© RIA Novosti
Earth Changes
© AP/Mohammad Hannon
A Wounded Syrian refugee makes his way over water and mud at the Zaatari Syrian refugee camp, near the Syrian border in Mafraq, Jordan, on Tuesday
A Wounded Syrian refugee makes his way over water and mud at the Zaatari Syrian refugee camp, near the Syrian border in Mafraq, Jordan, on Tuesday
Some frustrated refugees at a camp in Zaatari, where about 50,000 are sheltered, attacked aid workers with sticks and stones after the tents collapsed in 35 mph (60 kph) winds, said Ghazi Sarhan, spokesman for the Jordanian charity that helps run the camp. Police said seven Jordanian workers were injured.
After three days of rain, muddy water engulfed tents housing refugees including pregnant women and infants. Those who didn't move out used buckets to bail out the water; others built walls of mud to try to stay dry.
© Nir Keidar
Flooding in Taibeh
Flooding in Taibeh
As Israel battled its stormiest winter in a decade, cities across the country found themselves nearly paralyzed. Major highways closed, power outages were reported, the entrance to Tel Aviv was all but blocked, and residents of some neighborhoods awaited possible word of evacuation.
The Ayalon River near Tel Aviv, usually a dry bed, flooded beyond capacity as storms overtook central Israel overnight Tuesday. The nearby Ayalon Highway was closed between Glilot Junction and Hashalom Street in both directions over the course of the morning, opening up from Hahalakha Junction northbound in the afternoon. Highway 1 was closed between Shapirim and Kibbutz Galuyot junctions in the early afternoon, and traffic was halted or congested across Tel Aviv through the morning and afternoon hours. The Israel Police has asked drivers to stay out of central Tel Aviv, and to avoid driving if possible.
Due to the weather, Israel's Airport Authority offers free bus service to Tel Aviv.
© Flickr user thebittenword.com
Babi bok choi.
Babi bok choi.
The Daily Dim Sum translates a Xinhua article:
Monitoring results of the Ministry of Agriculture show that prices of 27 vegetables in the first week of 2013 increased 4.5 percent week-on-week for an average price of CNY 4.17/kg. In the past ten weeks, average price of vegetables has jumped 55 percent.Weather.com reports on the exact weather numbers:
China is experiencing unusual chills this winter with its national average temperature hitting the lowest in 28 years, and snow and ice have closed highways, canceled flights, stranded tourists and knocked out power in several provinces.
China Meteorological Administration on Friday said the national average was 25 degrees Fahrenheit since late November, the coldest in nearly three decades.
The average temperature in northeast China dipped to -4.5 degrees F, the coldest in 43 years, and dropped to a 42-year low of -18.7 degrees F in northern China.
© Wayne Grammes / KeysNet.com
Greg Caterino of Tavernier hoists the humpback grouper -- a Pacific Ocean species -- he speared off North Key Largo in late December.
Greg Caterino of Tavernier hoists the humpback grouper -- a Pacific Ocean species -- he speared off North Key Largo in late December.
"We've seen the successful marine invasion of lionfish," Reef Environmental Education Foundation Project Director Lad Akins said this week. "We certainly do not want to see it happen again with another Pacific species." Akins, a renowned expert in fish identification, confirmed the speared fish was a humpback grouper. With an array of black spots, it's also known as a panther grouper.
"This is not the first time these have been sighted in Florida," Akins said. "There have been five or six reported as far back as the 1980s, but all from different parts of the state." "The juveniles are really popular in the aquarium trade," Akins said. "It's quite likely that this is released fish."
Young humpback grouper sport a brilliant white color with an attractive spray of black spots. But they outgrow most privately owned saltwater tanks - and cast a hungry eye on other tank fish. "Just like lionfish, they are carnivores," Akins said.
The following graphs/charts show that the 7.5 Earthquake that struck Alaska earlier today also dealt a jarring blow to both the Yellowstone Supervolcano as well as to the Louisiana Sinkhole. According to the USGS, the Alaskan quake struck on 2013-01-05 at 08:58:19 UTC. The charts below show proof that the EQ was felt at both the Yellowstone Supervolcano as well as at the Louisiana Sinkhole. The first chart below shows the Alaska EQ in blue and Yellowstone's reaction to it in red. Purple shows the overlap. Source
Because the Carlsberg Ridge is one of the slowest-spreading, and so supposedly less active oceanic ridges, many had thought it unlikely to be the location of a major volcanic eruption.. At ridges such as this, heat is thought to be released more slowly from the underlying magma. However, we may have to rethink that previous assessment. The Carlsberg Ridge region is currently being shaken by a major seismic swarm, which could very well be volcanic in nature. The strongest tremor in the current swarm is a magnitude 5.0. Nature journal said in previous eruption, "A huge plume of hydrothermal chemicals, drifted up to 1.4 kilometers above the vent site and 70 kilometers along the underwater ridge was seen some years ago. It's by far the biggest vent plume ever seen, and confirms that such plumes form following volcanic eruptions at the sea floor, even at slow-spreading oceanic ridges." 1
© Wikipedia
According to retired professor Masaki Kimura of Ryukyu University, this and other recent phenomena indicate an eruption of Mt. Fuji should have taken place in 2011 with a four-year margin of error ending in 2015.
First, a little background on Mt. Fuji. Japan sits on the edge of a "subduction zone" which is where one layer of the Earth's crust is pushed under another. In the below image, courtesy of Google Maps, you can see the trench along which subduction is occurring around Japan.
© NASA
The freeze is the coldest winter in 28 years, the English-language newspaper China Daily reported. The national average temperature across China's vast territory was a chilly 25.2 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 3.8 degrees Celsius) since late November. In northeast China, which typically has snowy, cold winters, the average temperature was an icy 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15.3 degrees Celsius), the lowest in 42 years.
Temperatures have dropped down to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 40 degrees Celsius) in eastern Inner Mongolia, northern Xinjiang and the Arctic reaches of northeast China. (Mohe, in northeast China, holds China's record low temperature of minus 62.1 F, or minus 52.3 C, set on Feb. 13, 1962.)
© Common Coast Research and Conservation
Dead loons lie along the Lake Michigan shoreline.
Dead loons lie along the Lake Michigan shoreline.
The rapidly changing ecology of the Great Lakes Basin, brought on in large part by non-native, invasive species, is causing devastation among Michigan's waterfowl, especially common loons.
The common loon, a beloved, iconic bird known for its eerily lonely, two-note call and its beautiful markings, suffered devastating losses along Lake Michigan's northern shoreline this fall. Thousands of dead birds, mainly loons, washed ashore - from the Upper Peninsula, down to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. A large percentage of the dead loons had just entered their first year of breeding maturity.
The reason for the die-off, which follows similar incidents in 2006 and 2007, isn't fully understood. But it is suspected that it is driven by the food chain linking the loon to invasive species, specifically, the quagga mussel, the zebra mussel and the round goby.
