Earth ChangesS


Better Earth

US: Memphis eyes crest; New Orleans gets some flood help


MSNBC
Mon, 09 May 2011 16:30 UTC
Mississippi swamps some areas of Tenn. city; spillway opened to ease La. danger

Memphis, Tenn. - The city of Memphis braced for the Mississippi River to peak on Monday at a near record level, and downstream the U.S. government opened a spillway to relieve flooding pressure on low-lying New Orleans.

The Army Corps of Engineers began opening the Bonnet Carre spillway 28 miles north of New Orleans Monday morning to divert part of the river flow to Lake Pontchartrain. Opening the spillway has no impact on homes or businesses.

"We are not going to open it up full bore immediately," said Victor Landry, the Corps' Bonnet Carre operations manager. "It will be a slow release."

The spillway has been opened nine previous times, most recently in 2008. The Corps expects to have about half of the spillway's 350 bays open by later this week and it could be fully opened before the flood season ends, Landry said.

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Attention

US: The Mississippi Nightmare Scenario

Robert W. Johnson
Business Insider
Mon, 09 May 2011 16:25 UTC
Mississippi 1927 flood map
© wiki commons
As the Mississippi River continues to rise and more residents are forced to evacuate, the great flood of 1927 is on a lot of Southern minds and questions of what's next on just as many lips.

According to reports in the Nashville Tennessean, history could be on the verge of repeating itself. To give a little perspective: in the Great Flood, the levees broke in 145 places, flooded 27,000 square miles in up to 30 feet of water over a stretch of land 100 miles long. At some points more than double the volume of Niagara Falls poured through as levees broke, nine states were affected and 246 people died.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Mississippi, Winners and Losers as Army Corps Opens Floodgates

Greg Allen
NPR
Mon, 09 May 2011 16:14 UTC
Mississippi River flooding
© Jeff Roberson/APWhen the Army Corps of Engineers blasted part of a levee holding back the Mississippi River last week, floodwater poured over Missouri farmland and surrounded this farm near New Madrid, Mo.
To handle all of the water flowing down the Mississippi River, the Army Corps of Engineers is opening the floodgates on a spillway north of New Orleans.

Opening the Bonnet Carre spillway diverts some of the floodwaters into Lake Pontchartrain and from there to the Gulf of Mexico. But nearly every flood control action taken by the Corps draws some controversy.
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Attention

Quake Shifted Japan; Towns Now Flood at High Tide


Associated Press
Mon, 09 May 2011 16:05 UTC
japan Ishinomaki tidal flooding
© Associated PressResidents stroll in a flooded street in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. The area in this part of the city sunk nearly 2 feet 7 inches (0.8 meter) following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
When water begins to trickle down the streets of her coastal neighborhood, Yoshiko Takahashi knows it is time to hurry home.

Twice a day, the flow steadily increases until it is knee-deep, carrying fish and debris by her front door and trapping people in their homes. Those still on the streets slosh through the sea water in rubber boots or on bicycle.

"I look out the window, and it's like our houses are in the middle of the ocean," says Takahashi, who moved in three years ago.
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Umbrella

US: Vermont, Lake Champlain Floods Slow to Retreat


Burlington Free Press
Mon, 09 May 2011 15:54 UTC
Lake Champlain Flood
© Emily McManamy, Free PressJake Ducharme (left) paddled a canoe from his home on Broadlake Rd. in Colchester to meet up with a group of friends waiting for him by the roadside
Anne Conlin's lakefront home on Appletree Point Road was holding its own Sunday, and pumps were draining lake water from the yard and the crawl-space under the 80-year-old house - pumping it, ironically perhaps, back into Lake Champlain.

"Where else?" she said.

The wind was gusting at 10 to 20 knots from the north, National Weather Service meteorologist John Goff said, and looking ahead, he said no rain was likely before Thursday.

That was good news.
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Gear

Fine particles responsible for clouds and rain

Charles Perry
Times & Transcript
Mon, 09 May 2011 12:21 UTC
Image
© aha-soft
Natural and man-made impurities in the atmosphere, referred to as aerosols, play a huge role in the world's weather system.

"Without them, there would be no cloud cover and no rain," Andy Mussoline of State College, Pa., a meteorologist for AccuWeather, said in a telephone interview.

Mussoline explained that aerosols are fine particles of solids and liquids - but mostly solids - that are virtually minute in size. He said the atmosphere literally carries tons of these miniscule floating debris.

These aerosols comprise such things as soot and ash from fires, dust propelled into the air by gusting winds, sea spray and huge quantities of ash and droplets of gas from the eruption of volcanoes.

Mussoline said it is these floating bit particles that make the clouds. He said they provide a surface for the water vapour to condense in forming the clouds.
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Bizarro Earth

Earthquake Magnitude 6.3 - West of MacQuarie Island


USGS
Mon, 09 May 2011 15:35 UTC
MacQuarie Quake_090511
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Monday, May 09, 2011 at 18:54:42 UTC

Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 04:54:42 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
56.612°S, 147.837°E

Depth:
1 km (~0.6 mile) (poorly constrained)

Region:
WEST OF MACQUARIE ISLAND

Distances:
730 km (453 miles) WSW of Macquarie Island, Australia

1192 km (740 miles) NNE of Dumont d'Urville, Antarctica

1523 km (946 miles) S of HOBART, Tasmania, Australia

2100 km (1304 miles) S of MELBOURNE, Victoria, Australia
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Attention

Hurricane Hits China Food Factory, 4 Killed


International Business Times
Mon, 09 May 2011 15:36 UTC
Li river China
© AFP/File, XinhuaThe Li river runs through China's southwestern city of Guilin which has been hit by a landslide after heavy rain
A hurricane struck the Foshan City in Guangdong Province in southern China for the second time in a month on Friday, killing 4 people and injuring 17 others.

The storm was located in a 2,000-square meter food factory in the Foshan City, which has damaged walls and sheds, besides killing many workers, said reports.
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Nuke

Deadly Silence on Fukushima

Vivian Norris
Huffington Post
Mon, 09 May 2011 12:22 UTC
Fukushima plant
© n/a
I received the following email a few days ago from a Russian nuclear physicist friend who is an expert on the kinds of gases being released at Fukushima. Here is what he wrote:
"About Japan: the problem is that the reactor uses "dirty" fuel. It is a combination of plutonium and uranium (MOX).
I suspect that the old fuel rods have bean spread out due to the explosion and the surrounding area is contaminated with plutonium which means you can never return to this place again.

It is like a new Tchernobyl. Personally, I am not surprised that the authority has not informed people about this".
I have been following the Fukushima story very closely since the earthquake and devastating tsunami. I have asked scientists I know, nuclear physicists and others about where they find real information. I have also watched as the news has virtually disappeared. There is something extremely disturbing going on and having lived through the media blackout in France back in April and early May 1986, and speaking to doctors who are deeply concerned by the dramatic increase in cancers appearing at very young ages, it is obvious that information is being held back. We are still told not to eat mushrooms and truffles from parts of Europe, not wild boar and reindeer from Germany and Finland 25 years later.
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Bizarro Earth

Tungurahua continues to erupt, Taal grows increasingly restless, explosions on Etna (and more)


Big Think
Mon, 09 May 2011 11:50 UTC
The light at the end of the finals tunnel has appeared - only one set of papers (where I posed to my volcanoes class the question "if someone asked you 'why bother monitoring volcanoes?', how would you respond?") to grade now. There hasn't been a lot of new eruption news, but there has been a lot of news of simmering volcanoes and threats from volcanoes after eruption. However, we'll start with one that is actively erupting.

Image
© UnknownTungurahua in Ecuador erupting during the first week of May, 2011.
Ecuador: Tungurahua continues with its largest eruption since 1999 (video) - and thanks to the bevy of news that Eruptions reader Kirby has sent me, there is a lot to cover. The Instituto Geofisico has put the volcano on Orange Alert status after strombolian activity produced 2-7km / 6,500-23,000 foot ash plumes and a constant sound of explosions/rumbling. The volcano is putting on an impressive show at the summit, with incandescent blocks cascading down the upper flanks of the volcano (see top left), some of which are apparently the size of cars. IG geologists have been quoted as saying the volcano is showing signs of "increased pressure", but the details are scarce. Crop and livestock damage due to the ash in the villages around Tungurahua has been extensive, and now the government will purchase new lands for refugees to move that are a safe distance from the volcano. Even with all this activity, Tungurahua did not stop people from voting in Ecuador.
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