Earth Changes
The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing scheduled for Wednesday, February 14, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2123 Rayburn House Office Building has been postponed due to inclement weather. The hearing is entitled "Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?"
The hearing will be rescheduled to a date and time to be announced later.
Foul weather is expected across the whole US. The South and West can expect rain and severe thunderstorms, and the Midwest and Northeast will get more snow and wintry weather by later tonight.
NEW ORLEANS - A powerful storm and likely a tornado hit the New Orleans area early Tuesday, damaging dozens of homes and business, ripping the roof off a hotel, and injuring at least three people.
The storm hit hardest around 3:30 a.m. in Westwego, just across the river from New Orleans.
At least 100 people have been killed by floods sweeping through southern Africa, with new walls of water on the way.
MAPUTO, Mozambique - Soldiers and relief workers using helicopters and canoes have evacuated 60,000 people from the flooded Zambezi River Valley in central Mozambique, where more than 100,000 others are at risk, officials said Monday.
Prime Minister Luisa Diogo ordered the forcible removal of people in low-lying areas amid reports that some peasant farmers were refusing to evacuate unless their cattle and goats also were rescued.
Some 100 people have drowned or been electrocuted and hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes in torrential rains that have swamped a swath of southern Africa from Angola in the west to Mozambique in the east with Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe in between. Bridges have collapsed, power lines been torn down and roads swept away.
Reports from New York state say 10 days of heavy snowfall has left snowdrifts of up to 12ft (3.7m) deep - a record if confirmed by meteorologists.
A state of emergency has already been declared in and around Oswego county, with squalls leaving behind at least 7ft (2.1m) of snow in the area.
That levelling off is just what is expected by the chief rival hypothesis, which says that the sun drives climate changes more emphatically than greenhouse gases do. After becoming much more active during the 20th century, the sun now stands at a high but roughly level state of activity. Solar physicists warn of possible global cooling, should the sun revert to the lazier mood it was in during the Little Ice Age 300 years ago.
Climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis. The 20th-century episode, or Modern Warming, was just the latest in a long string of similar events produced by a hyperactive sun, of which the last was the Medieval Warming.
XinhuaMon, 12 Feb 2007 13:45 UTC
A mystery ailment labled Colony Collapse Disorder is killing tens of thousands of honeybee colonies across America.
The illness -- reported in at least 22 states -- is threatening the livelihood of beekeepers, honey production and possibly crops that need bees for pollination.
XinhuaMon, 12 Feb 2007 13:41 UTC
An earthquake of magnitude of 6.1 on the Richter scale occurred on Monday morning at Province Papua in Indonesia, Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau told Xinhua.
Madrid - An earthquake struck southwest Spain and Portugal on Monday, measuring 6.3 on the Richter Scale.
The epicentre was in the sea off Cape San Vincente in Portugal but its effects were felt across south and central Spain.
The National Geographic Institute said the earthquake struck at about 11.35am.
German and Czech scientists are looking for a volcano that they believe is hidden underground in the Cheb area, west Bohemia, and that is responsible for the rich mineral springs in west Bohemian spas.
According to the researches, the volcano is located on the Czech side of the border near the village of Novy Kostel north of Cheb, the German daily die Welt writes today.