Earth ChangesS


Snowflake Cold

70% crop losses due to extreme weather in Australia

Jess Davis
ABC Australia
Tue, 06 Feb 2018 02:21 UTC
crop losses NSW
© ABC Rural: Jess DavisTo the naked eye this wheat crop looks good, but inside are damaged grains.
It was always going to be a big ask for the nation's grain crop to reach last year's record breaker, but extreme weather events across the country have guaranteed the harvest is well down on last year.

Some grain-growing regions have even reported a drop of more than 70 per cent on last year's harvest.

In the north of the country grain farmers battled extreme dry, in NSW and Victoria a late frost and record rains damaged crops, and WA made a comeback late in the season with much-needed rain.

Dry winter impacts yields

For Matthew Dart who farms at Merriwagga in southern NSW it's a harvest he was happy to see the back of.

"It was one of those years where any mistake in any given sequence you were penalised so heavily," he said.

Comment: Weather patterns are out of sync, in particular global temperatures are plummeting, and as a consequence we're seeing devastating crop losses all over the world:

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Windsock

Dust storm from the Sahara turns southern Russia yellow


The Moscow Times
Fri, 23 Mar 2018 19:20 UTC
dust storm
Dust from the African Sahara has swept over southern Russia, turning the streets and mountain slopes of Krasnodar region a hazy yellow color.

Andrei Bondar, the head of the regional weather center, said the sandstorms that originated in North Africa and passed through Crete on the Mediterranean posed no health hazards.

"The dust particles condensed in the atmosphere and a colored rain fell," Interfax quoted Andrei Bondar as saying.

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Snowflake

Adapt 2030 Ice Age Report: Saharan dust cloaks Crete skies, record snow in Algeria and Cyclone in France


Adapt 2030
Fri, 23 Mar 2018 17:55 UTC
dust storm
Massive Saharan dust cloud covers Crete, other areas along eastern Med including Cyprus and Turkey will be in the path tomorrow. Romania blizzard and the dust from Africa will collide over the Black Sea area in what is sure to be a once in a lifetime display of nature. Cyclone Hugo set to make landfall in Bay of Biscay France, Record snow in Algeria, and Spain such heavy snow dump that the Port of Montenegro is closed due to snow on the road. Welcome to the new Grand Solar Minimum !


Sources
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Snowflake

Adapt 2030 Ice Age Report: Super rare March snow for North Africa, southern Spain and French beaches


Adapt 2030
Thu, 22 Mar 2018 17:41 UTC
snow Algeria
© TSA
European Superfreeze 2.0 brings snow on French Beaches, Record snow in Spain and what can only be considered super extra double unusual snow in Algeria during March. Dust storms with density of sand in the air that can only be described as a "Sand Blaster in the Atmosphere" and massive 1 KG / 2LB+ hail in the USA. The intensification of the Grand Solar Minimum has hit its step forward. You are on your own, you need to prepare.


Sources
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Arrow Down

Major road blocked after large sinkhole appears on seafront in Devon, England

Rom Preston-Ellis
The Herald
Thu, 22 Mar 2018 13:19 UTC
Torquay sinkhole
© Tina CrowsonThe huge hole on Torquay seafront.
The main road between Torquay and Paignton has been closed after a large hole appeared in the pavement.

Torbay Council has described it as a 'major incident' with a 75-metre cordon in place on Torbay Road.

The road is blocked outside the Livermead House Hotel.

Temporary traffic lights are in place and they will remain for some time while emergency works are completed.
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Snowflake

It's official: New York City hasn't witnessed snow like this in 130 years

Harry Enten
CNN
Thu, 22 Mar 2018 16:03 UTC
NYC hasn't seen snow like this in 130 years
NYC hasn't seen snow like this in 130 years
The snow has been falling all day in New York City.

For most New Yorkers, the snow was probably a drag. For a record seeker like myself, this late season snow storm allowed me to catch my snow white whale.

This marks the fifth consecutive season that at least 30 inches of snow have fallen in New York City. The only other recorded time it snowed this much, for this long a period, was back in the 1880s (records begin in the 1869-1870 season). That five-year stretch occurred mostly during the presidential administration of Chester A. Arthur, another president who made a name for himself in New York.

As of 8 p.m., 6.7 inches of snow had fallen in Central Park in Manhattan, the official measurement site for snow in Manhattan. More snow has fallen since then, but that alone put New York over 30 inches of snow for the season. Before the storm, New York City had only 27 inches of snow recorded for the season.
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Snowflake

Almost 16 feet of snow falls in 18 days across California's Sierra Nevada

Chris Dolce
The Weather Channel
Mon, 19 Mar 2018 15:47 UTC
Nearly 16 Feet of Snow Fell in California's Sierra Nevada in 18 Days
Nearly 16 Feet of Snow Fell in California's Sierra Nevada in 18 Days
A series of storms have been a boon for California's Sierra Nevada where nearly 16 feet of snow has piled up in March, more than double the paltry seasonal total before the month began.

Through the end of February, the Lake Tahoe ski resort Alpine Meadows had received just 147 inches of snow this season at an elevation of 8,000 feet. Since then, 191 inches of snow, or nearly 16 feet, has fallen in just 18 days.

The seasonal total at the resort is now up to 338 inches. That's still a far cry from the more than 600 inches recorded there through mid-March last year, but above the 2014-15 and 2013-14 winters when less than 300 inches was tallied up.
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Water

New research shows that Pacific 'garbage patch' is even worse than feared

Thomas Moore
SKY News
Fri, 23 Mar 2018 15:15 UTC
Plastic samples collected during an expedition in 2015. Plastic samples collected during an expedition in 2015.
© The Ocean CleanupPlastic samples collected during an expedition in 2015.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch - the largest accumulation of ocean plastic on the planet - contains even more debris than scientists had feared, according to new research.

The most comprehensive survey of the area, which lies midway between California and Hawaii, shows there are 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic weighing a total of 80,000 tonnes.

That is between four and 16 times more than had been previously estimated.

Scientists working for The Ocean Cleanup Foundation and six universities simultaneously dragged sieve-like nets hundreds of miles across the ocean surface, collecting 1.2 million plastic samples.

Comment: For details about another recent investigation concerning this worrisome problem, see: Future of the Sea report: Ocean plastic projected to triple within seven years

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Bizarro Earth

Loud house-rattling explosions heard in New Jersey, Pennsylvania

Dan Alexander
New Jersey 101.5
Mon, 19 Mar 2018 14:03 UTC
Loud booms in NJ and PA
© Dino Flammia, Townsquare Media NJDelaware River
What caused explosions to be heard all over northwest New Jersey on Sunday night?

The explosions were heard around Warren County and across the river in Northhampton County in Pennsylvania along the Delaware River near the Water Gap around 7:30 p.m.

According to the Upper Mount Bethel Township Facebook page, they were "so strong they shook houses throughout the township and were observed as far away as Allamuchy, NJ."

Portland Pennsylvania Mayor Lance Prator told New Jersey 101.5 the three explosions were "pretty loud but no one really seems to know where they are."

An earlier Facebook post by Prator's municipality had said that according to "reports" the explosion was the result of three controlled explosions at a gun range in Upper Mount Bethel, but the name of the gun range was not disclosed.
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Recycle

Future of the Sea report: Ocean plastic projected to triple within seven years

Lorraine Chow
Ecowatch
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 12:29 UTC
plastic
© NOAA Marine Debris Program / FlickrMarine debris laden beach in Hawaii.
If we don't act now, plastic pollution in the world's oceans is projected to increase three-fold within seven years, according to a startling new report.

The Future of the Sea report, released Wednesday for the UK government, found that human beings across the globe produce more than 300 million metric tons of plastic per year. Unfortunately, a lot of that material ends up in our waters, with the total amount of plastic debris in the sea predicted to increase from 50 million metric tons in 2015 to 150 million metric tons by 2025.

Roughly 70 percent of all marine litter is plastic, and the effect of this non-biodegradable waste can be devastating for marine biodiversity.

Comment: Most of us are simply unaware.... that our ocean is being used as a trash can!

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