Earth ChangesS


Windsock

'Near apocalyptic' dust storm causes 27-vehicle pileup, killing lorry driver and leaving several others fighting for their lives in Nevada

John Hall
The Independent, UK
Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:27 UTC
Blinded by dust as the storm tore across Interstate 80, vehicles began ploughing into each other, dramatically stretching limited emergency resources in sparsely populated Humboldt County, Nevada

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© APA 'near apocalyptic' dust storm has caused a 27-vehicle pileup in rural Nevada, killing a lorry driver and leaving several other people fighting for their life
A "near apocalyptic" dust storm has caused a 27-vehicle pileup in rural Nevada, killing a lorry driver and leaving several other people fighting for their life.

Blinded by dust as the storm tore across Interstate 80, vehicles began ploughing into each other at around 5pm on Monday, dramatically stretching limited emergency resources in sparsely populated Humboldt County.

Officials at Humboldt General Hospital said drivers reported "near apocalyptic" conditions during the pile-up, which shut down a major trucking route in both directions for over 19 hours.

Humboldt County sheriff's dispatchers called in virtually every medical, law enforcement and fire worker in the area, with a mine rescue crew pitching in to help, and a charter bus company, Coach America, sending a vehicle to transport victims to hospital in an effort to lighten the load on limited ambulance services in nearby Winnemucca.
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Red Flag

Cooking climate consensus data: "97% of scientists affirm AGW" debunked

William F. Jasper
TheNewAmerican.com
Fri, 07 Jun 2013 16:36 UTC
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The survey by Australian global-warming activist John Cook, released recently with a massive media sendoff, is rapidly melting, as scientists and statisticians subject it to analysis. And now it's leaking out that Cook's e-mails show he was scheming on this fraudulent survey to promote a leftist political agenda for well over a year. Cook made a big media splash in May with the publication of a study by him and several co-authors claiming to prove that climate scientists overwhelmingly support the theory that human activity is warming the planet to dangerous levels. Cook's claims received their biggest boost on May 16, when President Barack Obama tweeted: "Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree:#climate change is real, man-made and dangerous."

The mainstream media and climate-alarmist blogosphere uncritically accepted the Cook study and trumpeted the consensus claims as gospel. We reported on May 21 ("Global Warming 'Consensus': Cooking the Books") on the critiques of the Cook study by experts who show that Cook cooked the data. Out of the nearly 12,000 scientific papers Cook's team evaluated, only 65 endorsed Cook's alarmist position. That's less than one percent, not 97 percent. Moreover, as we reported, the Cook study was flawed from the beginning, using selection parameters designed to weight the outcome in favor of the alarmist position.

In a May 22 follow-up article ("Climate 'Consensus' Con Game: Desperate Effort Before Release of UN Report") The New American reported on additional problems with the Cook study and cited a large and growing list of eminent climate scientists - including Nobel Prize recipients and scientists who served on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - who challenge the claim that there is any "scientific consensus" on climate change, or that "the science is settled" in favor of the Al Gore alarmist position.
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Question

Authorities investigate mysterious brown foam at Lake Mead, Nevada


Associated Press
Tue, 11 Jun 2013 02:57 UTC
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© AP Photo/Julie JacobsonThe sun sets on Echo Bay at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Monday, June 10, 2013, near Overton, Nev. Authorities are warning people to avoid the Overton Arm section of Lake Mead after park officials found dead carp and a mysterious foam there. The foam appeared to be coming from the mouth of the Virgin River and stretched about eight miles down to Echo Bay.
Authorities took a boat onto Lake Mead on Tuesday to gather water samples they hope could shed light on mysterious brown foam found floating on the lake's surface over the weekend.Park officials urged people to avoid the Overton Arm, a northern extension of Lake Mead, after several dozen carp were found dead and the foam was seen extending about eight miles from near the mouth of the Virgin River to Echo Bay.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority is monitoring water quality at two intakes and so far hasn't found anything problematic, according to spokesman Bronson Mack. Typically, pollutants are diluted in the reservoir. "It really is a massive body of water, and that's one benefit from a drinking water perspective," Mack said, noting that water from the Overton Arm typically takes about a month to meander to the intake area.

A park volunteer collected water samples several days ago and they turned up normal, Mack said. But the water agency wants to gather new samples using more precise methods.

High winds and waves prevented crews from collecting water Monday, and the foam wasn't readily visible from the shore. "We're hoping we can still get samples" of the foam, Mack said.
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Phoenix

Colorado wildfires 2013: Black Forest fire burns homes, Royal Gorge fire burns hundreds of acres, Big Meadows fire continues

Thomas Peipert
Huffington Post
Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:48 UTC
Black Forest fire
© Denver Post
Colorado Springs - At least four major wildfires fueled by hot, gusty weather burned along the front of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado on Tuesday, destroying a handful of large houses and chasing people from hundreds of homes.

Thick smoke plumes visible for miles billowed from fires near Colorado Springs, in southern Colorado, and in Rocky Mountain National Park to the north.

A wildfire in a heavily wooded residential area northeast of Colorado Springs led to the mandatory evacuations of more than 1,000 homes, including some worth more than $1 million, El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said.

Video from a helicopter showed several large homes engulfed in flames. About eight homes had burned, Maketa said, but he had no exact number because the fire was moving so quickly across the parched forest.

"Right now the firefighters are more focused on fighting fires, drawing lines. And law enforcement, to be very honest, is scrambling to get people out of there as well as do searches," Maketa said. He said firefighters have shifted from evacuation mode to search-and-rescue mode.

Military officials said a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter from the Colorado Army National Guard and three helicopters from Fort Carson were helping firefighters. Another National Guard helicopter was on standby for search and rescue.

The area is not far from last summer's devastating Waldo Canyon Fire that destroyed 346 homes and killed two.

Comment: Comment: Reign of Fire: Meteorites, Wildfires, Planetary Chaos and the Sixth Extinction

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Sun

Weird sunset in Netherlands sees Sun become square-shaped


Space weather
Tue, 11 Jun 2013 15:36 UTC
Astronomers in the Netherlands have discovered a world where the sun is square. It is Earth. On June 6th Jan Koeman was watching the sunset from Lauwersoog, and this is what he saw:
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© Jan Koeman
"The sunset was a very weird one," says Koeman. "Inversions in the atmosphere gave it some very odd shapes."
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Cloud Lightning

U.S. Midwest could see strong windstorms from Derecho weather pattern

Dinesh Ramde
Associated Press via Yahoo News
Tue, 11 Jun 2013 15:38 UTC
The National Weather Service was tracking a so-called derecho weather pattern in the Midwest on Tuesday that could spawn severe windstorms in major metropolitan areas with gusts as strong as 100 mph. Derecho windstorms occur once every year or two across the central and northeastern U.S. in a band from Texas to New England. They pack hazardous winds of at least 75 mph or more and maintain their intensity for hours as they sweep across vast distances.
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In some cases a derecho will spawn tornados and accompany storms that produce hail the size of golf balls. The current pattern could affect larger metropolitan areas in Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh in the next two days, said Bill Bunting, a meteorologist in the agency's storm prediction center in Norman, Okla.

"We tend to be careful using the D word, but yes, a derecho is possible," Bunting said.

The weather service was predicting a chance of storm activity beginning in southern Montana and northeastern Wyoming on Tuesday afternoon. It was expected to sweep eastward, with a 30 percent chance of severe wind activity in a rectangle covering parts of South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota.

"Thirty percent is pretty high in the world of predicting severe weather," said Paul Collar, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sullivan, Wis.

The storms could generate straight-line wind gusts of 70 mph or more. That's enough to rip shingles off a roof, knock down trees and even tip over semi-trailers. They could also cause flights to be delayed or canceled, said Collar, who added that commercial airlines have on-board navigation that allows pilots to navigate around the worst weather.
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Cloud Precipitation

Thousands of Germans evacuate as dam on Elbe river breaks

Martin Schlicht and Oliver Keck
Reuters
Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:07 UTC
Thousands of people left their homes in eastern Germany on Sunday as a dam burst on the swollen River Elbe and swathes of farmland were flooded in an attempt to spare towns, with meteorologists forecasting more rain. In Magdeburg, one of the oldest cities in eastern Germany and a regional capital, some 23,000 people were asked to evacuate as water levels in the Elbe rose to a record 7.48 meters, around 5 meters above normal and surpassing the level reached in devastating floods in 2002.
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© REUTERS/Thomas PeterA picture shows a broken dam (foreground) built to contain the swollen Elbe river during floods near the village of Fischbeck in the federal state of Saxony Anhalt, June 10, 2013.
"We helped yesterday to carry sandbags to secure the town. The mood is very depressed and frightened because many people have to leave their homes," said resident Liane Nagen.

There have been at least a dozen deaths as a result of floods that have hit Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic over the past week.

Officials said more than 8,000 people were evacuated by bus from towns and villages around Aken, south of Magdeburg. Some took their pets or farm animals with them.

Additional images
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Cloud Lightning

Remnants of tropical storm Andrea threatens North Carolina residents with heavy rain and tornadoes

Brandon Boyer
Yahoo!News
Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:10 UTC
Andrea
© Yahoo!NewsTropical Storm Andrea positioned over the Mid-Atlantic region.
As rain swelled the banks of local rivers, creeks, and streams over the latter half of this past week, residents of North Carolina looked to dry out this weekend from the persistent rains and threats of severe weather brought along by the first named storm of the 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season, Tropical Storm Andrea.

Tropical Storm Andrea was a quick-forming storm, pulling itself together in the eastern half of the Gulf of Mexico midway through the week and moving to assault the residents of the eastern seaboard as it moved northward. After soaking rains, heavy winds, and tornadoes battered parts of Florida, Andrea quickly picked up ground speed and moved quickly across the eastern coast of Georgia late Thursday evening, moving north to flood the Carolinas with a light, consistent rain, intermixed with bouts of absolute downpours.
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Bug

More pests 'resistant to GM crops'


NewsDaily.com
Mon, 10 Jun 2013 09:40 UTC
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More pest species are becoming resistant to the most popular type of genetically-modified, insect-repellent crops, but not in areas where farmers follow expert advice, a study said on Monday.

The paper delves into a key aspect of so-called Bt corn and cotton -- plants that carry a gene to make them exude a bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis, which is toxic to insects.

Publishing in the journal Nature Biotechnology, US and French researchers analysed the findings of 77 studies from eight countries on five continents that reported on data from field monitors.

Of 13 major pest species examined, five were resistant by 2011, compared with only one in 2005, they found. The benchmark was resistance among more than 50 percent of insects in a location.

Of the five species, three were cotton pests and two were corn pests.

Three of the five cases of resistance were in the United States, which accounts for roughly half of Bt crop plantings, while the others were in South Africa and India.
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Bizarro Earth

Indonesia's Ibu volcano lava dome overtops crater rim - poses risk of pyroclastic flows


The Extinction Protocol
Tue, 11 Jun 2013 09:18 UTC
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As the Indonesian Volcanological Survey (VSI) specified in its latest bulletin, parts of the active lava dome of the volcano have recently (early June) grown higher than the northern crater rim, where it is cut by a valley extending to the northern feet of the stratovolcano. Therefore, potential continued growth of the dome poses the risk of rockfalls and pyroclastic flows reach the northern flanks, where a number of villages are located, namely Pasilulu and Talen. In addition, VSI scientists have detected an increase of seismicity and degassing since early May. This includes volcanic tremor from growing lava dome and deeper earthquakes, possibly related to new magma rising, and the occurrence of notable sulfur smell.

Ibu's activity has been characterized by the slow building of a new lava dome inside the breached summit crater since 1999. While present growth rate is still slow, and no or little incandescence is observed at the moment, the new seismic activity could herald a phase of more vigorous activity in the near future. In that scenario, the occurrence of dangerous landslides and pyroclastic flows would be likely and the northern slopes of the volcano should be considered a high risk zone. - Volcano Discovery
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