Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Winds, cold blast slam California after storm

Image
© Christopher Chung/Associated Press Safari West staff members Brian Jellison, left, and Cervando Cornejo work on removing a fallen oak tree on Wednesday. The tree crushed a wood-frame canvas tent and killed a visitor at the wildlife park, east of Santa Rosa, on Tuesday evening.
Cold blasts of wind hit California on Wednesday in the trail of a storm that dumped more rain and snow on the soggy state but failed to trigger significant new mudflows.

One person was killed by a falling tree and a snowboarder was missing, power outages were scattered around the state and some roads and highways were closed, but the region escaped widespread problems in the two-day round of foul weather.

Chilly wind gusts of more than 40 mph hit northern Los Angeles County as the low pressure system that brought the storm moved east, and forecasters warned that the night would allow even colder air and higher winds that could down power lines and topple trees rooted in saturated soil.

An expected drop of snow levels to low elevations also posed a threat to highway travel over mountain passes.

Meanwhile, communities east and south of Los Angeles that were hit hard by runoff in a dayslong series of storms last week were able to focus on cleaning up without additional new damage.

Alarm Clock

Honeybees May Be Spreading Disease to Wild Bees

bees
© Sarah Greenleaf/UC BerkeleyA wild bee (the bumblebee, Bombus vosnesenskii) and a honey bee forage together on a sunflower.
Eleven species of wild pollinators in the United States have turned up carrying some of the viruses known to menace domestic honeybees, possibly picked up via flower pollen.

Most of these native pollinators haven't been recorded with honeybee viruses before, according to Diana Cox-Foster of Pennsylvania State University in University Park. The new analysis raises the specter of diseases swapping around readily among domestic and wild pollinators, Cox-Foster and her colleagues report online Dec. 22 in PLoS ONE.

Gone are any hopes that viral diseases in honeybees will stay in honeybees, she says. "Movement of any managed pollinator may introduce viruses."

A pattern showed up in the survey that fits that unpleasant scenario. Researchers tested for five viruses in pollinating insects and in their pollen hauls near apiaries in Pennsylvania, New York and Illinois. Israeli acute parasitic virus showed up in wild pollinators near honeybee installations carrying the disease but not near apiaries without the virus.

Sun

Forecasters Keep Eye on Looming 'Solar Max'

Solar erruption
© AFPA NASA image of an eruption on the Sun.
The coming year will be an important one for space weather as the Sun pulls out of a trough of low activity and heads into a long-awaited and possibly destructive period of turbulence.

Many people may be surprised to learn that the Sun, rather than burn with faultless consistency, goes through moments of calm and tempest.

But two centuries of observing sunspots -- dark, relatively cool marks on the solar face linked to mighty magnetic forces -- have revealed that our star follows a roughly 11-year cycle of behaviour.

The latest cycle began in 1996 and for reasons which are unclear has taken longer than expected to end.

Now, though, there are more and more signs that the Sun is shaking off its torpor and building towards "Solar Max," or the cycle's climax, say experts.

Igloo

Berlin Sees Most Snow in December Since 1900s

German capital Berlin has experienced more snow this month than any other December of past 110 years, as more bitter cold is expected in the country's east, the German Weather Service (DWD) said Tuesday.

Berlin and the surrounding state of Brandenburg have never seen such a thick snow in December for more than a century, as some places received 40 centimeters of snow since Dec. 1, the weather agency said.

Cloud Lightning

More Rain, Possible Mudslides for Los Angeles, San Diego Areas

LA rain chart
© accuweather
Rain spreading over Los Angeles and San Diego today could trigger new mudslides and flooding problems as many residents are still cleaning up from last week's barrage of storms.

The rain will continue to spread from northwest to southeast across Southern California this morning, falling heavily at times.

People

Passenger Outrage Rises as Winter Storm Snarls U.S. Travel

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© Jin Lee/Bloomberg
Anger mounted among passengers stranded on airport tarmacs and in terminals as flight delays threatened to stretch into the weekend following the worst December snowstorm to hit New York City in six decades.

As many as 1.2 million airline customers may have been affected by almost 8,200 flight cancellations as the storm that hit three days ago closed major airports. Passengers were forced to try to make new plans, sometimes without being able to reach airlines by phone or online for help.

"There's a haphazard strategy to how airlines address these issues," said Brandon Macsata, executive director of the Association for Airline Passenger Rights. "That's why passengers get so angry. It's not about the weather. It's about how airlines communicate after weather occurs."

The disruptions affected the nation's largest and most- congested air travel market during one of the busiest times of the year. With planes already flying at their fullest since World War II, carriers were struggling to find empty seats to rebook travelers.

Igloo

Best of the Web: Ice Age Now! Damaged Gulf Stream affects Jet Stream - Lord Stirling

Lord Stirling gives the definitive low-down on how the Gulf Oil tragedy has affected the weather worldwide, the Jet stream 5 to 7 miles above the Sea is driven by the waters (the Gulf Stream) below, this has caused (or exacerbated) freak weather in Russia, and South and North America.

The outlook is not good, with the possibility of cold soil lasting until May or June instead of Jan or Feb, crop failures can be expected. In short, we are at the front edge of an oncoming Ice-age.

Thank the hubris and unfettered greed of the corporate and government psychopaths. The death knell for a large part of life on earth has sounded.


Umbrella

Australians evacuate flood-hit Queensland towns

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© Reuters
Flooding in north-eastern Australia has forced residents to evacuate towns and closed down more than 300 roads.

In one town, Theodore, 300 residents are being flown out by a fleet of helicopters after floodwaters swamped buildings.

The floods have caused hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage to sunflower and cotton crops.

The state government of Queensland has declared several areas disaster zones.

The state capital, Brisbane, has recorded its wettest December in more than 150 years. Cyclone Tasha, which hit Queensland on Saturday, also brought torrential rain to the state.

Bizarro Earth

Vanuatu - Earthquake Magnitude 6.6

Vanuatu Quake_291210
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 06:54:21 UTC

Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 05:54:21 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
19.682°S, 168.175°E

Depth:
31 km (19.3 miles)

Region:
VANUATU

Distances:
115 km (70 miles) W of Isangel, Tanna, Vanuatu

210 km (130 miles) N of Tadine, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia

215 km (135 miles) S of PORT-VILA, Efate, Vanuatu

1770 km (1100 miles) ENE of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia

Sun

2010 - Where Does it Fit in the Warmest Year List?

burning earth
© stock photo/spekulator
1934 has long been considered the warmest year of the past century. A decade ago, the closest challenger appeared to be 1998, a super-el nino year, but it trailed 1934 by 0.54°C (0.97°F). Since then, NASA GISS has "adjusted" the U.S. data for 1934 downward and 1998 upward (see December 25, 2010 post by Ira Glickstein) in an attempt to make 1998 warmer than 1934 and seemingly erased the original rather large lead of 1934 over 1998. The last phases of the strong 2009-2010 el nino in early 2010 made this year another possible contender for the warmest year of the century. However, December 2010 has been one of the coldest Decembers in a century in many parts of the world, so 2010 probably won't be warmer than 1998. But does it really matter? Regardless of which year wins the temperature adjustment battle, how significant will that be? To answer that question, we need to look at a much longer time frame‒centuries and millennia.

One of the best ways to look at long-term temperatures is with isotope data from the GISP2 Greenland ice core, from which temperatures for thousands of years can be determined. The ice core isotope data were obtained by Minze Stuiver and Peter Grootes from nuclear accelerator measurements of thousands of oxygen isotope ratios (16O/18O), which are a measure of paleo-temperatures at the time snow fell that was later converted to glacial ice. The age of such temperatures can be accurately measured from annual layers of accumulation of rock debris marking each summer's melting of ice and concentration of rock debris on the glacier.