Disaster Info | Tsunami A Novel & Red Sky | Novels by Gordon Gumpertz

Tornadoes, Asteroids, & Wildfires

May 20, 2013 By Gordon Leave a Comment

Recent events keep reminding us that disasters, natural and manmade, constantly happen on our planet, and, where possible, our scientists are working on ways to better control outcomes.

32.4 million people were forced to abandon their homes in 2012 by disasters such as floods, storms, and earthquakes. The International Displacement Monitoring Centre reports that floods in India and Nigeria accounted for 41% of this total, but the United States also contributed a large percentage of displaced persons, mainly due to Superstorm Sandy that struck the U.S. East Coast in October.

Late spring is tornado season for Midwestern and southeastern U.S. On May 15, 2013, humid air flowing in from the Gulf of Mexico combined with a layer of cooler air from the Mountain West and 100° temperatures to spawn 16 tornadoes that ripped through communities southwest of Dallas, Texas. 6 people died, 100 were injured, and more than 100 homes were badly damaged, some hit so hard that all that was left was the concrete slab they were built on. One tornado was judged an E4, with wind speed clocked at 200 mph (320 km/h). On May 19, new tornadoes and hailstorms struck in Oklahoma and Kansas, killing 2 people, and causing widespread property damage. More storms are expected.

Asteroid QE2 will miss Earth by 3.6 million miles (5.8 million kilometers) when it sails by on May 31, 2013, but serves as a reminder that Near Earth Objects (NEOs) zip by us all the time. Occasionally one slips through and hits home, as did the small meteor that exploded over Russia on Feb. 15, 2013. The concussion blew out windows and injured hundreds If another NEO does hit earth, let’s hope it’s smaller than QE2, which is 1.7 miles (2.7km) in length, or 9 times the size of the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2. Such a collision could be catastrophic. The QE2 designation has no relation to the cruise ship. It came up independently in NASA’s NEO numbering system.

According to a May, 2013, JPL news release, NASA will launch a robotic probe in 2016 to study one of the most hazardous of the known NEOs. NASA is also developing a project to capture and relocate an asteroid for human exploration. The mission will draw on the innovation of the brightest scientists and engineers.

Scientists from Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and Chapman University in Orange, California, have partnered in a project using satellites to measure vegetation moisture and soil moisture in the Southern California mountains and foothills. Such measurements are now made by manually taking brush and soil samples for lab analysis. But using India’s Oceansat-2 satellite to measure soil moisture, and NASA’s Aqua Satellite to measure vegetation moisture content, the project team is able to advise local and regional fire agencies of the degree of fire risk much sooner and over a much wider area than is possible with manual measuring. 2013 has seen sparse rainfall and high temperatures in Southern California and much of the U.S. southwest, making the start of the wildfire season 2 to 3 months earlier than in the past.

A recent survey shows that 98% of the world’s scientific studies on the subject agree that burning fossil fuels is greatly accelerating the pace of global warming and the climate changes that bring more violent storms, longer droughts, more flooding, more wildfires, faster ice sheet and glacial melting, and more water and air pollution. The faster that governments, corporations, and individuals can act to speed up the transition from oil- and coal-generated power to non-polluting wind, solar, thermal, and vegetation-based power, the sooner climate change can be moderated and the better off we’ll be.

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: asteroids, climate change, fire risk satellites, global warming, near earth objects, tornadoes, wildfires

Restless Earth

May 12, 2013 By Gordon Leave a Comment

At times, it may seem that nothing ever changes on our planet Earth. The mountains are still there. The oceans are where they’ve always been. The prairie, the forests, the desert all seem the same. But changes, some seen, some unseen, are always in process.

CO2 saturation. The amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere finally topped the 400 parts per million mark. The measurement was reported on May 10, 2013, by NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory on Mauna Loa in Hawaii. The last time CO2 exceeded 400ppm was 3 to 5 million years ago when Earth was hot and tropical. By continuing to burn fossil fuels, humans pump 38 billion tons of CO2 into the air every year. The more CO2 in the air, the hotter it gets. Are we approaching a time when heat is normal, and ice, snow and cool temperatures are chapters in a history book?

Mayon Volcano. An eruption on May 6, 2013, hurled rocks “as big as a living room” down its slopes, killing 5 hikers who had set out with a group to hike to the crater. Mayon is located on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, 340km (212mi) from Manila. On May 4, 2013, the Cleveland Volcano in the Aleutian Islands began erupting. So far, the eruptions have been low level, but in 2001, a Mount Cleveland eruption shot an ash cloud 39,000 feet (11,820m) into the air, endangering aircraft flying south of Alaska. There are 1,500 active volcanoes in the world. An average of 60 erupt every year, most emitting low levels of gas, lava, and ash.

Iran and Tonga earthquakes. On May 11, 2013, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit southern Iran where the Arabian Plate converges with the Eurasian Plate. Some news sources report 15 people killed, others 15 injured. On the same day, a magnitude 6.5 quake struck north of Tonga, deep in the Tonga Trench where the Pacific Plate converges with the Australian Plate. No deaths or injuries were reported. Wherever tectonic plates collide, there will be fault line failures and earthquakes.

Landsat 8. Droughts, floods, rainforest destruction, loss of arable land are examples of earth changes that need to be tracked and managed. That’s the mission of the Landsat series of earth-monitoring satellites. Landsat 8, the latest in the series, was launched by NASA in February, 2013. USGS will take operational control of the satellite starting on May 30, 2013. USGS currently operates Landsats 4, 5, and 7. Landsat 8 will make the fourth in the group, each one mapping a different part of the world. Landsat data can assist a broad range of specialists in managing the world’s food, water, forests, and other natural resources. Landsat imaging also tracks changes brought by manmade and natural disasters, Arctic and Antarctic ice changes, crop yields and failures, and dozens of other measurements important to the health of the planet and the people living on it.

Snowpack and snowmelt analysis. As global warming thins the snowpack in the mountains of the western U.S. and other semi-arid regions, it becomes more important to know exactly how much water will be available for farmers and growing populations. NASA’s Airborne Snow Observatory mounted in a Twin Otter aircraft, uses lidar – a laser beam echoing measurement system – to assess snowpack volume and melt. Preliminary tests flying over the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain watersheds indicate the new system is far more accurate than the present method of taking manual measurements. The system can calculate snow depth within 4 inches (10cm), and snow water equivalent to within 5%. Water system managers who depend on snowmelt for their fresh water supply can use this data to plan ahead more accurately.

Earth is restless. Mountain ranges are either gaining or losing height. Some gain a few inches a year from the squeezing of tectonic plates. Some lose a few inches through weathering and erosion, and will someday disappear. Global warming is melting Arctic ice, and moving forests northward, along with rain and snow. Temperate areas are becoming drier and hotter. Storms are getting stronger and more erratic. As we go about our day to day business, it may not seem like much is changing. But it does. Every day.

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: airborne snow observatory, cleveland volcano, co2 tops 400ppm, earthqakes, landsat 8, mayon volcano, restless earth, snowmelt, snowpack

Remotely Triggered Earthquakes

May 3, 2013 By Gordon Leave a Comment

On April 16, 2013, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck near the Iran/Pakistan border. 40 people died, and the quake demolished 85% of the buildings in Mashkel, Pakistan, population 250,000. Other mountain villages in the area are thought to have suffered heavy damage and additional loss of life. Magnitude 7.8 earthquakes have been known to produce far greater fatalities and heavier damage, but in this case the epicenter was 50 miles (80km) deep, and in a thinly populated area.

Four days later, on April, 20, a magnitude 6.6 quake hit China’s Sichuan district , 3,000 miles away. Over 200 people are reported dead or missing, 12,000 injured, many hundreds of buildings destroyed or badly damaged, and many thousands homeless. Although the magnitude was not as great as the Iran quake, the epicenter was a shallow 7.6mi (12.3km) and located in a heavily populated area.

Could there be a connection between these two earthquakes thousands of miles apart? Iran and China are at opposite ends of a continuous series of fault lines that have produced many of history’s severest earthquakes. The linked fault line marks the convergence of the African, Arabian, and Indian tectonic plates with the Eurasian Plate. It starts in the Red Sea and runs through Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, and ends at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau in China. Much of it crosses through the high mountains of Central Asia, including the Himalayas, the Karakorum Range, and the Hindu Kush. Strong quakes that start avalanches and bury mountain villages along this line are not uncommon.

It has been established that strong earthquakes can destabilize other faults in the same region. For example, the 1992 magnitude 7.3 Landers earthquake in California triggered aftershocks on dozens of other California fault lines hundreds of miles away. But whether one earthquake can trigger another thousands of miles away is another question.

A research team led by Taka’aki Tara of the UC Berkeley Seismological Laboratory found that an upsurge in quakes on the San Andreas fault in California occurred following the magnitude 9.0 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in 2004. The two areas are separated by 9000 mi (14,700km) of ocean. The same phenomenon occurred following a magnitude 7.9 Alaska earthquake in 2002. Fault lines as far away as California and Wyoming, 2,000 mi (3,200km) distant, registered a dramatic increase in earthquakes, some only minutes later, and some delayed by days or weeks. Tara’s findings were published in the journal Nature in September, 2009. A separate study indicated that the 2004 Indian Ocean quake triggered earthquake activity in China’s Yunnan Province, 2,000 mi (3,200km) away.

The crust of Planet Earth is made up of tectonic plates that are constantly moving, grinding together, and causing earthquakes. Whether the energy from one strong quake can travel over great distances and cause an earthquake in another part of the world has been debated in the scientific community for many years. Some research supports the idea. More research is needed to understand the full dynamics of the process. In the meantime, if a far-away quake shakes the earth near you, don’t be surprised.

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: fault lines, Iran quake, remotely triggered earthquakes, Sichuan quake, starting distant earthquakes, tectonic plates

Water, Water, Everywhere

April 19, 2013 By Gordon Leave a Comment

Water, water everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink

In Samuel Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a sailing ship is becalmed in the middle of the ocean, and the crew is out of fresh water. Will a fresh water shortage also be the fate of mankind as the world continues to get hotter and drier due to climate change? Will rain and snow continue to march toward the Arctic and Antarctic along with the movement of many plant and animal species migrating toward cooler climates?

On March 22, 2013, the member states of the United Nations observed World Water Day to focus attention on the importance of fresh water and to advocate for the sustainable management of Earth’s precious freshwater resources.

Humans have always depended on two sources to provide fresh water. One is the mountain snowmelt that fills our rivers and streams, and the other is well water drawn from underground aquifers. Climate change is threatening both of those sources.

Over the past century, the snowpacks in both the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains have been gradually declining. And groundwater levels have been dropping at an even faster pace. A report by a United Nations partner agency states that groundwater depletion doubled between 1960 and 2000, and “may become the greatest threat to … water supplies in the coming decades.” Groundwater levels have continued to plummet since 2000.

According to a May, 2012, report published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD), a consortium of 34 countries that works closely with the United Nations, world water demand is projected to increase 55% between Years 2000 and 2050. One reason is that world population is expected to increase from its present 7 billion people to between 9.3 and 10.5 billion, based on projections by Britain’s Royal Society and agencies of the United Nations. Another factor is that meat consumption increases as incomes rise in developing countries, and livestock production is highly water intensive.

What’s the answer when supplies dwindle as demand soars? Effective water conservation programs, more efficient water use, and improved water distribution methods will go a long way toward solving the problem. It’s up to the world’s governments to see that such practices are put into widespread use right now. If they don’t, as the astronauts of Apollo 13 radioed, “Houston, we have a problem.”

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: depleting aquifers, drier world, drying wells, hotter climate, population growth, soaring water demand, thinner snowpacks, water shortage

Earth’s Climate — Year 2300

April 12, 2013 By Gordon Leave a Comment

Although we won’t be around to experience earth’s climate in the year 2300 in person, a computer-simulation study released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in January, 2013, takes us to that future world. According to the Livermore team, led by physicist Govindasamy Bala, 2300 is when the world’s supply of fossil fuels will likely be depleted. No more oil, coal, or natural gas. What will the world look like at that point? Bala’s team used a combination of climate and carbon-cycle computer simulations to find out.

According to the study, the world will be much hotter. Average world temperature will increase by 8°C (14°F). Arctic temperature will increase a whopping 20°C (36°F). The polar cap, the Greenland Ice Sheet, and the Arctic tundra will have melted. Instead of ice and snow, boreal forest will cover the land, and Arctic seas will be ice free. Tropical vegetation will also expand, as present-day temperate areas become hotter.

Parts per million of CO2 in the air will triple. From the present approximately 400 ppm of CO2, our atmosphere will be saturated with 1,200 ppm of CO2, bringing the world close to some prehistoric CO2 levels.

There will come a time when the oceans can no longer absorb CO2.The world’s oceans now function as a carbon sink, eventually absorbing 80% of the CO2 in the atmosphere. But the more CO2 the oceans take in, the higher the acid content of the water becomes. Computer simulations predict that extreme acidification will wipe out much of marine life, including hundreds of food fish species, and destroy the world’s coral reefs. The destruction of coral systems will hamper the ocean’s ability to absorb additional CO2. With the oceans no longer able to absorb CO2, about 45% of the emitted carbon dioxide will remain in the atmosphere, intensifying the heating of the planet.

The melting of glaciers and polar ice will eventually raise world sea level by 7 meters (34 feet). Many populated islands will be under water, as will many of the world’s major port cities. The sea level rise will be gradual, but populations on low-lying islands and in seacoast communities should start preparing for the future.

According to physicist G. Bala, it is now evident that a great deal of damage has already been done. Years of unrestricted carbon pollution has started a process called committed warming. Bala said, “No matter what we do – even if we completely stop burning fossil fuels today – we are committed to future increases in global temperature … Our present trajectory is risking severe environmental damage that could last for hundreds of years.”

Is there anything we can do to reverse the trend? Even though committed warming is already in motion, reducing carbon emissions as much as possible and as quickly as possible can hopefully still serve to mitigate future damage. The Livermore team is using integrated computer simulations to assess to what extent and how soon the damage can moderated, depending on pace of emissions reduction. It is urgent that the governments and industries of the world take note, and shift their emission reduction efforts into high gear.

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: acid oceans, climate in 2300, co2 saturation, committed warming, hotter world, islands under water, melting arctic, rising sea level

Volcanoes and Mass Extinctions

April 3, 2013 By Gordon Leave a Comment

Earth has experienced several spectacular volcanic eruptions in the last 200 years. Three of those in particular not only took thousands of lives, but ejected enough sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere to cool the planet by as much as 1.2°C (2.2°F) for a year or more.

Mt. Tambora, on the island of Sumbawa in the Indonesian archipelago, erupted in 1815, killing 71,000. The material ejected cooled the planet so much that 1815 was called the Year Without Summer. Crops failed for lack of sunlight, and lung disease from inhaling sulfur dioxide increased dramatically. In 1883, the explosion of Krakatoa was so loud it was heard thousands of miles away in Africa and Australia. The ash fall and resulting tsunami took 31,000 lives, and altered earth’s climate for the next 5 years.

In 1902, Mt. Pelee, on the island of Martinique in the Caribbean, blew its top. Rivers of hot lava poured into nearby villages, killing 30,000 people. In 1991, Mt. Pinatubo, in the Philippines, shot so much sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, it lowered worldwide temperatures by 0.5°C (0.9°F). 60,000 people living within 40km (25m) of the volcano were evacuated before the eruption, saving many thousands of lives. 850 of those who stayed died when lava covered their homes.

But those eruptions, as destructive as they were, paled in comparison to a worldwide volcanic event that began 200 million years ago. In a study published in the journal Science in March, 2013, researchers have confirmed that eruptions large enough to bury the continental United States under 300 ft (93m) of lava occurred at the same time that vast numbers of plants and animals disappeared from the fossil record. These eruptions took place when the super continent Pangaea was being ripped apart to form what is now the Atlantic Ocean, and the continents of Europe, North America, South America, and Africa. The underlying mantle rock melted and great amounts of flood basalt poured though a rift in the Atlantic Basin. Released along with the lava were huge clouds of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and methane, thought to have created the intense global warming and ocean acidification that ultimately killed off thousands of plant and animal species.

With competing animal life eliminated, the dinosaurs became the dominant species. The dinosaurs lasted for 135 million years, until they were wiped out in another mass extinction. Scientists believe that extinction, 60 million years ago, was caused by a combination of a giant meteor strike in the Gulf of Mexico, plus the last major worldwide volcanic event called the Deccan Traps. A series of volcanic eruptions in what is now west central India buried that area in 2,000m (193,000ft) of solidified lava. The original area covered was 1.5 million square kilometers (579,000 sq mi), about half the size of modern India. The deadly gases released during the Deccan eruptions played a role in the last mass extinction.

Although earth is no longer subject to the kind of volcanic events that happened during its formative stages, scientists believe today’s rapid pace of climate change is setting us up for another mass extinction of plant and animal species. CO2 overload in the atmosphere is speeding global warming and causing ocean acidification. Food supplies are disappearing and species are dying off or migrating to cooler areas, and an acidified ocean is destroying marine life. Human life is not facing extinction, but mankind will have to learn how to survive in a rapidly changing world.

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: deadly gasses, dinosaurs, eruptions, India, lava, magma, mass extinctions, volcanoes

Do We Need an Asteroid Shield?

March 25, 2013 By Gordon Leave a Comment

A month after the meteor explosion over Russia on February 15, 2013, plus a close encounter with a large asteroid on the same day, the U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee held a hearing to determine progress made in providing early detection of threatening asteroids and the means of keeping them from impacting Earth.

According to committee chairman Lamar Smith, the testimony given by NASA, the White House, and the US Air Force was not exactly reassuring. It became clear that little progress has been made in identifying and cataloguing the thousands of potentially dangerous space objects out there, and in developing the hardware needed to intercept and deflect incoming space threats.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said because of budget constraints, it will be a long while before they can reliably chart 90% of near-earth objects between 140 meters and a kilometer in width, as mandated by Congress. He added that only a tiny percent of the smaller 30- to 100-meter asteroids have been detected. White House Science Advisor John Holdren stated, “The odds of a near-earth object strike causing massive casualties and destruction are very small, but the potential consequences are so large it makes sense to take the risk seriously.”

The first phase of an asteroid detection system called Pan-Starss was recently installed on Mt. Haleakala on Maui. The first telescope in the eventual array of four is now operational. The University of Hawaii and MIT are the project managers. The USAF is funding telescope construction. A completion date for the full array has not been announced. The comet Pan-Starrs was named after the Pan-Starrs telescope, the first to detect it.

With reductions in government funding causing long delays, a non-governmental, non-profit group called the B612 Foundation has stepped into the picture. The foundation states their mission is to build, launch, and operate a space telescope capable of finding and tracking threatening asteroids before they find us. The foundation is privately funded by a wide range of investment and corporate interests. Their board of directors includes prominent names in the scientific and academic communities. Their goal is to raise $450 million to complete the project.

The B612 project, called Sentinel, is a satellite based infrared telescope to be launched into orbit around the Sun at the same distance as Venus. Scott Hubbard, former director of NASA’s Ames Research Center and a consulting professor at Stanford University, has been named Sentinel’s program architect. He points out that near-earth asteroids are comprised mostly of black carbon, hard to spot against the black background of space. But being dark, they absorb Sun heat, making them easy to detect with Sentinel’s planned array of infrared sensors. According to Hubbard, Sentinel should discover nearly all the asteroids larger than 140 meters, and half of those between 50 and 140 meters. No date for completion of the Sentinel project has been announced.

The only systems available for deflecting asteroids away from earth at this time are the Deep Space Impact system that crashed into Comet Tempel 1 in 2005 to create a crater and a dust cloud that was analyzed to determine the comet’s composition. And Hayabusa, the Japanese spacecraft that landed on an asteroid in 2005, and returned with samples of the asteroid’s material. Those systems could conceivably be modified and used to impact an incoming asteroid or comet and nudge it off its course, given sufficient warning. A number of other systems are in the planning stage.

To sum it up, the job of finding and deflecting a threatening space object is still a work in progress. Let’s hope the work is done before a really big one threatens to make us go the way of the dinosaurs.

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: asteroid deflection, asteroid detection, asteroid shield, asteroid threat, b612 foundation, comets, earth impact, meteor strike, meteors, pan-starss, sentinel satellite

Earthquakes & World Population Boom

March 14, 2013 By Gordon Leave a Comment

More than a million earthquakes strike somewhere in the world every year. Most are under magnitude 5.0, and normally cause little or no damage. But between 1,500 and 2,500 of those million-plus earthquakes are of magnitude 5.0 and higher. Depending on geographical location and epicenter depth, any quake over magnitude 5.0 is capable of inflicting heavy losses.

320,000 people have died in earthquakes and earthquake-generated tsunamis since the year 2000. Those statistics coupled with the UN’s projected 67% increase in world population by 2100, much of it in earthquake-prone areas, adds up to bad news.

According to a study by the U.S. Geological Survey, published on February 20, 2013, predicted population increases in this century can be expected to translate into more earthquakes with very large death tolls than ever before. The USGS researchers studied earthquakes with death tolls of more than 50,000, termed catastrophic, from 1500 A.D. to the present. Comparing those events to world population, they found that the number of catastrophic earthquakes has increased as population has grown. By statistically correlating the data, they were able to project that approximately 21 catastrophic earthquakes will occur in the 21^st Century, tripling the seven that occurred in the 20^th. Total deaths could more than double to approximately 3.5 million if world population grows to the UN’s projected 10.1 billion.

The study explains the increase in lethal earthquakes is not that we are having more earthquakes, it is that more people are living in seismically vulnerable buildings in the world’s earthquake zones. Many of the countries experiencing the highest ratio of population growth are located on or near the world’s most dangerous fault lines. Fast-growing population centers in the Middle East, the Caucuses, Asia, the Western Pacific, and Central and South America are especially vulnerable. People in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, the Philippines, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, Indonesia, Haiti, Bolivia, and Guatemala, for example, not only live in earthquake zones, but in substandard housing that tends to collapse in major magnitude earthquakes.

Seismic building codes have been enforced for many years in California and other U.S. earthquake zone areas. Los Angeles and San Francisco, for example, will suffer far fewer casualties and less damage in a major quake than similar-size cities in developing areas where seismic codes do not exist or are not enforced.

Thomas Holzer, the lead research scientist in the USGS study, concludes, “Without a significant increase in seismic retrofitting and seismic-resistant construction in earthquake hazard zones at a global scale, the number of catastrophic earthquakes and earthquake fatalities will continue to increase and our predictions are likely to be fulfilled.”

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info, Your Questions Answered Tagged With: catastrophic earthquakes, earthquake damage, earthquake death toll, earthquakes, higher fatalities, population boom, seismic building codes

Freaky Weather and Global Warming

March 5, 2013 By Gordon Leave a Comment

Superstorm Sandy — the Midwestern drought of 2012 — the February 2013 Midwestern blizzards — record flooding in China, Brazil and the Philippines — Europe’s deepest cold snap in 25 years — record drought in Africa. Are these extreme weather events of the past year isolated occurrences, or is there a connection? Recent studies support the view that increasing CO2 levels, global warming, and extreme weather are closely linked.

A study conducted in Antarctica by a team of scientists from the National Research Center of France, published in the February 28 2013 issue of the journal Science, suggests that CO2 increases in the past have triggered global warming periods that melted glaciers. The French team examined ice cores drilled in Antarctica over the past 30 years. They focused on ice from 20,000 to 10,000 years ago, the last period when the planet warmed naturally and glaciers melted. By measuring the concentration of nitrogen-15 isotopes throughout the ice cores, they found that carbon dioxide increase and global warming happened at virtually the same time – between 18,000 and 11,000 years ago. This confirms the position of most climate scientists that rising temperatures and CO2 increase are locked in a feedback loop. CO2 brings higher temperatures, and higher temperatures lead to more CO2 being released from deep oceans and melting permafrost, further increasing temperatures.

According to a new study by scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, to be published in the journal National Academy of Sciences, and summarized in the February 28, 2013 issue of the journal Science, “Global weather is normally influenced by waves of air that oscillate between Earth’s tropical and Arctic regions, alternately pulling warm air up from the tropics to northern climes, then bringing cold air down from the Arctic.” As a result of global warming, however, these waves are now getting stuck in their tracks. Instead of bringing cool air after a warming period, the heat just stays, sometimes for weeks or months. Normal warm-cold oscillation depends on a stable difference in temperature between a cold Arctic and warm tropics. But the Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of the world, narrowing the temperature difference and reducing the airflow between the two areas. The study suggests that these stalled wave formations explain the increasing number of extreme weather events, such as the prolonged Midwestern drought of 2012.

A new climate model developed by scientists at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and Princeton University predicts that rising CO2 levels over the next century will bring a dramatic decline in snowfall for the continental United States. Carbon dioxide content in the air has increased 40% since the mid-19^th century and could double by the end of the century. The model suggests that as CO2 levels rise and global temperatures increase, less snow will fall in temperate regions. This spells trouble for areas such as the western U.S. that depend on snowmelt for fresh water. In North America, the greatest snowfall reductions will occur in the northeast, the mountains of the west, and coastal regions from Virginia to Maine. These areas are projected to get less than half the snow they currently receive. In very cold regions of the globe, however, snowfall will rise. As Arctic air warms, it holds more moisture, leading to increased precipitation in the form of snow. The Arctic, Antarctic, and the high peaks of the Himalayas, the Andes, and the Yukon will get much more snow. In other words, the unpopulated remote areas of the world will get more rain and snow, while the heavily populated regions will see less precipitation and more drought.

With the world facing this kind of climate future, it appears more urgent than ever to try forestalling it by cutting way back on CO2 emissions. That means replacing fossil fuel energy with solar, wind, and other alternative energy sources as quickly as possible. But if we shrug our shoulders and keep on burning fossil fuels, there’s every reason to believe the conditions predicted by this research will come to pass: a world with higher temperatures, less rain, less snow, more air pollution, more drought, and the occasional violent weather event thrown in. It seems worth the effort to do everything we can to hold it off.

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: climate change, CO2 rise, extreme weather, global warming, less rain, less snow, more drought, more heat, planet airflow blockage, weather warming link

Meteor Strikes & Asteroid Near Misses

February 21, 2013 By Gordon 3 Comments

At 09:20 local time on February 15, 2013, a meteor streaked into earth’s atmosphere over Siberia’s Ural Mountains and exploded in a fireball with the released energy of 500 kilotons of TNT, 20 to 30 times more powerful than the Hiroshima atomic bomb . The meteor exploded 15 miles (25km) above ground. The shock wave from the air burst damaged 3,000 buildings and injured 1,500 people, mainly from flying glass.

Moving at 40,000 mph (18km/s), the meteor measured 56 ft (17m) across, and weighed an estimated 10 tons before breaking apart in the blast. It is the largest object to have entered earth’s atmosphere since 1908, and the only known event of this kind to result in mass injuries. In 1908, the Tunguska meteor exploded in a fireball over an unpopulated area of Siberia, flattening trees 10 mi (16km) in all directions, and causing a magnitude 5.0 earthquake.

16 hours after the February 15th meteor strike, earth had a close encounter with a 44,000-ton asteroid measuring 148 ft (45m) in diameter. This space rock passed 17,200 mi (27,700km) above earth’s equator, but below several communications satellites orbiting at higher altitudes. An asteroid of this size colliding with earth would result in great environmental damage wherever it hit, and in serious loss of life if it struck a populated area. Astronomers say there was no connection between the two events, since they arrived from different directions at different times.

Bodies from outer space have hit earth in the past, causing widespread destruction. The prime example is the asteroid that struck in the Gulf of Mexico 65 million years ago, creating the massive Chicxulub crater and perhaps leading to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

NASA has placed a high priority on early detection of approaching asteroids NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), an earth-orbiting infrared telescope operated by JPL, makes the possibility of an undetected killer asteroid striking earth less likely. The WISE observatory is designed to find, track, and analyze Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs), asteroids with diameters larger than 330 ft (100m). WISE has already located 4,200 such objects, with an estimated 15,000 still to be pinpointed. NASA’s objective is to eventually complete a survey of all PHAs, their size, composition, trajectory, and degree of threat.

The largest and most dangerous PHAs are those with diameters exceeding 3,300 ft (1km). Out of an existing total of 981 of these largest asteroids, 911 (93%) have been located and analyzed. Some are the size of a small mountain, and if one were to impact our planet the consequences would be devastating. In the past, a PHA – one with a diameter of 330 ft (100m) or more — has struck earth on the average of once every one million years.

NASA is funding the development of another asteroid detection system called ATLAS, an array of small telescopes with wide fields of view scanning the entire sky several times a night. It is intended to pick up smaller asteroids the size of the meteor that struck Russia, and establish the exact time and position of impact 24 hours ahead, giving local populations time to prepare.

If WISE were to detect a giant asteroid on collision course with earth, is there a way to deflect it before it arrives? No tested deflection system is available today, but several are in the planning stage. One is a gravitational tractor, a large ion-driven spacecraft that would hover near the asteroid, using its ion thrusters to create gravity tug that would gradually alter the asteroid’s course away from earth.

Another proposed system is called DE-STAR (directed energy orbital defense system). This device harnesses the power of the sun and coverts it into a massive array of laser beams that can deflect or even destroy asteroids threatening earth. It is not a science fiction idea, according to the two UC Santa Barbara physicists developing the system, since all the components are presently available. Scaling up to the size needed would be the challenge.

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A Water-Scarce Future?

February 16, 2013 By Gordon 1 Comment

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecasts that by 2030 global water requirements may outstrip sustainable water use by 40%. In other words, we’ll be using 40% more water than is being replaced by rain and snowmelt. Global warming, rapid population growth, and more wealth in emerging economies are coming together in a perfect storm of increasing demand and falling supply. Without the intervention of some kind of water conservation and management plan, the world’s water tap could one day go dry.

Although 75% of the earth’s surface is covered by water, almost all of that is ocean saltwater. Only 2.5% of earth’s water is fresh water, and 2/3 of that is locked away in glaciers and icecaps. Of the stock of fresh water available, 99% is stored in underground aquifers. Maintaining underground water levels is a balancing act. No more water should be withdrawn than the amount replaced by rain and snowmelt. But with a changing climate that brings less rain and snow, and a growing population that needs more food and more water to grow the food, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain that balance.

A team of scientists using data from NASA’s twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites, found that the Tigris & Euphrates basin that includes parts of Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq, lost 117 million acre feet (144 cubic kilometers) of stored fresh water between 2003 and 2010. That’s equivalent to the amount of water in the Dead Sea, and nearly as much as in Lake Tahoe. 40% of the loss was attributed to evaporation of surface water in reservoirs, lakes, and rivers, and 60% to over-pumping of groundwater from the areas’ aquifers. Matt Rodell of Goddard Space Flight Center, co-author of the NASA study, said, “Groundwater is like your savings account. It’s okay to draw it down when you need it, but if it’s not replenished, eventually it will be gone.”

The same problem confronts water users in other arid and semi-arid parts of the world, including Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, the Mediterranean basin, and the U.S. southwest. Persistent drought in these areas is causing farmers and other water users to withdraw ground water faster than nature replaces it. According to UN figures, ground-water extraction globally has tripled in the past 50 years. Ground-water withdrawals in India and China have risen tenfold during that period. Aquifer levels in India are sinking 4 meters (13 ft) a year. Half the global population lives in countries where water tables are falling rapidly.

Some scientists believe this negative trend can be slowed or reversed by application of a few simple remedies. Perhaps the most important is improving the efficiency of agricultural irrigation. If crop flooding, which is still used in many parts of the world, can be replaced with drip irrigation and use of soil moisture sensors, millions of acre feet of water could be saved every year. Recycling wastewater, repairing leakage in water-delivery pipes, and regional water-sharing arrangements are also reliable ways to save water. Individuals can save water by using washing machines and dishwashers only for full loads, by not overwatering lawns and plants, and by sweeping instead of washing down outdoor areas.

Whether conservation measures alone will be enough to keep the taps open remains to be seen.

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: aquifer overpumping, climate change, drought, groundwater sinking, less rain and snow, water crisis, water loss

Will Biofuels Replace Fossil Fuels?

February 7, 2013 By Gordon Leave a Comment

With the burning of fossil fuels speeding up global warming, the U.S. Dept. of Energy is placing new emphasis on alternative energy and energy efficiency. In addition to advanced research on making solar and wind power production more efficient, DOE has enlisted dozens of national labs, universities, and private companies in a research program to produce biofuels on a commercial scale. Here are few examples.

The Bioenergy Science Center (BESC) is a consortium led by Oakridge National Laboratory. Oakridge and their many partners are doing basic research on how to break down the cell walls of plants to efficiently extract their basic sugars for fuel production. The researchers are currently working with crops of switch grass and poplar. Plants naturally resist the deconstruction of their cell walls, and a number of chemical and physical methods of breaking down the cells and separating the sugars are in trial.

The Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) is a bioenergy research center led by Lawrence Berkeley and Idaho national labs, in partnership with a number of other labs and universities. This project uses a pretreatment of liquid salts to break down cell walls of a mixture of plant materials, and mill the separated sugars into pellets. The pellets are sent on to a refinery where they are converted into biofuel. The plant material used is a mixture of switch grass, lodgepole pine, corn stover (leaves and stalks left over after corn ear harvest), and eucalyptus. Chemical engineer Blake Simmons, head of JBEI’s deconstruction division, says, “Blending and densifying a wide range of feedstocks has signicant potential for helping to make biofuels a cost-competitive transportation fuel technology.”

Sandia National Laboratories is one of several labs and universities doing research on growing algae in greenhouses for conversion to liquid biofuel. Sandia researchers are using simulated dairy effluent, the liquid remaining after bacterial digestion of dairy manure. The algae are cultured for several days, followed by harvesting and dewatering, after which the algal oil is extracted. This is a neutral oil made up largely of triacyglycerides that can be used directly as biofuel. Algae research is in its early stages. When it is more fully developed, one advantage is that algae can be grown in limited space on marginal land. Sugar and starch based fuels require the use of land, water, and fertilizer that could otherwise be devoted to food crops.

Brookhaven National Laboratory researchers are engineering enzymes that can be applied to plants or algae to increase the production of alkane, a saturated hydrocarbon. The simplest alkane is methane. Biochemist John Shankin, the lead researcher, said, “Alkanes are similar to carbon-chain molecules in gasoline. Unlike the process of breaking down plant biomass to sugars and fermenting them to ethanol, biologically produced alkanes could be extracted and used directly as fuel.” This research is also in its early stages, and may take months if not years before it can be used commercially. However the basic research is there to build on for developing non-polluting fuels of the future.

Gradually, wind, solar, tidal, and thermal will become the primary power sources for our electrical grid, and biofuels and batteries for our transportation needs. Replacing fossil fuels will be a gradual process, but will happen at some future time, putting the brakes on global warming and helping to bring us a clean-air world. Let’s hope that day is not too far off.

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Can You Outrun a Tsunami?

January 29, 2013 By Gordon Leave a Comment

(This is an updated version of an article originally posted in September, 2008)

Try to imagine a solid block of ocean hundreds of miles long, 3 miles deep, and as wide as the coastline, coming toward you at 500 to 600 miles an hour. That describes a tsunami in deep water racing toward land. A tsunami’s speed slows as it encounters the coastline, but the total water mass is still moving at 20 to 25 mph when it surges ashore. Maybe an Olympic-champion sprinter can stay ahead of an oncoming tsunami, but most of us are not Olympic champions. If it comes down to a race, the tsunami will win and the runner will lose almost every time. A tsunami rolling onshore is massive, powerful, and destroys everything in its path.

Areas of highest tsunami risk are those shoreline communities on the Pacific Rim, also called the Ring of Fire, near the undersea convergence of tectonic plates. The Ring of Fire runs from New Zealand, up through Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, Alaska, the west coast of North America (except California, where the Pacific and North American Plates converge inland on the San Andreas fault), and the west coast of South America. The three largest earthquakes and tsunamis of recent history struck in Chile, Alaska, and Indonesia.

A tsunami starts when a section of an undersea fault line ruptures, causing the seafloor on one side of the fault to sink and on the other to uplift, all in a matter of minutes. This sudden ocean floor collapse can trigger a major earthquake, displace vast amounts of water, upset the ocean’s equilibrium, and send millions of tons of ocean rolling outward from the epicenter. The deeper the water and the longer the wave, the faster the tsunami moves. A major fault rupture at a depth of 20,000 ft. can initiate a tsunami with a wavelength of 175 miles, a water column depth of 15,000 ft., and a speed of between 500 and 600 miles an hour.

The height of the tsunami wave on the ocean’s surface in deep water will tend to be only 2 to 3 ft (1m), and seldom noticed under the keel of a ship in mid ocean. But the height increases dramatically as it nears shore due to compression from shoaling and from the rapidly closing trailing wave. It may be squeezed up to 150 feet (45m) high when it hits the beach. The towering wall of water is most often associated with shallow bays and narrow inlets. On a broad beach type of coastline, the tsunami tends to come ashore as a rapidly rising sea. Along the broad beaches of Sumatra, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, the 2004 Indonesian tsunami produced a sudden 30-ft. rise in sea level that surged onto land so quickly that few could get away. Over 225,000 people died in 8 countries bordering the Indian Ocean.

The tsunami that struck the northeast coast of Japan in 2011 came ashore so fast that few living along the coast had time to escape. Waves up to 130 ft (39m) high overtopped seawalls and surged as much as 10 mi (16km) inland. 20,000 dead or missing were reported at the time.

A tsunami is often made up of a train several waves. The waves in the train can hit at intervals of up to a half hour or more, depending on the length of the trough. The first wave to hit land is not always the largest. Frequently, it is the second or third wave that will prove to be the most destructive.

The distance a tsunami can travel inland once it hits the coast depends on the size of the wave and the slope of the land. The size of the wave is expressed as runup, a term meaning the height of the wave over mean high tide. In flat, low-lying areas, a major tsunami with a runup of 30 ft (9m) or more can reach areas several miles from the shoreline with devastating power.

If you are on or near the coastline when a tsunami warning is issued by your local authorities, follow evacuation directions and clear the area immediately. If you hang around to see how big the wave is, and then try to outrun it, you are almost certain to lose the race.

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The Heat Below and the Fire Above

January 23, 2013 By Gordon Leave a Comment

A layer of superheated rock called the asthenosphere lies below the earth’s crust, starting at about 100 miles (160km) down. Between 200mi (320km) and 700mi (1,100km) thick, its temperatures range from 2,550°F (1,400C) at the top, to 5,430°F (3,000°C) at the bottom.

When tectonic plates converge, pressure can build until a section of the fault line ruptures, allowing the oceanic plate to slide under the land plate. The ocean floor material that slides down into the asthenosphere transforms into magma, a molten, gassy material that migrates upward into chambers beneath volcanoes. As a magma chamber fills, the pressure increases until it expels the magma in the form of a volcanic eruption.

Volcanoes erupt every day all over the planet. During the week of January 9^th to 16^th, 2013, for example, 15 volcanoes were belching gas or lava in Argentina, Italy, Russia, Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, and New Guinea. Most were low-level eruptions causing little or no damage. Many of them were located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where the tectonic plates underlying the Pacific Ocean converge with the continental plates of Asia, North America, and South America.

There are an estimated 1,500 active volcanoes in the world. 550 of those have erupted during recorded history. The rest have been dormant since pre-historic eruptions.Volcanoes can remain dormant for hundreds, even thousands of years, between eruptions. The power of an eruption is measured by the Volcano Explosive Index (VEI), based on force of the blast and amount of material ejected. The VEI scale runs from 0 to 8. About 150 volcanoes can be expected to erupt during an average 10-year period.

While minor volcanic eruptions occur every day, major stratovolcano blowouts happen every few or few dozens of years. Here are some of the notable volcano disasters that have taken place over the past two centuries.

Mt. Tambora, a 14,000 ft (4,300m) dormant volcano on the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia, exploded on April 10, 1815. It was the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history, measuring VEI 7 on a scale of 8, blowing away the top 5,000 ft (2,700m) of the mountain. The boom was heard 1,200 mi (2,000km) away. The blast ejected 38 cu mi (160 cu km) of lava, rocks, ash, and sulfur dioxide, killing 71,000 people. The ash and sulfur dioxide rose into the stratosphere, screening out the sun and creating what was called The Year Without Summer. Crops failed, and famine and sickness took thousands of additional lives.

Krakatoa, also in the Indonesian archipelago, erupted on August 26, 1883. The VEI 6 blast was heard 3,000 mi (4,800km) away in Australia. The energy released was equivalent to 200 megatons of TNT, 4 times more powerful than the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated. The ash and gas cloud rose 20,000 ft (6km), creating an SO2 blanket that reduced worldwide temperature by 1.2°C for 5 years. Tons of ejected rocks crashed back into the sea, creating a 100 ft (30m) tsunami that wiped out villages on neighboring islands and took more than 30,000 lives. Some estimates place the total number of deaths from the Krakatoa eruption at 120,000.

Major eruptions since Krakatoa include Mt. Pelee on Martinique in 1902, a VEI 5 that killed 30,000; Novarupta in Alaska in 1912, a VEI 6, the most powerful eruption of the 20^th Century, which flattened a large part of the Kenai Peninsula; Mt. St. Helens in Washington State in 1980, a VEI 5 that killed 57, wiped out the area around it, and caused more than $1 billion in damage; Snowcapped Nevada del Ruiz in Colombia in 1985, an eruption that melted its snow and caused mudslides that killed 25,000; Mt. Pinatubo on the island of Luzon in the Philippines in 1991, a VEI 6 that killed 800, caused the evacuation of 60,000, and lowered worldwide temperature by 0.5°C; and the eruptions of Indonesia’s Mt. Marapi in 2010 that killed 350 and forced the evacuation of 350,000.

Volcanoes will always be with us. We just don’t know when or where the next big one will happen. If you live near a volcano, play it safe if the authorities call for evacuation. Pack up your stuff and get out of there before the mountain blows.

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: asthenosphere, eruptions, Krakatoa, major volcanic blowouts, Tambora, volcanoes

2012 Natural Disaster Review

January 14, 2013 By Gordon Leave a Comment

Natural disasters resulting in death and damage in 2012 included earthquakes in Iran, floods in Romania, typhoons in the Philippines, avalanches in Afghanistan, flash floods in India, earthquakes and landslides in China, and drought and hurricanes in the United States.

2012 was the warmest year on record In the continental U.S. according to a January 8, 2013, report issued by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. Average nationwide temperature in 2012 was 55.3°F (13°C), 3.2°F above the 20^th Century average. The average U.S. temperature in July was the hottest ever recorded in a single month. 61% of the U.S. experienced drought conditions in 2012. Wildfires in Western U.S. charred 9.2 million acres.

In a report released by Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurer, 9.500 people died in natural disasters in 2012, slightly below the 10-year average of 106,000. Natural disasters caused estimated overall losses of $160 billion, and $65 billion in insured losses. However Munich Re’s overall loss figure may be too low. Based on a December 21, 2012, article in The Guardian, loss estimates for Hurricane Sandy alone approach $100 billion, and Midwestern drought losses could be as much or more.

Figures released by NOAA on December 20, 2012, report that in 2012 there were 11 weather and climate events in the U.S. that reached the billion-dollar threshold in losses. Total losses could exceed $200 billion.

Weather and climate related insurance losses have doubled every decade since the 1980s. The insurance industry believes it will save money in the future by investing today in global warming education and ways to reduce the impact of natural disasters. A study published in the December 13, 2012, issue of the journal Science states that the insurance industry is investing $23 billion in emissions-related technologies and climate change mitigation. 129 insurance firms from 29 countries are supporting a program of climate research, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, raising public awareness of the emissions threat, and incorporating climate change into investment decisions.

A draft of the 2013 Climate Assessment Report compiled by a panel of 240 scientists for a federal advisory committee has been released for peer review. The report says the evidence tells an unambiguous story: the planet is warming. It predicts the impact of global warming on the nation’s health and infrastructure will be severe. Among the panel’s findings: U.S. average temperature has increased 1.5°F since 1895, 1.2° of that increase occurring since 1980; the next few decades are projected to see another 2 to 4° temperature rise; global sea level has risen 8 inches (20.32cm) in the past 100 years and is projected to rise another 2 to 4 ft this century; ocean surface waters have become 30% more acidic as they absorb large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere, threatening the survival of coral and shellfish.

With no limits or controls imposed by the international community on CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, there is little doubt that the rapid pace of global warming will continue, bringing with it hotter weather, longer droughts, heavier storms, accelerated polar ice melt, rising sea levels, coastal flooding, acidic oceans, compromised fisheries, unhealthy air, and erratic rainfall. That appears to be our future unless there is a major worldwide effort to reduce CO2 emissions by replacing a big part of carbon-based energy with green energy.

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Rogue Waves: Mystery Monsters of the Sea

January 4, 2013 By Gordon Leave a Comment

In April, 1966, on a North Atlantic crossing to New York, the 46,000-ton Italian ocean liner Michelangelo was struck by an 80-ft. (25m) wave that collapsed the ship’s forward superstructure, smashed windows, killed two passengers and a crewman, and injured 50.

During World War II, in December, 1942, RMS Queen Mary was transporting 16,000 American troops to Europe. As Queen Mary entered the North Atlantic, a 92-ft (28m) wave came out of nowhere and broadsided the huge 1,000-ft ocean liner, knocking the ship into a 52- degree list. Had it listed another 3 degrees, it would have capsized, taking the 16,000 troops and the crew to the bottom of the Atlantic. Fortunately, it gradually righted and sailed back to port for repairs. There was no loss of life.

The German cargo ship MS München (Munich), sailing between Bremerhaven and Charleston, South Carolina, was not so lucky. On December 13, 1978, the relatively new ship built to withstand extreme conditions, went down with all hands. Debris found by search vessels revealed that the München was struck by a wave at least 66 ft (20m) high, disabling the ship. Evidence indicated the freighter drifted for 3 days before capsizing and sinking. After that tragedy, bridges on new cargo ships were located on the stern of the ship instead of forward.

On April 16, 2005, the cruise ship Norwegian Dawn was sailing from Florida to New York in rough seas. At 6:00 a.m., a 70-ft. (21m) wall of water crashed into the bow, smashed windows as high as the 10^th deck, flooded staterooms, and injured 4 passengers. The ship was forced to seek shelter in Charleston, SC, where it put in for repairs and Coast Guard inspection.

These are just some examples of the hundreds of reports of gigantic freak waves sinking or damaging ships. What are these strange monster waves that appear without warning and overwhelm large oceangoing vessels?

They are called rogue waves. They occur in areas of deep water, often where strong winds and fast currents converge. Until recently, the idea of rogue waves was thought to be maritime folklore, tall tales told by sailors home from the sea. Scientists began to believe in their existence in 1995 when the Daupner drilling platform in the North Sea for the first time scientifically recorded with a laser sensor an 84-ft (25.6m) wave that struck the rig on a clear New Year’s Day. The platform sustained minor damage, but survived. Unlike a tsunami, which is caused by an undersea earthquake and sudden deformation of the ocean floor, a rogue wave is a product of wind and ocean current conditions on the ocean’s surface.

In 2000, European Space Agency scientists launched Project MaxWave, using satellite data to search for and confirm the existence of rogue waves. They found that 10-story waves are real and occur rarely but regularly in deep oceans throughout the world. Many strike during heavy storms, but these mountain-like waves can also appear suddenly on a clear day in calm conditions. It is known that big waves form more often in areas of strong currents, such as the Agulhas off South Africa, the Kuroshio off Japan, and the Gulf Stream off the east coast of the U.S., where the Norwegian Dawn was stuck.

Rogue waves are consistently described by eyewitnesses as a vertical wall of water up to 100 ft (30m) high, preceded by a trough so deep it looks like a hole in the sea. The weight and pressure per square inch (kilopascal) of a wave of this magnitude breaking over a ship is so extreme that few vessels can survive a direct hit without sinking or sustaining damage.

In addition to satellite observation, scientists have been designing computer models and laboratory experiments to research the origin and dynamics of rogue waves, but so far do not agree on the exact sets of conditions that create them. One scientific group is making a chart of when and where rogue waves occur so that ships can be warned to avoid areas where these monster waves are most likely to appear.

*This is an update of an article originally posted on Sept. 27, 2010

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Landsat: Mapping a Changing Earth

December 29, 2012 By Gordon Leave a Comment

Orbiting NASA satellites Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 record images of earth’s surface 24 hours a day, every day of the year. The collected data is sent to a ground station where it is processed and reorganized into color maps and released to the public on the internet. Landsat 5 was launched 29 years ago, and is finally being retired and returned to earth due to a failing gyroscope. Landsat 7 placed in orbit in 1999 is still flying and still sending back earth surface image data. It will be joined by state-of-the-art Landsat 8 to be launched in February, 2013.

How high and how fast? The Landsat satellites orbit at an altitude of 440 miles (705km). They make one complete orbit every 99 minutes, flying north-south around earth’s two poles. They record images in strips 115 miles (185km) wide as the earth rotates beneath it. The satellites make a complete coverage of the earth every 16 days. Five passes cover the entire United States, from Maine to California, and Alaska to Hawaii.

How does Landsat see? The Landsats use digital scanning devices that map the earth in amazing detail. To quote NASA, “Landsat sensors record reflected and emitted energy from earth in various wavelengths and electromagnetic spectrum.” The sensors record earth’s energy in blue, green, and red in the visible spectrum. For example, Landsat 5 recorded a picture of Arizona’s Wallow fire in 2011, showing burn scars in red, active fire in bright red, smoke in blue, vegetation in green, bare ground in tan, and water in dark blue. This real-time information can help fire crews identify hot spots and more efficiently deploy resources.

What does Landsat see? According to NASA, Landsat data have been used to monitor water quality, glacier and ice sheet recession, sea ice movement, invasive species encroachment, coral reef health, land use change, deforestation rates, and population growth. Landsat has also been used to track the progress of hurricanes, and helped to assess damage from storms, fires, floods, and tsunamis. Since Landsat 1 was launched in 1972, the Landsat program has given us a 40-year record of the effects of a changing climate, tracking the progress of melting ice caps, rising sea levels, disappearing islands, eroding coastlines, and high-altitude forest changes.

Who uses Landsat mapping? Farmers use Landsat to project crop yields. Landsat data was used to assess the total yield of the Soviet wheat crop in 1979 before the harvest. The forecast came within 90% of the official figures released months later. World bodies such as the UN, and national and local governments, use Landsat data to forecast future change, and plan mitigation measures against natural disasters. Businesses use Landsat to plan future production and distribution based on population growth and relocation. Universities and national labs use Landsat data in research projects. Ecological groups use Landsat to monitor CO2 emissions, harmful chemicals in the air and water, plant and animal survival and migration, and deforestation.

Between 2003 and 2009, Landsat recorded an amazing amount of rainforest destruction in Peru. 12,500 acres (5,058 hectares) of forest were destroyed during that period. When officials investigated, they found that unlicensed miners were rushing into this area to mine for gold. They were not only clearing and defacing the land, but bringing mercury to the mining sites to extract gold from the rocks. The mercury was seeping into the water table, and dangerous amounts of mercury vapors were filling the air. International groups have been working with the Peruvian government to correct the problem.

The Landsat program is a joint venture between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. NASA flies the satellites, and USGS processes the data and releases it to the public in mapping form.

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DOE’s Energy Innovation Hubs

December 20, 2012 By Gordon Leave a Comment

The U.S. Dept. of Energy is funding a number of integrated research centers devoted to finding better ways to make, save, and store energy. These research centers are called Energy Innovation Hubs. Each hub is run by a consortium of national labs, universities, and private sector partners.

So far, DOE has funded 5 Hubs: (1) Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis; (2) Joint Center for Energy Storage Research; (3) Energy Efficient Buildings Hub; (4) Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (nuclear energy hub); and (5) Critical Materials Hub.

The Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis group, which includes Caltech and Berkeley National Lab, is working to simulate natural photosynthesis, the process used by plants to manufacture energy from sunlight, air, and water, to produce fuel from sunlight on a commercial basis. For details, see my blog article of Nov. 14, 2012, titled Making Motor Fuel from Sunlight.

The goal of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) is to develop radically new approaches to electrochemical storage. In other words, develop batteries that deliver more power, last longer, and cost less, with an eye to producing advanced batteries for electric and hybrid cars, and to improve the reliability and efficiency of the nation’s electrical grid. Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago will lead the group. Argonne is partnered with 4 other national labs, 5 universities, and 4 corporations including Johnson Controls and Dow Chemical.

The mission of the Energy Efficient Buildings Hub is to find ways to cut energy use in existing buildings by 50% by 2015. The group, led by scientists and engineers at Penn State University, includes national labs and other university partners. They are using a 30,000 sq. ft. (2,787 sq. meters) building in the Philadelphia Navy Yard as their test structure. Sophisticated sensors and computer modeling are being used to test the effectiveness of different technologies on airflow, humidity, light, temperature, and energy efficiency.

The Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) will use computer modeling and simulation to improve the efficiency of nuclear power plants. The stated goals of this hub are to “achieve reactor power uprates, life extension, and higher fuel burnup.” In other words, find ways to make nuclear plants produce more power, last longer, and produce more kilowatt hours per pound of fuel. Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee is the lead partner. National lab partners include Sandia and Los Alamos, university partners include MIT and North Carolina, and industry partners include TVA and Westinghouse.

The Critical Materials Research Hub is set up to develop a stable supply and a more efficient distribution system of the 17 rare earth metals that are indispensible in the manufacture of dozens of sophisticated products. Items made with rare earth metals include battery electrodes, camera lenses, mercury vapor lamps, microwave filters, lasers, energy-efficient light bulbs, nuclear batteries, X-ray tubes, solar panels, computer memories, and power grid components. Most rare earth metals are now mined and produced outside the U.S., making the supply subject to manipulation, shortages, and price spikes. The mission of the hub scientists and engineers is to develop domestic supplies, and find common metal alternatives to assure a reliable source of critical materials to U.S. manufacturers.

The energy innovation hubs and the dozens of other energy development programs currently funded by DOE, including solar, wind, biomass, natural gas, and geothermal, are intended to gradually pay off in commercially viable technologies that will provide a national energy supply that is plentiful, stable, and fair-priced, and pumps far less pollutants into the atmosphere.

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What Price Unrestricted Carbon Emissions?

December 12, 2012 By Gordon 2 Comments

The journal Nature Climate Change recently reported that a record 38 billion tons of CO2 poured into the planet’s atmosphere in 2011. It had been hoped that the nations of the world meeting in Doha, Qatar, for the UN Climate Change Conference that concluded on December 8, 2012, would agree on a plan to control runaway carbon emissions. Unfortunately no agreement was reached, so the world continues on a path of pumping unrestricted carbon emissions into the air, and bringing the negative impacts of climate change much closer.

China was the top polluter in 2011, with 10 billion tons of CO2 emissions; followed by the U.S. with 5.9 billion tons; India with 2.5 billion; Russia with 1.8; and Japan with 1.3 billion. The U.S. reduced its carbon emissions by 2%, and Germany by 4% over the prior year. All other nations increased their emission levels. China was up 10%.

According to Reuters, reports released at the Doha conference indicate that under the present rate of emissions, the world will warm by 4°C (7.2°F) by 2100, instead of the earlier forecast of 2°C (3.6°F). Accelerated global warming brings with it many negative consequences.

In a study published in the November 29 issue of the journal Science, 47 scientists from 26 labs around the world worked together to produce the most accurate report to date on the rate of ice melt in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Their conclusion: the ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica are melting three times faster than they were 20 years ago. Erik Ivins of JPL, one of the lead scientists in the study, stated, “Both ice sheets appear to be losing more ice now than 20 years ago, but the pace of ice loss in Greenland is extraordinary, with nearly a five-fold increase since the mid 1990s. The ice loss in Antarctica has remained constant, with the data suggesting a 50 percent increase in Antarctica ice loss during the last decade.”

Fast-melting ice sheets means rising ocean levels. According to a USGS report dated December 6, 2012, recent models predict a sea level rise of approximately 1 meter (3.3ft) by 2100, with larger increases possible in parts of the Pacific Ocean. The study predicts that the atolls in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, including Midway, will be partially inundated, wiping out the breeding and foraging habitats of 25 sea and land bird species, and colonies of the monk seal.

Many low-lying islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans where thousands of people live, such as Nauru, the Maldives, and the Marshall Islands, will be hard hit with loss of land, salt intrusion into their freshwater aquifers, and destruction of their fisheries. Many coastal cities including New York, Miami, and New Orleans, will have to make major adjustments to deal with a 1-meter (3.3ft) sea level rise.

In a warming world we can expect more powerful hurricanes and tornadoes, longer and hotter droughts, earlier snow melts, fewer but heavier rains, and more widespread flooding. 40% of the CO2 emissions are absorbed by the world’s oceans, making them increasingly acidic. Seafood production is expected to decline in a more acid ocean, leaving the world with fewer fish to feed a growing population.

The issues facing the nations at the Doha conference were complex. Essentially, the developing nations such as China and India see no reason to reduce their emissions until the developed nations such as the US and the EU, who have already developed their economies, show sizeable reductions in their emissions. In other words, their attitude is, You’ve had your turn, now It’s ours. Various forms of compensation to developing nations who reduce emissions were proposed, as were a number of international carbon tax or cap and trade arrangements. But none of the proposals was acceptable to the majority. National interests came first. The conference failed to find a way.

With the health and welfare of everyone living on this planet at stake, you would think the nations of the world would be motivated to keep working at it until a solution is found.

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: 38 tons of CO2, acid oceans, carbon emissions, Doha failure, rising seas, unrestricted emissions

Superstorm Sandy’s Aftermath

December 2, 2012 By Gordon Leave a Comment

At the time of this writing, it has been a month since Superstorm Sandy slammed into the east coast of the United States, delivering particularly hard blows to New Jersey and lower Manhattan. As information continues to come in on the storm’s aftermath, it appears that the extent of damage created by Sandy could well exceed that of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, making it the most destructive and expensive storm in U.S. history.

According to a Reuters news release of November 26, 2012, New York governor Mario Cuomo announced that his state will require at least $42 billion to repair damaged housing and infrastructure. Governor Chris Christie’s office announced that New Jersey suffered at least $29 billion in overall losses, making a total of $71 billion for those two states. When the damages to Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, the Carolinas, and other east coast states are added in, the grand total will likely exceed Hurricane Katrina’s $81 billion in losses.

In New York State alone, Sandy destroyed 305,000 houses, adversely impacted 265,000 businesses, and caused 2.2 million power outages, all totals greater than those suffered by Louisiana after Katrina. The totals of homes and businesses lost in New Jersey and other states have not yet been added. However, Katrina took many more lives than Sandy: 1,800 compared to 121.

Along with heavy property loss and human suffering, Sandy brought extensive change to the shoreline contours of the U.S. east coast. The United States Geologic Survey conducted pre-storm and post-storm surveys with both aerial photography and airborne lidar – which uses lasers to construct a high-resolution, three-dimensional map of before and after storm conditions.

USGS Director Marcia McNutt stated, “Sandy taught us yet again that not all Cat 1 hurricanes are created equal: the superstorm’s enormous fetch over the Atlantic produced storm surge and wave erosion of historic proportions.” Fetch is the distance the wind travels from the core of the storm to the coastline.

The aerial photography and lidar surveys were part of the USGS assessment of coastal change from the Outer Banks of North Carolina to Massachusetts. In Ocean Beach and other communities on New Jersey’s barrier islands, for example, lidar showed pre-storm sand dune elevations of up to 15 ft (4.5m), with houses resting on top. The post-storm lidar image showed the sand dunes completely gone and the houses that were on them washed away. USGS coastal geologist Cheryl Hapke said, “We found widespread dune erosion and overwash. On average, where the dunes were not completely overwashed, they eroded back 70 feet (21m) – the equivalent of 30 years of change.” Though not as dramatic as the changes in New Jersey, major erosion and overwash altered the look of 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of Atlantic coastline. The Delmarva Peninsula that separates the Atlantic from Chesapeake Bay, and has ocean frontage in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, experienced dune and beach erosion of over 90%.

The main reason for the exceptionally strong storm surge that did so much damage was Sandy’s massive size and long fetch. As the storm approached land, 90 mph (145km/h) winds drove 300 miles (500 km) of ocean in waves piled 13 ft (4m) high onto the shoreline. As we know, the results were devastating. Hopefully, the USGS before and after surveys will help states and local communities become better prepared for future superstorms. According to all the models, there will be more.

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: sandy aftermath, sandy changes coastline, sandy most destructive, sandy most expensive, usgs sandy survey

Fracking — Good or Bad?

November 22, 2012 By Gordon Leave a Comment

The practice of hydraulic fracturing — commonly called fracking — by energy companies to extract oil and natural gas from shale and bedrock seems to make economic sense, but raises important environmental questions. The federal government and many state governments are conducting studies to determine what kind of regulations may be needed to permit drilling while protecting the environment and the health of the people living near fracking operations.

Fracking requires drilling wells into shale and bedrock, and forcing a toxic chemical solution down the hole under high pressure to break up the rock and gain access to pockets of oil and gas that regular drilling cannot extract. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that the industry drilled 405,000 fracking wells in the U.S. between 2001 and 2010. New York State’s review for natural gas drilling in shale assumed the companies would use 2.4 to 7.8 million gallons (9.1 to 28.5 million liters) of chemical fluid per well.

The economic advantages of having an abundant supply of domestically produced oil and natural gas are obvious. It makes the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil and gas. The International Energy Agency predicts that by 2020 the U.S. will move from being a heavy importer of natural gas to a country that exports its surplus. And by 2035 will be producing more oil than Saudi Arabia. Supplies will not be affected by events in other countries. Prices should stabilize and no longer be subject to radical swings. The U.S. might need to build more refining capacity to make that happen.

But is there a price to be paid for this positive outcome? Although the facts are sometimes disputed by the industry, there appears to be enough evidence to support the contention that fracking causes major environmental problems.

It has been reported that the toxic fluid used to break up the rock has seeped into underground aquifers and polluted the drinking water of a number of communities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado, and other states. Among the chemicals detected in the well water were high levels of ammonia, arsenic, and t-butyl alcohol. Also, methane gas is released into the atmosphere during fracking, contributing to global warming.

Earthquakes were rare occurrences in the middle of the United States until fracking became prevalent. According the U.S. Geological Survey, the nation’s midsection lies on stable basement rock that is spiderwebbed with old, inactive fault lines. Between 1970 and 2000, the area averaged 21 small quakes a year. The number increased to 50 in 2009, 87 in 2010, and 134 in 2011. While the majority of quakes have been less than magnitude 4.0, in 2011 Oklahoma experienced a magnitude 5.6 earthquake plus aftershocks that damaged buildings. 181 fracking wells had been drilled in the quake vicinity.

Additional studies indicate that it isn’t the fracking itself that causes the earthquakes, but the disposal of wastewater into deep injection wells that penetrates into the base rock. After the initial chemical solution is pumped into the rock or shale to open up the pockets, the solution returns to the well surface as toxic wastewater. It is then pumped into the deep injection wells for disposal. The pressure-injected wastewater shoots into dormant fault lines in the base rock, lubricates both sides of the otherwise stable fault, and facilitates slippage. Just a little fault line movement can cause a strong tremor. It is believed that deep well injection of wastewater is also responsible for polluting aquifers. Federal and state agencies are working on safer wastewater disposal regulations, but most of the industry continues to use deep well injection.

Another question to be considered is, will having a stable supply of gasoline and natural gas put the brakes on the conversion to green energy? Will we see fossil fuel emissions continue to pour into the atmosphere while programs to develop more wind, solar, and other non-polluting energy sources are slowed or sidetracked? Let’s hope we can find safe ways to dispose of fracking wastewater, learn how to use energy abundance wisely, and at the same time continue robust programs to develop green, non-polluting energy.

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: fracking, fracking & environmnt, fracking good or bad?, fracking health issues, fracking wastewater

Making Motor Fuel From Sunlight

November 14, 2012 By Gordon Leave a Comment

Alternative energy sources are gradually producing more of the world’s electricity. Solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal, and natural gas are all playing a part in this drive for cleaner air and energy independence. Advanced battery technology is helping the automobile industry to produce more hybrid and all-electric vehicles.

But a fuel such as gasoline, kerosene, or diesel is still needed to run vehicles and machines that require more power. Battery technology is not advanced enough to power heavy trucks, long distance buses, jet airplanes, or 1,200-ft (365m) container ships. Some of these larger machines can be run on biofuel or biofuel-gasoline mixtures, but many scientists have concluded that making biofuel from corn or other vegetation requires more energy than it produces.

Now the U.S. Department of Energy has funded a project called the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, or JCAP, for the purpose of eventually making a usable fuel from sunlight. Making a substance that will do the same work as gasoline or diesel from sunlight alone sounds farfetched. But that is exactly what JCAP is setting out to do.

JCAP is a consortium of California institutions led by Caltech chemist Nathan Lewis, partnering with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and including scientists and facilities at Stanford, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, and UC San Diego. 200 scientists are spending full time on the project. The Berkeley Lab has broken ground on a 40,000 sq ft (3,700 square meter) building for its Solar Energy Research Center, which is under the direction of chemist and senior scientist Heinz Frei.

In nature, photosynthesis takes place when sunlight hits the leaves of a plant. The leaf absorbs the sun’s energy and a compound called chlorophyll inside the leaf combines the sunlight with CO2 that the leaf draws in from the air, and water from the ground. This process converts sunlight into chemical energy — mainly sugars that fuel the plant’s growth. The process uses the carbon molecules in CO2 and releases the leftover oxygen back into the air.

The JCAP scientists have learned how to mimic photosynthesis on a small scale in the lab, and are now building prototypes of solar fuel generators that will produce chemical energy from the sun in the form of a usable fuel on a commercial scale. The process of artificial photosynthesis was described in simple terms by Nathan Lewis in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

“We capture the energy from sunlight in tiny fibers arranged like fibers on a carpet or blades of grass on a lawn, that are made from the same materials that are used in solar panels. But instead of making electricity, the sunlight absorbed by these tiny fibers is directed to catalysts that produce fuel. One catalyst reacts with water to make oxygen, which we vent into the air. The other catalyst reacts with water to make hydrogen and/or reacts with carbon dioxide from the air, just like a plant does, to make fuel. This fuel will likely be hydrogen, but in later implementations we think it could be natural gas or methanol or even possibly gasoline.”

The scientists at JCAP think it will take 5 years to develop a satisfactory working prototype, and many more years after that to develop a full-scale machine that will be capable of meeting the goal of producing a cheap, non-polluting fuel in large quantities. But when we can replace fossil fuels such as oil and coal with a powerful fuel made from sunlight, it will be a whole new world. Let’s hope that day is not too far away.

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: artificial photosythesis, converting sunlight to fuel, fuel from sunlight, JCAP, replacing fossil fuels

Did Global Warming Make Sandy a Superstorm?

November 7, 2012 By Gordon Leave a Comment

Superstorm Sandy ranks as one of the most destructive storms ever to hit the U.S. The New Jersey-New York City area where the storm center came ashore suffered extensive flooding and loss of property, heavy infrastructure damage, and vast dislocation of normal life. Thousands of homes were lost, and as this is being written on Nov. 6, 2012, millions of people are still without power, and many thousands are homeless. Gasoline shortages and damage to public transit make movement difficult. The storm killed 113 people in the U.S. alone, and a total of 185 in all affected areas.

The estimated $50 billion in storm damage makes Sandy the nation’s second most costly storm, exceeded only by Katrina’s $81 billion. Although most of the damage occurred in New Jersey and New York City where the eye of the storm came ashore, coastal states from North Carolina to Maine suffered storm damage and dislocation. Wind and rain damage and shoreline erosion were extensive all along the eastern seaboard. Tidal surges up to 14 feet (4.4m), wind speeds over 90 mph (150km/h), and 24-hour rain totals exceeding 15 inches (38cm) were recorded in areas of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland.

Many factors came together to make Sandy a superstorm. Global warming seemed to have influenced at least one of those factors. A low pressure area over the Great Lakes caused by a winter storm coming down from Canada mixed with Tropical Hurricane Sandy, strengthening it and pulling it in toward shore. A blocking high over the north Atlantic — a high pressure ridge located farther south than normal — kept the storm from veering east into the open Atlantic.

The one factor that kept Sandy rolling north and gathering strength after it had hit Jamaica, Cuba, and Haiti, was the unusually warm ocean water off the Atlantic coast, and the warmer than normal gulf stream that flows just off the continental shelf. A NOAA study in the spring and summer of 2012 found that the water over the continental shelf from North Carolina to Canada had increased by 2.5°F (1.5°C) over the average of the last 30 years. In the fall of 2011, a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution team found that the gulf stream temperature increase over the preceding ten years was 2°C (3.6°F). Hurricane Sandy rode that warm water highway all the way up the east coast until it veered west toward shore, was joined by the Canadian cold front, and morphed into a superstorm.

Climate models for years have been predicting that global warming will produce bigger and stronger storms. Warmer air produces warmer oceans, and tropical storms thrive in warm waters. It seems certain that the Atlantic coast will experience more Sandy-type superstorms in the future. Along with more destructive storms, ocean levels are expected to rise by up to 2 meters (6.5 ft) by the end of the century. It is obvious that coastal communities need to adopt stricter building codes and site-permitting practices to keep their residents clear of storm zones and out of harm’s way. Our sympathy goes out to all those affected by Sandy, and we wish them a quick recovery and return to life as it was.

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: bigger storms, sandy & global warming, sandy damage, superstorms, warming oceans

Is Sandy Another Long Island Express?

October 30, 2012 By Gordon Leave a Comment

As we write this, Hurricane Sandy is closing in on the Atlantic seaboard. High winds, heavy rain, and record storm tide and storm surge levels are forecast, plus predictions of extensive property damage and loss of electrical power over a wide area. Some are comparing the strength of this storm to the 1938 northeastern hurricane called The Long Island Express. While Sandy may end up causing as much, or even more, damage than the Express, the two storms are quite different in almost every way.

Hurricane Sandy is spread out over a thousand-mile front, from North Carolina to New England, with the eye of the storm heading for New Jersey. The 1938 Long Island Express was a more compressed storm, mainly affecting the area from Long Island through the southern parts of New England. Most of the remainder of the Atlantic seaboard was not affected. The Express was one of the fastest moving storms ever recorded, moving at a forward speed of 70 mph (115km/h), while Sandy’s forward speed has been clocked at 28 mph (50 km/h).

Sandy’s 90 mph (150 km/h) wind speed is much slower than the 1938 storm’s sustained wind bursts of 160 mph (260 km/h). The barometric pressures of the two storms are comparable, making them the two strongest storms ever to strike the northeastern U.S. The Express’s barometer sank to 938 millibars. Sandy was down to 943 millibars and falling, as of the morning of October 29, 2012.

Although the two storms are equally strong, Sandy is so large it will not strike with the concentrated force of the Express, but will deliver damaging weather to a much larger geographic area. The Express went through so fast and the winds were so strong, it brought very little rain and no fresh water flooding. Sandy, a larger, slower-moving storm, is expected to come with heavy, sustained rains and flooding, in addition to wind and storm surge damage. The Long Island Express’s property damage was estimated at approximately 5 billion in 2012 dollars. One estimate places Sandy’s expected storm cost at $20 billion.

The Long Island Express killed an estimated 800 people, damaged or destroyed over 50,000 homes, and leveled over two billion trees in New York and New England. Tidal surge and storm surge wiped out whole communities on Long Island and the Rhode Island coast. One reason the Express was so devastating was that the weather forecasters got it wrong, predicting the storm would veer away from the coast. The people of New York and New England were not prepared, making them especially vulnerable. Hurricane forecasting has improved since 1938, and people along the Atlantic coast are well aware of Sandy. Most have either evacuated or made preparations, and communities are in full emergency mode.

Although the two storms are different in many ways, they are the same in that they both remind us that natural disasters happen in every era, will continue to happen, and there is nothing we can do to stop them from happening. The only things we can do are to be sure we have emergency supplies on hand, that our homes are built to safety standards, and that our communities are doing everything possible to minimize the potential damage inflicted by hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, fires, and tsunamis .

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: diaaster preparations, hurricane sandy, natural disasters happen, sandy vs. long island express

Using Drones to Look Deep Inside a Hurricane

October 22, 2012 By Gordon Leave a Comment

Although the majority of drones are used by the military, an increasing number of these unmanned aircraft are being put to work in the civilian sector. The U.S. Border Patrol uses drones to keep watch on the borders with Mexico and Canada. Fire departments use them to patrol areas of high fire danger, and provide an aerial view for fire control. Police agencies use them for traffic surveillance and assisting ground units in locating and apprehending criminals. Agricultural uses for drones, such as crop spraying, are under development.

Now NASA has started using drones to study hurricanes in a project called Hurricane & Severe Storm Sentinel, or HS3. Two Global Hawks flying out of Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia are being used to analyze selected Atlantic storms, following them from early stage of formation off the African Coast through their development into full-blown hurricanes as they move west toward North America. The program, which started in September, 2012, with an examination of Hurricane Leslie, will continue through the 2014 hurricane season.

The two Global Hawks are equipped with different instrumentation and perform different functions. The first Global Hawk is called the “Over the Storm Aircraft.” It flies at 60,000 ft (18,288m) positioned over the top of the storm to measure eyewall and rainband winds and precipitation using Doppler radar and a microwave sensor package developed by JPL. It observes the core region of the storm and tracks changes in hurricane intensity.

The second Global Hawk is called the “Environmental Aircraft.” It carries a laser system called the Cloud Physics Lidar to analyze cloud structure and aerosols such as dust, sea salt, and smoke particles; a high-resolution interferometer sounder to profile temperature and water vapor content from the sea surface to the top of the storm; and a dropsonde system that ejects small sensors on parachutes that drift down through the storm measuring winds, temperature, and humidity.

The data gathered from the two Global Hawks as they operate above a storm provides a much more complete picture of a hurricane than has been previously available using manned aircraft and satellite data. Manned aircraft have a limited range and can’t be used until a storm is close to land. The Global Hawks have a range of 12,000 miles (20,000km), and can stay in the air up to 28 hours, giving them the ability to cover storms across the entire Atlantic Basin.

The HS3 Global Hawks are controlled by pilots operating in control centers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and at Dryden Flight Research Center in Mojave, California. The HS3 project is supported by several NASA centers, including Wallops, Goddard, Dryden, Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, CA, Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and JPL in Pasadena.

In a recent interview, Scott Braun, meteorologist and NASA’s principal investigator on the HS3 project, was asked whether their work will help to better predict a storm’s track and intensity. He said, “It is certainly our goal to improve our understanding of how hurricanes form and what processes control their intensity, knowledge that should prove beneficial in predicting hurricanes.”

Filed Under: Disaster Info, Red Hot Sky, Tsunami and Natural Disaster Info Tagged With: drones dissect hurricanes, hurricane drones, storm drones