Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Another Powerful Quake Strikes Indonesia

Anthony Deutch
Associated Press
Wed, 12 Sep 2007 21:38 UTC


©AP Photo/Abdilla
Residents and rescuers inspect a building destroyed by earthquake in Padang, Sumatra island, Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia - A powerful earthquake shook western Indonesia for the second straight day Thursday and triggered a tsunami alert, meteorological agencies said. The latest tremor was also felt in neighboring Singapore, causing tall buildings to sway.
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Better Earth

Tropical storm Humberto could bring more than 10 inches of rain to Texas

KEVIN MORAN and DALE LEZON
Houston Chronicle
Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:39 UTC
Tropical Storm Humberto is expected to reach shore late tonight just south of Galveston, dumping heavy rain from Victoria to eastern Louisiana.

Some spots along the upper coast could receive 10 inches or more of rain by tomorrow, forecasters said. They hope the storm moves quickly to minimize rain totals in isolated areas.

"It's a slow moving storm," said Gene Hafele, meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "But we don't think it'll stall out. It should move steadily inland."

The storm is expected to creep ashore between Freeport and Galveston near midnight, Hafele said. He said rain, high winds and rough seas are already lashing coastal areas. Hafele said rain would stretch as far south as Victoria, but be concentrated between Sargent and the Sabine River.

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Bizarro Earth

Flashback Global Cooling killed off Neanderthals


BBC News
Wed, 21 Feb 2007 13:52 UTC
A sharp freeze could have dealt the killer blow that finished off our evolutionary cousins the Neanderthals, according to a new study.

The ancient humans are thought to have died out in most parts of Europe by about 35,000 years ago.
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Bizarro Earth

Manchester is rising


manchester.com
Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:06 UTC
Satellite experts have produced data that shows parts of Manchester have risen by 7 cm in 11 years.

Following recent earthquakes in the city, the NPA Group, a satellite mapping company, revealed that some areas are rising by 6 mm or more every year.
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Bizarro Earth

Flashback Manchester, England, shaken by sixth earthquake in a month

Sophie Tedmanson
Times of London
Thu, 30 Aug 2007 16:14 UTC
A small earthquake rumbled through the city centre of Manchester this morning, the sixth to hit the area this month.
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Arrow Up

Greece suffers more fires in 2007 than in last decade, satellites reveal


ESA
Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:42 UTC
Greece has experienced more wildfire activity this August than other European countries have over the last decade, according to data from ESA satellites. The country is currently battling an outbreak of blazes, which began last Thursday, that have spread across the country killing more than 60 people.

ESA's ERS-2 and Envisat satellites continuously survey fires burning across the Earth's surface with onboard sensors - the Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) and the Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) respectively, known as the ATSR Word Fire Atlas, which is available to users online in near-real time.

The ATSR World Fire Atlas is the longest worldwide fire atlas available. Even if the atlas is not supposed to pick up all fires due to satellite overpass constraints and cloud coverage, it is statistically representative from one month to the other and from one year to the other.
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Stop

Illegal traders drug elephant in bid to sell herd

Huang Zhiling
China Daily
Thu, 30 Aug 2007 14:33 UTC
A male elephant from Southwest China's Yunnan Province has been cured of its addiction to drugs and will soon return to the Xishuangbanna Tropical Rainforest in Yunnan.

Before April 2005, the elephant, named Big Brother, lived peacefully with its herd near the Sino-Myanmar border. But in that year, several illegal elephant traders set their sights on Big Brother and its herd. To control it so that it could lead the herd to where they wanted, the traders kept feeding it bananas laced with drugs.

In less than one month, Big Brother became so addicted that it began to drool and twitch when not given the drugs.
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Cloud Lightning

New Lightning Sensors Warn of Hurricane's Power From Far Away


NASA
Wed, 12 Sep 2007 13:11 UTC
A NASA-supported study has introduced a new way to detect lightning outbreaks inside a hurricane from thousands of miles away, giving forecasters new insight into just how powerful an oncoming storm will be.

As a result, researchers can now investigate with greater accuracy how the rate of lightning strikes produced within a hurricane's eyewall is tied to the changing strength of that hurricane. A hurricane's eyewall is the inner heat-driven region of the storm that surrounds the "eye" where the most intense rainfall and most powerful winds occur. By monitoring the intensity of lightning near a hurricane's eye, scientists will be able to improve their forecasts of when a storm will unleash its harshest conditions.

©NASA
On Sept. 22, 2005, Hurricane Rita threatened the U.S. Gulf Coast. NASA's TRMM satellite helped create this three-dimensional view of the storm; storm clouds shown here in white.
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Black Cat

Cat faeces 'may be killing whales'

James Meikle
The Guardian
Thu, 30 Aug 2007 13:20 UTC
Pet owners who flush cat faeces down the lavatory may be responsible for the deaths of whales, dolphins and porpoises around Britain's coast, according to academics and public health experts.
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Bell

Update! 8.4 Quake triggers tsunami in Indonesia

ROBIN McDOWELL
AP
Wed, 12 Sep 2007 11:37 UTC
JAKARTA, Indonesia - A massive earthquake shook Indonesia on Wednesday, killing seven people, injuring 100 and triggering a small tsunami that hit one city on the island of Sumatra, authorities said. Tsunami warnings were issued for much of the Indian Ocean region.

The 8.4-magnitude quake off Sumatra badly damaged buildings along the coast and could be felt in at least four countries, with tall buildings swaying as far as 1,200 miles away.
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