Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Vesuvius's Big Daddy: The Supervolcano That Threatens All Life in Europe

Two thousand years ago Mount Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii. Today, a larger, far more deadly supervolcano lurks on the other side of Naples. If it erupts, Campi Flegrei could wipe out all life in Europe. So why are British scientists battling the Italians for the right to poke at it with drilling rods?

Campi Flegrei
© Daily Mail, UKThe Campi Flegrei caldera is a supervolcano. While a new eruption here would be more likely to result in the creation of another Vesuvius-like cone, the worst-case scenario could see it obliterating much of life in Europe.
Naples, Italy, The Near Future

It begins with a swarm of 1,000 small earthquakes that ripple under the pavements of Naples. Air-conditioning units fall from the sides of buildings and tiles slip from the walls. Inside the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology's control centre, a bank of screens indicates that the quakes aren't being generated by the giant Mount Vesuvius, which looms over the city.

These quakes are coming from something far bigger, from one of the largest and most dangerous volcanoes in the world: the Campi Flegrei caldera. Vesuvius, which destroyed the Roman city of Pompeii, incinerating and suffocating thousands, is nothing more than a pimple on the back of the sleeping dragon of Campi Flegrei, an active four-mile-wide sunken volcano. A call is quickly put through to Civil Defence and the Italian Ministry of the Interior: the city must be evacuated immediately.

A short distance away, the ground around the ancient town of Pozzuoli is stretching, swelling, doming. Fumaroles - vents emitting columns of steam rich in CO2 - open up in the broken Tarmac. Four-and-a-half miles below the surface a bolt of magma has escaped the main reservoir and is rising upwards, changing and solidifying. As it reaches groundwater, it's converted into a sponge-like stone. As the water boils away it feeds critical amounts of gas into the sponge, and the pressure builds until finally it explodes like a malfunctioning boiler.

Cloud Lightning

Australia's Queensland faces 'biblical' flood

Image
A senior official has described the flooding in Queensland, Australia, as a disaster of "biblical proportions".

State Treasurer Andrew Fraser said the economic impact would be severe, with huge costs compounded by lost income from mining, farming and tourism.

Rockhampton, where 77,000 people live, is the latest city bracing for impact, amid warnings of 30ft (9m) floodwaters.

More than 20 other towns have already been left cut off or flooded across an area larger than France and Germany.

The crisis has been triggered by Australia's wettest spring on record. At least six river systems across Queensland have broken their banks. The floods have affected about 200,000 people, and many have been evacuated.

"We're still directly battling floodwaters, we haven't seen the peak of the flood yet at centres like Rockhampton," said Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who toured the stricken areas.

Arrow Down

A Sign for the New Year: 1,000 Birds Fall From the Sky in Beebe, Arkansas

Black Birds
© KTHVOver 1,000 birds fell out of the sky over Beebe, Arkansas just before midnight.
Friday night, ringing in the New Year took on a whole different meaning for the citizens of Beebe. Around 11:30 p.m., enforcement officers with Arkansas Game and Fish Commission began getting reports of dead black birds falling from the sky in the city limits of Beebe.

Officers estimated that most of the birds were dead, but some were still alive when officers arrived. The blackbirds fell over a one-mile area in the city. AGFC wildlife officer Robby King responded to the reports and found hundreds of birds. "Shortly after I arrived there were still birds falling from the sky," King said. King collected about 65 dead birds that will be sent to the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission lab and the National Wildlife Health Center lab in Madison, Wisconsin.

The AGFC has flown over the area to gauge the scope of the event. There were no other birds found outside of the initial area.

Bizarro Earth

"Biblical" Floods Threaten Australian Homes

foods
© Agence France-PresseThe floods prompted a message of support from the Queen, who said she had been following the news "with great concern"
Flood waters swept through vast areas of northeastern Australia Saturday, threatening to inundate thousands more homes in a disaster one official said was of "biblical proportions".

As Queen Elizabeth II sent her "sincere sympathies" to Queenslanders who rang in a damp new year, helicopters were being used to deliver food and other supplies to isolated towns.

Up to 200,000 people have been affected by the floods, which have hurt the nation's lucrative mining industry and cut off major highways as the water rushes through sodden inland regions to the sea.

"In many ways, it is a disaster of biblical proportions," Queensland State Treasurer Andrew Fraser told reporters in flood-hit Bundaberg.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who on Friday toured inundated regions, said the floods had been devastating and would clearly have an economic impact.

"We're still directly battling floodwaters -- we haven't seen the peak of the flood yet at centres like Rockhampton -- so the people of Queensland in many places are doing it tough today," she said.

Evil Rays

Northern Israel rattled by 3.6 magnitude earthquake

No injuries or damage reported; Beit She'an area felt quake the strongest but actual source has yet to be identified.

An earthquake measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale was felt by residents in the Jordan Valley area on Saturday. No injuries or damage were reported.

In the area reaching from Safed to Beit She'an to Tiberias, police received dozens of phone calls from residents saying they thought an earthquake was happening. Many residents hurried out of their homes looking for a safe place, with some seeking refuge in bomb shelters and stairwells.

According to the calls, Beit She'an residents felt the earthquake the strongest, although the actual source of the quake has not yet been identified.

Igloo

UK: It's official: December WAS the chilliest in 120 years

If you thought December was the coldest you could remember, you were right... unless you are more than 120 years old.

The benchmark Central England Temperature plunged to an average of -0.6c (30.9f) over the month, making it the second harshest December since records began in 1659.

It was beaten only by the -0.8c (30.5f) average for December 1890, weather historian Philip Eden said last night. It was also the chilliest individual calendar month since February 1986.

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© Associated PressAn unidentified child throws snow into the frozen fountain of the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace just before Christmas. Snow and freezing temperatures continued to cause travel chaos for road, rail and air passengers in the weeks leading up to the holidays
As snow, ice and frost brought chaos to roads, airports and homes, there were ten nights in December 2010 when the temperature fell below -18c (-0.4f) somewhere in the UK.

Altnaharra in Sutherland, Scotland, experienced the coldest conditions, with the mercury plummeting to -21.1c (-6f) early on December 1.

This bitter end to this year was the result of an unusually large area of high pressure squatting over Greenland - combined with low pressure over the UK. Normally, westerly winds from the Atlantic keep the British Isles mild during the winter.

Info

Mote Study Unlocking Riddle of Why Some Dolphins Beach Themselves

Common dolphin
© BabyNuke/WikipediaCommon dolphin.

Sarasota - Dolphins are beautiful creatures, but mysterious, and perhaps no mystery is greater than why each year a small number of dolphins beach themselves, usually fatally.

Now a Mote Marine scientist thinks he has found at least part of the answer: Deaf dolphins.

Randy Wells, who helped author a study about dolphin strandings, said most dolphins that beach themselves have at least partial hearing loss.

The answer isn't as surprising as it seems, Wells said.

"These animals live in an environment where they can't see very far, just because it's water and it's often times murky. "So sound is a crucial player in their lives."

So crucial, Wells says, that a dolphin with hearing problems will find it almost impossible to find food, to stay with other dolphins in their pod and to keep their sense of direction.

Wells, David Mann with the University of South Florida and 14 other researchers studied numerous cases of dolphin strandings. To test their hearing, they used the same basic hearing tests doctors use on infants.

The result?

Igloo

US: NOAA on Miami Florida: Coldest December on Record

Image
© unknown
From the NOAA National Weather Service Office in Miami comes this year end report:

2010 South Florida Weather Year in Review
Coldest December on Record Concludes Year of Extremes
December 30th, 2010: Temperature and precipitation extremes marked the weather of 2010 across South Florida. A cool and wet January through March was followed by the hottest summer on record, and then concluded with the coldest December on record for the main climate sites in South Florida (details on the above mentioned periods will be included below).

Here are December 2010 temperature averages for select sites (through 7 AM Dec 30th):
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© unknown

Bizarro Earth

Argentina - Earthquake Magnitude 7.0 - Santiago Del Estero

Argentina Quake_010111
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Saturday, January 01, 2011 at 09:56:59 UTC

Saturday, January 01, 2011 at 06:56:59 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
26.758°S, 63.103°W

Depth:
583.6 km (362.6 miles) set by location program

Region:
SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO, ARGENTINA

Distances:
160 km (100 miles) NE of Santiago del Estero, Argentina

185 km (115 miles) SSE of El Quebrachal, Salta, Argentina

190 km (120 miles) N of Anatuya, Santiago del Estero, Argentina

960 km (600 miles) NNW of BUENOS AIRES, D.F., Argentina

Igloo

Las Vegas sets record for coldest New Year's Eve high temperature

coldest new year Las Vegas
© Leila NavidiRobert Inga, a pyrotechnician with Fireworks by Grucci, sets up New Year’s Eve fireworks and covers them with plastic on the roof of Treasure Island Thursday, December 30, 2010.
It's going to be a chilly start to 2011: 28 degrees in Las Vegas at midnight, if the National Weather Service's prediction is correct.

Las Vegas set a record today with the coldest high temperature ever recorded in Las Vegas on New Year's Eve: just 38 degrees. The temperature was well below the old record for the coldest high, 45 degrees set in 1975, the National Weather Service said.

The last time the high temperature reached only the 30s was during a snowstorm on Dec. 17, 2008, when the high was 39 degrees.

Overnight temperatures aren't expected to reach record lows, but "we're definitely going to be looking at very cold temperatures for an extended period," weather service meteorologist Larry Jensen said.

At 5 p.m. Friday, Jensen said some parts of the valley already were close to freezing and would stay that way for most of the night.