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| ©Agence France-Presse |
Earth Changes
Health officials on Saturday warned of extremely hazardous air quality in the wake of this week's wildfires that devoured swaths of Southern California territory and spewed massive amounts of smoke into the atmosphere.
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| ©n/a |
| Trail of destruction ... the tornado blew the walls out of St Matthew's Anglican Church. |
A freak tornado with winds up to 150 kmh that tore through a northern NSW village was one of the rarest weather events to happen in a populated area of Australia.
The nine scattered fires that have caused seven confirmed deaths in Southern California continued to burn Saturday, with more than 20,000 homes still in danger, officials said.
Lighter winds and higher humidity enabled firefighters to go on the attack, but many fingers of the fire remain unpredictable. It will take more than a week to put the fires out and probably longer to stamp out flare-ups, officials said.
Fire crews at the Santiago Canyon fire in Orange County made a stand on an old ridge-top truck trail to prevent the fire from burning several homes and heading into Riverside County.
Lighter winds and higher humidity enabled firefighters to go on the attack, but many fingers of the fire remain unpredictable. It will take more than a week to put the fires out and probably longer to stamp out flare-ups, officials said.
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| ©Unknown |
Fire crews at the Santiago Canyon fire in Orange County made a stand on an old ridge-top truck trail to prevent the fire from burning several homes and heading into Riverside County.
A typhoon packing winds of up to 144km/h was today churning off Japan's main island in the Pacific Ocean, heading for the Tokyo region.
Typhoon Faxai was located 300km south of Tokyo and was moving northeast at 85km/h, the meteorological agency said.
"Faxai", a Laotian name for a woman, is expected to bring strong winds, the national weather agency said, warning of heavy rain and possible landslides in eastern Japan.
The typhoon is expected to leave Japan by early Monday, it added.
Typhoon Faxai was located 300km south of Tokyo and was moving northeast at 85km/h, the meteorological agency said.
"Faxai", a Laotian name for a woman, is expected to bring strong winds, the national weather agency said, warning of heavy rain and possible landslides in eastern Japan.
The typhoon is expected to leave Japan by early Monday, it added.
An epic drought in Georgia threatens the water supply for millions. Florida doesn't have nearly enough water for its expected population boom. The Great Lakes are shrinking. Upstate New York's reservoirs have dropped to record lows. And in the West, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is melting faster each year.
Across America, the picture is critically clear - the nation's freshwater supplies can no longer quench its thirst. The government projects that at least 36 states will face water shortages within five years because of a combination of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, urban sprawl, waste and excess.
Across America, the picture is critically clear - the nation's freshwater supplies can no longer quench its thirst. The government projects that at least 36 states will face water shortages within five years because of a combination of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, urban sprawl, waste and excess.
Heavy rains swelled into a torrent of water that swamped Congo's sprawling capital, killing 30 people in less than 24 hours, the government said Friday.
The death toll was likely to rise, an official at Congo's humanitarian affairs ministry said, because relief workers have not been able to reach many flooded neighborhoods.
The death toll was likely to rise, an official at Congo's humanitarian affairs ministry said, because relief workers have not been able to reach many flooded neighborhoods.
Over the past 30 years, the climate research community has made valiant efforts to answer the "climate sensitivity" question: What is the long-term equilibrium warming response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide? Earlier this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (1) concluded that this sensitivity is likely to be in the range of 2° to 4.5°C, with a 1-in-3 chance that it is outside that range. The lower bound of 2°C is slightly higher than the 1.6°C proposed in the 1970s (2); progress on the upper bound has been minimal.
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| ©Science Magazine |
| Carbon dioxide-induced warming under two scenarios simulated by an ensemble of simple climate models. (Left) CO2 levels are stabilized in 2100 at 450 ppm; (right) the stabilization target is recomputed in 2050. Shading denotes the likelihood of a particular simulation based on goodness-of-fit to observations of recent surface and subsurface-ocean temperature trends (7, 8). Simulations are plotted in order of increasing likelihood, so worse-fitting models are obscured. The bar labeled "EQM" shows the models' likelihood against their long-term equilibrium warming at 450 ppm. How these likelihoods are translated into forecast probabilities is controversial, and the more asymmetric the likelihood function, the greater the scope for controversy. |
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Mount Soputan volcano on the northern tip of Indonesia's Sulawesi island has erupted, throwing columns of ash 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) into the air, an official said on Friday. Saut Simatupang, of Indonesia's Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation, said that the eruption did not appear to pose an immediate threat to residents, although ash had reached the nearest town.
Unexplained honeybee deaths have recently started showing up in Florida, the same state where the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder was first discovered a year ago, the Agriculture Department's top bee scientist said Thursday.
The speed at which mankind is using and abusing the Earth's resources is putting humanity's survival at risk, scientists have said.
The bleak assessment of the state of the environment globally was issued as an "urgent call for action" amid growing concerns of worldwide waste, neglect and governmental inertia.
Fundamental changes in political policy and individual lifestyles were demanded by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as it gave warning that the "point of no return" for the environment is fast being approached.
The bleak assessment of the state of the environment globally was issued as an "urgent call for action" amid growing concerns of worldwide waste, neglect and governmental inertia.
Fundamental changes in political policy and individual lifestyles were demanded by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as it gave warning that the "point of no return" for the environment is fast being approached.
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| ©Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images |
| 2 million people are killed each year by air pollution |
Comment: A sustainable future can only be possible when equipped with sufficient objective knowledge about the reality we inhabit - for example the knowledge contained in 'Political Ponerology', which details how and why we have come to this "point of no return" and suggests possible solutions to avoid repeating the same mistakes in future.
Comment: Something is certainly up with our helpful insect friends. We have discussed this topic here at SOTT several times and recommend you read To Bee or not to Be for plenty of explosive material to ponder on.
Here's a short excerpt: