Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

US: After The Storm

US skies are clearing in the aftermath of this week's monster winter storm. But "clear" is not the same as "empty." Sky watchers are seeing an unusual number of sundogs. Doug Koehler photographed these yesterday in Davenport, Iowa:

Sundog_1
© Doug KoehlerBrilliant rainbow-like sun pillars in the early morning, sub-zero fog in Davenport, Iowa, just off the Mississippi river. They lasted about 20 minutes before fading away as the sun rose. Sadly, the camera doesn't do justice to how colorful they were. Taken with a GE A1251 in auto exposure mode. Image taken: Feb. 3 2011
"These brilliant sundogs appeared in the early morning sub-zero fog just off the Mississippi river," says Koehler. "They lasted about 20 minutes before fading away. The camera doesn't do justice to how colorful they were."

Sundogs and their cousins, sun pillars, are caused by ice crystals in the air. And if there's one thing North Americans have a lot of, it's icy air. Indeed, the dog and pillar show is likely to continue for at least six more weeks.

Question

US: Mysterious Odor Stinks Up Los Angeles Neighborhood

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© Getty Images
People were trying Tuesday to determine the cause of a ''widespread and mildly irritating'' odor in East Los Angeles and surrounding neighborhoods, a city fire spokesman said.

Brian Humphrey of the Los Angeles Fire Department said his department had been getting 911 calls, mostly from people in the Boyle Heights area, while County firefighters were receiving the same reports in the larger area of East Los Angeles.

Igloo

Extreme Cold Blasts Arizona

Coldest Weather In Years Hits The Valley

Baby it's cold outside! Arizona is being hit with extreme cold and it's only going to get colder.

With a daytime high of just 44 degrees, Phoenix recorded its coldest daytime high in more than 25 years and set a daily and monthly record for a cold high temperature.

A rare hard freeze warning (widespread temperatures below 28 degrees) is in effect for the Valley from late tonight into Thursday morning.

CBS 5 chief meteorologist Chris Dunn says tonight's lows could make it the coldest night in more than 20 years in Phoenix.

"Most areas will likely see overnight lows in the 20s, but Sky Harbor hasn't registered a temperature colder than 29 degrees since December 23, 1990," said Dunn. On that day the mercury dipped to just 26 degrees. Thursday morning's record low is 28 degrees last set in 1922

Expect another chilly day on Thursday with Dunn's forecast high of just 50 degrees. The normal high for early February is 70 degrees. Temperatures will warm into the 60s this weekend.

Ambulance

Major evacuation after SW China earthquake

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© unknownMap of Yunnan Province in China
An earthquake that damaged nearly 700 homes forced some 65,000 people into shelters Wednesday in China's southwestern Yunnan province.

The quake hit Yingjiang County Tuesday afternoon and had a magnitude of 4.8 on the open-ended Richter scale, county officials told the Xinhua news agency.

There was no immediate report on injuries, but officials said 229 homes had been seriously damaged and 448 others had sustained lesser damage, the report said.

The quake's center was about 6 miles deep, geologists said.

Arrow Down

Australia: Despair and relief in the wake of Cyclone Yasi

Cyclone Yasi 1
© AFP: Torsten BlackwoodScott Torrens (left) and his children look to where their roof once was in Mourilyan, south of Innisfail
Emergency crews are cutting their way into storm-shattered communities in north Queensland to assess the extent of the damage after category five Cyclone Yasi roared ashore overnight.

The towns of Tully, Mission Beach, Cardwell, Silkwood and Innisfail bore the brunt of the monster storm's 285kph winds but there are no reports of deaths or serious injuries.

Buildings were destroyed, roofs were ripped off houses, and trees were shredded as the monster storm slammed ashore about midnight. More than 180,000 homes remain without power.

The cyclone is continuing to weaken but there is now heavy rain and damaging wind gusts in excess of 90kph, which are expected to extend to the Northern Territory border including Longreach and Mount Isa overnight.

Comment: The cyclone remains active over land and is making its way further into the rural townships of northern Queensland. Have a look at the current satellite image.

Cyclone Yasi 5
© BOM



Arrow Down

Oysters Disappearing Worldwide: Study

oysters
© AFP/Getty Images/File/Chris GraythenA survey of oyster habitats around the world has found that the succulent mollusks are disappearing fast and 85% of their reefs have been lost due to disease and over-harvesting. Most of the remaining wild oysters in the world, or about 75 percent, can be found in five locations in North America, said the study published in BioScience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences.
A survey of oyster habitats around the world has found that the succulent mollusks are disappearing fast and 85 percent of their reefs have been lost due to disease and over-harvesting.

Most of the remaining wild oysters in the world, or about 75 percent, can be found in five locations in North America, said the study published in BioScience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences.

An international team of researchers led by Michael Beck of the Nature Conservancy and the University of California, Santa Cruz, examined the condition of native oyster reefs in 40 ecoregions, including 144 bays.

"Oyster reefs are at less than 10 percent of their prior abundance in most bays (70 percent) and ecoregions (63 percent)," said the study.

"They are functionally extinct -- in that they lack any significant ecosystem role and remain at less than one percent of prior abundances in many bays (37 percent) and ecoregions (28 percent) -- particularly in North America, Australia and Europe."

By averaging the loss among all regions, the researchers came up with an estimate that 85 percent of oyster reef ecosystems have been lost, but said that figure was likely low because some areas lacked historical records for comparison.

The study also did not include oyster reefs in parts of South Africa, China, Japan, and North and South Korea.

Info

Al Gore: Snow Storms are Caused by 'the Warming'

Al Gore
© Time MagazineFormer Vice President Al Gore in his home office in Nashville, TN.
Last week on his show Bill O'Reilly asked, "Why has southern New York turned into the tundra?" and then said he had a call into me. I appreciate the question.

As it turns out, the scientific community has been addressing this particular question for some time now and they say that increased heavy snowfalls are completely consistent with what they have been predicting as a consequence of man-made global warming:

"In fact, scientists have been warning for at least two decades that global warming could make snowstorms more severe. Snow has two simple ingredients: cold and moisture. Warmer air collects moisture like a sponge until it hits a patch of cold air. When temperatures dip below freezing, a lot of moisture creates a lot of snow."

Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: World of two halves! Map shows most of Northern Hemisphere is covered in snow and ice

It looks like a graphic from a Discovery Channel programme about a distant ice age. But this astonishing picture shows the world as it is today - with half the Northern Hemisphere covered with snow and ice.

The image was released by the National Oceanic And Atmospheric Association (NOAA) on the day half of North America suffered in the grip of a severe winter storm.

The map was created using multiple satellites from government agencies and the US Air Force.
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© NOAAA new satellite map from the government agency NOAA shows the size of the snow cover on regions going from the West coast of Canada to the East of China.
Stretching from the west coast of Canada to the eastern shores of China, the white stuff has rarely been shown covering this much ground.

Igloo

Historic Winter Storm Moves Across the U.S.

Ice Storm
© Jesse Allen / GOES Project Science Office
In a winter marked by several crippling storms, the storm of February 1 - 2, 2011, stands out. Heavy snow, ice, freezing rain, and frigid wind battered about two thirds of the United States, making it "a winter storm of historic proportions," said the National Weather Service. This animation - made with images from the NOAA-NASA GOES 13 satellite - shows the giant storm developing and moving across the country between January 31 and February 2.

This image, a still taken from the animation, shows the storm at 4:31 p.m. Eastern Time on February 1. In the image, the storm measures about 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) from west to east. The storm formed when cold Arctic air pushed south from Canada while moist air streamed north from the Gulf of the Mexico. The animation shows clouds building over New Mexico and Texas early in the day. As the system develops and moves northeast, the storm grows and becomes more organized. By the end of February 1, the storm was a sprawling comma that extended from the Midwest to New England.

By 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time on February 2, the National Weather Service reported that 21 states from New Mexico to New Hampshire had received at least 5 inches (13 centimeters) of snow. Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, and Oklahoma declared states of emergency. According to news reports, one in three Americans were affected by the storm.

Bizarro Earth

Japan volcano resumes activity

Tokyo - Japan's Mount Shinmoe, active for a week, erupted twice Wednesday ejecting lava, smoke and ash that threatened a nearby town, meteorologists said.

The eruptions from the volcano on Kyushu in southwest Japan occurred in the morning, CNN reported. The activity began Jan. 26, the first such in decades, experts said.

In the town of Takaharu, with a population of 1,159, residents were advised to evacuate as volcanic ash covered their homes, streets and vehicles and caused flight cancellations. Hundreds of people had already fled.