Earth Changes

Tens of thousands flee Iowa flooding

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The governor declares 83 of 99 counties disaster areas as waters continue to rise. The weather is expected to turn foul again.

DES MOINES — Officials on Friday urged tens of thousands of workers and residents to evacuate as rivers across the Hawkeye state continued to flood towns big and small.

Though the National Weather Service expected water levels here in the capital to peak Friday night or early this morning, emergency management officials said they were focused on making sure people were safe and dry in case the situation changed.

“The risk very clearly is that the levee system is extraordinarily taxed right now and anyone in the . . . flood plain is going to be at risk,” Public Works Director Bill Stowe told reporters Friday.

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver on Friday declared 83 of Iowa’s 99 counties disaster areas as rivers either reached or were expected to hit historic levels — flowing over soil already saturated from an extremely wet spring. Dozens of roads were closed, along with sections of two major interstates, forcing weary residents to battle congested, hours-long detours to escape the rising waters.

Read moreTens of thousands flee Iowa flooding

Global Warming? Not in the Pacific Northwest

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There’s rain on the grill and snow in the passes

UW prof says it’s the coldest spring since 1917

There’s further proof that this spring has been uncomfortably and depressingly cold — the coldest in memory, the coldest since 1917.



Validation came Tuesday from the University of Washington, where Cliff Mass, an atmospheric sciences professor, published his new “barbecue index.”

“I’ve gotten a lot of calls about how unusual this weather’s been,” said Mass. “In roughly 90 years, this is the most ­unpleasant year for being outside and having a barbecue.”

Mass and meteorologist Mark Albright found proof of the pain after reviewing warm spring days since 1894. They tallied the number of spring days above 60 degrees.

“Sixty degrees is a very important temperature,” Mass said. “Most people are fairly comfortable being outside.”

He found that most years have about 42 days of warm weather between March 11 and June 10.

This year, there have been only 23 days with temperatures above 60 degrees.

Not since spring 1917 — when there were only 18 days of warm weather — has there been so many chilly spring days, Mass said.

The first nine days of June are supposed to average about 68 degrees, but this year temps averaged 57 degrees, measured in downtown Seattle. That’s the coldest ever since records started in 1891.

Five Western Washington sites including the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and Bellingham all broke records for having daily high temperatures that are very low.

“Our high temperatures this month are closer to our average low than our average high,” meteorologist Dennis D’Amico said.

It’s not just the cold weather that seems weird. Winds whipped up Monday, briefly knocking out power to 20,000 customers in north Snohomish County.

Read moreGlobal Warming? Not in the Pacific Northwest

‘Beyond what anybody could even imagine’

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Patients evacuated from Cedar Rapids hospital as waters continue to rise


Downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was submerged Thursday by the rising Cedar River. Around 100 blocks were under water, forcing some 10,000 people to flee.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – Officials evacuated patients from a Cedar Rapids hospital on Friday as the rising waters from the Cedar River confounded the city’s best efforts to secure the downtown area.

The hospital’s 176 patients, including about 30 patients in a nursing home facility at the hospital, were being evacuated to other hospitals in the region. The evacuation started late Thursday night and continued Friday morning in the city of 124,000 residents.

“Some are frail and so it’s a very delicate process with them,” said Karen Vander Sanden, a hospital spokeswoman.

Water was seeping into the hospital’s lower levels, where the emergency generator is located, said Dustin Hinrichs of the Linn County emergency operations center. “They proactively and preventatively started evacuation basically guessing on the fact they were going to lose power,” he said.

Dave Koch, a spokesman for the Cedar Rapids fire department, said the river will crest Friday at about 31.8 feet. It was at 30.9 feet early in the morning. In a 1993 flood, considered the worst flood in recent history, it was at 19.27 feet.

“We are seeing a historic hydrological event taking place with unprecedented river levels occurring,” added Brian Pierce, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Davenport. “We’re in uncharted territory — this is an event beyond what anybody could even imagine.”

100 blocks under water
By late Thursday, officials estimated that 100 blocks were under water, where several days of preparation could not hold back the rain-swollen river. Rescuers had to use boats to reach many stranded residents, and people could be seen dragging suitcases up closed highway exit ramps to escape the water.

Read more‘Beyond what anybody could even imagine’

Water crisis to be biggest world risk

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A catastrophic water shortage could prove an even bigger threat to mankind this century than soaring food prices and the relentless exhaustion of energy reserves, according to a panel of global experts at the Goldman Sachs “Top Five Risks” conference.


The melting of Himalayan glaciers threatens the water supply to the world’s rivers

Nicholas (Lord) Stern, author of the Government’s Stern Review on the economics of climate change, warned that underground aquifers could run dry at the same time as melting glaciers play havoc with fresh supplies of usable water.

“The glaciers on the Himalayas are retreating, and they are the sponge that holds the water back in the rainy season. We’re facing the risk of extreme run-off, with water running straight into the Bay of Bengal and taking a lot of topsoil with it,” he said.

“A few hundred square miles of the Himalayas are the source for all the major rivers of Asia – the Ganges, the Yellow River, the Yangtze – where 3bn people live. That’s almost half the world’s population,” he said.

Lord Stern, the World Bank’s former chief economist, said governments had been slow to accept the awful truth that usable water is running out. Fresh rainfall is not enough to refill the underground water tables.

“Water is not a renewable resource. People have been mining it without restraint because it has not been priced properly,” he said.


Water sector outperformance relative to the S&P 500

Farming makes up 70pc of global water demand. Fresh water for irrigation is never returned to underground basins. Most is lost through leaks and evaporation.

A Goldman Sachs report said water was the “petroleum for the next century”, offering huge rewards for investors who know how to play the infrastructure boom. The US alone needs up to $1,000bn (£500bn) in new piping and waste water plants by 2020.

Read moreWater crisis to be biggest world risk

Canada’s water crisis ‘escalating’

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In Quebec, St. Lawrence water levels were so low this fall in places like Haut Gorge park that water had to be pumped in from Lake Ontario. Photograph by : Allen McInnis, Canwest News Service

Experts expect climate change to present serious water challenges, many of which already exist

In Quebec, St. Lawrence water levels were so low this fall in places like Haut Gorge park that water had to be pumped in from Lake Ontario.

In Quebec, St. Lawrence water levels were so low this fall in places like Haut Gorge park that water had to be pumped in from Lake Ontario.

Canada is crisscrossed by innumerable rivers, some of which flow into three oceans.

Yet Canada’s fresh water isn’t as abundant as you may think. And it’s facing serious challenges and the looming menace of climate change, which is expected to exacerbate Canada’s water problems and leave more of the world thirsting after our precious liquid resource.

“They say you need a crisis before people get jerked into taking responsible action,” says Chandra Madramootoo, a water researcher and founding director of McGill University’s Brace Centre for Water Resources Management.

“When are we going to finally say, ‘Jeez, we’re not as water rich as we thought we were and maybe we better start doing something?’ Is it going to be the day when we [must] ration water?”

Some think the crisis is already here. They say it’s time to take action — by, for example, conserving water, cracking down on polluters, preparing for the effects of climate change and coming to the aid of waterless poor in the developing world.

(Important article! Please continue to read. – The Infinite Unknown)

Read moreCanada’s water crisis ‘escalating’

China Orders Up to 1.3 Million to Evacuate on Quake Lake Danger

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May 30 (Bloomberg) — China is ordering the evacuation of up to 1.3 million people as a lake formed after the country’s deadliest earthquake in 32 years threatens to burst its banks, flooding a nearby city, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Tangjiashan, the biggest of more than 30 lakes created after landslides caused by the May 12 quake blocked rivers, is in an “extremely dangerous” state, the Ministry of Water Resources said on its Web site today.

The evacuation order was given by Tan Li, the Communist Party Secretary of Mianyang city and the head of the city’s earthquake control and relief headquarters, Xinhua said. People living in the area have been ordered to move to higher ground earmarked by the local government, the report said.

Read moreChina Orders Up to 1.3 Million to Evacuate on Quake Lake Danger

30,000 Scientists Rejecting Global Warming Hypothesis

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Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM)

Who: Dr. Arthur Robinson of the OISM

What: release of names in OISM “Petition Project”

When: 10 AM, Monday May 19

Where: Holeman Lounge at the National Press Club, 529 14th St., NW, Washington, DC

Why: The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) will announce that more than 31,000 scientists have signed a petition rejecting claims of human-caused global warming. The purpose of OISM’s Petition Project is to demonstrate that the claim of “settled science” and an overwhelming “consensus” in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climate damage is wrong. No such consensus or settled science exists. As indicated by the petition text and signatory list, a very large number of American scientists reject this hypothesis.

It is evident that 31,072 Americans with university degrees in science – including 9,021 PhDs, are not “a few.” Moreover, from the clear and strong petition statement that they have signed, it is evident that these 31,072 American scientists are not “skeptics.”

CONTACT: Audrey Mullen, +1-703-548-1160, for the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine

/PRNewswire-USNewswire — May 15/

SOURCE Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine

Source: Street Insider

Barcelona: Unprecedented Emergency Plan to Alleviate a Drought in the City

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This week, it began importing potable water by ship as part of a broader effort to meet needs. Its reservoirs are down to 20 percent capacity.

A ship loaded with drinking water is seen docked in the northern Spanish port of Barcelona as part of an unprecedented emergency plan to alleviate a drought in the city. The ship was carrying some 5.3 million gallons of water, roughly enough to satisfy a day’s requirements for 180,000 people. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
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With Spain’s average rainfall down 40 percent last year, many cities have restricted residents from filling their swimming pools or watering their lawns. But perhaps no municipality has developed such diverse and creative solutions as hard-hit Barcelona, which this week began a €44 million ($68 million) operation to bring in drinking water by ship.

On Tuesday, the first vessel – from the southern city of Tarragona – arrived in Barcelona’s port, where firemen discharged the ship’s 20 tanks into a pipeline linked to the city’s water distribution network. The next day, Barcelona residents were drinking Tarragona water from their taps.

The measure is designed to stave off a water crisis that has been building for some time and has reduced Barcelona’s reservoirs to 20 percent of their capacity.

“For the past four years, we’ve had a shortage of rain,” says Narcis Prat, a water expert at the University of Barcelona. “Now we have a shortage of water. Without significant rain, we only have enough to last until December.”

Professor Prat points out that the population of Spain’s second-largest city has grown by more than 1.5 million in the past 15 years, stretching limited resources further. That means the citizens’ “excellent” conservation habits aren’t enough, says Barcelona’s mayor, Jordi Hereu.

Read moreBarcelona: Unprecedented Emergency Plan to Alleviate a Drought in the City

Prince Charles: Eighteen months to stop climate change disaster

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The Prince of Wales has warned that the world faces a series of natural disasters within 18 months unless urgent action is taken to save the rainforests.

In one of his most out-spoken interventions in the climate change debate, he said a £15 billion annual programme was required to halt deforestation or the world would have to live with the dire consequences.

“We will end up seeing more drought and starvation on a grand scale. Weather patterns will become even more terrifying and there will be less and less rainfall,” he said.

“We are asking for something pretty dreadful unless we really understand the issues now and [the] urgency of them.” The Prince said the rainforests, which provide the “air conditioning system for the entire planet”, releasing water vapour and absorbing carbon, were being lost to poor farmers desperate to make a living.

He said that every year, 20 million hectares of forest – equivalent to the area of England, Wales and Scotland – were destroyed and called for a “gigantic partnership” of governments, businesses and consumers to slow it down.

“What we have got to do is try to ensure that these forests are more valuable alive than dead. At the moment, there is more value in them being dead,” he said.

Read morePrince Charles: Eighteen months to stop climate change disaster

Wildlife populations ‘plummeting’

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“Reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease and where water is in irregular or short supply.”
James Leape, Director general, WWF UK

Between a quarter and a third of the world’s wildlife has been lost since 1970, according to data compiled by the Zoological Society of London.


Over-fishing and demand for their fins as a delicacy have hit shark numbers

Populations of land-based species fell by 25%, marine by 28% and freshwater by 29%, it says.

Humans are wiping out about 1% of all other species every year, and one of the “great extinction episodes” in the Earth’s history is under way, it says.

Read moreWildlife populations ‘plummeting’

Honeybee Colony Collapse to Devastate Food Companies, Result in Food Scarcity

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“The alarm bells are ringing, folks. We have reached the limit of the planet’s ability to absorb our pollution and environmental devastation. I sadly predict the human species if not mature enough to make the necessary forward-thinking changes, and that it will only learn from disaster. That disaster is coming. Prepare to live in a world where food becomes desperately scarce. Prepare to see the human population collapse in almost precisely the same way the honeybee populations are collapsing.”

“As go the insects, so go humans.”

(There is a ongoing discussion weather Einstein said the following or not:

“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”

If Einstein never said that, would it be less true then? – The Infinite Unknown)
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(NaturalNews) The ongoing phenomenon of mysterious honeybee deaths is starting to raise alarm in the food industry, which depends heavily on bees to pollinate many critical crops. “Honeybee health and sustainable pollination is a major issue facing American agriculture that is threatening our food supply and endangering our natural environment,” said Diana Cox-Foster of Penn State.

I tend to think that honeybees are simply “on strike.” They’re tired of being slave workers for the very humans who continue to destroy their habitat, pollute their air and water, and steal the labors of their hard work (honey, bee pollen and free pollination services).

Honeybees pollinate 130 different crops, which supply $15 billion worth of food and ingredients each year. One out of every three bites of food on your dinner plate was made possible by honeybee pollination.

Read moreHoneybee Colony Collapse to Devastate Food Companies, Result in Food Scarcity

Toll from China quake estimated at 3,000 to 5,000

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BEIJING (AP) – A massive earthquake struck central China on Monday and state media reported that as many as 5,000 people were killed in a single county while nearly 900 students were trapped under the rubble of their school.

The official Xinhua News Agency said 80 percent of the buildings had collapsed in Beichuan county in Sichuan province after the 7.8-magnitude quake.

Xinhua reported that 3,000 to 5,000 people had died in Beichuan, which has a population of 160,000, raising fears the overall death toll could increase sharply. Another 10,000 people were believed to be hurt.

The earthquake sent thousands of people rushing out of buildings and into the streets hundreds of miles away in Beijing and Shanghai. The temblor was felt as far away as Pakistan, Vietnam and Thailand.

Read moreToll from China quake estimated at 3,000 to 5,000

Tornadoes kill at least 22 across US

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WASHINGTON (AFP) — US authorities rushed aid to disaster areas Monday after a series of tornadoes tore across the United States, killing at least 22 people, shattering homes and businesses, and leaving tens of thousands without power.

US President George W. Bush called it a “sad day” for devastated communities in the states of Missouri, Oklahoma and Georgia and promised emergency federal aid.

A total of 14 people were reported dead in Missouri, two in the southeastern state of Georgia, and six in Oklahoma, which earlier had reported seven fatalities. There were also scores of injured.

“We are still conducting some search and rescue today,” Susie Stonner, a spokeswoman for Missouri’s department of emergency management, told AFP, adding that some of the injured were “in hospital in critical condition.”

Numerous tornadoes touched down in Oklahoma late Saturday as the storms ripped across the state at 35-45 miles per hour (55-70 kmh), killing seven in the area near the town of Picher, the Oklahoma department of emergency management said. Some 150 people were injured there.

Fierce winds ripped roofs off houses, and other homes were thrashed to kindling as the storms downed power lines, utility poles and trees.

“In some cases, only a home’s concrete slab remains,” Oklahoma authorities said in a statement.

Read moreTornadoes kill at least 22 across US

Chile volcano blasts ash 20 miles high, forcing evacuations

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SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — The long-dormant Chaiten volcano blasted ash some 20 miles (30 kilometers) into the Andean sky on Tuesday, forcing the last of thousands to evacuate and fouling a huge stretch of the South American continent.

A thick column of ash climbed into the stratosphere and blew eastward for hundreds of miles (kilometers) over Patagonia to the Atlantic Ocean, closing schools and a regional airport. Chilean and Argentine citizens were advised to wear masks to avoid breathing the dangerous fallout.

Chilean officials ordered the total evacuation of Chaiten, a small provincial capital in an area of lakes and glacier-carved fjords just six miles (10 kilometers) from the roiling cloud.

Interior Minister Edmundo Perez said anyone still in the area should “urgently head to ships in the bay to be evacuated.”

More than 4,000 people were evacuated over the weekend and 350 more headed out Tuesday.

Also emptied was the soot-coated border town of Futaleufu, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) from the volcano.

The five-day-old eruption is the first in 9,370 years, said Charles Stern, a volcanologist at the University of Colorado-Boulder who has studied Chaiten.

He said the nearby town could end up buried, much like the Roman city of Pompeii following Mount Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 A.D. Volcanic material from Chaiten’s last eruption measured up to 5 feet in places.

“What happens after today is anybody’s guess,” Stern said.

Read moreChile volcano blasts ash 20 miles high, forcing evacuations

Myanmar cyclone survivors desperate for aid

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YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) — Bodies are being thrown into rivers by Myanmar cyclone survivors in desperate need of help.

The government-run radio station said Tuesday that 22,464 are confirmed dead and 41,000 are missing, and the United Nations says that up to 1 million could be homeless.

CNN’s Dan Rivers is the first Western journalist to reach Bogalay township, where China’s state-run Xinhua news agency says 10,000 died. He reported miserable conditions.

Rivers said that bodies were being dropped into rivers and that survivors had only small amounts of eggs and rice. The area’s rice mills are destroyed, leaving Bogalay with a five-day supply. Water pumps were also ruined, and fuel was scarce.

Read moreMyanmar cyclone survivors desperate for aid

China: One of the strongest typhoons in history

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BEIJING (Reuters) – Fifty-six Chinese fishermen were missing on Friday as a typhoon bore down on the southern resort island of Hainan which state media said was the earliest to threaten the region in decades and may well be the strongest.

The fishermen were taking shelter near the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea and had not been heard from since Thursday evening, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Hainan and the neighboring province of Guangdong are braced for Typhoon Neoguri, the first of the year, with almost 22,000 fishing boats having been called back to harbor as the storm skirted Vietnam.

“Neoguri will be the earliest typhoon of the season to affect the south China region since the founding of new China in 1949,” Chen Lei, deputy commander of the State Headquarters of Flood Control and Drought Relief, was quoted by Xinhua as saying.

The storm was expected to be “one of the strongest in history” to hit the region, Xinhua said.

Typhoon tracker Tropical Storm Risk labeled the storm as category two in a scale up to five, with maximum sustained winds of 96-110 miles per hour.

Read moreChina: One of the strongest typhoons in history

Ice shelf on verge of collapse

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Latest sign of global warming’s impact shocks scientists

A vast ice shelf hanging on by a thin strip looks to be the next chunk to break off from the Antarctic Peninsula, the latest sign of global warming’s impact on Earth’s southernmost continent.

Scientists are shocked by the rapid change of events.


An image of the Wilkins Ice Shelf disintegration taken from the
British Antarctic Survey’s Twin Otter aircraft reconnaissance flight.

Read moreIce shelf on verge of collapse

China – Drought

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RSOE Emergency and Disaster Information Service
Budapest, Hungary2008-03-20 15:16:03 – Drought – China

GLIDE CODE: DR-20080320-15931-CHN
Date & Time: 2008-03-20 15:16:03 [UTC]
Area: China, Hebei, Nei Mongol, Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Jilin, Shandong, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region,

!!! WARNING !!!

Description:

A number of regions in the north and northeast part of China were still fighting a continuous drought that could affect spring farming. Serious drought began to hit many big cities and prefectures of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the north, including Hulun Buir, Baotou, Ordos and Xilingol, early this month because of reduced rainfall since December, the autonomous regional meteorological bureau said Thursday.

Different localities received a maximum of 20 millimeters of rainfall over the past four months, up to 70 percent less than the corresponding period of previous years, according to Li Yunpeng, official with the meteorological center of ecology and agriculture. The drought would continue in the region until the first springrain comes in mid April, said Li. Meteorological authorities called for measures to maintain soilmoisture for the upcoming spring sowing. A severe drought in the neighboring Hebei Province had affected 3 million hectares of cropland and left residents in some areas short of drinking water. It is the 12th consecutive spring drought in the province, which only received seven millimeters of rainfall on average since the winter, about 60 percent less than normal years.

Read moreChina – Drought

Solar Cycle 24 Begins

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Jan. 10, 2008: Hang on to your cell phone, a new solar cycle has just begun.

“On January 4, 2008, a reversed-polarity sunspot appeared-and this signals the start of Solar Cycle 24,” says David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

newspot_strip.jpg
Above: Images of the first sunspot of Solar Cycle 24 taken by the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).

Solar activity waxes and wanes in 11-year cycles. Lately, we’ve been experiencing the low ebb, “very few flares, sunspots, or activity of any kind,” says Hathaway. “Solar minimum is upon us.”

The previous solar cycle, Solar Cycle 23, peaked in 2000-2002 with many furious solar storms. That cycle decayed as usual to the present quiet leaving solar physicists little to do other than wonder, when would the next cycle begin?

The answer is now.

Read moreSolar Cycle 24 Begins

Storms destroy one tenth of China’s forests

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China has lost about one tenth of its forest resources to recent snow storms regarded as the most severe in half a century, state media reported Sunday.A total of 43 million acres of forest have been damaged across China as the result of three weeks of savage winter weather, the China Daily website said, citing the State Forestry Administration.

More than half the country’s provinces have been affected, and in the worst-hit regions, nearly 90 percent of forests have been destroyed, according to the paper.

Read moreStorms destroy one tenth of China’s forests

Hungary to start the world’s first wild seed bank

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The world’s first gene bank for wild plants is to be established in Hungary, reports geographic.hu, the online version of National Geographic magazine’s Hungarian edition. The collection would be stored at the Institute of Agrobotany in Tápiószele, Pest County, and store the genes of 85,000 types of cultivated plants, making it Europe’s fifth largest agrobotany gene bank.
colchicum.jpg

Colchicum hungaricum (Magyar kikerics), one of Hungary’s protected plant species that lives only on the highest hill in the Villány Hills, the Szársomlyó, in Baranya County.

Read moreHungary to start the world’s first wild seed bank

Tens of thousands camp out after Indonesian quake: official

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JAKARTA, Feb 21, 2008 (AFP) – Tens of thousands of people camped outside their homes on the Indonesian island of Simeulue after a 7.5-magnitude quake that killed three, an official said Thursday.

The quake hit just off the remote island located near Sumatra on Wednesday, triggering panic across the region lashed by the earthquake-triggered 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed 168,000 people in Indonesia.

Read moreTens of thousands camp out after Indonesian quake: official