Raining Fish/ Australia?

02/28/2010

Yes, I too had to read the report twice and finish my second cup of coffee before I posted this to make sure I was reading this correctly!

Australia

Date & Time: 2010-02-28 05:50:18 [UTC]
Area: Australia, State of Northern Territory,
Lajamanu

Event: Fish falling from the sky.

While the Top End and Central Australia have been battered by torrential rains, a Territory town has reportedly had fish falling from the sky. The freak phenomena happened not once, but twice, on Thursday and Friday afternoon about 6pm at Lajamanu, about 550km southwest of Katherine, The Northern Territory News reports.

Christine Balmer, who took the photos of the fish on the ground and in a bucket, said she had to pinch herself when she was told "hundreds and hundreds" of small white fish had fallen from the sky. "It rained fish in Lajamanu on Thursday and Friday night," she said, "They fell from the sky everywhere. "Locals were picking them up off the footy oval and on the ground everywhere. "These fish were alive when they hit the ground." Mrs Balmer, the aged care co-ordinator at the Lajamanu Aged Care Centre, said her family interstate thought she had lost the plot when she told them about the event. "I haven't lost my marbles," she said, reassuring herself. "Thank God it didn't rain crocodiles." Lajamanu sits on the edge of the Tanami Desert, hundreds of kilometres from Lake Argyle and Lake Elliott and even further from the coast.

But it's not the first time the remote community has been bombarded by fins from above. In 2004, locals reported fish falling from the sky, and in 1974, a similar incident captured international headlines. The small white fish are believed to be spangled perch, which are very common through much of northern Australia. Weather bureau senior forecaster Ashley Patterson said the geological conditions were perfect on Friday for a tornado in the Douglas Daly region. He said it would have been an ideal weather situation to allow the phenomena to occur - but no tornados have been reported to the authority.

"It's a very unusual event," he said. "With an updraft, (fish and water picked up) could get up high - up to 60,000 or 70,000 feet. "Or possibly from a tornado over a large water body - but we haven't had any reports," he said.

Michael Bradbury reporting for Viewzone

03/01/2010

'New Superberg!' On 2010-03-01 at 19:28:46 [UTC]

Event: Climate Change
Location: Antarctica Mertz Glacier

Situation:
A giant iceberg collided with a branch of the Mertz Glacier in east Antarctica earlier this month, breaking off a 965-square-mile "superberg," The Sydney Morning Herald reports. Australian and French scientists said that the two icebergs could disrupt global ocean circulation currents, changing heat distribution patterns and lowering oxygen levels. "The calving (break) itself hasn't been directly linked to climate change but it is related to the natural processes occurring on the ice sheet," Rob Massom, a Tasmania-based senior scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center, told Reuters.

This natural calving stands in stark contrast to the recent, rapid ice shelf break-off from rising temperatures in the Antarctic peninsula, according to Australian Antarctic Division Glaciologist Neal Young. At 48 miles long and about 24 miles wide, the new iceberg holds roughly 20 percent of the worldís annual water use, Young told the Associated Press. The two icebergs are now drifting together about 60 to 90 miles off the coast of Antarctica. Scientists worry about global ocean currents because the newly-detached iceberg had previously helped protect a polynya, an ice-free area of water.

Twenty-five percent of Antarctic bottom water originated in the polynya, making it a key driver of ocean circulation, Massom told the Herald. If sea ice fills in the polynya, or if the "superberg" blocks it, the dense, cold sinking water could be cut off above the ocean floor, causing slow-ocean bottom currents. These ocean currents move heat around the world, and feed deep currents that distribute oxygen. Changes could have devastating effects. "There may be regions of the world's oceans that lose oxygen, and then of course most of the life there will die," Mario Hoppema, chemical oceanographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, told the Associated Press. But the potentially dangerous oxygen-level variations also hold research opportunities. Observing what happens "will allow us to improve predictions of future climate change."

Oxygen levels in Fresh Water and Salt Water have been on the decline for a while now, respondsible for millions and millions of dead fish world wide in the past few months.

Michael Bradbury reporting for Viewzone

03/15/10

Climate Change - Russia

Area: Russia, Siberia, East Siberian Arctic Shelf

!!! WARNING !!!

EVENT:

Large amounts of a powerful greenhouse gas are bubbling up from a long-frozen seabed north of Siberia, raising fears of far bigger leaks that could stoke global warming, scientists said. It was unclear, however, if the Arctic emissions of methane gas were new or had been going on unnoticed for centuries -- since before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century led to wide use of fossil fuels that are blamed for climate change.

The study said about 8 million tonnes of methane a year, equivalent to the annual total previously estimated from all of the world's oceans, were seeping from vast stores long trapped under permafrost below the seabed north of Russia. "Subsea permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap," Natalia Shakhova, a scientist at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, said in a statement. She co-led the study published in Friday's edition of the journal Science. The experts measured levels of methane, a gas that can be released by rotting vegetation, in water and air at 5,000 sites on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf from 2003-08. In some places, methane was bubbling up from the seabed.

Previously, the sea floor had been considered an impermeable barrier sealing methane, Shakhova said. Current methane concentrations in the Arctic are the highest in 400,000 years. "No one can answer this question," she said of whether the venting was caused by global warming or by natural factors. But a projected rise in temperatures could quicken the thaw.

"These leaks could have been occurring all the time" since the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago, he said. He wrote that the release of 8 million tonnes of methane a year was "negligible" compared to global emissions of about 440 million tonnes. Shakhova's study said there was an "urgent need" to monitor the region for possible future changes since permafrost traps vast amounts of methane, the second most common greenhouse gas from human activities after carbon dioxide.

Monitoring could resolve if the venting was "a steadily ongoing phenomenon or signals the start of a more massive release period," according to the scientists, based at U.S., Russian and Swedish research institutions. The release of just a "small fraction of the methane held in (the) East Siberian Arctic Shelf sediments could trigger abrupt climate warming," they wrote.

The shelf has sometimes been above sea level during the earth's history. When submerged, temperatures rise by 12-17 degrees Celsius (22-31 F) since water is warmer than air. Over thousands of years, that may thaw submerged permafrost. About 60 percent of methane now comes from human activities such as landfills, cattle rearing or rice paddies. Natural sources such as wetlands make up the rest, along with poorly understood sources such as the oceans, wildfires or termites. Most studies about methane focus on permafrost on land. But the shelf below the Laptev, East Siberian and Russian part of the Chuckchi sea is three times the size of Siberia's wetlands.

Michael Bradbury reporting for Viewzone

04/13/2010

EVENT: GLACIER COLLAPSED IN LAKE!!

Area: Peru, Ancash Region, , Carhuaz

Missing person(s): 5
Damage level: Heavy

Not confirmed information! Description:

At least several people were missing after a glacier broke off and plunged into a lake in western peru on Sunday, causing a 23-meter (75-foot) tsunami that devastated a nearby town, authorities said on Monday. The incident happened at a lake in the Andes near the town of Carhuaz. It said at least five people remained missing and that two injured had been taken to a local hospital. According to the Civil Defense, at least 50 houses were destroyed when the tsunami struck. Others had been damaged by the wave, which flooded the area and destroyed the lake’s levees.

A water processing plant also was destroyed. Damaging tsunamis are rare, and are most known to be caused by earthquakes. However, tsunamis can also be generated by other events such as volcanic eruptions and landslides. Michael Bradbury reporting for Viewzone

UPDATE: TSUNAMI/PERU

Situation Update No. 1

Event: Tsunami/Peru
Location: Peru Ancash Region Carhuaz

Number of Injured: 2 person(s)
Number of Missing: 5 person(s)

Situation:

A huge glacier has broken off and plunged into a lake in Peru sparking a 23-metre high tsunami wave that destroyed a nearby town. The massive chunk of ice - around the size of four football fields - tumbled into the '513 lake' in the Andes near Carhuaz, around 200 miles north of Lima.

According to the Indeci civil defence institute, 50 homes have been destroyed. A water processing plant serving 60,000 local residents was also devastated when the wave struck on Sunday. Initially, six people were reported missing, feared dead under the debris - but local governor Cesar Alvarez has said five of those have been found alive. Authorities evacuated mountain valleys, fearing more ice breakages after the tsunami - which are most commonly caused by earthquakes. Blaming climate change, Mr Alvarez said: "Because of global warming the glaciers are going to detach and fall on these overflowing lakes.

This is what happened." Investigators have said the ice block from the Hualcan glacier measured 500m by 200m. Patricio Vaderrama, a Peruvian glacier expert, said: "The tsunami wave breached the lake's levees, which are 23m high - meaning the wave was 23m high." Peru is home to 70 per cent of the world's tropical icefields.

Michael Bradbury reporting for Viewzone