May 12, 2014 - EARTH - The following stories constitutes some of the latest incidents of Earth changes across the globe.
Arizona Town Running Out Of Water
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| Despite the worsening drought, little has been done to improve water storage infrastructure. Credit: Peripitus via Wiki |
In the northern Arizona city of Williams, restaurant patrons don’t
automatically get a glass of water anymore. Residents caught watering
lawns or washing cars with potable water can be fined. Businesses are
hauling water from outside town to fill swimming pools, and building
permits have been put on hold because there isn’t enough water to
accommodate development.
Officials in the community about 60 miles from the Grand Canyon’s
South Rim have clamped down on water use and declared a crisis amid a
drought that is quickly drying up nearby reservoirs and forcing the city
to pump its only two wells to capacity.
The situation offers a glimpse at how cities across the West are
coping with a drought that has left them thirsting for water. More than a
dozen rural towns in California recently emerged from emergency water
restrictions that had a sheriff’s office on the lookout for water
bandits at a local lake. One New Mexico town relied on bottled water for
days last year. In southern Nevada, water customers are paid to remove
lawns and cannot install any new grass in their front yards. -
AP.
Siberia's Epic Wildfires Come Far Too Early, April Is The New July
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NASA LANCE MODIS Rapid Fire hotspot analysis of
extreme fire outbreak in the Amur region of Russia on April 28,
2014. In
this shot, the Amur runs west to east through the frame. To the right
is the Pacific Ocean [off frame] to the
left is a corner of Russia’s
massive Lake Baikal. The red spots indicate currently active fires.LANCE-MODIS |
What we are currently witnessing is something that should never happen -
an outbreak of fires with summer intensity during late April at a time
when Siberia should still be frigid and frozen.
* * * * *
Last
year, during late July and early August, a series of epic wildfires
raged to the north and west of Russia's far eastern Amur region.
About
a week later, the skies opened up in a ten-day-long deluge that pushed
the Amur River bordering Russia and China to levels not seen in the
entire 150 year span of record-keeping for the region. Whole cities were submerged as the Amur leapt its banks to form a kind of massive inland sea.
The floods promoted strong growth in the region, penetrating permafrost
zones to enhance melt, providing major fuel sources for fires should
they re-emerge. Come winter, a persistent warm ridge pattern in the Jet
Stream transported hotter than usual air over this region. The winter
was far, far warmer than it should have been. And when spring came, it
came like the onset of summer.
Last week, temperatures soared into the 70s and ever
since the beginning of April, freakishly large fires for so early in
the burn season erupted. By April 23rd,
the Russian fire ministry had logged nearly 3,000 fires.
The
outbreak was so intense that, just a few days ago, more than 5,000
pieces of heavy equipment and an army of firefighters were engaged
throughout a large stretch of Russia from the still frozen shores of
Lake Baikal to the far eastern Amur region.
But last night's LANCE-MODIS satellite pass brought with it unexpected new horrors:
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| Two massive wildfires in excess of 200 square miles burning in the Amur region of Russia on April 28, 2014. LANCE-MODIS |
Two massive burn scars devouring huge sections of land in the Amur region of Russia.
For scale, the ribbon of blue traveling north to south beneath the first
massive fire is a mile-wide tributary to the Amur river called the
Zeya. Using the scale provided by LANCE MODIS, we see that the fire at
upper left is currently about 15 x 18 miles (270 square miles) in area
and that the fire at lower right is about 23 x 20 miles (460 square
miles) in area.
Even during Russia's recent global warming-spurred epic fire seasons of
2010 to 2013 fires of this scope and obvious visible intensity didn't
come up in the satellite imagery until the most intense periods of
summer heating during late June through early August. Today, we have
monster fires comparable to those which burned during Russia's worst
ever recorded fire seasons, at their height, burning next to snow
covered regions in late April.
As a last reference, look at the ice covered river in the far lower
right corner of the above image. That swatch of crystalline white -
yes, it's a large estuary apparently being dwarfed by the massive fire
burning just above it. Beneath wide body of still frozen water is what
appears to be a 'small' plume of smoke. It's worth noting that this
smoke plume issues from a recently burned region covering fully 15
square miles. By comparison, the fires above each cover areas comparable
to Guam, half of Rhode Island,
or the massive ice island recently broken off from the now doomed Pine Island Glacier (PIG) - B31.
Unfortunately, these massive fires aren't the only blazes covering
extraordinary swaths of Russian land during late April. Moving west to
the shores of the still partly frozen Lake Baikal, we find numerous
fires burning beneath a sea of smoke in the lowlands between two, still
snow-capped highlands.
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| Sea of Smoke and Fire north and west of Lake Baikal on April 28, 2014.LANCE-MODIS |
The entire roughly 200 x 200 mile (40,000 square mile) region is covered
by the steely gray smoke of previous and ongoing blazes. Peering down
through the dense shroud, we see numerous thick smoke plumes issuing
from still out of control fires. The freakish prematurity of these
blazes is readily apparent in the visible ice still covering much of
Lake Baikal and also in the snow still doggedly clinging to the nearby
mountainous highlands.
A vicious combination of thawing permafrost, a rapid increase in average
temperatures throughout Siberia and driven by human warming, and the
vulnerability of the active soil layer and related vegetation to rapid
drying appears to be turning this region into an ever more explosive
fire trap. Risk of wildfire is dependent on both heat and fuel. But with
the permafrost containing an almost inexhaustible layer of either
drying peat or venting methane and with temperatures now rising at twice
the already rapid global rate, the potential for burning in or near the
violatile permafrost thaw zone may well be practically unlimited.
These extraordinary and anomalous conditions, combined with a very
intense early season warming, what appears to be a persistent and
developing heat dome over Eastern Russia and adjacent Arctic Siberia, a
very rapidly receding snow line, and, potentially, an amplifying effect
from an emerging El Nino in the Pacific, results in a very high
continued risk for both extreme and record fires throughout the spring
and summer of 2014.
Links:
LANCE-MODIS
Russia Experiences Great Burning
A Song of Flood and Fire
A Dangerous Dance of Frost and Flame
100 Fires Burn 12,000 Hectares in Russia
Doomed Pine Island Glacier Guam-Sized Iceberg into Southern Ocean
-
Robert Scribbler.
Rare Cloud Over Sacramento Causes Social Media Storm
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| Photos of the cloud over Stockton. (Credit: Instagram user jon_qruz) |
An unusual cloud spotted in Stockton caused a storm on social media Friday afternoon.
Photos started flooding social media a little after 2 p.m. Many people characterized the event as a UFO, using hashtags like #alien, #weird and even going so far as saying the earth was due for an extraterrestrial invasion.
But, in all actuality, the event was probably just a hole-punch cloud – much like one that caused a commotion across Northern California back in 2010.
As the
National Weather Service told CBS13 back then, the distinctive shape of the cloud was most likely caused by an airplane that disrupted the cloud formation.
This unique kind of cloud is actually relatively frequent, officials say, but is usually only seen in colder climates than what we see in the valley. -
CBS.
100 Homes Lost In Texas Wildfire
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| Fire damages a building in Hutchinson County, Texas, May 11, 2014. |
At least 100 homes were destroyed and 700 residents were evacuated
because of a wildfire in the Texas panhandle, authorities said.
The Hutchinson County grass fire has had plenty of fuel provided by high winds and dry conditions, Fritch Police Chief Monte Leggett said.
“With the wind blowing the way it is, and the hot spots, the wind keeps switching from one direction to another so it's almost impossible [to fight],” Leggett said. “Plus, until daylight or they [have] got a lot better visibility, it's gonna be tough.”
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| Hundreds of residents were evacuated due to wildfire fears in Hutchinson County, Texas, May 11, 2014. |
Hutchinson County Emergency Management Coordinator Danny Richards said emergency crews from 26 counties were assisting. The fire was about 50 percent contained early today, he said, with a cold front giving firefighters optimism that the fire would be contained this morning.
Richards told ABC News that the fire had possibly burned more than 1,000 acres.
“It’s a disaster, and many people have lost their homes,” Richards said. -
ABC.
Three Dead In South China Rainstorms
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Flood water bursting onto a street from a sewer in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong province, on May 11, 2014.
AFP |
Heavy rainstorms have killed three people and forced the relocation of
more than 54,000 residents after rainstorms hit southern China regions,
local authorities said Sunday.
Heavy rains have battered Hunan Province since Thursday, disrupting
traffic, power, telecommunications and raising water levels in major
rivers and reservoirs, the provincial flood control headquarters said.
A villager in Jinwutang Township was killed in a landslide.
As of 11 a.m. Sunday, the round of heavy rains had affected 461,800
people in 131 townships and destroyed 1,400 housing units in the
province.
Local governments have relocated 50,400 people to avoid geological risks from the rainstorms.
Commuters maneuvering their way through a heavily flooded street in Shenzhen.
In
neighboring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, downpours have left two
people dead and affected nearly 200,000 residents, according to the
regional department of civil affairs.
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Commuters manoeuvring their way through a heavily flooded street in Shenzhen.
AFP |
As of 5:00 p.m. Sunday, heavy rains had toppled down 522 housing units
and seriously damaged another 888 in the region. Direct economic losses
were estimated at about 119 million yuan (19 million U.S. dollars).
Local governments have relocated 5,000 residents to safe areas.
As of Sunday noon, power supply had been restored after a
rainstorm-triggered flash flood hit Fugong County in southwest China's
Yunnan Province, the county publicity department said.
It tore down 14 houses and two bridges, damaging flood-control dikes and inundating a hydropower generation plant.
Local governments in risk-prone areas have relocated residents and allotted them daily necessities.
Shenzhen, a booming town in south China's Guangdong Province, on Sunday
experienced its strongest rainfall since 2008, with 2,000 cars submerged
in the streets and the operations of more than 5,000 buses suspended.
The city's meteorological bureau issued a red alert for heavy rain, the highest level of the four-tier alert system.
About 130 flights have been canceled at the Shenzhen airport, while
another 70 outbound flights have been delayed for more than four hours
as of 7:30 p.m. on Sunday evening.
The railway authorities in Shenzhen said they have halted high-speed
rail service linking Shenzhen and the provincial capital of Guangzhou.
But no casualties have been reported so far in the city.
-
Xinhuanet.
