Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Hawaii: Level of volcanic gas elevated with new eruption

Andrew Pereira
KHON2
Tue, 08 Mar 2011 20:04 UTC
Image
© USGS
Kilauea Volcano - A new eruption near Pu'u 'o'o Crater on the Big Island that began March 5 has led to a dramatic increase in sulfur dioxide gas, one of two main ingredients in vog.

In recent months the east rift zone of Kilauea Volcano had been releasing 300 to 400 tons of sulfur dioxide gas every day.

After the new eruption of the mile-and-a-half long fissure this past Saturday, the amount of SO2 gas has increased to 10,000 tons per day.

"It's hard to say how long that might go on," said United States Geological Survey spokesperson Janet Babb, whose part of a team that helps monitor Kilauea. "The elevated SO2 emission that we're seeing corresponds to that high lava effusion rate."

Currently the new eruption is spewing 2.5 million cubic meters of lava per day in an unpopulated area, five times the recent average of a half million cubic meters per day.

For now the increase in lava and volcanic gas is not having a major impact on residents.
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Bizarro Earth

Tornadoes reported in Alabama, Louisiana


UPI.com
Wed, 09 Mar 2011 12:10 UTC
Image
© (Jon Hauge, Press-Register CorrespondentA pickup truck is flipped over in a neighborhood in Silverhill after a possible tornado hit south of Alabama 104 around Baldwin County 55.
New Orleans -- An apparent tornado hit near Mobile, Ala., Wednesday morning, a fire official said.

Lena Phillips of the Theodore, Ala., fire department told CNN the windstorm caused extensive damage to several businesses.

John Kilcullen of the Mobile County Emergency Management Agency told the Mobile Press-Register, "We're fairly fortunate that the damage at this point is relatively light."

The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for the area at 9:40 a.m. (10:40 a.m. EST).

Earlier Wednesday, three suspected tornadoes hit the New Orleans area the morning after Mardi Gras, the National Weather Service said.

The Slidell Police Department said a tornado crossed Interstate 12 in Lacombe at 4:50 a.m., The New Orleans Times Picayune reported. A roof was torn off a house in Lacombe at 4:57 a.m.
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Bizarro Earth

Japan: Earthquake Magnitude 7.2 - Near The East Coast of Honshu


USGS
Wed, 09 Mar 2011 12:15 UTC
Honshu Quake_090311
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Wednesday, March 09, 2011 at 02:45:18 UTC

Wednesday, March 09, 2011 at 11:45:18 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
38.510°N, 142.792°E

Depth:
14.1 km (8.8 miles)

Region:
NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN

Distances:
168 km (104 miles) E of Sendai, Honshu, Japan

193 km (119 miles) SE of Morioka, Honshu, Japan

216 km (134 miles) E of Yamagata, Honshu, Japan

413 km (256 miles) NE of TOKYO, Japan

Location Uncertainty:
horizontal +/- 12.8 km (8.0 miles); depth +/- 1.8 km (1.1 miles)

Parameters:
NST=464, Nph=469, Dmin=390.7 km, Rmss=1.06 sec, Gp= 29°,
M-type="moment" magnitude from initial P wave (tsuboi method) (Mi/Mwp), Version=B

Source:
USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)

Event ID:
usb0001r57
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Blackbox

Western Australia: Fish kills reported on coast


Fishing World
Wed, 09 Mar 2011 09:45 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Washington's extended spell of hot, still weather and warm ocean temperatures is believed to be the cause of fish kills along the Mid West coast and out at the Abrolhos Islands.

Department of Fisheries Senior Fish Pathologist Dr Brian Jones said he expected the natural phenomena would continue while coastal water temperatures remained high. "Fish are cold-blooded, so when the water gets either too hot, or too cold, they suffer," Dr Jones said.

"We have had reports of fish dying recently in the Moore River, along various sections of the coast up to the Mid West and the still, hot conditions have played a significant role in the mortalities.

Jones said there had also been reports of abalone losses on reefs near Greenough and fish and lobster deaths at the Abrolhos Islands. He said the advent of some coral spawning at the Abrolhos Islands had also sapped oxygen from the water.
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Magnify

Flamingos Drop From Siberian Sky: Locals Mystified

Robert Krulwich and Ezra Block
NPR.org
Mon, 07 Mar 2011 23:11 UTC
We're in Siberia, shivering. It's November, November 11, 2003, and two boys, Kolya and Maksim Muravyev, are ice fishing along the Lena River, where it's 13 below zero. All of a sudden, up in the sky, they see what looks like a flamingo. "We thought it was a swan or a stork," Kolya says, a flamingo being so preposterously improbable.
russian flamingos
© Illustration by Maggie Starbard/NPR

It was large, and made ever lower circles in the sky. It seemed to be losing energy until finally it fell and lay quietly on the snow. The two boys ran over, called their father, Vasily, who picked up the bird and took it home. It was still alive. "[This is the] first time I see a bird like this," he told a TV reporter.

They fed the flamingo fish and buckwheat saturated in water (not normally flamingo food) and pretty soon it was up, active and knocking around the Muravyev's apartment. Here it is, head in a feeding bucket.
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Hourglass

Catastrophic Weather Events Are Becoming the New Normal -- Are You Ready for Life on Our Planet Circa 2011?

Bill McKibben
AlterNet
Wed, 02 Feb 2011 22:35 UTC
Bad weather america
© Unknown
If you were in the space shuttle looking down yesterday, you would have seen a pair of truly awesome, even fearful, sights.

Much of North America was obscured by a 2,000-mile storm dumping vast quantities of snow from Texas to Maine--between the wind and snow, forecasters described it as "probably the worst snowstorm ever to affect" Chicago, and said waves as high as 25 feet were rocking buoys on Lake Michigan.

Meanwhile, along the shore of Queensland in Australia, the vast cyclone Yasi was sweeping ashore; though the storm hit at low tide, the country's weather service warned that "the impact is likely to be more life threatening than any experienced during recent generations," especially since its torrential rains are now falling on ground already flooded from earlier storms. Here's how Queensland premier Anna Bligh addressed her people before the storm hit: "We know that the long hours ahead of you are going to be the hardest that you face. We will be thinking of you every minute of every hour between now and daylight and we hope that you can feel our thoughts, that you will take strength from the fact that we are keeping you close and in our hearts."

Comment: Indeed, catastrophic weather is now becoming the norm rather than the exception. What the author fails to mention however is the growing scientific evidence that the planet is beginning to cool down, leading to a very possible ice age... please consider the following (which is really a small cross-section from our archives):

Global Warming? It's the coldest winter in decades

Global Warming Fanatics Becoming Desperate

Greenhouse gases could have caused an ice age, claim scientists

Enjoy the warmth while it lasts

The Coming Ice Age

Global Warming Is a Fraud

Reflections on the Coming Ice Age

'Forget global warming, prepare for Ice Age'

Scientist predicts 'mini Ice Age'

What's Happening to the Sun? Could its unusual behavior herald a new ice age?

Croat scientist warns ice age is overdue, could start in five years

New Ice Age 'to begin in 2014'

Global warning: We are actually heading towards a new Ice Age, claim scientists

Russian scientist says Earth could soon face new Ice Age

Public not being told the whole truth about global warming

What the Science Really Says About Global Warming

Over 500 scientists published studies countering global warming fears

Global Warming? Global Cooling Forecast Backed By Real Science

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Bizarro Earth

Vanishing Lakes: New Zealand Reservoir Mysteriously Disappears During Quake


The Extinction Protocol
Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:38 UTC


Huntsbury, New Zealand - 36 million liters of water mysteriously disappeared from a reservoir in Huntsbury New Zealand following the February 22nd 6.3 earthquake in Christchurch.

These events have occurred in the past and are now happening with greater frequency as geological forces under the ground continue to erode substrata. Our planet is undergoing massive change beneath our feet. This geological deformation will only accelerate and become more widespread with time as the pace of earthchanges intensify.
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Arrow Up

7.2 earthquake hits northeast Japan; no damage

Malcomb Foster
Associated Press
Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:30 UTC
Image
© AFP/Sam YehPhoto illustration of a seismic chart. Japan issued a tsunami warning Wednesday after a major 7.2-magnitude quake struck 160 kilometres (100 miles) east off the main Honshu island at 0245 GMT, swaying buildings in the capital Tokyo.
Tokyo - A magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit off Japan's northeastern coast Wednesday, shaking buildings hundreds of miles away in Tokyo and triggering a small tsunami. There were no immediate reports of significant damage or injuries.

The quake struck at 11:45 a.m. local time and was centered about 90 miles (150 kilometers) off the northeastern coast - about 270 miles (440 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo - at a depth of about 6.2 miles (10 kilometers), Japan's meteorological agency said.

A 24-inch (60-centimeter) tsunami reached the coastal town of Ofunato, in Iwate prefecture, with other towns reporting smaller waves reaching shore about 30 minutes after the quake.

"We have confirmed that small tsunami have come up on the shores, but we have no reports of damage at this point," said Shinobu Nagano, an emergency and disaster response official in Iwate. "We are still trying to determine the impact of the quake."

Some train lines in the area were temporarily stopped after the quake, but they were restarted shortly after noon. Tohoku Electric Power said there was no damage at its nuclear power facility in the region.
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Blackbox

US: Millions of fish found dead in California marina


Associated Press
Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:27 UTC
Redondo Beach - Millions of dead fish were found Tuesday floating in a Southern California marina.

Boaters awakened to find a carpet of small silvery fish surrounding their vessels, said Staci Gabrielli, marine coordinator for King Harbor Marina on the Los Angeles County coast.

California Fish and Game officials believe the fish are anchovies and sardines.

Experts had yet to determine what happened, but Gabrielli said the fish appeared to have moved into the harbor to escape a red tide, a naturally occurring bloom of toxic algae that can poison fish or starve them of oxygen.

High winds overnight might then have trapped the fish in the harbor, crushing them against a wall where they used up the oxygen and suffocated, she said.

The dead fish were so thick in some places that Garbrielli said boats can't get out of the harbor.

Fish and Game authorities arrived and began taking samples of the fish.

"We have no idea how they got here," said spokesman Andrew Hughan. "There are thousands and thousands and thousands of fish."

Additional pictures here.

Comment: Update: Fox News footage of the fish floating in King Harbor:



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Sun

Ghana: Halo Appears Around Sun


Africa News
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:34 UTC

Ghanaians were held spellbound when the halo phenomenon emerged in the skies late Wednesday morning. Hundreds of people stepped out of their offices to take pictures of the celestial wonders. Onlookers believed it was signs of the last days. "Jesus is coming today," fascinated Victoria Mintah told AfricaNews.

However, meteorologists said the phenomenon known as halo phenomenon is natural around the world.
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