Earth ChangesS


Binoculars

Massive flood expected to take toll on Lake Winnipeg, feed algae blooms

Chinta Puxley
Winnipegfreepress.com
Sat, 25 Jun 2011 19:53 UTC
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© The Canadian Press/Jonathan HaywardFlood waters from the breach in the dike at the hoop and holler bend fans out from the Assiniboine River, top of frame, to surrounding fields outside of Portage La Prairie, Man., on May 14, 2011. A massive flood that has turned fertile Manitoba pastures into lakes and driven people from their homes for weeks on end will probably deal another blow to the ailing prairie ocean known as Lake Winnipeg.
Winnipeg - A massive flood that has turned fertile Manitoba pastures into lakes and driven people from their homes for weeks on end will probably deal another blow to the ailing prairie ocean known as Lake Winnipeg.

Flood waters that have settled across much of southern Manitoba are expected to carry various nutrients picked up from farmers' fields and urban run-off when they do finally recede into the world's 11th largest freshwater lake. It already has dangerously high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, which feed huge blue-green algae blooms so large they are visible from space.

Experts say this year's flood, combined with a hot summer, could push nutrient levels up even more, as previous floods have done.

"The more land you inundate, the more potential there is for nutrients to come in," says Peter Leavitt, Canada research chair in environmental change and society, who recently conducted a study on Lake Winnipeg.
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Bizarro Earth

US - Floods spur wild rumors of nuclear plant perils in Nebraska

Perry Beeman
Citizen-times.com
Sat, 25 Jun 2011 17:38 UTC
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© Associated PressIn this June 14 photo, the Fort Calhoun nuclear power station in Nebraska is surrounded by Missouri River floodwaters. The photo alarmed some people who saw it.
The sight of two Nebraska nuclear plants fighting off a severely swollen Missouri River this week has brewed a furious, Internet-fueled scare that warns of impending disasters of a scale similar to the tsunami-stricken Fukushima plant in Japan.

Operators of the Fort Calhoun and Cooper plants and the federal agency that regulate them say the reactors are flood-proof, are in no danger of leaking, and extra precautions have been taken.

"The rumors have been as difficult to combat as the rising floodwaters," said Victor Dricks, spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Comment: For more information concerning what the mainstream media is lacking coverage, see this Sott link:

12 Things That The Mainstream Media Is Being Strangely Quiet About Right Now

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Bizarro Earth

Global cooling anyone?

Nigel Tapper
Sydney Morning Herald
Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:26 UTC
Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano Chile
© ReutersThe legacy of the ash and dust thrown up by the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano in Chile may well live on.
Once all the flight disruptions have stopped, the ash has been cleared from the South American highways, and human affairs appear to have returned to normal, the legacy of the ash and dust thrown up by the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano in Chile may well live on.

The longer-term effects of all this ash and dust could be of wider environmental concern than, say, a few hundred thousand stranded passengers, as difficult as it is for those people.

Volcanic eruptions are awesome spectacles. In part this is due to millions of tonnes of tiny ash and dust particles, known as volcanic aerosols, being blasted high into the air. We've all marvelled at the photographs.

In volcanic terms, the ash and dust plume created by Puyehue-Cordon Caulle was modest, only reported to have reached a height of around 15 kilometres. Large explosions, such as the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, can create plumes in excess of 34 kilometres high and 400 kilometres wide, ejecting more than 17 million tons of aerosols.

But even as a modest eruption, the Chilean volcano could have ejected enough ash and dust into the stratosphere to have some long-term climatic effects, which could in turn affect agriculture and impact on human wellbeing and quality of life.

The reason is that large volumes of aerosols can, depending on how high they 'sit' in the air and how long they remain there, have a measurable cooling effect. The higher the dust gets into the atmosphere and the more of it there is, the greater its capacity to reflect heat from the sun, which cools the land below.
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Umbrella

Montreal - Heavy rains wash out roads in Gatineau region


Montrealgazette.com
Sat, 25 Jun 2011 17:10 UTC
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© Drew Gragg, The Ottawa CitizenWater flowing from the Gatineau River (top) into the Ottawa River (foreground) appears muddier after the heavy rains Friday.
Ottawa - Residents of Gatineau and the surrounding regions were struggling to cope Saturday after heavy rainfall and severe thunderstorms washed out stretches of highway and reportedly resulted in the evacuation of hundreds of homes.

At 4:26 p.m. Friday, Environment Canada's weather watchers issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Ottawa, Pontiac and Upper Gatineau. About 100 millimetres of rain fell over the next several hours. Authorities reported that numerous streets, many of them residential, flooded in Aylmer, Gatineau and Hull.

The Gatineau region appears to have been hardest hit by the storm. Highway 148 in Pontiac was closed in and around Eardley and Masham, with some of the four lanes on the highway near Luskville washed away. Notch Road in Chelsea was also reportedly washed out.
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Umbrella

Heavy rains continue to disrupt flights in Philippines

Julie M. Aurelio
Globalnation.inquirer.ir
Sat, 25 Jun 2011 17:05 UTC
Manilla, Philippines - Bad weather continued to disrupt flights in and out of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport on Saturday as Topical Storm Falcon (Meari) exited the country.

As of 2:30 p.m., one international flight had been cancelled and another was delayed by nearly six hours while at least two domestic flights were cancelled because of continued heavy monsoon rains aggravated by the storm.

An advisory from the Manila International Airport Authority Media Affairs Division said Philippine Airlines flight PR 438 for Nagoya, Japan, at 2:30 p.m. was cancelled because of bad weather.
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Umbrella

US - Heavy rains flood Omaha streets

Sam Womack, Emily Nohr and Kirby Kaufman
Omaha.com
Sat, 25 Jun 2011 16:54 UTC
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© James R. Burnett/The World-Herald
Several streets north of TD Ameritrade Park are flooded after heavy rains fell early Saturday morning.

Water gushed, storm drains overflowed and water flooded some businesses in the area.

At least a foot of water surrounded Hot Shops Art Center at 13th and Nicholas Streets, said the building's managing partner Tim Barry.

He said there was also about a foot of water in the building's boiler room. Pumps were installed to dry out the bottom floor, Barry said.

"We hope and pray we don't get a three inch rain in the next couple days," he said.
Hot Shops Art Center is closed on weekends and open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Barry was unsure if the shop would be open Monday.
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Umbrella

US - Montana - Hail, heavy rain move through Billings area

Zach Benoit
Billingsgazette.com
Thu, 23 Jun 2011 16:48 UTC
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© Bob Zellar/Gazette StaffFans huddle under an umbrella during the rain at the Scarlets-Royals game at Dehler Park on Friday. A brief thunderstorm moved through the city Friday evening.
Heavy rain and thunder cleared the way for a short burst of hail in parts of south-central Montana on Friday night, although no significant damage was reported.

The National Weather Service's Billings office issued an advisory for Stillwater and Yellowstone counties before 9 p.m. warning of strong rains, hail, lightning, thunder and wind gusts of up to 50 mph.

A short, heavy downpour started in Billings just after 9 p.m., although little hail was reported east of the West End, said Vickie Stephenson, an NWS hydrometeorologic technician.

It dropped a 0.26 inches of rain on Billings in less than an hour before moving out of the area before 10 p.m., according to the weather service.

Trained weather spotters reported hail 0.88 and 0.75 inches in diameter about four miles northwest of Laurel and three miles southwest of Billings, respectively.
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Bell

US - Tornado victim's dental braces blown 100 miles away (and they are found by a man who lost his home in an earthquake)


Dailymail.co.uk
Sat, 25 Jun 2011 16:18 UTC
A man walking on the beach on an island off Massachusetts made a remarkable discovery - a zip-style plastic bag containing clear plastic dental aligners from 100 miles away.

Rick Maurice was taking a first-day-of-summer stroll on Tuckernuck Island off Nantucket when he came across the bag.

When he picked it up he noticed the plastic dental devices inside and the dentist's name printed on the bag.

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© Unknown'Raw power of nature': Springfield orthodontist Dr Scott Smith who gave the dental aligners to the patient.
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Alarm Clock

Experts say an earthquake surely will devastate the Northwest

Richard Read
Oregonlive.com
Sat, 25 Jun 2011 15:38 UTC
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© Motoya Nakamura/The OregonianA Japanese flag flies above wreckage in front of the city hospital in Onagawa, a community devastated by the March 11 tsunami and 9-magnitude earthquake. Experts estimate that at least 5,000 Oregonians will die in a similar quake and tsunami here. The only question, they say, is when.
Experts armed with seabed core samples and findings from Japan are ready to place odds on the likelihood of a giant earthquake rocking the Northwest.

Within the next 50 years, they say, Washington and northern Oregon face a 10 to 15 percent probability of an offshore quake powerful enough to kill thousands and launch a tsunami that would level coastal cities. Off southern Oregon, the probability of an 8-or-higher magnitude earthquake is greater -- 37 percent, according to Oregon State University's Chris Goldfinger, one of the world's top experts on subduction-zone quakes.

Goldfinger and other authorities who spoke at a Portland conference this week say the Northwest is dangerously unprepared for a massive quake they consider inevitable at some point. At least 300,000 Oregon children attend school in buildings vulnerable to collapse when the Big One comes.

"I think every parent should know this," said Kit Miyamoto, an earthquake engineer from Japan whose company is helping repair quake-damaged structures in Haiti. "Those schools should be banned."

Earthquake experts are speaking with new urgency after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 24,000 March 11, shattering long-held assumptions on safety and survival. A much smaller New Zealand quake in February showed what can happen in a city similar to Portland, killing 181 and destroying thousands of houses in Christchurch.
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Cloud Lightning

Storm warning announced in Crimea


Nrcu.gov.ua
Sat, 25 Jun 2011 15:27 UTC
Rain with hail, accompanied by strong gusts of wind have caused damage to many regions of Ukraine.

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© Unknown
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