Nyt mulle valkeni kuinka lamminta siella oikeasti on!
Taalla on ylittynyt uutiskynnys, koska ilmeisesti paakaupunkiseudun lapsilla on tylsaa:
Finland's Kids Switch From Skis to Bumper Cars!
By Kati Pohjanpalo and Juho Erkheikki
Feb. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Finnish kids like seven-year-old Olga Suominen usually spend the February school holidays on the ski slopes. This year, they're on bumper cars.
The warmest winter in Helsinki since records started in 1900 has left the capital without snow and its residents looking to movie houses and other entertainment during the traditional winter ski break. The Linnanmaeki amusement park, the biggest in Finland, has opened for the first time in February to record numbers of visitors.
``If there were snow, we would have skied and made snowmen,'' said Ville Suominen as he was helping his daughter Olga prepare to slide down a zip line at Linnanmaeki.
Using truckloads of snow from ice rinks around the city, the park is also improvising skidoo and sledge rides. Its regular season runs from late April until the end of September, and more than 1.2 million people visited in 2007.
``There's no winter in Helsinki anymore,'' said Risto Raeikkoenen, managing director of Children's Day Foundation, the non-profit charity organization that runs the amusement park. ``People are willing to pay for ordinary tobogganing.''
January was Helsinki's third-mildest since 1900. The average temperature of 0.6 degrees Celsius (33.1 Fahrenheit) compares with the usual minus 4.2 degrees, according to Finland's Helsinki-based meteorological institute.
Endangered Seals
The effects are felt beyond the capital. The Gulf of Finland, from Helsinki to Tallinn in the south, is almost completely ice-free this year. The endangered Baltic-ringed seal is having difficulties breeding as it needs snow to build nurseries on ice, environmentalists say.
``If the seals are born on bare rock, they may get washed away by the waves or eaten by predators,'' said Anita Maekinen, head of the marine program at WWF Suomi, the Finnish arm of the World Wildlife Fund.
Just three out of eight ice-breaking ships in Finland have been used this winter. Finstaship, the state-owned owner of the ice breakers, is diversifying with ships that lay cable and service gas and oil rigs, Chief Executive Officer Esko Mustamaeki said in an interview.
Temperatures above the Arctic Circle have risen at about twice the rate of the global average in the past three decades, United Nations data show. Arctic sea ice shrank to the smallest area on record last summer, covering 22 percent less than the previous low in September 2005, says the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
Winter Opening
Back in Helsinki, Raeikkoenen says that Linnanmaeki will be open every winter from now on. All schools in Finland are traditionally closed for a week in February or early March.
``We've already been to the movies twice,'' said 9-year-old Oliver Gardner, who was headed for the bumper cars. ``There isn't really anything else to do.''
To contact the reporters on this story: Kati Pohjanpalo in Helsinki at
[email protected] ; Juho Erkheikki in Helsinki at
[email protected] .
Last Updated: February 29, 2008 02:27 EST
Influenssa ei ole leikin asia.. olen pystyssä ainoastaan lääkkeiden voimalla, muuten kuume ois yli 40 astetta. Kohtuullisen rapsakka olo.
