Earth ChangesS


Windsock

Hurricane-force wind storm sweeps through Swiss Alps

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© Switzerland TourismTitlis mountain lift — closed for maintenance.
Hurricane-force winds swept through the Swiss Alps early on Tuesday registering as high as 187 kilometres per hour in the canton of Obwalden, weather services reported.

This wind speed was recorded at Titlis, a 3,238-metre mountain in the Uri Alps, Meteo Group and SRF Meteo said in news releases.

The high winds are due to a Foehn storm that began battering higher elevations late on Monday.

There were no reports of substantial damage.

Titlis is home to Europe's highest suspension bridge, a 500-metre-long foot bridge at 3,041 metres above sea level, 500 metres above the ground.

Cloud Precipitation

Tuscany residents saved as flooding hits Italy

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© Giovanna MezzanaCivil protection agencies warned Carrara residents to avoid driving and stay on high ground if possible.
UPDATED: Two residents in Tuscany have been found after being reported missing in floods, while five others have been airlifted to safety, according to Italian media reports.

The two missing people were saved by rescuers in Carrara, the town's prefect and Mayor Mayor Angelo Zubbani told Il Tirreno. The news corrects an earlier report that one of the two people had died.

Both had been living close to a sawmill on the edge of the Carrione river, which burst its banks following hours of torrential rain.


Cow Skull

NASA issues stark warning: California drought could threaten U.S. food supply

drought
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has sounded a stark warning over California's sustained drought, publishing its latest findings where satellite surveys show a rapidly depleting groundwater supply.

And with California as the United States' most valuable agricultural state, and thus key to America's food supply (and much of the world's as well) that could mean drastic consequences for food commodity prices and potential shortages.

The Nature Climate Change journal carried the report, which Think Progress summarized:
A new Nature Climate Change piece, "The global groundwater crisis," by James Famiglietti, a leading hydrologist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, warns that "most of the major aquifers in the world's arid and semi-arid zones, that is, in the dry parts of the world that rely most heavily on groundwater, are experiencing rapid rates of groundwater depletion."

The groundwater at some of the world's largest aquifers - in the U.S. High Plains, California's Central Valley, China, India, and elsewhere - is being pumped out "at far greater rates than it can be naturally replenished."

The most worrisome fact: "nearly all of these underlie the word's great agricultural regions and are primarily responsible for their high productivity."

Comment: Water is perhaps the single most critical factor to sustaining human life, and no part of any economy can function without it. Water is an essential human right, and attempts to privatize water sources are fundamentally wrong. It is completely irresponsible that no restraints have been put on corporations to keep them from sucking the water from communities and agricultural regions, but it is also unsurprising, as in this psychopathically controlled world, profits trump everything.

Flow: How privatization is accelerating the world's water crisis
Water industry, World Bank pilot new scheme to drive public water into private hands
Coca-Cola and Nestle are sucking us dry without our even knowing, effectively privatizing water supplies


Cloud Precipitation

3 killed and 60 injured following flooding in Jordan and Israel

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© Majd Shweikeh
Local media in Jordan have said that at least 3 people have died in flooding affecting the north west of the country. Two people died in Amman after being trapped in a flooded basement. A further victim died in Irbid after she was swept away by flood water outside her home.

Jordan's Civil Defence Department (CDD) say that at least 54 people were injured in separate incidents after they were trapped by flood water in areas around Wadi Karja, Zarka Maein and Wadi Al Hamra.

Magnify

Geologists reveal earthquakes, not climate change, affect the rate of landslides in Peru

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© Syracuse UniversityDevin McPhillips is a research associate in the Department of Earth Sciences.
A geologist in Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences has demonstrated that earthquakes - not climate change, as previously thought - affect the rate of landslides in Peru.

The finding is the subject of an article in Nature Geoscience by Devin McPhillips, a research associate in the Department of Earth Sciences. He co-wrote the article with Paul Bierman, professor of geology at The University of Vermont; and Dylan Rood, a lecturer at Imperial College London (U.K.).

"Geologic records of landslide activity offer rare glimpses into landscapes evolving under the influence of tectonics and climate," says McPhillips, whose expertise includes geomorphology and tectonics. "Because deposits from individual landslides are unlikely to be preserved, it's difficult to reconstruct landslide activity in the geologic past. Therefore, we've developed a method that measures landslide activity before and after the last glacial-interglacial climate transition in Peru."

McPhillips and his team have spent the past several years in the Western Andes Mountains, studying cobbles in the Quebrada Veladera river channel and in an adjacent fill terrace. By measuring the amount of a nuclide known as Beryllium-10 (Be-10) in each area's cobble population, they've been able to calculate erosion rates over tens of thousands of years.

Cloud Precipitation

Buenos Aires flooding update: 3 dead and over 5,000 evacuated, 5 inches of rain in 24 hours

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In a Government House press conference earlier today, Argentina Cabinet Chief, Jorge Capitanich, said that the heavy rainfall and flooding that struck in the Province of Buenos Aires last Saturday has now affected 19 municipalities and forced 5,203 people to evacuate from their homes.

He said that the districts affected were Luján, Marcos Paz, La Matanza, Bragado, Arrecifes, Pilar, Mercedes, San Miguel, Esteban Echeverría, Ensenada, Carmen de Areco, San Martín, Lomas de Zamora, Moreno, San Fernando, Tigre, Quilmes, Salto and Baradero. Currently there is no available information for flood damage in Berisso, Malvinas Argentinas, Campana and Exaltación de la Cruz. The floods first began on 30 October 2014, forcing over 1,000 from their homes.


Whistle

Weather Channel co-founder: 'Hello, everybody! Global warming is a whole lot of baloney'

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John Coleman
The idea that there is significant man-made global warming is "a whole lot of baloney," Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman insisted on CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday morning.

"The government only gives money to scientists who will present their hypothesis," said Coleman, a meteorologist who helped found The Weather Channel 32 years ago. "They don't have any choice; if you are going to get the money, you have to present their position. Those are the ones the government pays for. That doesn't make it right, that only means it's bought and paid for."

But Coleman, who debunked climate change in a letter to UCLA last month, told show host Brian Stelter Sunday that he resented him introducing him as a climate change "denier."

"That is a word meant to put me down," he told him. "I'm a skeptic about climate change, and I want to make it darned clear that [Weather Channel CEO David] Kenny is not a scientist, I am."

Comment: Coleman was a member of the American Meteorological Society. He says he left the organization after he disagreed with its stance on global warming and climate change. He went on to call global warming, "the greatest scam in history".


Health

Butan man survives bear attack

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A 24-year-old man from Khelakha, below Nobdhing in Wangdue is recovering at the Bajo hospital after he survived a bear attacked on November 1.

The victim, Lobzang, said the bear attacked him when he was on his way to the irrigation water source along with two friends and three small dogs when the bear attacked at around 11am on Saturday.

"I was walking ahead. A big black bear came in front of me and suddenly attacked me," he said. "I managed to take out the knife and hit it once but it couldn't do much harm and the bear wrestled me to the ground."

Attention

Sloth bear attacks and injures two in Korba, India

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The Sloth Bear (Melursus ursinus)
Two persons were injured after a sloth bear attacked them at Korkoma region in Korba district on Saturday evening.

Kurkuma village is located about 25km from Korba city which witnesses frequent instances of human-animal conflict involving both elephants and bears.

The incident took place when Rajkumar Manjwar and Man Singh went into nearby forest for grazing their cow and a sloth bear along with its cub attacked the herd and the duo. Man Singh and Manjhwar were injured but they managed to flee.

Bizarro Earth

Turrialba Volcano in Costa Rica shaken by violent eruption, ash reaches province of Limón

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© The Tico TimesA site near the Turrialba Volcano’s crater.

Among the observations by volcanologists conducting weekend inspections in the area around Costa Rica's Turrialba Volcano were craters in the earth measuring up to one meter in diameter - the result of rocks shooting out from the volcano.

Experts from the National Seismological Network (RSN) and the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica (OVSICORI) conducted the inspections in light of significant activity at the volcano that started last week.

RSN volcanologist Gino González Ilama said the areas of impact are located on the south side of the volcano and cover 80 percent of the slope up to 400 meters from the volcano's crater.

"We observed the impact of volcanic rock that had caused several craters on the ground. We believe the rocks were shot out of the volcano at speeds greater than 100 kilometers per hour, and this proves there is strong activity inside," González said.