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Sochi, Russia - host city of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games

SOCHI, Russia - While Moscow digs itself out of a huge snow storm that hit the Russian capital in the last few days, organizers of the Winter Olympics are worried a lack of white powder could become a problem next February.

Unseasonably warm temperatures this winter in Sochi have forced local organizers to store some 450,000 cubic meters of snow in the nearby Caucasus Mountains that surround this sub-tropical Black Sea resort.

"We've prepared seven separate areas for snow storage high up in the mountains," Sergei Bachin, general director of Roza Khutor, a ski resort in Krasnaya Polyana that will host Alpine skiing, snowboarding and freestyle Olympic competition, told Reuters.

"I want to assure all the competitors that there won't be any shortage of snow next February even if we encounter even warmer temperatures next year," he said.

"We're storing such huge amounts of snow just in case."

The snow will be covered with a "special thermo seal", to protect it from melting during the summer, Bachin said.

"We expect that about 140,000 (cubic meters) will melt away but we'll still have more than 300,000 cubic meters of snow available for next year," he predicted, saying the storage will cost his company an extra $11 million.

Nevertheless, Sochi 2014 chief Dmitry Chernyshenko has stated on several occasions that the weather has become a bigger problem for the organizers, who are frantically trying to finish all the construction projects on time, than security or the infrastructure.

Slideshow: Sochi 2014

Mikhail Mordasov / AFP - Getty Images

The Winter Olympics arrive in Sochi on Feb. 7, 2014. A look at how the Russian city is shaping up for its moment in the spotlight.

Launch slideshow

Bachin, however, assured that Krasnaya Polyana, once a sleepy mountain village, about 70 kilometers from central Sochi, would be ready to host all the outdoor Olympic events next February rain or shine.

"Of the 76 Olympic test events scheduled in Krasnaya Polyana this winter a great majority had been completed and only a handful have been called off because of bad weather," he said.

"I think we've passed the test as the last major event of the season was held this weekend in nearby Laura complex."

Usually, Krasnaya Polyana has the opposite problem - too much snow and the risk of avalanches, Bachin said.

"This was a very odd winter. Even locals don't remember when was the last time they had such warm days in the mountains. It's highly unlikely we'll see the same kind of weather next year," he added.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Clement Rousseau

Killer whales trapped in the ice near Inukjuak on Tuesday. The pod apparently escaped Wednesday or Thursday when a path broke open.

The plight of a pod of killer whales that got trapped by ice in a mostly frozen Canadian bay this week was a “good example of what climate change can do” in the Arctic, a researcher said Friday.

The 11 killer whales apparently escaped the ice in Hudson Bay late Wednesday or early Thursday morning, when shifting currents helped break open a path to the sea, according to Petah Inukpuk, mayor of Inukjuak, a remote Inuit village in Quebec where locals had crafted a plan to help the animals, also known as orcas. Other reports said there were 12 orcas in the pod.

The killer whales were hundreds of miles from where they should be at this time of year, such as in the Hudson Strait or the North Atlantic, said Lyne Morissette, a mariner researcher with the Quebec-based St. Lawrence Global Observatory.

The bay, which normally freezes over in late November or early December only froze over earlier this week.

“It’s definitely a direct effect, a good example of what climate change can do,” she told NBC News on Friday of the orcas’ plight. “All the dynamics of how the ice is going to move and where the ice is going to be -- it’s not only about ice melting in the Arctic, you know -- it’s the whole dynamics and currents that could change because of climate changes.

“ … we will see that kind of unusual situation (like with the killer whales) or unusual features of the ice more and more because it’s changing quite a lot in the Arctic right now.”

A wide search by Inukjuak villagers in a small plane later Thursday revealed a number of openings in the bay, plus some ducks and a polar bear with its cubs. But there was no sign of the whales, he said Friday.

Though animals can get lost and the pod was in a better position than earlier this week, the animals “definitely, definitely shouldn’t be in the Hudson Bay,” Morissette said.

“They are entrapped in the whole Hudson Bay right now. They are in an area where at least they can breathe and they … have the space to breathe, but the whole Hudson Bay is covered with ice,” she said. “Will they be able to go from one opening to the other and just find their way out of the Hudson Bay? Or will they just stay there for the whole winter until the ice goes out? We have no idea right now.”

Eleven killer whales free after being "locked in" ice, mayor says

The migration of animals relies upon indicators, such as sensors based on food resources or temperature.

“If food changes and temperatures are changing in the Arctic, they don’t have the same kind of sensors or indicators that it’s time for them to leave,” Morissette said. “In this case, with climate change, we know that the whole environment is changing quite a lot, so it might be because their sensors or the things that indicate to them that it is time to do a certain part of their life cycle is not tuned to their biology right now because everything is changing so fast.”

Inukpuk said killer whales were not spotted in the area every summer, but every second or third one. However, this was the first time that they were "locked in,” he said.

One pod of orcas died in 2005 when they were trapped in thick ice. There have been some other cases, too, said Paul Wade, a research fisheries biologist at the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle.

Killer whales, technically in the oceanic dolphin family, are highly social and typically travel in pods numbering from two to 15, though there can be larger groups, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They are most numerous in colder waters, such as Antarctica, Alaska and Norway, although they can also be found in temperate and tropical waters.

Their numbers are not known in the area where the pod was trapped, and the video caught of the group provided some invaluable information, Morissette said.

“Compared to other species, they are really social animals,” she said. It was “really interesting for us to see how they could organize their time and their energy for sharing that little hole to breath instead of” the strongest in the pod trying to survive.

“Apparently they were trying to find a strategy for the survival of the whole group,” she added.

As "tornadoes of fire" roared toward their home, the Holmes family fled and then jumped into the sea, clinging to a jetty for three hours to escape wildfires that have devastated Australia.

The blaze spread swiftly in the Tasmanian town of Dunalley, Tim Holmes said. "The next thing we knew everything was on fire, everywhere, all around us," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Holmes said he sent his wife Tammy and their five grandchildren -- who are aged between almost 2 and 11 --  to the jetty to seek refuge from the flames, which destroyed three homes owned by the family. "There was no other escape," he added.

Holmes sent a text message to his daughter, Bonnie Walker,  showing her children in the water.

"It's still quite an upsetting image," Walker told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "It's of all of my five children underneath the jetty, huddled up to neck deep sea water, which is cold. I knew that that would be a challenge to keep three non-swimmers above water and with only my mom, dad and our eldest daughter.

Read more on this story from Britain's ITV News

"I spent a lot of time with good friends and prayed like I never prayed before and I think those prayers have been answered."

Australia's record-breaking heatwave has sent temperatures soaring, melting road tar and setting off hundreds of wildfires - as well as searing new colors onto weather maps.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has added dark purple and magenta to its weather forecasting map to represent temperatures of 51 to 54 degrees Celsius (123.8 to 129.2 Fahrenheit), officials said.

PhotoBlog: Heat, high wind create 'catastrophic' fire condition in Australia

Temperatures on the map were previously capped at 50 degrees Celsius, represented by the color black.

Tim Holmes / AP

Tammy Holmes and her grandchildren take refuge under a jetty as a wildfire rages nearby in Dunalley, Australia, on Friday.

No deaths have been reported, although around 100 people haven't been accounted for since last week when a fire destroyed around 90 homes in Dunalley, which is located east of the state capital of Hobart. On Wednesday, police spokeswoman Lisa Stingel said it's likely most of those people simply haven't checked in with officials.

Wildfires are common during the Australian summer. Fires in February 2009 killed 173 people and destroyed more than 2,000 homes in Victoria state.

ITV News is NBC News' UK partner. Reuters contributed to this report.

The world's first moving images of a giant squid living in its natural habitat have been captured by a team of scientists more than half a mile below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

The ghostly pictures of the 10-foot-long giant squid were recorded from a state-of–the-art submersible carrying a three-person team of Japanese zoologist Tsunemi Kubodera, a camera operator and the submersible’s pilot, who made around 100 dives during an expedition last summer.

Although small by giant squid standards – the largest ever caught measured 59 feet – it was the first time a live giant squid had been caught on video deep in the ocean.

Kubodera, from Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science, credited the success to the submersible’s silence and hi-tech lighting.

"A giant squid would never appear before a pool of light, that possibility is extremely slim", he told NBC News. "That's why we had to use lights that they wouldn't be able to detect. In fact, they're lights even humans wouldn't be able to see either."

“If you try to approach making a lot of noise, using bright lights, then the squid won't come anywhere near you," he added. “So we sat there in the pitch black, using a near-infrared light invisible even to the human eye, waiting for the giant to approach.''

'It was stunning'
On one dive in July 2012, near the Ogasawara islands, 620 miles south of Tokyo, they finally had their close encounter more than 2,000 feet down and followed the creature even deeper.

“This was the first time for me to see with my own eyes a giant squid swimming,'' Kubodera said. “It was stunning. I couldn't have dreamt that it would be so beautiful. It was such a wonderful creature.”

NHK/NEP/Discovery Channel via Reuters

A giant squid is seen in this video still talken near the Ogasawara Islands in July 2012.

The squid was missing its characteristic two longest tentacles – and scientists don’t know why. Marine biologists said if that pair of tentacles had been intact, the creature would probably have measured up to 23 feet long.

Kubodera’s deep-sea expedition was the culmination of a 10-year project by Japanese broadcaster NHK to capture pictures of the mysterious creature in its habitat. An  ultra-sensitive high-definition camera was developed to operate at the ocean depths, using special light that was invisible to the sensitive eyes of the giant squid.

NHK will air its video footage in Japan in a prime-time documentary entitled "Legends of the Deep: Giant Squid" on Jan. 13. It will also be shown on the Discovery Channel on Jan.  27.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Firefighters battled scores of wildfires raging across southeast Australia on Tuesday as authorities evacuated national parks and warned that record-level, blistering temperatures and high winds had led to "catastrophic" conditions in some areas.

"We are shaping up for one of the worst fire danger days on record," New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said. "You don't get conditions worse than this. We are at the catastrophic level and clearly in those areas leaving early is your safest option."

Catastrophic threat level is the most severe rating applicable.

Firefighters hope cooler weather sweeping up the Australian east coast late Tuesday, which dramatically dropped temperatures in a matter of hours in some coastal towns, would ease the incendiary conditions. Monday was the hottest day on record for Australia, with the average temperature across the continent reaching 104.6 degrees F., Australia's 7 News network reported.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the unprecedented temperatures left weather forecasters having to add new colors - deep purple and pink - to their charts.

No deaths had been reported, although officials in Tasmania were still trying to find about 100 residents who had been missing since a fire tore through the small town of Dunalley, east of the state capital of Hobart, last week, destroying around 90 homes. On Tuesday, police said no bodies were found during preliminary checks of the ruined houses.

Australia faces 'catastrophic' days

Wildfires have razed 50,000 acres of forests and farmland across southern Tasmania since Friday. In New South Wales, the country's most populous state, the fires had burned through more than 64,000 acres of land.

More than 130 fires were blazing across New South Wales, though only a few dozen houses were under threat by early evening. One fire was threatening about 30 homes near the small town of Cooma, south of the capital of Canberra. Cooma-Monaro shire mayor Dean Lynch told Australia's Sky News some residents had evacuated to the nearby town of Nimmitabel.

Strong winds were hampering efforts to bring the fires under control. Wind gusts more than 60 mph were recorded in some parts of the state.

PhotoBlog: Wildfires in Tasmania

Arsonists have been responsible for some of the fires, 7 News reported. In western Sydney on Tuesday, three people were charged with deliberately starting a fire, the network said.

All state forests and national parks were closed as a precaution and total fire bans were in place with temperatures surpassing 113 degrees F. in some areas.

One volunteer firefighter suffered severe burns to his hands and face while fighting a grass fire near Gundaroo village, about 140 miles southwest of Sydney, on Monday. He was flown to a hospital in Sydney for treatment, and his condition had improved Tuesday, Fitzsimmons said.

More coverage from 7 News

Wildfires are common during the Australian summer. In February 2009, hundreds of fires across Victoria state killed 173 people and destroyed more than 2,000 homes.

The Associated Press, Reuters and 7 News contributed to this report; 7 News is NBC's Australian partner.

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Rebecca Blackwell / AP

Seven-year-old Achta stands in the door of her family's cooking hut, as her mother prepares dinner over a wood fire by the light of a flashlight, in the village of Louri, in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 1. Achta's birth seven years ago coincided with the first major drought to hit the Sahel this decade. Climate change has meant that the normally once-a-decade droughts are now coming every few years. The droughts decimated her family's herd. With each dead animal, they ate less. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

When a child doesn't receive enough calories, the body prioritizes the needs of vital organs over growth. What this does to the brain is dramatic. A 2007 medical study in Spain compared the CAT scan of a normal 3-year-old child and that of a severely malnourished one.

The circumference of the healthy brain is almost twice as large. Presented side by side, it's like looking at a cantaloupe sitting next to a softball.

-- Reported by the Associated Press

Read the full story.

Rebecca Blackwell / AP

A woman walks toward a well through clouds of dust raised by cattle in the wadi outside Louri village in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 1. For generations, the people of this bone-dry region lived off their herds, but climate change has meant that the normally once-a-decade droughts are now coming every few years.

Rebecca Blackwell / AP

Teacher Djobelsou Guidigui Eloi works with a student at the blackboard in Louri village's school hut in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 2. Many of the children, unable to read, attempted to pass the lesson by memorizing the sounds and their order on the blackboard. In 2011, 78 boys and girls enrolled in the equivalent of first grade in Chad's school system. Of those children, 42 failed the test to graduate into the next grade, a percentage that almost exactly mirrors the number of children stunted in the county.

Rebecca Blackwell / AP

Young men walk in the wadi alongside Louri village, in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 2. Climate change has meant that the normally once-a-decade droughts are now coming every few years, decimating food production.

Rebecca Blackwell / AP

Health workers measure the height of a boy during a mobile clinic to identify cases of underweight, stunted, or malnourished children, in Michemire, in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 4.

Rebecca Blackwell / AP

A boy watches as women pump water from the village borehole in Louri, in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 3.

Rebecca Blackwell / AP

A little girl cries as she is weighed as part of a mobile nutrition clinic to examine local children and identify cases of underweight, stunted, or malnourished children, in Michemire, in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 4.

Rebecca Blackwell / AP

Children gather under a sole shade tree as they take a break from class outside their schoolhouse made of reeds in the village of Louri, in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 2.

Rebecca Blackwell / AP

In this Nov. 1, 2012 photo, 7-year-old Achta, right, walks with her mother Fatme Ousmane in the village of Louri in the Mao region of Chad. Achta's birth seven years ago coincided with the first major drought to hit the Sahel this decade. Climate change has meant that the normally once-a-decade droughts are now coming every few years. The droughts decimated her family's herd. With each dead animal, they ate less. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Rebecca Blackwell / AP

Seven-year-old Achta looks at the blackboard during class in the village of Louri in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 2. In this village where malnutrition has become chronic, children have simply stopped growing. In the county that includes Louri, 51.9 percent of children are stunted, one of the highest rates in the world, according to a survey published by UNICEF - more than half the children in the village.

Rebecca Blackwell / AP

Seven-year-old Achta, her older brother, and their mother Fatme Ousmane share a dinner of rice and meat, a rare treat, leftovers from the recent Eid holiday, in the village of Louri, in the Mao region of Chad. The droughts decimated her family's herd. With each dead animal, they ate less.

Charlie Riedel / AP, file

A flock of geese fly past a smokestack at the Jeffery Energy Center coal power plant near Emmitt, Kansas, in this Jan. 10, 2009 photo.

Greenhouse gases reached a new record level in 2011, the World Meteorological Organization said Tuesday.

The body, an agency of the United Nations, said in a statement that there had been a 30 percent increase in the warming effect on the climate between 1990 and 2011.

It said the level of carbon dioxide – which accounts for about 80 percent of the warming effect – and other so-called greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide had reached the carbon dioxide-equivalent of 473 parts per million in 2011.

The three gases are closely linked to human activities such as fossil fuel use, deforestation and intensive agriculture.

Further warming
WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in the statement that billions of tons of carbon dioxide emitted since the start of the industrial age in 1750 would “remain there for centuries, causing our planet to warm further and impacting on all aspects of life on earth.”

“Future emissions will only compound the situation,” he said.

Jarraud said about half of the carbon dioxide emitted as a result of human activity had been absorbed by carbon sinks such as forests and oceans.

“But this will not necessarily continue in the future,” he said. “We have already seen that the oceans are becoming more acidic as a result of the carbon dioxide uptake, with potential repercussions for the underwater food chain and coral reefs.”

“There are many additional interactions between greenhouse gases, Earth’s biosphere and oceans, and we need to boost our monitoring capability and scientific knowledge in order to better understand these,” he added.

Ed Jones / AFP - Getty Images, file

Heavy traffic passes Tiananmen Square outside the opening session of the Chinese Communist Party's five-yearly Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Nov. 8.

A warmer, more acidic ocean poses a threat to coral and shellfish.

In July, researchers found that coral reefs had collapsed along Panama's Pacific Coast for 2,500 years due to natural climate cycles.

Coral in Caribbean, Florida in sharp decline, 'no signs of slowing,' report finds

Study co-author Richard Aronson, a biology professor at Florida Institute of Technology, said the discovery showed that reducing greenhouse gas emissions should prevent this from happening again or enable the coral to recover if there was a widespread collapse.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

The casket of Nelida Gregorio, 89, who died of a heart attack gets lifted up into a gravesite in a flooded cemetery next to the swollen Pampanga River August 15, 2012 in Bulacan, Philippines. A tropical storm hit the Northern Luzon bringing days of wet weather to a region still recovering from massive flooding. According to the Office of Civil Defense the floods have left at least 96 people dead with the flooding effecting up to 2.68 million people, including more than 440,000 fleeing to evacuation centers, in Manila and surrounding provinces.

Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

Family and friends of Nelida Gregorio, 89, who died of a heart attack, mourn her death during a funeral service as they stand in knee deep water in a flooded cemetery next to the swollen Pampanga River on August 15 in Bulacan, Philippines. A tropical storm hit the Northern Luzon bringing days of wet weather to a region still recovering from massive flooding. According to the Office of Civil Defense the floods have left at least 96 people dead with the flooding effecting up to 2.68 million people, including more than 440,000 fleeing to evacuation centers, in Manila and surrounding provinces.

See more pictures of flooding in the Philippines on PhotoBlog

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