Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Landslides Raise Death Toll in Pakistan

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© Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesPrime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani visited flood-hit areas and has said the disaster had spiralled beyond the government's capacity
Landslides have raised the death toll in flood-hit Pakistan, cutting off roads and hampering aid efforts as rescuers battled to beat rains exacerbating the country's worst ever floods.

Washed-out roads in Pakistan's northwest made ground access to many of the 15 million flood victims impossible and many helicopters were unable to fly as heavy rains persisted, cutting off the entire Swat valley, officials said.

In the far north of the country, 28 bodies were recovered from rubble after landslides in Gilgit-Baltistan province caused houses to collapse Saturday.

Administrative official Mohammad Ali Yougwi said up to 40 people were feared dead after the landslides hit those living at the bottom of a mountain in the town of Skardu.

"We have recovered 28 dead bodies, there are more people buried under the rubble," said Yougwi.

Cloud Lightning

Flooding kills 10 across Europe

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© UnknownFloodwaters damage houses in Chrastava village
At least ten people have been killed and thousands of others have been evacuated as heavy rain and flooding disrupt traffic and cause power outages in central Europe.

Polish officials announced on Sunday that at least three people have been killed after rivers overflew and a dam burst, submerging towns in southwestern Poland.

"We had no warning. In less than an hour our town was totally inundated up to the first floor, many houses collapsed and we were cut off from the world," mayor of Poland's southwestern city of Bogatynia, Andrzej Grzmielewicz told TVN24news channel.

"We need amphibious vehicles and helicopters to help evacuate at least 2,000 flood victims," he added, calling on people to help the victims with blankets and food.

Torrential rain has also drowned four Czech nationals in a region bordering Poland and Germany on Saturday.

At least 1,000 people were forced to evacuate their houses and people of Chrastava and Frydlant were rescued by military helicopters from the roofs of their homes.

Phoenix

Nice day for a white wedding: Brides brave blankets of smog caused by Russian wildfires

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© ReutersDetermined: A newly-married couple walks along Red Square amidst the heavy cloud of smog
The thick blanket of white smog which hangs over Russia was not enough to put off some determined brides from tying the knot today.

The women, barely visible in their white dresses, went ahead with their nuptials, despite the shroud of smog that has descended on the country.

The eerie cloud, which has caused a fourfold increase in airborne pollutants, including carbon monoxide, is the result of forest fires which have killed 50 people nationwide.

Flights at international airports have been grounded and visibility in the capital is down to a few dozen yards as the fires continue to tear through forests and villages.

Russians wore protective face masks as dozens of forest and peat bog fires around the city continued to burn, fanned by south-easterly winds and the country's most intense heat wave in 130 years.

More than 500 separate blazes are active today, mainly across Russia's European territory, according to the Emergencies Ministry.

Igloo

Huge ice island calves off Greenland glacier

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© USGS
An ice island four times the size of Manhattan broke off from one of Greenland's two main glaciers, scientists said on Friday, in the biggest such event in the Arctic in nearly 50 years.

The new ice island, which broke off on Thursday, will enter a remote place called the Nares Strait, about 620 miles south of the North Pole between Greenland and Canada.

The ice island has an area of 100 square miles (260 square km) and a thickness up to half the height of the Empire State Building, said Andreas Muenchow, professor of ocean science and engineering at the University of Delaware.

Muenchow said he had expected an ice chunk to break off from the Petermann Glacier, one of the two largest remaining ones in Greenland, because it had been growing in size for seven or eight years. But he did not expect it to be so large.

"The freshwater stored in this ice island could keep the Delaware or Hudson Rivers flowing for more than two years," said Muenchow, whose research in the area is supported by the National Science Foundation.

"It could also keep all U.S. public tap water flowing for 120 days."

Phoenix

Russian troops dig canal around Sarov nuclear base as wildfires grow

Emergency action reported to have 'stabilised' situation at Sarov, the closed town where first Soviet nuclear bomb was built

Russian troops dug a five-mile canal yesterday to protect a nuclear arms site from wildfires caused by a record heatwave.

The forest and peat fires have killed at least 52 people, made more than 4,000 homeless, diverted many flights and pushed air pollution in Moscow to six times its normal level, forcing some residents of the capital to wear surgical masks.

Control Panel

NASA Images Show Continuing Mexico Quake Deformation

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© NASA/JPL/USGS/California Geological Survey/GoogleUAVSAR interferogram of Southern California near the Mexican border, created by combining data from flights on April 13, 2010, and July 1, 2010.
New NASA airborne radar images of Southern California near the U.S.-Mexico border show Earth's surface is continuing to deform following the April 4 magnitude, 7.2 temblor and its many aftershocks that have rocked Mexico's state of Baja California and parts of the American Southwest.

The data, from NASA's airborne Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR), reveal that some faults in the area west of Calexico, Calif., have continued to move at Earth's surface, most likely in the many aftershocks. This fault motion is likely to be what is known as "triggered slip," caused by changes in stress in Earth's crust from the main quake rupture. The new maps, called interferograms, were created by combining data from flights on April 13, 2010, and July 1, 2010, and can be found HERE. Previous radar maps of the region released on June 23, 2010, are HERE.

The first image shows a UAVSAR interferogram swath measuring 87 by 20 kilometers (54 by 12.5 miles) overlaid atop a Google Earth image. Each colored contour, or fringe, of the interferogram represents 11.9 centimeters (4.7 inches) of surface displacement. The different shades in the image represent ground surface motions of up to a few inches upward or downward. Yellow shaded regions moved to the south or downward, regions in blue moved to the north or upward, and regions shaded in magenta showed no motion. Major fault lines are marked in red, and recent aftershocks are denoted by yellow, orange and red dots, with older earthquakes shown as gray dots.

Bizarro Earth

NASA Instrument Tracks Pollution from Russian Fires

Russian Fires_1
© NASA/JPL/Leonid Yurganov, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Side-by-side comparison of carbon monoxide pollution from the series of devastating wildfires burning across central and western Russia, as seen by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua spacecraft on July 21, 2010 (left) and Aug. 1, 2010 (right). The AIRS data show the abundance of carbon monoxide present in the atmosphere at an altitude of 5.5 kilometers (18,000 feet).
Drought and the worst heat wave Russia has seen in 130 years have sparked a devastating outbreak of wildfires across the nation this summer, primarily in the country's western and central regions. According to wire service reports and Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry, as of Aug. 6, 2010, some 558 fires were burning. The fires have killed at least 52 people, destroyed some 2,000 homes and charred more than 1,796 square kilometers (693 square miles). Russia's capital city of Moscow is currently blanketed in a thick smog, which has curtailed activities and disrupted air traffic. According to the Associated Press, levels of carbon monoxide pollution in Moscow are at an all-time high, four times higher than normal.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua spacecraft is tracking the concentration and transport of carbon monoxide from the Russian fires. The figures presented here show the abundance of carbon monoxide present in the atmosphere at an altitude of 5.5 kilometers (18,000 feet). AIRS is sensitive to carbon monoxide in the mid-troposphere at heights between 2 and 10 kilometers (1.2 and 6.2 miles), with a peak sensitivity at an altitude of approximately 5 kilometers (3.1 miles). This region of Earth's atmosphere is also conducive to the long-range transport of the pollution that is lofted to this altitude.

As shown in Figure 1, acquired July 21, 2010, the concentration of carbon monoxide from the fires on that date was largely limited to the European part of Russia (western and central Russia). This contrasts dramatically with the data in Figure 2, acquired on August 1, when the carbon monoxide concentration was much higher and the area of the fires had increased significantly. The concentration of carbon monoxide is continuing to grow. According to Aug. 4 NASA estimates, the smoke plume from the fires spans about 3,000 kilometers (1,860 miles) from east to west, approximately the distance from San Francisco to Chicago.

Info

Iran: Civilization's Ancient Trailblazer ‎

Hail Iran, thou land of ancient splendor
Hail Iran, thou realm of golden light
Iran, thou art the mother
And domain of fabled heroes -
Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes -
History's legends, men of might.

So put away thy torpor, O' Iran.
Shake off thy slumber.
Forget thou not thy glory
In thy youth. Recall the sight
Of Apadana's pillars
And the walls of Ecbatana
And the Gateway to the Nations
Thru which disputes were put to flight.

So strike once more the harp.
Beat the timbrel. Sound the cymbals.
Raise again the rhyton,
of Artaxerxes, golden bright.
And recall thou wert the mother
of Man's first civilizations.
So kindle thou the torch
to safeguard against the night.

Ancient Iran
© Press TVPersepolis, Fars Province, Iran.

Iran, the name evokes different feelings among different groups of people. Today, largely thanks to the media, most Americans and Europeans think of Iran's nuclear program when they hear the word. Traditionally, however, before the age of 'news bytes' and round-the-clock coverage, the images evoked were quite different.

In the 19th century, for example, when Westerners heard the word, 'Persia,' (the name, by which Iran was then known,) they thought of bejeweled silken rugs, intricately illuminated books of poetry and the poignant song of the nightingale. Like mirages rising from the desert's shimmering horizon, images arose of verdant Persian gardens, perfumed with drifts of jasmine and cooled by the diamond spray of fountains.

Such images were not the products of 19th century orientalists' fancies. They did - and still do - exist and are an integral part of the country and civilization of Iran. Fabulous silk rugs are still being woven by hand. Books of poetry rendered in intricate calligraphy can still be found and perfumed Persian gardens - both public and private - still abound, providing cool respite from the fierce rays of the desert sun.

But just as Iran entails much more than the news outlets' latest political spin would have us believe, it also encompasses a great deal more than Medieval poetry and science -- or the fantastic One Thousand and One Nights culture promoted by Hollywood. One group limits Iranian culture to the parameters of the latest political debacle, while another thinks of it only in terms of the 'Golden Age of Islam' and the third categorizes it in terms of fairytales -- complete with flying carpets and magic lamps. All three assumptions are erroneous, with the first giving a completely skewed -- and the second two, only a partial -- image of Iran. No wonder Westerners are confused.

For over two millennia, the country and its culture have been misrepresented. This is particularly true of ancient Iran, which has traditionally been portrayed as corrupt, backward, lacking in initiative and despotic, whereas archaeologists have since found strong indications that the opposite was true.

Phoenix

Wildfires spread through central Russia as pollutants in Moscow smog causes health concerns

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© Metzel/APTourists wear protective face masks as they walk along the Red Square in thick smog, with Saint Basil's Cathedral partially visible in the back, in Moscow, Russia.
Wildfires continued to spread throughout central Russia Saturday as smog consumed Moscow, raising health concerns for residents of the Russian capital.

290 new wildfires were reported in the last 24 hours, and weather forecasters said that Russia's heat wave would continue for several more days.

Meanwhile, pollutants in the Moscow smog have risen to dangerously unsafe levels. carbon monoxide levels are 6.6 times higher than acceptable, and tiny invisible particles from the fires are present in concentrations 2.2 times higher than normal levels, according to state air pollution monitoring service Mosekomonitoring.

Bizarro Earth

'More than four million' hit by flooding in Pakistan

flooding
© AP
People look for survivors in the wreckage of a bus which plunged into the flooded River Jhelum near Muzaffarabad, in Kashmi
Pakistan's worst floods in 80 years have killed at least 1,600 people and affected the lives of more than four million, the UN said yesterday.

The UK's Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) said that aid from its members was reaching over 300,000 survivors, with many UK charities distributing food, water purification tablets, shelter, medicine and hygiene kits by raft, boat and donkey. Last night the actor Art Malik and the former hostage John McCarthy presented new TV and radio appeals.

Brendan Gormley, DEC's chief executive, said: "These devastating floods have left millions fighting to survive with little food, clean water or shelter. As monsoon rains continue unabated, the situation is deteriorating and the speed of our response is vital."