Tag Archives: Science

More Mysterious Boom Sounds

Posted on 07/02/2011 | Leave a comment

post found on Global Disaster Watch, 5 Feb. 2011

[There's a list of these under this category along with mystery smells.]

Something is shaking the southeast and has been for quite some time. A Carolina Beach resident was enjoying a Saturday morning when she felt and heard a boom. Many people in her neighborhood ran outside in hopes of finding the source of the noise. “It feels like a Mack truck driving by and it just shakes your whole house. It’s a shaking feeling. More than thunder and more than a truck going by. Initially that is what it sounded like but it turned into something more than that and I guess more movement. I went to Facebook and I asked, ‘Did anyone else just feel a small earthquake?’ And within minutes people were posting from all over town saying, ‘I felt it in Mayfaire,’ ‘I felt it in Pine Valley.’” Dozens posted on her wall and thousands have reported the noises up and down the coast on various websites from Georgia to Virginia. With speculative explanations ranging from the ordinary, like military aircraft to the outrageous like ghosts and aliens.

“I don’t think it’s ghosts, and I don’t think it’s aliens,” said a geophysicist with the United States Geological Service in Menlo Park, California. I think it’s likely to be small earthquakes.” An earthquake produces audible sound by making the “ground around the person listening seem like they are in a big woofer. The ground is vibrating and that sound is transmitted up into the atmosphere and you hear a low rumbling sound.”

But on the east coast another prominent Geophysicist says earthquakes have nothing to do with it. “There are earthquakes occurring all around the world that we are recording here in North Carolina. If we had a local earthquake it would be impossible for us not to record that.” Of all the loud booms heard, recorded and studied there has never been any direct relationship discovered between any seismic activity. “It’s just very unlikely that we could have humans observe this and not have our very sensitive instruments making these observations.”

But the California scientist strongly disagrees saying, “Magnitude twos and smaller could produce an audible sound that and shaking that wouldn’t be recorded on the seismic stations.”  There are a number of aircraft and submarine testing and bombing ranges off the coast stretching from Florida to New Jersey, with more than a dozen off the Carolina coastline. And supersonic flight can certainly make a boom. But no military installation is taking credit for the booms, and no exercises were scheduled at the time.

“We know that these things were reported long before people were flying around at the speed of sound.” In fact the term Seneca Guns, which is often used to describe these sounds comes from a James Fenimore Cooper story explaining the same phenomenon published in 1851, 50 years before man even learned to fly. It just doesn’t make sense how nothing could show up. How could nothing at all show up if all these people definitely felt and heard something that wasn’t thunder, that wasn’t a plane, and wasn’t a truck driving by the house?” Rven the most experienced scientists can’t agree on an answer. You could eliminate some theories by installing a seismometer and sensitive microphones along the Carolina coastline. But, since the booms do little more than rattle windows finding someone to foot the $10,000 to $20,000 bill in our current economy will likely keep the public guessing as to what is causing the mysterious booms. It’s just bizarre.”

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Circumventing Congress

Posted on 26/01/2011 | Leave a comment

post by ASME News and Public Policy Updates

There is some very interesting information here, but what would have been the most interesting to me is the last item. I am very concerned about how far the puppet is willing to go in order to circumvent Congress with his back-door, end-run Executive Orders and get his way.

Deep budget cuts proposed by House GOP group—Late last week, the House Republican Study Committee (RSC), a subset of the House Republican Caucus that promotes a conservative social and economic agenda, introduced the Spending Reduction Act, a proposal that would cut $2.5 trillion from the federal government’s budget over the next decade. The RSC now boasts a membership of 165 members, which is two-thirds of the House Republican Caucus and includes 73 newly elected freshman members of Congress.

The Act proposes to do the following—

  • Reduce the spending levels in the FY 2011 continuing resolution for non-defense, non-homeland security, non-veteran’s programs to FY 2008 levels, including prohibiting any FY 2011 funding to be used to fund the puppet’s health care bill;
  • Impose discretionary spending limits through 2021 at 2006 levels for non-defense spending and eliminate automatic budgetary increases for inflation from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline projections;
  • Eliminate automatic pay increases for civilian federal employees for five years and cut the federal civilian workforce by 15 percent through attrition; and,
  • Abolish all remaining stimulus funding.

In addition, the following science and technology programs would also be eliminated—

  • Technology Innovation Program;
  • Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program;
  • Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization;
  • Applied Research at Department of Energy; and,
  • Energy Star Program.

Additional information about this proposal can be found at http://rsc.jordan.house.gov/UploadedFiles/Spending_Reduction_Act–TWOPAGER.pdf

While this proposal is not yet supported by the House leadership, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will be under great pressure to meet at least some of these RSC demands. On the other hand, the proposal is not likely to gain any traction in the Democratic-controlled Senate, but sets the stage for the upcoming appropriations battles between House and Senate leaders.

NASA submits preliminary report on Space Launch System and multi-purpose crew vehicle to Congress—As required by a provision of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Authorization Act that was signed into law on October 11, 2010, the agency has submitted its “Preliminary Report Regarding NASA’s Space Launch System and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle” to Congress. The report includes warnings of inadequate funding and an unattainable legislatively mandated schedule.

With regard to the Space Launch System (SLS), the report notes that “the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 directs NASA to begin development of the SLS vehicle “as soon as practicable after the date of the enactment” and with the goal of achieving operational capability for the core elements not later than December 31, 2016. While NASA will work as expeditiously as possible to meet the 2016 goal, NASA does not believe this goal is achievable based on a combination of the current funding profile estimate, traditional approaches to acquisition, and currently considered vehicle architectures. The report sounds a similar cautionary note on the development of the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) noting that the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 directs the agency to begin development of the MPCV capsule with the goal of achieving full operational capability not later than December 31, 2016—”While NASA will work expeditiously to meet the 2016 goal, NASA notes that, as with the SLS, a 2016 crewed first flight does not appear to be possible within projected FY 2011 and out year funding levels.”

A major factor working against NASA as it seeks to implement the provisions of the new authorization act is the great uncertainty about its final FY 2011 appropriation. The new fiscal year started on October 1, and Congress and the Administration have been unable to reach agreement on a short term funding bill providing level funding through early March, a full five months into the year. Complicating the agency’s actions is a prohibition on any “new starts” and the requirement that it continue spending on elements of the now-cancelled Constellation Program.

In a seven-page letter to the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, NASA Inspector General Paul K. Martin underscores the uncertainty the agency faces about its FY 2011 appropriation. The letter reads, in part, as follows—”We write this letter to highlight a situation at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) that we believe requires immediate action by Congress. Due to restrictive language in NASA’s fiscal year (FY) 2010 appropriation, coupled with the fact that NASA and the rest of the Federal Government are currently being funded by a continuing resolution (CR) that carries over these restrictions and prohibits initiation of new projects, NASA is continuing to spend approximately $200 million each month on the Constellation Program, aspects of which both NASA and Congress have agreed not to build….Constraining NASA’s ability to stop spending money on aspects of a rocket program that the administration and Congress both have agreed to cancel while at the same time prohibiting the Agency from beginning the follow-on program called for in the 2010 Authorization Act strikes us as a problem ripe for correction. Accordingly, we urge Congress to take immediate action that will enable NASA to reduce or cease funding aspects of the Constellation Program in order to more efficiently redirect these funds to the priorities outlined in the Authorization Act.”

To review this letter, please visit http://oig.nasa.gov/readingRoom/Paul.pdf. The full 22-page preliminary report may be found at http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/510449main_SLS_MPCV_90-day_Report.pdf

Aerospace Safety Advisory panel releases annual report—The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) has released its 2010 annual report. The panel examines NASA’s safety performance during the past year and alerts agency and government leaders to issues and concerns. Congress established the ASAP in 1968 after the Apollo 1 fire to provide advice and make recommendations to the NASA administrator on safety matters. The panel holds quarterly fact-finding and public meetings and makes one or more visits annually to NASA centers and related sites. This year’s report advises NASA on issues that have significant potential to impact human spaceflight.

“The panel’s first and foremost concern is the lack of clarity and constancy of purpose among NASA, Congress, and the administration,” panel Chairman Joseph W. Dyer said. “We believe this increases the likelihood that essential knowledge and competencies in the contractor or government workforce, such as those involving safety considerations, lessons learned, and past experience will not be present to effectively reduce risk in the future.”

Some of the panel’s critical safety issues or concerns include—

  • Human spaceflight acquisition strategy and safety approach;
  • FAA/NASA relationship;
  • Workforce and safety culture; and,
  • International Space Station challenges.

 

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Birds, Fish Dieing

Posted on 26/01/2011 | Leave a comment
post by Seth Borenstein, AP Yahoo News, Jan 7, 2011

WASHINGTON—First, the blackbirds fell out of the sky on New Year’s Eve in Arkansas. In recent days, wildlife have mysteriously died in big numbers—2 million fish in the Chesapeake Bay, 150 tons of red tilapia in Vietnam, 40,000 crabs in Britain and other places across the world. Blogs connected the deadly dots, joking about the “aflockalypse” while others saw real signs of something sinister, either biblical or environmental.

The reality, say biologists, is that these mass die-offs happen all the time and usually are unrelated.

[Is it?]

Federal records show they happen on average every other day somewhere in North America. Usually, we don’t notice them and don’t try to link them to each other.

[41 years on Earth and I "haven't noticed" something like this! What a curious thing!]

“They generally fly under the radar,” said ornithologist John Wiens, chief scientist at the California research institution PRBO Conservation Science.

“Since the 1970s, the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin has tracked mass deaths among birds, fish and other critters,” said wildlife disease specialist LeAnn White. At times, the sky and the streams just turn deadly. Sometimes it’s disease, sometimes pollution. Other times it’s just a mystery.

[This is a very confusing statement. In my opinion, if masses of birds, fish, etc die, I would think people would be more than curious as to the cause. I would think there would be articles all over the place and a bit of shock. I find it hard to believe that such events go unnoticed by the public. Just my opinion.]

In the past eight months, the USGS has logged 95 mass wildlife die-offs in North America and that’s probably a dramatic undercount, White said. The list includes 900 some turkey vultures that seemed to drown and starve in the Florida Keys, 4,300 ducks killed by parasites in Minnesota, 1,500 salamanders done in by a virus in Idaho, 2,000 bats that died of rabies in Texas, and the still mysterious death of 2,750 sea birds in California.

On average, 163 such events are reported to the federal government each year, according to USGS records. And there have been much larger die-offs than the 3,000 blackbirds in Arkansas. Twice in the summer of 1996, more than 100,000 ducks died of botulism in Canada. “Depending on the species, these things don’t even get reported,” White said.

[Here's another thought—if these "events" have actually been occurring since the 70s, then wouldn't you think it runs parallel to the climate events that has been happening since then as well. If something can't be explained thoroughly by the scientist we educate, then maybe it's something beyond us. Maybe it's the very thing that atheist deny?]

Weather—cold and wet weather like in Arkansas New Year’s Eve when the birds fell out of the sky—is often associated with mass bird deaths, ornithologists say. Pollution, parasites and disease also cause mass deaths. Some are even blaming fireworks for the blackbird deaths. So, what’s happening this time?

Blame technology, says famed Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson. With the Internet, cell phones and worldwide communications, people are noticing events, connecting the dots more. “This instant and global communication, it’s just a human instinct to read mystery and portents of dangers and wondrous things in events that are unusual,” Wilson told The Associated Press on Thursday. “Not to worry, these are not portents that the world is about to come to an end.” Wilson and the others say instant communications “especially when people can whip out smart phones to take pictures of critter carcasses and then post them on the Internet” is giving a skewed view of what is happening in the environment. The irony is that mass die-offs—usually of animals with large populations—are getting the attention while a larger but slower mass extinction of thousands of species because of human activity is ignored, Wilson said.

[Sorry, I don't buy this explanation. The public has always been informed. Before internet technology, people read newspapers. Oh, my God†, remember them! We read Newsweek, National Geographic and other magazines who reported the news objectively. We are not ignorant. The internet may give us the news quicker, or so it seems, but we are no more informed than before. The truth of it is, we may be a bit less informed because objectivity has disappeared from journalism. If it wasn't, than more journalist would being asking the "whys" instead of accepting what's being said right off the back. Instead of concentrating on the stupidity of life like Hollywood, then maybe today's journalist would realize that the public still wants the "truth" and not some far-fetched tale. Publicity seeking scientist and bias journalist have lost their creditability. We all know something extraordinary is going on. We all know that science can't rightly explain it, so why don't they just stop pretending and shadowing what's really going on and come out and just say it?]

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Global Cooling:Coming Ice Age

Posted on 25/10/2010 | 3 Comments

[Very interesting...it's worth reading it.]

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Something Wicked Coming our Way?

Posted on 25/10/2010 | Leave a comment

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Precursor to Ice Age?

Posted on 25/10/2010 | Leave a comment

post by sott.net, May 7, 2010

As regular readers of SOTT are aware, we collect weather reports from around the world which often point to weird weather occurring in locations experiencing unseasonable weather. This week there has been an especially weird spike in reports of sudden cold and snow affecting many areas of North America and Europe! We think this dramatically illustrates the alarming speed with which the weather can change from stable, warm and dry conditions to turbulent, cold and wet conditions. Global news networks are churning out endless reports on the UK election, the financial shock waves hitting Europe and the Times Square hysteria over some fireworks left in a car. What is not being reported prominently are the unprecedented freak weather events happening around across the northern hemisphere: hail, sleet and snow slamming southern California, deluges devastating the central cities of Nashville in the US and Hunan in China, the Korean Peninsula shivering with a record-low spring chill and reports of snow in Mexico and France.

Are these just unseasonal conditions, an immediate knock-on effect from the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland perhaps? Or are we on the brink of entering an ice age as SOTT has been predicting for a number of years? Was the sudden flip this week—”as though a switch had been thrown”—a taster of the Ice Age to come? Is this ‘mini Winter rebound’ pointing out how suddenly glacial rebound can develop? When will we approach the tipping point as more volcanoes erupt and magma comes up from the ocean floor?

Laura Knight-Jadczyk explains the mechanism that can precipitate sudden climate change towards an Ice Age. “That’s the hard science. There’s going to be the day. It’s already happening. The magnetic field is degenerating. That means magma is going to start welling up under the oceans. It’s already happening because it’s heating the oceans up. When the oceans start heating up, that means more evaporation. When that happens at the same time that the planet is being clouded by volcanic eruptions, which is cooling the atmosphere, you have precipitation that comes down as snow.

“The geological record shows that the onset of every ice-age was so sudden as to be unbelievable. In other words, next winter could be the winter when a lot of undersea volcanoes begin to erupt and dump magma into the oceans. A lot of evaporation takes place. If it happens in the winter time that means that snow can fall in amounts that are beyond your wildest imagining. It’s happened! It’s geologically a fact. It’s happened repeatedly. Can you imagine 9 stories of snow in a single day?”

Below are local weather reports with eyewitness comments from some of our forum members situated in diverse locations across Europe and North America. The first shocker this week came with reports of snow in the south of France. Snow anywhere in Europe in May is unusual, but near the Mediterranean coast? In May?!

  • Comment—“Here in the south of France, we had about a week of warm and sunny weather with one day reaching 30°C—then we woke up to 4°C this morning with heavy wind and a forecast predicting the total average of May’s rainfall within the next week!” Update—”Snowing and hailing in southern France now. It’s considered abnormal and is downright yucky weather here!”

We couldn’t quite believe that it was snowing in the south of France—along valley floors and thus near sea level—so we checked it out for ourselves.  It’s snowing in southern France… in May! Yep, it’s been snowing in southern France! The locals say they’ve never seen anything like it. One forum member there reported something interesting about the texture of snow

  • Comment—“Snowing here, too (Spanish-French border). Looks like 10 inches. (I just went and measured it)—10cm so far and has not stopped since last night.” Update—”It’s still still coming down this evening though it did get warmer (5°Celsius by mid afternoon). Interesting thing is that the snow seems to have more moisture in it. Moving it with a shovel seemed like it was heavier, like wet cement. Usually the snow here has been pretty dry.”

The wave of the century—While snow and hail was falling further inland, waves from 6 to 10 meters were reported all along the French Mediterranean coastline—Cannes struggles to prepare for film festival as unseasonal wind, 10 meter high waves, hail and snow batter France’s Cote d’Azur

“We are lost for words. [The waves] came very quickly. It was calm and then suddenly it started and we didn’t have time to prepare.” Locals agreed that the waves were the biggest seen on the Côte d’Azur for years, if not decades, and were unusual at this time of year….René Colomban, president of the Promenade des Anglais beach attendants’ union, said he had not seen anything like it since 1959….

Yesterday, to the amazement of the south-western town’s residents, snow fell in Carcassonne. The ferocity of the storm in southern France produced gales of up to 130 km per hour and dumped up to 20 cm of snow (9 inches) on the lower valleys of the Pyrenées.

Another member reports on the sudden turn in the weather in Spain.

  • Comment—“Here in Spain there has also been odd weather. After a week of 20 and 30° Celsius, in some areas it went down to 8 degrees. Today we have strong winds and showers. Definitively very unsettled weather.”

What about further north?

  • Comment—“Same here in Belgium. Last week, it felt like summer. This week it’s really cold!”

And in the UK?

  • Comment—“Scotland had another arctic blast at the end of last week and beginning of this one. Although spring weather is quite unstable, still it’s more like November weather.”
  • Comment—“Here in southeast UK, we had a very warm week last week, with lots of sunshine, and then, almost as though a switch had been thrown, the weather changed a few days ago and now it is cold and dull with low level cloud cover.”
  • Comment—“Just to add there was hail 4 days ago here in Sweden, Gothenburg, not unheard of but quite rare this time of year. The thing is, that day had really good and warm weather before and after the hail. Sub-zero rain, that melted just as it hit the ground. Guess the atmosphere is trying to tell us something?”
  • Comment—“Yeh, I was shocked to see really big snowflakes here in Denmark in May today, large hailstones and one hell of a wind. I thought it may be possible for the hailstones to crack or break a window. Then an hour later, sunshine. My hands were feeling icy cold outside today.”
  • Comment—“Yesterday, on 7th of March, we had a hailstorm here in the east of Austria. The hail kept lying on the ground. Surprisingly, in the evening hours, the sky was blue, but it was so chilly that we could see our breath condensing in the air.”

Surely this is a regional phenomenon, a freak event unique to western Europe perhaps? Apparently not, as wintry weather came to the most unlikely of regions, like southern California.

Surely it’s not snowing in the deserts of Arizona?!

  • Comment—“It’s been unseasonably wet and cool in southern Arizona this spring—I’ve actually been really enjoying it, since I usually dread the onset of summer here, but we are usually stuck in the 90°F by May and so far there has been a lot of variation.”

At least this atmospheric shock is pleasant for some then! But wait, what’s this..? It’s snowing in northern Mexico? In May?! It’s snowing in Mexico in May! …snowfall in 18 municipalities. The snow reached 18 centimeters in Ignacio Zaragoza and 12 centimeters in Gomez Farías…. In the state capital [of Chihuahua], the weather phenomenon took people by surprise, since for 32 years it did not snow in May…. In the capital, a light rain began between 4:00 and 5:00 am, with a temperature of 3° Celsius and a wind chill of -2°….

The Pacific Northwest this week equalled or broke the coldest recorded temperatures from this past winter (which was, remember, one of the coldest winters in memory!)

  • Comment—“We recently returned from Southern Arizona where we nearly froze. Couldn’t believe how chilly it was, especially at night. Sure seemed abnormal for May. Yesterday the temperature at 18,000 ft above the Pacific northwest in the United States was as cold as the 2nd coldest measurement taken during the past winter. Colder than any temp during January or February! There was a winter storm warning issued for the mountains nearby—in May. This following a 24 hour period with non-stop wind averaging around 25-35 mph. Totally unlike any May weather anyone around here can remember.”

Canada might expect occasional late flurries of winter snow, but even residents there are struck by the sudden plunge in temperatures.

  • Comment—“Yep, it is snowing in Northern Alberta, Canada, too. Not sure if it’s unusual, since we had the same thing last year. After a period of really nice and warm weather, past several days were really windy and cold including hail-like rain. And now it’s snowing (-1°C outside) but should get warmer toward the end of the week.”
  • Comment—“And it is snowing in Calgary today, too; and it is sooo cold -1° C. I have lived in Calgary for 28 years and what I noticed is that people usually say that it is typical Calgary weather. That is not true. We do get spring snow storms but they usually come and go quickly, and then it is sunny and warm again. This time the cold has stuck around for way too long. We have had 3 snow storms so far in 3 weeks and that is unusual. We don’t get much sun around here to start with and now we don’t get it at all. No wonder so many people have health problems. I take 2000IU of D3 everyday to keep myself healthy. I have been feeling like living a life of an indoor slave. I just work, pay taxes and bills then I go home where I close the door because it is just too cold to keep the door open, or to even go for a bike ride. It is really depressing to live here. Nothing is blooming, the trees don’t have any leaves on yet, the birds are not chirping, and I don’t think they are having any offspring either. Everything looks so gray, even the grass is barely waking up and it is already May 5. I think my worst nightmare is becoming true. We will all freeze to death. Oh, where is my far infrared sauna. I think I will just go and sit in it for an hour and will keep on dreaming about a tropical forest.”

Rather than dream about what we wish the weather could or should be, let’s continue to pay attention to the weather as it is! That way we might be able to see when the Ice Age Cometh and be better prepared to acclimatize, psychologically more than anything else.

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100 Years of Climate Headlines

Posted on 25/10/2010 | Leave a comment

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Iceland’s Katla Volcano Alert

Posted on 27/08/2010 | Leave a comment
post by MSNBC

London—A second, much larger volcano in Iceland is showing signs that it may be about to erupt, scientists have warned. Since the start of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption, which caused cancellations of thousands of flights in Europe because of a giant ash cloud, there has been much speculation about neighboring Katla. An initial research paper by the University College of London Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction said, “Analysis of the seismic energy released around Katla over the last decade or so is interpreted as providing evidence of a rising—intrusive magma body on the western flank of the volcano.”

“Earlier seismic energy release at Katla is associated with the inflation of the volcano, which indicates it is close to failure, although this does not appear to be linked to seismicity around Eyjafjallajökull,” it added. “We conclude that given the high frequency of Katla activity, an eruption in the short term is a strong possibility,” the report said. “It is likely to be preceded by new earthquake activity. Presently there is no unusual seismicity under Katla.”

An April 17 NASA image shows the Eyjafjallajokull volcano to the west and Myrdalsjokull ice cap, beneath which slumbers the mighty Katla volcano, to the east.

Icelandic President Ólafur Grímsson has warned governments around Europe that a significant eruption at the volcano is close. “We [Iceland] have prepared—it is high time for European governments and airline authorities all over Europe and the world to start planning for the eventual Katla eruption,” he said.

The UCL scientists, engineers and statisticians also criticized the response to the earlier eruption. “The impact of the eruption on regional airspace could have been predicted and better prepared for as the growing problem of aircraft-ash cloud encounters has been recognized for decades,” the report added. “Similarly, the potential for ash clouds, specifically from Icelandic volcanoes, to interfere with air traffic in UK, European and North Atlantic air-space was appreciated by the aviation industry well before the start of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption,” it said. “The response to the ash cloud’s arrival in UK and adjacent airspace was entirely reactive and therefore less effective than it should have been.”

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New Zealand: Possible Tsunami

Posted on 17/08/2010 | Leave a comment

post by Radio New Zealand News Aug. 16, 2010

[Update: the tsunami did not happen, of course.]

Scientists say the collapse of a massive undersea volcano off the coast of the North Island shows New Zealand could be at a high risk of tsunami. Marine geologists from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) have confirmed a major eruption about 200km northwest of Auckland occurred some time in the last two years.The Rumble 3 volcano, which is larger than Mount Ruapehu, has lost about 120 meters in height.

NIWA principal scientist Dr Geoffroy Lamarche says the undersea mapping shows the seabed is more active than was previously known. “We don’t want to be scaremongering here, but definitely any large displacement of (the) seafloor will pull the water down. “At the surface it will also generate a wave, and this collapse, we know because we’ve mapped it, this collapse is looking south-west, which is directly toward the New Zealand coast.” Dr. Lamarche says scientists will use the data to model the potential impact of a tsunami on Auckland and Bay of Plenty.

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Russia: Icebox to Heater

Posted on 17/08/2010 | 2 Comments

post by Global Disaster Watch
Russia lashed by storm after heatwave —Russia’s record-breaking heat wave looks set to come to a dramatic end, with a severe storm now heading for Moscow after battering St Petersburg on Sunday. Nearly 100,000 people around St Petersburg were left without power, rail services were halted and trees felled amid high winds and heavy rains. Moscow is expected to be hit later. Temperatures there dropped to 25C on Monday after nearing 40C for weeks. Fires that have raged across western Russia are being brought under control. The emergencies ministry said the area affected by peat and forest fires was down to 45,800 hectares, compared to a peak of almost 200,000 hectares.
The fires took hold amid a heat wave unseen in Russia since records began, 130 years ago. More than 50 people have died in the forest fires, but the wider death toll is much larger. Hundreds, or thousands, more people perished from the direct effects of the heat, or from drowning while trying to escape it, or from the smog that has blanketed Moscow and other regions during the fires. The smog has returned to Moscow, despite the lower temperatures and reduced fire area, but is expected to be dispersed by the coming winds.

The fires and drought have also had a devastating effect on Russia’s wheat harvest. This year’s crop could be as low as 60 million tonnes, well below last year’s 97 million. The shortage is such that a ban on grain exports has been introduced, possibly until the end of the year. The measures are designed to keep domestic food prices under control, but could push world prices still higher. Concerns remain about fires near Russia’s major nuclear research facility in Sarov, about 400km (250 miles) east of Moscow, and in the Bryansk region, heavily affected by radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Officials said on Monday that fires near Sarov had been controlled. But an environmentalist warned that radioactive material near Bryansk still posed a threat. “Almost a million cubic meters of dead radioactive wood pose serious danger if the fires spread. The forest is practically impenetrable, and we practically have no aviation so we’ll have nothing to fight the fires if they spread.” Officials said any fires that had reached the area so far have been extinguished.

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