|
Comments about the season 2007-2008
We had thought this winter would be colder and have more precipitation than usual because of La Niña.
We were right about the temperature but wrong about the precipitation.
The temperature was lower but the precipitation was normal or a little less than normal.
At the end of February, it snowed a lot so the snow height became higher than usual but in total, we had less precipitation.
The temperature was really low in this season. The Fushiko River which freezes only in cold years froze. It reached 21 degrees Celsius below zero in Oyafuru where it's usually not so cold. It was as if a new ice age (glacial) was coming. Scientists say the shutdown of the thermohaline circulation of ocean could drive the Earth into an ice age when the water of the North Atlantic passes the critical desalinisation point triggered by recent warming tendency in the Arctic like the Younger Dryas. But it didn't happen. Our current knowledge is too limited to predict the long-term climate shift. There are too many variables like the Milankovitch cycles, the orbit of the solar system around the Galaxy, greenhouse gases, the solar cycle, the thermohaline circulation, the albedo, aerosols, electromagnetic field etc. etc... The climate on the Earth is changing constantly. But the change is not as drastic as Mars. As the Earth has a large moon, its axis of rotation is more stable than that of Mars. So the Earth's climate is more stable than that of Mars. Mars is currently experiencing a warming tendency. Its polar ice caps of carbon dioxide are sublimating. Coincidently the Earth and Mars, both are currently in the interglacial. Such a simultaneity could be explained by the solar cycles. Mars has no magnetosphere to deflect the solar wind. So the influence of the sun is greater than on the Earth. There are more and more scientists who predict the upcoming global cooling due to the augmentation of clouds caused by the strengthened cosmic radiations. The current diminution of the solar output enhances this tendency as the solar wind dissipate the cosmic radiations. Some of them say this cold winter was the initial stage of the global cooling which would last till around 2035. Anyway, this winter was cold. Moreover, as Tesseract was busy in this season, we often went to train in early morning. Therefore, in addition to the trend of low temperature, we experienced the cold of morning. On the downhill of the Asari Pass (cf. Asari Pass 3), Tesseract got a slight frostbite on the part of the face, which wasn't covered by the goggles or the face cover. And there was some other traning in a cold condition (cf. Oyafuru 7, Kenashi Pass 15, Takuhoku 2). However, the season suddenly ended at the beginning of the March. In March, it was extremely warm at the record level. This was the warmst March we had ever experienced. So we could ride on snow only once in March (cf. Mt.Teine 8) although we ride several times on snow in usual March.
The statistic of sprint includes some sprint matches on the uphill and in the flat section.
So we counted some of them double.
Moreover, riders who pulled off the group before the sprint aren't counted in the sprint.
And also we've included some matches we didn't mention in the training reports.
In addition, the denominator is different to each member, so the sum is not 100.
This season, Tesseract, the translator of this site received many mails from allover the world, especially the Europe, which appreciate this site and encourage us. We thank you for your appreciation and we hope we will see you again in the next season on this site. 
|