Earth ChangesS


Red Flag

Iceland volcanic ash cloud could extend travel chaos until Friday. What ash cloud?

James Meikle
The Guardian
Sun, 18 Apr 2010 12:56 UTC
Image
© Halldor Kolbeins/AFP/Getty Images
Gordon Brown warns against rail, coach and ferry operators trying to exploit passengers desperate to find travel alternatives

The airline crisis was deepening today as air traffic controllers extended the ban on UK flights until at least 1pm tomorrow and the government warned the crisis caused by the volcano eruption in Iceland could last well into Tuesday.

One weather forecaster was predicting problems until Friday as airlines continued to revise their plans with the lockdown on flights continuing across much of northern Europe. Over 20 countries have airspace restrictions, many banning all non-emergency flights.

Comment: Air traffic controllers in individual European countries did not make these decisions. Eurocontrol, the central air traffic control center for Europe, made the call based on the forecasts provided by the Volcanic Ash Centre in London.

Gordon Brown today sought to assure stranded passengers that British airspace would be reopened "as quickly as possible" and warned against rail, coach or ferry operators trying to exploit passengers desperate to find alternative methods of travel. He also said he would be seeking EU funds to help companies stricken by the disruption.

Comment: A Sott.net reader sent us this photo of the ash cloud above northern Europe:

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Arrow Up

Death Toll from Northwest China Earthquake Tops 1,700


RIA Novosti
Sun, 18 Apr 2010 00:45 UTC
Image
© Alfred Jin/Reuters
The death toll from a devastating earthquake in northwest China, has risen to 1,706, with 90 people still missing, the official news agency Xinhua reported on Sunday.

The quake also left 11,849 people injured, including 1,300 in serious condition.

A 7.1 magnitude earthquake, the strongest to strike the country in two years, hit an area in Qinghai, near Tibet, on the morning of April 14. The epicenter of the earthquake was registered at the depth of 33 km (20 miles) in Yushu county, in the south of Qinghai province.

Aftershocks complicated relief operations. Hundreds of people remain under the debris in Yushu, a Tibetan plateau county where more than 15,000 houses, or 90% of all homes, were destroyed by the quake.
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Bizarro Earth

Magnitude 6.3 - Eastern New Guinea Reg, Papua New Guinea


US Geological Survey
Sat, 17 Apr 2010 20:00 UTC
Papua Earthquake
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Saturday, April 17, 2010 at 23:15:24 UTC

Sunday, April 18, 2010 at 09:15:24 AM at epicenter

Location:
6.744°S, 147.259°E

Depth:
66.2 km (41.1 miles)

Distances:
30 km (20 miles) E of Lae, New Guinea, PNG

215 km (135 miles) NE of Kerema, New Guinea, PNG

300 km (185 miles) N of PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea

2370 km (1470 miles) NNW of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia
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Cloud Lightning

Severe tropical storm strikes eastern India

Shree Haran
World Socialist Web Site
Sat, 17 Apr 2010 14:28 UTC
A severe tropical storm struck the eastern Indian states of Bihar, West Bengal, and Assam, as well as neighbouring country Bangladesh, on Tuesday night, destroying an estimated 100,000 homes and killing at least 136 people. The death toll will almost certainly rise further, with others believed to be buried under debris. Many of the survivors are yet to receive assistance, triggering protests in several areas.

The Meteorological Department in Bihar reported winds of 100 kilometres per hour. Tornados also developed within the storm. Trees were uprooted, telephone and electricity lines snapped and mud huts swept away. The storm, which hit at night while most people were sleeping, was the deadliest in the region since Cyclone Aliya swept Bangladesh and eastern India in May last year. As many as 500,000 people are believed to have been affected by Tuesday's storm.

Bihar, India's poorest state, was the worst affected. The confirmed death toll has reached 83, and about 80,000 homes were destroyed in five of the state's districts. In Purnia, a rural area, 39 people were killed including 17 children. In Araria, another rural area, 33 died including 11 children. The district magistrate of Araria, Uday Kumar, told reporters that "while the exact number of people rendered homeless would be ascertained by Saturday, 25,000-30,000 people were affected".
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Attention

Europe Cuts 77% of Flights; Relief May Come April 22

Matthew Brown and Omar R. Valdimarsson
Bloomberg
Sat, 17 Apr 2010 14:22 UTC
Image
European airlines canceled more than 77 percent of their flights today as most of the continent's northern and central nations remained closed to air traffic, and Accuweather predicted little change until April 22.

No flights will operate out of the U.K. until at least 7 a.m. London time tomorrow, the National Air Traffic Service said today via e-mail. German airports will remain closed until 8 a.m. Berlin time tomorrow, the DFX air traffic control agency said. The European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, or Eurocontrol, expects about 5,000 flights across Europe today, compared with 22,000 on a "normal" Saturday, it said today in a statement.

"Expect ongoing interruptions for the next four or five days," Teitur Atlason, at the Icelandic meteorological office, said in a telephone interview today. "The eruption is still in full swing, and the volcano is spewing pretty dark ashes as high into the air as 5 to 6 kilometers."
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Sun

Scientists predict colder European winters to come


TheLocal.de
Thu, 15 Apr 2010 10:06 UTC
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Continental Europe and Britain are likely to see more unusually cold winters like last season due to low solar activity, according to a new study by British and German researchers published on Thursday.

The study in Environmental Research Letters compared recent low sun spot activity to a solar period called the "Maunder minimum" in the second half of the 17th century, when even the Thames River froze over in London. The period of harsh winters is frequently called "The Little Ice Age."

In the last 11 years, sun spot activity has been at a 90-year low, providing the researchers from the University of Reading, the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau with a special opportunity to compare historic temperature records with sun activity and investigate how this connects to cold winters in the region.
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Bizarro Earth

Australia: Adelaide hit by earth tremor


Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Sat, 17 Apr 2010 01:18 UTC
Adelaide Earthquake
© ABCThe quake struck Mount Barker, in the Adelaide Hills, about 11:27pm ACDT (Google Maps)
Residents of Adelaide in South Australia were woken last night by a 3.8-magnitude earthquake.

The earthquake happened at 11:27pm and people living within a 50 kilometre radius of the quake reported tremors lasting for up to 15 seconds.

The epicentre was close to Mount Barker, 40 kilometres east of the capital, in the Adelaide Hills.

Mount Barker resident Robert says he heard a loud bang when the quake struck.

"We heard a terrific explosion," he said.

"We live right opposite the golf course and lots of galahs roost in the trees and they made nearly as much noise as the earthquake itself but it was definitely an explosion."

Paul in Bridgewater emailed ABC News Online, saying: "Whoa! We just had what seemed like an earthquake go through our house."
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Bizarro Earth

Eerie zodiacal cloud comes from comets


United Press International
Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:23 UTC
Jupiter and Moon
© UPIJupiter and its moon Io.
Boulder, Colorado, -- An eerie, greenish nighttime glow in the sky known as the zodiacal cloud comes from comets, not asteroids, U.S. planetary scientists say.

The pancake-shaped glow, seen along the same plane as the orbit of the planets, was first explained by astrologer Joshua Childrey in 1661 as sunlight scattered in Earth's direction by asteroid dust particles in the solar system.

The source of the dust, which has particles 1 to 300 micrometers in diameter, was long debated.

But more than 85 percent of the dust actually comes from Jupiter family comets, David Nesvorny and Peter Jenniskens argue in a paper published in the peer-reviewed Astrophysical Journal.
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Bizarro Earth

Get ready for decades of Icelandic fireworks

Kate Ravilious
New Scientist
Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:38 UTC
Iceland Volcano
© Icelandic Coast GuardReady for more of the same?
We're not quite back to the pre-plane era, but air travel over and around the north Atlantic might get a lot more disrupted in the coming years.

Volcanologists say the fireworks exploding from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano on Iceland, which is responsible for the ash cloud that is grounding all commercial flights across northern Europe, may become a familiar sight. Increased rumblings under Iceland over the past decade suggest that the area is entering a more active phase, with more eruptions and the potential for some very large bangs.

"Volcanic activity on Iceland appears to follow a periodicity of around 50 to 80 years. The increase in activity over the past 10 years suggests we might be entering a more active phase with more eruptions," says Thorvaldur Thordarson, an expert on Icelandic volcanoes at the University of Edinburgh, UK. By contrast, the latter half of the 20th century was unusually quiet.

Along with increased volcanism, more seismic activity has been recorded around Iceland, including the magnitude-6.1 quake that rocked Reykjavik in May 2008.
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Stormtrooper

Hysteria? "A million Britons stranded by ash; Food shortages expected; Volcano flight chaos to last until next week"

Michael Seamark & Ray Massey
UK Daily Mail
Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:40 UTC
Image
© Associated PressSafety measures: An aircraft maintenance worker covers a jet engine at Belfast City Airport, Northern Ireland, yesterday as a cloud of volcanic ash made its way across Europe
One million Britons were stranded abroad last night by the travel paralysis caused by volcanic ash.

The unprecedented air lockdown was extended until at least 7am today but the chaos and confusion will drift well into next week.

Some holidaymakers in Spain were told they face a ten-day wait for a flight home and the delays - coming at the end of the Easter holiday period - intensified problems caused by the massive Icelandic eruption.

Schoolchildren, and their teachers, will be missing from classrooms on Monday, and Britain faces shortages of air-freighted food as the impact of the vast spume of ash begins to bite beyond air travel.

Fruit and vegetables including lettuce, grapes, spring onions and asparagus may be missing from many supermarket shelves next week and firms specialising in flying in produce from overseas are also warning of higher prices.

The transport giant Norbert Dentressangle said activity at its perishable air freight handling centre at Heathrow, the UK's largest, was at a standstill. The result will be a three-day shortfall in the supply of products including prepacked fruit salads and flowers.

It said that while there are enough products on shelves and in warehouses to see stores through the weekend, supermarkets will be 'severely impacted' next week.
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