Storms // Current

Brisbane declared a disaster zone

Brisbane has been declared a natural disaster area, as soldiers and prisoners help repair damage caused by one of the biggest... more

skyla
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Ferry captain saves passengers from disaster

The captain of the high-speed ferry, The Fantastic, saved the lives of his passengers and crew thanks to his quick thinking. ... more

ClareW
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Lightning strikes only once — but kills 52 cows

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay – Lightning struck only once — but 52 cows are dead at an Uruguayan ranch. The newspaper El Pais... more

GETTINGOUTOURDREAMS
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Norbert weakens but still hurricane off Mexico coast

Hurricane Norbert further weakened to a Category 1 storm in the Pacific but was still a major tempest as it headed on Thursday for... more

khaosworks
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Drastic changes to life on Earth caused by global warming, confirm NASA scientists

Global warming is already leading to widespread disruptions of the Earth's natural systems, according to a study published in the journal Nature and conducted by some of the climate scientists who were involved in the influential 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

"[This] is the first [study] to formally link observed global changes in physical and biological systems to human-induced climate change, predominantly from increasing greenhouse gases," said study reviewers Francis Zwiers of Environment Canada and Gabriele Hegerl of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

The scientists catalogued more than 29,500 reports of changes to the Earth's natural systems. Some of these changes were physical, such as the melting of Patagonia's ice fields of Arctic permafrost, or the earlier break-up of Mongolian river ice and unprecedented coastal erosion. Others were behavioral, such as the earlier arrival of migratory birds to Australia, and others dealt with changes in populations, such as the decline of Antarctic krill stocks and overall productivity of Lake Tanganyika. Even genetic changes, such as those in North America's pitcher plant mosquitoes, were included.

The researchers found that more than 90 percent of the documented changes were to be expected from a scenario of rising regional temperatures. Global warming, rather than other human causes such as deforestation or pollution, seemed to be the major force behind the changes.

more at the link.
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This must now become more than just a political wedge issue. This must be the end of governments and groups placating flatearthers and special interests who are using their $$$$$ to control the conversation. This must be the end of governments and organizations like the World Bank using this crisis as an impetus to benefit themselves and to foment war. They are all leading us over the cliff. Global warming/climate change is doing damage to the many ecosystems that support the life of humans and other species.

There are currently six degrees of climate change that represent the effects this planet will suffer from due to global warming/climate change. Currently, we are at the third degree... we are already HALFWAY THERE. As the last quote in this article states, we have to get our act together. And it is not overly dramatic to state that we are running out of time regarding the future sustainability of this planet. This is not something that is just occurring through natural means nor has it been ordained by God. This is not just some fluke of nature that will reverse itself. This is not a myth or an illusion. This is real, it is happening, and we are contributing to it not only by our behavior but by our retiscence in taking the action necessary to mitigate it.

How many 'meetings' are world leaders going to have before they realize that they have run out the clock? How many political candidates will continue to spew the same 80% by 2050 line? I recently wrote to my Senator about the need for 100% renewable energy in 10 years... know the response I got? The same form letter with that same 80% by 2050 line! Where is the political will? Where is the urgency? And people dare to criticize those who scale coal plants to unfurl a dire warning as to the truth of the state of the only planet that can sustain us to wake people up?

Just what is it going to take?Global warming is already leading to widespread disruptions of the Earth's natural systems, according to a study published in... more

JanforGore
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25 responses

1 month ago

After powerful hurricane, rescuers scour ravaged areas

GALVESTON, Tex. — Emergency officials struggled to carry out rescue efforts on Sunday after Hurricane Ike roared across a... more

ivxx
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2 responses

2 months ago

Officials: Ike Means 'Certain Death' For Some

CBS News Interactive: 2008 Storm Tracker
HOUSTON (CBS) ― As a gigantic Hurricane Ike steamed through the Gulf of Mexico toward the Texas coast, officials in America's fourth-largest city made a bold decision: Instead of fleeing, residents here would stare down the storm.

Homeowners should board up windows, clear the decks of furniture and stock up on drinking water and non-perishable food. But whatever they do, officials warned, residents should not flock to the roadways en masse, creating the same kind of gridlock that cost lives - and a little political capital - when Hurricane Rita threatened Houston in 2005.

"It will be, in candor, something that people will be scared of," Houston Mayor Bill White warned. "A number of people in this community have not experienced the magnitude of these winds."

The decision is a stark contrast to how emergency management officials responded to Hurricane Rita in 2005. As the storm closed in three years ago, the region implemented its plan: Evacuate the 2 million people in the coastal communities first, past the metropolis of Houston; once they were out of harm's way, Houston would follow in an orderly fashion.

But three days before landfall, Rita bloomed into a Category 5 and tracked toward the city. City and Harris County officials told Houstonians to hit the road, even while the population of Galveston Island was still clogging the freeways. It was a decision that proved tragic: 110 people died during the effort, making the evacuation more deadly than the eventual Category 4 storm, which killed nine.

With the lessons of that disaster, public officials were left with a vexing choice this time. Because Ike's path wasn't clear until just about 48 hours before the storm, officials didn't have a lot of time to make evacuation calls.

"Almost all of them are in a pretty tough spot," said Michael Lindell, a Texas A&M University urban planner and emergency management expert. "The problem is elected officials were not elected to be hurricane experts.

"It's staring into the barrel of a gun. It's a very challenging problem for them and there isn't any easy answer."

Ike was forecast to make landfall early Saturday southwest of Galveston, a barrier island and beach town about 50 miles southeast of downtown Houston and scene of the nation's deadliest hurricane, the great storm of 1900 that left at least 6,000 dead.

Though Houston didn't evacuate, low-lying communities predicted to be the bullseye of the storm did. People on the island were ordered evacuated Thursday, joining residents of at least nine zip codes in flood-prone areas of Harris County, in which Houston is located, along with hundreds of thousands of fellow Texans in counties up and down the coastline.

CBS News Interactive: 2008 Storm Tracker HOUSTON (CBS) ― As a gigantic Hurricane Ike steamed through the Gulf of Mexico toward... more

arcticspirit
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2 months ago

Weather service warns of 'certain death' in face of Ike - CNN.com

People who are to be hit by Ike living in single family homes are strongly urged to leave thier home or face "certain... more

starr111
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1 response

2 months ago

Hurricane Ike storm surge could devastate Galveston Texas

Very large Hurricane Ike continues to barrel toward a potentially devastating strike in Galveston and Houston, Texas. The damage could be on a level not seen since Hurricane Alicia tore a path of destruction through the cities in 1983.

The AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center reports that Ike should reach Category 3 strength as it moves northwest through the Gulf of Mexico.

Landfall is forecast early on Saturday between Freeport and Galveston, which puts Houston and surrounding Harris County on the dangerous east side of the storm.

Because of the expected intensity of the hurricane at landfall and the angle at which Ike will approach the upper Texas coast, a storm surge of up to 20 feet may occur in Galveston Bay with a storm surge of 12 to 16 feet expected on the immediate coast. Gulf water will be pushed into the confined area of Galveston Bay. Hence the higher storm surge.

The cloud shield from Hurricane Ike took up nearly half of the Gulf of Mexico Thursday, but as of the late afternoon hours Ike remained at Category 2 strength, with sustained winds of 100 mph. With hurricane force winds extending 115 miles from the center and tropical storm force winds out to 275 miles, Ike remains a massive hurricane and conditions along the Gulf Coast will deteriorate long before landfall late on Friday.

The wind field to the east of the eye, stretches roughly 550 miles from north to south. Outer bands of thunderstorms and gusty winds Thursday moved through the Mississippi Delta and New Orleans, spreading thunderstorms into areas that were hammered by Hurricane Gustav.

The potential for catastrophic damage is extremely high. According to Forecasting Manager Ken Reeves, "In contrast to the major hits in the Gulf over the past several years, including Katrina, Ike will not weaken significantly before landfall. As a result, the damage potential is exponentially higher."

Hurricane and tropical storm watches and warnings are in effect along the Gulf Coast from the Mississippi - Alabama border to south Texas, including New Orleans and Houston.
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This storm is huge. If you haven't left, get out now, please.Very large Hurricane Ike continues to barrel toward a potentially devastating strike in Galveston and Houston, Texas. The damage... more

JanforGore
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2 responses

2 months ago

Ike could hit Texas at Category 4

(CNN) -- Evacuations were ordered along the Texas coast Wednesday as forecasters predicted that Hurricane Ike could slam into the... more

ivxx
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0 responses

2 months ago

Ike whips through Cuba, downgrades to Category 2 hurricane

Preparation continues as Hurricane Ike hits Cuba. Here's a snippet from the AP article: "More than 770,000 Cubans... more

mario_a
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0 responses

2 months ago

UK may be in for more floods

According to the Press association "Torrential rains which lashed the country over the weekend have eased off, but... more

Simon_S
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0 responses

2 months ago

Storm-Hit Haitians Starve on Rooftops

Haiti was reeling last night from a series of tropical storms which devastated crops and infrastructure and left bodies floating in flooded towns. Three storms in three weeks unleashed "catastrophe" and submerged much of the impoverished Caribbean nation, said President Rene Preval. A fourth storm, Ike, was gathering force in the Atlantic and could strike next week.

More than 120 people have died, thousands are homeless and agriculture and transport networks have been washed away, prompting calls for emergency international aid.

"There are a lot of people who have been on top of the roofs of their homes over 24 hours now," the interior minister, Paul Antoine Bien-Aime, told Reuters. "They have no water, no food and we can't even help them."

Haiti, vulnerable because of its flimsy dwellings and soil erosion, has been the worst affected by the tempests that have battered the Caribbean and US Gulf coast. Parts of Cuba have also been devastated, prompting Fidel Castro to compare the impact to a nuclear attack.

Tropical storm Fay started the crisis three weeks ago. Hurricane Gustav wreaked havoc last week by uprooting trees and triggering floods and mudslides that killed dozens.

Tropical storm Hanna struck on Tuesday with 65mph winds, killing at least 61 people and flooding the northern Haitian city of Gonaives with two metres of water. Corpses and the carcasses of donkeys and cows - flies swarming over them - bobbed down streets turned into rivers.

"I saw 10 bodies float in the flooded streets of the city," the police commissioner, Ernst Dorfeuille, told the local Radio Metropole.

Gonaives lies in a flat river plain between the ocean and deforested mountains that run with mud even in light rains.

With roads impassable and winds too strong for helicopters, UN peacekeepers reached the city on inflatable boats. They found hundreds of survivors clinging to rooftops, begging for water and food - women on balconies waved empty pots and spoons.

"I lost everything, even the baby's clothes," Jezula Preval, one of 1,500 people huddled in the a desolate shelter nicknamed the "Haiti Hilton", told the Associated Press. She gave birth to a healthy boy on Tuesday, after floodwaters swallowed her house.

Patients in a flooded hospital had crowded into an upper floor room. At the church about 100 people huddled on a balcony, waiting for the water to recede.

"There is no food, no water, no clothes," said the pastor, Arnaud Dumas. "I want to know what I'm supposed to do ... we haven't found anything to eat in two, three days. Nothing at all.

*CONTINUES*Haiti was reeling last night from a series of tropical storms which devastated crops and infrastructure and left bodies floating... more

goldenways
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2 months ago

Hurricane forecast: 'No letup' in weeks ahead

Just as Hurricane Gustav was dissipating and three tropical storms were brewing in the Atlantic, forecasters predicted that... more

JanforGore
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2 responses

3 months ago

Strongest storms grow stronger yet

A new study finds that the strongest of hurricanes and typhoons have become even stronger over the last two and a half decades, adding grist to the contentious debate over whether global warming has already made storms more destructive.

I think we do see a climate signal here, said James B. Elsner, a professor of geography at Florida State University who is the lead author of the paper, being published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

The study, which also found that more typical, less powerful tropical storms had not become stronger over the 26-year period studied, is consistent with other researchers; hurricane models, Dr. Elsner said.

With oceans expected to continue warming, “one would expect more 4s and 5s, he said of Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes, those with maximum sustained winds of at least 131 miles per hour.

About 90 tropical cyclone storms form each year around the world. In the Atlantic, the stronger ones, with winds of at least 74 m.p.h., are hurricanes; the equivalents in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are typhoons. Ten named storms have formed in the Atlantic this hurricane season, which continues to the end of November.

Heat from the warming oceans will provide more energy to spin up hurricanes and typhoons, but the changing climate could also heighten conditions like wind shear; winds blowing at different speeds and different directions at different altitudes; that tend to tear a storm apart.

Because of these environmental factors, most storms fall far short of their maximum possible intensity. But Dr. Elsner, along with Thomas H. Jagger, a postdoctoral researcher at Florida State, and James P. Kossin, a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, reasoned that warmer waters increased the possible intensity and that storms that develop in ideal conditions might have become stronger.

Having examined satellite data from 1981 through 2006, a period in which sea surface temperature rose to 83.3 degrees Fahrenheit from 82.8 degrees, they concluded that the highest wind speeds of the strongest storms averaged 156 m.p.h. in 2006, up from 140 m.p.h. hour in 1981. The increases in cyclone intensity were greatest in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

Because the data came from one set of satellites, the scientists avoided some of the calibration difficulties that had troubled earlier studies.

This study offers definitive evidence that there are more of the very strongest hurricanes around the world, even though the total number of storms globally shows hardly any trend, said Kerry A. Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who suggested in 2005 that global warming had already intensified cyclones.
A new study finds that the strongest of hurricanes and typhoons have become even stronger over the last two and a half decades,... more