Andrew Freedman Mashable Fri, 11 Sep 2015 20:59 UTC
Sea surface temperature anomalies along the equator, showing telltale stripe of above average ocean waters, a hallmark of El Nino.
The periodic climate cycle in the Pacific Ocean known as El Niño has reached "strong" levels, according to scientists at the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) in College Park, Maryland. The event commenced in March and is forecast to have its peak influence on U.S. weather this winter, before subsiding next spring. It ranks as the 2nd- to 3rd-strongest such event on record for this time of year, as measured by the ocean temperature departures from average and other metrics, forecasters said Thursday.
It's possible that the ongoing event, which should peak in the next several months, will eclipse the mother of all El Niño events, which occurred in 1997-98, as well as another monster El Niño that occurred in 1982-83.
That is not assured, however, as it's not quite there yet.
"By any measure, '97 is stronger" so far, said Mike Halpert, the deputy director of the CPC, during a conference call with reporters.
Comment: According to this report from the NOAA, the 1997/98 El Niño, was one of the most significant climatic events of the century, and produced extreme weather worldwide. During this El Niño, temperature and precipitation records were broken across the United States. Many areas suffered heavy flooding, and the U.S. experienced a series of severe tornadoes. Elsewhere around the world, El Niño contributed to major droughts and wildfire in Mexico, Indonesia and Brazil; devastating floods in South America; and massive coral bleaching from Panama to Africa to Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
For the third time in just over one month, an animal not normally found in this part of the world has shown up in Danish waters.
An enormous leatherback turtle weighing several hundred kilos washed up on shore on the island of Lolland over the weekend.
The leatherback sea turtle is the world's largest marine turtle. Its global population is considered vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature but many subpopulations are critically endangered. According to the World Wildlife Fund, leatherbacks have been spotted as far north as the US state of Alaska and as far south as Africa's Cape of Good Hope. It is extremely rare, however, to see one near Denmark.
Disturbing figures reveal the number of dogs reported to police for being "out of control" in public causing injury in Cambridgeshire has doubled in two years.
The shock data comers amid an increase in the number of hospital admissions nationally for dog bites and attacks with children under 10 most likely to be the victims, according to official statistics.
From 2005 to 2012 the reports numbered from 51 to a high of 74 in each year. But in 2013 the number increased to 101 and last year, latest figures show, it hit 120, according to data released using freedom of information laws.
A total of 46 police cautions were handed out to owners, 35 were charged, 79 were involved in a community resolution, 125 were issued summons, 11 were given a conditional caution and 219 were "filed".
In 47 cases the suspect was not identified, there was 39 cases of insufficient evidence, victims in 32 cases did not want further action and 71 cases were closed as well as five that were not followed up as they were deemed "not in the public interest".
A newly released United States federal study shows a record number of sharks swimming off the coast from Florida to North Carolina.
The Virginian-Pilot reports the increase comes as North Carolina set a record for shark attacks this northern summer.
Eight people have been attacked along the North Carolina coast this year, the most since a Florida group began counting attacks 80 years ago.
The new study shows researchers captured or tagged 2835 sharks from Florida to North Carolina in April and May. That compares with 1831 sharks tagged in the most recent survey in 2012. The largest captured was a 3.8m tiger shark.
A black bear attacked a man running on a trail near Los Alamos this week, marking the third bear attack on a person this year in New Mexico, the state Department of Game and Fish said Thursday.
Officials said 2015 has seen the most bear attacks on humans in 16 years.
The Canyon de Valle Trail north of Los Alamos, where the attack occurred Wednesday, has been closed until further notice, and officers are looking for the adult female bear.
The 56-year-old Los Alamos man suffered deep flesh wounds and scratches to his head, chest and hands from fending off the bear, but he was able to walk 2.5 miles to his car, Game and Fish officials said. The man flagged down a motorist, who drove him to Los Alamos Medical Center. He was later transported to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center for treatment.
The man, who was not identified, told officials that he had been running on the trail at about 7 p.m. Wednesday when he came across the female bear and her cub. The cub ran up a tree, and he tried to scare the mother bear away by making noise, the man said. But the bear charged and knocked him into a streambed. The mother bear then began biting and clawing at his head, according to a Game and Fish Department report.
Graham Hancock Daily Mail, UK Fri, 11 Sep 2015 14:33 UTC
Devastation: A cataclysm rocked our planet 12,800 years ago, causing mass extinctions of large animals such as the mammoth and sloth bears, and all but wiping out our own race, Hancock writes
Around the world, from Alaska to Indonesia, more than 200 ancient myths tell of a human civilisation brought to an end by flood and fire.
Compelling scientific evidence, which began to emerge only in 2007, indicates that these stories, such as the tale of Noah and his Ark, are based on hard fact.
A cataclysm rocked our planet 12,800 years ago, causing mass extinctions of large animals such as the mammoth and sloth bears, and all but wiping out our own race. An entire episode in the human story was rubbed out, a chapter not of unsophisticated hunter-gatherers but of advanced technology.
All the signs are that remnants of this civilisation struggled on, sustained by a few individuals who knew the secrets of the former age. To their primitive contemporaries, it appeared that they possessed magical, holy powers — they were what I call the Magicians of the Gods.
These Magicians left a message for us — not a metaphorical, spiritual message, but a direct and urgent warning. What happened before can happen again; what destroyed their world can destroy ours.
A 65-year-old man bled to death on Thursday after being attacked by a wild boar near Frosinone, south of Rome.
He is the fourth person to have been killed by a wild boar in Italy in less than two months.
Ansa reported that the attack happened in the town of Ferentino.
It comes just days after Coldiretti, the farmers' association, called on the Lazio region to bring in measures to control the wild boar population following several sightings in and around Rome.
In the town of Bracciano, 30km northwest of the capital, a young girl is still in a coma after the car she was travelling in with her mother slammed into a wild boar that was crossing the road.
Driven by high winds and soaring temperatures, a wildfire in California more than tripled in size Thursday, swelling to more than 14,000 acres, fire officials said.
The so-called Butte Fire, located east of the town of Jackson southeast of Sacramento, was a little more than 100 acres shortly after it broke out at around 2:26 p.m. Wednesday, and grew to around 4,000 acres by Thursday.
Comment: All over the world we are witnessing extensive wildfires, which in some regions have been described as "unprecedented". The wildfire season in the US has worsened dramatically in recent years and 2015 is set to be the worst yet.
Could some of these wildfires have been fueled from outgassing, then possibly 'sparked' by an increase in atmospheric electric discharge events, such as lightning strikes? A wildfire in Utah last week was attributed to being 'sparked' by an underground transformer exploding, according to fire officials. See also:
Heavy flooding from Tropical Typhoon Etau has killed three people and injured 27 others across Japan. Local officials issued a third emergency weather warning Friday as the torrential rains moved north.
Twenty-six other individuals still remain missing, after hundreds of thousands of people were ordered to leave their homes.
Comment: Keep informed on these increasingly chaotic and 'unprecedented' events by viewing the monthly SOTT Earth Changes Summary.
At one point Tuesday, meteorologists recorded at least 500 lightning strikes mostly concentrated in Suntree-Viera during a one hour period.
Storm-rattled residents will get a slight break from the intense lighting and heavy rains that rumbled through the Labor Day holiday, but weather officials are already warning that the powerful storms could return by the weekend.
"The storms in the last couple of days have been pretty unusual. We've also had a lot of heavy rain and lightning strikes. It's not been technically severe but it has been an active Labor Day weekend," said Scott Kelly, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Melbourne.
"It was an impressive lightning show but what we've also heard is that people have been getting a lot of flooding. With the storms people have been getting one or two inches of rain and they're noticing the water on the roads and in their yards, especially in Rockledge and Viera," he said.
At one point Tuesday, meteorologists recorded at least 500 lightning strikes mostly concentrated in Suntree-Viera during a one hour period of time as the intense storms rolled across Central Brevard.
Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.
Comment: According to this report from the NOAA, the 1997/98 El Niño, was one of the most significant climatic events of the century, and produced extreme weather worldwide. During this El Niño, temperature and precipitation records were broken across the United States. Many areas suffered heavy flooding, and the U.S. experienced a series of severe tornadoes. Elsewhere around the world, El Niño contributed to major droughts and wildfire in Mexico, Indonesia and Brazil; devastating floods in South America; and massive coral bleaching from Panama to Africa to Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
'Double El Niño? Rare weather phenomenon about to change our world?