World’s coldest capital seeks to kick its deadly coal habit

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia: Mongolians have long relied on folklore to explain how miserably cold their winters are.

Residents walk through one of the so-called ger districts in
 Ulaanbaatar. According to government figures, around
80 per cent of the capital's air pollution is produced by
people living in the districts.

During the first of nine phases of winter - each composed of nine days, starting on December 22 - it is said that vodka made from milk freezes.

During the third set of nine days, when temperatures can hit -40 degrees in both Fahrenheit and Celsius, the tail of a three-year-old ox is said to fall off. Around the sixth set of nine days, which falls in the middle of February, roads are expected to re-emerge from underneath the ice and snow.

But for the nearly 1.5 million residents of the capital, Ulaanbaatar, the misery of winter is now defined almost singularly by the smoke rising out of the city's chimneys.

Read Bryan Denton’s story from The Age - “World’s coldest capital seeks to kick its deadly coal habit.”