Earth ChangesS

Bizarro Earth

Lava flows detected on two restless volcanoes in Alaska

Scientists say small lava flows have been detected on two restless volcanoes in Alaska. The Alaska Volcano Observatory says satellite images on Tuesday show the lava partly down a flank of Pavlof Volcano in a low-level eruption, 625 miles southwest of Anchorage.

Geophysicist Dave Schneider says minor steam and ash emissions are visible from the community of Cold Bay 37 miles away. Pavlof is the second Alaska volcano to erupt this month. Cleveland Volcano, on an uninhabited island in the Aleutian Islands, experienced a low-level eruption in early May.
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The Alaska Volcano Observatory says satellite images Tuesday show the lava partly down a flank of Pavlof Volcano in a low-level eruption 625 miles southwest of Anchorage

Bizarro Earth

Massive underwater volcano discovered off the coast of southeast Alaska

U.S. Forest Service Geologist Jim Baichtal, who is based on Prince of Wales Island, and Anchorage geologist Sue Karl were looking at some hydrographic surveys, something geologists tend to do. When we were done, I noticed the area from Thorne Arm to Rudyerd had been surveyed," Baichtal said. "I zoomed in and there was this large... some kind of volcano, and two other dome-like structures." Karl added that, "This new NOAA survey allowed us to see things that people had never seen before." Karl said a modern example of a similar eruption is Surtsey, a volcanic island in Iceland, which erupted from the sea floor in the 1960s, building itself up and eventually breaching the surface to form the island. Karl points out that when the newly discovered volcano erupted, sea levels also were lower than they are now, but even with that, "We still have too much depth. We have to call on glacial loading and rebound."

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Comment:
Alaska's Mt. Pavlof volcano is 'very, very hot'


Cloud Grey

Ice Age Cometh! Parts of UK hit by several inches of snow and 'one month' of rain during mid-May storm

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas - so it's rather odd that we find ourselves in mid-May. Snow fell across parts of Britain last night while another area had a month's rain in just 24 hours as winds of up to 65mph battered the country's coastlines in unusual weather for the month. Up to 3in of snow fell in Princetown in Dartmoor, Devon, Rhayader in Powys, and Newcastle-on-Clun in Shropshire - while Pembrey, Carmarthenshire, had 3in of rain in the 24 hours until 7am today.

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© North News
Local woman Sheila Coates told BBC Radio Devon: 'It's crazy. Last night I couldn't see out of my front window for the snow. I've lived here all my life, and I've never known weather like it at this time of year.' Up to 3in of snow also fell on high ground in the rural county of Shropshire last night - sparking fears of flooding in the rest of the region, as two local rivers were given flood warnings. Mike Steedman, owner of the Anchor Inn in the hills above Newcastle-on-Clun, near the Welsh border, said. 'It started at about 11pm and it came in wet and heavy.

Bizarro Earth

Earth reeling from a swarm of earthquakes over last 72 hours

A flurry of earthquakes continues across the planet over the past 72 hours, showing few signs of abatement. Seismic tension continues to build across the Pacific Plate, the Cocos plate (Central America), and the Nazca plate, near South America. Tectonic plate agitation appears to be increasing, along with volcanic pressures under many of the world's major volcanoes.
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Eagle

Fighting eagles crash land on Minnesota airport runway

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© APProvided by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources are two bald eagles after they crash landed on a runway at Duluth, Minn., International Airport. Minnesota DNR officer Randy Hanzal said the eagles, locked together by their talons in a midair territorial dispute, couldn't separate but survived the fall.
Two bald eagles locked together by their talons in a midair battle survived a crash landing onto a runway at a northeastern Minnesota airport.

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources conservation officer Randy Hanzal says the adult eagles couldn't separate Sunday before slamming into the tarmac at the Duluth International Airport. Hanzal tried to take the birds to a Duluth wildlife rehabilitation center. He covered them with blankets and jackets on the back of his pickup and held them down with webbing straps. En route, Hanzal says, he heard a ruckus and saw one bird jump out and fly away.

The Duluth News Tribune says the other eagle made it to the rehab center and is now being cared for by the University of Minnesota in St. Paul's Raptor Center.

Bizarro Earth

Western Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami hazard potential greater than previously thought

Earthquakes similar in magnitude to the 2004 Sumatra earthquake could occur in an area beneath the Arabian Sea at the Makran subduction zone, according to recent research published in Geophysical Research Letters. The research was carried out by scientists from the University of Southampton based at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOCS), and the Pacific Geoscience Centre, Natural Resources Canada.

The study suggests that the risk from undersea earthquakes and associated tsunami in this area of the Western Indian Ocean - which could threaten the coastlines of Pakistan, Iran, Oman, India and potentially further afield - has been previously underestimated. The results highlight the need for further investigation of pre-historic earthquakes and should be fed into hazard assessment and planning for the region.

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Magic Hat

New York Times conceding low CO2 sensitivity! Now talking about "CO2 quadrupling" to maintain catastrophe scenarios!

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© Public domainCO2 losing its fizz.
It's not every morning one wakes up and finds you've been quoted by the New York Times. That's what happened to me this morning.

In his article, A Change in Temperature, Justin Gillis tells his readers that the issue of CO2 climate sensitivity has become more hotly disputed than ever, but warns catastrophe still looms.

Sheeple

400 PPM CO2 concentration announcement unleashes wave of German mass hysteria

survived 400ppm tshirt
© WattsUpWithThat

Watching the reaction from the greens, media, climate scientists, and a number of politicians here in Germany reminds me of the time when I was in 6th grade and a friend of mine and I threw a dead mouse in a group of 3rd grade schoolgirls out on the school yard. That sent them off in all directions screaming hysterically.

Well that's pretty much the reaction we've seen with many of the adults (grown men) here in Germany when Scripps announced that CO2 concentration had reached the 400 ppm level. You see, the day before when the concentration was 399.99 ppm, everybody was just going about their business; life was normal. But when the CO2 concentration reached 400 ppm, the gates of hell opened.

Cloud Lightning

Boat capsizes off western Burma during cyclone Mahasen evacuation, many feared drowned

Sittwe
© Human Rights Watch/AFP/Getty Images The site of a destroyed mosque in April after ethnic violence in Sittwe: at least 192 people were killed in June and October last year in violence in Rakhine state.
Many feared drowned as boat carrying Rohingya Muslims hits rocks during evacuation ahead of cyclone Mahasen

A boat carrying about 100 Rohingya Muslims has capsized off western Burma with many feared drowned at the start of a mass evacuation from low-lying regions ahead of cyclone Mahasen, a UN official said on Tuesday.

The boat struck rocks off Pauktaw township in Rakhine state and sank late on Monday, Barbara Manzi, head of the Burma office at the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told Reuters.

She said an unknown number of people were missing.

The UN warned last week that the tropical cyclone could bring "life-threatening conditions" to thousands of people living in camps in the west of Burma after their homes were destroyed in violence between majority Buddhists and minority Muslims last year.

Blue Planet

Seabird bones reveal changes in open-ocean food chain

Remains of endangered Hawaiian petrels -- both ancient and modern -- show how drastically today's open seas fish menu has changed.

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© Courtesy of Brittany Hance, Imaging Lab, Smithsonian InstitutionExcavated bones of Hawaiian petrels โ€“ birds that spend the majority of their lives foraging the Pacific โ€“ show substantial change in the birds' eating habits.
A research team, led by Michigan State University and Smithsonian Institution scientists, analyzed the bones of Hawaiian petrels -- birds that spend the majority of their lives foraging the open waters of the Pacific. They found that the substantial change in petrels' eating habits, eating prey that are lower rather than higher in the food chain, coincides with the growth of industrialized fishing.

The birds' dramatic shift in diet, shown in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, leaves scientists pondering the fate of petrels as well as wondering how many other species face similar challenges.

"Our bone record is alarming because it suggests that open-ocean food webs are changing on a large scale due to human influence," said Peggy Ostrom, co-author and MSU zoologist. "Our study is among the first to address one of the great mysteries of biological oceanography -- whether fishing has gone beyond an influence on targeted species to affect nontarget species and potentially, entire food webs in the open ocean."

Hawaiian petrels' diet is recorded in the chemistry of their bones. By studying the bones' ratio of nitrogen-15 and nitrogen-14 isotopes, researchers can tell at what level in the food chain the birds are feasting; generally, the larger the isotope ratio, the bigger the prey (fish, squid and crustaceans).

Between 4,000 and 100 years ago, petrels had high isotope ratios, indicating they ate bigger prey. After the onset of industrial fishing, which began extending past the continental shelves around 1950, the isotope ratios declined, indicating a species-wide shift to a diet of smaller fish and other prey.

Much research has focused on the impact of fishing near the coasts. In contrast, the open ocean covers nearly half of Earth's surface. But due to a lack of historical records, fishing's impact on most open-ocean animal populations is completely unknown, said lead author Anne Wiley, formerly an MSU doctoral student and now a Smithsonian postdoctoral researcher.