Earth ChangesS


Alarm Clock

A New Oil Rush Endangers the Gulf of Mexico and the Planet

Michael Klare
Global Research/TomDispatch
Tue, 18 May 2010 19:01 UTC
earth, oil
Yes, the oil spewing up from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico in staggering quantities could prove one of the great ecological disasters of human history. Think of it, though, as just the prelude to the Age of Tough Oil, a time of ever increasing reliance on problematic, hard-to-reach energy sources.

Make no mistake: we're entering the danger zone. And brace yourself, the fate of the planet could be at stake.

It may never be possible to pin down the precise cause of the massive explosion that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20th, killing 11 of its 126 workers. Possible culprits include a faulty cement plug in the undersea oil bore and a disabled cutoff device known as a blow-out preventer. Inadequate governmental oversight of safety procedures undoubtedly also contributed to the disaster, which may have been set off by a combination of defective equipment and human error.

But whether or not the immediate trigger of the explosion is ever fully determined, there can be no mistaking the underlying cause: a government-backed corporate drive to exploit oil and natural gas reserves in extreme environments under increasingly hazardous operating conditions.
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Meteor

Scientists: Timor Sea metorite altered Earth's climate


Agence France-Presse
Sat, 22 May 2010 11:00 UTC
Sydney - Australian scientists have discovered a crater deep beneath the Timor Sea made during a heavy meteor storm which may have altered the Earth's climate, the lead researcher said Thursday.

Australian National University archaeologist Andrew Glikson said seismic activity led experts to the Mount Ashmore 1B site, and a study of fragments showed a large meteorite hit just before the Earth's temperatures plunged.

"The identification of microstructural and chemical features in drill fragments taken from the Mount Ashmore drill hole revealed evidence of a significant impact," Glikson said, adding it was at least 50 kilometres (31 miles) wide and about 35 million years old.
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Life Preserver

Six dead as heavy flooding swamps Eastern, Central Europe


Deutche Welle
Wed, 19 May 2010 08:12 UTC
Image
© AP/Krzysztof LokajA rescuer hands a loaf of bread to residents of a flooded area in the village of Trzesn, south east Poland, Friday, May 21, 2010.
Central and Eastern European countries were struggling Wednesday to cope with floodwaters swamping a host of towns and rivers. In Poland, high waters claimed a sixth life as parts of Krakow were overwhelmed.

Parts of Eastern and Central Europe succumbed to heavy flooding on Wednesday as emergency services scrambled to rescue stranded people and minimize collateral damage in towns.

Areas in Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Serbia were reportedly hit by the flooding caused by heavy rains. The Vistula River broke its banks at Krakow reaching a height of nearly 10 meters (33 feet), its highest level in 40 years.

Some 500 people were reportedly evacuated from the Polish city when flood barriers overflowed Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
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Umbrella

Flash floods force over 2,000 Hungarians to evacuate

Gergely Szakacs; Reed Stevenson
Reuters
Mon, 17 May 2010 15:01 UTC
Image
© Reuters
Over 2,000 people were forced from their homes in northern Hungary by Monday as flash floods triggered by heavy weekend rains blocked off villages and cut power in parts of the European country. Unusually bad weather, with heavy gusts of wind and two months' worth of rain in some areas, sent water levels surging to record highs on smaller rivers, forcing the evacuation of 2,093 people, news agency MTI reported.

"It's hard to predict when the situation will normalise because of the weather, we have not seen such floods in the valleys of the (rivers) Sajo and Hernad since 1974," said Csaba Csont, a spokesman for the water management authority in northern Hungary.

In Hungary's third-biggest city of Miskolc in the northeast, the mayor imposed emergency tap water restrictions and residents were building makeshift dams using logs, rocks and debris.
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Umbrella

Sril Lanka Floods Affect Half A Million, Displace Thousands


Eurasia Review
Fri, 21 May 2010 07:46 UTC
More than 17,000 people remain displaced because of flooding this week in Sri Lanka and are staying in disaster relief centres, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) reports.

The floods were caused by days of torrential early monsoon rains that began on 14 May.

More than 524,000 people were affected in the south, west and central parts of the country, the agency reported on 21 May.

In the western district of Gampaha, the worst affected, more than 12,500 people and 3,600 families were displaced, Pradeep Kodippily, the DMC's assistant director, told IRIN in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.

More than 1,500 homes were damaged or destroyed throughout the affected areas of the island, with 24 deaths and 50 injuries, mostly in Gampaha, he said.
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Umbrella

Pcinja river submerges 4,000 hectares arable land in NE Macedonia


MINA
Sun, 16 May 2010 07:30 UTC
flood Macedonia
Overnight heavy rains and increased water level have caused Pcinja river to overflow flooding nearby villages. 4,000 hectares of arable land is inundated and smaller damages have been registered in the region of Kriva Palanka and Kratovo.

Minister of Defense Zoran Konjanovski visited these areas today. - This kind of storm hadn't hit the area in 30 years. The Government will assist the mayors to handle the situation. Local residents will not be left on their own. We'll make efforts to repair the damages caused by the natural disaster as soon as possible, said DM Konjanovski.

Early in the morning, the Protection and Rescue Directorate in cooperation with the Interior Ministry intervened in the region of Kumanovo where Pcinja river overflowed leaving eight people cut off.
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Bomb

Katla Volcano Update


Modern Survival Blog.com
Fri, 21 May 2010 23:50 UTC
Katla
© ModernSurvivalBlogKatla Volcano
The earthquakes at the Katla volcano site appear to possibly be increasing in frequency as of this moment (time will tell however). Since May 17 there have been four earthquakes at or very near Katla, while a 5th just on the edge of the Myrdalsjokull glacier.

Although 4 or 5 earthquakes at the volcano site in 4 days does not indicate a drastic change in pattern, the interesting notation at the moment is the fact that the two most recent earthquakes occurred within 3 hours of each other on 21 May, 2010, at depths of 5km and 13km. That in itself is an increase in occurrence. It may be an anomaly, but it justifies keeping one eye on Katla, the big sister of Eyjafjallajokull.
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Blackbox

Month after oil spill, why is BP still in charge?


Associated Press
Fri, 21 May 2010 21:24 UTC
Image
© AFP/Getty Images/Joe RaedleA dead sea turtle is seen laying on a beach as concern continues that the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico may harm animals in its path, in Waveland, Mississippi. As spring blooms in the southern United States heralding the arrival of fledgling animal life, environmentalists are anxiously watching the spread of a giant oil slick off the coast.
Days after the Gulf Coast oil spill, the Obama administration pledged to keep its "boot on the throat" of BP to make sure the company did all it could to cap the gushing leak and clean up the spill.

But a month after the April 20 explosion, anger is growing about why BP PLC is still in charge of the response.

"I'm tired of being nice. I'm tired of working as a team," said Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana.

"The government should have stepped in and not just taken BP's word," declared Wayne Stone of Marathon, Fla., an avid diver who worries about the spill's effect on the ecosystem.

That sense of frustration is shared by an increasing number of Gulf Coast residents, elected officials and environmental groups who have called for the government to simply take over.
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Bizarro Earth

Oil spill's surface slick now larger than the US states of Maryland and Delaware combined

Seth Borenstein and Greg Bluestein
PhysOrg
Fri, 21 May 2010 18:38 UTC
Image
© AP Photo/NASAA May 17, 2010 satellite image provided by NASA shows a large patch of oil visible near the site of the Deepwater oil spill, and a long ribbon of oil stretched far to the southeast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday that a small portion of the slick had entered the so-called loop current, a stream of fast moving water that circulates around the Gulf before bending around Florida and up the Atlantic coast.
Drip by drip, day by day, the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico is adding up to mind-boggling numbers.

Using worst case scenarios calculated by scientists, a month's worth of leaking oil could fill enough gallon milk jugs to stretch more than 11,300 miles. That's more than the distance from New York to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and back. That's just shy of 130 million gallons.

If the government's best case scenario is used - and only 5.25 million gallons have spilled - those milk jugs would cover a bit more than a roundtrip between New York and Washington. But the government is revising that number, with a team of scientists working around the clock to come up with a more realistic and likely higher figure.

Here's another way to think of just how much oil has gushed out since April 20: At worst, it's enough to fill 102 school gymnasiums to the ceiling with oil.

That's nothing compared to the vast expanse of the Gulf of Mexico, where there are 643 quadrillion gallons. Even under the worst case scenario, the Gulf has five billion drops of water for every drop of oil. And the mighty Mississippi River pours 3.3 million gallons of new water into Gulf every second.
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Cloud Lightning

NASA sees one of Cyclone Laila's thunderstorms almost 11 miles high


PhysOrg
Fri, 21 May 2010 18:29 UTC
Image
© NASA/SSAI, Hal PierceThis 3-D image of Cyclone Laila was made using data from TRMM's Precipitation Radar. It shows that the powerful thunderstorms northwest of tropical cyclone Laila shot up to heights above 17.5 kilometers (~57,415 feet/10.8 miles).
A NASA 3-D look inside Cyclone Laila as it made landfall yesterday revealed a towering thunderstorm reaching almost 11 miles high! NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite has been capturing images of Cyclone Laila since it was born in the Northern Indian Ocean as tropical depression 1A earlier this week.

Scientists at NASA can use TRMM data to provide meteorologists a 3-D look at the storm's cloud heights and rainfall, which are extremely helpful in forecasting.

"One of the interesting capabilities of the TRMM satellite is its ability to see through clouds with its Precipitation Radar (PR) and reveal the 3-D structure within storms such as Cyclone Laila," said Hal Pierce, on the TRMM mission team in the Mesoscale Atmospheric Processes Branch at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Pierce created a 3-D image of Laila. He used data captured on May 20 when TRMM also got a "top down" view of the storm's rainfall, and created a 3-D image that shows thunderstorm tops reaching to almost 17.5 kilometers (10.8 miles) high in the eastern side of the storm!
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