Earth ChangesS


Binoculars

Are Tornadoes Increasing?

Robert Lamb
Discovery News
Tue, 28 Sep 2010 12:47 UTC
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© NOAA
Few sights on Earth are as awe-inspiring (or terrifying) as that of a tornado spindling down from a storm-choked sky. So we feed our obsession. We flood the Internet with twister footage and headlines about peculiar vortices and rampaging storms.

It all leads to an inevitable question: Is tornadic activity increasing?

"There's no evidence that it is," says Joshua Wurman, president of the Center for Severe Weather Research. "If you look at the frequency of tornado reports in the U.S., they're going up every decade, but there's pretty good evidence that it's due to improved reporting efficiency."

Scientists call this a reporting effect, meaning that reports of a phenomenon increase but actual occurrences do not. Yes, it might seem like more trees are falling in the forest, but it's only because more people are there to hear them.
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Binoculars

Northern Lights Becoming Rarer, Researchers Warn


The Telegraph, UK
Tue, 28 Sep 2010 12:25 UTC
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© NNPThe spectacular sight of the Northern Lights is becoming less frequent
The Northern Lights have petered out during the second half of the decade, becoming rarer than at any other time in more than a century, according to meteorologists.

The Aurora Borealis generally follows an 11-year "solar cycle" in which the frequency of the phenomena rises to a maximum and then tapers off into a minimum and then repeats the cycle.

According to researched at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, however, the solar minimum was officially in 2008, but has been "going on and on and on".

Noora Partamies, a researcher, said: "Only in the past half a year have we seen more activity, but we don't really know whether we're coming out of this minimum."

The Northern Lights, a blaze of colored patterns in the northern skies, are triggered by solar winds crashing into the earth and being drawn to the magnetic poles, wreaking havoc on electrons in the parts of the atmosphere known as the ionosphere and magnetosphere.
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Bizarro Earth

Drenched Mexico Hillside Collapses; At Least 7 Die

Ixtli Martinez
The Associated Press
Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:06 UTC
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© AP Photo
Oaxaca, Mexico - A hillside collapsed on hundreds of sleeping residents Tuesday in a rural Mexican community drenched for days by two major storms, killing at least seven and leaving at least 100 missing, disaster officials said.

The death toll could rise much higher in Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec, a town about 130 miles (220 kilometers) southeast of Mexico City. Oaxaca state Civil Protection operations coordinator Luis Marin said 100 people were confirmed missing, but Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz told the Televisa television network 500 to 1,000 people could be buried.

At least 100 homes were buried, and residents who made it out have had no success in digging out their neighbors, said Donato Vargas, an official in Santa Maria de Tlahuitoltepec reached by a satellite telephone.

"We have been using a backhoe but there is a lot of mud. We can't even see the homes, we can't hear shouts, we can't hear anything," he said.
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Bizarro Earth

Hundreds Feared Dead After Landslide Buries Mexico Town


MSNBC
Tue, 28 Sep 2010 10:39 UTC
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© European Press Agency A landslide in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico. Reports suggest up to 1,000 people may have died in the remote area of south-western Mexico
'We can't even see the homes,' survivor says; 8,000 people impacted, more slides feared

Hundreds of people were buried in their homes early Tuesday after a rain-soaked mountainside gave way in southwestern Mexico, officials said.

Donato Vargas, an official in Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec reached by phone, said 500 people were missing and that 300 homes were buried after the slide around 4 a.m. local time.

"We were all sleeping and all I heard was a loud noise and when I left the house I saw that the hill had fallen," Vargas said.

"It has been difficult informing authorities because the roads are very bad and there isn't a good signal for our phone," Vargas said shortly before the call dropped.

Reached by the news agency AFP, Vargas added that "we fear that those missing are buried inside their homes because we've already searched nearby areas."
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Cloud Lightning

Colombian Officials Put Mudslide Death Toll at 30


The Associated Press
Tue, 28 Sep 2010 11:40 UTC

Bogota - Colombian rescue officials say it will take at least a week to unearth about 30 people who were buried by a landslide as they changed from one bus to another because a mountain road was blocked.

Regional disaster agency chief John Freddy Rendon says he doesn't expect any survivors from Monday's landslide between the towns of Giraldo and Canasgordas northwest of Bogota.
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Igloo

First Snowmen of the Season Spotted as Surprise Cold Snap Sweeps Across Britain


The Daily Mail
Tue, 28 Sep 2010 04:26 UTC
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© UnknownThe Scottish Cairngorm hills have seen their first Winter snow in September
Britain has received its first autumn snowfalls for the year as a surprise cold snap sent millions reaching for the central heating controls this weekend.

Summer made a particularly swift exit from the Highlands as the first sprinklings of snow paid an early visit to the north of Scotland.

The last time Britain saw a September cold snap as severe as this current one was in 2003, when much of northern England was below freezing.

Two Scottish weather stations recorded record lows: Tulloch Bridge recorded a temperature of -4.2°C, and Tyndrum -4.4°C - the coldest temperatures recorded since the two stations opened in 1982 and 1990 respectively.

For the people of the Cairngorms particularly, it was a wintry end to September.

Snow fell on the Scottish mountain range overnight, and hill-walkers had to wear their winter woolies and specialist equipment as they enjoyed blue, sun-filled skies with slippery conditions underfoot.

As usual it was the children who took best advantage with some of the earliest snowmen ever built on the Cairngorms.
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Bizarro Earth

California Heat Wave Gives Downtown Los Angeles an All-Time Record High of 113 Degrees

John Antczak
The Associated Press
Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:14 UTC
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© AP Photo/Lori SheplerPeople escape the record heat and enjoy the beach in Huntington Beach, Calif., as a heat wave grips Southern California, Monday, Sept. 27, 2010.
California's blistering fall heat wave sent temperatures to an all-time record high of 113 degrees in downtown Los Angeles on Monday, and many sought refuge at the beach.

Downtown hit 113 degrees for a few minutes at about 12:15 p.m., breaking the old all-time record of 112 degrees set on June 26, 1990, said Stuart Seto, a weather specialist at the National Weather Service office in Oxnard. Temperature records for downtown date to 1877.

Electrical demand was much higher than normal for this time of year but no problems or shortages were expected on the state grid, said Gregg Fishman, spokesman for the California Independent System Operator, which controls about 80 percent of the grid.

"It's manageable. We've got the resources available," he said.
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Bizarro Earth

Stunned Scientists Warn World Could Run Out of Breathable Air

Terrence Aym
Helium
Mon, 27 Sep 2010 18:45 UTC
Professor Ralph Keeling of Scripps Institute is worried. In fact, he's very worried.

According to the data Keeling has meticulously collected since 1989 the world is running out of breathable air - and the rate that it's losing oxygen is now on the verge of accelerating.

Monitoring oxygen levels around the world is Keeling's job. He's very good at his job. And the data confirms that Earth's oxygen supply is dwindling.

Keeling created the famous 'Keeling Curve,' a graph that extrapolates the current trend of the oxygen depletion in the atmosphere.[1] The Cape Grim Observatory chart also depicts the ongoing depletion of breathable oxygen in the atmosphere.[2]

Less oxygen equals less life

A long time ago, the Earth was very rich in oxygen. The air contained such an abundance of the element - close to one-third of the atmosphere was oxygen - that animals and insects grew to gargantuan sizes. For instance, the ancestors of dragonflies once had four foot wingspans.

But now, due to overpopulation by humans, animals - even insect colonies - and deforestation, the oxygen in the air is become a diminishing resource.
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Igloo

SOTT Focus: Bilderbergers Warming To A New Idea?

Joe Quinn
Sott.net
Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:21 UTC
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What's your take on the Bilderbergers? Cabal of megalomaniacal monsters? Or clique of myopic muppets? Whatever your opinion, based on the subjects they claim to tackle at their annual meetings, they clearly believe themselves to be big-time 'movers and shakers' in this world.

This year,as usual, the Presidents and CEOs of major banks and corporations, esteemed academics and politicians, not to mention the foreign ministers of major Western nations (to name but a few) all coagulated in June in Sitges, Spain.

As I scanned the outline of their agenda however, something very strange jumped out of the page at me, something that forced me rub my eyes and do a 'double take' and then to conclude that either this gathering of the 'great and the good' are seriously misinformed, or one of the major points that Sott.net has been pushing over the past few years had just received some official corroboration. See if you can spot it:
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Magnify

Plants: Red Light Regulates Nectar Secretion


PhysOrg
Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:45 UTC
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© Christian Kost/MPI Chemical EcologyAnts of the genus Crematogaster defend a Lima bean plant (Phaseolus lunatus) against an herbivorous insect.
Flowering plants produce nectar to attract insect pollinators. Some plant species, such as Lima bean, also secrete nectar from so-called extrafloral nectaries to attract ants which in turn fend off herbivores.

Scientists of the Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany, have discovered that the production of extrafloral nectar is light dependent. They have shown that the plants are able not only to distinguish between day and night, but also to adapt their nectar secretion to current light conditions by using a special photoreceptor, the phytochrome.

Phytochrome probably influences the regulation of a special enzyme that binds the plant hormone jasmonic acid (JA) to the amino acid isoleucine (Ile). The emerging JA-Ile molecule affects the secretion of extrafloral nectar in such a way that the plant's defense against herbivores is most effective whenever herbivory is most likely - or, more precisely, during the day. (PNAS Early Edition)

Plants have to continuously defend themselves against herbivores to survive and reproduce. They do this directly by producing toxic substances, such as nicotine, or indirectly, by calling their enemies' enemies for help. An example of an indirect defense is the release of volatile substances that attract predatory insects or parasitoids and guide them to their prey; for example, predatory wasps or bugs are led to a caterpillar that is feeding on a plant.
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