it saves original thinking.**
Dorothy L. Sayers
LARGEST QUAKES -
Live Seismograms - Worldwide (update every 30 minutes)
This morning -
5.2 SOUTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA
5.1 PHILIPPINE ISLANDS REGION
5.0 PACIFIC-ANTARCTIC RIDGE .
Yesterday -
7/17/12 -
5.1 SOUTHERN EAST PACIFIC RISE
5.0 KERMADEC ISLANDS REGION
Japan discovers that a second nuclear plant is built atop earthquake - Japan is reviewing seismological data on nuclear plants as fears mount over the danger from earthquakes after media reports that a second plant in three months had been found to be sitting atop a faultline.
TROPICAL STORMS -
In the Pacific -
- Tropical depression Fabio was located about 640 mi [1035 km] SSW of San Diego, California.
- Tropical storm Khanun (08W) was located approximately 205 nm south of Cheju-do, South Korea.
NASA watching Tropical Storm Fabio head to southern California - Southern California's coast is already feeling rough surf from Tropical Storm Fabio, and as the storm draws closer it is expected to bring scattered showers and thunderstorms as well. Swells generated by Fabio are spreading north along the coast of Mexico's Baja California peninsula.
NASA's TRMM satellite eyeing Tropical Storm Khanun's rainfall - The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) is keeping an eye on the rainfall being generated by Tropical Storm Khanun as it moves past Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan.
EXTREME HEAT & DROUGHT / CLIMATE CHANGE -
The battle is on in the Canary Islands to put raging forest fires under control, including one in Tenerife which is threatening a precious nature reserve. Two days after they began burning, the fires are said to have spread across nearly 2,000 hectares and in some areas are still out of control. More than 50 percent of the land has reportedly been seriously burnt. The Teide National Park, the largest in Spain, is a mountainous beauty spot centred around a volcano and a UNESCO world heritage site. The fires, including one on the island of La Palma, broke out on Sunday. Local reports say they started in at least three different places and the authorities reportedly suspect the work of arsonists. More than 200 people have been moved out of their home. Coaches and cars have been removed from the grounds of the national park as a precaution. The government in Madrid has sent planes to Tenerife to help the firefighting effort. The DRIEST WINTER IN 70 YEARS has put Spain at higher risk of forest fires than ever this summer. One fire in the east of the country ravaged 50,000 hectares.
Greenland glacier loses large mass of ice - A chunk of ice twice the size of Manhattan has parted from Greenland’s Petermann glacier, a break researchers attributed to warmer ocean temperatures. The separation along Greenland’s northwest coast, which took place Monday, represents the second major calving event for the glacier in the past three years. In August 2010, the Petermann glacier lost an area of roughly 97 square miles, compared with the 46 square miles that just split off this week.
The glacier’s end point is now at “a location where it has not been for at least 150 years. The Greenland ice sheet is changing rapidly before our eyes." While “no individual glacier will be the canary in the coal mine” recent warming has transformed the overall ice sheet. “The Greenland ice sheet is being reduced not just in size, but in volume. The big and broader climate change story is what’s happening all around Greenland.” Scientists will now be monitoring whether the glacier’s flow rate will accelerate “because of its loss of this chunk of ice at the front of it. It’s going to take awhile to understand how significant a loss this is."
The Petermann glacier’s flow accelerated between 10 and 20 percent after the 2010 calving event. Researchers were still waiting to see if that was a short-term increase or would persist over time. The 2010 calving was “the largest in the observational record for Greenland.” It was correctly predicted last summer that the piece that just broke off, about half the size, was on the brink. Air temperatures in the region have warmed more than 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2.5 degrees Celsius since 1987, a rate five times that of the rest of the world. But they cautioned against directly linking air temperatures to the glacier’s behavior, noting it has a floating ice shelf. “Air temperatures are not very important, because 80 percent of the melting of this glacier takes place from below, in the ocean."
