Earth ChangesS


Black Cat

Leopard injures four people in Kannur, India


The Deccan Chronicle
Mon, 06 Mar 2017 13:21 UTC
The leopard that terrorised Kannur city hides in the bushes after attacking a youth at Thaytheruvu on Sunday.
The leopard that terrorised Kannur city hides in the bushes after attacking a youth at Thaytheruvu on Sunday.
A leopard which appeared near Thayatheru railway gate near Kannur railway station on Sunday brought the city into the grip of fear after it prowled on the residential areas and injured four people. A team from the forest department, aided by personnel from the police, revenue and fire and safety departments, later caught the big cat after tranquilising it.

A man who was seriously injured in the leopard attack was shifted to Kozhikode Government Medical College while three others, including an Odisha-native, were admitted in Kannur district hospital.

The leopard was first spotted near a bushy area near the railway gate around 3 pm. As the people and police started a search, it came out and ran towards residential areas and then returned. The efforts of the officials to capture it were hampered when hundreds of people gathered near the railway track to see the operation.
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Cloud Precipitation

6 killed by floods and landslides in West Sumatra, Indonesia

Richard Davies
Floodlist
Mon, 06 Mar 2017 13:00 UTC
Landslide in West Sumatra, Indonesia, March 2017.
© BNPBLandslide in West Sumatra, Indonesia, March 2017.
At least 6 people have been killed, 2 seriously injured and thousands displaced due to floods and landslides in Indonesia's West Sumatra province.

According to the country's disaster agency, four of the victims died in landslides and two as a result of flooding.

Heavy downpours from 03 March 2017 affected areas of Limapuluh Koto Regency, resulting in several rivers overflowing and as many as 13 landslides. Several vehicles were buried in the landslides and disaster officials have been searching affected areas. As of 04 March, 4 bodies had been found in the buried vehicles.
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Seismograph

Earthquake swarm rattles Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii


Big Island Video News
Sun, 05 Mar 2017 08:05 UTC
Kilauea quake swarm
© USGS
A flurry of earthquakes rattled the Kilauea volcano area Sunday morning.

The USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, which measures and tracks earthquakes, reports 31 earthquakes were recorded over a period of 42 minutes on Sunday. The activity began just before 6 a.m. on March 5. The swarm is located about 5 miles south of Volcano Village inside Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park (red dots in the USGS map above).

The strongest quake was measured at a magnitude 3.9. Most rest have been measured between magnitude 1.7 and 3.5.

The USGS "Did you feel it?" website received more than 30 felt reports within an hour of the largest earthquake, which occurred at 6:13 a.m. "Weak to light shaking, with maximum Intensity of IV, has been reported," scientists say. "At that intensity, damage to buildings or structures is not expected."

"The earthquakes were concentrated about 5-6 km (3-4 mi) southeast of Kīlauea's summit in an area between Hi'iaka and Koʻokoʻolau Craters on the Chain of Craters Road," reported the USGS HVO in a later media release. "The sequence consisted of 31 earthquakes over a period of about 42 minutes. The eight largest events had magnitudes ranging from 1.7 to 3.9 and depths of about 2-4 km (1-2 mi) beneath the surface."

Comment: There has been increased activity at Hawaii's Kilauea volcano in recent months:

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Seismograph

Shallow 6.5 magnitude earthquake strikes off Papua New Guinea


Radio New Zealand
Sun, 05 Mar 2017 23:38 UTC
PNG quake map
© USGS
An earthquake of 6.5 magnitude struck off the south coast of the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea this morning.

According to the US Geological Survey the quake was at a depth of 33 kilometres, and struck struck east of the city Lae.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said there was no Pacific-wide tsunami threat.

Comment: A 5.1 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Papua New Guinea a couple of days ago.

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Attention

Spiraling toward extinction: 347 different bee species at risk

Claire Bernish
The Free Thought Project
Fri, 03 Mar 2017 16:35 UTC
honeybees
Having taken a backseat to any number of controversies surrounding the nascent Trump administration, pollinators should be back in the headlines — again painting a tragic portent for the future of the planet's food supply — as an analysis found 347 bee species native to North America and Hawai'i "are spiraling toward extinction."

In total, 700 bee species have been pushed to precarious footing by a web of threats, including increased pesticide use and severe habitat loss.

In "Pollinators in Peril: A systematic status review of North American and Hawaiian native bees," the Center for Biological Diversity studied 4,337 native species to assess how the vital pollinators are enduring worsening, multi-fronted threats.
"The evidence is overwhelming that hundreds of the native bees we depend on for ecosystem stability, as well as pollination services worth billions of dollars, are spiraling toward extinction," Kelsey Kopec, pollinator researcher at the Center for Biological Diversity and author of the study, told EcoWatch. "It's a quiet but staggering crisis unfolding right under our noses that illuminates the unacceptably high cost of our careless addiction to pesticides and monoculture farming.

"The widespread decline of European honeybees has been well documented in recent years. But until now much less has been revealed about the 4,337 native bee species in North America and Hawaii. These mostly solitary, ground-nesting bees play a crucial ecological role by pollinating wild plants and provide more than $3 billion in fruit-pollination services each year in the United States."
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Seismograph

Elderly resident dies during magnitude 5.9 earthquake in Surigao, Philippines


ABS-CBN News
Sun, 05 Mar 2017 15:16 UTC
Socorro Celis (wearing red) died due to cardiac arrest during the magnitude 5.9 earthquake in Surigao City on Sunday
Socorro Celis (wearing red) died due to cardiac arrest during the magnitude 5.9 earthquake in Surigao City on Sunday
A 66-year-old woman died due to cardiac arrest during the magnitude 5.9 earthquake that hit Surigao City Sunday morning.

The victim was identified as Socorro Celis, a resident of Narciso corner Lopez Jaena Street in Surigao City.

"She was shaking so the doctor told us that she suffered from panic and high blood pressure. Her blood pressure may have risen". Nona Celis, the daughter of the victim, said.

The younger Celis explained that her mother also had high blood pressure during the stronger magnitude 6.7 earthquake last February. Nona said she was shocked that her mother did not survive Sunday's earthquake.
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Black Cat

36 people killed by animals over 2 years in Nilgiris, India

Shantha Thyagarajan
The Times of India
Sun, 05 Mar 2017 14:03 UTC
Charging elephant
© GettyCharging elephant
Continuing reports of human deaths due to man-animal conflict in the Nilgiris have caused considerable angst for wildlife activists as well as the public in the hills. Thirty-six people were killed by wild animals in the Nilgiris in 2015-16. Forest officials attribute it to the change in land use pattern and crop cultivation close to reserve forest areas. Besides, despite being cautioned, local people mindlessly venture into forest lands.

The past two years witnessed 18 human deaths each in the Nilgiris. In 2014, the total number of cases reported were 12. Most of the deaths in the past two years were due to elephant attacks, that too in private lands where the animals had strayed into. Activists say the government should seriously consider taking long term measures to prevent such deaths. "The main reason for the conflict is human pressure.And in many cases people living in the fringe areas mindlessly venture into forest areas in the early hours of a day and fall victim," Kalanidhi, district forest officer (Nilgiris north division), told TOI. He did not deny animal pressure on people living in the fringe areas of the forests.
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Cow Skull

Hundreds dying from hunger as severe drought hits Somalia


The Watchers
Sat, 04 Mar 2017 09:20 UTC
drought in Somalia
© FMSC
110 people have died from hunger in the past 48 hours in just one region of Somalia as severe drought gripped the country, causing hunger crisis. The death toll was announced by prime minister Hassan Ali Khaire today and it comes from the Bay region in the southwest part of the country alone. Humanitarian agencies report worrying similarities to the 2011 famine, in which nearly 260 000 Somalis lost their lives. Somali elders say they have never seen drought as severe as this one.

On Tuesday, February 28, 2017, just a week after his inauguration, President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo has declared the drought a national disaster. The declaration comes amid an ongoing war with al-Shabab and is expected to be a trial for all those involved in Somalia's struggles. It will test the international community's response, the government's ability to assist, and the strength of security provided by the African Union forces, Al Jazeera explains.

In the far north of Somalia, three years with little rain has had increasingly disastrous effects for a population reliant on the land. The parched earth has failed to produce food for the camels and goats that the people depend on for their income, meat, and milk for their children.

Critical health services are needed for 1.5 million people currently affected by drought conditions and a worsening food crisis, according to the WHO.
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Tornado1

National Weather Service upgrades deadly Perryville, Missouri tornado to EF-4


STLtoday.com
Sat, 04 Mar 2017 22:32 UTC
Tornado damage in Perryville, Mo.
© KMOVTornado damage in Perryville, Mo.
The National Weather Service has upgraded the classification of the tornado that killed one motorist and destroyed dozens of homes in Perryville on Tuesday night to an EF-4.

The reclassification is an upgrade from preliminary estimates that the tornado was an EF-3, according to an update Saturday from the weather service.

The Joplin, Mo., tornado in May 2011 that killed 161 people and injured more than 1,000 was an EF-5, with winds estimated at more than 200 mph.

In Tuesday's tornado, wind bursts reached 180 mph. The tornado was six-tenths of a mile wide and traveled 50.4 miles, the longest track of a tornado in the weather service's Paducah, Ky., coverage area in 25 years.

The coverage area includes parts of southeast Missouri, Southern Illinois, western Kentucky and southwestern Indiana.

The tornado started about 5 miles northwest of Perryville and ended about 2 miles southwest of Christopher, Ill.


Comment: Not only was the twister the longest-track tornado in the region since 1981 - spending an incredible one hour and 2 minutes on the ground - but its parent supercell thunderstorm also followed a similar path to that of the 1925 Tri-State tornado (the deadliest tornado in U.S. history) according to the NWS.

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Snowflake

Global warming? Sierra Nevada snowpack 185% higher than normal

Anthony Watts
Watts Up With That
Thu, 02 Mar 2017 16:32 UTC
sierra nevada snowpack
From the "California is in a permanent drought due to climate change - because we said so" department comes this good news from NASA, CA DWR, and NOAA

From NASA:

Abundant Snowpack Blankets the Sierra Nevada

March 3, 2017

Snowpack on the Sierra Nevada provides one-third of the water consumed by California citizens, farmers, and businesses each year. For the first time in at least five years, there should be more than enough of it.

According to the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), the water stored as snow in the Sierra Nevada range was 185 percent of the long-term average for the beginning of March. One year ago, it was 83 percent of the norm. According to the latest measurements from 98 ground-based stations, the average snow-water equivalent in the mountains was 45.5 inches as of March 1, 2017. Snow-water equivalent is an estimate of how much water you would get if all of the snow melted at once.
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