Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

4.8 Earthquake Hits Himachal Pradesh


Thaindian News
Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:49 UTC
An earthquake of moderate intensity jolted the hills of Himachal Pradesh Friday, officials said.

"An earthquake of moderate intensity hit some parts of the hill state at 4.37 p.m. It measured 4.8 on the Richter scale," R.S. Negi, an official of the department of seismology at Kangra, told IANS on phone.

He said the earthquake was recorded in the entire Chamba district, adjoining Jammu and Kashmir, and upper Kangra district only.

"The epicenter of the earthquake was Holi and Bharmour region in Chamba district. It was single-stroke quake and tremors were felt for six seconds. It was likely to have hit the adjoining state of Jammu and Kashmir too," he added.
Read More...
Sun

Solar Cycle Linked to Global Climate


National Science Foundation
Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:56 UTC
Establishing a key link between the solar cycle and global climate, research led by scientists at the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., shows that maximum solar activity and its aftermath have impacts on Earth that resemble La Niña and El Niño events in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

The research may pave the way toward predictions of temperature and precipitation patterns at certain times during the approximately 11-year solar cycle.
Setting Sun
© NCARScientists find link between solar cycle and global climate similar to El Nino/La Nina.
Read More...
Chess

Best of the Web: Could the "Year Without True Summer" Mean the Coldest and Snowiest Winter in Over Five Years from New York City to Washington, D.C.?

Joe Bastardi
AccuWeather
Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:30 UTC
Jet Stream July 2009
© AccuWeather

According to AccuWeather.com's Chief Meteorologist and Expert Long Range Forecaster Joe Bastardi, cooler-than-normal weather this summer in the Northeast could point to a cold, snowy winter for the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states. He says the heart of winter will be centered over the area from Boston to Washington, D.C.

For people across the Great Lakes and Northeast, this has been the coolest summer in more than a decade. After a period of more classic summer heat in the coming weeks, cooler weather is expected to continue the trend of the "Year Without True Summer." For Southeast residents, the hot topic for the end of summer will be the tropics heating up after August 15th.

The Weather So Far this Summer

This summer has been unusually cool across the Northeast, northern Plains and parts of the West. Places like New York City and Philadelphia, which are typically warm and humid this time of year, have had relatively cool and wet weather instead.
Read More...
Snowman

Poor pour chilly New York has some people claiming global cooling

Tony Pann
The Examiner
Mon, 06 Jul 2009 03:56 UTC
Image
© AP / Bebeto MatthewsFlooding rain in Brooklyn, NY on June 19
There is not a typo in the title ... it poured in New York and it was chilly last month. In fact, rain fell 23 out of 30 days. That was the first time so many wet days have been reported, and records have been kept in New York's Central Park station since 1869. These records have a lot of value since there are many problem weather sites across the country. I pointed that out in a recent post.

Most weather stations in the US do not comply with scientific standards and show false warming, according to surfacestations.org. So when the National Weather Service came out with this chilly report below, it reinforced the sentiment for many of us. Where is the heat?
Read More...
Better Earth

NOAA'S and GISS's Hot Streaks Continue - Despite Satellite Sensed Cooling

Joseph D'Aleo
IceCap
Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:28 UTC
NOAA has as expected announced that June 2009 for the globe was the second warmest June in 130 years, falling just short of 2005. NASA GISS which starts with NCDC GHCN and then adds their own special touches had this June the second warmest on record just behind 1998.

In SHARP contrast, NASA UAH MSU satellite assessment had June virtually normal (+0.001C or 15th coldest in 31 years) and RSS (+0.075C or 14th coldest in 31 years). This is becoming a habit.

NOAA proclaimed May 2009 to be the 4th warmest for the globe in 130 years of record keeping. Meanwhile NASA UAH MSU satellite assessment showed it was the 15th coldest May in the 31 years of its record. This divergence is not new and has been growing. Just a year ago, NOAA proclaimed June 2008 to be the 8th warmest for the globe in 129 years of record keeping. Meanwhile NASA satellites showed it was the 9th coldest June in the 30 years of its record.

We have noted in the last year that NOAA has often become the warmest of the 5 major data sets in their monthly global anomalies. They were second place until they removed the USHCN UHI adjustment in 2007 and introduced a new ocean data set recently.

NOAA and the other ground based data centers would have more credibility if one of the changes resulting in a reduction of the warming trend and not an exaggeration which has been the case each and every time.
Read More...
Binoculars

GISS for June - way out there

Anthony Watts
Watts Up With That
Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:12 UTC
laurel and hardy
© unknown

NASA GISS has released their global temperature anomaly data for June 2009 and it is quite the surprise.

In both the UAH and RSS satellite data sets, global temperature anomaly went down in June. GISS went up, and is now the largest June anomaly since 1998, when we had the super El Nino.

Data source: Link

Here are the June global temperature anomaly comparisons:

GISS .63 C

RSS .075

UAH .001

The divergence between the satellite derived global temperature anomalies of UAH and RSS and the GISS land-ocean anomaly is the largest in recent memory.

But that isn't the only oddity. Over on Lucia's blog, the first commenter out of the gate, "Nylo" noticed something odd:
Read More...
Butterfly

Study catches two bird populations as they split into seperate species


PhysOrg.com
Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:20 UTC
A new study finds that a change in a single gene has sent two closely related bird populations on their way to becoming two distinct species. The study, published in the August issue of the American Naturalist, is one of only a few to investigate the specific genetic changes that drive two populations toward speciation.

Speciation, the process by which different populations of the same species split into separate species, is central to evolution. But it's notoriously hard to observe in action. This study, led by biologist J. Albert Uy of Syracuse University, captures two populations of monarch flycatcher birds just as they arrive at that evolutionary crossroads.

Monarch flycatchers are small, insect-eating birds common in the Solomon Islands, east of Papua New Guinea. Uy and his team looked at two flycatcher populations: one found mostly on the large island of Makira, the other on smaller surrounding islands. Besides where they live, the only discernable difference between the two populations is the color of their feathers. The birds on Makira have all black feathers. Birds on the smaller islands have the same black feathers, but with a chestnut-colored belly.

The question of whether these two populations are on the road to speciation comes down to sex. When two populations stop exchanging genes--that is, stop mating with each other - then they can be considered distinct species. Uy and his team wanted to see if these flycatchers were heading in that direction.
Read More...
Evil Rays

UK Lawyer Slams Gore Over Court Case Claims

Ann McElhinney & Phelim McAleer
Not Evil Just Wrong
Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:00 UTC
Al Gore breaths global warming
© unknown

A leading UK lawyer, who represented the parent that sued Al Gore in the British High Court, has laughed off claims by the former vice-president that the judge ruled in his favour.

Speaking from London John Day, a senior partner in Malletts Solicitors, said Mr Gore was misrepresenting what the judge had found. Mr Day represented a British parent who sued the UK Ministry of Education when they wanted to distribute and show Mr Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth to every British school child. In the 2006 documentary Mr Gore claimed humanity is in danger because of man made Global Warming. He also claimed flooding and disease would increase with the destruction of most of the world's major cities including New York, London and Shanghai. As a result Mr Gore was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize and the documentary won an Oscar.
Read More...
Bell

Richard Courtney in Weblog Debate on Cooling

Dr. Richard Courtney
IceCap
Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:25 UTC
My comments in a web debate after Booker's article on the Daily Telegraph's web site responding to a reasonable question from another commenter named Vaughn.

You ask me: "You quote: '...the era of consistent record-breaking global mean temperatures will not resume until roughly 2020.' Do you take this to mean that there is no global warming?"

Let me be clear. I say
1. It is obvious that there is no global warming while the globe is cooling.
2. The globe has cooled over the last decade.

Slioch's (a cooling denialist commenter) linear trends and 5-year averages do not change these simple and obvious truths.

It is an empirical fact that the Earth has now been experiencing global cooling for such a long time that the cooling is even admitted by RealClimate. And, as I state above, to admit the existence of global cooling is to deny the existence of global warming.
Read More...
Question

Alaska: Huge Blob of Arctic Goo Floats Past Slope Communities

Don Hunter
Anchorage Daily News
Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:44 UTC
mysterious goo off Alaskan coast
© North Slope Borough A mysterious glob of unknown material up to 12 miles long has appeared off Alaska's northern coast. Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Terry Hasenauer says, "It's certainly biological. It's definitely not an oil product of any kind."

It's not oil: No one in the area can recall seeing anything like it before.

Something big and strange is floating through the Chukchi Sea between Wainwright and Barrow.

Hunters from Wainwright first started noticing the stuff sometime probably early last week. It's thick and dark and "gooey" and is drifting for miles in the cold Arctic waters, according to Gordon Brower with the North Slope Borough's Planning and Community Services Department.

Brower and other borough officials, joined by the U.S. Coast Guard, flew out to Wainwright to investigate. The agencies found "globs" of the stuff floating miles offshore Friday and collected samples for testing.
Read More...