Earth ChangesS


Attention

Beached pygmy sperm whale dies at Point Reyes, California

Hamed Aleaziz and Kurtis Alexander
San Francisco Chronicle
Fri, 09 Jan 2015 20:31 UTC
Image
© Ramin Rahimian / The ChronicleCara Field, a staff vet, with The Marine Mammal Center takes a blood sample from a dead male pygmy sperm whale
A beached whale, believed to be a pygmy sperm whale, ran ashore in Point Reyes National Seashore this week.

When Emily Klion and her three friends came upon the large, dying animal tossing in the surf at Point Reyes, they weren't sure what it was.

"People we saw said it was a dolphin. I thought it was a shark, though, because of the teeth," said Klion of Berkeley, who visited the isolated beach near Abbots Lagoon on Thursday while hiking at Point Reyes National Seashore.

"When we looked at it closer, it had a blowhole, so then we figured out it was a whale."

Scientists at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito confirmed Friday, after waiting for daybreak to hike to the beach, that the ailing critter was indeed a young, rarely sighted pygmy sperm whale.

It's a species of toothed whale that doesn't often show itself to humans, preferring to hunt octopus, shrimp and small fish in the very deep sea.
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Airplane

250mph jet stream blasts plane across the Atlantic in record time

Rob Crilly
The Telegraph, UK
Sat, 10 Jan 2015 19:12 UTC
Image
© Alamy
The Boeing 777-200 jet reached a ground speed of 745mph as it rode winds of more than 200mph across the Atlantic
Boeing 777 reported at speeds of up to 745mph as it flies from New York to Heathrow in just 5 hours 16 minutes

Concorde may have been retired but a British Airways passenger jet approached supersonic speed this week as it rode a surging jet stream from New York to London.

The Boeing 777-200 jet reached a ground speed of 745mph as it rode winds of more than 200mph across the Atlantic. At ground level, the speed of sound is 761mph.

The happy result was a flight time of just five hours and 16 minutes for BA114, which arrived an hour and half before schedule, according to the tracking website, FlightAware.

Dozens of other flights also benefited from the jet stream's winter surge, but those same windshave also triggered severe storms across Britain.

Pilots have long used jet streams - which flow across the globe from west to east - to cut journey times and save fuel.
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Cloud Precipitation

Flooding hits Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique

Richard Davies
floodlist.com
Fri, 09 Jan 2015 18:29 UTC
Image
Heavy rainfall in parts of south east Africa over the last 2 weeks has resulted in flooding in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique.

As reported earlier this week, as many as 10 people have died in flooding in Zimbabwe. According to media reports, 6 people have been killed in Malawi and as many as 9 people have died as a result of recent severe weather in Mozambique. Heavy rainfall has also been reported in Madagascar and Zambia although no flooding has as yet been reported.

Change in Monsoon - Rainfall 150% higher than normal

According to a report (pdf) on Africa Hazards Outlook by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, the heavy rainfall is a result of a change of the southern Africa Monsoon. The report says:
"Since late December, the character of the southern Africa monsoon has shifted considerably, as several regions of southeastern Africa continue to experience a significant increase in rains and available ground moisture. This increase has helped both alleviate and completely offset seasonal moisture deficits associated with a poor/delayed start of the monsoon during November and December."
The report goes on to say that areas of south east Africa have seen rainfall amounts 150% higher than normal.
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Ambulance

Deadly 115-vehicle pileup on I-94 near Battle Creek, MI; evacuation orders issued


woodtv.com
Fri, 09 Jan 2015 01:21 UTC

Both directions of I-94 are closed west of Battle Creek and a shelter-in-place order is in effect due to two pileups including as many as 115 vehicles and one fatality, according to Michigan State Police Lt. Rick Pazder.

Michigan State Police currently have a one-mile radius shelter-in-place order from I-94 at the 90 mile marker, which is located near 44th Street in Charleston Township, as authorities believe all hazardous materials have burned off in a fire. A three-mile radius evacuation order that centered on the same location has been lifted.

Both directions of I-94 were shut down shortly after 10 a.m. between the Galesburg and Climax exits (exits 88 and 92) after pileups occurred in both the eastbound and westbound lanes.

Comment: Winter has only just begun. If you have to go out in inclement weather, do be careful. Make sure you're dressed appropriately, have a full tank of gas, bring a charged phone (if you own one), and let someone know where you're going and the route you'll be taking. These winter storms and below freezing temperatures are not to be ignored.

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Igloo

Snow blankets the Middle East from Turkey to Israel


The Weather Network
Wed, 07 Jan 2015 18:37 UTC
snowman Syria
© AP PhotoChildren make a snowman in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015.
The Middle East looked more like central Canada Wednesday as a rare winter storm covered an area from Turkey to Israel with snow and falling temperatures. But for residents in the affected areas, the past few winters have brought snow, despite previously going decades without seeing it at all.
Snow in the Middle East. Lebanon for sure -- perhaps on Sinai peninsula. pic.twitter.com/opXMsrOiT4

- Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) January 7, 2015
However, the area is not typically prepared for winter weather, and the result travel and transportation in the region has been brought to a crawl.

Comment: Temperatures reported in 14 U.S. states - from Washington to Maine - were colder than Mars

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Igloo

Temperatures reported in 14 U.S. states - from Washington to Maine - were colder than Mars


Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 09 Jan 2015 10:06 UTC
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It's officially colder than Mars: NASA recorded a daytime high of 17.6 F on Mars today, which was warmer than many parts of the Midwest and Northeast. Above, a postal service worker braves the cold in Rockford, Illinois where the high was 18 F.
Time to stop remarking about how unearthly cold it is outside because on Thursday, Mars was actually warmer than many parts of the U.S. The daytime high in the red planet's Gale Crater, as recorded by NASA's Curiosity Rover, was 17.6 degrees F - a whopping 11 degrees warmer than the 6-degree high in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Temperatures in fourteen states from Washington to Maine reported temperatures colder than Mars, as a brutal blast of Arctic air sweeps the country. Mars just recently passed its closest orbit to the sun, which partially explains why the temperature was relatively balmy. The Gale Crater is also located in one of the warmest parts of the planet, near the equator.

It's officially colder than Mars: NASA recorded a daytime high of 17.6 F on Mars today, which was warmer than many parts of the Midwest and Northeast. Above, a postal service worker braves the cold in Rockford, Illinois where the high was 18 F.

Comment:
"Studies reveal that ice ages are probably preceded by periods of freak weather patterns (check) hot spots and cold spots (check) torrential, localized rains and flooding (check) increased comet dust in the atmosphere (check), increased volcanism (check) a series of particularly cold and harsh winters (check) interspersed with localized heat-waves and drought (check); and then, finally, the watershed winter comes when the increased heating from within the planet itself (evidenced by the increasing volcanism) and its concomitant increased evaporation of the seas, combines with the cooled and lowered upper atmosphere, and the snow begins to fall and fall... and fall... and fall. Convert the extraordinary rains that have fallen in parts of the upper northern hemisphere in the past few years to snow volumes, and you can easily see that entire regions could be quickly buried under many meters of snow that, assuming that the albedo effect does not rapidly take over and prevent the snow from melting, by the time it did melt, multiplied millions of living things - including people - would have perished, buried along with the pathological leaders they have erroneously believed had their best interests at heart."

The Global Situation Has Taken a Turn For the Worse: Recovery Unlikely
See also: A Different Kind of Catastrophe - Something Wicked This Way Comes

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Blue Planet

Learning from climate change's instructive past

George Will
Japan Times
Fri, 09 Jan 2015 13:49 UTC
climate summit cartoon
We know, because they often say so, that those who think catastrophic global warming is probable and perhaps imminent are exemplary empiricists. They say those who disagree with them are "climate change deniers" disrespectful of science.

Actually, however, something about which everyone can agree is that of course the climate is changing - it always is. And if climate Cassandras are as conscientious as they claim to be about weighing evidence, how do they accommodate historical evidence of enormously consequential episodes of climate change not produced by human activity? Before wagering vast wealth and curtailments of liberty on correcting the climate, two recent books should be considered.

In "The Third Horseman: Climate Change and the Great Famine of the 14th Century," William Rosen explains how Europe's "most widespread and destructive famine" was the result of "an almost incomprehensibly complicated mixture of climate, commerce, and conflict, four centuries in gestation." Early in that century, 10 percent of the population from the Atlantic to the Urals died, partly because of the effect of climate change on "the incredible amalgam of molecules that comprises a few inches of soil that produces the world's food."
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Eye 2

Dog rescued from pool filled with snakes in South Africa

Erin Hanekom
Southlands Sun
Fri, 09 Jan 2015 20:29 UTC
Image
© Southlands Sun. A picture of the trapped dog in a pool with snakes.
A local snake wrangler rescued a dog from a pool with bush snakes in it.

Trapped in a pool with snakes, a frightened dog was rescued on the Bluff Friday, morning, 9 January by local snake wrangler, Shaun Venter.

Venter, whose main focus is the retrieval of snakes, was alerted to a dog in distress in Brighton Road. The dog was trapped in a pool, with shallow water and bush snakes.

With the assistance of a neighbour and friend, Debbie Andre, Venter approached the stricken animal. "We could see she was very aggressive, but that was all due to being frightened because of her ordeal. With snakes swimming around in the pool and the neighbour trying to keep them away from this girl, only one thing was important - getting her out," said Venter.
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Arrow Down

Huge sinkhole swallows lorry in Nanning, China

Gareth Roberts
Daily Mirror, UK
Fri, 09 Jan 2015 19:52 UTC
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© CENThe lorry will have taken some shifting after plunging into a sinkhole in China
Driver Li Hung had to quickly open his door and scramble to safety as the lorry was dragged back into the cavernous expanse

This is the incredible moment a yawning hole opened up and swallowed a truck.

Chinese driver Li Hung lived up to his name when he found himself hanging over the edge of a huge sinkhole that had opened up behind his lorry.

Li, 35, had been driving back to work in Nanning City, China, when he started to feel his vehicle slipping backwards.

He said: "It almost felt as if I hadn't put the brake on and I had started to roll downhill, but I had my foot on the brake and I realise that I was tipping back not because I was moving, but because of the sinking."

He told local TV he opened the door and jumped out just as the lorry disappeared into the huge hole.
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Cloud Precipitation

South Australia prepares for flooding: 15 times their monthly rainfall

Helen Davidson
The Guardian
Fri, 09 Jan 2015 18:44 UTC
Image
© Parks Australia Rain running off Uluru in the Northern Territory, Australia.
South Australian towns have been told to expect up to 15 times their monthly rainfall in the coming days, and there are severe weather warnings in place for several states and territories.

In Alice Springs, Northern Territory emergency services have found a body after a search for a 24-year-old man who was swept away while tubing in the swollen Todd River on Thursday.

Police told Guardian Australia they have not confirmed the identity of the man found or spoken with next of kin yet.

The Todd began flowing on Thursday for the first time since April after heavy rains dumped more than 100mm in its catchment area. The shallow river bed is generally dry for most, if not all, of the year.

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