Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

US: Planes struck by lightning

Washington - Two planes landed in Maryland and Virginia after being struck by lightning on Sunday morning. No one was injured.

Both incidents occurred around 10:30 a.m., according to Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Arlene Salac.

Cloud Lightning

US, Minneapolis: Bolt from above: three workers survive lightning strike at Twin Cities International

A construction worker got hit in the head by a lightning bolt Monday night at Twin Cities International, and survived.

In fact, he's not even in the hospital.



1lightning
©Unknown


Cloud Lightning

US, Missouri: Lightning strike damages motel

Guests at the American Inn on Noland Road near Interstate 70 spent a portion of their stay outdoors Monday night.

Approximately 35 guests were evacuated from 22 rooms after lightning struck an attic area of the hotel, spokesperson Pam Hayward said Tuesday.

Better Earth

East Timor shaken by strong earthquake, meteorologists say

Jakarta, Indonesia - Meteorological agencies say a powerful earthquake has rocked part of East Timor. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.


Bizarro Earth

Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

THE scariest photo I have seen on the internet is www.spaceweather.com, where you will find a real-time image of the sun from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, located in deep space at the equilibrium point between solar and terrestrial gravity.

What is scary about the picture is that there is only one tiny sunspot.

Image
©SOHO

Comment: Chapman has it only partly right. He excludes the evidence for cometary dust loading that contributed to the last ice age (and most likely previous ones). The increased depositional flux evidenced from Gabrielli's paper shows that it was not the sun alone that caused the last ice age:

Depositional Fluxes
©Nature

And from Victor Clube's talk:
You first take the modern sky accessible to science, especially during the Space Age, and you look at its' darker debris with a view to relating its behavior to the more accessible human history which we can, in principle, really understand. And by this approach you discover from the dynamics of the material in space which I'm talking about that a huge comet must have settled in a Taurid orbit some 20,000 years ago, whose dense meteor stream for 10,000 years almost certainly produced the last Ice Age.
Now the question must be asked, Is there a relationship between the sun's missing spots and a 100,000 year ice age cycle coupled with cometary debris entering the solar system?


Better Earth

Whatever happened to our ice age?

Today scientists are warning of a warming planet - but didn't they claim a new ice age was on the way just 40 years ago? SARAH LEWIS gets in a time machine and takes a look at the science of the 1970s.

In the 1970s, scientists predicted an ice age.

Nearly 40 years later, there is worldwide alarm as we are repeatedly warned of catastrophic warming to our climate.

Better Earth

Scientists study Arctic haze for clues to rapid melting

FAIRBANKS, Alaska -- Visitors to Alaska often marvel at the crisp, clear air. But the truth is, the skies above the Arctic Circle work like a giant lint trap during late winter and early spring, catching all sorts of pollutants swirling around the globe.

In recent weeks, scientists have been going up in government research planes and taking samples of the Arctic haze in hopes of solving a mystery: Are the floating particles accelerating the unprecedented warming going on in the far north?

Better Earth

Sudden oak death sleuthing pays off

The Sudden oak death epidemic that has killed more than a million trees throughout coastal California started in two sites: Scotts Valley and on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, a new genetic analysis reveals.

Through genetic detective wok, scientists found that pathogens at both locations - separated by 62 miles - share identical DNA footprints, indicating that they are related, probably through the nursery trade, said lead investigator Matteo Garbelotto of the University of California Berkeley.

"Our study reconstructs the Sudden oak death epidemic," Garbelotto said."Having multiple introductions explains why it is so extensive."

Better Earth

Bikini Atoll's Nuked Coral Reef Bounces Back to Life - Sort of

Half a century after the atomic blasts that devastated Bikini Atoll, vast expanses of corals in the area seem to be flourishing once again, much to the surprise of scientists.

American government scientists detonated a hydrogen bomb on the tiny island (a part of the Marshall Islands in the western Pacific) on March 1, 1954, and about 20 other nuclear tests were carried out on the atoll between 1946 and 1958.

Many of the natives were moved to Kili Island and today are compensated by the United States government.

Bizarro Earth

Earthquake Hazard Maps Show How U.S. Shakes With Quakes

Last Friday's magnitude 5.2 earthquake in southern Illinois is a reminder that earthquakes are a national hazard.

Today, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) are revealing how shaky the nation is by releasing an updated version of the USGS National Seismic Hazard Maps.

earthquake map
©U.S. Geological Survey
Colors on this map show the levels of horizontal shaking that have a 2-in-100 chance of being exceeded in a 50-year period. Shaking is expressed as a percentage of g (g is the acceleration of a falling object due to gravity).

Earthquakes remain a serious threat in 46 of the United States. For some areas such as western Oregon and Washington, the new maps contain higher estimates for how hard the ground will shake compared to earlier versions of the maps released in 1996 and 2002.