Chill Out

Redoubt ready to blow?: Volcano upgraded to 'orange' status

Mount Redoubt has shaken scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory in Anchorage into initiating a round-the-clock watch and an elevation of the Aviation Color Code to orange.

A report issued by AVO at 4:30 p.m. Sunday warned, "The current activity at Redoubt could be precursory to an eruption, perhaps within hours to days."

"Not to panic people, but this could spin up that quickly, and we want to give people the possibilities," Dave Schneider, a volcanologist with AVO, said Sunday evening.

He reported a decrease in seismic activity through the afternoon Sunday.

"Seismicity has declined compared to this morning, though it is still elevated," he said.

Possible natural explanation found for West Antarctica's warming

South Pole - In 2008, scientists from the British Antarctic Survey reported a layer of volcanic ash and glass shards frozen within an ice sheet in western Antarctica [the same place the one degree Fahrenheit warming]. The volcano beneath the ice sheet "punched a hole right through" due to its heat and force. This geologic event (a volcano) may prove to be the source of the recent warming seen in West Antarctica in what has otherwise been reported as a 50-year cooling trend seen in East Antarctica.

Dr. David G. Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey said, "This is the first time we have seen a volcano beneath the ice sheet punch a hole through the ice sheet."

From The New York Times:
"Heat from a volcano could still be melting ice and contributing to the thinning and speeding up of the Pine Island Glacier, which passes nearby, but Dr. Vaughan doubted that it could be affecting other glaciers in West Antarctica, which have also thinned in recent years. Most glaciologists, including Dr. Vaughan, say that warmer ocean water is the primary cause."

Heavy snowfall on Ras Al Khaimah's Jebel Jais mountain

Ras Al Khaimah: Snow fell heavily on the mountains of Ras Al Khaimah on Friday night, leaving the Jebel Jais range covered in a thick white blanket of snow.

The extreme cold spell brought the temperature on top of the Jebel Jais mountain cluster, situated at a height of 5,700 feet, to as low as -3 degree Celsius on Friday night, as the snow blanketed an area extending over 5kms.

Major Saeed Rashid Al Yamahi, Manager of the Air Wing of RAK Police, who flew a helicopter to the top of the Jebel Jais mountain, said that the entire area was covered with 10 cm of snow.

Magnetosphere anomaly (full movie)

2 waterspouts in Porto, Portugal / 2008-01-20

in Fórum Meteopt

Sky Diving

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Earth's Magnetic Field Changes Climate

Jan. 13, 2009 -- The Earth's climate has been significantly affected by the planet's magnetic field, according to a Danish study published Monday that is unlikely to challenge the notion that human emissions are largely responsible for global warming.

"Our results show a strong correlation between the strength of the Earth's magnetic field and the amount of precipitation in the tropics," one of the two Danish geophysicists behind the study, Mads Faurschou Knudsen of the geology department at Aarhus University in western Denmark, told the Videnskab journal.

Svensmark's theory, which pitted him against today's mainstream theorists who claim carbon dioxide (CO2) is responsible for global warming, involved a link between the earth's magnetic field and climate, since that field helps regulate the number of GCR particles that reach the earth's atmosphere.

"The only way we can explain the (geomagnetic-climate) connection is through the exact same physical mechanisms that were present in Henrik Svensmark's theory," Knudsen said.

"If changes in the magnetic field, which occur independently of the Earth's climate, can be linked to changes in precipitation, then it can only be explained through the magnetic field's blocking of the cosmetic rays," he said.

The two scientists acknowledged that CO2 plays an important role in the changing climate, "but the climate is an incredibly complex system, and it is unlikely we have a full overview over which factors play a part and how important each is in a given circumstance," Riisager told Videnskab.

Catastrophic Coincidence: Second Ever Example Of Contemporaneous Meteorite Impact And Flood Volcanism Discovered

ScienceDaily (Jan. 7, 2009) — Scientists have discovered only the second example of a meteorite impact that occurred at the same time as massive volcanic activity, in research published in the Journal of the Geological Society the week of Jan 12. The first time such a coincidence was observed, at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, was the catastrophic event thought to be responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago.

Did Earth's Twin Cores Spark Plate Tectonics?

Michael Reilly, Discovery News

Jan. 6, 2009 -- It's a classic image from every youngster's science textbook: a cutaway image of Earth's interior. The brown crust is paper-thin; the warm mantle orange, the seething liquid of the outer core yellow, and at the center the core, a ball of solid, red-hot iron.

Now a new theory aims to rewrite it all by proposing the seemingly impossible: Earth has not one but two inner cores.

The idea stems from an ancient, cataclysmic collision that scientists believe occurred when a Mars-sized object hit Earth about 4.45 billion years ago. The young Earth was still so hot that it was mostly molten, and debris flung from the impact is thought to have formed the moon.

Haluk Cetin and Fugen Ozkirim of Murray State University think the core of the Mars-sized object may have been left behind inside Earth, and that it sank down near the original inner core. There the two may still remain, either separate or as conjoined twins, locked in a tight orbit.

Sondagem sobre o concelho de Sintra

Sondagem de estudo sobre a população residente no concelho de Sintra para fins estatísticos de Geografia.
Obrigado

Município de Sintra - inquérito