Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Monster tornado on the Sun

Tornado on Sun
© Andrew McCarthy and Jason Guenzel
On Earth, the most dangerous tornadoes are rated F5. On the sun, they can be hundreds of times worse. David Wilson photographed this twister, big enough to swallow our entire planet, from his backyard observatory in Inverness, Scotland:

"I was recording this monster all day on April 24th when I noticed the central stem grow brighter until it let go at about 1300UT," says Wilson. "It looked like a huge swirl of plasma went round the stem and flew into space."

Doberman

Man dies after dog attack in Oroville, Washington

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A local man died April 2 after attempting to break up a dog fight on 14th Avenue. Keith Huckvale, 65, was sitting outside with his dog on his property when another dog— identified as a Picbull-- reportedly attacked his dog Okanogan County Coroner Dave Rodriguez said Huckvale intervened to stop the fight.

"He's now trying to pull this dog off of his dog and in the process got bit fairly significantly on the forearm, Rodriguez said. "He was not successful in pulling the dog off."

Police were dispatched to the scene and were able to break up the fight. During the response, Huckvale apparently collapsed and became unresponsive, Rodriguez said.

"Officers showed up and used a taser to separate the dogs," Oroville Police Chief Gary Hirst said. "They turned around and noticed he had a heart attack or a stroke.'

Bizarro Earth

Key Atlantic ocean currents are weakening — and it could make the climate in some regions unrecognizable

Gulf Stream AMOC
Atlantic ocean currents regulate the climate, and they may be weakening, emerging research suggests.
A cold blob of water in the North Atlantic is an ominous sign that a system of currents that regulate the planet's climate could be weakening.

A mysterious patch of water in the North Atlantic has baffled scientists for decades. Located to the southeast of Greenland, this blob of seawater was colder between 1901 and 2021 than during the late 1800s, even as the seas around it became ever warmer.

Some scientists linked this "warming hole" to an inflow of frigid Arctic meltwater; others blamed pollution from shipping, which can bounce the sun's rays back into space. But a growing body of evidence suggests the hole has a more sinister origin — one whose impacts, if unleashed, would reach much farther than a small region of the North Atlantic.

The warming hole might be a sign that Atlantic Ocean currents are slowing down. This network of currents regulates Earth's climate, moving heat from the tropics to the Northern Hemisphere. The currents, which include the Gulf Stream, form a huge and seemingly permanent loop known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).

Attention

Dead whale found on beach near Cape Disappointment, Washington on April 19

Dead whale found on beach near Cape
Dead whale found on beach near Cape Disappointment
A gray whale was found dead on the beach near Cape Disappointment Saturday.

Cape Disappointment is in Ilwaco on the Long Beach Peninsula on the southwest corner of Washington.

Experts with the Cascadia Research Collective and Portland State University are performing a necropsy, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesperson, Jennifer Sepulveda, told KOMO News.

WDFW said the whale was the fifth reported dead in Washington so far this year.

Sepulveda said the deaths are fairly common this time of year when gray whales are migrating north past Washington to their summer range and become stranded.


Comment: Also recently, further south along the western seaboard: Dead gray whale washes ashore at Alameda beach, California - 4th in Bay Area so far this year


Wolf

Child dies after attack by pit bull in Mozambique

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© Carta
The Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM) has confirmed that the three-year-old child attacked by a pit-bull last Wednesday in the Tchumene 2 neighbourhood (Block 25A), in Matola municipality, Maputo province, has died in hospital.

PRM spokesperson Delfina Massingue reported that the 10th Police Station learned of the incident through the block chief and went to the scene immediately.

Upon arrival, the police found the child still alive and arranged for him to be transported to the Matola Provincial Hospital, where he was declared dead a few minutes later.

"The police's own canine unit, which specializes in cases of this type, was also deployed to the scene, together with the Protection Police, and managed to subdue the animal," the spokesperson reported.

Black Cat

Bobcat mauled an 82-year-old man in Alabama

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© Getty Images
Claude Strother wasn't expecting much action when he slipped into the Alabama woods on the afternoon of April 18. The 82-year-old turkey hunter had an hour to spare and figured he'd pass it by working a few calls from his Wilcox County property. What he got instead was the wildest hunt of his life, when a bobcat launched itself at the back of his head.

Strother had been feeling restless because his wife, Bettie, had gone to Birmingham for the day. So he decided to go hunting and planned to sit for about an hour and call every so often to try to strike up a gobbler.

"Instead of sitting by a big tree like I always do, I sat between two little trees about as big as my arm," Strother said in a Facebook reel posted by his daughter, DeAnn McGilberry. "It left my back and head exposed."

He'd only been calling for a few minutes when something hit him hard from behind.

"All of a sudden, I thought someone had hit me with a baseball bat," Strother said. "It hit behind my head. My whole head is sore. His claws hit right above my eyes. Not any real damage, although there was a lot of blood."

Seismograph

Magnitude 6.3 earthquake strikes near coast of Ecuador

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A magnitude 6.3 earthquake has struck near the coast of Ecuador, according to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC).

The epicentre of the quake - which took place at about 6:45am local time (11:45 GMT) - was near the Pacific coast of the northwestern city of Esmeraldas, at a depth of 30km (18.6 miles), said the EMSC. Tremors were reported in 10 provinces of the country, even as far as the capital, Quito.

Images shared online show buildings visibly damaged in the earthquake. Damaged structures included 30 homes, a health centre and a military building, the facade of which partially collapsed, according to authorities.

Ecuador's daily El Comrecio newspaper reported power outages in Esmeraldas. The state energy company Petroecuador said that it had paused operations at the Esmeraldas refinery and SOTE pipeline as a precautionary measure following the earthquake.

President Daniel Noboa said in a social media post that the government is working to set up shelters and offer humanitarian assistance to residents, promising to help with "everything our people need".


Volcano

Volcanic eruption in Russia's Kamchatka blankets villages with ash

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Volcanic ashfall from an eruption of Bezymianny Volcano in Russia's far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula has blanketed three villages in the Milkovo District, local emergency services said on Thursday.

Volcanic ash is currently falling in three villages from emissions from Bezymianny Volcano, the regional branch of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations said on its Telegram channel, News.Az reports, citing Xinhua.

"While the livelihoods of residents have not been disrupted, emergency services strongly advise people to stay indoors unless absolutely necessary," it added.

The Far Eastern Branch of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology of the Russian Academy of Sciences has modeled the projected path of the ash cloud. Their data indicate that volcanic particles are drifting toward another settlement, the village of Kozyrevsk in the Ust-Kamchatsky District.

The Bezymyanny volcano has emitted an ash column for the fifth time in 24 hours, with the latest plume rising 11 km above sea level. As a result, the aviation color code has been raised to "red," meaning a significant threat to all types of aircraft.

Bezymianny Volcano is situated about 40 km from the village of Klyuchi and 350 km from the regional capital city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.


Tsunami

Heavy downpour, flash floods leaves 6 people dead in Nairobi, Kenya

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Following the heavy rains affecting the country. Here in Nairobi, six people died following the effects of the heavy downpour on the night of Easter Monday.

Three of them—a mother and her two children—were killed when a boulder crushed their house in Mathare.

The other three died in separate incidents across the city after being swept away by floods.

More than 500 families have fled their homes in Mukuru Kwa Reuben following flash floods that hit them in the night.


Seismograph

Istanbul rocked by powerful 6.2 magnitude shallow earthquake

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An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 has shaken Istanbul, Turkey's emergency management agency said.

There were no immediate reports of any damage or injuries.

The earthquake had a shallow depth of about six miles, according to the United States Geological Survey.

Its epicentre was some 25 miles south-west of Istanbul in the Sea of Marmara.

It was followed by several aftershocks, including one measuring 5.3. The disaster and emergency management agency urged residents to stay away from buildings.