Earth ChangesS


Igloo

Heavy snowfall, rain bring temperature down in North India

Image
Get ready for yet another spell of cold weather in North India. Heavy snowfall in the hill states like Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir have sent the mercury plummeting to freezing point.

The plains have also witnessed a drop in temperature as heavy rain lashed parts of Punjab and Haryana.

The Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, the only road link to the Valley, was closed for vehicular traffic on Saturday following heavy snowfall and rains. "The highway is closed for traffic due to heavy snowfall at Jawahar Tunnel, Banihal and Patnitop areas resulting in blockade," police said.

Srinagar experienced slight rainfall with mercury plummeting to freezing point before dawn and rising to 7 degree Celsius in the day, three notches below normal.

Cloud Lightning

US: Microburst Ripped Through New Jersey Town

Image
A storm with heavy rains and fierce winds ripped roofs from homes and toppled trees as a storm moved through Lakewood, N.J. Friday.

The microburst that hit Lakewood contained winds of 75 mph winds, according to the National Weather Service.

"It was spinning in a circle, like 'The Wizard of Oz.' The grills, chairs off of a patio," said Matthew Draheim a worker who witnessed the gusts.

The winds were so strong, part of the roof ripped away from an entire apartment building.

The four families that lived in the affected part of the building are staying in a hotel. They can return as soon as their homes are safe to be in, officials said.

Meteor

Small Nuclear War Could Reverse Global Warming for Years

Image
© APA nuclear bomb explodes in a test on the Mururoa atoll in French Polynesia in the early seventies.
Regional war could spark "unprecedented climate change," experts predict.

Even a regional nuclear war could spark "unprecedented" global cooling and reduce rainfall for years, according to U.S. government computer models.

Widespread famine and disease would likely follow, experts speculate.

During the Cold War a nuclear exchange between superpowers - such as the one feared for years between the United States and the former Soviet Union - was predicted to cause a "nuclear winter."

In that scenario hundreds of nuclear explosions spark huge fires, whose smoke, dust, and ash blot out the sun for weeks amid a backdrop of dangerous radiation levels. Much of humanity eventually dies of starvation and disease.

Today, with the United States the only standing superpower, nuclear winter is little more than a nightmare. But nuclear war remains a very real threat - for instance, between developing-world nuclear powers, such as India and Pakistan.

Comment: Besides the suggestive undertones hinting that controlled regional nuclear warfare could be a GOOD thing for the planet, this rather sounds like a plausible cover story for atmospheric blasts produced by comets/asteroids and for the coming Ice Age (which will be precipitated by interaction with same, initially "at a distance" ref. McCanney).

Astronomers Victor Clube and Bill Napier even named their ground-breaking book on neo-catastrophism The Cosmic Winter, a play on the concept of a "nuclear winter" because of the high degree of probability that cometary bombardment will be mistaken for nuclear attack.


Radar

Iceland: Four day long earthquake swarm intensifies at Krísuvík volcano

Image
Picture is from Icelandic Met Office graphic web tool.
While this earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano does not appear to be big in size. It is clear that was rather long and might even be ongoing. But it is interesting how long this earthquake swarm did last. So far the time is about 2 days. It is impossible to know if the earthquake swarm is over or not. Current number of earthquakes is about 60 earthquakes so far.

The earthquakes are on North-South fault line according to the visual evidence. Depth of the earthquakes is from 12 km and up to 3 km at the moment. It is hard to know at the moment if this is due to magma inflow under Krísuvík volcano or just normal tectonic activity along the rift zone in Reykjanes.

Icelandic news about this earthquake swarm.

Hrina smáskjálfta í Krýsuvík (Vísir.is, Icelandic)

Cloud Lightning

Record-breaking cold in southern California: San Francisco gets 1st snowfall since 1976, San Jose sees coldest temperature since 1897

Image
© WarholianPics
Snow fell overnight in the highest reaches of San Francisco, but the Bay area dodged the heavier flurries forecasters had been expecting, the weather service said on Saturday.

No snow was observed in downtown San Francisco and AccuWeather.com meteorologist Dave Samuhel said the dusting would not count toward official records that show the last measurable snowfall in the area 35 years ago.

Northern California did experience record low temperatures overnight in several cities.

San Francisco got down to 37 degrees, which tied the previous cold weather record for this day set in 1962, said Chris Stumpf, meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Bizarro Earth

No Power, No Shower as New Zealand Quake Toll Rises to 113

Image
© The Associated Press
The neighborhood's toilet is a portable one out on Keller Street. The water supply is cut, making showers and clean laundry distant dreams. Resident stay fresh with bottles of hand sanitizer, and they're running low.

"Don't stand too close to anyone," Judy Prime said with a chuckle as she took a break from shoveling huge piles of wet sludge out of her garage in the shattered Christchurch suburb of Avonside.

The days since Tuesday's massive earthquake rumbled through Christchurch, killing at least 113 and toppling buildings, have brought a level of misery unusual for the residents of this modern city of 350,000. Water and power supplies to thousands have been cut, and many have been forced to sleep in their cars or tents as their unstable houses sway with the relentless aftershocks.

Many Christchurch residents first started getting used to some deprivation five months ago, when an earlier quake struck the city. Now, life is even worse.

Tuesday's temblor brought a fresh surge of water up through cracks in the yards of Prime and her neighbors along Keller Street. Most houses on the street suffered damage, and many will need to be demolished.

Prime, 66, has spent each night sleeping on a rubber mat under the dining room table, worried that aftershocks will send parts of her home crashing down. Every evening, she and her neighbors gather in her back yard to share beers and barbecue the meat from her freezer - still good, because it was encased in thick ice when the power went out.

Heart - Black

67 Dead Dolphins Wash Ashore Gulf Coast

dead dolphin
© Unknown

This week, 24 baby dolphins washed ashore in Alabama and Mississippi along with at least 6 adults. So far, scientists have tallied a total of 67 dead dolphins along the coast. The number of dolphin carcasses appears to be growing hourly.

The majority of dolphin carcasses are babies and stillborn calves. Typically, only one or two dead baby dolphins wash ashore during the calving period. This year, many dolphins appear to have been born prematurely or died shortly after they were born. As this is the first calving season since the BP Oil Spill, scientists have noted the BP Oil Spill as a potential cause for the alarming number of deaths. However, they are not ruling anything out. Waters have been slightly colder than normal which could be a factor. Algal blooms can also increase mortality rates, but scientists have yet to find any indication of an algal bloom.

The dolphin carcasses are taken to labs where scientists take tissue samples and perform necropsies, but the majority have been too decayed to provide much information. Typically, any findings from these tests could be reported in about 3 weeks, but specialists say it could take months to release their findings. The BP spill is still a sensitive subject, and protocol delays processes and publication.

Document

US: New Report Exonerates Climate Swindlers

A Commerce Department investigation has found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of federal climate researchers whose e-mails were leaked in the debate over global climate change.

The report Thursday from the department's inspector general is the latest to exonerate climate scientists whose communications with the Climate Research Unit at England's University of East Anglia were stolen and made public in 2009. The department reviewed all 1,073 leaked e-mails, but focused on 289 that involved National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists.

Mary Glackin, NOAA's deputy undersecretary for operations, said she welcomed the report since "none of the investigations have found any evidence to question the ethics of our scientists or raise doubts about NOAA's understanding of climate change science."

Climate change skeptics have sought to characterize some of the e-mails as indicating scientists failed to follow proper procedures or altered data. Investigations in both England and by the National Research Council and Pennsylvania State University in the United States have also concluded that there was no indication of scientific impropriety.

Attention

Extreme weather could spark a global food crisis

Image
© AP Photo/Jeffrey PhelpsA man walks through downtown Racine, Wisconsin earlier this month. The area got nearly two feet of snow with some drifts several feet high.
The US national oceanic and atmospheric administration reported that 2010 tied 2005 for the hottest year on record - and was the wettest year on record. This is no coincidence. As Mr Kevin Trenberth, the head of climate analysis for of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research, explained:

"There is a systematic influence on all of these weather events nowadays because there is more water vapour lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be, say, 30 years ago. It's about a four per cent extra amount, provides plenty of moisture for these storms and it's unfortunate that the public is not associating this with the fact that this is one manifestation of climate change. And the prospects are that these kinds of things will only get worse in the future."

Globally, 2010 saw 19 nations - a record number - set temperature records including Pakistan, which hit 53.5C, the hottest temperature ever reliably measured in Asia's history. From mid-December to mid-January of this year, the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) reported that parts of north-eastern Canada were 21C above average, "which are very large values to be sustained for an entire month".

Comment: For a more in-depth, and realistic, view on climate changes, read Laura Knight-Jadczyk's Climate Change Swindlers and the Political Agenda.


Question

US: Virus Threatens Birds in the Borderland

El Paso - The U.S. food supply could be at risk because of a virus spreading in Juarez.

Hundreds of birds have dropped dead across the city and now people are hoping the outbreak does not spread to U.S. poultry.

"The problem is it spreads very easily. It spreads through the air, it spreads through the contact with any discharges from the bird or tissues. It can be on your shoes and you can track it to another area where there's birds."

Doctor Nancy Harvey is a bird expert who owns her own clinic. She says the virus causes nasal and eye discharge, diarrhoea, paralysis, tremors and even sudden death in birds.

"It's not a virus of dogs and cats so Coco you don't have to worry about this one."

Can the bird virus spread to people?

"It's not contagious to people but it could really wipe out the poultry industry."