Earth Changes
DALLAS, Texas - For some of the 2 million people seeking safety from Hurricane Gustav, they could run but they couldn't hide.
The sun has reached a milestone not seen for nearly 100 years: an entire month has passed without a single visible sunspot being noted.
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| ©Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) |
| The record-setting surface of the sun. A full month has gone by without a single spot. |
A moderate magnitude 5.8 earthquake rattled New Zealand's central North Island on Monday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injury.
New Orleans - A weakened Hurricane Gustav slammed into the heart of Louisiana's fishing and oil industry Monday, avoiding a direct hit on flood-prone New Orleans and boosting hope that the city would avoid catastrophic flooding.
Wind-driven water was sloshing over the top of the Industrial Canal's floodwall, but city officials and the Army Corps of Engineers said they expected the levees, still only partially rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina, would hold. The canal broke during hurricanes Betsy and Katrina, flooding St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th Ward.
"We are seeing some overtopping waves," said Col. Jeff Bedey, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers' hurricane protection office. "We are cautiously optimistic and confident that we won't see catastrophic wall failure."
Of more immediate concern to authorities was a barge that broke loose from its moorings and crashed into two anchors scrapped ships. The was no damage to the canal.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Gustav hit around 10:30 a.m. EDT Monday near the Cocodrie, a low-lying community in Louisiana's Cajun country about 72 miles southwest of New Orleans. Forecasters once feared a storm that chased nearly 2 million from the coast would arrive as a devastating Category 4 with much more powerful winds.
While New Orleans avoided a direct hit, the storm could be devastating where it did strike. For most of the past half century, the bayou communities that thrived in the Barataria basin have watched their land literally disappear. A combination of factors - oil drilling, hurricanes, river levees, damming of rivers - have destroyed marshes and swamps that once flourished in this river delta.
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| ©AP Photo/Bill Haber |
| Water is pushed over the flood wall into the upper 9th Ward from the effect of Hurricane Gustav, in New Orleans, Monday, Sept. 1, 2008. |
Wind-driven water was sloshing over the top of the Industrial Canal's floodwall, but city officials and the Army Corps of Engineers said they expected the levees, still only partially rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina, would hold. The canal broke during hurricanes Betsy and Katrina, flooding St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th Ward.
"We are seeing some overtopping waves," said Col. Jeff Bedey, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers' hurricane protection office. "We are cautiously optimistic and confident that we won't see catastrophic wall failure."
Of more immediate concern to authorities was a barge that broke loose from its moorings and crashed into two anchors scrapped ships. The was no damage to the canal.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Gustav hit around 10:30 a.m. EDT Monday near the Cocodrie, a low-lying community in Louisiana's Cajun country about 72 miles southwest of New Orleans. Forecasters once feared a storm that chased nearly 2 million from the coast would arrive as a devastating Category 4 with much more powerful winds.
While New Orleans avoided a direct hit, the storm could be devastating where it did strike. For most of the past half century, the bayou communities that thrived in the Barataria basin have watched their land literally disappear. A combination of factors - oil drilling, hurricanes, river levees, damming of rivers - have destroyed marshes and swamps that once flourished in this river delta.
As the estimated cost of measures proposed by politicians to "combat global warming" soars ever higher - such as the International Energy Council's $45 trillion - "fighting climate change" has become the single most expensive item on the world's political agenda.
As Senators Obama and McCain vie with the leaders of the European Union to promise 50, 60, even 80 per cent cuts in "carbon emissions", it is clear that to realise even half their imaginary targets would necessitate a dramatic change in how we all live, and a drastic reduction in living standards.
All this makes it rather important to know just why our politicians have come to believe that global warming is the most serious challenge confronting mankind, and just how reliable is the evidence for the theory on which their policies are based.
As Senators Obama and McCain vie with the leaders of the European Union to promise 50, 60, even 80 per cent cuts in "carbon emissions", it is clear that to realise even half their imaginary targets would necessitate a dramatic change in how we all live, and a drastic reduction in living standards.
All this makes it rather important to know just why our politicians have come to believe that global warming is the most serious challenge confronting mankind, and just how reliable is the evidence for the theory on which their policies are based.
The death toll in the earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale that hit southwest China's Sichuan province on Saturday rose to 22, officials said.
New Delhi: A slight intensity earthquake, measuring 4.8 on the Richter Scale, shook parts of Arunachal Pradesh on Saturday.
From June 17-19th 2007, Kilauea experienced a new dike intrusion, where magma rapidly moved from a storage reservoir beneath the summit into the east rift zone and extended the rift zone by as much as 1 meter.
Researchers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM), Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Hawaiian Volcano Observatory have now discovered that the 2007 dike intrusion was not the only action going on: the dike also triggered a "slow earthquake" on Kilauea's south flank, demonstrating how magmatism and earthquake faulting at Kilauea can be tightly connected.
Slow earthquakes are a special type of earthquake where fault rupture occurs too slowly (over periods of days to months) to produce any felt shaking. Slow earthquakes of magnitude 5.5-5.7 have been previously found to periodically occur on the flanks of Kilauea, and have been identified by ground motion data on Global Positioning System (GPS) stations. A general understanding of slow earthquake initiation, however, is still unresolved.
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| ©James Foster, HIGP/SOEST |
| A schematic cross-section from north to south through Kilauea Volcano, showing the structure of the volcano and the mobile south flank. The June 17 dike intruded into the East Rift Zone and triggered the slow-slip event, that most likely occurred on the decollement fault between the volcano and the pre-existing sea floor, approx. 15 to 20 hours later. |
Researchers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM), Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Hawaiian Volcano Observatory have now discovered that the 2007 dike intrusion was not the only action going on: the dike also triggered a "slow earthquake" on Kilauea's south flank, demonstrating how magmatism and earthquake faulting at Kilauea can be tightly connected.
Slow earthquakes are a special type of earthquake where fault rupture occurs too slowly (over periods of days to months) to produce any felt shaking. Slow earthquakes of magnitude 5.5-5.7 have been previously found to periodically occur on the flanks of Kilauea, and have been identified by ground motion data on Global Positioning System (GPS) stations. A general understanding of slow earthquake initiation, however, is still unresolved.
A magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck the Bicol region Saturday evening, followed by an aftershock Sunday morning, reports from the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) showed.
Nine Baltic sea states all scored failing grades in an annual WWF evaluation of their performance in protecting and restoring the world's most damaged sea.
The assessment, presented today at the Baltic Sea Festival, graded the countries on how well they are doing in six separate areas - biodiversity, fisheries, hazardous substances, marine transport and eutrophication - and on how they have succeeded in developing an integrated sea-use management system.
The best grade (an F for just 46 per cent) was received by Germany, followed by Denmark (41 per cent) and the worst were Poland (25 per cent) and Russia (26 per cent).
"It is a shame no country could be given a satisfactory total score," said Lasse Gustavsson, CEO of WWF Sweden. "The Baltic Sea is influenced by a multitude of human activities, regulated by a patchwork of international and national regulations and authorities.
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| ©iStockphoto/Janno Vään |
| The poor state of the Baltic Sea environment has received attention this summer because of the extensive algal blooms caused by eutrophication and for recent scientific reports on the vast "dead zones" on the sea bottom. |
The assessment, presented today at the Baltic Sea Festival, graded the countries on how well they are doing in six separate areas - biodiversity, fisheries, hazardous substances, marine transport and eutrophication - and on how they have succeeded in developing an integrated sea-use management system.
The best grade (an F for just 46 per cent) was received by Germany, followed by Denmark (41 per cent) and the worst were Poland (25 per cent) and Russia (26 per cent).
"It is a shame no country could be given a satisfactory total score," said Lasse Gustavsson, CEO of WWF Sweden. "The Baltic Sea is influenced by a multitude of human activities, regulated by a patchwork of international and national regulations and authorities.
