Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Catastrophic Man Made Global Warming is a hoax

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© NASAGreenland: nearly all gone. We are doomed
No, not really. It's just my little joke, based on pretending to take people like the BBC's resident climate activists David Shukman, Richard Black and Roger Harrabin seriously.

I'll tell you what doesn't amuse me, though. Here I am in Wales, on my holidays, enjoying the semi-sun, and suddenly I get emails from and Tweets from sensible people on my side of the argument saying: "Help! Help! The BBC has gone mad for this story about the NASA satellite showing that 97 per cent of Greenland has melted and apparently it's 'unprecedented'. What do we do?"

Sigh. The right thing to do on occasions like this, I find, is to head straight for Watts Up With That? Unlike, say, the BBC, or the Guardian, or the Independent or most of the rest of the MSM, WUWT's posts are grounded in actual science and real world data.

Comment: It may not be man-made, but 'climate change' is very real. Something is causing significant changes on all the planets in our solar system.


Bizarro Earth

Sudden deep sinkhole shocks Tennessee town

sinkhole
© Stacye Sullivan/The Fairview ObserverPhillip Rykwalder with Cave Now checks the rope of Sara Goning as she ascends into the sinkhole on Cumberland Drive.
On the afternoon of July 19, Fairview resident Trish Parker wanted to get her yard cut before the predicted rain later that evening generated another grass growth spurt. Imagine the shock when Trish and her husband Dean walked outside the next morning to discover what was generated in their side yard was a super-sized sinkhole.

"My wife just cut the grass in that very spot yesterday," explained Dean, as he looked down into the ten-foot-wide hole.

The sinkhole is located along the property line between the Parker's property and neighbors Michael and Jennifer King. It sits approximately 75 feet from the Parker's home and 105 feet from the center line of Cumberland Drive.

The Parkers began making calls and Williamson County Emergency Management arrived on the scene to do an initial assessment, placing caution tape around the sink hole so that nearby neighborhood children would be warned of the danger.

Family friend and local resident Steven Brison came by on Sunday afternoon and rappelled down into the nine-foot wide hole for a closer look.

Cloud Lightning

Tropical Storm Florence joins Ernesto in Atlantic

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© Navteq/MS/Bing™See article 'Title' link for interactive map.
After a lull in the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, Tropical Storm Florence formed on Saturday, joining Ernesto as both moved west on paths that could eventually take them to the U.S. coast.

Florence has sustained winds up to 45 mph, the National Hurricane Center reported.

It was still in the deep Atlantic, but on a path towards the Caribbean.

Ernesto was packing sustained winds of 50 mph and should pass south of Jamaica on Sunday, the center stated. "Ernesto is forecast to become a hurricane ... in a day or two," it added.

After Jamaica, which issued a tropical storm warning, Ernesto will likely head toward Grand Cayman, arriving Monday, and then Cancun/Cozumel in Mexico on Wednesday, weather.com reported.

Cloud Lightning

Typhoon toll rises as 300,000 evacuated in Asia

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© Associated PressResidents wade through a flooded street in the town of Navotas in suburban Manila
The death toll from Typhoon Saola has risen to 42 in the Philippines and Taiwan, and 300,000 people have been evacuated in China as Typhoon Damrey makes landfall.

The Philippines recorded 37 deaths in floods and accidents caused by Saola's torrential rains and strong winds, officials said on Friday. Four people were missing and feared dead.

Taiwan residents spent Friday cleaning up storm damage and returning to work, a day after Saola slammed into the island, packing winds of up to 155 kilometres an hour, dumping 1.8 metres of rain and killing five people. Two were reported missing.

Saola weakened into a tropical storm before making landfall on Friday morning in Fuding in China's south-eastern province of Fujian with winds of 90km/h at its centre, China's official Xinhua news agency reported.

Bizarro Earth

Louisiana's Bayou Corne Evacuated: Swamp Gas Turns into Monster Sinkhole


Napoleonville - Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency Friday in Assumption Parish after officials ordered an immediate evacuation of the Bayou Corne area because a slurry area appeared to be expanding.

"The fear of the unknown prompted the evacuation order," said John Boudreaux, director of the parish's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. "The fear of it possibly compromising either the nearby pipelines or cavern storage areas, that could cause a risk to the community."

Boudreaux said about 150 homes are affected by the order. He was unsure how long it would remain in effect. The governor's emergency proclamation extends through Sept. 2 unless terminated earlier.

Boudreaux initially estimated the area was about 200 feet by 200 feet. He said it's on private land near the Texas Brine Co. LLC facility. Police Jury President Marty Triche said that in speaking with the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources and the Governor's Office, he was advised there was a risk that the slurry area could grow to a size of about 2,000 feet across.

Attention

Man swallowed by massive sinkhole as Typhoon Saola pounds Taiwan, reporter nearly taken by second sinkhole minutes later

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Emergency workers at the scene of the enormous sinkhole.
There appears to have been no warning before the ground opened up beneath the man's feet. At least five people have died in the storm so far and two are missing.

Unbelievable footage captures the moment a man was swallowed by a sinkhole that suddenly opened up on a Taiwan street.

The unidentified man was reportedly walking in Taipei Wednesday morning when the road beneath him suddenly collapsed, pulling him to his death.

CNN reports the incident occurred near the Temple of Sansha.


Phoenix

Oklahoma fires destroy homes

Oklahoma fire
© CNNA line of flames from one of several wildfires advances through an Oklahoma field.
Low humidity and strong winds Friday helped fuel a half-dozen wildfires in Oklahoma that have so far burned at least 65 structures and are threatening more.

The largest of the fires is just south of Oklahoma City in Cleveland County, according to Jerry Lojka, spokesman for the department of emergency management.

"The metro area is not in danger, but there are still homes out there, and there are subdivisions that are in those wooded areas," he said.

Twenty-five structures have burned in Cleveland County, according to Kelli Cain, another spokeswoman at the emergency department. Roughly 100 or so homes there are threatened.

Phoenix

Wildfires blaze in parched northwest Colorado

Fires blazed in northwest Colorado Friday night amid low humidity and gusty winds.

Dry thunderstorms and lightning sparked three fires on Bureau of Land Management land in Moffat and Rio Blanco counties, according to a release issued by the Northwest Colorado Fire Management Unit.

The Wolf fire, located about 5 miles south of Elk Springs, is at an estimated 700 acres and "is burning actively in sagebrush and pinon and juniper trees," the release said.

Spokeswoman Lynn Barclay said the fire was reported at 12:16 p.m. Friday. Winds up to 35 mph drove the fire throughout the day.

Bizarro Earth

Worldwide Transport of Dust Particles May Have Impact on Storms, Temperatures and Other Weather Patterns

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© NASA/Earth ObservatoryA dust storm can be seen over Turkmenistan, Central Asia, in this photograph from the International Space Station in 2009.
THE GIST
  • High up in the atmosphere, half of the dust over North America comes from Asia and elsewhere.
  • Dust particles can have large but still poorly understood impacts on weather.
  • Future climate models will need to incorporate the movement of dust around the world.
Three miles above the United States, the atmosphere is filled with dust that has blown thousands of miles from Asia and elsewhere.

The discovery, which used data from a new satellite that provided a three-dimensional view of the air from above, suggests that the transport of tiny dust particles around the world may be having an unexpectedly large impact on storms, temperatures and other weather patterns.

Attention

Spectacular Noctilucent Clouds Photographed Over Iceland

A bank of electric-blue noctiluent clouds swept across Iceland on August 2nd, producing a vivid display of luminous ripples and tendrils over Reykjavik:

Noctilucent Clouds
© Iurie Belegurschi

"These are the highest clouds in Earth's atmosphere, located at altitudes of around 76 to 85 kilometres," says photographer Iurie Belegurschi. "It was a beautiful display."

New data from NASA's AIM spacecraft prove that noctilucent clouds (NLCs) are seeded by space dust. The tiny ice crystals that NLCs are made of nucleate around "meteor smoke" wafting through the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere. Not only do these clouds look alien, they really are alien. A new video from NASA explains the research.