Earth ChangesS


Umbrella

200,000 Displaced in Australia Floods

flood, Emerald, Australia
© Philip Norrish/AFPA suburb in the Queensland town of Emerald in Australia taken over by flood water yesterday.
Australia started forced evacuations of a major town on Friday as floods that have already affected 200,000 people swamped more communities in the stricken northeast.

As Prime Minister Julia Gillard consoled evacuees, police moved the elderly and those in low-lying areas from Rockhampton, where 4,000 homes are at risk from floods paralysing an area the size of France and Germany combined.

"Police will order people in affected areas to leave their homes," Rockhampton mayor Brad Carter told AAP news agency.

Meanwhile military Blackhawk helicopters evacuated residents and dropped batches of food in Emerald, population 11,000, after 80 percent of the rural town was deluged by mucky waters.

Floods triggered by tropical cyclone Tasha have hit the farming and mining belt near Brisbane particularly hard, cutting road and rail links and crippling the region's all-important coal production.

As river levels continued to rise, some 22 towns were inundated or isolated, with sugar cane centre Bundaberg, known for its rum, divided in two by the floodwaters.

Shops, homes and businesses have been swamped by the murky tide, with cars submerged and caravan parks sitting metres (feet) deep, as residents take to boats and kayaks to negotiate the waters.

Cloud Lightning

New Twister Alerts in US After 6 Killed in Arkansas and Missouri

Stretch from Chicago to New Orleans on watch; survivor recalls 'Superman' flight


Tornadoes fueled by unusually warm weather pummeled the South and Midwest on Friday, killing at least six people and injuring dozens more across Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois.

Forecasters said storms later in the evening could hit as New Year's Eve celebrations begin along a stretch from near Chicago to New Orleans. Forecasters posted tornado watches for the region that were set to run until 8 p.m.

Three people died in the northwestern Arkansas hamlet of Cincinnati when a tornado touched down just before sunrise, and three others died when a storm spawned by the same weather system ripped up the Missouri countryside near Rolla. A number of storms were also reported in the St. Louis area.

Bizarro Earth

Indiana: What's So Special About This Quake?

Although earthquakes are fairly common in the southwestern part of Indiana and occasionally happen along the edge of Lake Michigan, earth scientists say there has never been an earthquake confirmed in north central Indiana.

"Unprecedented," said Walter Gray, an official with the Indiana Geological Survey, a research group at Indiana University. "There is no historical evidence of quakes in that area. We have no events that have been recorded."

Seismologist Michael Hamburger, an IU professor of geological sciences, called north central Indiana "a really quiet corner of the seismic world."

"This is an interesting little peculiar earthquake that happened in a strange place," Hamburger said of Thursday's quake. "It is a reminder that earthquakes can happen almost anywhere in the central U.S."

The southern half of Indiana, which includes the Wabash Valley Fault System, is more prone to quakes. There was a 3.8 magnitude quake as close as Shelbyville in 2004. The last major quake centered in Indiana was a 4.6 magnitude earthquake near Evansville in June 2002, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Igloo

Experts: Food and Fuel Shortages Imminent as New Ice Age Dawns

ice age earth illus
© unknown
With an Ice Age comes abrupt change, and with change comes death - sometimes death on a massive scale.

More of the world's top scientists in the disciplines of geology, ecology, meteorology, astrophysics, and heliology [pdf list] are predicting that the two major cooling cycles are converging - the short term and long term Ice Ages - and Earth has just entered the beginnings of the dangerous cooling.

Both cooling periods are due and both seem to have started just as the sun's about to reach its solar maximum. When the sun goes quiet after 2012, it's expected to stay quiet for at least the next 30 to 50 years. During that time, the sun will generate significantly less heat and the planets - including Earth - will cool rapidly.

Mass migrations and famines

Now other scientists - including John L. Casey, the Director of the Space and Science Research Center - are warning that people in the coming decades are facing food and fuel shortages.

Some northern countries will be abandoned as the ice marches down from the Arctic; energy production will be interrupted; and shortened growing periods in the Northern Hemisphere will precipitate mass migrations, famines, food riots, regional conflicts and a loss of human life that could be measured on an apocalyptic scale.

Cloud Lightning

Tornadoes leave trail of wreckage in US, kill 6


Image
A series of tornadoes in the south and mid-western US have killed six people and injured several others.

Three residents of Cincinnati in Arkansas were killed by a twister early on Friday morning.

Tornadoes were later spotted near St Louis, Missouri and were blamed for the death of three people in the southern part of the state, authorities said.

One resident of Robertson, Missouri said his neighbour's house was destroyed.

Igloo

Light shines in High Arctic darkness

Arctic Inuit hunter
© Kevin Frayer/Canadian PressAn Inuit hunter looks out on the Arctic horizon at sunrise in Frobisher Bay near Tonglait, Nunavut, in February 2003. Inuit and other High Arctic residents say their winters are getting lighter as the climate warms.
People in the High Arctic say their 24-hour darkness isn't as dark as it used to be, and a weather researcher says it's because of the warming climate.

"We still have a daylight and there's still blue, green, red down there - there's sun sign still," said Zipporah Ootooq Aronsen, who lives in Resolute Bay, Nunavut. "It's not usually like that."

Life Preserver

Heaviest December snow in New York City in 60 years - 5th largest ever - hundreds of other snow records set across US

Image
© Bloomberg
According to the Bloomberg article:
More than a foot of snow fell across the northeast yesterday, with some areas in New Jersey getting more than 30 inches (76 centimeters), according to AccuWeather. Central Park had 20 inches of snow by 8 a.m. yesterday, the most for the month since 1948, the National Weather Service said.
and
The snowfall was the fifth-largest on record for the city, Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty said on Dec. 26.

Life Preserver

December 2010 was coldest month in Ireland since 1881

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© AltLough Corrib in the west of Ireland frozen over, Christmas 2010
BBC news has reported that 40,000 homes are still without water in Northern Ireland after the recent spell of freezing temperatures. Many have been without water for more than 10 days, and reservoirs are being drained due to an unprecedented number of leaks since the thaw. Calls to a few friends confirmed that, yes, it is bad - friends in Lisburn have been without water since Christmas Eve due to a frozen mains supply (i.e. not in their house); others in Belfast report low water pressure. Water is being rationed in places.

Was it really that cold? A search of the BBC site revealed "'Baltic' Northern Ireland" tucked away on the BBC NI news page. Castlederg in the West of the province recorded a low of -18°C on 20th December - a new record. The thing about Ireland is that it sits on the very western fringes of Europe, bathed by the warm Gulf Stream (which is why Doug Keenan considered the 7000 years of Irish tree ring data so important that he pursued Queen's University through FOI requests). Ireland, despite its latitude, just doesn't do 'very cold' (or 'very hot' for that matter).

When I first got interested in climate I ended up corresponding with Tonyb about the temperature records of the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland. These stretch back to 1796. Incidentally there are a couple of WUWT posts featuring Armagh in the last year (here, here and here). How does this current cold month compare with the historical record at Armagh? Was the recent cold unprecedented?

Ice Cube

Freezing Rain: Russian Ministry Says 21,205 People Remain Without Electricity

Residents in the Moscow region continued to face power outages after disruptions caused by freezing rain on Dec. 26, leaving 21,205 people in 140 towns without electricity as of 6 p.m. yesterday, the Russian Emergency Ministry said on its website.

OAO MRSK Holding, which manages Russia's interregional power distributors, aims to restore power by 6 p.m. tomorrow, Chief Executive Officer Nikolai Shvets told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at a government meeting yesterday.

Cloud Lightning

Winds Cause Damage, Snow Falls in El Paso, Texas

El Paso Texas snow
© ABC-7
Days of above normal temperature gave way to winds gusting above 60 miles and and snow flurries on Thursday.

Heavy snow fell in the upper valley and west El Paso Thursday afternoon as a cold front moved through the borderland area. Trans Mountain is closed until further notice, according to TxDOT officials.

Before the snow came, winds blew through the area, wreaking havoc.