Thursday 30 April 2015

Earth changes

Bigger Earthquake Coming on Nepal's Terrifying Faults


28 April, 2015

Nepal faces larger and more deadly earthquakes, even after the magnitude-7.8 temblor that killed more than 4,000 people on Saturday (April 25).

Earthquake experts say Saturday's Nepalearthquake did not release all of the pent-up seismic pressure in the region near Kathmandu. According to GPS monitoring and geologic studies, some 33 to 50 feet (10 to 15 meters) of motion may need to be released, said Eric Kirby, a geologist at Oregon State University. The earth jumped by about 10 feet (3 m) during the devastating April 25 quake, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

"The earthquakes in this region can be much, much larger," said Walter Szeliga, a geophysicist at Central Washington University.

Seismologists have extensively studied the possibility of damaging earthquakes in the central Himalayas. Through analyzing written histories, looking for clues from damaged buildings and digging along faults, researchers know of several damaging earthquakes in the past, but not their precise size. [See Photos of This Millennium's Destructive Earthquakes]

Nepal was overdue for a major earthquake, said Marin Clark, a geophysicist at the University of Michigan. "It has been a long time since the last big rupture, so this is not unexpected," Clark said.

One of the region's most devastating recent quakes occurred in 1934, when a magnitude-8.2 earthquake killed over 8,500 people in Kathmandu. Before then, the last time such animmense quake struck Kathmandu was on July 7, 1255. That quake killed about 30 percent of the population. The region west of Kathmandu has been seismically quiet since June 6, 1505, when a great earthquake toppled buildings from Tibet to India.


Strong earthquake and aftershocks shake Nepal
A woman cries as she waits near a collapsed house where her son is trapped, as rescue efforts go on  …

Crash zone
Nepal is one of the world's most earthquake-prone regions because it lies at the head-on collision between two tectonic plates. India is slamming into Asia, and neither wants to give. Both India and Asia are continental crust, of the same average density. So instead of one plate sinking beneath the other, such as is happening at the ocean-continent plate collision offshore South America, the Earth's crust crumples. Slices of India peel off and slowly squeeze under Asia, while Asia is mashed upward, forming the Himalayas.

India and Asia collide at about eight-tenths of an inch (2 centimeters) per year. Most of that energy is loaded onto earthquake faults as elastic strain because the faults are stuck together. Loading a fault is like squeezing a spring; an earthquake releases the built-up energy similar to an uncoiling spring.

Scientists think earthquakes that are magnitude 7.8 in size can't release all of the strain between India and Asia. Instead, history suggests most of the stored energy gets uncorked as earthquakes that are magnitude 8 or greater, according to geologic studies. It would take scores of magnitude-7 quakes to accommodate all of the plate motion, but only a handful of midsize, magnitude-8 quakes, or one magnitude 9. (The energy released by a quake increases by a factor of 30 with each additional point in magnitude.) [Video: What Does Earthquake 'Magnitude' Mean?]

"It seems likely that the amount of slip in this earthquake probably didn't make up for the complete deficit," Kirby said.



The April 25 earthquake struck on one of the many thrust faults that mark the boundary between the two plates. Thrust faults are the most terrifying of all faults because they lie at an angle. This shallow angle means a massive part of the Earth's crust can lurch during an earthquake. Steeper faults quickly grow too warm and soft to break; as rocks get deeper, they flow like putty, Szeliga said. During the Nepal temblor, a piece of crust roughly 75 miles (120 kilometers) long and 37 miles (60 km) wide jogged 10 feet (3 m) to the south. The fault angled only 10 degrees from the surface, and the quake was only 9 miles (14 km) deep.

"This one was relatively shallow, which intensifies the surface shaking," Clark said.

From seismic readings, many scientists suspect the fault did not break all the way to the surface, like the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles. That's another indication that the earthquake did not unleash all of the stored strain in the region, Kirby said. The seismic instruments can detect where the strongest motion occurred on the fault.

However, even without a surface trace, GPS instruments and InSAR (radar from satellites) will provide precise tracking of how the ground shifted during the earthquake, Szeliga said. The data will help ground-truth scientist's models of Himalayan tectonics.

"Now's the chance to see who made predictions that were even remotely testable, and if they stand up," Szeliga said.

March the hottest on record

2015: Too Hot Already



This March was the hottest month on record, and the past 3 months were the warmest start to a year on record.This...
Posted by 350.org on Wednesday, 29 April 2015

Foods in Altai, Siberia

Melting snow causes spring floods across Altai
Residents evacuated, roads cut off and homes under water as rivers rise and dams threaten to burst.

By Olga Gertcyk

It is thought the situation will worsen, particularly if the dam breaks. Picture: AltaPress

25 April, 2015
An emergency has been declared across parts of the Altai region after major flooding caused by the spring thaw of snow. Residents have been evacuated from some areas as rivers threaten to burst their banks, with more than 250 residential buildings affected.
Authorities have set up 34 temporary housing shelters for people forced to move out, and at least 1,150 gardens and farming plots are under water. In the town of Zarinsk, students from the state university are assisting rescue workers while volunteers are being sought to help shore up a dam on the brink of bursting.
Photographs from the region show roads and fields flooded and homes under water.
By yesterday afternoon 27 settlements across 16 municipal areas where flooded by the melting snow. Zarinsk, which has a population of about 48,000 people, is among the worst affected residential area, with the Chumysh River having swelled by 19cm over the past day.
By 8am local time on Monday 173 buildings and 306 gardens and farming plots were under water and 166 people, including 27 children, were evacuated. However it is thought the situation will worsen, particularly if the dam breaks.
Melting snow causes spring floods across Altai

Melting snow causes spring floods across Altai 
Melting snow causes spring floods across Altai Picture: AltaPress

Sergey Ivanov, head of the emergency department at Zarinsk City council, said: The work to reinforce the dam and Chumysh basin were carried out but it didn’t allow to keep control of the situation because the water is spreading massively. It was simply impossible to stop it'.
A council statement added: 'An evacuation of the residents of the Lesokombinat district of Zarinsk has been launched, given the danger of the dam bursting.
'Volunteers are kindly requested to come and help to enforce the dam. Students of Altai State University are arriving to the city to assist in the recovery after the emergency situation in Zarinsk'.
The local branch of the Emergencies Ministry said that almost 400 people in 163 vehicles have been deployed to assist across the Altai region.


In the Now discusses Baltimore

Corporate media pushing "thug and criminal" side of

Riots, looting and destruction - peaceful protests in Baltimore turned ugly and that's the only side the mainstream media wants you to hear. Broken windows are more important than broken spine of Freddie Gray, whose murder in custody caused public outrage




Geraldo confronted about Fox News coverage of Baltimore



The strengthening el-NIno

Climate Change Ratcheting Up: El Nino Strengthens in Equatorial Pacific Increasing Likelihood for Record Warm 2015



29 April, 2015
A powerful Kelvin Wave continued to ripple through the near-surface waters of the Equatorial Pacific this week — heightening sea surface temperatures, strengthening an ongoing El Nino, and pushing a wave of oceanic heat back into a human-warmed atmosphere that is hotter now than at any time in modern human reckoning.
High temperature anomalies in the Kelvin Wave plug have spread out across the ocean surface. Readings in the range of +1 to +2 C above average stretch along surface waters all the way from the Date Line through 120 West Longitude. East of the 120 line, surface waters have now hit readings of 2 to 4 degrees Celsius above average. And lurking just below the surface along thousands of miles of ocean is a dense zone of 5-6 degree above average water. A zone of extreme heat at the heart of the current intense Kelvin Wave:
NOAA Kelvin Wave April 23
(A strong Kelvin Wave shuts down atmospheric heat transfer into the Equatorial Pacific setting up conditions for an extended El Nino and possible new record heat for 2015. Image Source: NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.)

Heat that could well make 2015 yet another worsening of the human warming and extreme weather twilight zone we now find ourselves in.
Pushing into Moderate El Nino Range

According to NOAA’s weekly El Nino report, sea surface temperatures in the critical Nino 3.4 region hit a range of 1 degree C above average last week. A jump from the previous week’s measure of +0.7 C and a new push toward moderately strong El Nino levels off the back of the current warm Kelvin Wave. Atmospheric teleconnections that are signatures of a moderate El Nino also began to emerge over past weeks — with a strengthening of the subtropical Jet and related storm track setting off powerful tornadoes, thunderstorms and heavy rain events in states bordering the Gulf of Mexico over the past ten days.

Heat content from the current Kelvin Wave is enough to continue to keep Equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures in present ranges or to push for further warming over at least the next 1-2 months. A set of factors that will almost certainly lock near moderate El Nino conditions in through Summer and general El Nino conditions through early Autumn. The result is that the extra heat bleed off the Pacific Ocean will combine with the impressive human forcing to generate a high risk that 2015 atmospheric temperatures will beat out all-time record highs set in 2014.
Model Runs Still Showing Potential for Super El Nino

Nino 3.4 Monthly Anomalies
(Unweighted model ensemble runs show the current El Nino peaking out at extreme intensity. Long range model runs can be quite uncertain, but these are very high values. Image source: NOAA Seasonal and Monthly SST Anomalies.)

NOAA model runs also show a potential for El Nino strengthening through the end of 2015. Probability weighted CFS model ensembles (PDF) point toward a seasonal anomaly for Nino 3.4 in the range of 1998 Super El Nino values at 2.1 degrees Celsius above average by the end of 2015. Mean model runs (non-weighted) push the long range forecast heat values even higher at 2.6 C above seasonal averages or 2.75 C above monthly averages.
These unweighted long range forecasts are well outside the strength of even the monster event of nearly two decades ago. An new super El Nino that would have very serious consequences for global temperatures and result in far-reaching climate impacts should it emerge. Atmospheric temperatures that are now in the range of +0.7 C above 20th Century averages and +0.9 C above 1880s values could well push into a new range at +0.8 C and +1 C, or higher, respectively.
Super El Nino Late 2015
(Long range models show Equatorial Pacific has potential to hit near Super El Nino status by late 2015. At this time, such model runs are low certainty. Image source: NOAA Seasonal and Monthly SST Anomalies.)

Cranking up the Human Hothouse

Entering the range of 1-2 C above 1880s values is a zone of heat anomaly that will amplify already apparent ice sheet melt, sea level rise, droughts, wildfires, water stress, and ocean health impacts. At temperatures around +1.5 C we begin to enter a period of strong glacial outflows, weather instability, geophysical changes, and record related storm events in a ‘Storms of My Grandchildren‘ type scenario. At +2 C these very dangerous impacts will likely be in full swing.

It is worth noting that it took 10,000 years to warm the world 4 degrees Celsius at the end of the last ice age. Under current human fossil fuel burning scenarios, it is likely that we reach half that threshold in just 150 to 170 years — from 1880 to 2030-2050. A rapid reduction in fossil fuel emissions along a progression to a net carbon negative human society over the next few decades is absolutely necessary to prevent these outcomes. And while model forecasts indicating the potential for a Super El Nino type event for late 2015 may be somewhat uncertain, there is a much higher certainty that very dangerous climate impacts starting at the current level of human warming will ramp up here on out — with the 1.5 C threshold looking very bad and the 2.0 C threshold looking terrible.
As such, we should do all we can to prevent hitting those marks.
Links:


Yemen update - 29/04/2015

Saudi attacks are helping al-

Qaeda: Mark Sleboda





Wildfires in North Korea

Fires in North Korea


Fires in North Korea
acquired April 27, 2015

Fires in North Korea
acquired April 27, 2015


27 April, 2015


Satellites often detect fires in North Korea in April. As snow retreats in the spring, many farmers use fire to clear away last year’s crop debris and to fertilize the soil for the coming season. Such fires generally remain small and produce only modest amounts of smoke. But sometimes they escape the control of their handlers and push into forests on the country’s mountainous terrain.

As in several recent years, control was lost in April 2015. When the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on Terra passed over North Korea on April 27, 2015, the satellite observed several large fires burning in the eastern part of the country. Actively burning areas, detected by the thermal bands of MODIS, are outlined in red. Fields and grasslands, mainly in coastal plains and river valleys, appear light brown. Forests at lower elevations appear green; at higher elevations, forests are still brown at this time of year.

Many of the larger, smokier fires appear to be burning in forested highlands near cultivated river valleys. MODIS first began to detect the fires in significant numbers on April 23. By April 27, the number of fires had increased and many had grown significantly smokier. MODIS also observed a sizable plume drifting east over northern Japan.

North Korea faced a serious drought in the summer of 2014. While reasonably warm and wet weather was a late-season boon to crops in November, a dry winter followed. Dried out forests have raised concerns about potential food shortages in the spring.

References

NASA Earth Observatory (2015, February 7) Fires in North Korea. April 27, 2015.
The Washington Post (2015, February 7) Dry winter sparks fears of another food crisis in North Korea. April 27, 2015.

USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (2015, February 5) Favorable Weather in North Korea for Winter Crops. April 27, 2015.

1. Further Reading
2. Chung Y. & Kim H. (2008, July 19) Satellite monitoring of forest fires and associated smoke plumes occurring in Korea. Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health, 1 (2), 111-118.

3. Global Forest Watch North Korea. Accessed April 27, 2015.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Adam Voiland.


The Chernobyl fire


I did a Google check on the world media and how they are covering this. NOTHING from CNN and both the BBC and AP had brief pieces quoting "Ukrainian authorities". The fires are put out and, of course there's no radiation!!

Smoke from Chernobyl fire could spread radiation far and wide - experts


RT video screenshot

RT,

29 April, 2015

Smoke from burning forests in the Chernobyl exclusion zone is capable of spreading contaminants across great distances, even after the fire has been stopped, ecology experts told RT.

The forest fire near the crippled Chernobyl nuclear power plant started on Tuesday and triggered an emergency alert, with police and National Guard mobilized to bring the flames under control.



By Wednesday, the country's Emergency Ministry, as well as the prime minister, who went to the affected area, said the spread of the fire had been stopped and firefighters were containing the remaining flames. Later on Wednesday, Ukrainian TV reported the flames in areas containing radioactive waste have been put out. New hot spots were discovered, but they are outside the exclusion zone.

The fire occurred within 30 kilometers of the Chernobyl power plant, inside the exclusion zone which was abandoned and cordoned off almost 30 years ago. In 1986, an explosion and fire in Chernobyl's Reactor 4 caused a release of radioactive particles into the air, which contaminated the surrounding area and caused an increase in radiation levels in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and across Europe. It was the worst ever nuclear disaster in terms of casualties and clean-up costs. The crippled reactor itself was sealed under a sarcophagus of reinforced concrete

Although the sarcophagus remains untouched by the fire, decades-old contaminants could still be released and travel far and wide, borne aloft by the smoke, nuclear safety expert John H. Large told RT:

"Brush fires and forest fires were the greatest concern in terms of the means by which you can disperse a secondary radiological impact from the original dissipation that occurred in 1986," he said.

John went to Chernobyl in 2006 to assess the situation there and spoke to dozens of scientists working on containing the contamination.

"In the exclusion zone and further away you have an area that has been abandoned for farming, abandoned for man management," John says. "That means you've got lots of brush and young wood growing out of control, and that means there's a big fuel load to have a fire."



He says the high temperatures and volumes of smoke produced in a forest fire can take contaminants hundreds of kilometers away from the exclusion zone: "Radiation really doesn't respect any international boundaries."

Forest fires have happened in the area before, but have never been so serious, Timothy Mousseau, biology professor at the University of South Carolina, told RT:

"Previous forest fires had re-released about eight percent of the radiation from the original catastrophe. The fire that we're seeing today seems to be on a much larger scale, and so we could see a re-dispersion of a very significant component of the original radiation."

Another problem is that as the trees that have absorbed contaminants burn up and release smoke, this turns radioactive particles into a much more dangerous form than if they simply lie in the ground.

"Internal radiation from inhalation - in other words, if you inhale something radioactive and it gets inside you - is very much more dangerous than just the background radiation that comes off the ground," says Christopher Busby, the scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risks.

French nuclear safety research institution IRSN created this simulation video, modelling the spread of caesium-137 from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Christopher Busby commented on how far radioactive particles can potentially spread: "After Chernobyl itself, they ended up in the atmosphere and they went right across the Baltic States and into Finland, and over Sweden, and then to the United Kingdom, where they caused significant increases in cancer."


However, other scientists believe the danger is minimal, because instead of being absorbed from the ground into the vegetation, contaminants actually sank deeper: "30 years on, the radiation in the soil is not on the surface, it has sunk down. New plants have grown on the spot, which contain very small doses of radiation," Leonid Bolshov, from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute for safe atomic energy development, told RIA Novosti.

He said systems are in place to monitor radioactivity in the area: "When there were [forest] fires in 2010, our institute created a special method of determining the impact of the fires. Back then, we found no danger. The sensors that have been placed everywhere, including the Chernobyl zone, are not supposed to react - and they are not reacting. We checked the sensor in Pripyat today; its readings have been the same for the past two days." Pripyat is the abandoned town closest to the Chernobyl power plant.

A histroy of human civilisation

MAN – by Steve Cutts



Commentary on events in Baltimore


"Breaking windows is worse than a broken spine" This CNN interview by Wolf Blitzer reflects the inherent racism in US media.




And the response of Jon Stewart







It's funny how the news doesn't show pictures of all the white folks looting in Baltimore. These folks sure look white to me ‪#‎DontBelieveEverythingYheyTellYou





Baltimore Police Go After and Shoot Journalists



In this video during the Baltimore uprising journalists are repeatedly targeted by the police department and shot with less lethal munitions. Clearly journalists do not pose a threat in any way with cameras that are visible to the police so why are they getting targeted? In Baltimore journalists are not only attacked by protesters but also have to worry about police officers who target them now.

A Russian view of things


Andre Fursov: "The racial lid has blown off the American melting pot"

Andre Fursov


Translated from Russian by Kristina Rus


The American dream is dying in Baltimore

Russian historian and sociologist Andrei Fursov recalls that in the U.S. the sort of clashes we see in Baltimore are not isolated.

Our press doesn't write at all about some of the incidents of this nature, considering them minor internal issues. But, in my opinion, there is no doubt that in the U.S. there is increasing social tension and polarization of society. We are talking about a stand-off — class in form and racial in content.


America has long passed the peak of its development, and since the mid-1970's, figuratively speaking, "is moving to the sidelines of history." Another thing is that the US have accumulated a lot of social "fat," their multinational companies are robbing the whole world. And in the 1990's they "cleaned up" the former socialist countries very thoroughly, primarily Russia. But fortune doesn't give anything forever, and since 2007-2008 their crisis is rapidly developing. The problem with USA is that they consume 3-4 times more goods and services than they produce. Such imbalance must come to an end.


Clearly, we are seeing a deterioration of the average American income. According to sociological studies, the quality of life today corresponds to the period of the late 1950's – early 1960's.


First under distress are the African Americans and Hispanic citizens. Naturally, this causes a protest, increasing discontent. One well-known American sociologist in a personal conversation with me (during our perestroika) said that the U.S. will go through it's own perestroika [reformatting - KR] no later than 2020. And since it will be based on race relations, it can be very bloody. What we see in America is a systemic crisis of the US as the core of the capitalist system. And it will only deepen.


The ethnic balance of the United States is actively changing (considering migration flows and a higher rate of childbirth among African Americans and Hispanics). In some southern States the Hispanics are pushing the whites [in numbers]. The same thing happens with black people. However, the American elite is concerned not only with the riots at the bottom of the social pyramid, but the fact that they will elevate the non-white elites to the top. And this will mean major changes in the structure of the ruling class.


Of course the current black politicians are the "black servants" of the white elites. When some point to Obama or Condoleezza Rice as confirmation of the thesis that America is "a country of equal opportunities", I say: American elite very carefully selects that portion of the non-white population, which according to the specifics of their psycho-type can work in the interests of the white elite. Obama, judging by his reaction to the clashes in Ferguson and Baltimore, takes the position of his class. And no matter what color his skin is.


Either way, we see that the much-vaunted melting pot has overheated and is no longer functioning. Neither Hispanic nor African-Americans don't want to integrate into the world of the "American dream". Because today it has been destroyed.


It should be noted that the "American dream" is part of the era of prosperity of capitalism, which is associated not with its internal logic, but with confrontation with the Soviet Union and the socialist camp. From 1945 to the late 1980's, the US (and Western Europe) were forced to "feed" their middle and working class in order to make the American model attractive in their eyes. 
Because the Soviet Union was nearby, were the idea of social equality was embodied in the most complete form.  1960 to 1970 in the US was not capitalism, but a necessary deviation from it. An attempt to simulate socialism to appease the middle and the working classes. And when the USSR collapsed, capitalism returned to a state of the "iron heel", in which it functioned in the late 19th – early 20th century.

Therefore, the US has very serious trials ahead. Likely they will try to get out of this difficult situation through the path of war. As it has already happened in the 193o's of the 20th century.


The "export of chaos" means channeling their problems to the outside world. We are told about the successes of the "New deal" of Roosevelt in the 1930's. In my opinion, these historians "bring the shadow to the fence". Actually the "New deal" has only created new problems. Not accidentally in the mid-1930s Roosevelt got a very serious opponent in the person of the Governor of Louisiana, Huey Long, who became the prototype of Willie Stark, the hero of the novel "All the king's men" by Robert Penn Warren. This character created a society of property redistribution across America. But at the end of the book, of course, he was killed by a "lone wolf" (as later in real life - John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther king).


In the late 1930's, the US was faced with a choice - either major social reforms that encroach on the capitalist class, or a world war. We know which option they chose. Incidentally, it is highly symbolic that Franklin Delano Roosevelt began to use this expression six months before Hitler.


Today the U.S. is in the same situation. In terms of nuclear deterrence unleashing WWIII is very unlikely. Rather, the White house is trying to achieve a "global chaos". By the way, in the late 1980's the US was on the verge of collapse, saved only by the collapse of the USSR. On October 19, 1987 Dow Jones fell by 22.3%. It was an absolute record. And Alan Greenspan, who was then called to lead the Fed, said: "We will only be saved by a miracle."


This "miracle" was the destruction of the USSR. If this has not happened, the US would come on hard times. And to cope with us militarily was completely impossible.


Of course, unlike Russia of the Yeltsin era it is impossible to topple us by force today. Another thing is to create a zone of instability around the perimeter of our borders, it is possible to support the Nazis in Ukraine, or send radical Islamists to Central Asia, that is, to contain the Russian Federation in every way. America is in a very difficult position. But this is the hole that they dug themselves.


One interesting American scholar Chalmers Johnson, wrote a book "Blowback" in 2000, which predicted that in the first half of this century the U.S. will get a blowback for their policy in Asia in the second half of the twentieth century. First, this study did not receive much attention, but after September 11, the book was reprinted. As Chalmers Johnson wrote two more parts of the trilogy ("the Sorrow of Empire and "Nemesis"). 
In fact, he explicitly showed the collapse of the American Empire. It makes sense to listen to the forecasts of this person. Because he is not just a publicist, but came from the CIA, a specialist in the fight against the guerrilla movement in South-East Asia and also an expert in Japan.

In his opinion, in the 1990's under Clinton, the US ceased to be a Republic and turned into a military empire. And it is crumbling before our eyes. This is a huge dying "dinosaur", but his "seizures" can be very dangerous for the world. Especially considering the crisis of the elites in the USA.


There are no real contenders for the presidency, only the "familiar faces" – representatives of the ruling clans and dynasties. Grandma Clinton, unimpressive Jeb Bush (the brother of the 43rd U.S. President George W. Bush) and Mitt Romney. On the one hand, the crisis of the elites in the United States plays into our hands  – these people can make mistakes. But on the other hand — not very adequate people can start trouble. Therefore, we need to "keep our powder dry", and to live by the principle: 
"We are peaceful people, but our battleship is standing by".


This arsehole calls himself a journalist





This Brother Nick Mosby broke it down for Fox News...but they didn't want to hear it....ALL THEY WANT TO TALK ABOUT IS THE LIQUOR STORE BEING LOOTED..SMH...but he SHUT EM DOWN though. http://www.gofundme.com/lzy3k4. Please support
Posted by Ricky Kelly on Monday, 27 April 2015

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