Climate scientists issue dire warning

BREAKING EARTH NEWS
Ice sheets and glaciers form the largest component of perennial ice on Earth. Over 75% of the world's fresh water is presently locked up in these frozen reservoirs.
A Glacier is any large mass of perennial ice that originates on land by the recrystallization of snow or other forms of solid precipitation and that shows evidence of past or present flow. A glacier occupying an extensive tract of relatively level land and exhibiting flow from the center outward is commonly called an ice sheet. Glaciers form when snow accumulates on a patch of land over tens to hundreds of years. The snow eventually becomes so thick that it collapses under its own weight and forms dense glacial ice. When enough of the ice is compacted together it succumbs to gravity and begins to flow downhill or spread out across flat lands. What makes glaciers unique is their ability to move. Due to sheer mass, glaciers flow like very slow rivers.
More than 90 percent of the 33 million cubic kilometers of glacier ice in the world is locked up in the gigantic Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Found only in Antarctica and Greenland, ice sheets are enormous masses of glacial ice and snow expanding over 50,000 square kilometers. The ice sheet on Antarctica is over 4200 meters thick in some areas, covering nearly all of the land features except the Transantarctic Mountains, which protrude above the ice.


Tuesday,February 28, 2006
Glaciers & Ice Sheets
The Earth's temperature could rise under the impact of global warming to levels far higher than previously predicted, according to the United Nations' team of climate experts.

A draft of the next influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report will tell politicians that scientists are now unable to place a reliable upper limit on how quickly the atmosphere will warm as carbon dioxide levels increase. The report draws together research over the past five years and will be presented to national governments in April and made public next year. It raises the possibility of the Earth's temperature rising well above the ceiling quoted in earlier accounts.

Such an outcome would have severe consequences, such as the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet and disruption of the Gulf Stream ocean current.

RELATED STORY: Water Wars: Climate change may spark conflict

John Reid warns climate change may spark conflict between nations - and says British armed forces must be ready to tackle the violence

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Toll in Iraq's Deadly Surge: 1,300

Morgue Count Eclipses Other Tallies Since Shrine Attack
Photo Left: The bodies of 12 members of an Iraqi family lie on the ground outside a hospital in Baquba, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad, on Feb. 25, after gunmen stormed their house and killed them.

Washington Post Foreign ServiceTuesday, February 28, 2006
BAGHDAD, Feb. 27 -- Grisly attacks and other sectarian violence unleashed by last week's bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis, making the past few days the deadliest of the war outside of major U.S. offensives, according to Baghdad's main morgue. The toll was more than three times higher than the figure previously reported by the U.S. military and the news media.
Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday -- blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound -- and many of them had wound up at the morgue after what their families said was their abduction by the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

RELATED EDITORIAL REPORT: Good news, we found the body Rama Schneider
I'm not sure how much evidence it'll take to convince us, the people of the United States, it is up to us to literally force our government to end its (and ours by the way) warlike ways. I'm not sure what it'll take to convince our nation's youth poor job prospects are not a legitimate reason to kill and maim folks who never attacked us. Maybe what people in Baghdad are grateful for nowadays will help ...
There's yet one more telling story discussing Bush's (and ours) viscous, torturous, bloody Iraqi war. "Grisly attacks and other sectarian violence unleashed by last week's bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis, making the past few days the deadliest of the war outside of major U.S. offensives, according to Baghdad's main morgue.The toll was more than three times higher than the figure previously reported by the U.S. military and the news media." (Toll in Iraq's Deadly Surge: 1,300, Washington Post, 02/28/06).
The article goes on to discuss hundreds of unclaimed bodies that included "blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads." I pointed out in a previous post (We could've just left Saddam in place) none of this should be surprising. The formula is very simple: violence begets more violence, and extremely few in the U.S. government appear to have the courage, intelligence, honesty and moral backbone to realize we need to change our own ways to effect a positive change in the situation in Iraq.
Simply put how much more pain, death and destruction must we help inflict upon other people?The final sentence of the above referenced WP story reads '"Good news, we found the body," another man called out. "We found him."' Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we as a people are in great part responsible for the circumstances in Iraq that led to that sad statement.

Dry winter points way to summer drought for Europe

BREAKING EARTH NEWS
Published: February 27 2006 02:00 Last updated: February 27 2006 02:00
The drought that threatens much of western and southern Europe this summer is already creating problems in France, Spain and the UK, and will grow more serious if meteorologists are right in their predictions
Drought poses a threat to farmers and tourism, but also to electricity generation and industries such as food processing and semiconductors, which require water as an input or for cooling.
Winter rainfall has been disappointing across much of the continent, and with some countries still recovering from the effects of a relatively dry winter last year and the heatwave of 2003, sustained heavy rain over the next two months would be needed to avoid the risk of drought this summer.

Snow cyclone paralyses traffic

BREAKING CLIMATE NEWS
YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, February 28 (Itar-Tass) - A snow cyclone that has moved from the Sakhalin Island on Tuesday has covered with deep snow almost all local roads. Traffic is paralysed on the main 800-kilometre highway connecting the south and north of Sakhalin. There is no way from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk to the Nevelsk and Kholmsk cities. At some places the thickness of snow layer above roads is reaching 1.5 metres. Over 130 bulldozers, graders, rotary and other snow-clearing machines have been dispatched to liquidate the aftermath of the snowstorm, the automobile roads department of the Sakhalin region has reported.
The descent of snow avalanches on roads has been registered everywhere. The avalanches are not big, but in many places they come down one on another and form dense snow layers on roads. A snow jam on the Lovetsky pass on which the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk-Nevelsk road runs is three kilometres in size.
According to Sakhalin meteorologists, at present the centre of the cyclone has moved to the Sea of Okhotsk, but snowstorms continue in the north of the island where the wind speed is 22 metres per second.

Secrets Of The Deep May Hold Clue To Ancient Global Warming

Photo Above: Jointly supervised by the University of Leicester Department of Geology and the British Geological Survey (BGS), a postgraduate researcher based at Leicester and the BGS is to investigate exquisitely preserved fossil zooplankton known as graptolites, which may hold some clues to global warming events 420 million years ago. (Image courtesy of University Of Leicester)

Posted Feb 26, 2006

Global warming events 420 million years ago, comparable to those currently beginning to affect our planet, may have caused catastrophic environmental changes in an ancient ocean, threatening the life that existed in it.

Jointly supervised by the University of Leicester Department of Geology and the British Geological Survey (BGS), a postgraduate researcher based at Leicester and the BGS is to investigate exquisitely preserved fossil zooplankton known as graptolites, which may hold some clues to these events.
These mysterious creatures were entombed 420 million years ago in layers of mud at the bottom of this former deep sea, which was subsequently transformed into the mountains of central Wales.
PhD student Andrea Snelling, working with fellow Leicester scientists Jan Zalasiewicz and Alex Page, will use the graptolites as biological tracers to study the behaviour of that ancient ocean, in which life on the sea floor was periodically killed off. Global warming is one of several possible causes that will be examined.
Andrea Snelling commented:
"These oceans, and the animals that lived in them, were very unlike the ones we know today. Yet understanding these ancient phenomena may help us understand the changes that are taking place in our oceans today."
Editor's Note: The original news release can be found here.

Iraq government warns of "endless civil war"

Feb 26, 2007
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's defense minister warned on Saturday of a "civil war" that "will never end" and said he was ready to put tanks on the streets as sectarian violence flared despite a second day of curfew in Baghdad.
Extending a traffic ban in the capital to Monday after battles around Sunni mosques and a car bomb in a holy Shi'ite city, leaders scrambled to break a round of reprisals sparked by a suspected al Qaeda bombing of a Shi'ite shrine on Wednesday.
The gravest crisis since the U.S. invasion in 2003 threatens Washington's hopes of withdrawing its 136,000 troops from Iraq.
"If there is a civil war in this country it will never end," Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi, a minority Sunni Muslim in the Shi'ite-led interim government, told a news conference.
"We are ready to fill the streets with armored vehicles."

New Orleans A Shadow Of Former Self Six Months After Hurricane

SKYWATCH SPECIAL REPORT
New Orleans LO (AFP) Feb 26, 2006
The bright lights of Bourbon Street are back. Beads are being thrown from balconies. Beer and hurricanes are being served to go. But six months after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, the Big Easy remains a shadow of its former self. "It's bad. If it would have been last year you wouldn't be able to walk, there'd be so many people," said Sangite Malla.
Tourists flying in for Mardi Gras see a city pock-marked by blue tarps covering roofs that haven't been repaired.
Those who stray outside the French Quarter and Garden District find neighborhoods abandoned to the mould and rot that followed floodwaters that lingered for weeks.
Deadened traffic lights have been replaced with stop signs. Houses that were knocked off their foundations remain crumbled in the middle of the street.
More than half the city's population is still scattered across the country. Some have vowed never to return. Many are afraid to rebuild their houses until the levees are repaired and reinforced, a process that could take years. Those who came back are exhausted.
Casual conversations quickly degenerate into tales of repair work left to be done, government assistance checks that haven't arrived and the struggles to secure temporary housing amid skyrocketing rents and promised trailers that never materialize.
"It is an unbelievable nightmare. Not only did we see the destruction, but there's this retrauma from all these things that you thought you could count on in a disaster letting you down," said Ann Wilder, a counselor with the New Orleans Mental Health Resilience Team who has seen a dramatic spike in depression and anxiety.
Most people expect it will be years before the city looks normal again. Few think it will ever be the same.

Continue
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Bird flu spreads amid pandemic fears

BREAKING VIRAL NEWS: PANDEMIC ALERT
A GLOBAL CONCERN: VIEW SLIDESHOW

Feb 27, 2006
BIRD flu continues to spread, with 14 European countries as well as Egypt, India, Nigeria and Iraq reporting poultry or wild birds that have been infected by avian influenza.
The confirmation of the H5N1 strain of the virus at a commercial farm in the EU has thrown France's $A10 billion poultry industry into chaos. Daniel Clair was forced to destroy 11,000 turkeys at his farm in the Ain region of south-east France. "I found 400 bodies and the others were already very sick," he told Le Parisien newspaper. "It struck like lightning."
But although China reported two new cases of bird flu in humans yesterday, World Health Organisation specialists stressed there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission.
Dr Michael Perdue of the WHO's Global Influenza Program said he was encouraged by the absence of new cases of human infection this year in Vietnam and Thailand.
Asked about the chances of a human pandemic, Dr Perdue said that on a scale of 1 to 10 "maybe we're midway, around 4 or 5 but the next question is, 'How long does it take to get to the number 6?' These are very difficult questions to answer."

RELATED STORY: Bird flu strikes in France
Feb 27, 2006
The European Union's first outbreak of the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu in commercial poultry was confirmed Saturday in France, the EU's largest poultry producer.
But President Jacques Chirac, trying to keep the lucrative market alive, sought to ease fears by insisting that eating poultry is safe and panic is unjustified.

China On 'High Alert' Over Bird Flu
(CBS/AP) China's agriculture minister is warning of a possible "massive bird flu outbreak" as the country announced two new human cases of the H5N1 flu strain, raising to 14 the number of human infections reports since October. "In view of the current situation, the possibility of a massive bird flu outbreak could not be ruled out," Agriculture Ministry Du Qinglin said Saturday, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. He called for agriculture authorities to be on "high alert" and to step up disease monitoring and vaccination efforts.

Weather burns a hole into India’s bread basket

SKYWATCH EARTH NEWS
Untimely heat causes poor grain quality, lower wheat yields in Punjab

LUDHIANA, FEBRUARY 16: At a time when wheat stocks have hit a new low, there is a serious problem to reckon with. Over the last five years, the per hectare yield of wheat in Punjab has fallen. Experts believe it is due to the temperatures rising steadily in January and February, a time most crucial for the wheat crop.
The average day and night temperatures have been 4-5 degrees Celsius higher than the normal.

Scores evacuated after flash floods hit Malaysia

CLIMATE NEWS
Feb 26, 2006
Scores of Malaysians are evacuated and others are trapped in their homes after heavy overnight rain triggered flash floods, a disaster response official say.
Four hours of continuous rain caused the Damansara river west of the capital Kuala Lumpur to burst its banks and flood hundreds of homes in the suburb of Shah Alam and surrounding areas.
"Up to 400 homes have been flooded and we have so far evacuated 150 people," Borhan Madon, an officer with the fire and rescue department, told AFP.
Borhan said floodwater in Kebun Bunga village was up to two metres (6.6 feet) deep.
"We are still evacuating people in our boats. But many refuse to move out," he said, adding that some 84 personnel are involved in the rescue.

Snow causes chaos on Algerian roads

BREAKING CLIMATE NEWS: North Africa
Photo Left: Satellite Image of Snow Across Morocco and Algeria
CLICK HERE TO ENLARGE PHOTO

Feb 27, 2006
Algeria - Heavy snow has cut off villages and clogged key arteries leading away from the Algerian capital Algiers for several days, national police said on Sunday.Djelfa, which had 70cm, was "totally paralysed", the Algerian Press Agency reported.At least 60cm of snow blanketed villages near Djelfa and Medea, respectively 270km and 80km south of Algiers.An AFP reporter said only donkeys and mules could ply the roads around the villages.Snow is unusual in the north African country, but last winter saw snowfalls of more than two metres in several parts of the north-east.The main roads remained dangerous even after they were cleared, authorities warned.

Strong Quake Strikes Nears Fiji Islands

BREAKING SEISMIC NEWS
February 26, 2006, 4:21 AM EST
HONG KONG -- A strong earthquake struck off Fiji Islands in the South Pacific on Sunday, Hong Kong seismologists said. It was not immediately clear if the tremor caused any casualties or damages.
The magnitude-6.5 quake struck at 11:20 a.m. Sunday, and the epicenter was located about 390 miles southwest of the Fijian capital of Suva, the Hong Kong Observatory said in a brief statement. The U.S. Geological Survey also reported the magnitude at 6.5.

RELATED NEWS: Tremor frees butterflies
Feb 26, 2006
While Friday's quake was relatively minor, the feelings of uneasiness last longer than the shakeup

Residents seek answers to mystery booms and shaking

SKYWATCH SPECIAL REPORT

February 24, 2006
SKOWHEGAN, Maine --People in Somerset County are seeking answers after feeling earthquake-like tremors this week.
The Somerset County Communications Center got calls Thursday morning from at least a dozen residents who reported tremors in a 15-mile radius in Anson, Madison, Skowhegan and Norridgewock.
But state officials said there weren't any earthquakes that were documented by the New England Seismic Network, which tracks earthquake activity.
Somerset County Emergency Management Director Robert Higgins said he wants a second look. People in Solon last week reported hearing an unexplained loud explosion that shook homes, he said.
"I'd like them to re-look at what they may have. This is the second occurrence in less than a week of such magnitude," he said.
Norridgewock Town Manager John Doucette said Thursday's event sounded and felt like a Dumpster had fallen off a truck or a truck had hit the town office building, but that nothing could be found when employees went outside to see what happened.
More than a mile away, Jeffrey McGown said he felt the shaking in his office. But he, too, couldn't find the cause.
"It felt like somebody with a delivery type of vehicle had backed into our building," McGown said.
Six miles away in Anson, the boom and shaking were so strong that an off-duty dispatcher called the county's dispatch center. He thought maybe his chimney collapsed or his furnace exploded, but he couldn't determine the cause either.

Related Story
Reports continued to pour in Friday from residents who said they experienced what appeared to be earthquake tremors at about 10 a.m. Thursday morning. "The number and validity of reports received Thursday and Friday - in addition to similar reports last Friday in Solon - indicate Thursday's event was significant and not just a sonic boom."

Recent Related Report
Booms Are Back
Jan 16, 2006
In early January, a huge boom actually shook houses and rattled windows along the Carolina coast. Local TV channel WECT and sound technician Alex Markowski, who teaches at the University of North Carolina recorded the boom on tape. Markowski picked up the low frequency sounds on his special recording equipment.

Heavy snow continues in Liaoning province

BREAKING CLIMATE NEWS
Photo Left: A thick blanket of snow covered northeast China's Liaoning Province Saturday. Weather report says most parts of the province are still expecting more snowfall.(Photo: Xinhua)

SHENYANG, Feb. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- A thick blanket of snow covered northeast China's Liaoning Province Saturday and a weather report said most parts of the province would still expect heavy snowfall or blizzard.
The central meteorological station in the provincial capital Shenyang sent a red alarm for snow disaster at 5:46 a.m., indicating the snowstorm could seriously affect local traffic and the stock raising industry within two hours.
In China, the alarm of incidents, including disastrous weather,is shown in red, orange, yellow and blue respectively, with an red alarm standing for top urgency.
Due to a chilling front from Baikal, a rare snowstorm started to hit Liaoning Province Friday, the first heavy snowfall since Feb. 4, the day that marks the start of spring in the Chinese lunar calendar.
The snow closed Shenyang's Taoxian International Airport and five of the province's total 10 expressways.
As it takes time to clean off the thick snow blanket on the parking apron and runways, airport authorities said the airport will probably resume operation at 12:00 p.m. Saturday, instead of 8:00 a.m. as was predicted on Friday.
On Saturday morning, the fallen snow in downtown Shenyang measured at least 15 centimeters.

Preparedness is the key to survival in storms

Feb 26, 2006
Article posted in its entirety
It's Severe Weather Awareness Week, and Jim Burns, director of Clark County's Office of Emergency Management, wants to help residents of the county prepare for possible storms.
Preparedness is the key to survival in severe weather, he said. Severe weather is not limited to tornadoes. "Ice storms, strong thunderstorms, flooding, wind storms, these are all severe weather."
He reminds residents to check batteries in NOAA weather radios and flashlights in case of power outages. It's also a good idea to check supplies in storm shelters or safe rooms and make sure there is enough food and water for the family.
Burns said his office has a few NOAA weather radios that can be provided free of charge to daycare and senior citizen centers. For more information on severe weather preparedness, contact him at 246-0013.
In an average year, Arkansas has 21 confirmed tornadoes, according to data from the National Weather Service in Little Rock. Most of those tornadoes occur in March, April and May. However, 2005 was a most unusual year, Burns said.
In 2005, only four tornadoes had been reported in the state through the end of May. But 40 more tornadoes were seen during the rest of the year, including 15 that were spawned in August by Hurricane Rita, according to the National Weather Service. However, the most tornadoes ever verified in one day occurred on Nov. 27, 2005, when 31 tornadoes were spotted in Arkansas. Two of those storms were rated F3, which means they included winds of more than 150 mph. One of the tornadoes hit Conway County near Plumerville, causing one fatality.
Two more tornadoes occurred in December, bringing the total to 52 for the year, according to statistics from the National Weather Service in Little Rock.
Also unusual was the path of the storms, Burns said.
Typically, tornadoes in Arkansas travel along the "I-30/U.S. 67/167 corridor," Burns said. That is, tornadoes travel southwest to northeast, or diagonally, across the state.
The path is supported by geographic data, he said. "Tornadoes take the path of least resistance," he said. By traveling along the foothills of Arkansas' mountain ranges, the tornadoes skip across the state in the lower-lying areas.
Last year, tornadoes struck areas that often don't see such storms, in Yell Conway, Cleburne, Fulton and Sharp counties.
No one knows why that happened. "The National Weather Service has no explanation for it," Burns said. "I wouldn't blame it on anything but the providence of God."

Chertoff Worried Gulf Not Ready for Storms

Feb 24, 2006
Photo Left: Houses are still sit where they floated together in St. Bernard Parish La. Thursday Feb. 23, 2006. The houses are in the same location almost six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the region. (AP Photo/)

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Friday he is worried the Gulf Coast may not be ready to withstand another major storm as it struggles to recover from Hurricane Katrina.
Less than 100 days before the start of the next hurricane season on June 1, Chertoff said his department is working now with state and local officials to develop plans for evacuations and other emergency response priorities.
But with so much of Louisiana and Mississippi still under reconstruction with partly rebuilt homes and numerous house trailers, "I personally am very concerned," he said.
"I can't tell you when the next hurricane is going to come, or where it's going to come, but I can envision a scenario in which it will head into a partly reconstructed area that will be vulnerable," Chertoff told reporters.

Drought Intensifying in Cuba

Havana, Feb 22 (AIN)
Article posted in its entirety

A recent study has confirmed that drought is intensifying in Cuba since it rains much less now than 46 years ago. The situation is worst in the eastern provinces of the island, says the study carried out by the Cuban National Institute of Water Resources(INRH)
INRH experts warned that the average annual rainfall has decreased, between 1961 and 2000, from 1,468 millimeters to 1,335, as posted on Granma newspaper online.
In the eastern part of the country the situation is critical since the average rainfall has dropped to 1,279 millimeters. Rainfall in all five eastern provinces have diminished by 260 millimeters, adds the report.
The research confirmed that the peak month for the rainy season falls in May in the eastern provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo, while it is June in Havana, Matanzas, Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, Sancti Spiritus, Ciego de Avila, Camaguey and Las Tunas.
Calculations point to the Cauto river basin as the catchment area most affected over the last few years by drought. Compared to the period between 1931-1960, the rains there have diminished by 33 percent.

RELATED NEWS
Feb 23, 2006
MP highlights drought 'disaster zone'
The Member for Gregory says parts of western Queensland resemble a "disaster zone" because of prolonged drought.
Vaughan Johnson says he has driven the region around Charleville, Quilpie, Retreat and Jundah and it is in the worst condition he has ever seen.

UK suffers worst drought in over 100 years
DRYING UP: Serious water shortages are looming in some parts of the UK, with one town in the southeast receiving less rainfall last year than parts of Namibia and Somalia

Cyprus hit by severe sandstorm

BREAKING NEWS
Feb 25, 2006 — NICOSIA (Reuters) - Cyprus was engulfed in an unusually severe sandstorm on Saturday, sending people to hospital with breathing problems and canceling flights from the Mediterranean holiday island.
A thick blanket of gritty dust settled over the capital Nicosia, blotting out the sun and giving the capital a beige tinge from sand brought in gusts from the African Sahara.

RELATED STORY: People in hospital after sand storm
A sand storm from the Sahara Desert that hit most parts of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus sent at least 15 people to hospital and disrupted flights.

FEMA: New Madrid earthquake preparedness is agency priority

Feb 24, 2006
ST. LOUIS - Preparing for a catastrophic earthquake along the New Madrid fault is a priority, a FEMA official said Friday before a congressional field hearing on government readiness to handle natural disasters.
"New Madrid is at the top of the list," Michel Pawlowski, section chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said. "It's our primary objective."
Pawlowski told a congressional committee that FEMA has "significant concerns" for the potential of a catastrophic earthquake equal in magnitude to those that struck parts of the Mississippi River Valley in 1811-1812, and again in 1895. The estimated magnitude of those earthquakes is 7.5 or 8. The probability of a magnitude 6 or larger earthquake is 25 percent to 50 percent over the next 50 years.
Even a magnitude 7 earthquake would destroy more than 60 percent of buildings in St. Louis and Memphis, Tenn., because most buildings predate building requirements aimed at resisting the shock, officials estimate.
"A catastrophic earthquake in the central United States along the New Madrid Seismic Zone could pose unprecedented problems and challenges," Pawlowski said

RELATED INFO: Earthquakes and the New Madrid Fault Line

56 dead in Moscow roof collapse

Photo Left: The devastation following the roof collapse of a Moscow market Thursday. (AP Photo/)

Last Updated Thu, 23 Feb 2006 17:01:44 EST
CBC News
The snow-covered roof of a Moscow market collapsed on Thursday, killing at least 56 people and trapping others beneath the rubble, said emergency officials
Rescuers are using pickaxes and metal cutters to clear away the wreckage of the Bauman market, which collapsed around 5 a.m. local time.
Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said people could be heard knocking and crying out beneath the rubble. Another Russian official, Emergency Situations Ministry head Yuri Akimov, said some were using cellphones to tell family and friends they were alive.

Britain may face water rationing

BREAKING EARTH NEWS: DROUGHT IN BRITAIN
FEB 24, 2006
BRITONS must use less water or face rationing as the country suffered its worst drought in a century, the head of the country's Environment Agency said today.In some parts of the southeast, reservoirs are at less than half their capacity at a time when they should be at or near full as the country emerges from the winter.
"We are in a serious situation now, where both the environment and our water supplies are at risk," agency chief Barbara Young said.
"Groundwater levels in some areas are the lowest on record."





RELATED STORY
Photo Left: A Kenyan Maasai herdsman walks with his cattle in search of water in Kajiado District some 110 km (68 miles) from Nairobi. REUTERS
Drought traps African farmers in vicious circle
KATHYAKA, Kenya, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Village elder Thomas Mulinge sees the drought that ruined his people's crops and left them begging for food as a punishment from God for man's sins.
"There is nothing you can do but wait for death," the greying 60-year-old said, seeking shelter from the sweltering midday heat under a dusty tree. "It is God's will."

2 cities, 3 towns get advisory on Mayon Volcano

BREAKING VOLCANIC NEWS
CLICK HERE TO ENLARGE PHOTO
Feb 23, 2006
LEGAZPI CITY — Two cities and three towns were told to be ready to evacuate as Mayon Volcano spewed ash 500 m above its crater and more than 20 tremors jolted the area yesterday.
The provincial disaster coordinating council has issued advisories to the cities of Tabaco and Ligao and the towns of Malilipot, Daraga and Camalig amid increased seismic activity, said action officer Cedric Daep.
Daep added that some 10 villages on the slope of the volcano would have to be moved once the volcano erupts.

RELATED STORY: 9 earthquakes recorded in Philippine volcano
MANILA, Feb. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- Nine volcanic earthquakes were recorded on Thursday in Mayon volcano in Albay, 330 km south east to Manila, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS)

Search For Massive Landslide Survivors Has Ended

BREAKING EARTH NEWS
Photo Left: U.S. Marines from the 31st. Marine Expedition Unit crawl so as not to sink in the mud at the landslide area Friday, Feb. 24, 2006 in Guinsaugon, Leyte, southeast of Manila. The U.S. Marines 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit who were diverted from their joint military exercise in Jolo have joined in the ongoing search and rescue operations of landslide victims. (AP Photo)
Feb 24, 2006
GUINSAUGON, Philippines -- Rescue teams abandoned the search for survivors of a landslide that buried a farming village, and now will focus on helping people left homeless by the disaster, the provincial governor said Friday.
"We have collectively decided to stop the search and rescue phase of the operation," said Gov. Rosette Lerias of Southern Leyte province.
"We have decided to move on to recovery and rehabilitation of survivors because our greater responsibility ... is to rebuild the lives of those who have been devastated by this disaster," she said.

Heavy Rains Prompt Widespread Hawaii Flooding

BREAKING CLIMATE NEWS
Farmers Fear Smaller Harvest
PHOTO: CLICK HERE TO ENLARGE

POSTED: 7:15 am PST February 22, 2006
UPDATED: 7:45 am PST February 22, 2006
HONOLULU -- The National Weather Service placed Kauai, Oahu and Molokai under several weather alerts on Tuesday as heavy rains pounded the area.
Heavy rains flooded homes and farms on Kauai on Monday and shut down the only road into and out of Hanalei.
People who live in Hanalei said it's the worst flooding they've seen there in more than five years. The wettest spot on the island got about 18 inches of rain in a 24-hour period.
Hanalei Valley was covered with floodwaters. There were only a few spots where some of the taro grown there was still visible.
At mid-afternoon on Tuesday, the 24-hour rainfall total for Hanalei River was 8 inches and Mount Waialeale above it, the wettest spot in the world, recorded more than 18 inches of rain in the last day.
Hanalei taro farmers said the floods will stunt their crops, meaning a smaller harvest.

Building structure collapses in Manila

BREAKING EARTH NEWS

Feb 23, 2006
The metal foundations of a building under construction in Manila collapsed following ground movement along Adriatico Street in Manila, ABS-CBN News reported.
The gap created by the shifting of the street virtually swallowed two parked vehicles by the roadside past 4 p.m. No one was hurt as the vehicles were left parked without passengers.
Initial reports from ABS-CBN TV Patrol World said the metal beams supporting the Adriatico Towers near Robinson's Place Manila gave way after a tremor shook the area. The site is being managed by construction company DM Consunji Inc.
The gap created a six-foot road slip that sank the vehicles.
Past 6 p.m., the construction site's tower crane collapsed.
Guimbi Valenzuela, a resident in the area, said the metal beams of the structure gave way after the street collapse.
Police were immediately dispatched to the area to prevent onlookers from straying into the road gap, which has been continued to sink from ground level.

What's stalling local hurricane recovery?

UPDATE: HURRICANE KATRINA RELIEF EFFORTS
BALTIMORE (February 20, 2006) — Lack of state and national collaboration is weakening local hurricane recovery and hampering preparation for next hurricane season, say community leaders
Despite fresh political appointees and new task forces, the nation is still unprepared for another disaster the size of Hurricane Katrina, showed a report released this month.
More than half of states nationwide reported uncertainty about being prepared for a catastrophic disaster.

France reports second case of bird flu, India expands bird cull

BREAKING VIRAL NEWS: FRANCE
Feb 23, 2006
Even as India struggles to contain bird flu, France has reported its second case of the dreaded H5N1 virus in a wild duck. Laboratory reports confirmed the presence of the virus in a duck in the Ain region in eastern France. The first duck that died due to avian flu was found in the same region in a village called Joyeux.According to the French agriculture ministry, the second duck had a strain of H5N1 virus that was “99 per cent homologous with the virus identified in the wild duck in Joyeux on Saturday”. Preventive measures like close monitoring of the area and vaccination of poultry would now be enforced to curb the disease from spreading further, the ministry added.The rapid spread of the disease is worrying medical experts the world over. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), outbreaks of the disease have been noted in poultry farms in Kano, Plateau, Katsina, Bauchi and Abuja regions of Nigeria.

Magnitude 7.5 Earthquake Hits Mozambique

BREAKING SEISMIC NEWS
MAPUTO, Mozambique Feb 22, 2006 (AP)— A powerful earthquake struck Mozambique early Thursday morning, shaking buildings and forcing people from hundreds of miles around to dash into the streets for safety. There were no early reports of injuries.
The magnitude-7.5 quake struck at 12:19 a.m. in southern Mozambique, 140 miles southwest of the coastal city of Beira, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The temblor was felt in the neighboring nations of Zimbabwe and Zambia and as far south as Durban, South Africa, 800 miles away.

SEISMIC UPDATE: Powerful earthquake strikes Southern African east coast; two killed and around 30 hurt

An earthquake struck Mozambique early Thursday morning making people scamper into the streets of its capital Maputo and other major cities of the country. Two people have been confirmed killed and 13 were injured in Espungabero while 30 were reported injured from Maputo. Measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale, its impact was felt most in the port city of Beira, 140 miles northeast of the epicenter

Major earthquakes are UNUSUAL in southern Africa. "It's a significant and unexpected earthquake in this region. We'll expect aftershocks from an earthquake this large." [5.3 and 5.4 this morning] Emergency services in the South African city of Durban, nearly 1,000km from the epicentre, received calls from frightened people in hotels and flats on the beachfront. Tremors were also felt in Johannesburg.

Ancient Climate Studies Suggest Earth On Fast Track To Global Warming

SKYWATCH FEATURE STORY: IMPACT OF GLOBAL WARMING
Photo Left: Higher ocean temperatures could also slowly release massive quantities of methane that now lie frozen in marine deposits. A greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, methane in the atmosphere would accelerate global warming even further.

Santa Cruz CA (SPX) Feb 16, 2006
Human activities are releasing greenhouse gases more than 30 times faster than the rate of emissions that triggered a period of extreme global warming in the Earth's past, according to an expert on ancient climates.
"The emissions that caused this past episode of global warming probably lasted 10,000 years. By burning fossil fuels, we are likely to emit the same amount over the next three centuries," said James Zachos, professor of Earth sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Zachos will present his findings this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in St. Louis. He is a leading expert on the episode of global warming known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when global temperatures shot up by 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit). This abrupt shift in the Earth's climate took place 55 million years ago at the end of the Paleocene epoch as the result of a massive release of carbon into the atmosphere in the form of two greenhouse gases: methane and carbon dioxide.

Tidal wave movie to hit London

SKYWATCH ANNOUNCEMENT
A film about the real-life threat of a tidal wave hitting London will begin shooting in the capital in the spring. The Flood has echoes of The Day After Tomorrow

Feb 22, 2006
The Flood tells the story of what would happen if the city's dam defences were breached and is based on research that suggests global warming could cause the Thames to rise to catastrophic levels.

The £16 million movie stars Robert Carlyle, Joanne Whalley, David Suchet and Tom Courtenay and is tipped for release early next year.

It is the first feature by director Tony Mitchell, whose credits include BBC disaster drama Supervolcano, about the global fall-out if the volcano beneath Yellowstone National Park in America erupted.

Strawberries grown in Hsinchu grows to huge sizes

CLIMATE RELATED NEWS

Feb 22, 2006
Weather factors have impacted the strawberry crop in the Hsinchu area this year, resulting in the fruit growing to sizes rarely seen. Many strawberry farms in the area have produced not only huge fruit, but fruit that has grown in forms not typical of strawberries. A farmer in the township of Kuanhsi, which is located in Hsinchu County, began cultivating strawberry plants a while back that yielded fruit that was the size of one's fist. In recent days, people have come to notice that the plants grown in Kuanhsi, Chiunglin and other areas are producing fruit that has grown in strange forms. The weird-looking fruit is rarely seen anyplace else. However, farmers said that only the second crop of the season exhibited the strange looking fruit, and farmers finished harvesting the fruit on Sunday. As a result, it is unlikely that people will see much more of this odd fruit for the rest of this year.

Living With Drought

Breaking Earth News: Australia
Skywatch Special Edition
Feb 22, 2006
Scientists and historians are only now coming to realise that in 1788 when Australia was settled, and for some time after that, they were in the middle of an unusual weather pattern, one that gave adequate rain and turned normally arid zones into useable land. Australia is one of the driest countries on earth. Much of Australia is desert, and most of the population clings to the narrow coastal zones. Weather patterns in Australia tend to show that out of every 10 years, they have 3 bad years, 3 good years and 4 average years. Many of their droughts are brought on by the El Nino effect. This usually only affects the eastern & northern areas of Australia. Brisbane is currently in the grip of a very severe drought, so severe that water restrictions have, for the first time in many years, been brought to bear in major cities. Their water supply is, at the time of writing, 34%. This gives them about 2 years of water – if they’re lucky. Queensland state government has made it mandatory for all houses built after 2005 to have a rainwater tank as part of the construction. The plan is that the water in these tanks will be used for flushing toilets, in the laundry and watering the garden.

RELATED NEWS:
Bushfire season warnings
Summer in Australia (November to April), in particular, carries a high risk of bush fires, which can be caused by anything from lightning strikes to carelessness with camp fires or cigarette butts. Winter (May to October) also carries a fire risk in the northern part of Australia.

Central region deals with heavy flooding

GLOBAL FLOODING/LANDSLIDES
Feb 21, 2006
Torrential rains hit the central provinces of Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien-Hue last week, causing floods in these localities, damaging close to 8,000ha of rice and cash crops.
Around 2,100ha of rice fields and 370ha of vegetable farms in Quang Binh, were under nearly 1m of water; 2,500ha of rice and 500ha of vegetable crop in Quang Tri as well as 1,800ha of rice and 600ha of cash crops in Thua Thien-Hue were affected by rains.
Chief of Quang Binh Province's Committee for Storm-Flood Prevention and Rescue Nguyen Ngoc Giai, said a 100m-long dike collapsed when water rose by 1.36m in Kien Giang River even as the province was repairing damages from last year's floods

RELATED NEWS

BRAZIL - After historic drought, Amazon now faces RECORD FLOODING. In the capital of the state of Acre, Rio Branco, 861 families are presently housed in temporary shelters due to the rains that have fallen for the over ten consecutive days in the region. Last September, at the height of a historic drought, the Acre River was exactly 1.6 meters deep. At the moment it is 16.6 meters deep and rising. "Our alert level is 13.9 meters. At 14 meters the water escapes the riverbed and we get flooding." So far an estimated 7,800 structures have been flooded in the city, 90% of them residences.

PHILIPPINES - A landslide of the same magnitude as the one that hit St. Bernard in Southern Leyte is not likely to occur in Cebu, but geologists warned officials and residents of at least 25 landslide-prone barangays in the region about the hazards of soil movement. A team of geologists confirmed there are new cracks in rock formations in Sirao, which means the soil movement that was first detected in 1996 continues.

INDONESIA - A day-long torrential rain unleashed a landslide in the Indonesian province of North Sulawesi Tuesday, leaving worries that at least 17 people were killed in the disaster. The landslide hit the provincial capital of Manado, some 2,300 km northeast of Jakarta. Local authorities said six people were seriously injured and sent to the nearest hospitals.

PHIVOLCS raises Mayon volcano alert

VOLCANIC ALERT
Feb 22, 2006
The Mayon volcano in Albay Tuesday spewed ash, noting an increased seismic activity in the area.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology reported the minor ash explosion at 9:41 a.m., the ash column rising at 500 meters and drifting southwest.
Renato Solidum, PHIVOLCS director, said that ash deposits from the explosion were limited to the upper slopes.
Simultaneously, a small explosion-type earthquake shook nearby areas but its intensity was only recognizable by seismographs around the volcano.
Solidum said they expect similar ash explosions in the coming days with magma entering the summit area and releasing volcanic gases.
Before the ash explosion, the PHIVOLCS also recorded 147 low frequency volcanic earthquakes starting at 3:45 p.m. on February 20 until 5:20 a.m. yesterday.
Solidum said the recurrence of earthquakes was unusual as the normal earthquake ranges from zero to five tremors.
"These low frequency volcanic earthquakes were relatively large in amplitude compared with previous seismicity and are interpreted to be caused by the shallow movement of magma within the summit crater," he said.
The PHIVOLCS maintains the alert level-2 status at Mayon Volcano reminding the public to stay away from the six-kilometer permanent danger zone and to avoid major river channels that come from the volcano.

RELATED SEISMIC NEWS: 2 With Broken Legs after Strong Quake Rocks Bulgaria
Feb 21, 2006
Two people are with broken legs due to panic after Monday evening's strong earthquake that rocked Bulgaria. Many other people have searched medical assistance complaining of high blood pressure after the tremor.

Deadly viruses mutating to infect humans at rate never seen before

SKYWATCH BREAKING NEWS: VIRAL ALERT
Feb 21, 2006

NEW DISEASES
Photo Left: HIV is thought to have started as a monkey or ape virus in Africa

AT least one new disease is jumping the species barrier from animals to human beings every year, exposing people to emerging germs at a rate that may be unprecedented.

The first work to catalogue the range of germs capable of infecting people has disclosed that 38 new human pathogens have emerged in the past 25 years. Three quarters of these, including Aids, avian flu, Sars and new variant CJD, originated as animal diseases.

The survey, led by Mark Woolhouse, of the University of Edinburgh, has identified more than 1,400 pathogens that can cause disease in human beings, at least 800 of which crossed the species barrier from animals.

RELATED STORY:
Germany fears bird flu is getting out of control
Feb 21, 2006
Germany today reported 22 new cases of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, as politicians gave warning that the virus was getting out of control.
Till Backhaus, a German agriculture minister, said that he believed that there was now a growing risk of H5N1 spreading to the country’s poultry farms.
The disease - previously confined to the Baltic island of Ruegen - has now been confirmed on the German mainland. A state of emergency was declared in two districts of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, to allow the army to be deployed for disease control measures.

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Unearthing explanations for New Madrid earthquakes

Skywatch Special Report: New Madrid Fault

On Dec. 16, 1811, residents of New Madrid, Mo., were wrested from sleep by violent shaking and a deafening roar. A short time later, church bells hundreds of miles away in Boston began to ring. It was the first of three massive earthquakes that rocked the central United States between December 1811 and February 1812, even changing the course of the Mississippi River in their aftermath.
"A big earthquake in the same region as the 1811-1812 earthquakes would have devastating consequences should they recur today because of the population centers in St. Louis and Memphis," Stanford University geophysicist Mark Zoback told an audience Feb. 20 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in St. Louis, Mo.
vWe simply need to know more about how these systems work in order to serve the public," added Zoback, the Benjamin M. Page Professor in Earth Sciences.
In a talk titled vTremors in the Heartland: The Puzzle of Mid-Continent Earthquakes," Zoback discussed what is presently known about the New Madrid seismic zone and his work creating geodynamic models of the region. Zoback began his career studying New Madrid. In 1976, shortly after receiving his doctoral degree, he participated in the first seismic work to identify the causative faults. In an article published in the February 2001 issue of Geology, Zoback and former graduate student Balz Grollimund presented a theory explaining why earthquakes occur in this area.

RELATED STORY: Missouri: New Madrid Earthquake of 1811-12

Description:
Learn about the New Madrid fault line and the earthquakes that hit the area in 1811-1812. Includes maps, documents, statistics, and photographs. Read about the history of Reelfoot Lake, a lake formed by the earthquake. There is a link to an eThemes Resource on Natural Disaster: Earthquakes.

Growth concerns rise in flood areas

SKYWATCH JOURNAL

Photo Left: People walk through the heavily damaged Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans as construction crews repair the levee.

Hurricane Katrina-style devastation could be seen in other parts of the nation as development pressure puts more housing in flood plains.

Photo Left: Night falls on a new development surrounded by levees that hold back the waters of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River delta in California. The dikes are in worse shape than those in Louisiana.

Feb 20, 2006
ST. LOUIS--Concentrated development in flood-prone parts of Missouri, California and other states has significantly raised the risk of New Orleans-style flooding as people snap up new homes even in areas recently deluged, researchers said yesterday.
Around St. Louis, where the Mississippi River lapped at the steps of the Gateway Arch during the 1993 flood, more than 14,000 acres of flood plain have been developed since then. That has reduced the region's ability to store water during future floods and potentially put more people in harm's way, said Adolphus Busch IV, a scion of the Anheuser-Busch brewing family who is chairman of the Great Rivers Habitat Alliance.
Similar development has occurred around Dallas, Kansas City, Mo., Los Angeles, Omaha, Neb., and Sacramento, Calif., said Gerald Galloway, a professor of engineering at the University of Maryland.
"The half-life of the memory of a flood is very short. You can already hear it in Washington, D.C.: 'New Orleans where?'" Galloway said of the lack of action in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last summer.

Sandstorm hits NW China region

YINCHUAN, Feb. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- A sandstorm on Monday hit some areas in Northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, covering its capital city Yinchuan with orange sand by noon.
The provincial meteorological administration said Yinchuan and the three major cities of Shizuishan, Wuzhong and Zhongwei reported strong winds and serious sandstorms at around midday. The weather is expected to continue into the evening hours.
The sandstorm is the first of this spring in the autonomous region, which experiences dozens of sandstorms from February to May every year. Meanwhile, the sandstorms cause the drought region an annual economic loss of over 10 million yuan (1.25 million U.S.dollars).

RELATED STORY: Texas copes with drought
HOUSTON – Jim Selman normally runs about 300 head of cattle on his ranch near Gonzales, Texas. But in the past month, with continued warm temperatures and no rainfall, he's sold 175 for slaughter and is down to three bales of hay to feed the remaining cows.
"If it stays much drier, the rest of them will be gone as well," says the lifelong rancher. "It's a pretty tough situation" - and starting to rival the drought of the 1950s, he adds, when he had to sell his entire herd and leave the business.
Forecasters are equally pessimistic. After seeing rainfall decline by 20 inches last year, making 2005 the 12th driest year on record in Texas, they say this year is shaping up to be the driest since 1956. The result has been raging wildfires, skyrocketing hay costs, and billions of dollars in agricultural losses

Tremor: hydro projects in NE under scanner

BREAKING SEISMIC NEWS
Feb 20, 2006
Is a new bomb ticking in the northeastern part of the Himalayas?

Tuesday’s earthquake, which struck the Himalayas in Sikkim and was felt in the entire northeastern belt, is a grim reminder to the country’s planners and policy-makers on the continuance of massive hydroelectric projects in the region.

Sikkim and Darjeeling Himalayas are part of the northeast belt, the seismic vulnerability of which cannot be understated, especially in the wake of the current isostatic adjustment of tectonic plates triggered by the December 26 quake.

Falling under seismic zone IV on a scale of I to V, the region’s propensity to seismic convulsions has always kept seismographers and geomorphologists worried. Tuesday’s moderate quake, which recorded 5.3 on the Richter scale, has fuelled their apprehensions.

The 12-second tremor, according to seismologists, had its epicentre 20.1 km below the earth’s surface at a place in Sikkim and 72.8 km north of Siliguri. As the ground shook, hundreds of residents rushed out of their homes. Two army jawans caught in a landslide triggered by the tremor were killed close to the Na Thula border.

“We cannot think of the extent of casualties in the thickly populated regions of Gangtok and neighbouring Darjeeling, had the quake been a little stronger and lasted a couple of moments more,” said a seismic expert on Thursday.





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Tsunami bomb NZ's devastating war secret

ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS

Originally published 25.09.1999 - The New Zealand Herald

02/16/06 "ICH" -- Top-secret wartime experiments were conducted off the coast of Auckland to perfect a tidal wave bomb, declassified files reveal.

An Auckland University professor seconded to the Army set off a series of underwater explosions triggering mini-tidal waves at Whangaparaoa in 1944 and 1945.

Professor Thomas Leech's work was considered so significant that United States defence chiefs said that if the project had been completed before the end of the war it could have played a role as effective as that of the atom bomb.

Details of the tsunami bomb, known as Project Seal, are contained in 53-year-old documents released by the Ministry of Foreign

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Weather agency detects minor eruption at volcano on Miyake

VOLCANIC UPDATE
Photo Left: Click to Enlarge

Feb 19, 2006
A volcano on Miyake Island had a minor eruption, the Meteorological Agency said Saturday, warning residents of volcanic gases and possible mudslides.
The eruption of the volcano, which dominates Miyake Island, about 180 kilometers east of Tokyo, was the first since last May, the agency said.
It said volcanic activity temporarily increased late Friday, triggering a minor temblor and releasing a small amount of ash. But the latest development does not pose an immediate danger to residents, it said.
The volcano's eruption in July 2000 forced all 4,000 islanders to evacuate the island. More than half of them returned a year ago after the evacuation order was lifted.
But the volcano continues to belch smoke and poisonous gas that officials say pose a potentially serious risk to residents.
Japan, which has 108 active volcanos, is among the most seismically active countries in the world. (AP)
February 18, 2006

RELATED STORY: Mount Fuji may soon erupt again
UPDATED Feb 19, 2006
HAMISH ROBERTSON: It might be one of the most recognisable images of Japan, but it could also be deadly.There are fears that the nation's highest mountain, Mount Fuji, could be planning a return to its volcanic past.While scientists say it's difficult to predict when, they do agree that Fuji may be nearing a peak in its volcanic cycle, which could mean an eruption, either next year, in three decades' time, or a hundred years' time.As Shane McLeod reports, towns around the base of the mountain are preparing for the worst, but hoping it won't happen.

The world may celebrate the end of the Western civilization

BREAKING WORLD NEWS
Feb 20, 2006 UPDATED

The scandal with the publication of Prophet Muhammad caricatures in European newspapers has outlined a few rather interesting details. First of all, the world has become open as the West wanted it to be. Secondly, the multi-cultural aspect of Europe has become more than just obvious. The scandal with the cartoons is a very important lesson that Russia needs to learn.

Western politicians have been urging the whole world to become more open. According to the Western point of view, globalization is an inevitable and positive process. It therefore means that the so-called global openness should replace national sovereignty.

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45 die as Nigeria protests against cartoons

BREAKING INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Feb 20, 2006
Lagos - As the death toll from Saturday's riots in Nigeria about the Prophet Mohammed cartoons rose to 45, the Danish newspaper in which they first appeared has placed full-page apologies in Saudi Arabian newspapers.Local police reports say that 42 people have been arrested in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri, capital city of Borneo state and the scene of Saturday's riots.Soldiers have been deployed amid fears that rioters could regroup or strike in another city in Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north.Mufutau Ogunyemi, a student at the University of Maiduguri, said that there was calm in the city as foot soldiers and armoured vehicles patrolled the streets.

RELATED STORY: DEATHS IN LIBYA AND AFGANISTAN OVER CARTOON
Afghanistan, Libya (APE) - In a bizarre and tragic twist today over 30 were killed in simultaneous riots in Libya and Afghanistan. The rioting began as protests over anti-Muslim Danish cartoons which were published over two weeks ago. This latest outbreak of violence occurred during a nonviolent protest staged to complain of the deaths of people over cartoon images.

Italian minister resigns after Libya riots
A right-wing Italian minister, whose wearing of a T-shirt with a Prophet Muhammad caricature was blamed for deadly riots in Libya, resigned Saturday.

Seven dead following weekend winter storm in NE.US

BREAKING CLIMATE NEWS: U.S.
Photo Left: A gull flies in sea smoke over the Milwaukee River which flows into Lake Michigan, in Milwaukee, Wis., Saturday, Feb, 18, 2006. At sunrise temperatures were -13 degrees with wind chillsof -35 degrees. (AP Photo)

Feb 20, 2006
ROCHESTER, N.Y.- Utility crews worked Sunday to restore power to thousands of homes and businesses from Michigan to Maine following a weekend winter storm, while slick roads and heavy winds were blamed for several deadly accidents.

At least four deaths were reported in the Northeast, while at least three people were killed in accidents on icy roads in Arkansas over the weekend.

Trees toppled by the wind killed two motorists in New York and one in Massachusetts. Another was killed near Rochester when his vehicle slammed into a truck rig whose driver had stopped to clear storm debris from his windshield.

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Moderate quake hits Nicaragua

BREAKING SEISMIC NEWS: NICARAQUA
Feb 20, 2006
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (Reuters) -- A moderate earthquake hit Nicaragua on Monday and was also felt in the neighboring Central American nation of Honduras, but there were no immediate reports of deaths or damage.
A Reuters correspondent in the Nicaragua capital of Managua said local radio had not mentioned the quake, which the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, Colorado, said had a magnitude of 5.6.
One witness in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa said residents were awaken in the night by the quake, but there were also no immediate reports of damage.
The Geological Survey's Web site said the quake struck at 12:59 a.m. local time at 13.11 degrees north and 87.61 degrees west, or 30 miles (50 kilometers) west southwest of Choluteca, Honduras, and 45 miles (70 kilometers) east southeast of San Miguel, El Salvador.

Hopes fade for Philippine villagers

Feb 20, 2006 Updated
Reuters Photo: A video grab shows a man as he carries a landslide victim in Leyte province...

GUINSAUGON, Philippines (Reuters) - The stench of death hung over a village of 1,800 people in the central Philippines on Saturday, a day after a torrent of mud and rock from a rain-soaked mountainside engulfed homes and a crowded school.
Only 46 bodies and 57 survivors had been pulled from the reddish soil, with the chances "very, very slim" of anyone else being found alive, said Colonel Raul Farnacio, in charge of the army's relief operations.
"We have two generators. We will try to work round the clock but our men have to rest too," he said.
Friday's disaster, as more than 200 children and their mothers celebrated women's day at the school, buried Guinsaugon, a farming village about 675 km (420 miles) southeast of Manila.
READ ALSO: Mass graves dug for victims of Philippine slide
Updated Feb 19, 2006
Photo Left: A U.S. marine helicopter flies over the mountain that shed a massive amount of mud and rocks. (AP photo)

Rescue teams are still digging through the mud in the village of Guinsaugon on the Philippine island of Leyte, but there is virtually no hope left for about 1,800 people still missing after a mudslide swept down a nearby mountain on Friday.

Greenland ice swells ocean rise

BREAKING EARTH/CLIMATE NEWS
Feb 16, 2006
Greenland's glaciers are sliding towards the sea much faster than previously believed, scientists have told a conference in St Louis, US.
It was thought the entire Greenland ice sheet could melt in about 1,000 years, but the latest evidence suggests that could happen much sooner.
It implies that sea levels will rise a great deal faster as well.
Details of the study, by Nasa and University of Kansas researchers, are also reported in the journal Science.
The comprehensive analysis found that the amount of ice dumped into the Atlantic Ocean has doubled in the last five years.
If the Greenland ice sheet melted completely, it would raise global sea levels by about 7m.
Greenland's contribution to global sea level rise today is two to three times greater than it was in 1996

Rising waters havoc at Lake Titicaca

BREAKING EARTH NEWS: BOLIVIA, SOUTH AMERICA
Feb 17, 2006
THOUSANDS of Bolivian villagers living on the fringes of Lake Titicaca have lost homes and crops after weeks of heavy rains that led the Government to declare a state of emergency.Across Bolivia, tens of thousands of people have been hit by floods and landslides and more than 20 have been killed, presenting President Evo Morales with his first natural disaster since he took office last month.
Lake Titicaca has been rising about 2.5cm a day in recent weeks, devouring hundreds of metres of the fertile shoreline, where mud-brick cottages stand amid plots of flowering potatoes, peas and pasture.
The tiny lakeside village of Belen B was flooded for days after a river burst its banks.
"For a while the river and the lake joined into one. We have lost animals and our harvests have been ruined," said Paulino Quispe, who lives in the village, about 100km northwest of La Paz.

Clear skies afford great views of steaming St. Helens

VOLCANIC UPDATE
Feb 15, 2006
MOUNT ST. HELENS - With clear skies overhead, the view of Mount St. Helens was spectacular on Wednesday.
Jet Ranger 2 flew over the snow-covered mountain and captured images of the formation in the crater, where the extreme heat continues to produce steam emissions.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there have been no significant changes in patterns of earthquakes or ground deformation in the past day.
However, photographs they have taken show that the active part of the new lava dome continues to extrude

More Mt. St. Helens Coverage

AND THIS AMAZING VIDEO

Get Ready For A Total Solar Eclipse March 2006

BREAKING NEWS: TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE
Feb 17, 2006
One of the longest lasting total solar eclipses of the sun will take place on March 29, 2006, and pass transversely through central Turkey from southwest to northeast. This will be a stunning eclipse, lasting over 4 minutes of totality and viewed by millions of people over a route up to 190km wide.With fewer than 70 total eclipses per century, the chance to see one is a once in a lifetime event. The area’s southern setting and its favorable terrain make it one of the sunniest places in Turkey. The village of Cirali and Olympos will be close to the center of the path, and great for viewing.

READ ALSO:

Eclipse News

Nasa Info

Mass Casualties Feared in Mudslide

Photo Left: A woman is rescued after a landslide buried hundreds of houses in the eastern Philippines. Photograph: Reuters TV

Feb 17, 2006
MANILA, Philippines (AP) - A rain-soaked mountainside disintegrated in a wall of mud and boulders Friday that swallowed hundreds of houses and an elementary school in the eastern Philippines. The death toll was at least 23, and 1,500 people were missing and feared dead.
``It sounded like the mountain exploded, and the whole thing crumbled,'' survivor Dario Libatan told Manila radio DZMM. ``I could not see any house standing anymore.''
The farming village of Guinsaugon on Leyte island, 420 miles southeast of Manila, was virtually wiped out, with only a few jumbles of corrugated steel sheeting left to show that the community of some 2,500 people ever existed.
``There are no signs of life, no rooftops, no nothing,'' Southern Leyte province Gov. Rosette Lerias said.

READ ALSO: Nature Strikes Again - Hundreds feared dead in Philippine mudslide
Nature showed its brutality and merciless menance not distinguishing between young or old in an eastern Phillippine village on Friday.

Magnitude 4.6 - ISLAND OF HAWAII

SEISMIC ALERT
A light earthquake occurred at 01:22:33 (UTC) on Friday, February 17, 2006. The magnitude 4.6 event has been located in ISLAND OF HAWAII, HAWAII. The hypocentral depth was estimated to be 10 km ( 6 miles). (This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.)

Wicked Winter Blasts Chicagoland

(CBS) CHICAGO A tornado warning, rain and snow, and warm and cold -- we've seen it all today in this bizarre mix of February weather.The worst of it is over, but Chicagoans are dealing with a number of after effects from the snow, rain and ice.The crowds at the O’Hare International Airport have gone down and there’s been no significant rain since about 6 p.m. They are now trying to recover following a hectic and stormy day.By air and by land, the wintry mix made for tough travel.The first emergency came just before 4 p.m.An American Eagle flight heading to O’Hare from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was struck by lightning and forced to land. None of the 37 passengers and crew members were injures.But the travel woes didn’t end there. By 6 p.m., 350 flights had been cancelled at O’Hare and delays reached three hours at O’Hare. They were slightly less at Midway.



VIEW VIDEO: Bizarre February Weather Wreaks Havoc

Europe Takes Action as Bird Flu Spreads

BREAKING VIRAL NEWS
BERLIN, Feb. 16 — Health officials across Europe issued restrictions for commercial poultry farms Wednesday after reports that the deadly bird flu virus had turned up at a surprisingly early date in migratory birds in several Western European countries.
The virus was confirmed in mute swans in Greece, Bulgaria and Italy on Saturday, and in Germany on Wednesday. Likely cases were detected in the same species in Slovenia and Croatia on Sunday, Austria on Monday and Denmark on Tuesday.

Russia Warns U.S. Against Striking Iran

BREAKING WORLD NEWS
Photo Left:
A protester walks on a burning U.S flag during a demonstration Saturday in Tehran (AP)

Feb 16, 2006
MOSCOW
Russia's top military chief on Thursday warned the United States against launching a military strike against Iran and a top diplomat voiced hope that close cooperation with China could help resolve the Tehran nuclear crisis.
With tension mounting over Iran's nuclear programs, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of Russia's general staff, warned the United States against attacking Iran.
"A military scenario can't be ruled out," Baluyevsky was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
He said that while Iran's military potential cannot compare to the United States', "it is hard to predict how the Muslim world will respond to the use of force against Iran."
"This may stir the whole world, and it is crucial to prevent anything like that," Baluyevsky was quoted as saying.

RELATED NEWS: Poll: Americans fear Iran will develop, use nukes
WASHINGTON — Americans are deeply worried about the possibility that Iran will develop nuclear weapons and use them against the USA, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll finds, but they also fear that the Bush administration will be "too quick" to order military action against Iran.
Nearly 7 of 10 of those surveyed over the weekend say they are concerned that the United States will move prematurely to use force, but they also seem to recognize the quandary that policymakers face. There is almost as much concern that the Bush administration won't do enough to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear arsenal. (Related item: Poll results)
People see no easy answers ... and the limits of our power," says Richard Eichenberg, a political scientist at Tufts University who studies war and public opinion. "The Muslim world is in an uproar over the Danish cartoons (portraying the prophet Mohammed), Iran is quite vocal in challenging us, and Iraq continues to be a drip-drip-drip of daily violence."
Eichenberg says all that is eroding President Bush's standing, too. Among those polled, 55% say they lack confidence in the administration's ability to handle the situation in Iran. And Bush's approval rating has dipped to 39%, the first time below 40% since November, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
The State of the Union address and a series of speeches in recent weeks have failed to bolster views of the president or his actions:

READ ALSO: Billions Wasted In Iraq?
The United States has spent more than a quarter of a trillion dollars during its three years in Iraq, and more than $50 billion of it has gone to private contractors hired to guard bases, drive trucks, feed and shelter the troops and rebuild the country. It is dangerous work, but much of the $50 billion, which is more than the annual budget of the Department of Homeland Security, has been handed out to companies in Iraq with little or no oversight.

EXTREME WEATHER CREATING AVALANCHES

RECENT GLOBAL AVALANCHE NEWS






UNITED KINGDOM - A climber has said he thought he was going to die after being swept away by an avalanche near the summit of Ben Nevis, Britain's highest peak. But he and his friend walked away virtually unscathed despite plunging 900ft down the mountain face they had been scaling. They were just a few metres beneath the top of number two gully when the build-up of overhanging snow gave way. A second party of three climbers was also caught up in the avalanche which stopped just yards from sending the group into frozen water. All five managed to stay on the top of the cascading snow and were only partially buried.

RUSSIA - An avalanche hit a village in a Russian republic in the North Caucasus Wednesday The avalanche in the republic of Karachai-Circassia occurred at about 12.40 p.m. Moscow time [9.40 GMT], damaging around 15 private houses; two of these had their roofs ripped off. No casualties have been reported so far. On Monday, an avalanche in the same area hit a mountaineers' camp, killing one. A heavier avalanche the following night killed three more members of the nine-strong group, and injured another. Meteorologists have warned that more avalanches may be forthcoming in the North Caucasus.

ALASKA - State Troopers are flying toward an avalanche site in Dalzell Gorge near Rohn to search for a man believed to be trapped Tuesday under the snow. The man was part of a snowmachine team that had just finished manning the Iron Dog Race checkpoint in Rohn. His team was reportedly driving behind the snowmachine racers to break trail for the upcoming Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race when the avalanche occurred.

JAPAN - An avalanche struck a group of students in northern Japan on Wednesday, killing one and leaving several missing. The avalanche occurred near the city of Ebetsu on the northern island of Hokkaido around 11 a.m. It was the latest in a string of avalanches in Japan over the last week as the country struggles through one of its snowiest winters on record.

INDIA - An avalanche threat looms on the entire tribal belt and other higher reaches of Himachal Pradesh which experienced moderate snowfall Tuesday. The avalanche threat was mainly because of UNUSUALLY HIGH temperatures in high altitude tribal areas which could hasten melting of glaciers. People living in Keylong, Udaipur, Pangi and Pin valley have been asked to avoid outdoor movement to avert any mishap. Chamba town and its adjoining areas were hit by a hailstorm followed by widespread heavy rains, triggering landslides and disrupting vehicular traffic.

CANADA - There has been considerable and potentially dangerous avalanche activity in Banff, Yoho and Kootenay National Parks in the past week. For much of last Tuesday, the Trans-Canada Highway was closed between Field, B.C. and Lake Louise due to an avalanche that swept across the highway from Mount Bosworth on Monday evening. The avalanche last Monday was isolated, as opposed to being one in a series. “It was an ODDBALL EVENT in the sense that it wasn’t a widespread cycle. Normally when we start getting a peak in an avalanche cycle we start seeing sort of a pattern of a number of avalanches happening in a number of different areas. What’s a little bit different about it is that something happens there and it’s a fairly big event.” On Sunday, a big backcountry avalanche occurred near Lake O’Hara in Yoho National Park. No one was hurt. “(It) was a very big avalanche, which was a bit of surprise. The condition we have is deep instabilities in the snow pack so that when something does fail, it fails big. There are also small avalanches that are happening as well but some of the big events are all the winter snow pack failing.” On Saturday, Parks Canada closed the same part of the highway as it had last Tuesday. High winds and snowfall in the past several days contributed to the deteriorating conditions.

Flooding washes lives away in Bolivia

BREAKING CLIMATE NEWS: BOLIVIA, SOUTH AMERICA
Feb 16, 2006
CARE International is sheltering thousands of families who lost their homes and crops in the floods and landslides that have battered Bolivia over the past month.
More than 250,000 people have been affected so far and with more rain forecast over the coming weeks, increasing numbers are expected to be driven from their homes.
Barbara Jackson, CARE International’s country director in Bolivia, said people are at risk of attack because they are forced to sleep in the open, having lost their homes. Many are staying in one of 24 overcrowded camps set up throughout the country.

OTHER CLIMATE NEWS: Cold temperatures kill 95 in usually tropical Papua
Jakarta - Extreme temperatures, combined with cold-related viral diseases and illnesses have plagued remote villages in the easternmost Indonesian province of Papua and killed at least 95 people in recent weeks, a local media report said Wednesday.
The cold weather, which dipped as low as 5 degrees Celsius in a region where temperatures typically are well above 20 degrees, has plagued villages in the Illaga and Gome sub-districts of Papua's Puncak Jaya regency, reported the Indonesian daily Kompas newspaper.
Latest reports from local health officials recorded that at least 95 people, mostly children and aging villagers, have died from the extreme weather and other illnesses since late December.

Scientists Studying Saturn Lightning Storm

SPACE/SCIENCE NEWS
Photo Left: This image released by NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute shows a rar and powerful storm on the night side of Saturn derived from an original Cassini image by reprojecting it as a cylindrical map and enhancing the contrast to bring out faint features. the storm as it appeared to the Cassini imaging system on January 27, 2006. Cassini began detecting the radio emissions, which are like those from lightning, on January 23. At about the same time, amateur astronomers reported that a storm had appeared in Saturn's southern hemisphere at minus 35 degrees latitude. (AP Photo/NASA) (AP)

February 15, 2006; 9:47 AM
PASADENA, Calif. -- Researchers are tracking a gigantic storm on Saturn that is unleashing lightning bolts more than 1,000 times stronger than those found on Earth.
Using instruments aboard the international Cassini spacecraft, scientists from the University of Iowa first spotted the storm on Jan. 23.
But since the spacecraft was not in the right position to photograph the storm, scientists enlisted the help of amateur astronomers who confirmed a storm was raging in the ringed planet's southern hemisphere.
"It is clear that this is the strongest lightning activity that we've seen yet with Cassini since it has arrived at Saturn," Donald Gurnett of the University of Iowa said Tuesday.

NOTE: The powerful bolts are causing the spacecraft's radio instruments to "crackle"--much like the crackles you hear coming from your car's AM radio when you drive by a thunderstorm on Earth. One difference: Saturn's lightning is about 1000 times stronger than Earth's.

LISTEN TO SATURN'S LIGHTNING

Ruining the Debunkers Day-An Introduction to Planet X

SKYWATCH EDITORIAL
Steve Shaman
Editor/Publisher

Feb 15, 2006

In recent days there has been a great deal of controversy regarding the publishings of Michael Mandeville, who claims that the world may be on the verge of a sudden pole shift. People have been on both sides of the fence when it comes to end times prophecy, and everyone should be respected for what they believe.

Skywatch is devoted to providing information that closely resembles the convictions of its viewers. If the news fits the bill we report it, and pass it on to our followers. As always, the audience has the last word, for they alone will decide whether the information being provided is worth the time it takes to read and decipher its meaning. We are not in the business of providing information that is non-factual, or lacks credibility. However, we wish to give each viewer a scientific, religious or philosophical basis whereby they can determine the value of each story or article we present.

Having said this, there are some in the internet world who continue to use the name game to describe others who disagree with their findings or beliefs. As there are many disturbing events that require our attention and our thoughts, each has a right to be heard. After all, many of these events have no answers or no resolve, baffling both scientists and theorists alike.

Many with a theological background have come to the conclusion that events on earth and in the heavens are interrelated, are happening for a reason, and are happening as described both in prophecy and in scripture. Does this make us Nut Cases or Freaks? I would rather think that it puts us in tune with what God and Nature is trying to tell us. Some have the uncanny ability to sense when something is not right, as they take time to observe and study their surroundings before coming to any discernible conclusions.

Is the thought of a pole shift occurring in our lifetimes total nonsense? No-It has happened in the earth's past and is likely to happen again. So is the thought of the waters rising, the earth giving way, or volcanic ash inundating the earth's atmosphere. Drought, floods, monstrous storms, landslides, and a slew of cataclysmic events have occurred many times in our past and will continue in our future. Yes, Everyone will interpret the earth's great events as they see fit, but that does not make one person's belief any more right or wrong then someone else.

For those who wish to use names to discredit the thoughts or findings of others, I say keep your opinions to yourself. No matter how much you may try to dissuade or belittle the beliefs of those who disagree with you, you have only kindled the fire of their conviction. Whatever the truth is regarding our fragile earth, it will be revealed in time, and may come as a complete surprise to those who are convinced they are right or believe they have all the answers.

For the debunkers of Planet X and the Pole Shift, feast your eyes on the following information. Give the viewers some real reason to believe that your ideas and findings are right and everyone else is wrong.

The idea of a "Planet X" is a long-held one -- according to the official view, it comes from the days before the discovery of Pluto. Read Wikipedia and Planet X. However, this phrase has a different meaning nowadays. Thirty or so years back, according to the writings of Sumerian scholar (and possible nutter) Zecharia Sitchin, he wrote that we should be on the lookout for the return of the planet that he called "Nibiru" -- the home planet of the ancient race that created humankind, according to Sumerian legend. (Funnily enough, the ancient texts refer to the hybrid "thing", or "humans", made by this visiting race as "The Adam"). Sounds like a familiar legend, doesn't it? Read an Interview with Sitchin. This alleged mystery planet has become known commonly as "Planet X" (for those who don't buy into Sitchin's work or who prefer to think of it as possibly the "Wormwood" mentioned in Revelations.) Before you laugh, the geeks will have noted that astronomers have been uncovering "new" planets on very wide orbits within our solar system up to very recently -- for instance, an MSNBC article titled 'A Mystery Revolves around the Sun'. The theory goes that when "Nibiru" (aka "Planet X") begins to return towards us, we'll see a variety of changes within the Earth itself, as new gravitational effects begin to make themselves known. What kind of effects you ask? Weird weather, earthquakes, volcanoes, a heating up of the atmosphere. Gee, pretty much what we've been seeing over the past decade or so. Science doesn't seem to be saying too much about the idea of a "new" Planet X (least of all one that might be heading towards us). Note the "oops" factor in 'Tenth Planet May Be Bigger Than Expected'. As to what the truth is -- who knows? There do appear to be a number of global changes unfolding. For instance, there are no good answers currently about just why the Earth's magnetic pole is drifting from the United States towards Siberia. Read Earth's Magnetic Field Moving Fast. And "something" is moving around inside the Earth. Whatever "it" is, it is big enough to change the shape of the Earth itself and cause the gravity field of the Earth to alter. This is from National Geographic News -- read Why Is Earth's Girth Bulging?. There's apparently a major anomaly that has developed in the past three weeks -- involving some ongoing standard "wobble" in the Earth called the "Chandler's Wobble" that has stopped. Read Major Anomaly in Chandler's Wobble. If you want to step off into high weirdness, read a quick intro to Nibiru and then do some reading at Zecharia Sitchin Official Site. See more Nibiru-related material or use the search feature at the left, on the data-filled site of Steve Quayle.

2006 hurricane outlook

STORM/CLIMATE FORECAST

Posted: 02/14/2006 11:46 am

The director of the National Hurricane Center is warning Americans that the 2005 hurricane season may end up being mild compared to 2006.

At a speech to insurance adjusters in Orlando, Max Mayfield said the effects of an El Nino weather system in the pacific that raises ocean temperatures, could increase the intensity of hurricanes this year.

He says far too many residents ignored hurricane evacuation requests in 2005.

Mayfield stressed that hurricanes remain unpredictable in intensity and direction.

He says the bottom line, is be prepared.

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MONTSERRAT VOLCANO SPEWING ASH AND STEAM

BREAKING VOLCANIC NEWS

Feb 11, 2006, updated Feb 14
As of the 10th of February, the Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO) has reported that early morning visible shows an innocuous plume of gas steam and ash to the due west of the volcano that becomes diffuse around 64W. MVO indicated no activity to produce ash. However, the plume is quite evident in satellite visible imagery. Forecast is for continued westerly transport over the next 24 hours. The ash/steam/gas mix plume continues to show up well on visible imagery to the west of the volcano. Throughout most of the day ash has been dissipating before it reaches 64W. After sunset last night , ash is no longer visible in IR and multi-spectral imagery. However a hotspot remains over the volcano. A plume was seen in the last visible imagery before dark and it was shifting more to the southwest than previously. The MVO reports that a higher level of activity is now taking place. Satellite imagery shows a hotspot and a more prominent and higher level ash plume beginning around 0045Z. This new plume height is estimated at 15,000 ft. and is moving to the west-northwest. The earlier lower level plume is likely to the south and extending to the southwest of the volcano. Previously, activity at the Soufrière Hills Volcano was elevated. The seismic network recorded 92 rockfall signals, 23 long period – rockfall signals, 11 long period earthquakes, 3 volcano-tectonic earthquakes and one hybrid earthquake. Measured sulphur dioxide fluxes have fluctuated between 1150 tonnes per day (t/d) on 27th January 2006 and 216 t/d on 1st February 2006. The weekly average was 794 t/d, which is above the long-term average of 500 tonnes per day. Images taken by the remote camera on Perche’s Mountain at the beginning of the reporting period indicate that the dome continued to grow over a broad sector extending from the southwest around to the northeast. A pair of spines was observed on the SE end of the dome on 29th January, although both these and the fin-like structures (relatively thin, vertical planar spines) on the south-eastern flank of the dome collapsed during the period. Numerous small rockfalls could be observed falling from the southern, eastern and north-eastern flanks of the dome, adding to the talus in the upper reaches of the Tar River valley. Helicopter observations also indicate continued dome growth, particularly at the southern end, which now stands higher than the northern end of the dome.

More Info: http://www.ms/info.htm

Montserrat Volcano Observatory : View latest NOAA satellite image of Montserrat ( every 30 mn)

Sahrawi refugees call for help after floods

BREAKING EARTH NEWS
Photo Left: Floods in the Sahrawi refugee camps

Feb 14, 2006
Tens of thousands of people need urgent help after torrential rains have flooded their refugee camps in south-west Algeria, leaving them without shelter and short of food.
The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) and officials at the Sahrawi refugee camps said the rains had washed away many of the mud brick houses where some 158,000 refugees have been living since fleeing the disputed Western Sahara territory.
"Heavy rains over the past few days destroyed 50 per cent of shelters," a spokesman for the Western Sahara's independence movement, the Polisario Front, told Reuters in Algiers.

RELATED STORY: Hundreds of families flee as flash floods hit
Flash floods struck the eastern coast of the southern region in the early hours of yesterday morning, forcing hundreds of families in Nakhon Si Thammarat and Narathiwat to evacuate, Several communities were cut off as roads were struck by floods and mudslides.
At about 3am yesterday, water run-off, triggered by several days of persistent downpours, swept through 10 districts in Nakhon Si Thammarat and three districts in Narathiwat, where several cities were more than one metre under water.
In Nakhon Si Thammarat, after flash floods struck at a scale not seen in the past decade, officials boarded flat-bottomed boats to rescue villagers who were trapped inside their houses and distribute relief supplies.

Cyclone Vaianu slowly building in power over Tonga

Feb 12, 2006
Cyclone Vaianu is expected to strengthen slowly this morning as it moves through central Tonga.
The storm is expected to move south towards the main island of Tongatapu and the capital Nuku'alofa during the course of today and tomorrow.
In four hours' time it's expected to be 200 kilometres west of the Vava'u group of outer islands, bringing damaging gale force winds of up to 110 kilometres an hour.
Forecasters predict thunderstorms, heavy rain, high seas and heavy swells, leading to sea flooding of low-lying coastal areas.

RELATED STORY: Manila raises typhoon,flood alert;16 dead from rains
MANILA, Feb 15 (Reuters) - The Philippines has warned farmers and ordered government agencies to prepare for heavy rains and flash floods from a stormy La Nina weather pattern that has already killed 16 in the country's southeastern provinces.
Heavy rains, which the weather bureau blamed on a nascent La Nina, have triggered landslides, massive flooding and the evacuation of hundreds of families in the Philippines, which grows rice, corn, coconuts, mangoes and other tropical fruit.

Snows Of Kilimanjaro Disappearing Glacial Ice Loss Increasing

BREAKING EARTH NEWS
Photo Left: One of the last remnants of Kilimanjaro's Eastern ice field is a six-meter spire that was much larger when seen on earlier expeditions. It should vanish in a few years due to global warming. Photo by Ohio State University.

Columbus OH (SPX) Feb 13, 2006
Five years after warning that the famed ice fields on Tanzania 's Mount Kilimanjaro may melt, Ohio State researchers have sadly found that their prediction is coming true.
And the impact of the loss of that ice atop Africa 's highest peak – disregarding the loss of tourism that will follow the vanishing ice – could add to the heavy drought burden already facing those living near that mountain.
For Lonnie Thompson, professor of geological third expedition to the summit of Kilimanjaro was all too much like visiting a sick friend in failing health.
In 2002, Thompson and his colleagues shocked the scientific community with their prediction that the ice fields capping the mountain would disappear between 2015 and 2020, the victims, at least in part, of global warming. Returning to his campus office last week, he admits that nothing has happened to alter that prediction.

Bird Flu Reaches Western Europe

BREAKING VIRAL NEWS
Feb 13, 2006
ROME (AP)—Bird flu has reached Western Europe, with Italy and Greece announcing Saturday they had detected the H5N1 strain of the virus in dead swans.
The announcement that the disease was detected in five swans in southern Italy came a day after the opening of the Winter Games in Turin, several hundred miles to the north. Italian officials said the virus had only affected wild birds and posed no immediate risk to people.
The European Union said the deadly strain, which has infected at least 166 people and killed 88, most in Asia, also had been confirmed in swans in Bulgaria.
No human infections were reported in the three countries, but the outbreak raised concerns that the spread of the disease could increase chances for it to mutate into a form easily transmissible among humans, who generally catch the disease from domestic poultry.

SPECIAL REPORT: FLU FEARS

Part 1 : Flu Basics What it is and how it affects us.
Part 2 : Stay Safe How to prevent and treat the flu.
Part 3: Pandemic Primer How flu could become a global killer.

US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites

CLICK TO ENLARGE IMAGE ABOVE

Feb 12, 006
'10,000 would die' in A-plant attack on Iran Weblog: A sobering view of Iran

Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.
Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian energy programme.

RELATED STORY: 10,000 would die in attack on Iran
A major American attack on Iran's nuclear sites would kill up to 10,000 people and lead to war in the Middle East, a report says today.

Record-Setting Snow Buries Northeast

WINTER STORM UPDATE
Feb 12, 2006
A record-breaking storm buried sections of the Northeast under more than 2 feet of snow on Sunday, marooning thousands of air travelers and making even a walk to the corner store treacherous.

The National Weather Service said 26.9 inches of snow had fallen in Central Park, the most since record-keeping started in 1869. The old record was 26.4 inches in December 1947.

Wind gusting as high as 60 mph blew the snow sideways and raised a risk of coastal flooding in New England. And in a rare display, lightning lit up the falling snow before dawn in the New York and Philadelphia areas, producing muffled winter thunder.

RELATED STORY: Eastern US emerges from blizzard

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Instruments on Alaska's Augustine Volcano Provide New Insights Into Volcanic Processes

VOLCANIC UPDATE
Photo Left: Dave Schneider and Cyrus Read work on the web camera located near Augustine Volcano about 75 miles southwest of Homer, Alaska as Augustine steams in the background.

Feb 13, 2006
As Alaska's "code red" Augustine Volcano erupts and sends a plume of ash more than 40,000 feet into the air, instruments on the ground are recording rumblings at the volcano's surface. The data collected will provide new insights into the inner workings of volcanoes along the Pacific rim.
Washington, D.C. - infoZine - Scientists affiliated with EarthScope--a vast North American geologic observatory funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF)--have placed permanent, continuously recording GPS stations on volcanoes, including Augustine, across the continent.A large stratovolcano located in the southern Cook Inlet southwest of Anchorage, Augustine is one of the region's most active volcanoes. But it has been quiet since its last eruption in 1986. The reemergence of activity on Augustine began last May with an increase in the number of earthquakes. Soon a slow, steady increase in the volcano's movements occurred, recorded in detail by EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) GPS stations installed on the volcano's flanks.Augustine began erupting in mid-Jan. with a series of explosions. Ash spewed so high into the atmosphere that jets were forced to alter their routes as they traveled to and from Asia. The Alaska Volcano Observatory uses EarthScope data to alert the FAA and first responders to dangerous volcanic activity.

RELATED STORY: Web coverage of volcano Augustine a model in tracking volcanic eruptions
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – From his home in Nanwalek, Vince Evans can stare across the water at Augustine Volcano as it pumps out clouds of ash and steam, but like many residents in the isolated village, Evans prefers to check the Internet for the latest on the erupting island mount.

Earthquake detected under Lake Erie

SEISMIC UPDATE
February 12, 2006 -
MENTOR-ON-THE-LAKE, Ohio (AP) - Another small earthquake has been detected beneath Lake Erie, the third so far this year.
According to initial data from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the earthquake hit Friday morning about three miles northwest of Mentor-on-the-Lake in Lake County and measured two-point-six magnitude. No damage was reported.
Ohio has recorded more than 185 earthquakes since 1776, but only 15 of them have caused damage. The most seismically active regions are along Lake Erie.

RELATED STORY: Moderate quake shakes east India, kills 2 soldiers
Two Indian soldiers were killed Tuesday when their vehicle was crushed by falling boulders after a moderate earthquake struck an eastern mountain state and triggered landslides, authorities said.

Race against time to shovel snow off Austrian roofs

Feb 13, 2006
Vienna - Thousands of firefighters and soldiers in north and central Austria Monday shovelled masses of new snow off overburdened roofs in a desperate bid to avoid cave-ins during an upcoming thaw.
Countless roofs already straining under the burden of snow are in danger of collapse if the snow is made heavier by rain, forecast for later this week, the president of the Austrian Firefighters Association, Manfred Seidl, said.
'The prognoses of the meteorologists of a thaw, and above all rain, is forcing us to make haste in the clearing work,' he added.
His association was appealing to firms to give voluntary firefighters time off so they could join the 'urgent' task of clearing roofs.
The efforts are aimed not only at preventing the material damage caused by the roofs collapsing, but also the danger of another human disaster following deadly accidents last months at Bad Reichenhall, Germany, and Katowice, Poland.

Flash flood threat to Pakistan quake survivors

ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS
Feb 11,2006
· Landslide dam could burst under rising water level
· Giant wave threatens to destroy refugee camps

The survivors of the earthquake that devastated Pakistan last year face a new threat: flash floods from a giant lake forming rapidly behind a dam of material shaken loose during the event.

Experts who visited the region last month say urgent action is needed to avert a second catastrophe, caused by the likely collapse of the dam under the rising water level. If the dam bursts, it would send millions of gallons of water rushing towards the city of Muzaffarabad, which bore the brunt of the October earthquake.

David Petley, of the International Landslide Centre at Durham University, said: "There is very substantial danger of another serious loss of life. Usually in these cases what happens is that the lake fills to the top of the landslide dam and then spills over the top. Because the landslide is very fragmented, the water cuts down through it and you get a very rapid release of the lake water."

The lake started to form when a vast avalanche of rocks triggered by the earthquake blocked a river flowing through a valley near Hattian, in the north of the country. Already some 100 metres deep and 200 metres wide, the lake now stretches more than a mile up the valley, about 12 miles upstream of Muzaffarabad.

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Tibetan Plateau Tells Tale Of Colliding Continents And Earth's Interior

EARTH NEWS
Photo Left: India and Asia began colliding 50 million years ago as a result of plate tectonics, a large-scale geologic force that slowly moves the continents around the Earth's surface. The collision took place in an area that once may have resembled the tropical Indonesian island of Sumatra, and it produced the Tibetan Plateau. Today, the plateau stretches for 190,000 square miles at an elevation of approximately 16,000 feet

Chicago IL (SPX) Feb 09, 2006
Geologists have learned that the height of the Tibetan Plateau, a vast, elevated region of central Asia sometimes called "the roof of the world," has remained remarkably constant for at least 35 million years.
David Rowley from the University of Chicago and Brian Currie of Miami University in Ohio report their finding in the Feb. 9 issue of the journal Nature.
Before their last expedition to Tibet, the geologists expected to find evidence that the plateau was rising 35 million years ago, the result of large-scale geologic forces grinding India and Asia against one another. They found instead that the plateau has stood at its current high elevation for at least 35 million years.

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Flight to check volcanic eruption in South Sandwich

VOLCANIC UPDATE
Feb 12, 2006
Mount Belinda on Montagu Island in the South Sandwich Islands is erupting, reports the South Georgia government.

The Royal Air Force plans to fly a maritime patrol to the remote island from the Falkland Islands as soon as the weather allows to investigate the scale of the eruption.
A representative of the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands plans to go on the flight to see first hand the effects of the volcano, including changes to the coastline in the areas in which seabirds normally breed. From the satellite images it seems that the major colonies are unaffected as they lie on the far side of the island.
The four and a half thousand foot mountain was thought to be inactive until RAF patrols and satellite imaging four years ago showed low level activity, with ash staining the snow covered mountain top. For the past two years the volcano has been erupting more forcefully, and a recent satellite image shows a large, fast moving lava flow, 90 meters wide, which is reported to be adding 50 acres a month to the island.

Earthquake scare distracted Tashkent for several hours

SKYWATCH JOURNAL
Feb 10, 2006
Rumors of an impending powerful earthquake (8 degrees Richter scale) with epicenter in the capital of Uzbekistan spread in Tashkent on Tuesday afternoon. References to different sources were made: alleged warnings from seismic stations in the Ferghana Valley or Kyzylkum Desert, calls from relatives or acquaintances from "competent bodies", "classified cables" "top brass" were allegedly sending to municipal power structures...The rumors became even more specific by 4.30 p.m. and scheduled the earthquake for 3 a.m. the following night. Ferghana.Ru correspondents tried to call the Institute of Seismology - to no avail. 09 Information Service operator said that thousands of calls were coming in, all lines were overloaded, but seismologists said not to worry.Still remembering the devastating earthquakes of 1966 and 1980, the population of Tashkent would not be placated. Unusual weather phenomena are sometimes observed before earthquakes - sudden cold in summer or warmth in winter. On February 8, temperatures set a record for the last 40 years and reached +24 Celsius.

Northeast Digs Out From Record Snowstorm

BREAKING STORM NEWS
Photo Left: A snowplow clears a road in Windsor, Conn., Sunday, Feb. 12, 2006. A major storm slammed the mid-Atlantic and Northeast states on Sunday with nearly 2 feet of windblown snow, nearing record levels as it blacked out thousands of customers and shut down air travel from Washington to Boston. (AP Photo/

Feb 13, 2006
Northeast Digs Out From Record Snowstorm That Dumped Two Feet or More of Snow Across the Region

NEW YORK Feb 13, 2006 (AP)— Road crews scrambled to clear streets and travelers stranded at airports tried to get home as the Northeast dug out from a record-breaking storm that dumped two feet or more of snow across the region.
Utility workers were restoring power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses left in the dark. Winds gusting up to 50 mph knocked down and snapped power lines, while others were damaged by falling trees.
The storm blanketed the Eastern Seaboard from North Carolina to Maine over the weekend, dropping 26.9 inches Central Park the heaviest since record keeping began in 1869. The old record was 26.4 inches in December 1947, the National Weather Service said.

‘La Niña’ bringing monsoon rains

BREAKING CLIMATE NEWS: PHILIPPINES
Feb 10, 2006
If the prevailing weather pattern seems weird, it’s not your set, folks. Even government meteorologists agree there exists an unusual weather situation in the Philippines, marked by unseasonal monsoon rains and the onset of a phenomenon known as "La Niña." According to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa), the country was affected last month by the northeast monsoon, the tailend of a cold front, an easterly wave and active low-pressure area that developed into a tropical depression — "Agaton" — which brought days of rains and caused flooding over some areas of Central and Eastern Luzon. This month, Pagasa weathermen said, the northeast monsoon, the tailend of a cold front and easterly wave will likely influence the weather although there is a slim chance of a tropical cyclone occurring in the Philippine area of responsibility.

300 earthquakes registered on Karymsky volcano on Kamchatka

BREAKING VOLCANIC NEWS
Photo Left: Karymsky Volcano and Lake, South East Kamchatka, Russia

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, February 9 (Itar-Tass) - About 300 local earthquakes were registered on the Karymsky volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula on Thursday. The giant volcano is spewing ash. The plume rise is 1.5 kilometres. There is no danger to nearby populated localities.
The Kamchatka-based seismic crew specialists told Itar-Tass the plume of ash from the crater has stretched for some 20 kilometres at the height of four kilometres above sea level. A 40-kilometre cloud containing volcanic dust is observed some 40 kilometres east of the volcano.
The Karymsky is one of the most active Kamchatka volcanoes. Its height exceeds 1,500 metres. The volcano has been in the state of eruption for 10 years since January 1996. Scientists are monitoring the volcano state without interruption.

Torrential rain causes chaos

BREAKING STORM NEWS: NEW ZEALAND
Feb 10, 2006
Torrential rain caused flooding and land slides and closed roads throughout the North Island tonight, including in the Bay of Plenty, still recovering from devastating floods in May last year.
Whakatane police said State Highway 2 was closed at Matata, from 15km north of Whakatane to Tauranga.
There had been several reports of boulders and slips blocking roads.
"Rain is consistently heavy and we have got another warning we will be getting another 120mm overnight, which is not going to help the situation," an officer said.
According to a severe weather warning issued by the MetService earlier today, the Bay of Plenty region was likely to remain "under threat" until the early hours of Saturday.
Tomorrow afternoon forecasters expect heavy rain to hit parts of Gisborne, north of Tokomaru Bay and continue until about 6am Sunday.
Thunderstorms and localised heavy falls of up to 25mm per hour were expected.

RELATED STORY: Rain causes floods in BOP and Gisborne

Disaster looms in lake, experts warn

BREAKING ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS
Feb 10, 2006
Environment experts have warned of a looming disaster in Lake Victoria due to fast receding water levels.
Kenya Railways Marine Superintendent, Vitalis Leo, said: "If the trend continues we will be forced to close the port at Kisumu forthwith to guarantee safety of lake users and vessels."
He added: "At some points the water level has reduced from 15 feet to 5.5 feet making docking of vessels difficult."
He said vessels had been forced to reduce their loads by 30-50 per cent so as not to run aground.

RELATED STORY: Uganda 'draining Lake Victoria'
Uganda has been taking more water than agreed from Lake Victoria to generate power, accounting for half of the drop in the lake's levels, a report says.

It's called Apophis.

BREAKING COSMIC NEWS
Photo Left: Artist's impression of an asteroid heading for Earth. Frank Whitney/Getty Images
It's 390m wide. And it could hit Earth in 31 years time

Feb 10, 2006
In Egyptian myth, Apophis was the ancient spirit of evil and destruction, a demon that was determined to plunge the world into eternal darkness.
A fitting name, astronomers reasoned, for a menace now hurtling towards Earth from outerspace. Scientists are monitoring the progress of a 390-metre wide asteroid discovered last year that is potentially on a collision course with the planet, and are imploring governments to decide on a strategy for dealing with it.
Nasa has estimated that an impact from Apophis, which has an outside chance of hitting the Earth in 2036, would release more than 100,000 times the energy released in the nuclear blast over Hiroshima. Thousands of square kilometres would be directly affected by the blast but the whole of the Earth would see the effects of the dust released into the atmosphere.And, scientists insist, there is actually very little time left to decide. At a recent meeting of experts in near-Earth objects (NEOs) in London, scientists said it could take decades to design, test and build the required technology to deflect the asteroid. Monica Grady, an expert in meteorites at the Open University, said: "It's a question of when, not if, a near Earth object collides with Earth. Many of the smaller objects break up when they reach the Earth's atmosphere and have no impact. However, a NEO larger than 1km [wide] will collide with Earth every few hundred thousand years and a NEO larger than 6km, which could cause mass extinction, will collide with Earth every hundred million years. We are overdue for a big one."

Bird disease in flu-hit Nigeria "spreading like wildfire"

BREAKING VIRAL NEWS: BIRD FLU PANDEMIC ALERT
Feb 9, 2006
As Nigeria scrambled to deal with Africa's first confirmed case of deadly bird flu, a farmer's representative said thousands of poultry had died of disease further north.
Identified earlier this week as "fowl cholera", the disease was spreading rapidly through farms in Kano State, killing tens of thousands of chickens, Auwalu Haruna, secretary of the Kano State poultry farmers' association, said.
Nigeria announced Wednesday that Africa's first confirmed case of the H5N1 strain of bird flu -- which can be fatal to humans -- had been found in Sambawa Farm in Kaduna State, 300 kilometres (185 miles) north of Abuja.
The disease in Kano "is spreading like wildfire," Haruna told AFP.

Iranian nuclear program threatens peace

BREAKING WORLD NEWS
Feb 9, 2006
Newspaper headlines in early November 1979 read, "American Embassy attacked by Iranian fundamentalist students, 66 Hostages taken." President Carter's reaction to this kidnapping was extremely cautious and indecisive. When Ronald Reagan was inagurated as president more than a year later, however, the hostages were released and sanctions were imposed on Iran. Since that time, the theocratic Islamic Republic has been seen by the United States as a nation that supports global terrorism and an avowed enemy of America.Now, Iran wants to construct a nuclear power plant. The process for enriching uranium to fuel an atomic reactor for peaceful energy production, however, could provide the necessary material to develop a nuclear warhead. As a result, American officials are trying to ensure that Iran will never attain the capabilities to make nuclear weapons.

Climate Change-Minnesota

BREAKING CLIMATE NEWS: MINNESOTA
Feb 8, 2006

Scientists have known for a very long time that moose are quite sensitive to temperature. The animal will actually pant when the temperature gets above 67 degrees Fahrenheit. Minnesota has two herds: the northeast and the northwest. The northwest herd is in serious trouble. "It used to be probably the largest, most productive herd in the state." But the population just "crashed." There were four-thousand moose here in the late eighties. Today there are 250. The rate of pregnancy here is low - half of what's normal. And moose are dying here - faster - than normal. Increased temperatures cause a lot of extra stress on the animal. Specifically, these moose are dying from parasites: brain worms and liver flukes. It appears the parasites "caused those individual moose to starve to death." That's "really contrary to what parasites are supposed to do." Parasites are not supposed to kill the animal. The moose are dying in greatest numbers within a year of a very hot summer. In Northwest Minnesota, where the moose are dying, the growing season has increased 39 days in the last 41 years. Record dew-points make it feel even hotter. "In the summer of 2005 we had dew points in the 80's. This is like Bombay, India. It's not like Minneapolis/St Paul!" Precipitation is up here 20 percent in the last century. Even Minnesota's great pine forest is at risk because of the kinds of trees scientists see coming up underneath it. They are the type of trees usually found growing much farther south. The mating season of the grouse is now earlier, and the range of wild turkeys, raccoons, opossums and skunks is expanding. They are animals that could not survive so far north before. Warmer water is causing larger walleye to grow more slowly. It is also believed to be impacting reproduction. Major scientific organizations around the world believe the planet will warm another 4-10 degrees by the end of the century. Minnesota would be at the high end of that range. Ten degrees would be stunning. Minnesota would "feel" more like Illinois in the wintertime with temperatures on average, 6-12 degrees warmer. And summer here would average about four to eight degrees warmer.


Climate Change in Minnesota

Climate change increases California flood, drought risk

Photo Above
This pair of images shows flooding in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley region inland of San Francisco Bay. The image on the left was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on December 10, 2005, while the image at right was captured on January 4, 2006, just days after the severe storms passed through. Dark blue pools of water swamp far larger areas of ground in January than they did in December. The Sacramento River is very wide and turbid; the sediment in the water is reflective and gives the river its lighter blue appearance. The northern reaches of San Francisco Bay are also bright with sediment, which may be a mixture of river run-off and churning of the Bay by storm winds. Vegetation is bright green, snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains is bright blue (upper right), and bare or sparsely vegetated ground appears pinkish or reddish tan. Courtesy of MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA)

CLIMATE CHANGE
Feb 7, 2006
Climate change may increase the risk of winter floods and summer water shortages—even within the same year—says new research by scientists Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).
The study, which appeared in the January 27 edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters shows that global warming is likely to change river flows in ways that may result in both increased flood risk and water shortages.

Impact of Krakatoa eruptions lasted decades

BREAKING VOLCANIC NEWS
Photo Left: An artist's rendering of the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa

LONDON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Sea levels would have risen higher and ocean temperatures would have been warmer in the 20th century if the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia had not erupted in 1883, scientists said on Wednesday.
The impact of the eruption that spewed molten rock and sulphate aerosols into the atmosphere was felt for decades -- much longer than previously thought.
"It appears as though with a very large eruption the effect can last for many decades and possibly as long as a century," said Peter Gleckler, a climatologist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

RELATED-LISTEN HERE: Remembering Krakatoa's Cataclysm
All Things Considered
April 16, 2003 · NPR's Melissa Block talks to author Simon Winchester about his book Krakatoa. The volcano exploded in 1883, killed more than 36,000 people and affected weather worldwide. Winchester presents details of how word of the event spread and what it was like near the scene in the days leading up to the blast, and about the short- and long-term aftermath. The final explosion created a noise said to be the loudest heard in recorded history.

Govt set to approve Mt. Fuji eruption disaster plan

BREAKING VOLCANIC NEWS
Photo Left: Current Image of Mt. Fuji
Feb 8, 2006

The government has drafted a set of disaster-prevention measures to be implemented if Mt. Fuji erupts, which provide detailed evacuation instructions and call for the creation of task forces to be set up by local governments to enable better coordination of efforts to prevent death and injury, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

The draft is set to be approved at a meeting of the Central Disaster Prevention Council, chaired by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, by the middle of this month, after which regional governments will be notified.

According to historical documents, Mt. Fuji has erupted 10 times since the Nara period (710-794). The eruptions in 800, 864 and 1707 were the three largest.

Although Mt. Fuji has not erupted for about 300 years, a recent increase in low-frequency earthquakes indicates magma is moving below the volcano. The number of quakes rose sharply from average levels in the autumn of 2000 and in the spring of 2001.

In 2004, a government panel drew up a map showing the areas that could be affected by an eruption and the problems those areas might face.

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January Was America's Warmest on Record

BREAKING CLIMATE NEWS
The Associated PressTuesday, February 7, 2006; 8:26 PM
WASHINGTON -- Recording the warmest January on record allowed Americans to save on their heating, but like all good things, last month's mildness seems to have been too good to last.
The country's average temperature for the month was 39.5 degrees Fahrenheit, 8.5 degrees above average for January, the National Climatic Data Center said Tuesday. The old record for January warmth was 37.3 degrees set in 1953.
On the other hand, while much of the United States was basking in warm weather, parts of Europe and Asia were being battered by bitter cold. Climate details for the rest of the world for January are expected to be available next week.

Wildfires blaze in California

Last Modified: 8 Feb 2006 Source: ITN
Firefighters are struggling to tackle fierce wildfires in California. The flames are being fanned by high winds are are centred in wooded hills about 35 miles south of Los Angeles. Captain Steve Miller of the Orange County Fire Authority said: "Unfortunately for us what was a small fire became very large in a relatively short period of time, wind driven, always difficult to deal with if not much less stop."


RELATED STORY: 2,000 Homes Evacuated In California Wildfires
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 7 -- A huge wildfire burned out of control in Southern California on Tuesday, causing the temporary evacuation of 2,000 homes and the closure of four schools, and a federal forest official said it may have started as a prescribed burn that escaped.

Bushfires threaten property

BREAKING EARTH NEWS: AUSTRALIA

Feb 7, 2006
HUNDREDS of firefighters battling a large bushfire burning out of control in southern New South Wales are bracing for a wind change that will endanger a large number of properties.

One of Australia's busiest interstate highways, the Hume running between Sydney and Melbourne, is expected to be cut all day.
Rural Fire Service spokesman Cameron Wade said a strong southerly change due about 10am (AEDT) will redirect the fire burning about 30 km south-east of Wagga Wagga.

"It will swing around to the north from a north-easterly path, affecting a large number of rural
properties," Mr Wade said.



Current satellite images of all the fires around australia is available from the sentinal CSIRO network.

Digging in

BREAKING CLIMATE NEWS: JAPAN
Photo Left: People clear snow on a roof in Katsuyama, some 323 km west of Tokyo

Feb 7, 2006
Heavy snowfalls over the weekend heaped misery upon mayhem for many snowbound areas along the Sea of Japan coast.
As of 5 p.m. Sunday, accumulations had built to 416 centimeters in Tsunan, Niigata Prefecture--the first time in 25 years the prefecture recorded more than 400 cm of snowfall in one winter.
This winter's heavy snows have led to freak accidents, fatalities and countless injuries. Now, it is draining the wallets of those who live in these snowy regions.
Residents, especially elderly ones, are being forced to dig into their savings to pay for snow removal, home repairs and rising bills for water used to melt the snow from their paths and driveways.
Yet, winter is far from over. Local governments are warning people to brace for more snow.

RELATED STORY: Snow-hit Japan warns of avalanches, landslides

UK suffers worst drought in over 100 years

DRYING UP: Serious water shortages are looming in some parts of the UK, with one town in the southeast receiving less rainfall last year than parts of Namibia and Somalia

THE GUARDIAN
LONDON Friday, Feb 03, 2006,Page 4
Bewl Water in Kent is southern Britain's largest reservoir but on Wednesday afternoon it was 36 percent full and had shrunk to just over half the size it should be at this time of year.
Its water level was 7.6m down on normal, its saucer sides were deeply cracked, and stumps of old oaks last seen in the great drought of 1976 poked through the dry mud.
Tony Lloyd, head ranger of Southern Water, admitted he was worried.
"This is the worst dry spell in over 100 years," he said.
"We desperately need rain. The land is like a sponge that has been squeezed dry. It is as bad or worse than 1976," Lloyd said.

RELATED STORY: Most Greek land becoming arid
An overwhelming 84 percent of Greece’s land is at risk of desertification and another 8 percent is already arid but is being cultivated by farmers reluctant to lose their subsidies, according to scholars at a conference in Thessaloniki yesterday.

Remote Alaska volcano erupts, spews ash

Photo Above: Location of Cleveland volcano and other Aleutian volcanoes with respect to nearby cities and towns.
Picture Date: February 06, 2006 Image Creator: Schaefer, Janet
Image courtesy of the AVO/ADGGS. Please cite the photographer and the Alaska Volcano Observatory / Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys when using this image.

BREAKING VOLCANIC NEWS
Feb 6, 2006 — ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A volcano on an uninhabited island in Alaska erupted on Monday, sending a cloud of ash 22,000 feet into the air and triggering an elevation of the mountain's threat level.
Scientists detected the morning eruption at Cleveland Volcano, a 5,676-foot peak, on satellite imagery, officials at the Alaska Volcano Observatory said.
The observatory issued a Code Red warning, the highest level of alert, for the volcano, because the ash cloud was near a level where it could interfere with jet traffic, said Chris Waythomas, a U.S. Geological Survey geologist.
There were no reports of falling ash from the highly active volcano located in the rugged chain of Aleutian Islands. The nearest community is Nikolski, a tiny Aleut village of 31 people that is 45 miles to the east of the volcano.
Its last eruptive period was in 2001 when three explosions occurred, according to the observatory.
Cleveland Volcano rumbled to life as officials continued to monitor the restless Augustine Volcano, a 4,134-foot peak about 175 miles southwest of Anchorage.

READ ALSO: 'Oregon Field Guide' to explore Oregon volcano
Oregon Public Broadcasting show to investigate swelling volcanic zone near Bend
ROY GAULT Statesman Journal
February 6, 2006
Mount St. Helens isn't the only volcano in the Pacific Northwest that's showing signs of life.
The crew of "Oregon Field Guide," a weekly outdoors show that airs on Oregon Public Broadcasting, has documented how a volcano is coming alive just outside of Bend.
Land beneath the South Sister is being pushed up by mysterious volcanic forces miles beneath a popular hiking trail.
"Volcanoes in Our Backyard" explores new insights and uncovers new volcanic mysteries. It airs on Thursday and will be rebroadcast Sunday.

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT
'Oregon Field Guide: Volcanoes in Our Backyard'
What: A look at whether a volcanic bulge forming on the South Sister may sometime soon cause the mountain to go erupt
When: 8:30 p.m. Thursday; rebroadcast at 6:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: Oregon Public Broadcasting, Salem Comcast channel 10
Information: Go to www.opb.org

Europe's winter death toll rises as temperatures fall again

BREAKING CLIMATE NEWS
AFP Photo: People pass through snow-covered rail roads in Sofia, as freezing weather and heavy snow blanketed...

Slideshow: Deadly Freeze Grips Europe
Jan 7, 2006
KIEV (AFP) - Polish and Ukrainian authorities revised upwards the human toll from the freezing weather that has gripped eastern Europe since the beginning of the year as temperatures plummeted again.
Following the deaths of eight people in the previous 24 hours, 738 people had succumbed to the intense cold since mid-January, the Ukrainian health ministry said.
More than 7,500 people were treated by doctors and 4,464 were admitted to hospital. Many of those who died were homeless, the ministry said.
In Poland, police said the country's coldest winter in nearly 20 years had killed 233 people since October.
"Last week alone, 19 people died of cold. That's an exceptionally high number," police spokeswoman Grazyna Puchalska told AFP.

Tornado damages houses, church in Pittsylvania Co.

STORM NEWS
Feb 6, 2006
The storm that ripped through Pittsylvania County over the weekend, damaging houses and a church, was a tornado, the National Weather Service in Blacksburg confirmed Sunday.
Meteorologists toured the damaged area and determined from the path that Saturday afternoon's storm produced a weak tornado at 3:05 p.m.
The tornado touched down 2 1/2 miles south-southeast of Callands with 40 to 72 mph winds, the National Weather Service said. It traveled northeast gaining speed, and lifted just north of Virginia 57.
It touched down again minutes later two miles northeast of Rondo.
The storm also brought pea-sized hail, rain, and thunder and lightning to the area.

Earthquake exceeding 5 pts registered off Kamchatka shores

BREAKING SEISMIC NEWS
Feb 7, 2006
PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, February 7 (Itar-Tass) - An earthquake measuring 5.7 points on the open-ended Richter scale has occurred in the Kamchatka Strait off the Kamchatka Peninsula’s eastern shores, a duty officer at the regional branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry said.
Experts at the Kamchatka experimental bureau of seismic methodology said the earthquake was registered at 08:51 Moscow time [05:51 GMT] Monday. Its epicenter was located at the depth of five kilometers under the seabed.

Glacier Break Up Hastened

BREAKING EARTH NEWS
Photos Left: Glaciologist Austin Post took this photo of McCall Glacier in 1958.
Photo Below Left: In 2003, Matt Nolan found Post's approximate 1958 location and snapped this photo.




Feb 6, 2006
Scientists said on Monday the world had to halt greenhouse gas emissions and reverse them within two decades or watch the planet spiralling towards destruction. Even a rise of three degrees in average global temperature could result in cataclysmic species loss, melting polar icecaps raising sea levels by many meters, and wholesale famine and disease.
Two major glaciers in Greenland have recently begun to flow and break up more quickly under the onslaught of global warming, according to a new study which has raised the spectre of millions drowning from rising sea levels. The glaciers have doubled their rate of flow to the ocean over the past two years after steady movement during the 1990s. This spurt meant that current environmental models of the rate of retreat of Greenland's giant ice sheet – which could add seven metres to the height of the world's oceans if it disappears – had underestimated the problem. "It seems likely that other Greenland outlets will undergo similar changes, which would impact the mass balance of the ice sheet more rapidly than predicted." The fact that the two major outflow glaciers have shown the same sudden acceleration despite being more than 300km apart suggested the cause was not local but more likely climatic or oceanic in origin. Greenland is only part of the picture, and there is also evidence of local warming and melting on the giant Western Antarctic ice sheet.

Will Punxsutawney Phil be out of work?

Skywatch Journal
Feb 5, 2006
As a climate scientist living in central Pennsylvania, it would be remiss of me not to comment on the recent Groundhog Day, because human action may soon change it forever.
The modern celebration, derived from an age-old European tradition, takes place every Feb. 2, in Punxsutawney, Pa., about 100 miles west of Penn State University, where I teach. According to legend, if the groundhog — who also goes by the name Punxsutawney Phil — sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter weather. If he does not, there will be an early spring.
When Phil emerged from his burrow this year, he “spoke” to an event official in “Groundhogese,” and his prediction of more cold weather was then translated for the waiting public.
Sadly, it appears that global warming may soon add Phil to the ranks of the unemployed. Or, at least, the inaccurate. With the warming of 7-14 degrees Fahrenheit predicted over North America by the end of this century, if we continue to increase greenhouse gas concentrations at current rates, the answer will become simple: Spring will come early every year.

SKYWATCH INSIGHT: Climate patterns are changing fast and furiously. With the Mayan Calendar set to expire in 2012 or 6 years from now, what can we expect from Mother Nature in the near future? Scientists are coming out of the woodwork, to warm the world about Climate Changes that will in turn affect Earth Changes, since these changes often go hand in hand. Although some scientists are blaming Global warming as the culprit, I'm afraid that there are other forces, beyond man's expectiations or control, that are at play in the sudden and continuous calamity we now find ourselves subjected to. Is there a remedy that will turn things around for mankind? It might be too late to turn the tide of events. Man has seen fit to destroy every good thing that has been given as a gift of life. It is our own neglect and selfishness that has brought about a great time of cleansing on the earth. We are just in the beginning phases of terrible and frightening times for mankind, a time in which each of us must ponder our own survival, if we are to endure the trying times. Be prepared my friends. Times are a changing for each of us.

Fear of Floods in Iraq

Feb 5, 2006
TIKRIT, Iraq - The governor of Iraq’s Salaheddin province has issued a warning that floods could sweep certain areas of the province along the Tigris river.
Governor Hamad Hammoud Al Chakti issued a call to evacuate people from dwelling along the edge of the river in towns of Baiji, Buajil, Shurqat and Buaji after persistent rains in the last two days threatening to flood 5,000 hectares (more than 12,000 acres) of land.
Some 25 dwellings were already under water in Samara, near Tikrit.
The US military said that Iraqi and US soldiers had rescued nearly 100 people southeast of Mosul on Saturday after powerful storms swept through northern Iraq, causing flooding along a tributary of the Tigris.
The soldiers used small boats to rescue the groups of people stranded on small islands in the river.

READ ALSO: IRAQ: Continued flooding causes displacement
BAGHDAD, 5 February (IRIN) - Continuous rainfall over the past three days in the capital, Baghdad, as well as in Tikrit and Mosul in northern Iraq, has forced 600 people out of their homes, according to government officials.

'Washington, we've got a problem'

CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT
Published 2:15 am PST Sunday, February 5, 2006

How wonderful that U.S. scientists and engineers are able to snatch stardust off a passing comet and to count the pebbles on the surface of Mars. So how come the people in charge of these lofty exploits seem to be so, well, darned average? The bureaucrats at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration proved it again last week: When it comes to the planet Earth, they aren't any better than anybody else at telling the anthills from the elephants.
So there they were, threatening "dire consequences" for their chief climate scientist, James E. Hansen, because of something he said in the course of a distinguished lecture at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. Lost in all of the private threats and public denials was the fact that what Hansen actually said that December afternoon came as a surprise to absolutely no one in the room.

RELATED STORY: NASA climate expert says US tried to silence him (Update)
NASA's top climate scientist has accused the Bush administration of trying to stop him from speaking out after he called in a lecture for swift cuts in emissions of the greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

Results of January Survey

Here are the results of the January Survey.
Thankyou for your participation
Skywatch Management


What Great Event Will Most Likely Occur during 2006

A Major Earthquake Along The San Andreas Fault
15%
12

A Large Tsunami Created By An Underwater Quake
5%
4

The Global Eruption of Volcanoes
16%
13

An Eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera
5%
4

One or More Major Hurricanes Striking the Gulf Coast
14%
11

A Close Encounter with an Asteroid or Comet
9%
7

The Great Pole Shift
9%
7

The Passage of Planet X
20%
16

Other? Enter here...
8%
6

Total: 80 responses

Big quake could create a massive landslide

EARTH CHANGES

Feb 3, 2006

COLUMBIA RIVER GORGE – If a giant earthquake hits the Northwest, it could pack a double punch by causing a massive landslide in the Columbia River Gorge.

Some scientists say there is a one in 10 chance that Oregon will be hit with a magnitude 9.0 earthquake in the next 50 years. If that happens, they say a large landslide could follow, one that could dam the Columbia River.

The most recent giant landslide happened 550 years ago, filling a section of the Columbia River with earth.

The resulting dam, the Bridge of the Gods (not the toll bridge, but a wall of earth), created a lake that stretched 88 miles, approximately from the Cascade Locks to The Dalles.

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B.C. coastal towns brace for more floods after violent windstorm

Last Updated Sat, 04 Feb 2006
CBC News
Photo Left: High tides combined with heavy winds send sea water flooding through Tsawwassen, B.C.
Coastal communities in southwestern B.C. went on the alert on the weekend, bracing for more floods after a windstorm knocked out power to more than 50,000 people and helped send sea water pouring into homes.
B.C. Hydro said winds of up to 110 km/h on Saturday morning cut power to as many as 50,000 customers in the province. The storm also disrupted ferry service to Vancouver Island.

READ ALSO: Rain Causes Roof Collapse, Flooding In Pinellas County
ST. PETERSBURG - Feb 3, 06
A violent stream of thunderstorms is pounding parts of central Pinellas County, causing a roof collapse at a St. Petersburg store and widespread flooding, authorities said. < border="0">
VIEW VIDEO


Landslide closes BNSF Railway for 10th time since Christmas
Feb 3, 06
A landslide along the BNSF Railway has halted Amtrak passenger rail service between Portland and Seattle for the 10th time since Christmas. Incessant heavy rain is to blame.
"This is the longest period (of trouble) I can recall in the Pacific Northwest," said Gus Melonas, a railway spokesman. "Basically the bluffs are eroding, and the material has no place to go but down the slope."


Landslide in Wheeler breaks town's water line
Feb 3, 06
WHEELER, Ore. – A small town may have to spend big bucks after a landslide took out most of their water system.
Heavy rains have saturated the town of Wheeler in Tillamook County for the past couple of months.
WATCH THIS STORY

Sea level rise 'is accelerating'

EARTH/SCIENCE NEWS
"There will be increased flooding of low-lying areas when there are storm surges." Dr. John Church

Global sea levels could rise by about 30cm during this century if current trends continue, a study warns.

Australian researchers found that sea levels rose by 19.5cm between 1870 and 2004, with accelerated rates in the final 50 years of that period.

The research, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, used data from tide gauges around the world.

The findings fit within predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The IPCC's Third Assessment Report, published in 2001, projected that the global average sea level would rise by between 9 and 88cm between 1990 and 2100.

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This is winter? Much of nation basked in warm January

Feb 2, 2006
NEW YORK --Let's put it this way: People played golf this winter in Maine. In shorts.
RECORD TEMPS IN MANY REGIONS OF US
Buttercups have been blooming in Montana. In Ohio, an ice-free Lake Erie allowed an early start to seasonal ferry service. And the sap started running early in Vermont.
While January plunged much of Europe and Russia into the deep freeze, it appeared to be remarkably mild across the United States. Federal scientists haven't calculated yet whether it ranks as the warmest January on record nationwide, but "it's certainly going to be right up there," said Michael Halpert, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center.
The balmy weather will soon end for much of the country, he said.

Weather Service Revises Tornado Scale

Feb 2, 2006
ATLANTA (AP)—The government has for the first time changed its system of categorizing tornadoes after learning that much weaker winds than previously thought can create the most powerful funnel clouds that disintegrate homes and turn cars into missiles.
The National Weather Service said Thursday it had made changes to the Fujita Scale, a three-decade-old system of ranking a tornado's strength, to align wind speeds more closely with actual damage.
"It was apparent that many of the speeds used in the estimates were too large, said Joe Schaefer, director of the service's Storm Prediction Center. "The scale guiding wind speeds wasn't in tune with reality.''
The change was introduced at the American Meteorological Society meeting in Atlanta. However, the new system will not fully go into effect until February 2007, giving weather scientists time to adjust to it.

Sediment Build-Up May Bring Bigger Earthquakes

EARTH/SCIENCE NEWS
Feb 1, 2006
Many of the world's largest earthquakes take place at subduction zones where tectonic plates collide, forcing one under the other. When pressure builds and the plates slip past one another, an earthquake results. The severity of that earthquake depends on how far and how widely each plate slips. In most cases, the plates slide past one another just a few inches every year. But sometimes they slide tens of feet, along hundreds of miles. New research points to sediment deposits as the difference between the two types of earthquakes.

Quake Rattles Yellowstone Region

BREAKING SEISMIC NEWS: YELLOWSTONE REGION

The Associated Press
Sunday, February 5, 2006; 12:33 AM
HELENA, Mont. -- A minor earthquake rattled parts of southwestern Montana Saturday evening.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported a temblor with a preliminary magnitude of 4.6, which was felt by residents around southwest Montana, as well as in Idaho and Wyoming.
The quake, at 8:25 p.m. MDT, was centered about 35 miles east of Lima and 40 miles west of West Yellowstone. The National Weather Service said no damage was immediately reported.
It was felt by residents in Lima, Virginia City, West Yellowstone, and as far away as Helena. Residents in Ashton and St. Anthony in Idaho and Jackson and Wilson in Wyoming also felt the quake, according to reports submitted to the U.S.G.S. Web site.
The quake was reported in an area that has been rumbling since a magnitude 5.6 earthquake was reported 13 miles northwest of Dillon on July 25.



READ ABOUT YELLOWSTONE/GLOBAL SUPERVOLCANOES

It is little known that lying underneath one of The United States largest and most picturesque National Parks - Yellowstone Park - is one of the largest "super volcanoes" in the world.

Disaster Convention Warned on Urbanisation Risk

Breaking Environmental News
Photo Left: "Most of the new citizens in urban environments end up in various slums, more often than not areas most prone to the devastation caused by natural hazards such as earthquakes, flooding and tropical storms," Wijkman said.

Bangkok (AFP) Feb 02, 2006
Natural disasters will continue affecting the world's poorest people until decision makers address factors including rapid urbanisation and environmental destruction, a conference heard Thursday.

European parliamentiarian Anders Wijkman told an international convention on disaster prevention while the global proportion of people living in poverty had fallen in recent decades, they continued to live in risk-prone areas.

The earth's population had doubled in the past 40 years while people living in urban areas had increased five-fold, a trend that was continuing, Wijkam said.

"Most of the new citizens in urban environments end up in various slums, more often than not areas most prone to the devastation caused by natural hazards such as earthquakes, flooding and tropical storms," he said

Portland earthquake upgraded to 3.1

Jolt - After studying data, scientists raise the Saturday quake's magnitude to 3.1

Thursday, February 02, 2006
Scientists say the energy released by the earthquake that jarred the Portland area Saturday was roughly three times higher than initial estimates.
Researchers with the Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network at the University of Washington on Wednesday raised the quake's magnitude from a 2.8 to a 3.1 after analyzing data from instruments.
The higher magnitude gives only a partial explanation why the small quake was felt across such a wide area, said Yumei Wang, a scientist with the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. "The geology also was involved, and we want to know how."
The earthquake was centered on a fault about 9 miles below Southeast Portland near Laurelhurst Park, the same site as a magnitude 2.7 quake last June. The latest quake was felt from Hillsboro in the west to Troutdale in the east, and from Ridgefield, Wash., in the north to Oregon City in the south.
"This felt area was surprisingly large for a small earthquake," Wang said. "This produced much stronger ground motion than similar quakes centered at Swan Island or Kelley Point in North Portland."

Arctic temperatures return to Moscow

Photo Left: Homeless get free food in the Church of St.Kozma and St. Domian in Shubin, in Moscow, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2006. The Russian Orthodox Church and city authorities are trying to do everything possible to make life easier for the homeless during these unusually cold winter days.
Photograph by : AP Photo,

Published: Thursday, February 02, 2006
MOSCOW -- Residents of Moscow and western Russian regions braced for more arctic temperatures Wednesday, as a cold front that has taxed municipal heating systems in Siberia pushed westward.
Temperatures in the Russian capital dropped to -- 20 C overnight and were forecast to go lower by Friday as utility officials announced evening limitations on electricity supplies for industrial customers.
Russian news agencies said at least four people had died of exposure in the past 24 hours in Moscow and another 11 were hospitalized. East of Moscow, forecasters recorded temperatures of minus -- 29 C.
Early last month, a cold wave known to Russians as the Epiphany Front pushed temperatures as low as --38 C in Moscow.
Nationwide, this winter -- the coldest in Moscow since 1978-1979 -- has severely strained the Russia's crumbling infrastructure

Blog Follows Probe of Submerged Volcano

SKYWATCH SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
Photo Left: Bamboo coral on the Davidson Seamount. Coral colony age estimates exceed 200 years.

Feb 2, 2006
SAN JOSE, Calif. - The public can follow along on the Web as a team of scientists explore a massive volcano that‘s submerged thousands of feet under water in Monterey Bay.
A BBC crew also is on board filming a documentary scheduled to air next year.
The volcano, which is twice as tall as Mount Diablo in Contra Costa County, is located 75 miles southwest of Monterey and boasts coral gardens as high as 12 feet tall.
Scientists have already found what appears to be a new sponge species that "looks a bit like a lovely white stringy, spiny cactus," Jim Barry, a scientist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, wrote in an e-mail from the ship.
The Web site: Click Here
Information from: San Jose Mercury News

Researchers unlock mystery of layer encircling the Earth's core

Space & Earth Science
Jan 30, 2006
University of Minnesota associate professor of chemical engineering Renata Wentzcovitch and her team of researchers have confirmed the properties of a mineral (post-perovskite) that may form near the Earth's core in a layer called the D'' region.

The work offers new insight for interpreting properties of this region. The D'' (Dee double prime) layer surrounds Earth's core and is between 0 and 186 miles thick. It is at the interface between two chemically distinct regions, the rocky mantle and the metallic core. The article, "MgSiO3 post-perovskite at D'' conditions," was published on Jan. 17 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

The research "tells us how to better model Earth's internal processes," said Wentzcovitch. "Proper geodynamical modeling of the Earth is necessary to get a better grasp of the dynamics of the surface. You can't fully understand Earth's surface motion without understanding how it moves inside. What's unbelievable is how well we can model Earth on a big scale. At this scale, small details don't matter."

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Study Confirms '10th Planet' Indeed Larger than Pluto

BREAKING SPACE SCIENCE NEWS: THE 10TH PLANET
Photo Left: An artist's concept of 2003 UB313, an icy body that lies beyond the planet Neptune.
VIEW SLIDESHOW:

Feb 2, 2006
An object discovered earlier this year and considered by some to be our solar system’s 10^th planet is indeed larger than Pluto, a new study confirms.

The object, catalogued as 2003 UB313, is by many accounts a planet. It is round and orbits the Sun.

But because several other objects meet those criteria and also approach Pluto’s size, astronomers have been wrangling for months over how to define the word “planet.” It is not known if or when the International Astronomical Union, which rules on such things, will issue a decision. Members of an advisory board weighing the issue can’t even agree on the parameters of a definition.

Meanwhile, 2003 UB313 is now known to be about 1,860 miles (3,000 kilometers) in diameter, give or take 190 miles (300 kilometers).

Photo Left: The size of UB313 compared with Pluto, Charoon, Moon and Earth. Image credit: Max Planck Institute. Click to enlarge

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Severe Drought in East Africa

BREAKING EARTH NEWS: AFRICA
Feb 2, 2006
The failure of the short-season rains left large sections of East Africa in severe drought in late 2005 and early 2006. In a normal year, rains fall from March to May during the long rainy season, and from October to December during the short rainy season. The rains recharge lakes and reservoirs and nurture plants from crops and pasture lands to natural vegetation. For East Africa, 2005 was anything but a normal year. The long rainy season produced little rain, and the short rainy season failed altogether. As a result, rainfall totals for the year were only 20-60 percent of normal, depending on the region, reported the Famine Early Warning Network (FEWS NET).

Heavy Rains in Peru

BREAKING CLIMATE NEWS: PERU

LIMA, Feb. 1 (Xinhuanet) -- Torrential rain has killed eight people in Peru and displaced 1,400 families, Juan Podesta, head ofthe country's national civil defense agency, told Lima reporters on Wednesday.
"From December to January we have had eight dead, 14 injured, around 1,400 families displaced, and around 3,800 affected," Podesta said.
Torrential rain has affected Andean departments of Huancavelica, Arequipa, Cusco and Puno. Mudslides have blocked roads, interrupted transport, and rising rivers threaten to flood cultivated land. Enditem

Augustine Volcano Continues to Erupt

Augustine Volcano Continues to Erupt, Producing a Continuous Plume of Steam, Ash and Gas
Photo Left: In this photo provided by the Alaska Volcano Observatory/U.S. Geological Survey, steam and ash billow from Augustine Volcano, Monday Jan. 30, 2006, on the uninhabited volcanic island 75 miles southwest of Homer, Alaska. Ash from Augustine Volcano's two blasts on Monday wafted slowly toward the southern Kenai Peninsula and grounded flights to and from Kodiak Island. (AP Photo/ Alaska Volcano Observatory/U.S. Geological Survey)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska Feb 1, 2006 — Augustine Volcano continued to erupt Tuesday, with the volcano producing a continuous crescent-shaped plume of steam, and ash and gas speeding down the flanks of the island mount and into the sea.
The Alaska Volcano Observatory made hourly updates early Tuesday on its Web site with each one beginning the same way "Eruption is in progress."
The volcano on an uninhabited island has been erupting since Saturday, with explosions thrusting particles almost five miles into the skies around south-central Alaska.

Bitter cold kills 589 in Ukraine

BREAKING CLIMATE NEWS: UKRAINE
About 7,000 people have sought medical treatment

Feb 1, 2006
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- About 589 people died from the cold in Ukraine over a 15-day period of record-breaking low temperatures last month, the Health Ministry said Wednesday.
The deaths occurred between January 16 and 31, the ministry said in a statement.
Nearly 7,000 Ukrainians asked for medical help as temperatures dipped to around -25 C (-13 F), but only about half required hospitalization. The ministry said the victims were mostly homeless and intoxicated people. The majority were from the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Meanwhile, President Viktor Yushchenko ordered his government Wednesday to end an 11-day-long heating outage in a Ukrainian city by February 11 and said those responsible for the unprecedented long breakdown must be held responsible.Some 60,000 people have been shivering in unheated apartments in Alchevsk since January 22, when the eastern city's heating system failed during the cold spell.The shutdown occurred when one of the main pipes pumping hot water from a central boiler into apartment houses, schools and other municipal buildings froze and broke down. A government delegation was expected to travel to Alchevsk on Thursday to oversee repairs, Yushchenko said in a statement.Yushchenko visited the city Monday and blamed local officials for the problems.During his visit, the president proposed that all of Alchevsk's children be sent to Ukraine's Crimean resorts until heating is restored. The first 655 children were scheduled to head south on Wednesday, the news agency Interfax reported.Last week's cold snap caused a record jump in gas consumption in Ukraine as this country's aging and inefficient heating systems struggled to cope.Temperatures have since risen to more normal winter levels in Ukraine, with many schools and other businesses that had closed last week reopening this week.
Source: CNN

VIEW GALLERY: EUROPEAN COLD SNAP

Two new lakes found beneath Antarctic ice sheet

Jan 26, 2006
The Earth Institute at Columbia University--Lying beneath more than two miles of Antarctic ice, Lake Vostok may be the best-known and largest subglacial lake in the world, but it is not alone down there. Scientists have identified more than 145 other lakes trapped under the ice. Until now, however, none have approached Vostok’s size or depth. In the February 2006 issue of Geophysical Review Letters, scientists from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, a member of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, describe for the first time the size, depth and origin of Vostok’s two largest neighbors. The two ice-bound lakes are referred to as 90ºE and Sovetskaya for the longitude of one and the Russian research station coincidentally built above the other. The scientists’ findings also indicate that, as suspected with Lake Vostok, an exotic ecosystem may still be thriving in the icy waters 35 million years after being sealed off from the surface. Geophysicists Robin Bell and Michael Studinger of Lamont-Doherty combined data from ice-penetrating radar, gravity surveys, satellite images, laser altimetry and records of a Soviet Antarctic Expedition that unknowingly traversed the lakes in 1958-1959. The shorelines of the lakes appeared in satellite images of the region as perturbations in the surface of the East Antarctic ice sheet. In addition, because the ice is effectively floating on the surface of the lakes, the ice sheet exhibits slight depressions over the lakes that appear in radar and laser elevations.