Earth ChangesS


Igloo

US capital shuts down on powerful blizzard


Agence France Presse
Sat, 06 Feb 2010 06:51 UTC
Washington - An "extremely dangerous" blizzard expected to dump record amounts of snow pounded the eastern United States today, closing down the US capital and threatening to trap millions indoors for days.

The National Weather Service (NWS) put the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area under a rare 24-hour blizzard warning starting at 10:00 pm Friday (0300 GMT Saturday).

The storm, dubbed "Snowpocalypse" and "Snowmageddon" by many locals, stretched from Indiana to Pennsylvania and into parts of New York and North Carolina, creating treacherous travel conditions, shutting Washington area airports and leading several states to declare emergencies.

The storm "will significantly impact most of the region through today," the NWS said.
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Propaganda

IPCC climate report error #3: "the Netherlands is 55% below sea level"


NRC Handelsblad
Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:27 UTC
The UN climate change panel IPCC not only wrongly predicted Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035, it also put more than half of the Netherlands below sea level.

The Dutch environment minister, Jaqueline Cramer, on Wednesday demanded a thorough investigation into the 2007 report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change after a Dutch magazine uncovered it incorrectly states 55 percent of the country lies below sea level. The Dutch national bureau for environmental analysis has taken responsibility for the incorrect figure cited by the IPCC. Only 26 percent of the Netherlands is really below sea level.

The error surfaced at a time when the IPCC is already under fire for another false claim that revealed earlier this week. The 2007 report states glaciers in the Himalayas will disappear by 2035, while the underlying research claims the mountain ice would last until 2350, British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph discovered.
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Better Earth

Cyclone hits French Polynesia

Michael Field
Stuff.co.nz
Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:08 UTC
Cyclone Oli
© University of WisconsinCyclone Oli: Hundreds of tourists have been evacuated from Tahiti as the cyclone hit French Polynesia.
Cyclone Oli is rapidly intensifying and has prompted red alerts on Tahiti and islands nearby.

Hundreds of tourists and locals have been evacuated into schools and hospitals as high winds and very high waves lashed a wide area of French Polynesia.

Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee, who was on the Tetiaroa, north of Tahiti, was among a group of New Zealanders flown to the main island by the French Military ahead of the cyclone.

Regional meteorological services say Oli is located approximately 300 kilometres southwest of Tahiti and 380 km north of Rurutu.

Today it has under gone a very rapid intensification from Category 1 to Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale where five is the highest.
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Bizarro Earth

Pacific Ocean Volcano Erupts


Asahi.com
Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:22 UTC
Volcano Erupts
© UnknownA plume of smoke rises from the undersea volcano Mount Fukutokuokanoba, near Minami-Iwojima island in the Pacific Ocean, on Wednesday.
An undersea volcano erupted Wednesday, spewing columns of smoke and ash into the Pacific Ocean sky.

A patrol vessel from the 3rd Regional Coast Guard Headquarters visited the area, some 5 kilometers from Minami-Iwojima island in the Ogasawara island chain, around 7:45 a.m.

The volcano is called Mount Fukutokuokanoba. It is located about 1,300 kilometers south of Tokyo.

A fly-over by a coast guard helicopter at 1 p.m. reported continued activity. Observers said the water in the immediate vicinity of the volcano had turned yellowish green.
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Better Earth

Global Ocean Protection Measures Have Failed

Axel Bojanowski
Spiegel Online
Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:09 UTC
Thousands of tons of trash are thrown into the sea each year, endangering humans and wildlife. A classified German government report obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE indicates that efforts by the United Nations and the European Union to clean up our oceans have failed entirely.

Since the world's oceans are so massive, few people seem to have a problem with dumping waste into them. But plastics degrade at very a slow rate, and huge amounts of them are sloshing around in our oceans. Wildlife consumes small pieces causing many of them to die, since the plastics are full of poisons. And, as experts warn, we've reached a point where it's even getting dangerous for humans to consume seafood.

Given these conditions, the international community has been pushing for four decades for massive bureaucratic efforts aimed at clearing the oceans of waste. In 1973, the United Nations sponsored a pact for protecting the oceans from dumping. Additional provisions have been added to the so-called Marpol Convention -- short for "marine pollution" -- on six different occasions. And nine years ago, the European Union put directives on the books that forbid any dumping of maritime waste into the ocean while in ports.
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Bizarro Earth

US: 2nd large quake in a month hits off Northern California coast


Associated Press
Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:20 UTC
Image
© AFP/File/Olivier MorinA seismograph reading. A strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake centered off the western Pacific coast shook northern California on Thursday, the US Geological Survey reported.
Residents of Northern California's Humboldt County were rocked by a magnitude-6.0 earthquake Thursday, but officials said there were no immediate reports of major injury or damage from the second large temblor to hit the area within a month.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported a magnitude-6.0 quake struck at 12:20 p.m. about 35 miles northwest of the community of Petrolia and nearly 50 miles west of Eureka. The shaking was felt within a 150-mile radius, as far north as southern Oregon and as far south as Sonoma County, according to the USGS Web site.

Local officials and residents reported feeling a rolling sensation that caused items to fall from walls and shelves. Many said the movement didn't feel nearly as severe as the magnitude-6.5 quake that struck the same region Jan. 9 and caused more than $40 million in damage and one serious injury - an elderly woman who fell and broke her hip.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Magnitude 6.0 Earthquake - Offshore Northern California


US Geological Survey
Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:06 UTC
Image
© USGS
Date-Time
Thursday, February 04, 2010 at 20:20:21 UTC

Thursday, February 04, 2010 at 12:20:21 PM at epicenter

Location:
40.431°N, 124.929°W

Depth:
11.2 km (7.0 miles)

Region:
OFFSHORE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

Distances:
56 km (35 miles) WNW (282°) from Petrolia, CA

59 km (36 miles) WSW (254°) from Ferndale, CA

68 km (42 miles) WSW (256°) from Fortuna, CA

76 km (47 miles) WSW (239°) from Eureka, CA

363 km (225 miles) NW (306°) from Sacramento, CA
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Sheeple

Kyrgyzstan to Issue "Passports for Sheep"


Agence France-Presse
Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00 UTC
Image
© Agence France-PresseSheep blocking a road
Ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan is preparing to roll out a new system under which the millions of sheep residing in the mountainous state will receive their own high-tech passport, state television reported Monday.

First Deputy Prime Minister Akylbek Japarov said in an address to parliament the government has drafted a bill to deliver a cutting-edge passport to the nation's sheep.

"We are ready to make a passport for each sheep. That is, from their birth to their slaughter, it will be possible to recognize a sheep's pedigree by using laser scanning," he said.

Kyrgyzstan, an impoverished Central Asian country bordering China and Kazakhstan, is home to 4.25 million sheep, according to official government statistics.
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Info

Leaves Whisper Their Properties Through Ultrasound


PhysOrg
Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:07 UTC
Leave
© Physorg.comLeaves whisper their properties through ultrasound. Credit: Pranav Yaddanapudi
The water content of leaves, their thickness, their density and other properties can now be determined without even having to touch them. A team of researchers from the CSIC Institute of Acoustics and the Agri-Food Research and Technology Centre (CITA) of Aragón has just presented an innovative technique that enables plant leaves to be studied using ultrasound in a quick, simple and non-invasive fashion.

Tomas E. Gómez, one of the authors of the study and researcher at the CSIC Institute of Acoustics, where a technique has been developed to analyse these parts of plants without touching them, explains to SINC that "The method involves establishing a silent dialogue with plant leaves, questioning them and listening to what they say".

The research, recently published in the journal, Applied Physics Letters, demonstrates that some properties of leaves such as thickness, density or compressibility can be determined with this method.
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Snowman

IPCC Chairman Refuses to Apologise for Himalayan Glaciers Debacle


Australian Associated Press
Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:28 UTC
Himalayan Glaciers
© Getty ImagesThe Himalayan glaciers
The embattled chief of the UN climate change panel has admitted that a mistake in a landmark 2007 report had damaged the body's credibility, in an interview with a British newspaper.

But Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, refused to apologise in the interview with the Guardian for the erroneous claim that global warming could melt Himalayan glaciers by 2035.

The Nobel-winning panel has faced fierce criticism over the mistake - which has been discredited by glaciologists and is being withdrawn - and the controversy has given fresh ammunition to climate sceptics.

Comment: Indeed, Dr Pachauri will neither resign nor apologise for his involvement in the dissemination of misleading science. Who will take the responsibility then? And why is Mr Gore so very quiet? Perhaps he does not want to rattle the bushes too much...

Read the following articles for more background information on Dr Rajendra Pachauri. Do you still think that he has nothing to apologise for?

- UN Climate Chief Refuses to Resign Over Glacier Report Error
- Amazongate: new evidence of the IPCC's failures
- Pachauri: the real story behind the Glaciergate scandal
- Pachauri: there's money in them glaciers
- Conflict of Interest: IPCC Chairman Pachuri's services to Big Business
- Climategate Payoffs: Climate and Energy Institute Chief Received More than $800,000

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