Earth ChangesS


Attention

Corpse of whale found on beach of Fraser Island, Australia

Sarah Dionysius
Sunshine Coast Daily
Thu, 28 Jun 2018 12:57 UTC
dead whale has washed up on the beach at Dilli Village
dead whale has washed up on the beach at Dilli Village
A dead whale has washed up on shore near a popular beach spot this morning.

The corpse was spotted south of Fraser Island at Dilli Village and it shows signs of injury that according to residents "look like the sharks have had a good feed".

Images of the carcass were posted on social media, with one person commenting "A good reminder why its a really bad idea to swim in the ocean on Fraser".

People are advised to stay away from the carcass as whales may carry zoonotic diseases, which are diseases that can be transferred from animal species to humans.
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Attention

Sperm whale seen at unusual time off Dutch coast dies


DutchNews.nl
Wed, 27 Jun 2018 12:37 UTC
Sperm whale spotted in the North Sea off the coast of Den Helder, 25 June 2018.
© Stichting SOS DolfijnSperm whale spotted in the North Sea off the coast of Den Helder, 25 June 2018.
The sperm whale spotted off the coast at Den Helder in a severely weakened state has died, marine animal organisation SOS Dolfijn said on Tuesday evening.

'Its breathing became superficial and it kept tipping to one side,' spokeswoman Jolanda Meerbeek told broadcaster NOS. 'It tipped over for the last time around 18.00 hours.'

The whale was some 2.5 kilometres off the Dutch coast between Petten and Julianadorp when it died. The body will now be brought to shore for a post mortem examination.
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Arrow Down

Huge sinkhole opens up in Columbia, South Carolina

Josh Berry
ABC Columbia
Thu, 28 Jun 2018 12:29 UTC
Sinkhole
A huge sinkhole opened up after a water main break in northeast Columbia.

It happened at the intersection of Idlebrook Court and Boswick Ridge in the Summit neighborhood.

Officials with the Columbia Water Department say water service has been restored to the area, but a boil water advisory remains in effect.

Officials say it could take up to a week to repair the road.

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Nebula

Strange but beautiful skies: Noctilucent 'tornado' cloud, auroras, double and twin rainbow plus a midnight rainbow

Anthony Watts
Watts Up With That
Thu, 28 Jun 2018 12:00 UTC
Taken by Martin McKenna on June 25, 2018 @ Maghera, Co. Derry, N. Ireland
© Martin McKennaTaken by Martin McKenna on June 25, 2018 @ Maghera, Co. Derry, N. Ireland
In recent nights, noctilucent clouds (NLCs) have rippled across Europe from Scandinavia to the south of France. "We have been observing NLCs every night here in N. Ireland," reports Martin McKenna of Maghera in Co. Derry. "Their brightness and complexity have been getting more advanced since the solstice, with whirls and knots glowing electric blue above a yellow midnight sunset horizon." He observed this 'noctilucent tornado' on June 25th:

"It was amazing to watch," he says. "This area then morphed into an succession of dynamic shapes-a wedge, a funnel, angel wings, an electrified smoke ring, then a long rope tornado which reached towards the horizon."

What creates these forms? The answer is "gravity waves."
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Ice Cube

Arctic is nearly completely covered with ice - And it's summertime

Robert
Ice Age Now
Fri, 29 Jun 2018 08:54 UTC
arctic sea ice June 2018
On the 26th of June! Where's that (so-called) global warming?

Look at this map.
  • Purple signifies sea-ice thickness of approximately ½ to 1½ meters (20 inches to 5 ft).
  • Blue or green signifies 1½ to 3 meters ( 5 ft to 10 ft) of ice.
  • Yellow or orange signifies 3 to 4 meters (10 ft to 13 ft) of ice.
  • Red signifies 4 to 5 meters (13 ft to 16 ft) of ice.
  • White signifies zero thickness of ice.

Comment: Evidence for global cooling can be seen all over the planet, and is increasingly becoming a threat to life as we know it:

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Fire

New fire erupts in different area of UK's moorlands, second in recent days, smoke seen for miles

Tom Earnshaw
Lancashire Evening Post
Thu, 28 Jun 2018 16:51 UTC
moorland fire
© Twitter: Mikey DeeWinter Hill
Around 60 firefighters and 15 fire engines from Lancashire and Manchester fire services have been scrambled to Winter Hill to tackle another fire on Rivington Moor. Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS) got the call around 4pm of smoke coming from the Winter Hill area - with the plume visible for more than 20 miles in Preston, Wigan, and Manchester.

With the Hill being on the border between both Lancashire and Greater Manchester, fire crews from both services were called to the scene.

John Taylor from LFRS said: "We are going up to 15 fire engines and their crews. It's a 50/50 mix of Greater Manchester and Lancashire services. "We're trying to get as much water on to the fire as possible. I am stood by the mast [at Winter Hill] and the fire isn't endangering that.

Comment: Fires of this intensity and so early on in the year is not a particularly common occurrance, so for two to happen in one week is even stranger. And it was only a few weeks ago that there were fires in the Scottish highlands, in three separate locations. Whilst it is true the UK has had unusually warm weather in recent weeks, winter and much of spring were particularly brutal in terms of cold and rain. So just what is going on?




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Sun

Clouds produce every atmospheric optical trick in the book around Seattle, Washington

Scott Sistek
KOMO News
Wed, 27 Jun 2018 18:01 UTC
Sun halo over Seattle
© Dr. Angela RoweSeveral sun halos appear in the skies over Seattle on June 27, 2018.
It was a sun halo party over Seattle Wednesday morning and every kind of atmospheric event was invited.

Dr. Angela Rowe with the University of Washington Atmospheric Sciences Department noticed the rare display while at a 7:30 a.m. fitness class at Seward Park and made sure to snap some photos.

"I made everyone stop working out so I could explain what we were all seeing," she said. (As all weather geeks would... :) )


Comment: In the past few weeks, the Puget Sound area in Washington has also seen a surge in the appearance of noctilucent clouds:

June 12: 'Rare' noctilucent clouds dazzle Seattle, Washington
June 18: 'Rare' noctilucent cloud drifts over Puget Sound, Washington

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Fire

Alberta wildfire more than triples in size overnight


CBC News
Thu, 28 Jun 2018 17:17 UTC
hinton wildfire 2018 canada
© David RobsonA wildfire about 15 kilometres southeast of Hinton, Alta., is burning out of control.
Air tankers, helicopters used in fight against fire that has grown to 1,250 hectares

A wildfire burning out of control near Hinton, Alta., has more than tripled in size in less than a day, fire officials said Thursday.

The fire, about 15 kilometres southeast of the town of Hinton, now covers 1250 hectares, up from the 900 hectares reported earlier Thursday, and the 350 hectares reported Wednesday evening, said wildfire officials.

"This morning there's a bit of an inversion which makes it difficult to get a more recent size assessment, so it could be slightly larger than that," said wildfire information officer Travis Fairweather

An inversion is when a lot of smoke at the head of the fire creates difficult flying conditions for those assessing the fire, he explained.
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Ice Cube

Inconvenient facts about Antarctica's faux meltdown

Gregory Whitestone
The Daily Wire
Fri, 22 Jun 2018 00:00 UTC
Antarctica faux meltdown
© MATHILDE BELLENGER/AFP/Getty ImagesRest easy, Antarctica isn’t melting away, and you aren’t going to drown because of it.

Nearly all of the major news outlets last week ran attention-grabbing headlines uncritically reporting a supposed crisis of rapidly increasing melting of Antarctica. According to the reporting, accelerated melting of the continent's ice could raise sea level significantly and bring catastrophic coastal flooding to communities all over the world. If true, we should all be very alarmed about severe negative consequences to hundreds of millions of people.

This spate of Antarctic alarm was triggered by a study from an international team that measured ice volume and reported a dramatic increase in ice loss in recent years. This new study contradicts previous research which had consistently shown the continent steadily gaining ice volume since the beginning of the satellite era in the late 1970s.

NASA glaciologist Jay Zwally -- likely the pre-eminent expert on Antarctic ice accumulation and loss -- published a study in 2015 showing that ice loss in western Antarctica* and the Antarctic Peninsula was more than offset by significant accumulations in the rest of the continent. Both Zwally and the recent researchers were measuring the same thing, but the difference appears to be in the corrections made in adjusting for the movement of the Earth beneath the ice.

Comment: See also:

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Phoenix

Hawaii: Is the cone of Kilauea's fissure 8 a new volcano?

David Rothery
The Conversation
Thu, 28 Jun 2018 14:51 UTC
Kilauea
© US Geological SurveyThe lava lake in Kilauea’s summit crater (Halemaumau) as it appeared on March 19 2018.

Kilauea, the most active volcano on Hawaii, has been in continual eruption since 1983. It entered a new phase in early May when fractures along a rift on the eastern side of the volcano opened during a series of earthquakes - some of which became volcanic fissures from which lava was erupted.

These fissures allowed magma that had been ponded in a lava summit lake to drain onto the ground surface as lava flows lower down the mountain. This was close to a residential subdivision known as Leilani Estates, where a new volcanic cone has since developed.

Kilauea is buttressed on its north-west side by the enormous mass of Mauna Loa volcano, but its south-east slopes face the ocean and are unsupported. The magma from beneath the volcano usually erupts from the summit of the volcano, and there was a spectacular lava lake there in March. However two rift zones (areas where the volcano is splitting apart), extending east and south-west from the summit, can make it possible for lava to erupt from Kilauea's flanks too.


Comment: More on this spectacular and destructive phenomenon:

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