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2014 is UK's 'wettest year ever'

Becky Barnes
BT.com
Fri, 06 Jun 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
As the Met Office issues a severe weather warning for the weekend, meteorologists say the first five months of 2014 had the most rain on record.

If you thought news of a stormy, wet weekend was disappointing here's more grey news - weather experts believe that in some parts of the country, the start of 2014 has been the wettest on record.

While the Met Office is yet to release figures, more rain than ever has been recorded in Reading, Berkshire, in the first five months of the year, say experts at the town's university, where records go back to 1908.

"The start of 2014 has been the wettest first five months of any year on record," said meteorologist Dr Roger Brugge.

"Following the wet winter, spring (March to May) has also seen more rain than normal this year.

"At the University of Reading's observatory 194mm of rain fell - about 50% more than normal - also making it the wettest spring here for six years."

Comment: 2012 was England's 'wettest year ever':

Downpours make 2012 England's wettest year on record
The Met Office said yesterday that at 1,095.8 millimetres the average rainfall across England in 2012 had already breached the previous high of 1,093mm in 2000.

With a further deluge expected over the final few days, it is also likely 2012 will be the third wettest in the UK as a whole since records began in 1910, and it still could be the wettest.
And now, just two years later, the overall UK record for annual rainfall looks set to be broken.

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Bizarro Earth

Quakes are increasing in the Los Angeles area, but scientists aren't sure what it means

Rong-Gong Lin II
Los Angeles Times
Mon, 02 Jun 2014 16:24 UTC
LA Quakes
© Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times
Cesar Zamora, night manager at a 99 Cent Only store in Brea, looks over aisles of fallen goods after a 5.1 magnitude quake in March. "Every earthquake makes another earthquake more likely," says USGS seismologist Lucy Jones.
No, it's not your imagination: The Los Angeles area is feeling more earthquakes this year.

After a relatively quiet period of seismic activity in the Los Angeles area, the last five months have been marked by five earthquakes larger than 4.0. That hasn't occurred since 1994, the year of the destructive Northridge earthquake that produced 53 such temblors.

Over the next two decades, there were some years that passed without a single quake 4.0 or greater.

Earthquake experts said 2014 is clearly a year of increased seismic activity, but they said it's hard to know whether the recent string of quakes suggests that a larger one is on the way.

"Probably this will be it, and there won't be any more 4s. But the chance we will have a bigger earthquake this year is more than if we hadn't had this cluster," U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones said. "Every earthquake makes another earthquake more likely."

Quakes in the magnitude 4 range are large enough to be felt over wide areas but generally too small to cause much damage. The largest this year was a magnitude 5.1 in La Habra, which caused several million dollars in damage. Others hit Fontana and Rowland Heights.
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Arrow Down

25 foot deep sinkhole threatens to swallow Muskingum County homes, Ohio

Mary Beth Lane
The Columbus Dispatch
Fri, 06 Jun 2014 13:15 UTC
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© Barbara J. Perenic | Dispatch
Mine subsidence caused this sinkhole in Muskingum County. Authorities will try to pull Mike Lane’s home to safety today. Meanwhile, Lane and his family aren’t allowed into the home to retrieve belongings.
A sinkhole that threatens to swallow someone's home in a former mining area doesn't come along that often, an Ohio Department of Natural Resources official says.

But when it does, it's a doozy.

The department, which regulates mining and abandoned mines, has workers at the scene of a 25-foot-deep, half-acre-wide sinkhole that has opened on a small country lane near White Cottage in Muskingum County.

A state-hired contractor will try again today to carefully pull Mike Lane's mobile home back along Stiers Lane before it slides into the sinkhole that opened on Wednesday. The effort was aborted yesterday because the ground was too wet from recent rains.

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Red Flag

Study: Species dying out 1,000 times faster with humans on the scene


RT.com
Fri, 30 May 2014 10:44 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Tomas Bravo
xolotls in a tray are fed with worms at the Biology Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City February 13, 2014. Scientists at UNAM's Biology Institute have warned the Axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) or Mexican salamander, could be at risk of extinction in the wild in five to 10 years.
The world is on the brink of a sixth great extinction of species, a new study says. Species of animals and plants are currently dying out at least 1,000 times faster than they would without human interference.

Before humanity became dominant on earth, an average of one species per 10 million became extinct each year. But now between 100 and 1,000 per million cease to exist annually, says a study by a group of authors led by biologist Stuart Pimm of Duke University.

"We are on the verge of the sixth extinction," Pimm said. "Whether we avoid it or not will depend on our actions."

The biologists estimated prehistoric extinction rates based on molecular phylogeny, a technique that tracks relationships between different species through similarities and differences in their DNA. Phylogenic trees charted this way gave them an upper limit on background extinction, which they could then compare to modern extinction data.
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Attention

'Volcano-like eruption' in Himachal Pradesh, India

Anand Bodh
The Times of India
Fri, 06 Jun 2014 00:12 UTC
India volcano
Reports of a "volcano-like eruption" in Kangra district in Himachal Pradesh has triggered panic among the people of the area.

Flames and a hot liquid stream were seen spewing out of a hill 100 m from Gadiyada village. The village is over 200 km from Shimla.

After a report by the state geologists confirmed the eruption as 'small magmatic activity', a team of Geological Survey of India (GSI) reached the site on Thursday. This is the first time such a volcanic activity has been witnessed in the state.
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Cloud Grey

Tehran warned of new sandstorm as death toll hits five


Space Daily
Tue, 03 Jun 2014 01:24 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Iranian authorities warned on Tuesday of harsh weather conditions across the country, a day after a freak sandstorm with record winds killed five people in Tehran.

The warning of possible floods and drastic temperature drops, particularly in the northern parts of the country, in the next few days came after Monday's deadly sandstorm that forced thousands in the capital to run for cover in rush hour.

Earlier Tuesday, a warning was issued for a possible second sandstorm that failed to materialise by the evening.

"One of the casualties, who was hospitalised after being hit by debris, lost his life due to the severe injuries," the official IRNA news agency reported Tuesday, raising the death toll to five.
      Read More...
Snowflake

Snowfall hits communities in north-eastern British Columbia

Yuliya Talmazan
globalnews.ca
Wed, 04 Jun 2014 12:49 UTC
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People in the community of Chetwynd, B.C. woke up to a surprise this morning.

Environment Canada says the town received up to five centimeters of snow today.

Temperatures are expected to rise above zero this afternoon, and the snow will turn to rain.

Image
© Carmen Gansevles

"Although snow this time of year is not unheard of for this region, some localized areas have received so much that today's accumulation in a few areas is quite rare," says Global BC meteorologist Kristi Gordon.

Chetwynd resident Carmen Gansevles says they sometimes get snow over May long weekend, but almost never in June.

She says they started getting flurries earlier this morning and there is now three inches of snow in her backyard.
      Read More...
Attention

'Unprecedented' sea star disease epidemic on Oregon coast


KTVZ.COM
Wed, 04 Jun 2014 14:23 UTC
Sea star dieoff
© SeaStarWasting.org
A sea star with wasting syndrome.
Just in the past two weeks, the incidence of sea star wasting syndrome has exploded along the Oregon coast and created an epidemic of historic magnitude, one that threatens to decimate Oregon's entire population of purple ochre sea stars, experts said Wednesday.

Prior to this, Oregon had been the only part of the West Coast that had been largely spared this devastating disease.

The ochre sea star, which is the species most heavily affected by the disease in the intertidal zone, may be headed toward localized extinction in Oregon, according to researchers at Oregon State University who have been monitoring the outbreak.

As a "keystone" predator, its loss could disrupt the entire marine intertidal ecosystem.

      Read More...
Attention

Drastic fall in baby brown pelicans: Blame El Niño?

Becky Oskin
livescience.com
Wed, 04 Jun 2014 07:16 UTC
Image
© Dan Anderson, UC Davis
One of two baby brown pelican chicks found on Isla San Luis in Mexico during a 2014 UC Davis survey.
An endangered species success story is suffering this year, perhaps because of El Niño.

California brown pelicans almost completely failed to breed at their nesting sites in Mexico this year, surveys have found. Scientists are reluctant to blame any one cause for the drastic decline in fuzzy-headed baby pelicans, but a similar drop in breeding numbers struck during previous El Niño events.

"Over the years, we've seen that during an El Niño, their breeding effort goes way down," said Daniel Anderson, a University of California, Davis wildlife biologist who has monitored California brown pelicans for 46 years. Overfishing of sardines and habitat loss could also be hurting the pelican population, Anderson said.

Comment: Concerning the lack of sardine food and its effects on other species, see also: 650 emaciated sea lion pups wash up on the California coast over last 2 months

As to a more expansive explanation other than El Niño, see: Creatures from the deep signal major Earth Changes: Is anyone paying attention?

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Snowflake

Global warming? - Still no warming for 17 years 9 months

Christopher Monkton of Brenchley
Watts Up With That
Wed, 04 Jun 2014 13:14 UTC
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Figure 1. RSS monthly global mean lower-troposphere temperature anomalies (dark blue) and trend (thick bright blue line), September 1996 to May 2014, showing no trend for 17 years 9 months.
According to the RSS satellite data, whose value for May 2014 has just been published, the global warming trend in the 17 years 9 years since September 1996 is zero (Fig. 1). The 213 months without global warming represent more than half the 425-month satellite data record since January 1979. No one now in high school has lived through global warming.

The hiatus period of 17 years 9 months is the farthest back one can go in the RSS satellite temperature record and still show a zero trend. But the length of the pause in global warming, significant though it now is, is of less importance than the ever-growing discrepancy between the temperature trends predicted by models and the less exciting real-world temperature change that has been observed.

Comment: When ice ages come, they come fast and with very little mercy. So while mainstream science is busy selling global warming, it's recommended you throw a couple sweaters in your shopping cart:

Ice Ages start and end so suddenly, "it's like a button was pressed," say scientists

      Read More...
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