Topic: Around the Globe in Real Time

[Nichi]

It would seem that many of the planet's major volcanoes are rumbling:

http://www.volcano.si.edu/reports/usgs/

[Nichi]

Powerful Storm Hits Alaska and Siberia

A rare, extremely powerful winter storm hit northwestern Alaska on November 8 and 9, 2011, bringing hurricane-force winds, high seas, and heavy snow. Nome, the largest community affected by the storm, was buffeted by winds gusting to 66 miles per hour and a 10-foot storm surge. The National Weather Service reported wind gusts up to 85 miles per hour in Wales, northwest of Nome. Coastal flood warnings were still in effect throughout northwest Alaska on November 10.

The storm was like a hurricane in many ways. The air pressure dropped to 945 millibars, comparable to a Category 3 hurricane. From above, the storm resembled a hurricane, as well, with bands of clouds spiraling around the low-pressure center. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite took this image at 2:45 p.m. local time on November 8 while the storm was still over the Bering Sea and moving northeast toward Alaska. By November 9, the storm had moved far enough to the north to be beyond the satellite’s view.

Even though the storm resembled a hurricane, its core was full of cold air, not hot air. The storm formed when a stream of warm, moist air from the Pacific Ocean clashed with cold Siberian air and moved over the Bering Sea. Strong winds blowing over a long distance allowed a storm surge to build.

It is the strongest storm to hit northwest Alaska since 1974. As of November 9, no serious injuries or extensive damage had been reported, according to the Anchorage Daily News. However, the storm did damage buildings, flood some roads, and erode beaches.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=76382&src

[Nichi]

This (political) term has been used a lot on the weather-sites in the past year, but every time I read it, I cringe a little: "Weather-Ready Nation". I think that what it ultimately means is that we are on our own, like the rooftop folks during Katrina. Time will tell, regardless of whatever the hype may be.

http://www.noaa.gov/extreme2011/index.html

[Nichi]

Unreal!

Thousands of birds make crash landing in Utah
APAP – 8 mins ago
 
ST. GEORGE, Utah (AP) — Thousands of migratory birds died on impact after apparently mistaking a Wal-Mart parking lot and other areas of southern Utah for bodies of water and plummeting to the ground in what one wildlife expert called the worst downing she's ever seen.

Crews went to work cleaning up the dead birds and rescuing the survivors after the creatures crash-landed in the St. George area Monday night.

By Tuesday evening, volunteers had rescued more than 2,000 birds, releasing them into nearby bodies of water.

"They're just everywhere," said Teresa Griffin, wildlife program manager for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resource's southern region. "It's been nonstop. All our employees are driving around picking them up, and we've got so many people coming to our office and dropping them off."

Officials say stormy conditions probably confused the flock of grebes, a duck-like aquatic bird likely making its way to Mexico for the winter. The birds tried to land in a Cedar City Wal-Mart parking lot and elsewhere.

"The storm clouds over the top of the city lights made it look like a nice, flat body of water. All the conditions were right," Griffin told The Spectrum newspaper in St. George (http://bit.ly/rYpQbJ). "So the birds landed to rest, but ended up slamming into the pavement."

No human injuries or property damage have been reported.

It's not uncommon for birds to mistake hard surfaces for water. However, Griffin noted most downing are localized, while "this was very widespread."

"I've been here 15 years and this was the worst downing I've seen," she told the newspaper.

Wildlife officials said they were continuing the rescue effort that started Tuesday afternoon and included an enthusiastic group of volunteers.

The surviving grebes were gathered up — some in cardboard boxes — and dropped into bodies of water in southern Utah's Washington County, including a pond near Hurricane.

Residents who came across remaining grebes were asked to either call wildlife officials or bring the birds to their office.

"If we can put them on a body of water that's not frozen over, they'll have a better chance of survival," said Lynn Chamberlain, a wildlife agency spokesman.

___

Information from: The Spectrum, http://www.thespectrum.com

[Nichi]

Cyclone Thane is expected to be hitting the Tamil-Nadu coast, near Chennai, sometime today.
(This is over 1000 miles away from Michael and Julie, according to Google.)

[Nichi]

Snowy owls soar south from Arctic in rare mass migration

Reuters
By Laura Zuckerman | Reuters – 4 hrs ago

 
SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Bird enthusiasts are reporting rising numbers of snowy owls from the Arctic winging into the lower 48 states this winter in a mass southern migration that a leading owl researcher called "unbelievable."

Thousands of the snow-white birds, which stand 2 feet tall with 5-foot wingspans, have been spotted from coast to coast, feeding in farmlands in Idaho, roosting on rooftops in Montana, gliding over golf courses in Missouri and soaring over shorelines in Massachusetts.

A certain number of the iconic owls fly south from their Arctic breeding grounds each winter but rarely do so many venture so far away even amid large-scale, periodic southern migrations known as irruptions.

"What we're seeing now -- it's unbelievable," said Denver Holt, head of the Owl Research Institute in Montana.

"This is the most significant wildlife event in decades," added Holt, who has studied snowy owls in their Arctic tundra ecosystem for two decades.

Holt and other owl experts say the phenomenon is likely linked to lemmings, a rodent that accounts for 90 percent of the diet of snowy owls during breeding months that stretch from May into September. The largely nocturnal birds also prey on a host of other animals, from voles to geese.

An especially plentiful supply of lemmings last season likely led to a population boom among owls that resulted in each breeding pair hatching as many as seven offspring. That compares to a typical clutch size of no more than two, Holt said.

Greater competition this year for food in the Far North by the booming bird population may have then driven mostly younger, male owls much farther south than normal.

Research on the animals is scarce because of the remoteness and extreme conditions of the terrain the owls occupy, including northern Russia and Scandinavia, he said.

The surge in snowy owl sightings has brought birders flocking from Texas, Arizona and Utah to the Northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest, pouring tourist dollars into local economies and crowding parks and wildlife areas. The irruption has triggered widespread public fascination that appears to span ages and interests.

"For the last couple months, every other visitor asks if we've seen a snowy owl today," said Frances Tanaka, a volunteer for the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge northeast of Olympia, Washington.

But accounts of emaciated owls at some sites -- including a food-starved bird that dropped dead in a farmer's field in Wisconsin -- suggest the migration has a darker side. And Holt said an owl that landed at an airport in Hawaii in November was shot and killed to avoid collisions with planes.

He said snowy owl populations are believed to be in an overall decline, possibly because a changing climate has lessened the abundance of vegetation like grasses that lemmings rely on.

This winter's snowy owl outbreak, with multiple sightings as far south as Oklahoma, remains largely a mystery of nature.

"There's a lot of speculation. As far as hard evidence, we really don't know," Holt said.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and David Bailey)


Imagine presenting this as a "mystery"!
Global warming, hello?

[Nichi]

Leak Offers Glimpse of Campaign Against Climate Science
Richard Perry/The New York Times

Published: February 15, 2012

Leaked documents suggest that an organization known for attacking climate science is planning a new push to undermine the teaching of global warming in public schools, the latest indication that climate change is becoming a part of the nation’s culture wars.

The documents, from a nonprofit organization in Chicago called the Heartland Institute, outline plans to promote a curriculum that would cast doubt on the scientific finding that fossil fuel emissions endanger the long-term welfare of the planet. “Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective,” one document said.

While the documents offer a rare glimpse of the internal thinking motivating the campaign against climate science, defenders of science education were preparing for battle even before the leak. Efforts to undermine climate-science instruction are beginning to spread across the country, they said, and they fear a long fight similar to that over the teaching of evolution in public schools.

In a statement, the Heartland Institute acknowledged that some of its internal documents had been stolen. But it said its president had not had time to read the versions being circulated on the Internet on Tuesday and Wednesday and was therefore not in a position to say whether they had been altered.

Heartland did declare one two-page document to be a forgery, although its tone and content closely matched that of other documents that the group did not dispute. In an apparent confirmation that much of the material, more than 100 pages, was authentic, the group apologized to donors whose names became public as a result of the leak.

The documents included many details of the group’s operations, including salaries, recent personnel actions and fund-raising plans and setbacks. They were sent by e-mail to leading climate activists this week by someone using the name “Heartland insider” and were quickly reposted to many climate-related Web sites.

Heartland said the documents were not from an insider but were obtained by a caller pretending to be a board member of the group who was switching to a new e-mail address. “We intend to find this person and see him or her put in prison for these crimes,” the organization said.

Although best-known nationally for its attacks on climate science, Heartland styles itself as a libertarian organization with interests in a wide range of public-policy issues. The documents say that it expects to raise $7.7 million this year.

The documents raise questions about whether the group has undertaken partisan political activities, a potential violation of federal tax law governing nonprofit groups. For instance, the documents outline “Operation Angry Badger,” a plan to spend $612,000 to influence the outcome of recall elections and related fights this year in Wisconsin over the role of public-sector unions.

Tax lawyers said Wednesday that tax-exempt groups were allowed to undertake some types of lobbying and political education, but that because they are subsidized by taxpayers, they are prohibited from direct involvement in political campaigns.

The documents also show that the group has received money from some of the nation’s largest corporations, including several that have long favored action to combat climate change.

The documents typically say that those donations were earmarked for projects unrelated to climate change, like publishing right-leaning newsletters on drug and technology policy. Nonetheless, several of the companies hastened on Wednesday to disassociate themselves from the organization’s climate stance.

“We absolutely do not endorse or support their views on the environment or climate change,” said Sarah Alspach, a spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline, a multinational drug company shown in the documents as contributing $50,000 in the past two years to support a medical newsletter.

A spokesman for Microsoft, another listed donor, said that the company believes that “climate change is a serious issue that demands immediate worldwide action.” The company is shown in the documents as having contributed $59,908 last year to a Heartland technology newsletter. But the Microsoft spokesman, Mark Murray, said the gift was not a cash contribution but rather the value of free software, which Microsoft gives to thousands of nonprofit groups.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the Heartland documents was what they did not contain: evidence of contributions from the major publicly traded oil companies, long suspected by environmentalists of secretly financing efforts to undermine climate science.

But oil interests were nonetheless represented. The documents say that the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation contributed $25,000 last year and was expected to contribute $200,000 this year. Mr. Koch is one of two brothers who have been prominent supporters of libertarian causes as well as other charitable endeavors. They control Koch Industries, one of the country’s largest private companies and a major oil refiner.

The documents suggest that Heartland has spent several million dollars in the past five years in its efforts to undermine climate science, much of that coming from a person referred to repeatedly in the documents as “the Anonymous Donor.” A guessing game erupted Wednesday about who that might be.

The documents say that over four years ending in 2013, the group expects to have spent some $1.6 million on financing the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, an entity that publishes periodic reports attacking climate science and holds lavish annual conferences. (Environmental groups refer to the conferences as “Denialpalooza.”)

Heartland’s latest idea, the documents say, is a plan to create a curriculum for public schools intended to cast doubt on mainstream climate science and budgeted at $200,000 this year. The curriculum would claim, for instance, that “whether humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversy.”

It is in fact not a scientific controversy. The vast majority of climate scientists say that emissions generated by humans are changing the climate and putting the planet at long-term risk, although they are uncertain about the exact magnitude of that risk. Whether and how to rein in emissions of greenhouse gases has become a major political controversy in the United States, however.

The National Center for Science Education, a group that has had notable success in fighting for accurate teaching of evolution in the public schools, has recently added climate change to its agenda in response to pleas from teachers who say they feel pressure to water down the science.

Mark S. McCaffrey, programs and policy director for the group, which is in Oakland, Calif., said the Heartland documents revealed that “they continue to promote confusion, doubt and debate where there really is none.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/science/earth/in-heartland-institute-leak-a-plan-to-discredit-climate-teaching.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/science/earth/in-heartland-institute-leak-a-plan-to-discredit-climate-teaching.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2

[Nichi]

Wild times in the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys on the US mainland in the past few days: "straight-line" tornadoes moving eastward, many deaths, and total devastation of a couple of towns. Today alone, "255 Tornado Warnings and 312 Severe Thunderstorm Warnings" were issued.

[Michael]

I keep forgetting - is this the time of year for tornadoes?

It must be horrifying to see one of those things come for your home.

[Nichi]

It is a wee early.

Friday Tornadoes Span 10 States, Kill Dozens

By Bill Deger, Meteorologist
Mar 3, 2012; 10:27 AM ET


A massive severe weather outbreak stretching from the Ohio Valley to the Gulf coast spawned dozens of tornadoes across 10 states on Friday, marking one of the largest outbreaks on record this early in a season.

For some areas, it was the second tornado outbreak this week.

Though the task of counting the actual number of tornadoes will stretch into next week, there were at least 80 reports of twisters on Friday stretching from the morning to the late evening hours.

The most concentrated area of tornadoes stretched across the Ohio Valley, from southern Indiana and Ohio south into Kentucky. Here, at least 34 people lost their lives, including 14 in Indiana, 16 in Kentucky, three in Ohio and one in Alabama.

There have been unconfirmed reports of five possible fatalities in the Carolina's as of Saturday afternoon.

Rescue workers, including the National Guard, continued to dig through rubble and debris early on Saturday in an effort to locate more survivors.

To streamline the aid process, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear declared a State of Emergency late on Friday.

In Indiana, the towns of Henryville and Marysville sustained direct hits from tornadoes during the early afternoon hours, leading to extensive damage.

Residents of Marysville, Ind., survey the tornado damage to their homes Friday, March 2, 2012 in Marysville, Ind. (AP Photo/Brian Bohannon)

"Marysville is almost completely gone," Clark County Sheriff's Maj. Chuck Adams told WHAS-TV in the wake of a tornado.

In Henryville, the town's high school was nearly demolished while school buses were thrown into nearby businesses. Fortunately, everyone at the school was safe and accounted for.

A 2-year-old girl was found safe and alone in the middle of a farm field outside Henryville. Authorities were searching for her family.

Several homes were destroyed by another tornado in nearby Holton, Ind., where a car was flipped over several times by the fierce winds.

A map of severe weather storm reports from Friday received by the Storm Prediction Center as of 5:30 a.m. EST Saturday.

A possible tornado destroyed a trailer and damaged a silo and barns in New Liberty, Ky.

Farther south in Tennessee, at least 29 people were injured as tornadoes touched down across 10 counties. In Alabama, more than a hundred homes suffered heavy damage.

There were more than 700 reports of severe weather in all on Friday and Friday night. Two hundred twenty of them were from strong thunderstorm wind gusts or wind damage, while 414 were from large hail.

The threat for severe weather will shift deeper into the Southeast today, stretching from the Florida Panhandle to the eastern Carolinas. While a few storms could turn gusty, the overall threat for tornadoes will be much lower.

[Nichi]

Violent tornado rampage in 11 states leaves 31 dead

[Nichi]

Thousands told to evacuate as floods hit Australia

2012-03-03 11:16

SYDNEY, March 3, 2012 (AFP) -- Thousands of Australians were Saturday ordered to evacuate their homes in Sydney's northwest and elsewhere in New South Wales state as heavy rainfall flooded rivers and waterways.

State Emergency Service Commissioner Murray Kear said that 3,500 people were subject to evacuation orders as 75 percent of the state, the most populous in the country, was affected by flooding.

Days of heavy rain after a damp summer have seen Sydney's Warragamba Dam, the main source of the city's drinking water, reach capacity for the first time in 14 years -- prompting the water to move over its spillways late Friday.

The swollen Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers were now threatening areas around Sydney's northwest.

"This is a moderate flood but it's unusual because we haven't seen water in this river system in a while," Kear said of the waters, which are likely to swamp bridges and close roads.

Further west in New South Wales, the town of Bathurst had been cut in two by floodwaters while across the state some 2,300 people had been left isolated by the surging torrents.

A severe weather warning for flash flooding was in place in large areas of New South Wales and the southern state of Victoria was also bracing for heavy rainfall.

Kear said no homes had been inundated in the past 24 hours, but he said there had been more than 40 flood rescues -- including saving people trapped in cars -- and warned people against attempting to drive through floodwaters.

Bureau of Meteorology duty forecaster Jane Golding said the rain had eased overnight, but the slow-moving band covering much of southeastern Australia meant that it would likely build during the day.

"It's quite patchy at the moment but will become more widespread and the intensity will increase," she told ABC Radio.

[Michael]

Yeah, it's bad down south they tell me.

[Jahn]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2109540/Indiana-tornado-2012-Angel-Babcock-2-ALIVE-10-miles-home-Salem.html

Lots of pictures of the disater follows.

  ~.~

[Nichi]

That was amazing.

Imagine her dreams of flying, as she develops more and more...