Earth ChangesS


Sun

Global Warming Propaganda: Glaciers atop Mexico volcano likely to vanish soon

Image
© NASAGlacial coverage is seen atop the Iztaccihuatl volcano in this satellite image from 2003.
Amecameca, Mexico - Glaciers that crown a Mexican volcano could disappear by 2015 with scientists pointing to global warming as a chief cause of their demise.

Until recently, the glacial field on Iztaccihuatl, a dormant volcano and one of two white-capped peaks that can be seen from Mexico City, was expected to be gone within a few decades.

But studies show rising world temperatures are melting the glaciers faster than previously thought, said Hugo Delgado, a glaciologist at Mexico City's UNAM university who thinks the massive blocks of ice will be gone within four years.

"What we've seen at Iztaccihuatl is an intense period of glacial retreat in the last few years, which has changed the picture," Delgado said.

Iztaccihuatl has one of two glacial fields left in Mexico, which are among the world's few tropical glaciers.

Glaciers are massive, slow-moving rivers of ice, and in the tropics they can only exist on the cold peaks of tall mountains. Most tropical glaciers, like those in Mexico, are much smaller than their cousins closer to the poles.

Glacial melt in the tropics could hit farmers and cities across Latin America by reducing water availability and hydro-power generation.

Bizarro Earth

Cyclone Carlos Batters Darwin and Top End

Cyclone Carlos
© Bureau of Meteorology, AustraliaA radar image of Darwin as Cyclone Carlos batters the city on Wednesday afternoon.
Tropical Cyclone Carlos is battering Darwin after a night of wild weather that left houses damaged and streets flooded.

School has been cancelled for today and tomorrow and Darwin Airport remains closed after the Bureau of Meteorology declared a cyclone warning for coastal areas from Daly River Mouth to Goulburn Island, including Darwin, Croker Island and the Tiwi Islands.

At least one house was destroyed overnight by a fallen tree, while an ambulance transporting a patient to Royal Darwin Hospital was crushed by a tree, but there were no serious injuries.

Emergency services crews received more than 2,000 calls for help, including reports of 91 trees and 31 powerlines down and several cars abandoned in rising water.

A 52-year-old man had to be rescued last night after his car became stranded in the fast-flowing Berry Springs.

A pedestrian clinging to traffic lights also had to be rescued from the swollen Rapid Creek overnight.

Bizarro Earth

California Puts Earthquake Fault Maps Online

California Quake Zones
© California Geological Survey.

In an effort to protect lives and homes, California has published an online map of all the state's major faults that could rupture the Earth's surface during an earthquake.

California has been required by state law to map the known active surface faults since the 1970s. Those maps number in the hundreds and were cumbersome to search before they were digitized. Now that they are online, anyone can search an address - with a little help from Google Maps - to see if it's within an earthquake surface fault zone.

"Up until now, the issue for people wanting to use the maps has been determining which one of the 547 maps we've produced suits their needs. We've employed Google Maps address-matching technology to solve that problem," said John Parrish, of the California Geological Survey in Sacramento, in a statement.

Also under state law, home sellers are required to disclose whether their home is in a fault zone. These earthquake laws were enacted after a magnitude-6.6 earthquake struck the San Fernando Valley in 1971. Surface ruptures during that quake devastated California.

Only faults that have ruptured the ground in the past 11,000 years are considered active and are included in the maps, said Bill Bryant, senior engineering geologist at the California Geological Survey. The faults also must be well-defined enough to be detected at or near the surface by a state geologist.

The maps include the San Andreas, San Jacinto, Calaveras and Hayward faults.

Attention

US: 4.3 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Near Mt. St. Helens

A 4.3 earthquake hit the Mt. St. Helens area about 10:35 a.m. Monday, followed by 30 aftershocks, according to a USGS seismologist.


USGS Seismologist Seth Moran told KGW the quake was centered near the Johnston Ridge Observatory, and registered on seismic devices as far away as Mt. Rainier and at Timberline Lodge.

Moran said the seismic event lasted about three to five seconds, and shaking from the quake lasted up to three minutes. He said there were at least 30 aftershocks.

USGS data on the 4.3quake

The 4.3 quake (pictured on the seismograph), originally rated as only a 3.3 magnitude event, happened at 10:35 a.m., about six miles north and northwest of the volcano and about three miles deep.

Bizarro Earth

Heavy Snow on the Korean Peninsula

Korean Peninsular
© NASANASA images courtesy MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Acquired February 14, 2011.
In mid-February 2011, residents along South Korea's east coast were struggling to dig out from the heaviest snowfall in more than a century. The BBC reported that hundreds of stranded motorists awaited rescue, and hundreds of homes had collapsed under the weight of heavy snow. The South Korean government had deployed 12,000 soldiers to assist and rescue residents.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite acquired this natural-color image on February 15, 2011. Mostly clear skies allowed MODIS a nearly uninterrupted view of the Korean Peninsula. East of Seoul, clusters of small white clouds cast shadows onto the surface below. But most of the white on the peninsula is snow.

Agence France-Presse reported that the port city of Samcheok recorded 100 centimeters (39 inches) of snowfall on February 11 and 12 - the heaviest snowfall amount since record keeping began in 1911. In the west, Seoul escaped heavy snow, although the Han River froze over for the first time in years, according to the BBC.

Info

US: Winter Storm Watch Issued For Sierra Nevada

The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch for the Sierra Nevada from Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday evening.

Light snow and strong gusty winds will linger over the mountains tonight.

A stronger storm is expected Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday.

Six to sixteen inches of snow is expected from 4000 through 5000 feet. One to three feet of snow is possible above 6000 through 8000 feet.

Cloud Lightning

Virginia, US: 'Thundersnow' behind mysterious blue flashes of light?

lightning
© Associated PressWere the eerie flashes of blue light similar to that in the picture above thundersnow — or something else?
Eerie flashes of blue lit up the snowy sky during this week's powerful coastal storm, but no one seems to know for sure what caused it.

Howard Bernstein, morning meteorologist at WUSA 9 in Washington, said he believes the lights were lightning strikes associated with "thundersnow."

The National Weather Service reported frequent lightning with Wednesday's storm, but said those who saw the flashes of light would have also heard thunder, and that wasn't the case around Prince William.

Bernstein says that's not necessarily true.

"I've given this a little bit of thought (and I also did a little research). I believe we were seeing lightning that was refracted by all of the ice crystals/snow flakes to give it more of a blue appearance," he said this morning in an e-mail. "Also, the thunder was probably quite muffled by all of the snowflakes, so if you weren't very close to the lightning, you probably couldn't hear the thunder."

Comment: Read the following article to get an insight into the true nature of lightning and other electric phenomena.


Question

Pakistan: Concern voiced over increasing peacock deaths in Thar

peacock
© Unknown
The mysterious death of two beautiful blue peacocks in their natural habitat, the Thar Desert, has caused concern among wildlife conservationists.

An official of Society for Conservation and Protection of Environment (Scope) in Mithi, Bharumal Amrani, has said that they have received reports of the death of two peacocks from different areas. He fears that more than 100 peacocks might have died in Mithi, Islamkot and Nagarparkar neighbourhoods.

The official is not sure about the places and the exact number of the birds that died, but says that Scope officials have made complains to Sindh Wildlife Department officials in their areas, but the officials have turned a deaf ear to the issue.

President Makhdoom Bilawal Welfare Society Arbab Nek Mohammad, who is supervising the project in collaboration with the UNDP Global Environment Facility's (GEF) Small Grants Programme, to conserve the peacocks in the Thar region, says that according to the information their organisational network collected at least 500 peacocks have died so far. He said that a lack of feeding, especially grains, in the natural habitat and the biting cold in the area might be the main reasons behind the death of the birds.

Cloud Lightning

South Africa: Karoo Hit by Flash Floods

flood
© Times Live
The Karoo was hit by flash floods at the weekend.

More than 100mm of rain fell in 24 hours on Saturday and Sunday in and around the central Karoo towns of Graaff-Reinet and Nieu Bethesda, The Herald Online reported on Monday.

In some places, 75mm fell in just 30 minutes, causing farm dams to burst.

Police and disaster management officials were on high alert and ready to evacuate residents where necessary.

In Graaff-Reinet, the town's Nqweba Dam swelled to its highest level in more than 36 years on Sunday.

The Herald Online reported that the dam rose to 116 percent capacity on Sunday morning.

"It looks like more rain is on the way," said the area's disaster management head, Christopher Rhoode.

Cloud Lightning

Afghanistan: Floods, Heavy Snow Kill 25 in Two Weeks

Afghan snow
© Masoud Popalzai/IRINBad weather hampers deliveries
Kabul - Flash floods and heavy snowfall killed 25 people and damaged up to 3,000 houses in different parts of Afghanistan over the past two weeks, according to government officials.

At least 20 people died and 53 have been injured in Parwan, Herat, Wardak and Daykundi provinces, the Afghanistan National Disasters Management Authority (ANDMA) said. Five people lost their lives in mudslides and snowstorms in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, the provincial department of the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) said.

Shindand District in the western province of Herat is among the worst affected areas where, in addition to four deaths and over a dozen injured, almost 2,600 families have been affected, officials said.

"In the beginning we had difficulties in delivering aid to Shindand because of insecurity and road inaccessibility," said Shafiq Behrozyan, a spokesman for the governor of Herat, adding that some humanitarian agencies had also opposed the transportation of aid items by military planes. "But we managed to send aid consignments by road."

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said it had dispatched 250 tons of food aid to Shindand and that distribution was ongoing.