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America's changing tornado patterns‏

Dylan Goforth
Tulsa World
Thu, 06 Feb 2014 12:00 UTC
Image
© NOAA
Oklahoma's tornado count well above average in 2013, NOAA says.

Oklahoma's 79 tornadoes in 2013 was the second-greatest total in the nation, according to preliminary data released Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The total topped the state's average of 57 tornadoes per year between 1981 and 2010, according to NOAA data. But the number didn't eclipse the 145 reported in 1999, the most since officials began recording tornado data in 1950.

Kansas, Texas and Florida annually average more. Only Texas, with 81 tornadoes in 2013, had more than Oklahoma last year.
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Bacon n Eggs

Climate change will drive up global food prices by at least another 25%

Benji Jerew
The Green Optimist
Tue, 28 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
© Mountain Republic
The agricultural industry is notoriously slow to react to changing conditions, which leads some researchers to believe that climate change will inevitably lead to higher food prices in the future.

According to research done by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, climate change will likely contribute to increasing prices for basic foodstuffs in the coming decades. The study suggests that, as in the past, the agricultural industry cannot adapt to the changing climate, and everything it entails, leading to a drop in food production.

Of course, the result is not the same everywhere, as shortened growing seasons in one area may reduce food production, lengthened growing seasons in other areas may increase food production. At the same time, climate change may increase the incidence of agricultural pests and diseases in certain areas, reducing food production. Climate-change-driven rainfall, sunlight, and temperature variations also account for drastic changes in food production.

Comment: The global food crisis is not going to get any better:

Climate change could lead to global food crisis, scientists warn
Food prices to rise 40%, study says
Global food system vulnerable due to growing population and climate change
Climate Change to Cut Crop Yields, Boost Prices, Study Shows
Billions face climate change risk
Recipe for Catastrophe: Climate, Fuel, and Food

Start canning and preserving your own healthful foods. Visit our forum here and here to learn more about preparing for what's coming next.

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Fish

No end in sight: Fierce winter storms bring severe flooding in UK & Ireland


Source
Thu, 06 Feb 2014 10:59 UTC
uk flood
© BBC News

Dramatic footage shows how unusually fierce winter storms have brought severe flooding to several coastal areas in Southern England. Ireland is also suffering severe flooding.

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Info

Hundreds of whale sharks killed annually in illegal trade in China


abc.net.au
Wed, 05 Feb 2014 09:23 UTC
Image
© Hilton/Hofford for WildLifeRisk
An undercover operation has revealed that sharks are killed for food and cosmetic products each year in China.
As many as 600 whale sharks a year are killed to supply one factory alone in China, a three-year undercover operation has revealed.

Paul Hilton, a conservation photo journalist and co-director of Hong Kong based NGO, WildLife Risk made three trips between 2010 and 2013 to the town of Puqi in China's south east following a tip-off.

"We decided to set up a small seafood trading company and we organised a business trip," he told Radio Australia's Asia Pacific program.

"We met with a gentleman called Mr Li who runs the China Wenzhou Yueqing Marine Organisms Health Protection Foods Co Ltd and there (to) the processing plant and the courtyard was just full of giant whale shark fins."

Whale shark hunting as well as the sale and export of products are banned in China which has signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Despite that, the Fisheries authorities say they lack the resources to stop the trade.

"Recently this week there was a spokesperson who wanted to remain anonymous from the Chinese Fisheries side saying they are just totally understaffed and they don't have the resources to do more for endangered species," Mr Hilton said.

"So there's loopholes all through the system, people are taking backhanders."
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Cloud Precipitation

Floods sweep Cork and Tipperary, Ireland

Claire Simpson
The Irish News
Wed, 05 Feb 2014 08:57 UTC
Image
Around 19,000 people in the republic were without power last night as floods swept through counties Cork and Tipperary.

Several streets in Cork city were under water after the river Lee overflowed its banks - the fourth time in just four weeks that parts of the city were flooded.

Some shops that had been flooded just 24 hours earlier, were hit by rising water again.

At the height of the flooding, one of the city's main streets, Oliver Plunkett Street, was under several feet of water.

Cobh and Kinsale in Co Cork, and Clonmel in Co Tipperary were also badly flooded.

Towns in eastern and southern counties, particularly Waterford and Wexford, were battered by hurricane-force winds and high waves last night.

Heavy rain and strong gusts of rain also hit the north, with eastern counties particularly badly hit.
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Windsock

Wave measuring more than 70 feet hits Cornwall, UK

WBJ Lock
West Briton
Wed, 05 Feb 2014 08:32 UTC
Image
© www.surfhog.com
A wave measuring more than 70 feet was recorded off the coast of Penzance this morning as the Cornish coastline was battered by gale-force winds and heavy rain.

A buoy set close to Penzance triggered a reading of 74.8 feet at 3.00am this morning, according to Cornwall-based surf website www.surfhog.com

It confirms the world's largest waves were off the coast of the Duchy this morning - higher than the swell off the coast of Nazare, Portugal, and dwarfing the 6ft surf that lapped against Australia's Bondi Beach.

West Cornwall has seen widespread flooding and destruction after a series of devastating storms blasted the coast.

In comparison big wave surfer, Devon-born Andrew Cotton, is believed to have ridden the 'biggest ever wave' in Nazare Portugal which stood at 80 feet.

According to surf forecasting website, Surf Storm, the largest waves on the face of the planet today have been crashing into the Cornwall, though most are unsurfable due to strong winds and large tides.

Emergency services have all issued a co-ordinated warning to only travel if absolutely necessary.
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Galaxy

Heaven and Earth: Unusual natural events and strange phenomena from around the world in January 2014

Last Messages
YouTube
Wed, 05 Feb 2014 02:14 UTC
Image
© AP
This video compiles footages of strange phenomena of all kinds, including awesome natural events or beautiful phenomena from around the world in the last few weeks.

In just the last couple of weeks, we've seen:

Volcanic eruptions in Sicily and Indonesia and elsewhere - 'Sky trumpet sounds' in Iceland, and loud booms shaking homes all over the US - Large earthquake in New Zealand, and an ongoing heatwave in Australia - Giant boulders falling off a mountain Italy and record flooding across Europe - More 'spinning ice-river' circles, this time in Norway - Strange cloud cover producing pretty sunsets and unusual light refraction, including a spectacular sun halo over Moscow - More mass animal deaths - More meteor fireballs falling from the sky, and 'hole-punch clouds'! - More UFO sightings - Massive electrical storms, including a super-electrical storm in Rio de Janeiro that produced an interesting omen: a thunderbolt struck the giant statue of Jesus above the city!... There were also major electrical storms in Europe... and this in the middle of winter! - Tornado outbreaks in the UK, which are unusual even in the summer - Thousands of wildfires breaking out in some of the coldest places on the planet - UK's wettest January in 250 years as the island continues to be pummeled with storm after storm...


I covered events from earlier in January and late December 2013 here.

Check out the rest of this series here.
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Bizarro Earth

Red king crab caught in Bering Sea is lavender-colored, baffling experts

Pete Thomas
GrindTV
Fri, 31 Jan 2014 22:56 UTC
Lavender-colored red crab
© Marusan Ocean Foods
Photo of lavender-colored red crab.
A good omen, a bad diet, or merely some kind of mutation caused by some unknown factor?

These were some of the reactions among wholesalers in Japan when one of a shipment of red king crabs turned out to be lavender.

"I've been dealing with crabs for 25 years, but this is the first time to see that color," Kenetsu Mikami, president of Marusan Ocean Foods, told the Japanese-language Hokkaido Doshin. "It could be a good omen."

The crabs were caught off Russia in the Bering Sea and shipped to Hokkaido. Red king crabs are found in the Bering Sea and near the Aleutian Islands, along the coast of the Gulf of Alaska, and south to British Columbia, Canada. Also, there are populations from Hokkaido, Japan, to Cape Olyutorsk, Russia. They're widely consumed around the world.
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Bizarro Earth

Mysterious giant jellyfish found by family on Tasmanian beach, yet to be named


ABC, Australia
Wed, 05 Feb 2014 22:51 UTC
Mystery Jellyfish
© Josie Lim
While the jellyfish has been seen before, it is technically unclassified and new to science.
CSIRO scientists are working to classify a new species of giant jellyfish after one washed up on a beach in southern Tasmania. The 1.5 metre jellyfish was found by a family walking on a beach at Howden, south of Hobart, last month.

There have been several reported in waters off the state and the research body has also captured specimens. CSIRO scientist Lisa-ann Gershwin told ABC Local Radio while the species has been seen before, it is technically unclassified and new to science.

"It's a whopper. We do get large jellyfish and this one just happened to be this absolutely enormous specimen," she said.

"I do hear from time to time people tell me 'we found this one that was really big', but this one really is, really big.
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Arrow Up

Climate debate: Lord Monckton vs HRH Prince Charles

Rog Tallbloke
Tallbloke's Talkshop
Wed, 05 Feb 2014 19:36 UTC
Following HRH Prince Charles intemperate remarks about 'headless chickens' reported at the talkshop last week, Lord Monckton has written him an open letter, reproduced below.

Lord Moncton Header
© Tallbloke's Talkshop
His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales,
Clarence House, London.

Candlemas, 2014

Your Royal Highness' recent remarks describing those who have scientific and economic reason to question the Establishment opinion on climatic apocalypse in uncomplimentary and unroyal terms as "headless chickens" mark the end of our constitutional monarchy and a return to the direct involvement of the Royal Family, in the Person of our future king, no less, in the cut and thrust of partisan politics.

Now that Your Royal Highness has offered Your Person as fair game in the shootout of politics, I am at last free to offer two options. I need no longer hold back, as so many have held back, as Your Royal Highness' interventions in politics have become more frequent and less acceptable in their manner as well as in their matter.

Option 1. Your Royal Highness will renounce the Throne forthwith and for aye. Those remarks were rankly party-political and were calculated to offend those who still believe, as Your Royal Highness plainly does not, that the United Kingdom should be and remain a free country, where any subject of Her Majesty may study science and economics, may draw his conclusions from his research and may publish the results, however uncongenial the results may be.

The line has been crossed. No one who has intervened thus intemperately in politics may legitimately occupy the Throne. Your Royal Highness' arrogant and derogatory dismissiveness towards the near-50 percent of your subjects who no longer follow the New Religion is tantamount to premature abdication. Goodnight, sweet prince. No more "Your Royal Highness."
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