Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Conservation body warns giraffes undergoing a 'silent extinction'

Marlowe Hood
Yahoo
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 16:18 UTC
giraffes
© AFP Photo/Mark RALSTON
Wild giraffe numbers have plummeted by 40 percent in the last three decades, and the species is now "vulnerable" to extinction, a top conservation body warned Thursday.

The population of the world's tallest land mammal dropped to below 100,000 in 2015, mainly due to shrinking habitat and illegal hunting, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reported.

The group added 742 newly-discovered birds to the global species inventory, but said 11 percent were already facing annihilation and 13 previously unknown species have already disappeared in the wild.

"These majestic land animals are undergoing a silent extinction," Julian Fennessy, co-chairman of the IUCN's specialist group on giraffes, said in a statement.

Previously, giraffes held the status of "least concern" on the IUCN's Red List, which tracks the conservation status of fauna and flora and ends with the category "extinct".
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Tornado1

Did Golan Heights 'biblical' storm prevent Daesh militants from attacking Israel?


Sputnik
Fri, 09 Dec 2016 16:07 UTC
Dust storm in Syria
© YouTube/Realitynews
A mysterious conglomeration of dust, clouds, and rain briefly settled on the Israeli border with Syria, near Golan Heights, thwarting Daesh militants from entering the region, and many in Israel are certain the storm was a result of divine intervention.

On December 1, at around 8 a.m., an enigmatic weather phenomenon occurred on the other side of Israel's eastern border with Syria, "in the same place where [Daesh] attacked Israel," Israel News Online wrote in a Facebook post. Evidently the meteorological event would not cross the border between the two sides. It just remained in the sky like a gate preventing the two sides from fighting, at least for a short time.

Israel News Online opened up the floor, requesting that any suggestions of what it was, how it happened, or why it happened, be listed in the comments section. Some responded they "absolutely" saw it as the work of God, while other commenters said it was a "fake" news story.
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Snowflake Cold

Bitterly cold air to come in waves across US into next week

Alex Sosnowski
AccuWeather
Fri, 09 Dec 2016 01:48 UTC
Around the middle of December, an even colder blast of air will follow this week's frigid conditions over the central and eastern U.S.

This next major push of arctic air will follow a series of snowstorms over part of the Northern states.

"The air mass on the way for the middle of December is likely to be substantially colder, when compared to that of this past week and this weekend," according to AccuWeather Lead Long-Range Meteorologist Paul Pastelok.

Arctic blast predicted for week of Dec 12, 2017
© AccuWeatherArctic blast predicted for week of Dec 12, 2017
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Attention

Emergency tsunami warnings after 8.0 quake strikes off Solomon Islands' coast


RT
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 18:09 UTC
Solomon Island earthquake map
© USGS
A tsunami warning has been issued for the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, and Nauru after an 8.0. magnitude earthquake struck 70km off the Solomon Islands, according to USGS.

"Widespread hazardous tsunami waves are possible," stated the warning issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The center called on the government agencies responsible for dealing with emergency situations to "take action to inform and instruct any coastal populations at risk in accordance with their own evaluation."
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Bizarro Earth

6.5 magnitude earthquake off Northern California coast


RT
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 15:26 UTC
California coast earthquake map
© USGS
The US Geological Survey has reported an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Northern California, with an epicenter 102 miles west of Ferndale.

Seismographs registered the quake at 6:49am local time (2:49 GMT), at the coordinates 40.507° North and 126.118° West, ten kilometers (6.2 miles) below sea level.

Reuters initially reported the quake was 6.8 in magnitude, in line with the National Weather Service reports for the same incident.

No tsunami warning was issued.
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Arrow Down

California's Long Drought Has Killed 100 Million Trees

Kacey Deamer
Live Science
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 19:52 UTC
Dead forest, California
© USFSMore than 102 million trees on 7.7 million acres of California’s drought-stricken forests have died since 2010.
The lingering drought in California has killed more than 100 million trees, according to the U.S. Forest Service's latest aerial survey.

The recent death count found that 62 million trees have died just this year in California, bringing the six-year total to more than 102 million. More than five years of drought are to blame for the tree deaths, scientists said, adding that tree "fatalities" increased by 100 percent in 2016. While die-off is expected under drought conditions, the rate of the forests' death is faster than scientists expected, according to U.S. Forest Service (USFS) officials.

The agency said that millions of additional trees are expected to die in the coming months and years. California's drought has affected 7.7 million acres of forests, putting the region's whole ecology at risk, the scientists said.

"These dead and dying trees continue to elevate the risk of wildfire, complicate our efforts to respond safely and effectively to fires when they do occur, and pose a host of threats to life and property across California," U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said in a statement.

Comment: See also:

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Cloud Lightning

Lightning bolt kills five cattle in Zimbabwe

Simbarashe Sithole
Bulawayo 24News
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 09:22 UTC
lightning
Five cattle were killed by lightning at Forester farm in Mvurwi Mashonaland Central province on Monday.

It is alleged 5 beasts belonging to a farmer identified as Brooker who is one of the managers were stuck to death by lightning.

Eye witnesses said the beasts were skinned but how the meat was consumed no one knows. Efforts to contact Brooker were fruitless up to the time of this print.

Violent weather is causing serious damages around Zimbabwe in this 2016 - 2017 rain season.
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Snowflake

Blizzard blasts North Dakota with up to 19 inches of snow closing down most roads

Andrew Hazzard and Barry Amundson
Inforum
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 19:04 UTC
An exhausted man takes a break from the task of attempting to shovel his vehicle out of deep snow at a northwest Minot intersection Tuesday morning
© Kim Fundingsland/MDN An exhausted man takes a break from the task of attempting to shovel his vehicle out of deep snow at a northwest Minot intersection Tuesday morning
Eastern North Dakota's first snowstorm of the season dumped more than a foot of snow on Monday night and Tuesday in many areas, but it was the howling winds up to 30 mph to 50 mph that caused blizzard conditions across the region.

Wind driven snow depth
© Lauren Ashley Otradovec, Glenburn, NDLauren Ashley Otradovec who lives in Glenburn, ND, found this massive pile of wind driven snow when she opened her door. There is about a foot of snow on the ground after a new storm dumped a few inches but the big issue is the wind.
The highest snowfall was thought to be in Kensel where 19 inches fell through Tuesday night. The small town is about 30 miles north of Jamestown.

Grand Forks was also close to having the biggest snowfall at 13 inches by 6 p.m., said National Weather Service meteorologist Amanda Lee.

She said another inch or two could fall late Tuesday into early Wednesday.

Other high snowfall total were 12.5 inches in Hatton about 40 miles southeast of Grand Forks and 14 inches in Harvey and McHenry south and west of Devils Lake.

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Sun

Video footage captures triple sun dogs over St. Petersburg, Russia

Libby Plummer
Daily Mail, UK
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 06:08 UTC
Triple sun dog in St. Petersburg
Incredible footage and images show three suns appearing in the sky over Russia.

People in the country's second city of St Petersburg were left stunned by the unusual sight.

The triple sun scene was the result of a rare natural phenomenon.

Maria Borukha, head of popular science at the Petersburg Planetarium and a current PhD student in celestial mechanics at St Petersburg State University, said the false suns were known as 'sun dogs'.

She explained that they were an atmospheric phenomenon consisting of a pair of bright spots appearing on either side of the Sun.

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Blue Planet

Earth's days getting longer, slower, without notice


Agence France Presse
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 15:41 UTC
Earth
© NASA/AFP
Earth's days are getting longer, according to a study
Earth's days are getting longer but you're not likely to notice any time soon -- it would take about 3.3 million years to gain just one minute, according to a study published on Wednesday.

Over the past 27 centuries, the average day has lengthened at a rate of about +1.8 milliseconds (ms) per century, a British research team concluded in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A.

This was "significantly less", they said, than the rate of 2.3 ms per century previously estimated -- requiring a mere 2.6 million years to add one minute.

"It's a very slow process," study lead co-author Leslie Morrison, a retired astronomer with Royal Greenwich Observatory, told AFP.

Comment: Here is an interesting article on how the Inuits in the Arctic regions of Canada, the United States and Greenland have noticed Earth changes" "Earth has shifted"-Inuit elders issue warning to NASA and the world (Video)
[snippet]
A new warning has come to NASA from the Inuits. They are warning that the change in climate is not due to global warming but rather, because of the Earth shifting a bit.

The Inuits are local people that live in the Arctic regions of Canada, the United States and Greenland. They are excellent weather forecasters and so were their ancestors. Presently they are warning NASA that the cause of change in weather, earthquakes etc, are not due to global warming as the world thinks. They also report that

They state that the earth has shifted or "wobbled". "Their sky has changed!"

The elders declare that the sun rises at a different position now, not where it used to previously. They also have longer daylight to hunt now, the sun is much higher than earlier, and it gets warmer much quickly. Other elders across the north also confirmed the same thing about the sky changing when interviewed.

They also alleged that the position of sun, moon and stars have all changed causing changes in the temperature. This has also affected the wind and it is very difficult to predict the weather now and according to them predicting weather is necessary on Arctic.

All the elders confirmed that the Earth has shifted, wobbled or tilted toward the North. This information provided by the Inuit Elders has caused a great concern in the NASA scientists.

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