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Huge flood wave threatens major Russian Far East cities as region is hit by cyclones


The Siberian Times
Fri, 16 Aug 2013 18:13 UTC
At least 30,000 homes are hit by flooding in Amur region, with Vladimir Putin ordering more emergency aid to stricken people.
Image
© Vitaly Ragulin
The Amur River is expected to rise to its highest-ever 7 metres in coming days, posing major threats to the city of Khabarovsk, as well as Komsomolsk-on-Amur and Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, also with many more districts. Blagoveschensk is also threatened.
A section of the world famous Trans Siberian Railway was closed on Thursday on the route linking capital Moscow with Vladivostok. Flood water washed away some of the stone ballast supporting the track in Amur region after a nearby river reached a 'critical level, said a Russian Railways statement.

Both Amur and Khabarovsk regions are devastated by record deluges which have caused rivers to break their banks, forcing residents to abandon their homes and threatening disease.

A state of emergency is in force in these two regions along with the Sakha republic (Yakutia), Primorye region, and the Jewish Autonomous region.

The Amur River is expected to rise to its highest-ever 7 metres in coming days, posing major threats to the city of Khabarovsk, as well as Komsomolsk-on-Amur and Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, also with many more districts. Blagoveschensk is also threatened. In Khabarovsk, the authorities called for residents of Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island - a sedimentary island at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri rivers - to urgently leave and move to the mainland.
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Igloo

Major Danish daily warns: "Globe may be on path to Little Ice Age...Much colder winters...Dramatic consequences"!

P Gosselin
NoTricksZone
Fri, 09 Aug 2013 00:06 UTC
Danish NewsPaper
© NoTricksZone
The August 7 edition of Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten featured a major 2-page article on the globe’s 15-years of missing warming and the potential solar causes and implications.
Another major European media outlet is asking: Where's the global warming?

Moreover, they are featuring prominent skeptic scientists who are warning of a potential little ice age and dismissing CO2 as a major climate driver. And all of this just before the release of the IPCC's 5AR, no less!

Hat-tip: NTZ reader Arne Garbøl

The August 7 print edition of the Danish Jyllands-Posten, the famous daily that published the "Muhammad caricatures", features a full 2-page article bearing the headline: "The behavior of the sun may trigger a new little ice age" followed by the sub-headline: "Defying all predictions, the globe may be on the road towards a new little ice age with much colder winters."

So now even the once very green Danish media is now spreading the seeds of doubt. So quickly can "settled science" become controversial and hotly disputed. The climate debate is far from over. And when it does end, it looks increasingly as if it'll end in favor of the skeptics.

The JP writes that "many will be startled" by the news that a little ice age is a real possibility. Indeed, western citizens have been conditioned to think that nothing except warming is possible. Few have prepared for any other possibility.

In its latest 2-page report, the JP now appears to tell its readers that our views on climate science have to be much more open minded and unshackled from the chains of dogmatism.

JP starts by reminding readers that it was just over 100 years ago that the world had clawed itself out of the little ice age, which extended from 1400 - 1900, a time when the Thames river often froze over. All paths in determining the cause of the little ice age all seem to converge to a single factor: solar activity.
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Igloo

Rare summer snowfall in Xinjiang

Gong Yingchun
China.org.cn
Fri, 16 Aug 2013 00:02 UTC
Rare Snow
© weibo.com
China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region witnessed a rare display of summer snowfall on Tuesday as a powerful cold air front moved into the area.
China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region witnessed a rare display of summer snowfall on Tuesday as a powerful cold air front moved into the area.

Xinjiang has been suffering scorching heat since July, with temperatures reaching over 40 degrees Celsius. A powerful cold air front has recently moved into the region, causing much and heavy rainfall.

However, one netizen under the username "Chief of the Daolang Tribe" uploaded a group of photos taken near the Tieliemaiti Pass to his microblog account on August 13, saying that some rare summer snowfall occurred near the Duku section of National Highway 217.

The snowfall's photos went viral within hours as residents in most parts of southern China are still enduring a heat wave.
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Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.5 - SSW of Blenheim, New Zealand


US Geological Survey
Thu, 15 Aug 2013 21:53 UTC
Blenheim Quake_160813
© USGS
Event Time
2013-08-16 02:31:10 UTC
2013-08-16 14:31:10 UTC+12:00 at epicenter


Location
41.751°S 173.833°E depth=10.6km (6.6mi)

Nearby Cities
27km (17mi) SSW of Blenheim, New Zealand
69km (43mi) SE of Nelson, New Zealand
71km (44mi) SE of Richmond, New Zealand
91km (57mi) SW of Karori, New Zealand
94km (58mi) WSW of Wellington, New Zealand

Technical Details
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Info

Carnivore 'teddy bear' emerges from the mists of Ecuador

Ian Sample
The Guardian
Thu, 15 Aug 2013 14:45 UTC
Olinguito is first new carnivore identified in western hemisphere for 35 years, bringing 100 years of mistaken identity to an end

Image
© Mark Gurney
The olinguito, which lives in the cloud forests of Ecuador, has been described as a cross between a teddy bear and a house cat.
A small, wide-eyed beast with luxuriant orange fur has been identified as a new species more than 100 years after it first went on display in the world's museums.

The discovery brings to an end one of the longest zoological cases of mistaken identity and establishes the "olinguito" (which rhymes with mojito) as the first new carnivore recorded in the western hemisphere for 35 years.

The animal - which has been described as a cross between a teddy bear and a house cat - had been displayed in museums around the globe and exhibited at numerous US zoos for decades without scientists grasping that it had been mislabelled.

One adult female, named Ringerl, was kept at Louisville zoo in the 1960s, but was moved to Tucson zoo, to the Smithsonian's National zoo, and to the Bronx zoo after keepers repeatedly failed in their attempts to breed the animal. The reason for that failure is now clear: it was a different species to the mates on offer.
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Bizarro Earth

Why this year's Gulf dead zone is twice as big as last year's

Tim Philpott
Mother Jones
Wed, 14 Aug 2013 15:00 UTC
Image

Dead Sea scrolls: In the red part, "habitats that would normally be teeming with life become, essentially, biological deserts," NOAA says. NOAA.
First, the good news: The annual "dead zone" that smothers much of the northern Gulf of Mexico - caused by an oxygen-sucking algae bloom mostly fed by Midwestern farm runoff - is smaller this year than scientists had expected. In the wake of heavy spring rains, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had been projecting 2013's fish-free region of the Gulf to be at least 7,286 square miles and as large as 8,561 square miles - somewhere between the size of New Jersey on the low end to New Hampshire on the high end. Instead, NOAA announced, it has clocked in at 5,840 square miles - a bit bigger than Connecticut. It's depicted in the above graphic.

Now, for the bad news: This year's "biological desert" (NOAA's phrase) is much bigger than last year's, below, which was relatively tiny because Midwestern droughts limited the amount of runoff that made it into the Gulf. At about 2,900 square miles, the 2012 edition measured up to be about a third as large as Delaware.

Comment:
Original 'Fall of Eden'? Agriculture is a "profoundly unnatural activity" and the "worst mistake in human history"

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Cloud Precipitation

Man shoots video of waterspout with rainbow over Baltic Sea


upi.com
Wed, 14 Aug 2013 15:42 UTC

A Swedish man's video of a liquid tornado, known as a waterspout, in front of a rainbow over the Baltic Sea has gained him international attention.

Lars Lundqvist, 54, said he woke early Wednesday at his home on the island of Gotland and decided to photograph the unusual weather, The Local.se reported Wednesday.

"It was very dramatic out there and I thought I'd take a few stills, but then after 15 minutes I saw a weird, grey pillar and I thought: 'What the hell is that?'" Lundqvist said.

He soon realized the pillar was a liquid tornado.

"I was surprised. I've never seen one over the sea before. It was impressive, particularly so with that rainbow there. It was great scenery, magnificent really," he said.

Lundqvist said the waterspout was not filled with sharks, as in the recently released cult film "Sharknado."

"I was looking for sharks," he joked. "But I didn't see any. I didn't see any flounders or cod either actually. Nothing. I felt very safe."
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Info

Aquatic apes: Cooper the chimp proves he can paddle like a human - and even does breaststroke

Anna Hodgekiss
The Daily Mail, UK
Wed, 14 Aug 2013 13:37 UTC
Cooper, who showed off his skills in a swimming pool in Missouri, also enjoyed diving to the bottom of the six-foot deep pool to pick up objects

He and an orangutan, called Suryia, were were separately filmed ploughing through water using a form of breaststroke

Both animals used a leg movement similar to the breaststroke 'frog kick'

They may be no match for Michael Phelps, but a chimp and orangutan have proved to scientists that apes can swim like humans.

The two captive animals were separately filmed ploughing through water using a form of breaststroke.

Most land mammals swim instinctively by paddling their paws. Scientists believe the peculiar swimming style of humans and apes might be the result of life in the trees.


Image

Cooper the chimpanzee showing off his skills in a swimming pool in Missouri. Not only could he swim, but he is said to have enjoyed diving to the bottom of the six-foot deep pool to pick up objects
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Cloud Lightning

Caught on film: blinding lightning bolt strikes commuter train in Japan


The Telegraph, UK
Wed, 14 Aug 2013 12:04 UTC
A commuter train in Tokyo is struck by lightning illuminating the evening sky and sending sparks across the railway tracks.


A Tokyo resident filmed the moment an Odakyu Electric Railway train travelling from the Izumi-Tamagawa Station to Noborito Station took a direct hit of lightning on Monday evening.

The train was travelling over a railway bridge when it was struck sending sparks flying at the front of the train as it slowed to a stop.

The passengers onboard reported carriages suddenly went dark as the train temporarily lost power.

There were no reported injuries and the train regained power and was able to move again after 10 minutes.
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Snowflake Cold

The early chill in the Arctic continues

Anthony Watts
Watts Up With That?
Wed, 14 Aug 2013 00:00 UTC
Temperature above 80 degrees north drops below freezing early, and continues to drop.

Many people have been watching the remarkable early drop in air temperature at the DMI plot here:
Image

This drop looks to be about two weeks early. As this next analysis of sea surface temperature shows, much of the area is below freezing. Of course in seawater, ice doesn't form until temperatures get below 28.4°F (-2°C), so it is close, but not quite there yet.

Image
The DMI sea ice plot looks to be slowing significantly, but has not made a turn yet.

Comment: There will be penguins ice skating across the Potomac before politicians in Washington admit we could be approaching a new ice age.

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