Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Cyclone Bingiza to Worsen Mozambique, Madagascar Floods, UN Says

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© NasaTropical Cyclone Bingiza made landfall on Madagascar on February 14, 2011
Tropical cyclone Bingiza could lead to further flooding in Madagascar and Mozambique where heavy rains have left soils saturated and people without homes, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Between 4,000 and 9,600 households, equivalent to as many as 48,000 people, are likely to be affected by flooding in the Zambezi river valley in Mozambique, OCHA, as the organization is known, said in an e-mailed statement today.

Flooding in southern Africa has affected South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola during the last eight weeks. Crop damage in South Africa, the continent's largest economy, could cost the nation more than $282 million after grape farms were submerged, while OCHA estimates that almost 1 percent of Mozambique's crops have been destroyed by rising water.

Cloud Lightning

Propaganda: Studies link heavy rains, floods to global warming

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© Scooterbaby.comRetro-style Global Warming Propaganda
Two scientific studies appearing in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature were the first to directly link warming climate conditions and greenhouse emissions to major flooding and heavy rains.

One study on the Northern Hemisphere showed that the likelihood of extreme precipitation on any day rose about 7 per cent in the last half of the 20th century.

A second study by Myles Allen of the University of Oxford in Britain and his colleagues found that human-caused climate change had nearly doubled the risk of extremely wet weather that caused floods.

Until now, climate scientists have projected that temperature increases would be accompanied by heavy rains, but studies had been unable to lay out such stark connections, the authors of the studies said.

Phoenix

Mysterious lava substance oozes from the ground in India

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© Unknown
In a strange phenomenon, a black chemical substance gushed out from the earth, creating panic in Maddikera village in Kurnool district on Monday. Huge cavities also formed in the three acres of land owned by a farmer, Nagaiah, of Maddikere, about 100 km from Kurnool, soon after the black substance spewed out from beneath the land. Nagaiah said it damaged the soil. The nearby grass caught fire when the black substance spread like lava from a volcano. A cement electric pole in the vicinity collapsed. Nagaiah said he first saw the phenomenon two days ago. Officials rushed to the village to take stock of the strange occurrence. Experts said they would conduct studies to unravel the mystery behind the spewing out of the blackish material from beneath.

- Times of India

People

Residents near Japanese volcano urged to evacuate

Shinmoedake
More than 2,500 people living near a volcano that has been spewing ash in southern Japan were advised to evacuate their homes Thursday after heavy rain threatened mudslides of accumulated ash, a local official said.

Shinmoedake began erupting in late January, in its biggest activity in some 300 years. The volcanic activity has disrupted airline flights and blanketed nearby vegetable farms with ash, but there have been no reports of serious injury or deaths.

The Japan Meteorological Agency expected rainfall of more than 4 mm (0.16 inch) per hour to last until Thursday night, an amount that the local government said could cause mudslides.

The official, in the city of Miyakonojo, said 63 people had moved to evacuation centers by midday.

Cloud Lightning

Australia: Drivers rescued as wild storm brings flash floods in Victoria

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© Supplied A car stuck in floodwaters at Canterbury Rd, Bayswater North.
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© Peter Buchstaller/SuppliedSevere storms have swept through Melbourne, hitting suburbs including Bayswater.
Victorians should brace for more rain and flash flooding after storms lashed the state last night.

Bureau of Meterology forecaster Terry Ryan said our summer deluge will continue well into the weekend, the Herald Sun said.

"There will be more rain today, and possible storms, with the heaviest rain expected in the ranges," Mr Ryan said.

"And we're expecting heavy falls tomorrow night or early Saturday morning."

Mr Ryan said the weekend storms, which could see 50mm rainfalls, could cause significant flash flooding around the state.

Last night, dozens of motorists were rescued by SES volunteers as storms lashed the city and suburbs.

Igloo

Farmers Deposit Seeds in Arctic Doomsday Vault, Patrolled by Polar Bears

Farmers from Australia are the latest donors to a polar bear-patrolled Arctic doomsday vault that stores seeds as insurance against an international food emergency.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a converted mine, is located about 800 miles from the North Pole in Arctic Norway.

An Australian delegation of farmers and scientists next week will deposit 301 samples of peas and 42 rare chickpeas in the vault, intending to protect the plant species from extinction by climatic or man-made events.

Svalbard
© John McConnico, Associated PressAustralian farmers and scientists next week will deposit 301 samples of peas and 42 rare chickpeas in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, shown here in 2008.
"It's a very robust structure, concrete, made into the side of a mountain at Svalbard in the Spitsbergen Highlands in the Arctic," said Dr. Tony Gregson, a farmer and scientist with Plant Health Australia, an agriculture industry body.

According to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault website, the facility's main purpose is "to store duplicates ('back ups') of all seed samples from the world's crop collections. Permafrost and thick rock ensure that, even in the case of a power outage, the seed samples will remain frozen."

Bizarro Earth

Mysterious Fish Deaths Fan Villagers' Fears in Northern Turkey

More Dead Fish
© DHA PhotoResidents of the Black Sea village of Mescitli say pollution may have caused mass fish deaths in Harşit stream.

Sudden and unexplained mass fish deaths in the Black Sea region of Turkey have local residents worried about the safety of their water supply and calling on officials to solve the mystery.

When residents in Mescitli village in Gümüşhane province first observed dead fish in Harşit stream 15 days ago, they thought the fish had died of natural causes, said village head Cenk İnce.

"However, when we realized the number of dead fish had risen, we urgently informed the officials. There were fish for two kilometers along the shore, which worried us. We are using the stream's water in our agricultural activities," İnce said, according to the Doğan news agency, or DHA. He added that the villagers have urged officials to investigate immediately.

The provincial directorates of health, forest, environment and agricultural have reportedly launched an investigation, taking samples of the dead fish and the water from the stream.

Locals believe the deaths are due to pollution. "The fish died due to pollution produced by people," one villager said.

Bizarro Earth

Mysterious Sun Haloes

Most sun haloes are circles. They surround the sun when sunbeams hit ice crystals in the air. The haloes this week in Finland, however, were not circular. Olli Leivo sends this picture from Lahti in southern Finland:

Sun Halo
© Olli LeivoSun Halo
"Finland has had a spate of elliptical halos over the last few days produced by ice crystals precipitating out of low clouds. The ones Leivo photographed are superb," says atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley. "Elliptical halos are rare and we do not understand how they are formed. A popular theory is that hexagonal plate-shaped crystals with very blunt pyramidal ends make them. But ray tracing simulations using these crystals do not reproduce the halo's fine detail properly. Moreover, these crystals are physically unrealistic because crystal faces follow lines of atoms in the crystal lattice - blunt pyramidal ends do not! The mystery remains."

Bizarro Earth

US: Massive Aurora Borealis Forecast This Week

Alaskan Aurora
© Alaska DispatchAurora
Check the northern skies after dark tonight if you're looking to be dazzled. And keep checking.

A sunspot spot wider than the planet Jupiter just blasted out the largest solar flare seen in four years, spewing a tsunami of charged particles hurtling toward Earth, according to a report on Spaceweather.com.

Once the particles impact the home planet's magnetic field beginning about 6 p.m. AST Wednesday, they will interact with ions of the upper atmosphere and start to produce shimmering bands of northern lights. Skies over the entire region may light up in one of the season's most spectacular displays, with the Geophysical Institute's official aurora forecast for Feb. 16-17 rated "Active" even as far south as Anchorage.

Cloud Lightning

US: Big storm hitting Western states

The active winter weather pattern over the United States continues, as another Pacific storm is belting an area from California to Washington state, and Eastward to Montana.

Much of it will fall as rain in the lower elevations, but forecaster Brian Korty at the National Forecast Desk in Camp Springs, Maryland, says the Sierra Nevada will be measuring snow by the foot.

The storm will then move into the Great Basin and Upper Plains, bringing more winter weather to that section of the country.

And as the storm moves out, cold air from Canada will pour into the lower 48, ending the February warm-up that many parts of the country have been enjoying.