Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Brazil Landslide and Flood Toll Reaches 665

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© AFP/Getty Images
The death toll from flooding and mudslides in southeastern Brazil climbed to at least 665 people, as public outcry turned toward authorities' ongoing struggle to reach still-isolated areas and their failure last week to have warned residents of the danger of gathering storms.

Relief workers continued to unearth victims on Monday, even as rescue crews managed to reach survivors who have been trapped by earth and floodwaters since the downpours hit the state of Rio de Janeiro almost a week ago. In addition to those killed, nearly 14,000 people have been displaced from destroyed or damaged homes. An unknown number of people remain missing.

Amid the relief and recovery efforts, Brazilians are increasingly expressing outrage at local, state, and federal officials.

In addition to criticism that authorities had turned a blind eye toward construction in areas known to be vulnerable to flooding, they are now asking why the government, despite modern weather and communications systems, were unable to alert victims of the pending danger. Southern Brazil, after all, has been subject to frequent flooding in recent years, including downpours and landslides that killed hundreds of people during last year's rainy season.

Igloo

Extreme cold, snow kills 4 in northwest China

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© Reuters
100,000 homes flattened or damaged by storms

Beijing - Rescue workers evacuated thousands of rural residents from parts of northwestern China after extreme cold and blizzard conditions killed four people and left half a million snowed under, meteorologists said Monday.

In neighboring Mongolia, an official appealed for help from the international community as his country battles the most severe winter it has seen in three decades.

Storms in China's far western Xinjiang flattened or damaged about 100,000 homes and more than 15,000 head of livestock were killed by the cold front that set in Sunday night.

Herders moved thousands of others to safer pastures at lower altitudes ahead of the latest storm front, which is expected to last through Wednesday.

Cloud Lightning

Scientists warn California could be struck by winter 'superstorm'

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© Unknown
A group of more than 100 scientists and experts say in a new report that California faces the risk of a massive "superstorm" that could flood a quarter of the state's homes and cause $300 billion to $400 billion in damage. Researchers point out that the potential scale of destruction in this storm scenario is four or five times the amount of damage that could be wrought by a major earthquake.

It sounds like the plot of an apocalyptic action movie, but scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey warned federal and state emergency officials that California's geological history shows such "superstorms" have happened in the past, and should be added to the long list of natural disasters to worry about in the Golden State.

The threat of a cataclysmic California storm has been dormant for the past 150 years. Geological Survey director Marcia K. McNutt told the New York Times that a 300-mile stretch of the Central Valley was inundated from 1861-62. The floods were so bad that the state capital had to be moved to San Francisco, and Governor Leland Stanford had to take a rowboat to his own inauguration, the report notes. Even larger storms happened in past centuries, over the dates 212, 440, 603, 1029, 1418, and 1605, according to geological evidence.

Comment: Is there a possibility these scientists are wrong in their view of the atmosphere warming? Perhaps the atmosphere is cooling while the planet itself is warming?




Radar

Hundreds of dead seals in Labrador

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© unk
People on the north coast of Labrador say scores of dead seals have been washing ashore since early December.

A conservation officer with the area's Inuit government estimated late last week that hundreds of adult and young seals have died in the area between Hopedale and Makkovik this winter.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is testing the carcasses, but Nunatsiavut conservation officer Ian Winters said many people in the area believe DFO hasn't acted quickly enough.

Blackbox

Best of the Web: Fall of Roman Empire Linked to Wild Shifts in Climate

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© Carlos Gotay/GettyOutlook is bleak
Centuries of unpredictable climate may have been partly to blame for the fall of the western Roman Empire. A detailed record of 2500 years of European climate has uncovered several links between changing climate and the rise and fall of civilisations.

Climate fluctuation was a contributing factor alongside political failures and barbarian invasions, says Ulf Büntgen of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research in Birmensdorf, Switzerland, who led the project.

Büntgen used tree rings to build up a history of European climate. Using nearly 9000 samples from oak, pine and larch, Büntgen and colleagues were able to reconstruct how temperatures and rainfall in western Europe changed over the last 2500 years.

Radar

At least 39 dead in South African floods

Johannesburg - Floods have killed or left missing at least 39 people in South Africa and destroyed thousands of homes in neighboring Mozambique, officials said on Monday.

Heavy rains from late December and through most of January have led to floods in the two countries, with torrential downpours at the weekend again swelling rivers.

South Africa's Cooperative Governance Ministry estimated at least 32 have been killed while police said on Monday another seven went missing in Centurion, near Pretoria, after they were swept away by high waters.

The army has been placed on stand-by to evacuate people from areas near major dams.

"All disaster management structures in the country have been put on high alert," the cooperative governance ministry said.

Bizarro Earth

Flashback Best of the Web: Walls of Water 10ft High in a Month-Long Mega Hurricane: California Told to Prepare for Biblical 'ARkStorm'

ARkstorm flooding
© UnknownA map of the flood area of the hypothetical ARkStorm event
Scientists are now warning Californians that the long-awaited 'big one' earthquake could be the least of their environmental concerns.

Another more deadly threat awaits the West coast of America - in the form of a biblical 'ARkStorm', which could bring death and destruction on a scale never before seen.

Walls of water 10ft high, rain falling in feet instead of inches, and nine million people's homes flooded during a hurricane-like megastorm that could last more than month.

The every-other-century event last happened in 1861 and left the central valley of California impassable.

The cost was impossible to quantify - but should a similar event happen today the damage could total more than $300billion.


Comment: Feb 16, 2017: It does not have to be a hurricane as continuous stormsystems loaded with water aka Atmospheric Rivers would be enough to create the scenario outlined here. Something that California is experiencing now in the beginning of 2017.


Bizarro Earth

Philippines - 3 Volcanoes in Luzon Acting Up - Phivolcs

Mayon Volcano
© Tam3rd/Wikimedia CommonsMayon Volcano in Albay, Philippines
Three active volcanoes in Luzon showed signs of increased activity Sunday, exhibiting rock fall, moderate steam, and minor quakes in their respective vicinities, state volcanologists reported.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said signs of unrest were detected in Mayon, Taal, and Bulusan volcanoes during its 24-hour observation.

Phivolcs reported having observed one rock fall at Mayon Volcano in Albay and its steam was white and moderate.

Meanwhile, crater glow was not observed due to thick clouds covering Mayon's summit.

"Results of ground deformation surveys conducted last November and December 2010 showed that the volcanic edifice remains inflated based on 2008 baseline data," the Phivolcs said.

Alert Level 1 has been raised due to Mayon's current activity.

While no eruption is imminent, Phivolcs strongly prohibited the public from wandering within the six-kilometer radius permanent danger zone (PDZ) due to the continuing threat from sudden small explosions and rock falls from the upper and middle slopes of the volcano.

Fish

Dead Fish Start Washing Up in Australia

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Investigations are underway into the cause of a fish kill in Jervis Bay. About 70 different species have been washed up on the shore line around Honeymoon Bay and Bindijine. Among the kill were groper, flathead, stingrays and sea horses. Samples of the dead fish have been taken away for testing. The incident has experts mystified, because many fish kills often effect only a few species, while on this occasion the deaths are across the board.

Source

A sleepy little coast bay town of Jervis Bay was rocked by lots of dead and dying fish washing up on shore.

I was driving down the coast and heard this interview on a little radio station where the guy had phoned in and tell the radio station about what he was looking at, literally hundreds of dead and dying fish, some still moving seemingly trying to get out of the water, the witness on the radio saying it's almost like they were trying to escape something or trying to get out of the water for oxygen.

Radar

Best of the Web: Did Australia's obsession with global warming contribute to the Brisbane floods?

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© GettyA man paddles down a street in a Brisbane suburb
Who, if anyone, is to blame for the terrible flooding in Brisbane? Commentators are pointing their collective finger at the usual suspects. For the extreme green magazine Grist, the floods expose mankind's arrogance in believing that he can build settlements anywhere he likes, even on floodplains. Nature is "taking a perverse pleasure in pointing out just where the shiny, might city is weakest", gloats Grist. Others are blaming Aussie property developers, for thoughtlessly throwing up flood-prone buildings, and yet others think Queensland politicians should have done more to improve flood defences.

But might there be another, so far overlooked, contributing factor to the floods? Might the politics of environmentalism itself - the contemporary obsession with global warming as the greatest threat to mankind - have exacerbated the impact of the flooding in Brisbane? It seems possible that Aussie politicians' and officials' deeply held conviction that the main problem we face today is increased heat, droughts and a lack of rainfall caused them to take their eye off the ball in Brisbane, and to be unprepared for something as relatively normal as very heavy rainfall.