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Thu, 21 Oct 2021
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Wolf

Teacher Candice Berner mauled to death by wolves in Alaska

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Teacher Candice Berner was mauled to death by a pack of wolves while she was out jogging, it has been confirmed.

The 32-year-old's body was discovered by members of the public, severely mauled and in a pool of blood. Multiple tracks were in the snow, leading locals to suspect the teacher had been attacked by wild animals.

A report released to by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game confirmed Berner was killed by wolves a mile outside small fishing village Chignik Bay, on the Alaska Peninsula. A medical examiner cited cause of death as "multiple injuries due to animal mauling", the Sun reported.

DNA from two wolves which were shot in the area shortly after the attack was a match with DNA found on Candice's clothing. But experts said it was impossible to determine if the wolves attacked to defend their territory or the animals had hunted her.

Dollar

Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters Smash US Record

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© The Associated Press/Kiichiro Sato
In this Feb. 2, 2011 file photo, hundreds of cars are seen stranded on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago after a winter blizzard of historic proportions wobbled an otherwise snow-tough Chicago. America's wild weather year has hit yet another new high: a devastating dozen billion-dollar catastrophes.
America's wild weather year has set another record: a dozen billion-dollar catastrophes.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday that it has recalculated the number of weather disasters passing the billion-dollar mark, with two new ones, pushing 2011's total to 12. The two costly additions are the Texas, New Mexico and Arizona wildfires and the mid-June tornadoes and severe weather.

NOAA uses $1 billion as a benchmark for the worst weather disasters. This year's total of a dozen billion-dollar calamities matches the number for all of the 1980s, even when the older figures are adjusted for inflation.

Extreme weather in America this year has killed more than 1,000 people, according to National Weather Service Director Jack Hayes. The dozen billion-dollar disasters alone add up to $52 billion in damage. Hayes, a meteorologist since 1970, said he has never seen a year for extreme weather like this, calling it "the deadly, destructive and relentless 2011."

And this year's total may not stop at 12. Officials are still adding up the damage from the Tropical Storm Lee and the pre-Halloween Northeast snowstorm, and so far they are both at the $750 million mark. And there's still nearly a month left in the year.

Bizarro Earth

Huge Japan Quake Cracked Open Seafloor

Cracked Seafloor
© Norio Miyamoto, JAMSTEC
This 8-inch-wide (20 cm) crevasse stretches for at least tens of meters in a north-south direction; its depth is unknown. The crack, at a depth beneath the water's surface of 10, 558 feet (3,218 m) was imaged on Aug. 10, 2011.
The March 2011 megaquake off the coast of Japan opened up fissures as wide as 6 feet (3 meters) in the seafloor, a new study finds.

The fissures now scar the seafloor where peaceful clam beds once lay, according to Takeshi Tsuji, a researcher at Kyoto University in Japan. Along with seismic studies, the fissures, revealed by manned submersible vehicles that investigated the seafloor after the quake, show how the crust around the quake's epicenter expanded and cracked.

Tsuji and his colleagues had a unique opportunity to see how the seafloor changed after the magnitude-9.0 quake struck on March 11. Before the quake, the researchers had taken video and photographs of the seafloor on the continental side of the Japan Trench, near where the crust would later rupture, generating an enormous tsunami that killed about 20,000 people.

Those videos showed a quiet seafloor broken only by occasional clam beds, Tsuji reported here today (Dec. 6) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). After the quake, however, the seabed shows evidence of the massive forces released there.

Bulb

Canada: Emergencies Declared in Two Northern Quebec Communities

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© unknown
People gather in Chisasibi, Que., on Tuesday. The power has been out in most of Chisasibi and Wemindji in freezing temperatures since Monday morning.
Things are looking a bit brighter for the northern Quebec Cree communities of Wemindji and Chisasibi, which have been without power for more than 30 hours, as Hydro Quebec has come up with plans to restore power.

Power has now been restored to about a third of residents in Chisasibi as of about 5 p.m. ET Tuesday.

Hydro Quebec is slowly bringing the power back so as not to blow the line.

If that plan works, it will do the same for Wemindji in the morning. If the system crashes, the company will start the backup generators it sent to the communities.

Hydro Québec estimates the power could be restored within 24 hours.

About 5,200 people have been without power for a day and a half.

Cloud Lightning

Canada: Yukon's storm broke weather records

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© CBC
Heavy snow and winds in Whitehorse on Monday, Dec. 5.
Monday's storm in Yukon broke a variety of weather records around the territory.

High winds and rain sent temperatures up to 14 degrees in Burwash Landing. It was the warmest December day ever for the community on the shores of Kluane Lake.

The community of Haines Junction got the same temperatures, along with some gale-force winds in excess of 100 kilometres per hour.

Haines Junction resident Amy McKinnon says it made a mess of some yards in town.

"Yeah, it was really warm. We woke up to quite a windstorm as well, so there were stories about damaged roofs, trampolines that took flight, tents that ended up in the bush, downed trees all over town, power outages and I heard the winds peaked at over 114 kilometres per hour. So a little more excitement than we wanted," said McKinnon.

Then a cold front sent temperatures plummeting and produced record snowfalls in some areas.

Cloud Lightning

Extreme weather creates havoc in Perth, Australia

Extreme weather conditions have left thousands of passengers stranded at Perth Domestic Airport and 12,000 homes across Western Australia without power.

At the domestic terminal, Qantas planes have been grounded since mid-morning yesterday as storm activity made conditions dangerous for flying.


Perth Airport yesterday afternoon advised 17 aircraft were waiting to be allocated into bays at the domestic terminal, with airline staff unable to service the planes due to safety concerns.

It is understood Virgin had grounded all flights out of Perth since yesterday morning.

Better Earth

US: Strong winds create 'rare' Reverse Sierra Wave over California

After a chilly start to our day, light winds and clear skies should leave us once again in an "inverted state." High temperatures up at Lake Tahoe probably are going to be as warm, if not warmer, than what we will get here in the valley. On Monday, a strong easterly flow up in the mountains created a rare "reverse Sierra Wave."

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© NOAA
On Monday, the strong east winds created a Sierra Wave on the west side of the Sierra Nevada.

Usually when we talk about the wave, it happens on our side of the mountains when strong west or southwesterly winds create a standing wave. But as the satellite picture above (forwarded by retired meteorologist Doug Armstrong) shows, the exact opposite happened early Monday morning, and the strong east winds created a Sierra Wave on the west side of the crest. A rare sight indeed!

Bizarro Earth

Could the Dead Sea Completely Vanish?

Dead Sea
© akva | Shutterstock
As surrounding nations use up the inflow to the Dead Sea, this salty lake is dropping fast, scientists warn.

San Francisco - Water levels in the Dead Sea have been dropping over the last few years as towns and villages in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria suck up run-off water that would normally fill the extra-salty lake. But new research finds that even in periods without human pressures, the Dead Sea may have dried up, including once when it did so almost entirely more than 100,000 years ago.

The finding does not bode well for the region, according to study researcher Steven Goldstein, a professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. If the giant body of water nearly vanished with no human pressures, what could be the consequences with both man-made climate change and water diversions for irrigation that keep much of the resource from even reaching the Dead Sea?

"Without human intervention during the last interglacial, the run-off declined or stopped," Goldstein said here Monday (Dec. 5) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). Already, he said, water has been a source of tension in the region.

With climate change, the Dead Sea region is expected to become more arid, resulting in more pressure on water resources. And recent signs suggest things are already happening; in 1930 the lake's surface was 1,280 feet (390 meters) below seal level, dropping to 1,381 feet (421 m) below sea level in 2008 due to water being used up by humans before it could even reach the lake, the researchers said.

Nuke

Japan: Scientists Call for Dumping Radioactive Soil into Sea

Power shovels remove top soil
© Asahi Shimbun
Power shovels remove top soil from an elementary school playground in Minami-Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, where high levels of radiation were confirmed in August.
Scientists have proposed dumping soil contaminated by radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster into the deep sea, an idea certain to meet opposition both at home and abroad.

A group led by Isao Tanihata, a professor at Osaka University's Research Center for Nuclear Physics, and Kozi Nakai, a former professor at the Tokyo University of Science, said the best way to get rid of the radioactive soil is to place it in noncorrosive, pressure-tight vessels and dumping them at least 2,000 meters deep near Japan.

"The sea, away from all residents, would pose no problem," Tanihata told about 30 researchers at a study meeting at Osaka University on Dec. 3.

The participants, including nuclear physicists and researchers at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, did not object to the proposal from a scientific point of view.

Bizarro Earth

Mountain explodes violently in Vietnam as earth cracks- scientist warn of a coming quake

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© Tuoi Tre
A mountain of the Truong Son chain in the central Quang Nam Province exploded and caused the land crack near the dam of the Song Tranh 2 hydroelectricity power plant
About 50km from Quang Nam province's administrative center is Tam Ky City. It takes over three hours for a motorbike to make it down the bumpy road DT616 crossing mountains and hills from there to Bac Tra My Town, where strange geologic activity has residents on edge

Increasingly violent mountain explosions

Residents of the town cannot help but feel anxious, as the intensity of the quakes keeps increasing. The nearby mountain of the Truong Son chain explodes ever more loudly every night.

Lu Quang Lai, nearly 70, says he has never witnessed such strange phenomenon in Tra My in the past decades.

"About 10 months ago, when the new hydroelectricity power plant started to conserve water, the water level in the lake got higher every day. The land here seemed to change. Every night exploding sounds would emanate from the earth, followed by a rumbling sound. Recently the explosions and quakes have become more violent. Glasses and cups fall down like leaves, everything tilts", Lai speaks in a tremble.

Nguyen Phuoc Danh, a motorbike mechanic, lives in a house 300km from Song Tranh 2 hydroelectricity plant's dam. His home is the worst affected in the area, suffering from three tremors.

"Two nights ago, the mountain exploded with a deafening sound. Although I've become used to the noise caused by TNT explosives during the dam's construction, nothing compared to the recent explosion.

"A few seconds later, the earth shook. The roof and the windows rattled. Things started to fall. The wall creaked, and then cracked. I took my wife and kids out to the street. A chill crept up from my heels to my head just like electricity", Danh says in disbelief.