Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

2010's World Gone Wild: Quakes, Floods, Blizzards

Seth Borenstein & Julie Reed Bell
AP News
Sun, 19 Dec 2010 14:25 UTC
tornado
© unknown
This was the year the Earth struck back.

Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides and droughts killed at least a quarter million people in 2010 - the deadliest year in more than a generation. More people were killed worldwide by natural disasters this year than have been killed in terrorism attacks in the past 40 years combined.

"It just seemed like it was back-to-back and it came in waves," said Craig Fugate, who heads the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. It handled a record number of disasters in 2010.

"The term '100-year event' really lost its meaning this year."

And we have ourselves to blame most of the time, scientists and disaster experts say.


Comment: This article supports the idea of human-caused global warming, and, as the above sentence says, blames us humans for most of the disasters that befell the world this past year. Find an analysis and rebuttal to this story here.


Even though many catastrophes have the ring of random chance, the hand of man made this a particularly deadly, costly, extreme and weird year for everything from wild weather to earthquakes.

Poor construction and development practices conspire to make earthquakes more deadly than they need be. More people live in poverty in vulnerable buildings in crowded cities. That means that when the ground shakes, the river breaches, or the tropical cyclone hits, more people die.
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Bizarro Earth

Heavy Snow Hits Air Travel, Roads in Europe

Angela Doland
The Associated Press
Sun, 19 Dec 2010 06:22 UTC
Image
© AP Photo/Alastair GrantA pedestrian walks a dog during a snow-fall in central London, Saturday, Dec., 18, 2010.
Heavy snow on Sunday shut down European airport runways, forced fast trains to slow down and left cars skidding through icy, slushy streets on a weekend where many people were trying to head home for the holidays.

London's Heathrow Airport stopped accepting arrivals. Frankfurt airport canceled around 40 percent of flights.

Paris' Charles de Gaulle cut air traffic by a quarter as heavy snow blanketed the French capital - a rarity that has occurred several times in recent days during an unusually cold winter. Many passengers slept overnight in makeshift dormitories there, at Amsterdam's airport and at Heathrow, Europe's busiest hub for air passengers.

"The bars were open and some people were drinking and got quite nasty," passenger Sue Kerslake, who was stuck at Heathrow, told the BBC.

Heathrow said no planes would land on its runways on Sunday and that only a small number of flights would likely depart.

There was chaos in the tunnels leading from the underground station to Heathrow terminals, with hundreds of travelers told by airport staff to go back and call their airlines for updates.
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Igloo

Coldest December Since Records Began Bringing Travel Chaos Across Britain


Daily Mail, UK
Sat, 18 Dec 2010 19:49 UTC
snow @ London shoppers
© Jeremy SelwynChilly: Christmas shoppers in Central London were caught in snow flurries today
  • Millions begin the big Christmas and New Year getaway early as the AA urged motorists to beware of the 'worst driving conditions imaginable'
  • Quarter of train services disrupted, travel warning in Kent
  • Experts warn of a backlog of up to 4 million of parcels which could remain undelivered this Christmas
  • The NHS issues an urgent appeal for blood donors as concerns grow over shortages
  • Councils reveal plans to share grit amid fears the cold snap could last until January 14
  • Odds shortened even further on a 'White Christmas' in some parts of the country next Saturday
Swathes of Britain skidded to a halt today as the big freeze returned - grounding flights, closing rail links and leaving traffic at a standstill.

And tonight the nation was braced for another 10in of snow and yet more sub-zero temperatures - with no let-up in the bitterly cold weather for at least a month, forecasters have warned.

The Arctic conditions are set to last through the Christmas and New Year bank holidays and beyond and as temperatures plummeted to -10c (14f) the Met Office said this December was 'almost certain' to become the coldest since records began in 1910.
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Igloo

Best of the Web: Der Spiegel 1974 - New Ice Age Approaching. Odds Of A Warm Future "At Best 1 in 10,000″

P Gosselin
NoTricksZone
Sat, 18 Dec 2010 06:41 UTC
Image
© WikipediaDer Spiegel warned of a coming ice age in 1974. 10,000 to 1 odds against warming.
An increased frequency in extreme weather events, a cooling North Atlantic, and growing Arctic sea ice were viewed as signs of climate change. The odds of a warmer climate in the future, according to one scientist, were "at best 1 in 10,000″ (see below). That's what Der Spiegel wrote about in a 3700-word article back in 1974, warning the world of a coming ice age.

In that issue Der Spiegel described a series of "weather extremes" occurring all over the world, claiming they were unmistakable signs of a climate change to cooling: deluges of rain in West Germany, severe thunderstorms that uprooted trees and blew off roofs in Berlin, the worst storm in 100 years devastating much of Lower Saxony, hurricane Agnes inflicting 3 billion dollars in damage, floods in Japan and Peru, temperatures in Argentina, India and South Africa dropping to their lowest levels in 300 years.

Comment: Judging from current weather conditions in the UK and US as well as the disruption to the Gulf of Mexico loop current, Der Spiegel may still be proven correct.

More here:

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Magnify

Canada: 2-Million-Year-Old 'Mummy Trees' Reveal Harsh Climate

Jeremy Hsu
Live Science
Thu, 16 Dec 2010 01:22 UTC
Image
© Joel Barker/Ohio State University.The remains of a mummified forest that lived on Ellesmere Island in Canada some 2 to 8 million years ago, when the Arctic was cooling. The remains could offer clues to how today's Arctic will respond to global warming.
When rangers came across mummified wood uncovered by a melting glacier in the northernmost Arctic reaches of Canada, they had no idea they were staring at an ancient forest dating back millions of years. Researchers eventually found a twisted tangle of preserved trees that reflects a harsh struggle to survive during an ancient global cooling period.

The spindly trees would have barely hung on during a time when the Arctic climate changed from greenhouse to icehouse, on top of enduring darkness for half of each year. Signs of stress are evident in narrow tree rings and undersized leaves that were preserved at the time of death - when a landslide may have buried the trees alive.

"We know the climate was really hitting the fan for these guys," said Joel Barker, a biogeochemist at the Byrd Polar Research Center of Ohio State University.

Barker discussed the find here at the 2010 fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. His group's discovery in Ellesmere Island National Park represents the northernmost mummified forest site in Canada.
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Bizarro Earth

5.1-magnitude quake occurs in southern Greece, no damage reported


Winnipeg Free Press
Fri, 17 Dec 2010 20:34 UTC
Athens, Greece - Seismologists in Greece say a 5.1 magnitude earthquake has rattled the south of the country, but there have been no reports from authorities of damage or injury.

Athens Geodynamic Institute, a state earthquake monitoring agency, said the undersea quake occurred at 11:37 a.m. (0937GMT), 120 kilometres (75 miles) south of Athens, near the island of Milos. It struck at a depth of 103 kilometres (64 miles).
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Igloo

Extreme Weather Wreaks Havoc in Europe

Juergen Baetz
Times Colonist, Canada
Fri, 17 Dec 2010 00:00 UTC
Westminster Bridge
© Ben Stansall, AFP/Getty ImagesDecember 17: Snow falls on Westminster Bridge in London, on December 17, 2010. Bitterly cold weather was returning to Britain with a vengeance with widespread ice and snow due over the next few days, forecasters said. Up to a foot (30 centimetres) of snow could fall in some areas by Saturday, with Scotland bracing for some of the most severe weather for the second time this month.
Berlin - Heavy overnight snowfall grounded about 450 flights and caused major delays at German airports Friday, forced schools to close and left highways clogged with traffic after scores of accidents that killed at least two people and injured dozens.

Snow also hindered flights in the neighbouring Netherlands, where Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport saw 30 cancellations and major delays ahead of the busy Christmas holiday season, spokeswoman Mirjam Snoerwang said.

The European control agency Eurocontrol said passengers at Schiphol, one of continental Europe's busiest airports, had to expect delays of up to 4 1/2 hours.

Snow also closed Geneva airport early Thursday morning, though it was open again by midmorning, and flights were also disrupted in Zurich.

In Frankfurt, 300 flights had been cancelled by late morning, and the number is expected to rise throughout the day, airport spokesman Timo Ross said. About 8 inches (20 centimetres) of snow blanketed the state overnight, also causing the closure of schools around Frankfurt and elsewhere in Hesse.

The airport, continental Europe's second-biggest hub, had to be closed for about an hour late Thursday, and an estimated 1,000 passengers were stranded overnight, Ross said.

Munich airport, Germany's second-largest, reported 113 cancellations and major delays; Duesseldorf and Stuttgart saw more than 20 cancellations each.

Roads were clogged by snow, and in North-Rhine Westphalia state alone authorities reported traffic jams of more than 185 kilometres (115 miles) on highways, and 251 weather-related accidents that left 19 people injured.
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Igloo

UK: Severe Warning As Arctic Blast Blows In


Orange News
Thu, 16 Dec 2010 19:58 UTC
snow
© Unknown
Severe weather warnings are in place as much of the country faces perishing overnight temperatures, fearsome ice and snow as deep as 20cm.

Scotland will be hit by more snow showers tonight, along with western parts of the UK, according to the Met Office.

Sky News weather presenter Isobel Lang warned there could be up to 20cm (8in) of the white stuff in some areas.

Arctic winds will push snow showers further to the north and west tomorrow and by Saturday morning there is likely to be a blanket of snow over a large part of the UK.
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Snowman

Ice storm chaos: How Atlanta commute turned into a demolition derby

Patrick Johnson
Christian Science Monitor
Thu, 16 Dec 2010 13:00 UTC
atlanta,weather
© John Spink/Atlanta Journal & Constitution/APMotorists come to a standstill on the Stone Mountain Freeway due to an ice storm Thursday in Georgia's DeKalb County.
Atlanta reported more than 1,000 accidents as freezing rain coated roadways Wednesday night. The ice storm is another chapter in the South's strangely cold start to winter.

Atlanta, Georgia-Southerners are used to demolition derbies, but a mass of commuters surprised by an early winter ice storm found themselves on a giant hockey rink Wednesday.

The Atlanta metro area alone saw more than 1,000 accidents as motorists slid off roads, crashed into each other, and, in many cases, simply abandoned their cars and checked into motels literally miles from their homes. Few serious injuries were reported.

Georgia's state climatologist, David Stooksbury, came to the defense of the drivers involved in the great 2010 ice storm mashup. "I've seen drivers in the Midwest driving on ice, and they can't do it, either, so I don't want to hear it from them," says Mr. Stooksbury, who works at the University of Georgia.
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Snowman

Flashback Snow Cover Turns Dalmatia White


Dalje.com
Wed, 18 Feb 2009 09:22 UTC
Ice has covered the airports in Zadar and Split, and children in Split and Sibenik enjoy the winter ambient instead of going to school.
dalmatia
© Željko Skroče
Split, Croatia - During the night, snow painted Split white. If we were giving a short meteorological report, we would say that last night, from Tuesday to Wednesday, somewhere around 2am, light snow started to fall in Split carried by a north-easterly wind, only to totally turn the streets white by 4am. The strong winds pushed the snow to the ground, which had totally given way to the white covering.

However, it is important to explain to citizens in the northern parts of Croatia how Split's residents experience snow. It is always a welcome guest in Split, probably because it falls once every few years, and only lasts for a short time, because the surrounding mountains Mosor and Kozjak, as well as the proximity to the sea, rarely offer this part of Dalmatia to feel the joys of winter.
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