Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Early 2007 saw record-breaking extreme weather: U.N.

GENEVA - The world experienced a series of record-breaking weather events in early 2007, from flooding in Asia to heatwaves in Europe and snowfall in South Africa, the United Nations weather agency said on Tuesday.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said global land surface temperatures in January and April were likely the warmest since records began in 1880, at more than 1 degree Celsius higher than average for those months.

Battery

U.S. sweating from Midwest to East Coast

ST. LOUIS - Much of the nation continued to sweat Tuesday under oppressive heat, made worse by high humidity, that stretched from the Midwest to the East Coast.

Temperatures reached well into the 90s and in some cases above 100 degrees, a trend expected to continue through the weekend in parts of the South and Midwest. The National Weather Service issued excessive-heat warnings in several states, and health officials urged people and pets to stay in air conditioning.

Comment: In contrast the Iraqis have to live in 117 degrees heat without fans, air conditioning, electricity or water due to the wholesale destruction of the Iraqi infrastructure over the last 4 and a half years by Uncle Sam!


Cloud Lightning

Update! Floods kill 32 in central Vietnam

Floods have killed at least 32 people in central Vietnam, displacing thousands and cutting the

north-south railway, officials said on Wednesday.

The floods triggered by a storm that weakened into a depression since the weekend have isolated many areas from emergency aid, said an official in Quang Binh province.

Bizarro Earth

Utah: Seismic Activity Stops Mine Rescue Try

HUNTINGTON, Utah - Seismic activity has "totally shut down" efforts to reach six miners trapped below ground and wiped out all the work done in the past day, a mine executive said Tuesday.

Bizarro Earth

Fungus killing amphibians goes airborne

A fungus that is devastating amphibian populations around the world is a relatively new disease that is spreading rapidly, rather than an old disease that has recently become more virulent, according to research on frogs in California's Sierra Nevada.

Worse, not only is the fungus being spread by infected water, it may also be transmitted in the form of spores carried on the wind or birds' feathers, for example, a genetic analysis of the Californian frogs suggests. This would help to explain outbreaks of the disease, called chytridiomycosis, in remote, inaccessible habitats like the Sierra Nevada lakes.

Cloud Lightning

Seven die in Bulgaria floods, Romania expects storm

Seven people drowned and four were missing after heavy rains caused severe flooding in northern Bulgaria, while storms cut off electricity and washed away bridges in neighboring Romania, officials said on Tuesday.

Six elderly people died in accidents in the small Bulgarian town of Tsar Kaloyan, some 380 km (235 miles) northeast of Sofia, after torrential rain cut off electricity and raised water levels, the local civil defense service said.

Bizarro Earth

Lots of Shakin' Goin' On! 6.0 Earthquake in Pacific

UPDATE!

== PRELIMINARY EARTHQUAKE REPORT ==

Region: CENTRAL EAST PACIFIC RISE
Geographic coordinates: 4.483S, 105.178W
Magnitude: 6.0 Mw
Depth: 39 km
Universal Time (UTC): 4 Aug 2007 14:24:58
Time near the Epicenter: 4 Aug 2007 07:24:58
Local time in your area: 4 Aug 2007 08:24:58

Location with respect to nearby cities:
2441 km (1517 miles) SSW (194 degrees) of Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico

Bizarro Earth

Monumental landslide shakes Yukon's Mount Steele

Geologists in the Yukon want to find out what caused a massive landslide last week that made one of Canada's tallest mountains a little smaller.

A piece of Mount Steele, the country's fifth-highest peak, suddenly broke away sometime last week, thundering onto the glacier below.

©Eric DeGiuli
Mount Steele - North Face

Yukon government geologist Panya Lipovsky, who heard of the slide from researchers who witnessed it, said it may have been the single largest landslide in living memory in the territory.

Attention

1,000 hectares of forest fires put out in Krasnoyarsk Territory over 24 hours

There are seven forest fires, 356 hectares in total area, in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, according to the reports made on August 7.

Bizarro Earth

Greece: Heavy floods take up baton from wildfires

Greece's summer of natural disasters took a new twist yesterday as authorities in northern Greece switched from fighting wildfires to trying to cope with floods caused by rainfall that was much heavier than the seasonal average.