Category Archives: Earth Stuff

News of Earth Changes, climate shifts, weather anomalies, volcanoes, etc

Russian Mars Probe to Fall to Earth

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Where Will Doomed Russian Mars Probe Fall?

Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer
Date: 13 January 2012 Time: 06:25 PM ET

 

phobos grunt roscosmos reentry chart
This graphic, published by the Russian space agency Roscosmos, shows where the failed Mars probe Phobos-Grunt could crash to Earth. The arrow points to a possible re-entry site on Sunday, Jan. 15.
CREDIT: Roscosmos

A huge hunk of Russian space junk is set to crash to Earth in the next few days, but nobody knows exactly when or where it’s going to come down.

The 14.5-ton Mars probe Phobos-Grunt, which got stuck in Earth orbit shortly after its Nov. 8 launch, may re-enter the atmosphere at 11:22 a.m. EST (1622 GMT) on Sunday (Jan. 15), according to the latest estimate published today (Jan. 13) by Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency.

If that projection is accurate, pieces of the failed spacecraft will splash into the Atlantic Ocean about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) south of Buenos Aires.

But that’s a big if.

Uncertain predictions

The predicted time and place of re-entry could change in the future, Roscosmos said. Indeed, the newest estimate is substantially different from two others the space agency issued earlier in the week, which had the probe coming down earlier on Sunday and falling into the Indian Ocean off the coast of Java or near Madagascar. [Photos of the Phobos-Grunt mission]

Further, other organizations and observers tracking Phobos-Grunt have their own estimates, some of which roughly agree with Roscosmos’ predictions and some of which have the probe crashing later, perhaps early Monday morning (Jan. 16).

So all we know for certain right now is that Phobos-Grunt will fall to Earth soon, somewhere between 51.4 degrees north latitude and 51.4 degrees south latitude — a stretch of the planet ranging from London in the north to the Falkland Islands in the south.

And the predictions won’t really start firming up until shortly before the probe’s fall, experts say.

“About two hours out, the U.S. military will publish their last re-entry prediction, and that will likely be the most accurate public prediction, as they have very accurate data on the object’s orbit that will not be available publicly,” said Brian Weeden, a technical adviser with the Secure World Foundation and a former orbital analyst with the Air Force.

“Up until then, I would take any prediction with a large grain of salt,” Weeden told SPACE.com in an email.

Most of probe should burn up

Most of Phobos-Grunt’s weight consists of toxic fuel, prompting some concern that its crash could spread dangerous chemicals over populated or environmentally sensitive areas. But Roscosmos officials have said that the fuel will burn up high in Earth’s atmosphere.

The vast majority of Phobos-Grunt should meet the same fate, according to Roscosmos. The space agency estimates that no more than 20 to 30 pieces of the probe, weighing a total of less than 440 pounds (200 kilograms), will reach the ground.

While it’s tough to vet these claims, they’re likely to be fairly accurate, Weeden said.

“Since they have the most data on its construction and design, I don’t think anyone else is in a position at this point to contradict them,” he said. “And their statement is reasonable and consistent with what normally happens.”

At this point, the world may be getting rather accustomed to giant pieces of metal falling from the sky. Phobos-Grunt’s crash will be the third uncontrolled re-entry of a big spacecraft in the last four months, following NASA’s defunct UARS satellite in September and the dead German ROSAT satellite in October.

Nobody on the ground was hurt by UARS or ROSAT debris. In fact, no one is known to have ever been injured by a chunk of man-made space junk.

The $165 million Phobos-Grunt spacecraft launched Nov. 8 on a mission to collect soil samples from the Mars moon Phobos and send them back to Earth (“grunt” means “soil” in Russian). Shortly after liftoff, however, the probe’s engines failed to fire as planned to send it on a path toward the Red Planet.

Russian officials still aren’t sure what caused the failure, though they recently raised the possibility that some sort of sabotage may be responsible.

This story was provided by SPACE.com, a sister site to LiveScience.

from:    http://www.livescience.com/17917-russia-spacecraft-phobos-grunt-crash-predictions.html

Wind & The Shape of Trees

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Leonardo da Vinci's tree rule may be explained by wind

Enlarge

(Left) A model of tree branching. (Middle) A tree skeleton with all branches having the same thickness. (Right) The same tree with branch diameters calculated from a model accounting for wind-induced stress, which closely follows Leonardo’s rule. Image credit: Christophe Eloy. ©2011 American Physical Society

(PhysOrg.com) — More than 500 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci observed a particular relationship between the size of a tree’s trunk and the size of its branches. Specifically, the combined cross-sectional areas of a tree’s daughter branches are equal to the cross-sectional area of the mother branch. However, da Vinci didn’t know why tree branching followed this rule, and few explanations have been proposed since then. But now in a new study, physicist Christophe Eloy from Aix-Marseille University in Aix-en-Provence, France, has shown that this tree structure may be optimal for enabling trees to resist wind-induced stresses.

In his study, which is published in a recent issue of , Eloy explains that Leonardo’s rule is so natural to the eye that it is often used in computer-generated trees. Although researchers have previously proposed explanations for the rule based on hydraulics or structure, none of these explanations have been fully convincing. For instance, the hydraulic explanation called the “pipe model” proposes that the branching proportions have to do with the way that vascular vessels connect the tree’s roots to its leaves to provide water and nutrients. But since vascular vessels account for as little as 5% of the branch cross section (for large trunks in some tree species), it seems unlikely that they would govern the tree’s entire architecture.

“The usual textbook explanation for Leonardo’s rule (and, more generally, for the relation between branch diameters) involves hydraulic considerations,” Eloy said. “My study shows that an alternative explanation can be given by considering external loads, such as wind-induced forces.”

Eloy has proposed that Leonardo’s rule is a consequence of trees adapting their growth to optimally resist wind-induced stresses. It’s well-known that plants can alter their growth patterns in response to mechanical sensation, such as wind. The phenomenon, called “thigmomorphogenesis,” means that wind can influence the trunk and branch diameters of a tree as its growing. The underlying cellular mechanisms of this phenomenon are largely unknown.

Building on this line of thinking, Eloy used two models to predict the probability of a fracture at a certain point in a tree due to strong winds. He found that, when the probability of fracture is the same everywhere on the tree, so that each part bears the stress equally, Leonardo’s rule is recovered. He also showed that the diameters of each branch on a tree can be calculated by knowing the parameters of a simple tree skeleton.

Although some of the most common tree species, such as maples and oaks, seem to follow Leonardo’s rule, there are many species that don’t follow the rule, and many more that scientists have yet to analyze.

“Actually, Leonardo’s rule has not been assessed for that many species,” Eloy said. “So far, it seems to be hold for about 10 species. The problem is that it takes a lot of time to measure a single tree, which has thousands of branches, and the data are usually very scattered. Besides, some species clearly do not satisfy Leonardo’s rule, such as baobabs, koas, and most bushes.”

The finding that trees seem to follow Leonardo’s  when adapting their growth to tolerate wind-induced stresses could have applications both in nature and technology.

“It has obvious applications to the forestry industry to calculate the yields of tree stands and to evaluate the risks of breakage during storms,” Eloy said. “It could also be applied to manmade branching structures such as antennas.”

He added that there is still much more to understand about tree design, including the self-similarity shared by large trunks and smaller branches.

“I am still working on this subject, in particular to try to relate growth to external loads,” he said. “In other words, I would like to understand the dynamical growth mechanisms that lead to the intricate fractal structures of.”

More information: Christophe Eloy. “Leonardo’s Rule, Self-Similarity, and Wind-Induced Stresses in Trees.” Physical Review Letters 107, 258101 (2011). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.258101

Copyright 2012 PhysOrg.com.

from:    http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-leonardo-da-vinci-tree.html

Rio Grande Rift Earthquake Potential

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Some earthquakes expected along Rio Grande Rift in Colorado and New Mexico, new study says

January 12, 2012

Some earthquakes expected along Rio Grande Rift in Colorado and New Mexico, new study saysEnlarge

(PhysOrg.com) — The Rio Grande Rift, a thinning and stretching of Earth’s surface that extends from Colorado’s central Rocky Mountains to Mexico, is not dead but geologically alive and active, according to a new study involving scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. 

 

“We don’t expect to see a lot of earthquakes, or big ones, but we will have some earthquakes,” said CU-Boulder geological sciences Professor Anne Sheehan, also a fellow at CIRES. The study also involved collaborators from the University of New Mexico, New Mexico Tech, Utah State University and the Boulder-headquartered UNAVCO. The Rio Grande Rift follows the path of the Rio Grande River from central  roughly to El Paso before turning southeast toward the Gulf of Mexico.

Sheehan was not too surprised when a 5.3 magnitude  struck about 9 miles west of Trinidad, Colo., in the vicinity of the Rio Grande Rift on Aug. 23, 2011.  The quake was the largest in Colorado since 1967 and was felt from Fort Collins to Garden City, Kan.

Along the rift, spreading motion in the crust has led to the rise of magma — the molten rock material under ’s crust — to the surface, creating long, fault-bounded basins that are susceptible to earthquakes, said Sheehan, a study co-author and also associate director of the CIRES Solid Earth Sciences Division. The team studied the Rio Grande Rift region to assess the potential earthquake hazards.

Using Global Positioning System instruments at 25 sites in Colorado and New Mexico, the team tracked the rift’s miniscule movements from 2006 to 2011. “Questions we wanted to answer are whether the Rio Grande Rift is alive or dead, how is it deforming and whether it is opening or not,” said Sheehan.

Some earthquakes expected along Rio Grande Rift in Colorado and New Mexico, new study says
The high-precision instrumentation has provided unprecedented data about the volcanic activity in the region. Previously, geologists had estimated the rift had spread apart by up to 2 inches or 5 millimeters each year, although the errors introduced by the scientific instruments were known to be significant. “The GPS used in this study has reduced the uncertainty dramatically,” Sheehan said.

Using the latest high-tech instrumentation, the scientists found an average strain rate of 1.2 “nanostrain” each year across the experimental area, the equivalent of about one-twentieth of an inch, or 1.2 millimeters, over a length of about 600 miles.  “The rate is lower than we thought but it does exist,” Sheehan said.

The researchers also found the extensional deformation, or stretching, is not concentrated in a narrow zone centered on the Rio Grande Rift but is distributed broadly from the western edge of the Colorado Plateau well into the western Great Plains. “The surprising thing to come out of the study was that the strain was so spread out,” Sheehan said.

Results of the study are published in the January edition of the journalGeology.

The team plans to continue monitoring the Rio Grande Rift, probing whether the activity remains constant over time, said lead study author Henry Berglund of UNAVCO, who was a graduate student at CU-Boulder working at CIRES when he completed this portion of the research. Also, the team may attempt to determine vertical as well as horizontal activity in the region to tell whether the Rocky Mountains are still uplifting or not, Berglund said.

“Present-day measurements of deformation within continental interiors have been difficult to capture due to the typically slow rates of deformation within them,” Berglund said. “Now with the recent advances in space geodesy we are finding some very surprising results in these previously unresolved areas.”

As far as the potential for future earthquakes in the region, the study’s results are unequivocal, however. “The rift is still active,” Sheehan said.

The new study also is co-authored by CU-Boulder Associate Professor and CIRES Fellow Steven Nerem, Frederick Blume of UNAVCO, Anthony Lowry of Utah State University, Mousumi Roy of the University of New Mexico and Mark Murray of  Tech.

Provided by University of Colorado at Boulder

from:    http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-earthquakes-rio-grande-rift-colorado.html

Mt. Merapi Hazard Analysis & Volcano Status Report

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Hazard map assessment of Mount Merapi, Central Java, Indonesia using remote sensing

Last update: January 11, 2012 at 1:37 pm by By 

Author : David Harris, IGES department, Aberystwyth University, Wales

Abstract
As the global population is predicted to reach 7 billion people by 2012, land pressures and rapid population growth is resulting in many more communities living within danger zones of natural hazards, a pattern particularly seen around volcanoes. This thesis will emphasise the impact of volcanoes on populations using the example of Mount Merapi, Indonesia. Mount Merapi is the most active volcano in Java and has persistent minor eruptions, but according to volcanologists Mount Merapi is heavily overdue a large-scale eruption which could potentially put over 1.1 million people at risk. This thesis begins with a review of published papers and a description of Mount Merapi’s geological history, with a particular focus on its recent eruptions. To better assess Mount Merapi’s threat to the communities that are in close proximity to the summit the thesis uses GIS software to produce a risk map. The risk map is then used as a basis for further analysis on the potential impact in the event of a major eruption. The thesis specifically examines the risk on the basis of current population (e.g. Kemiren, a town with 103,777 people at a risk value site of 10.5) and social vulnerability (e.g. Ngablak, which has a Social Vulnerability Index value of 0.5 – 1.5 and a risk value varying between 7.5 and 28.5). Lastly, the thesis considers the impact of Merapi’s most recent eruptions in October and November 2010 and recommends some considerations for the future in terms of risk reduction by changes in response times and evacuation procedures.

for the complete analysis, including surveys of the location of volcanoes relative to large population areas, go to:    http://earthquake-report.com/2012/01/11/hazard-map-assessment-of-mount-merapi-central-java-indonesia-using-remote-sensing/

Dutch Sinse on Pole SHift

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1/8/2012 — German ‘SWARM’ satellites to study Pole Shift — Launching early 2012

Posted on January 9, 2012

watch the video here:

 

———————————————-

 

Euronews put out this news in Oct. 2011 — announcing what the “SWARM” satellite array will do — they announced the project for “early 2012″.

Word has come to me that the launch will be announced shortly. This study will measure the movement of the earths magnetic poles.

Here is the original story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11980315

https://www.google.com/search?q=german+swarm+magnetic+satellite+launch&ie…

here’s my original video from Oct. 2011 — no longer on my list mirrored by a viewer –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y9pM4q9vQY&feature=results_video&play…

from:    http://sincedutch.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/182012-german-swarm-satellites-to-study-pole-shift-launching-early-2012/

 

 

Jeff Masters on Rain & Drought 2011

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Dr. Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog
Posted by: JeffMasters, 3:07 PM GMT on January 11, 2012 +4
Rains unprecedented in 117 years of record keeping set new yearly precipitation totals in seven states during 2011, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center revealed in its preliminary year-end report for 2011. An extraordinary twenty major U.S. cities had their wettest year on record during 2011. This smashes the previous record of ten cities with a wettest year, set in 1996, according to a comprehensive data base of 303 U.S. cities that have 90% of the U.S. population, maintained by Wunderground’s weather historian Christopher C. Burt. Despite the remarkable number of new wettest year records set, precipitation averaged across the contiguous U.S. during 2011 was near-average, ranking as the 45th driest year in the 117-year record. This occurred because of unprecedented dry conditions across much of the South, where Texas had its driest year on record.


Figure 1. Precipitation rankings for U.S. states in 2011. Seven states had their wettest year on record, and an additional ten states had a top-ten wettest year. Texas had its driest year on record, and four other states had a top-ten driest year. Image credit: NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.


Figure 2.Wettest, driest, and warmest year records set during 2011 for major U.S. cities. No major cities had their coldest year on record during 2011. Image credit: NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.

2011 sets a new U.S. record for combined wet and dry extremes
If you weren’t washing away in a flood during 2011, you were probably baking in a drought. The fraction of the contiguous U.S. covered by extremely wet conditions (top 10% historically) was 33% during 2011, ranking as the 2nd highest such coverage in the past 100 years. At the same time, extremely dry conditions (top 10% historically) covered 25% of the nation, ranking 6th highest in the past 100 years. The combined fraction of the country experiencing either severe drought or extremely wet conditions was 58%–the highest in a century of record keeping. Climate change science predicts that if the Earth continues to warm as expected, wet areas will tend to get wetter, and dry areas will tend to get drier–so 2011’s side-by-side extremes of very wet and very dry conditions should grow increasingly common in the coming decades.


Figure 3. Percentage of the contiguous U.S. either in severe or greater drought (top 10% dryness) or extremely wet (top 10% wetness) during 2011, as computed using NOAA’s Climate Extremes Index. Remarkably, more than half of the country (58%) experienced either a top-ten driest or top-ten wettest year, a new record. Image credit: NOAA/NCDC.

23rd warmest year on record, and 2nd hottest summer for the U.S.
The year 2011 ranked as the 23rd warmest in U.S. history, with sixteen states recording a top-ten warmest year on record. Delaware had its warmest year on record, and Texas its second warmest. However, these statistics don’t convey the extremity of the summer of 2011–the hottest U.S. summer in 75 years. The only hotter summer–and by only 0.1°–was the Dust Bowl summer of 1936, when poor farming practices had turned much of the Midwest into a parking lot for generating extreme heat. The June – August 2011 average temperatures in Texas and Oklahoma were a remarkable 1.6°F and 1.3°F warmer than the previous hottest summer for a U.S. state–the summer of 1934 in Oklahoma. The U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI), which is sensitive to climate extremes in temperature, rainfall, dry streaks, and drought, indicated that an area nearly four times the average value was affected by extreme climate conditions during summer 2011. This is the third largest summer value of record, and came on the heels a spring season that was the most extreme on record. When averaged over the entire year, 2011 ranked as the 8th most extreme in U.S. history, since the fall weather was near-average for extremes. The CEI goes back to 1910.


Figure 4. Average temperatures for the summer in Texas and Oklahoma, at 86.8 degrees F (30.4 degrees C) and 86.5 degrees F (30.3 degrees C), respectively, exceeded the previous seasonal statewide average temperature record for any state during any season. The previous warmest summer statewide average temperature was in Oklahoma, during 1934, at 85.2 degrees F (29.6 degrees C). Image credit: National Climatic Data Center.

Wunderground’s weather historian Christopher C. Burt has a more detailed look at the U.S. extremes observed during 2011 in his latest post. His selection for the most remarkable yearly record set during 2011:

Perhaps, most astonishing is the total annual rainfall of just 1.06” at Pecos, Texas (normal annual precipitation is 11.61”). If confirmed this would be a Texas state record for least amount of precipitation ever recorded in a calendar year, the current record stands at 1.64” at Presidio in 1956.

from:   http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html

HAARP Detection Network

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HAARP Detection Network opens to the public with national purpose

Published on January 9, 2012 6:40 pm PT
– By TWS Staff Reporter
– Edited by Staff Editor


(TheWeatherSpace.com) – HAARP is an array across Alaska that is said to control the weather, or at least have the power to. A new sensor network has been released to the public to keep track of HAARP’s effects on North America.

From the creators of ChemtrailForecast.com comes HaarpStatus.com, a project that is the future of predicting what HAARP does and warns the public of what is in store due to it
.According to the Website’s about section, the project has been under development for a couple of years. Volunteers have added 22 sensors at their residences, in unknown locations. These sensors measure the effects and changes of the ionosphere that HAARP tampers with and a magnitude system that goes with the sensor readings triangulates the center of the frequency above the country.

When the ionosphere changes, weather patterns can as well, according to TheWeatherSpace.com Senior Meteorologist Kevin Martin.

“I’m in full support of the system,” said Martin. “I’ll be in contact with HaarpStatus.com on numerous occasions to compare their findings with real world events. If the ionosphere bumps up a bit, it can alter the jet stream, so the project has merit.”

Visit HaarpStatus.com

from:   http://www.theweatherspace.com/news/TWS-1912-haarp-weather-forecast-patterns-alaska-change.html

 

Indonesia Earthquake 1/10

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Massive earthquake out of the coast of Northern Sumatra, Indonesia – Tsunami alert lifted

Last update: January 11, 2012 at 8:22 am by By 

January 10, 2012 By 

Earthquake overview : A massive earthquake occurred several hundred km out of the Sumatra Banda Aceh coast. Theoretical calculations concluded that no widespread tsunami would occur in the Pacific Ocean. Indonesian authorities have however called a tsunami alert for many areas in Sumatra.

A WISE TSUNAMI ADVICE in case you are living or traveling to an earthquake rich area of the world and are residing close to the coast :  EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY TO HIGHER GROUNDS (10 to 30 meters higher than sea level) IF :

– strong shaking goes on for 30 seconds or longer
– the authorities are calling for an evacuation
– you see a fast unusual retreating sea

Triggers of today’s massive earthquake :
The January 10, 2012 earthquake off the west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia, occurred as a result of strike-slip faulting within the oceanic lithosphere of the Indo-Australia plate, approximately 100 km to the southwest of the major subduction zone that defines the plate boundary between the Indo-Australia and Sunda plates offshore Sumatra. At the location of this earthquake, the Indo-Australia plate moves north-northeast with respect to the Sunda plate at a velocity of approximately 52 mm/yr.
While they are rare, large strike-slip earthquakes are not unprecedented in this region of the Indo-Australian plate. Since the massive M 9.1 earthquake that ruptured a 1300 km long segment of the Sumatran megathrust plate boundary in December of 2004, two Mw 6.2 strike-slip events have occurred within 50 km of the January 10 2012 event, on April 19 2006, and October 4 2007. These events seem to align with fabric of the sea floor in the diffuse boundary zone between the Indian and Australian plates. (summary as described by USGS)

Update : At midnight UTC,  4 aftershocks ranging from 4.8 to 4.9 have been listed by USGS.

Update : The tsunami alert was maintained longer at Simeulue  island (Aceh province) as this island was closest to the epicenter. Although Simeulue was not indicated as a place at risk by the GDACS simulation, authorities do not want to take any risk.

Important update : Indonesian authorities have lifted the earlier called Tsunami alert. People in Banda Aceh reported a retreating sea after the earthquake occurred, just like it happened in 2004 during the devastating tsunami who killed more than 200,000 people.  Luckily no reports about any serious waves so far.

Update : We know from earlier experiences in Indonesia that local people often do not trust the authoritiesand remain in safe locations even if the authorities ask them to return to their house and pick up their daily life. Additionally, rumors are often spread that an even heavier earthquake and tsunami will be triggered. Rumors are one of the major problems after earthquakes.

Update : Indonesian media are reporting that BMKG, the local Indonesian seismological agency, has lowered the magnitude from 7.6 to 7.1. BMKG triggered an early warning tsunami alert to the local agencies. BMKG received reports that people fled their houses almost automatically for a safe location. No reports as yet from the real wave heights. People have been asked to stay in the safe places for a longer time and not to return to heir houses to soon.

Update : A lot of panic amongst the Sumatra population when they felt the earthquake and when the tsunami sirens went off.

Red bullets are indicating Tsunami alert from the Indonesian authorities

Update : MetroTV Indonesia is one of the only channels reporting on the earthquake and potential tsunami risk. The image at right shows where the Indonesian authorities have called a tsunami alarm for the coastal areas.

Update : Based on the GDACS data, the time that the waves may have reached Simeulue and Northern Sumatra is over now.  We expect final experience reports soon.

Update : We still cannot reach BMKG, the Indonesian seismological agency via the Internet due to too heavy demand.  This happened also in the USA during the Virginia earthquake (USGS).

Update : If all theoretical data will be confirmed, this was a LUCKY ESCAPE, but this earthquake will have send vibrations of fear through the population of Northern Sumatra.

Update : The GDCAS image below shows very well the propagation of the tsunami wave from the epicenter versus the northern part of Sumatra, including Banda Aceh.  GDACS has calculated based on historical earthquakes and lots of additional data, that the waves in Northern Sumatra will be max. 0.4 meter

Tsunami wave distribution and height – Image courtesy GDACS

Update : Indonesian media are currently reporting a SR magnitude of 7.6
A TSUNAMI ALERT has been called by the local BMKG for parts of the country (unclear at this moment, but certainly the islands and Sumatra, including Banda Aceh). Our experience is that people in Indonesia are mostly not waiting for an alert but are auto-evacuating when a strong shaking for more than 30 second occurs.
Indonesian media are only reporting earthquake numbers , no background information yet

Fault line west of the Sumatra coast

Update : Magnitudes and depths as calculated by other seismological agencies :
EMSC : M 7.3 @ 10 km
GEOFON (Germany) : M 7.1 @ 10 km
CEN (China) : M 7.2 @ 20 km

for more information and updates, go to:    http://earthquake-report.com/2012/01/10/very-strong-to-massive-earthquake-out-of-the-coast-of-northern-sumatra-indonesia/

Ticking Doomsday Clock

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‘Doomsday Clock’ May Tick Toward Destruction

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 09 January 2012 Time: 01:31 PM ET
The doomsday clock nears midnight.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ “Doomsday Clock” is set at 6 minutes to midnight but may tick forward or backward on Jan. 10, 2012.
CREDIT: Galushko Sergey, Shutterstock

Humanity will soon be getting an update on how close we are to catastrophic destruction, as scientists and security experts decide whether to nudge the hands of the famous “Doomsday Clock” forward toward midnight — and doom — or back toward security and safety.

The clock, in use as a symbol of imminent apocalypse since 1947, now stands at six minutes to midnight. On Tuesday (Jan. 10), the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) will announce whether they will nudge the minute hand forward or backward to reflect current trends in world security. The last time the clock hand moved was in 2010, when the group moved the hand from five minutes to midnight back to six.

In making the decision, the Bulletin considers the current state of nuclear weapons, climate change and biosecurity, along with other issues that could influence humanity’s survival. The closest the clock has been to midnight has been 11:57 p.m., set in 1984 when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were in a diplomatic stand-off and tensions were high. The farthest humanity has ever been from destruction, according to the clock, was in 1991, when the Doomsday Clock stood at 17 minutes to midnight. That year, the Cold War over, the U.S. and Russia began cutting their arsenals.

The clock ticked back toward midnight at the next update in 1995, however, when hopes of total nuclear disarmament began to fade. That update set the hands at 14 minutes until midnight. In recent years, the clock has ticked closer to destruction as the Bulletin has focused on concerns about nuclear terrorism and climate change.

The 2010 shift away from doomsday was due to nuclear agreements between the U.S. and Russia and productive climate talks at Copenhagen.

The announcement of the new “doomsday time” will come at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday. The Bulletin is expected to consider factors ranging from Iran’s nuclear program to the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster to the state of policy on climate change.

from:    http://www.livescience.com/17810-doomsday-clock-moves.html

Arctic Air Targeting Central & Eastern US

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Arctic air to blast the Central and Eastern United States by mid-month

Published on January 7, 2012 2:15 pm PT
– By TWS Senior Meteorologist
– Edited by Staff Editor

TheWeatherSpace.com) – Numerous forecast models are latching onto a pattern that would bring arctic air down into the Central and Eastern United States by next week.

When credit is due, it is given. This was not forecast by me or anyone else in this long of range and Piers Corbyn of WeatherAction.com put the forecast out in Fall for mid-January to have the arctic air blast.

What is interesting is he seems to predict these longer range patterns based on the solar activity.

from:    http://www.theweatherspace.com/news/TWS-1712-arctic-blast-central-eastern-usa.html