Extreme Weather and other Earth Changes Report for 2015

6/9/2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4F_6awSE3A

7/9/2015
By Barbara Liston

ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of nesting birds vanished this spring from a Florida island refuge where they have come to breed for decades, leaving behind their unhatched eggs and mystifying wildlife officers trying to figure out why they disappeared.

The birds have been coming to Seahorse Key on Florida’s Gulf Coast for more than a century, and in recent times averaging 10,000 to 20,000 breeding pairs a year, said Vic Doig, biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The birds returned in April, said Doig, who spotted them while conducting a survey. Days later, a caretaker noticed that they were all gone.

“Nobody really saw anything. One day they were there. The next day, they weren’t,” he said.

Seahorse Key, about 60 miles southwest of Gainesville, is part of the Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1929 to protect nesting birds that numbered about 200,000 at the time. The birds were under threat from hunters who sold their plumage to makers of fashionable hats for women.

White ibis, tri-colored herons, snowy egrets and roseate spoonbills are among the rare wading birds with long and attractive feathers which return to Seahorse Key every year from April through June.

The refuge is a nature lover’s paradise where tour boat operators ferry sightseers around the rookery.

“When the birds are nesting there, the island is a chaotic, loud, busy place. All of a sudden, it’s like a ghost town,” Doig said.

There was no sign of traumatic injuries or disease in the few bird carcasses left behind after the exodus, he said.

A change in the local food supply seems unlikely, and a predator, such as the great horned owl, would be hard pressed to scare off so many birds spread out over one square mile.

Although a storm with wind gusts and lightning moved in around the time the birds left, that is a common occurrence in spring.

The island might have been buzzed by an aircraft or drone, Doig said, but there is no eyewitness evidence of an aircraft scaring off the birds.

The agency is also considering whether the birds could have been spooked by a helicopter that recently began ferrying beachgoers to an island about five miles away, he said.

With the investigation hitting a dead end, wildlife officers will have to wait to see if the birds return next year, Doig said.

(Editing by Frank McGurty and Mohammad Zargham

7/9/2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5wDe7CFYR0

These folks do an excellent job put the various video clips together from around the world.
Extreme Weather seems to be the new normal.

7/11/2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7whL9jvdL5s

Hold onto your winter clothes, you may need them.

Hi BB. What's up?
If you are going to hit the Goodwill stores for winter clothes, now is a good time.....or even better yet, catch one of the Florida Goodwill stores. (Goodwill are stores that sell nothing but second hand clothes and other stuff.) They don't get a big run on winter clothes down there and the prices are always a bargain. Speaking for bargains, We hit the State Farmers market today and got some great white peaches. They are the best we have had this season. Also picked up cantaloupes (3 for a dollar),watermelon ( 2 dollars), blueberries (two containers for the price of one, and found a place to pick your peas and beans.

Being off the mountain and in the heart of South Carolina, where the average summer temperature has been 99 - 102 most everyday has been an easy adjustment. The cold weather was making my hands hurt and here they don't. I never thought I would be a fan of heat but have turned into such. Folks in the mountains complain when the temperature hits 88. Not sure how the log home will be this coming winter. So far this summer, it's not a energy efficient as I thought it would be, but I am still doing tons of maintenance to get systems to peak performance. I keep the temp on about 75 during the day and the heat pump gives us cool air and the house is comfortable. Not cold or cool but comfortable.

I hope Ben is wrong with his prediction. The only thing we have been having that it seems we can count on is extremes in the weather.

Bob H.

Blizzards, gale-force winds, heavy rain continue to descend across continental Australia, while Tasmania 'escapes' the cold

quote "
The cold snap that brought blizzards, snow, gale-force winds and heavy rain across parts of continental Australia over the weekend is set to continue well into the week.

A major cold front has created a winter wonderland in parts of New South Wales, with good snow falls recorded in the Alpine region and a light dusting in the Central Tablelands.

However, what is shaping up to be a boon for the state's ski resorts created havoc on the roads as the school holidays ended, with two highways closed for a period on Sunday morning.

Meteorologists from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) said the low-pressure system, which was bringing the cold front and snow, was expected to last for most of the week ahead.

"Later in the week there is another upper-level trough moving through and there will be very cold air with that," BoM senior forecaster Neil Fraser said. "

Usually In OZ it snow only in Tasmania and in the Snowy Mountains ....Unusual event

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-12/blizzard-gale-winds-heavy-rain-descend-across-the-country/6613474

7/13/2015
Winter is Coming: Scientist Says Sun Will Nod Off in 15 Years
Posted: 07/13/2015 3:30 pm EDT Updated: 2 hours ago

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2015-07-13-1436815789-3594176-Game_of_thrones_Winter.jpg

Might want to start stockpiling those down jackets: The sun could nod off by 2030, triggering what scientists are describing as a “mini ice age.”

Professor Vlentina Zharkova of Northumbira University presented the frigid findings at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno, Wales. Modern technology has made us able to predict solar cycles with much greater accuracy, and Zharkova’s model predicts that solar activity will drop by more than half between 2030 and 2040.

Solar activity was thought to be caused by a turbine-system of moving fluid within the sun. In search of a more accurate system of prediction, Professor Zharkova and her team discovered fluctuating magnetic waves in two layers of the sun. By studying the data of the dual waves, she says, predictions are far more precise.

“Combining both waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97 percent,” said Zharkova, whose findings were published by the Royal Astronomic Society.

Using this method, she and her team discovered that there will be far less solar activity in sun cycles 25 and 26, leading to a prolonged period of solar dormancy

“In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other -- peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the Sun. Their interaction will be disruptive, or they will nearly cancel each other. We predict that this will lead to the properties of a ‘Maunder minimum’,” said Zharkova.

The Maunder Minimum is the title given to periods of time when sunspots are rare. It last occurred between 1645 and 1715, when roughly 50 sunspots were recorded, as opposed to the standard 40,000. That time was marked by brutal, river-freezing temperatures in Europe and North America

7/14/2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPqYfAHRPtk

This is for those who do not visit the daily posts regarding our sun.

8/8/2015
Here is the July 2015 World summary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C3_EouyqqA

9/9/2015


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukz5dwDLIZg

10/2/2015


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo8ym0kiddE

10/11/2015

September 2015 report reviewing earth changing weather around the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtKjsa0zXzI

10/29/2015
Not sure I agree with everything said but the pictures speak for themselves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr7Zl9Lbykk

11/8/2015

This film was dated back a couple years, but is still relevant today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XNfEEjclS4

11/13/2015
The ozone hole over Antarctica

The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is nearing record-breaking size again, scientists say. In fact, new observations show that the infamous "ozone hole" is currently larger than the entire continent of North America.

Researchers at the German Aerospace Center are using Earth-observing satellites to monitor the protective ozone layer and recently reported that a large, nearly circular hole over Antarctica extends over an area measuring 26 million square km (10 million square miles).

Losing part of the ozone layer over Antarctica is an annual phenomenon, but for the past nine years, the ozone hole has been consistently smaller than the record-breaking 27 -million-square-km (10.4 million square miles) ozone hole measured in 2006, according to annual records from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Scientists thought the apparent stabilization indicated that the ozone layer was recovering very gradually. But this year's ozone hole surprised them because it formed a whole month later in the year than the ozone hole typically forms, and its size is almost record-breaking. [Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth]

"In August 2015, we observed an unusually strong southern flow, which directs warm and ozone-rich air masses from lower latitudes over Antarctica," Michael Bittner, one of the researchers responsible for the World Data Center for Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere at the German Aerospace Center, said in a statement. "The typical polar vortex, which provides isolation for Antarctica, could not develop well under these conditions."

The ozone layer occurs at an altitude between 10 and 50 km (6 and 31 miles) above the Earth's surface, in the stratosphere, according to researchers at the German Aerospace Center. During the Southern Hemisphere's winter, the concentration of chlorofluorocarbons — nontoxic, nonflammable chemicals containing carbon, chlorine and fluorine that used to be used in products such as hair spray and refrigerators — increases due to lower temperatures, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

When spring comes to the Southern Hemisphere, the additional sunlight causes chlorofluorocarbons to create an ozone-depleting effect, the EPA website explained. The ozone hole reaches its annual maximum expansion during the spring months in the Southern Hemisphere and then reduces in size again during the local late spring.

11/16/2015
The Scott October monthly summary of global earth changes and extreme weather.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljecyqhun_0

11/26/2015
A road in California has geologist confused as to the cause.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rWyw7TpuTM

11/28/2015

For the second time in three months, an Australian beach experienced a massive collapse, this one off the coast of Queensland leaving a hole measuring about 330 feet long by 330 feet wide.

The latest collapse is believed to have happened on Wednesday on an unpopulated section of North Stradbroke Island – the island is popular with tourists and fishermen. Surf Life Saving Queensland tweeted a photo of the hole and urged everyone to stay away because of the unpredictable and unstable nature of the currents.

Although SLSQ’s tweet initially called it a sinkhole, that’s probably not what this is. Stephen Fityus, a professor of geotechnical engineering at the University of Newcastle, told Mashable Australia this was likely a landslide caused by erosion.

Fityus said the same of a beach collapse in September at Inskip Point near Fraser Island in Queensland, which was found to have swallowed up a car and a camping trailer. At the time he wrote: “Unanticipated ground collapses occur around the world from time to time, and these generally get labelled ‘sinkholes,’ for want a more appropriate term.”

Related: Heartbreaking Photo Shows Devastation of Australian Wildlife

The professor told Mashable that erosion collapses like this are a natural part of how a beach repairs itself, and that people just need to be cautious of them.

“As with Inskip beach, I suspect that it’s in a location where there are longshore currents which variously deposit and erode sand on the submerged sand slopes beyond the beach,” he said. “Under the right conditions, if there is too much erosion at the toe of the slope, it becomes over-steep and loses stability, collapsing progressively back up to the surface.”

12/14/2015
Highlights of the UN Climate summit


LE BOURGET, France (AP) — U.N. climate talks reached a milestone Saturday when more than 190 countries adopted the first accord asking all countries to join the fight against global warming.

Here are some of the key elements of the deal:

—LONG-TERM GOAL: The long-term objective of the agreement is to make sure global warming stays "well below" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and to "pursue efforts" to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Temperatures have already increased by about 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. To achieve that goal, governments pledged to stop the rise in heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions "as soon as possible." By some point after 2050, the agreement says, man-made emissions should be reduced to a level that forests and oceans can absorb.

—EMISSIONS TARGETS: In order to reach the long-term goal, countries agreed to set national targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions every five years. More than 180 countries have already submitted targets for the first cycle beginning in 2020. Only developed countries are expected to slash their emissions in absolute terms; developing nations are "encouraged" to do so as their capabilities evolve over time. Until then, they are expected only to rein in the growth of emissions as their economies develop.

—REVIEWING TARGETS: The initial targets won't be enough to put the world on a path to meet the long-term temperature goal. So the agreement asks governments to review their targets in the next four years and see if they can "update" them. That doesn't require governments to deepen their cuts. But the hope is that it will be possible for them to do so if renewable energy sources become more affordable and effective.

—TRANSPARENCY: There is no penalty for countries that miss their emissions targets. But the agreement has transparency rules to help encourage countries to actually do what they say they will do. That was one of the most difficult pieces to agree on, with China asking for softer requirements for developing countries. The agreement says all countries must report on their emissions and their efforts the reduce them. But it allows for some "flexibility" for developing countries that "need it."

—MONEY: The agreement says wealthy countries should continue to offer financial support to help poor countries reduce their emissions and adapt to climate change. It also encourages other countries to pitch in on a voluntary basis. That paves the way for emerging economies such as China to contribute, even though it doesn't require them to do so. Actual dollar amounts were kept out of the agreement itself, but wealthy nations had previously pledged to provide $100 billion annually in climate finance by 2020.

—LOSS AND DAMAGE: In a victory for small island nations threatened by rising seas, the agreement includes a section recognizing "loss and damage" associated with climate-related disasters. The U.S. long objected to addressing the issue in the agreement, worried that it would lead to claims of compensation for damage caused by extreme weather events. In the end, the issue was included, but a footnote specifically stated that loss and damage does not involve liability or compensation.

12/16/2015

The Scott report of world wide weather extreme during the month of November 2015.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjecH258RNs