Earth ChangesS


Igloo

Next freeze will cover two-thirds of country, weather service says

Elizabeth Landau and Ben Brumfield
KCRA
Tue, 25 Feb 2014 08:35 UTC
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© Chad Weisser/iReport
Don't pack away those winter coats and hats yet!

We're in for another blast of cold Arctic air, which is gearing up to roll across most of the country this week, but it won't be as bad as the shocking freeze in January.

The National Weather Service says some places from the central U.S. to the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys could be having some frosty high temperatures, as low 20 to 30 degrees below normal.

If you call it Polar Vortex Part II (or III or IV), meteorologists say you'd be wrong -- nor was the first big cold spell of 2014, strictly speaking, a strike of the Polar Vortex.

The Polar Vortex stays anchored over Baffin Bay, to the north of Canada, and doesn't move, says CNN meteorologist Sean Morris. But its shifting pattern allows cold Arctic air to spill southward into the United States.

"When it weakens, this allows the cold Arctic air that is often mislabeled the "Polar Vortex" to spill southward across the U.S. border and bring us bone-chilling temperatures," Morris explained.
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Snowflake

U.S. Polar Vortex returns after short period of Spring weather

Kashmira Gander
The Independent
Tue, 25 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
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© IndependentThe US is experiencing a repeat of January's icy weather, which saw the Niagara Falls freeze over.
After a brief taste of spring weather, parts of the US are being plagued once again by the polar vortex.

The worst of the icy weather will centre on the upper Midwest, the Climate Prediction Centre predicts.

"Record cold temperatures are possible for the High Plains, Upper Midwest and Great Lakes later this week," the US National Weather Service said in an online forecast.

There are reports that Minneapolis has been hit by temperatures 10 to 20 degrees below normal, with current reports stating that it is -16 C.

Cities including Chicago, Detroit and Buffalo, are also expected to experience unusually low temperatures, with the mercury in some areas dropping by as much as 40 degrees to below 0 C by midweek, according to AccuWeather.

"The polar vortex is essentially a mass of very cold air that usually hangs out above the Arctic Circle and is contained by strong winds," AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski told USA Today.
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Snowflake Cold

Confirmed: Winter misery index

Seth Borenstein and Jeff Karoub
Yahoo! News
Tue, 25 Feb 2014 14:24 UTC
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© CBS
A new winter misery index confirms what many Americans in the Midwest and East know in their all-too-chilled bones: This has been one of the harshest winters of our lifetimes.

And nowhere has been hit harder, relatively, than Detroit.

Sure Chicago, Indianapolis and Philadelphia and Moline, Ill., are in the midst of their third most extreme winters in more than 60 years. But Detroit, a city that is trying to crawl out of bankruptcy, is also slogging through what so far is the most extreme winter it has had since Harry Truman was president, at least, according to a winter extremity index created by a National Weather Service meteorologist Barbara Mayes Boustead.

The index is based on cold temperatures and snowfall. And so far Detroit has had more than 6 1/2 feet of snow and 100 days when the thermometer plunged below the freezing mark. Of two dozen cities studied, Detroit alone is in the middle of its harshest winter since 1950.

In better weather, downtown Detroit's riverfront walk bustles with bicyclists, runners, walkers and people watchers. Lunchtime on Tuesday wasn't better weather. With temperatures in the low 20s and a biting wind, Paul Welch was practically alone on his 2-mile trek. He was mostly dressed for the weather, with a fleece pullover, ski jacket and gloves - but no hat. Consequently, his face was pink.
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Eye 2

Surfing 4 metre crocodile closes Broome's Cable Beach, Australia


perthnow.com.au
Tue, 25 Feb 2014 12:46 UTC
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© Sharon ScobleBroome’s surfing croc takes to the gentle waves at Cable Beach, but he had it all to himself.
A giant four-metre surfing croc has closed Broome's iconic Cable Beach for a day before moving on.

While Perth beachgoers were enthralled with a 2000kg sub-adult southern elephant seal which had "hauled out'' on a city beach, Broome locals and visitors were captivated by the 4m croc which took to Cable Beach's gentle swell.

The croc hung around for most of Saturday but had moved on by Sunday.

Broome woman Sharon Scoble, who took these amazing photographs, said: "He was a big boy - his head was huge.''
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Arrow Down

Don't expect the truth from the BBC

Paul Homewood
Not A Lot of People Know That
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 11:16 UTC
Indonesia
© BBCSource
From the BBC:
As many as 1,500 of Indonesia's islands could be under water by 2050 because of rising sea levels, it's been reported.

In the capital city, Jakarta, the main international Soekarno-Hatta Airport could be below sea level as soon as 2030, with outlying districts turned into lakes, says Singapore's Straits Times, quoting a report from Maplecroft's Climate Change Vulnerability Index.

"This archipelago's biggest threat is rising sea levels, where 42 million people living 3km from the coast are vulnerable," Ancha Srinivasan of the Asian Development Bank says.

Twenty-four islands have already disappeared off the coast of Aceh, North Sumatra, Papua and Riau, according to official research, and experts are worried this trend could accelerate. Indonesia comprises around 17,500 islands, of which approximately 6,000 are permanently inhabited.
Would it surprise you to find that the BBC have not been telling you the whole story? No, thought not.
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Igloo

Greenpeace co-founder tells US Senate Earth's geologic history fundamentally contradicts CO2 climate fears

Tory Aardvark
Tory Aardvark.com
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 11:03 UTC
Patrick Moore
© Tory Aardvark.com
Dr Patrick Moore was one of the co-founders of Green NGO, Greenpeace, for several years Moore was chairman of Greenpeace in Canada, until he became concerned at the political direction Greenpeace was taking, and left the NGO.

Moore is far from popular with his former NGO and other Greens, in January 2012 he spoke about the Green folly of wind power describing it as "a destroyer of wealth and negative to the economy."

Then in July 2012 Moore caused more Green outrage and upset when he attacked the warming alarmists for their attempts to cover up the lack of warming for what was then 15 years.

"These people are either completely naive about the relationship between CO2 and plants or they are making this up as a way of deflecting attention from the lack of warming for the past 15 years", said Moore.

In August that year Moore gave an interview to the Washington Times:
Ideology is negative in so far as it tends to divide people into warring camps with no possible resolution. My late Greenpeace friend Bob Hunter suggested early on that in order for environmentalism to become a mass movement, it would have to be based on ideology, or as he called it "popular mythology," because "not everybody can be a Ph.D. ecologist."
On February 25th 2014 Moore appeared before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, his former NGO really will not like what he had to say:
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Arrow Down

Sinkhole discovered on university campus, Pennsylvania

Lauren Hensley
wjactv.com
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 07:20 UTC
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A pesky problem on Penn State's University Park campus was discovered over the weekend, as a large sinkhole formed, closing down part of a parking lot. The lot was closed outside of the Electrical Engineering Building. Officials with the Office of Physical Plant were not immediately available for comment. There was no word on how long repairs will take to fill the hole.
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Phoenix

Federal government steps in to deal with record number of wildfires in Western U.S. this winter

Angela Greiling Keane
Bloomberg
Tue, 25 Feb 2014 08:36 UTC
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Despite the chilly temperatures and average humidity levels, large wildfires have broken out across the western U.S.
President Barack Obama promised the governors of eight western U.S. states that they'll get the aid they need to deal with droughts and said he wants to change the way funds to battle wildfires are doled out.

Obama told governors of states including Arizona and Colorado during a White House meeting yesterday that the budget proposal he's scheduled to unveil next week will change how wildfire suppression is paid for to give states more certainty that they'll have the resources.

The president will ask Congress to pay the cost of battling such fires the same way the U.S. pays to mitigate other natural disasters, with funding coming outside budget caps, White House press secretary Jay Carney said.

"Unfortunately, the current way that the government pays for fire suppression and preparedness costs is ill-suited to the increasing severity and cost of fires," Carney said yesterday at a briefing.
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Map

Poás Volcano in Costa Rica spews material 300 meters high after explosion inside crater

L. Arias
Tico Times
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 08:27 UTC
The crater of Poas Volcano expelled material 300 meters into the air at noon on Tuesday. The phenomenon, called a phreatic explosion, occurred due to a reaction between magma and water at the southern border of the lake inside the volcano. However, this was not an eruption and the volcano did not spew lava. Instead, a column of steam, gas and other materials formed and spouted out the top of the volcano, confirmed the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica (OVSICORI).

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© OvsicoriThe explosion at the Poás crater lagoon was registered by OVSICORI’s webcam at 12:03 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2014.
María Martínez Cruz, a volcanology and geochemistry expert with OVSICORI, said the event can be considered "normal for the volcano's activity, although explosion heights like the one recorded Tuesday are not that common."
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Arrow Down

4ft deep sinkhole forces road closure in Swindon, UK

Marion Sauvebois
Swindon Advertiser
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 07:37 UTC
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A sinkhole has opened up along Linslade Road, Rodbourne. Pictured is Robert Gosling of Ron’s Stores who feels it has affected his business
A 4ft-deep sinkhole opened on a residential road in Rodbourne forcing the council to close it to traffic until further notice.

The 1ft wide crater on Linslade Street is believed to have appeared yesterday morning.

Council workers barred the street to traffic later that day, placing cones and barriers around it.

Robert Gosling, partner at Ron's Stores hardware shop, alerted the local authority after placing bin bags around the hole to ensure no one drove over or accidentally stepped into it.

"I reported it to the council and they turned up an hour-and-a-half later," he said.

"We were just driving out to a delivery when we saw some people around the hole. We got out to have a look.
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