Earth Changes

5.7-magnitude earthquake hits Babuyan Islands region in northern Philippines

The Washington Post
Sat, 14 Jan 2012 05:05 UTC

A moderate earthquake roused people from sleep but caused no injuries or damage in the northern Philippines early Sunday, officials said.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported that the magnitude-5.7 earthquake hit the Babuyan Islands region off the country's mountainous north. Philippine officials placed its magnitude at 5.5.

The quake's center, at a depth of 13.9 miles (22.4 kilometers), was about 317 miles (511 kilometers) north of Manila, USGS said.

Benito Ramos, who heads the government's Office of Civil Defense, said the quake woke some people up but did not cause any injuries or damage in at least three provinces where it was felt.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue any warnings or advisories.

The Philippines is located on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire" where earthquakes and volcanic activity are common.

Source: The Associated Press

Polar Stratospheric Clouds

Space Weather
Sat, 14 Jan 2012 12:21 UTC

An apparition of polar stratospheric clouds is underway around the Arctic Circle. "It is almost as good as the aurora borealis," says Göran Strand, who took this picture last night from Östersund, Sweden:

Eric Schandall of Oslo, Norway, adds this report: "We have seen them for three evenings over Oslo, with the ones on Jan. 13th being the most dramatic and beautiful so far."

Also known as "nacreous" or "mother of pearl" clouds, these icy clouds form in the lower stratosphere when temperatures drop to around minus 85ºC. Sunlight shining through tiny ice particles ~10µm across produce the characteristic bright iridescent colors by diffraction and interference.

"Nacreous clouds far outshine and have much more vivid colours than ordinary iridescent clouds, which are very much poor relations and seen frequently all over the world," writes atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley. "Once seen they are never forgotten."

Prominent Scientist Doubts Global Warming

Josh Holloway
The Western Front
Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:14 UTC

© Rachel Howland
Professor emeritus Don Easterbrook is a specialist in glacial geology. “I’ve been on them, in them, under them and over them,” Easterbrook said.

Easterbrook has studied climate change from the ice ages to the present day. His focus is in studying the movements of glaciers from climate change, as well as doing isotopic analysis of the elements found in ice cores.

He believes the Earth is currently in a cooling period. He continues to research climate change with an international team of over 50 members, including solar physicists, atmospheric physicists and glacial geologists. He is the author of eight books and more than 150 journal publications, including Evidence-Based Climate, which was published in September 2011.

How long have you been working or researching specifically climate change, and what is your background in the field?

I've been working on climate change 50 years. The way I approached it is by first studying the fluctuations of glaciers, both modern ones and ancient ones, which allow you to reconstruct what the climate was like when the glaciers were advancing and retreating. They're like very old paleo-thermometers. They allow you to determine what the climate was doing.

When the climate is cold and snowy the glaciers advance, and when it is warm and dry they retreat. They leave a footprint of where they have been. So you follow those footprints, and you can tell what the glaciers have been doing, which tells you what the climate was doing. I also work with isotopes. They too carry a signature footprint of old climates.

Mystery Booming Noise Leaves Residents and Houses Reeling in Costa Rica

Rod Hughes
Tico Times
Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:08 UTC

Authorities say the boom was not a volcanic eruption or a supersonic aircraft.

Monday morning started off with a bang for residents of the Central Valley when a loud, as yet unidentified, series of booms rattled windows about 30 minutes after midnight. Many did not hear it, but enough people did to cause a firestorm of comment on social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

The strange sound was prolonged - many described it as lasting for five minutes or so. Perhaps the only one making no comments were scientists and government authorities, who were reticent about commenting or speculating. A few things it wasn't: Volcanologists discounted a volcanic eruption; nor was it a supersonic aircraft, because the powerful radar at Juan Santamaría International Airport outside of San José picked up no planes at the time, not even subsonic ones.

Also, there were no climatological phenomena or strange weather conditions. By nightfall Monday, the speculation was still going along briskly with the major vote going to fireworks at the festival at Zapote, in San José. But many said it sounded like no fireworks they had ever heard. Mario Sánchez, spokesman for the National Meteorological Institute, discounted a storm because the only thing that would sound like the noise described would be a storm accompanied by lightning - and early Monday morning was clear with a full moon.

European ski resorts in 'lockdown' after freak snowfalls cut road, rail and air links

Allan Hall
DailyMail.Co.Uk
Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:04 UTC

1,000 British skiers trapped in Alps after severe snowfalls
Falling trees and rocks blocking many routes
Avalanche warning raised to stage three, or 'considerable risk'
Holidaymakers advised to stay indoors

British holidaymakers are in a race against time to get out of Austrian ski resorts before more snowfalls arrive at the weekend.

Many have become stranded since the weekend because of the heaviest snowfalls in Alps in the past 30 years.

Some holiday makers are four days overdue to be back home and back at work due to the weather. As much as 18ft has fallen over the past few days.

© Getty Images
Clearing up: A resident in Ischgl, Austria, contemplates the enormous task of clearing the snow from his roof

US: First winter blast hits Northeast, Midwest

MSNBC
Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:12 UTC

Cold fronts moving in from the north on Thursday made for the first winter blast across the Midwest and Northeast, with parts of Connecticut seeing their first snow since October and snow-starved Chicago expected to get hit later in the day.

"This is a pretty potent storm and covers a wide area," TODAY's weather and feature anchor Al Roker warned.

Up to 3 inches fell overnight in Connecticut, the first since an early October snowstorm, NBC Connecticut reported.

Kansas City, Mo., also saw about an inch of snow overnight as a system moved into the Midwest.

The Weather Channel said winter was making "a roaring comeback" across the country after weeks of mild weather.

Up to 8 inches of snow was forecast for Chicago, and even more for neighboring northwest Indiana, NBC Chicago reported.

New England should see 6-9 inches in many areas, and isolated areas could get a foot, Roker forecast.

Parts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts saw slushy snow early Thursday, making for a messy commute.

Areas as far south as Nashville, Tenn., could also see a bit of snow Thursday.

Australia: Cold snap sets new record low temperatures

ABC News
Thu, 12 Jan 2012 02:08 UTC

© Gillian Dobson
A message is written on a car windscreen after Mt Buller in the Victorian Alps received a sprinkling of snow on January 11

The weather bureau says an extreme cold front has broken a series of low temperature records for Canberra, Goulburn and the Snowy Mountains.

The southern tablelands and Victoria's Alpine region have also been hit by the summer chill.

A rapidly moving cold front from Antarctica moved though Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT yesterday.

The icy and changeable weather delivered a low of -4 degrees Celsius and a dusting of snow to the Snowy Mountains.

Ice Age "News" is Wrong--It's Coming Sooner Than Later

Alan Caruba
Warning Signs
Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:29 UTC

When you consider the millions of words published as "news" about global warming, a massive hoax based on the theory that an increase in the Earth's levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), a minor atmospheric gas (0.0380%), it boggles the mind that reporters for a respected newswire, Reuters, would still be writing utter rubbish about it.

Just as the "news" about global warming was demolished in 2009 and again in 2011 with the leaked emails of the conspirators behind the fictions of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the main agency behind the hoax, on January 9, Nina Chesney of Reuters London Bureau, reported about a paper in the journal, Nature Geoscience, that the "Next Ice Age not likely before 1,500 years: study."

The paper claimed that "Concentrations of the main gases blamed for global warming reached record levels in 2010 and will linger in the atmosphere for decades even if the world stopped pumping out emissions today, according to the U.N.'s weather agency."

The U.N. does not have a "weather agency." It has a propaganda agency devoted in its own words to "climate." The two are not the same. Weather is what is occurring right now and climate is the measurement of trends over centuries.

7.3 Magnitude Earthquake Hits off Indonesia; Panic, No Injuries

Fakhrurradzie Gade
The Associated Press
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC

© The Associated Press/Heri Juanda
Local residents wait for evacuation on a roadside following an earthquake in Banda Aceh, Aceh province, Indonesia, early Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012.

A powerful earthquake hit off the coast of western Indonesia early Wednesday, prompting officials to briefly issue a tsunami warning. Panicked residents ran from their homes, some fleeing to high ground by car or motorcycle, but there were no reports of injuries or serious damage.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude-7.3 quake struck 260 miles (420 kilometers) off the coast of Aceh province just after midnight. It was centered 18 miles (30 kilometers) beneath the ocean floor.

People in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh - still deeply traumatized by the 2004 monster quake and tsunami - poured into the streets as sirens blared from local mosques. Some headed to the hills, choking roads with traffic.

"I'm afraid," said Fera, a resident, who skidded off on her motorbike with her two children and her mother.

Fukushima Lays Bare Japanese Media's Ties to Top

David McNeill
The Japan Times
Sun, 08 Jan 2012 22:45 UTC

© Kyodo
Official lines: Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano on April 17, 2011, during his first visit to Fukushima after the disasters triggered by March 11's Great East Japan Earthquake.

Is the ongoing crisis surrounding the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant being accurately reported in the Japanese media?

No, says independent journalist Shigeo Abe, who claims the authorities, and many journalists, have done a poor job of informing people about nuclear power in Japan both before and during the crisis - and that the clean-up costs are now being massively underestimated and under-reported.

"The government says that as long as the radioactive leak can be dammed from the sides it can be stopped, but that's wrong," Abe insists. "They're going to have to build a huge trench underneath the plant to contain the radiation - a giant diaper. That is a huge-scale construction and will cost a fortune. The government knows that but won't reveal it."

The disaster at the Fukushima plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) again revealed one of the major fault lines of Japanese journalism - that between the mainstream media and the mass-selling weeklies and their ranks of freelancers.

The mainstream media has long been part of the press-club system, which funnels information from official Japan to the public. Critics say the system locks the country's most influential journalists into a symbiotic relationship with their sources, and discourages them from investigation or independent lines of analysis.

Vax analysis that shows how deadly they are: [Link]

L. Wood

Well, FWIW, the number of sites claiming that actress Melle Stewart is dead is growing which makes the BFM's silence all the more suspect, eh...

Rowan Cocoan

Good thing semis will all be automated in the next 10 years

Bobble

I wonder if that negroid snake oil salesman was actually voted into office, or if he had some computerized remote help, like the senile deepfake....

codis

Is this the effect of geo engineering I wonder? Forcing droughts on areas and the like, surely that precipitation needs to go somewhere? Just find...

Christian83

Earth Changes

5.7-magnitude earthquake hits Babuyan Islands region in northern Philippines

Polar Stratospheric Clouds

Prominent Scientist Doubts Global Warming

Mystery Booming Noise Leaves Residents and Houses Reeling in Costa Rica

European ski resorts in 'lockdown' after freak snowfalls cut road, rail and air links

US: First winter blast hits Northeast, Midwest

Australia: Cold snap sets new record low temperatures

Ice Age "News" is Wrong--It's Coming Sooner Than Later

7.3 Magnitude Earthquake Hits off Indonesia; Panic, No Injuries

Fukushima Lays Bare Japanese Media's Ties to Top

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