Quake swarm near the California-Mexico border gets scientists' attention

This map shows the Brawley earthquake swarm that began on New Year's Eve.
(U.S. Geological Survey)

Rong-Gong Lin IIContact Reporter

 

A swarm of more than 250 small earthquakes have struck since New Year’s Eve near the California-Mexico border, causing unease among residents and attention from scientists. 

 The strongest earthquake in the sequence was magnitude 3.9, striking directly underneath the town of Brawley, about 170 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

The earthquakes struck in the southern end of the Brawley Seismic Zone, a seismically active region where tectonic plates are moving away from each other and the Earth’s crust is getting stretched out “and basically adding land,” said Caltech seismologist Egill Hauksson.

The Brawley Seismic Zone is particularly important to watch because it is the region that connects the San Andreas and Imperial faults, both of which can produce damaging earthquakes. The seismic zone extends for about 30 miles from the city of Brawley, across the Salton Sea’s southern half, and ends near Bombay Beach.

 

Experts said Arctic sea ice would melt entirely by September 2016 - they were wrong

A polar bear on an ice floe Credit: Josh Anon/Rex/Shutterstock

sarah Knapton, Science Editor 

Dire predictions that the Arctic would be devoid of sea ice by September this year have proven to be unfounded after latest satellite images showed there is far more now than in 2012.

Scientists such as Prof Peter Wadhams, of Cambridge University, and Prof Wieslaw Maslowski, of the Naval Postgraduate School in Moderey, California, have regularly forecast the loss of ice by 2016, which has been widely reported by the BBC and other media outlets.

Prof Wadhams, a leading expert on Arctic sea ice loss, has recently published a book entitled A Farewell To Ice in which he repeats the assertion that the polar region would free of ice in the middle of this decade.

As late as this summer, he was still predicting an ice-free September.

Yet, when figures were released for the yearly minimum on September 10, they showed that there was still 1.6 million square miles of sea ice (4.14 square kilometres), which was 21 per cent more than the lowest point in 2012.

For the month of September overall, there was 31 per cent more ice than in 2012, figures released this week from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) show. This amounts to an extra 421,000 (1.09 million square kilometres) of sea ice, making the month only the fifth lowest since records began.

Although a quick glance at NSIDC satellite data going back to 1981 shows an undeniable downward trend in sea ice over the past 35 years, scientists have accused Prof Wadhams and others of "crying wolf" and harming the message of climate change through "dramatic", "incorrect" and "confusing" predictions.

Dr Ed Hawkins, associate professor in the Department of Meterology, at the University of Reading, said: “There has been one prominent scientist who has regularly made more dramatic, and incorrect, in my view predictions suggesting that we would by now be in ice-free conditions.

“There are very serious risks from continued climatic changes and a melting Arctic, but we do not serve the public and policy-makers well by exaggerating those risks. 

“We will soon see an ice-free summer in the Arctic, but there is a real danger of ‘crying wolf’ and that does not help anyone.

“As global temperatures rise, we will see a continuing decline in Arctic sea ice extent, although this will happen somewhat erratically, rather like a ball bouncing down a bumpy hill.

“Without substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the ball will reach the bottom of the hill, meaning the Arctic is 'ice-free', starting with a few days one summer, a few weeks another summer and gradually becoming more and more frequent over the next few decades."

Sabotage speculation gathers around SpaceX explosion

 

by Robert Ferris | @RobertoFerris

 

Rumors of potential sabotage are gathering around the investigation of the explosion during a recent SpaceX launch test.

SpaceX has been investigating the early September failure of a Falcon 9 rocket that caught fire and exploded on a Cape Canaveral launch pad just days before it was scheduled to launch.
 
The Washington Post reported on Friday that the inquiry has taken a "bizarre twist," suggesting SpaceX is considering sabotage a possible cause of the explosion. According to the Post, a SpaceX employee sought access to facilities belonging to SpaceX competitor United Launch Alliance — a partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

SpaceX investigators came across something suspicious when reviewing video of the failure—"an odd shadow and then a white spot" on the roof of a ULA building, according to the Post. A SpaceX employee seeking access to the building was turned away, but Air Force investigators later dispatched to the facility did not find anything on the roof.

SpaceX sent a statement CNBC saying that a "preliminary review of the data and debris suggests a breach in the second stage's helium system" on the Falcon 9, "but the cause of the breach is still unknown."

ULA has not yet returned CNBC's calls for comment.
 

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has also expressed puzzlement at what might have caused the breach. 

 

Earlier this month he tweeted "Particularly trying to understand the quieter bang sound a few seconds before the fireball goes off. May come from rocket or something else."

 

Musk has called this failure the "most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years," and that the explosion happened during a routine filling operation, when there were no engines on and no apparent heat source.

 

The Accident Investigation Team has an obligation to consider all possible causes of the anomaly, and we aren't commenting on any specific potential cause until the investigation is complete," the SpaceX statement noted.
The rocket was carrying a satellite for a partnership between Facebook and Eutelsat to provide internet access to Africa. The Amos-6 satellite was owned by Israeli company Spacecom and estimated to be worth around $285 million.

  

Rare ‘Fire Rainbow’ Over South Carolina Explained

By Brian Clark Howard, National Geographic 

A colorful “fire rainbow” lit up the sky, and the Internet, this week. But despite its name, the rare phenomenon isn’t related to recent wildfires. Instead, it’s caused by a unique alignment of forces in the atmosphere.

Technically called a circumhorizontal arc, fire rainbows are caused by light passing through wispy, high-altitude cirrus clouds. This one was seen over South Carolina Monday for about an hour. It was photographed and uploaded to Instagram.

Fire rainbows occur only when the sun is very high in the sky (more than 58° above the horizon). What's more, the hexagonal ice crystals that make up cirrus clouds must be shaped like thick plates with their faces parallel to the ground.

When light enters through a vertical side face of such an ice crystal and leaves from the bottom face, it refracts, or bends, in the same way that light passes through a prism. If a cirrus cloud’s crystals are aligned just right, the whole section lights up in a spectrum of colors.

The phenomenon is similar to the iridescent clouds, also called “rainbow clouds” —confusingly, they’re sometimes also called fire rainbows—that form on top of cumulus clouds after thunderstorms. 

Those form after air is pushed up rapidly, causing it to cool and expand. Water droplets condense that can then act as prisms, forming a rainbow cap over the cumulus cloud. (See photos of sun dogs and other atmospheric delights.)

Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist: Obama is ‘Dead Wrong’ on Global Warming

By Kathleen Brown

(CNSNews.com) -- President Obama’s statements on global warming are “dead wrong,” said Nobel laureate Ivar Giaever, who rejected the president's claims that man-made global warming is causing climate change.

“I think Obama is a clever person, but he gets bad advice. Global warming is all wet,” Giaever said in a speech entitled Global Warming Revisited he gave on July 1 to scientists from 90 countries attending the 65th annual Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany.

Giaever, who was born in Norway and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1964, was one of three recipients of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973.

Although he endorsed Obama in 2008 along with more than 70 other Nobel-winning scientists, Giaever is now criticizing the president’s statements on climate change -- particularly his 2015 State of the Union remark that “no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.”  

"The biggest problem Obama faces is climate change? How can he say that?" Giaever asked. "I say this to Obama: 'Excuse me, Mr. President, but you're wrong.' He is dead wrong...

"I would say that global warming basically is a non-problem. Just leave it alone, it will take care of itself,” he added.

On July 3, 36 Nobel laureates attending the meeting signed the Mainau Declaration 2015 on Climate Change, which compared “human-induced climate change” to nuclear war, calling it “another threat of comparable magnitude.”

But Giaever reminded the assembled scientists that climate change “has happened all the time, has happened everywhere, and has nothing to do with global warming.”

“So far we have left the world in a better shape than when we arrived, and this will continue, with one exception: we have to stop wasting a huge, I mean huge, amount of money on global warming. We have to do that,” he said.

Giaever rejected the notion that man-made global warming is an “incontrovertible” truth, telling his Lindau audience that “global warming really has become a new religion. Because you can’t discuss it -- it’s not proper.”

But he said he was concerned about the United Nation’s climate change conference, which will be held in Paris later this year.

“I really worry about that, because when the conference was in Copenhagen, that almost became a disaster but nothing got decided. But now I think the people who are ‘alarmists’ are in a very strong position.” he warned, accusing them of resorting to scare tactics without having temperature data to back up their claims.

“If climate change doesn’t work to scare people, they can scare people by talking about the extreme weather. That must work,” he joked, observing that the U.S. is currently seeing a “low period” in both hurricane and tornado activity.

Giaever resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) in 2011 over its official statement on global warming: “The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.”

In an email to APS’ executive director, he wrote: "In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time, and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?"

Although APS warned of the dangers of global warming, Giaever pointed out in his speech that there has been only a 0.3% increase in the global average temperature (GAT) between 1880 and 2015 (from 288 to 288.8 Kelvin), which he called “amazingly stable.”

“Everything is going to hell. But the facts are that in the last 100 years we have measured the temperature, it has gone up 0.8 degrees and everything in the world has gotten better...We live better, we have better work, better health, better everything -- but if we go [up] another 0.8 degrees, we’re gonna die, I guess,” he said sarcastically.

Giaever also does not perceive a threat in rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, noting that “if you have more CO2 the plant grows faster...It’s a wonderful thing, but they don’t talk about that in Nature magazine, which he accused of wanting to “cash in on the [global warming] fad.”

“I think the average temperature of the Earth is equal to the emperor’s new clothes. There was a boy who cried, ‘The emperor has no clothes on.’ And I would cry out and say you can’t measure the temperature for the whole Earth with such accuracy.”

He added that the "optimal temperature" for the globe has never been establsihed.

“What is the optimal temperature for the Earth? Is it the temperature we have right now? That would be a miracle.” he said. “Maybe it’s two degrees warmer. Maybe it’s two degrees colder. No one has told me what the optimal temperature is for the whole Earth.”

.

Creativity and psychosis share a genetic source: study

AFP 

Artistic creativity may share genetic roots with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, according to a study published on Monday.

The research, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, delves into a well-known genetic database -- the deCODE library of DNA codes derived from samples provided by the population of Iceland.

The authors first compared genetic and medical data from 86,000 Icelanders, establishing a DNA signature that pointed to a doubled risk for schizophrenia and an increase of a third for bipolar disorder.

The next step was to look at the genomes of people engaged in artistic work.

Those samples came from more than 1,000 volunteers who were members of Iceland's national societies of visual arts, theatre, dance, writing and music.

Members of these organisations were 17 percent likelier than non-members to have the same genetic signature, the study found.

The finding was supported by four studies in the Netherlands and Sweden covering around 35,000 people, comparing individuals in the general public and those in artistic occupations.

Those investigations used somewhat different parameters but found the probability was even higher, at 23 percent.

"We are here using the tools of modern genetics to take a systematic look at a fundamental aspect of how the brain works," said Kari Stefansson, head of deCODE Genetics, who led the study.

"The results of this study should not have come as a surprise because to be creative, you have to think differently from the crowd, and we had previously shown that carriers of genetic factors that predispose to schizophrenia do so," he said in a news release.

What Was That Rumble? Officials Confirm 4.2 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Michigan

KALAMAZOO (WWJ) – If you thought you felt an earthquake on Saturday — you did. And It was one of the strongest quakes ever experienced in Michigan.

Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey, said an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.2 and a depth of focus of 5.9 km was measured around 12:23 p.m. about nine miles southeast of Kalamazoo, near Galesburg.

Dozens of residents in several different regions beyond Kalamazoo — from Mount Pleasant and Sterling Heights to Lansing and even as far as Cleveland, Ohio — called the WWJ Newsroom and reported feeling a rumble and the ground shake for between five and 10 seconds.

“Earthquakes of this magnitude are very rare in Michigan,” Caruso told WWJ’s Russ McNamara. 

“We’ve had reports from Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio of people feeling this earthquake.”

So, what exactly happened? “All earthquakes occur on faults, and we do have some faults in southern Michigan,” said Caruso. When the underground breaks along a fault, a sudden release of energy causes a seismic wave, which makes the ground shake.

Despite being felt hundreds of miles away, no damage or injuries have been reported.

The strongest earthquake in Michigan history was a 4.6 magnitude in nearly the exact same location in August 1947.
Stay with WWJ Newsradio 950 and CBSDetroit.com for the latest.

Undersea Volcano Appears to be Erupting off the Coast of Oregon and Washington

Scientists believe the Axial Seamount volcano 300 miles offshore of Washington and Oregon is erupting. It does not present a hazard to coastal residents. (Photo courtesy Oregon State University)

NEWPORT – Axial Seamount, an active underwater volcano located about 300 miles off the coast of Oregon and Washington, appears to be erupting.

Two scientists, including one from OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center had forecast that such an event would take place there in 2015.
 
Geologists Bill Chadwick of Oregon State University and Scott Nooner of the University of North Carolina Wilmington made their forecast last September during a public lecture and followed it up with blog posts and a reiteration of their forecast just last week at a scientific workshop.

Since last Friday, the region has experienced thousands of tiny earthquakes – a sign that magma is moving toward the surface – and the seafloor dropped by 2.4 meters, or nearly eight feet, also a sign of magma being withdrawn from a reservoir beneath the summit. Instrumentation recording the activity is part of the NSF-funded Ocean Observatories Initiative. William Wilcock of the University of Washington first observed the earthquakes.
 
“It isn’t clear yet whether the earthquakes and deflation at Axial are related to a full-blown eruption, or if it is only a large intrusion of magma that hasn’t quite reached the surface,” said Chadwick, who works out of OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport and also is affiliated with NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. “There are some hints that lava did erupt, but we may not know for sure until we can get out there with a ship.”

No Threat to Coast

In any case, the researchers say, such an eruption is not a threat to coastal residents. The earthquakes at Axial Seamount are small and the seafloor movements gradual and thus cannot cause a tsunami.
 
“I have to say, I was having doubts about the forecast even the night before the activity started,” Chadwick admitted. “We didn’t have any real certainty that it would take place – it was more of a way to test our hypothesis that the pattern we have seen was repeatable and predictable.”
 
Axial Seamount provides scientists with an ideal laboratory, not only because of its close proximity to the Northwest coast, but for its unique structure.
 
“Because Axial is on very thin ocean crust, its ‘plumbing system’ is simpler than at most volcanoes on land that are often complicated by other factors related to having a thicker crust,” said Chadwick, who is an adjunct professor in OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. “Thus Axial can give us insights into how volcano magma systems work – and how eruptions might be predicted.”

Last Erupted in 2011

Axial Seamount last erupted in 2011 and that event was loosely forecast by Chadwick and Nooner, who had said in 2006 that the volcano would erupt before 2014. Since the 2011 eruption, additional research led to a refined forecast that the next eruption would be in 2015 based on the fact that the rate of inflation had increased by about 400 percent since the last eruption.
 
“We’ve learned that the supply rate of magma has a big influence on the time between eruptions,” Nooner said. “When the magma rate was lower, it took 13 years between eruptions. But now when the magma rate is high, it took only four years.”
 
Chadwick and Nooner are scheduled to go back to Axial in August to gather more data, but it may be possible for other researchers to visit the seamount on an expedition as early as May. They hope to confirm the eruption and, if so, measure the volume of lava involved.
 
Evidence that was key to the successful forecast came in the summer of 2014 via measurements taken by colleagues Dave Caress and Dave Clague of Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and Mark Zumberge and Glenn Sasagawa of Scripps Oceanographic Institution. Those measurements showed the high rate of magma inflation was continuing.

Top scientists start to examine fiddled global warming figures

The Yavari Valley rainforest, Peru Photo: Alamy

The Global Warming Policy Foundation has enlisted an international team of five distinguished scientists to carry out a full inquiry

By Christopher Booker

Last month, we are told, the world enjoyed “its hottest March since records began in 1880”. This year, according to “US government scientists”, already bids to outrank 2014 as “the hottest ever”. The figures from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were based, like all the other three official surface temperature records on which the world’s scientists and politicians rely, on data compiled from a network of weather stations by NOAA’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN).

But here there is a puzzle. These temperature records are not the only ones with official status. The other two, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and the University of Alabama (UAH), are based on a quite different method of measuring temperature data, by satellites. And these, as they have increasingly done in recent years, give a strikingly different picture. Neither shows last month as anything like the hottest March on record, any more than they showed 2014 as “the hottest year ever”.

 
An adjusted graph from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies

Back in January and February, two items in this column attracted more than 42,000 comments to the Telegraph website from all over the world. The provocative headings given to them were:
 
“Climategate the sequel: how we are still being tricked by flawed data on global warming” and “The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest scientific scandal”.

My cue for those pieces was the evidence multiplying from across the world that something very odd has been going on with those official surface temperature records, all of which ultimately rely on data compiled by NOAA’s GHCN. Careful analysts have come up with hundreds of examples of how the original data recorded by 3,000-odd weather stations has been “adjusted”, to exaggerate the degree to which the Earth has actually been warming. Figures from earlier decades have repeatedly been adjusted downwards and more recent data adjusted upwards, to show the Earth having warmed much more dramatically than the original data justified.

So strong is the evidence that all this calls for proper investigation that my articles have now brought a heavyweight response. The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has enlisted an international team of five distinguished scientists to carry out a full inquiry into just how far these manipulations of the data may have distorted our picture of what is really happening to global temperatures.

The panel is chaired by Terence Kealey, until recently vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham. His team, all respected experts in their field with many peer-reviewed papers to their name, includes Dr Peter Chylek, a physicist from the National Los Alamos Laboratory; Richard McNider, an emeritus professor who founded the Atmospheric Sciences Programme at the University of Alabama; Professor Roman Mureika from Canada, an expert in identifying errors in statistical methodology; Professor Roger Pielke Sr, a noted climatologist from the University of Colorado, and Professor William van Wijngaarden, a physicist whose many papers on climatology have included studies in the use of “homogenisation” in data records.

Their inquiry’s central aim will be to establish a comprehensive view of just how far the original data has been “adjusted” by the three main surface records: those published by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss), the US National Climate Data Center and Hadcrut, that compiled by the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (Cru), in conjunction with the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction. All of them are run by committed believers in man-made global warming.
 
Below, the raw data in graph form


For this the GWPF panel is initially inviting input from all those analysts across the world who have already shown their expertise in comparing the originally recorded data with that finally published. In particular, they will be wanting to establish a full and accurate picture of just how much of the published record has been adjusted in a way which gives the impression that temperatures have been rising faster and further than was indicated by the raw measured data.

Already studies based on the US, Australia, New Zealand, the Arctic and South America have suggested that this is far too often the case.

But only when the full picture is in will it be possible to see just how far the scare over global warming has been driven by manipulation of figures accepted as reliable by the politicians who shape our energy policy, and much else besides. If the panel’s findings eventually confirm what we have seen so far, this really will be the “smoking gun”, in a scandal the scale and significance of which for all of us can scarcely be exaggerated.
 
More details of the Global Warming Policy Foundation's International Temperature Data Review Project are available on the inquiry panel's website www.tempdatareview.org

Why I am a Climate Change Skeptic

by Patrick Moore

Dr. Patrick Moore is the co-founder, chair, and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies

[Editor’s Note: Patrick Moore, Ph.D., has been a leader in international environmentalism for more than 40 years. He cofounded Greenpeace and currently serves as chair of Allow Golden Rice. Moore received the 2014 Speaks Truth to Power Award at the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change, July 8, in Las Vegas.

I am skeptical humans are the main cause of climate change and that it will be catastrophic in the near future. There is no scientific proof of this hypothesis, yet we are told “the debate is over” and “the science is settled.”

My skepticism begins with the believers’ certainty they can predict the global climate with a computer model. The entire basis for the doomsday climate change scenario is the hypothesis increased atmospheric carbon dioxide due to fossil fuel emissions will heat the Earth to unlivable temperatures.

In fact, the Earth has been warming very gradually for 300 years, since the Little Ice Age ended, long before heavy use of fossil fuels. Prior to the Little Ice Age, during the Medieval Warm Period, Vikings colonized Greenland and Newfoundland, when it was warmer there than today. And during Roman times, it was warmer, long before fossil fuels revolutionized civilization.

The idea it would be catastrophic if carbon dioxide were to increase and average global temperature were to rise a few degrees is preposterous.

Recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced for the umpteenth time we are doomed unless we reduce carbon-dioxide emissions to zero. Effectively this means either reducing the population to zero, or going back 10,000 years before humans began clearing forests for agriculture. This proposed cure is far worse than adapting to a warmer world, if it actually comes about.

IPCC Conflict of Interest
By its constitution, the IPCC has a hopeless conflict of interest. Its mandate is to consider only the human causes of global warming, not the many natural causes changing the climate for billions of years. We don’t understand the natural causes of climate change any more than we know if humans are part of the cause at present. If the IPCC did not find humans were the cause of warming, or if it found warming would be more positive than negative, there would be no need for the IPCC under its present mandate. To survive, it must find on the side of the apocalypse.

The IPCC should either have its mandate expanded to include all causes of climate change, or it should be dismantled.

Political Powerhouse
Climate change has become a powerful political force for many reasons. First, it is universal; we are told everything on Earth is threatened. Second, it invokes the two most powerful human motivators: fear and guilt. We fear driving our car will kill our grandchildren, and we feel guilty for doing it.

Third, there is a powerful convergence of interests among key elites that support the climate “narrative.” Environmentalists spread fear and raise donations; politicians appear to be saving the Earth from doom; the media has a field day with sensation and conflict; science institutions raise billions in grants, create whole new departments, and stoke a feeding frenzy of scary scenarios; business wants to look green, and get huge public subsidies for projects that would otherwise be economic losers, such as wind farms and solar arrays. Fourth, the Left sees climate change as a perfect means to redistribute wealth from industrial countries to the developing world and the UN bureaucracy.

So we are told carbon dioxide is a “toxic” “pollutant” that must be curtailed, when in fact it is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, gas and the most important food for life on earth. Without carbon dioxide above 150 parts per million, all plants would die.

Human Emissions Saved Planet
Over the past 150 million years, carbon dioxide had been drawn down steadily (by plants) from about 3,000 parts per million to about 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. If this trend continued, the carbon dioxide level would have become too low to support life on Earth. Human fossil fuel use and clearing land for crops have boosted carbon dioxide from its lowest level in the history of the Earth back to 400 parts per million today.

At 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide. The optimum level of carbon dioxide for plant growth, given enough water and nutrients, is about 1,500 parts per million, nearly four times higher than today. Greenhouse growers inject carbon-dioxide to increase yields. Farms and forests will produce more if carbon-dioxide keeps rising.

We have no proof increased carbon dioxide is responsible for the earth’s slight warming over the past 
300 years. There has been no significant warming for 18 years while we have emitted 25 per cent of all the carbon dioxide ever emitted. Carbon dioxide is vital for life on Earth and plants would like more of it. Which should we emphasize to our children?

Celebrate Carbon Dioxide
The IPCC’s followers have given us a vision of a world dying because of carbon-dioxide emissions. I say the Earth would be a lot deader with no carbon dioxide, and more of it will be a very positive factor in feeding the world. Let’s celebrate carbon dioxide.

Patrick Moore (pmoore@allowgoldenricenow.org) was a cofounder and leader of Greenpeace for 15 years. He is now chair and spokesman for Allow Golden Rice.

No Tornadoes Reported Anywhere Across US in March

 




By JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS

With only about two-dozen twisters recorded so far this year during a period when 100 or more are typical, the U.S. appears to be in a tornado drought as cool, stable air prevents the ingredients of the violent storms from coming together, meteorologists said Friday.

No tornadoes have been reported so far in March, when tornado season often begins ramping up for parts of the country. The last time the U.S. had no twisters in March was nearly 50 years ago, according to figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Prediction Center in Norman.

Forecasters at the prediction center reported earlier this week that since the beginning of the year, it has issued only four tornado watches and no severe thunderstorm watches — less than 10 percent of the average 52 tornado watches issued by mid-March. The center hasn't issued a watch in March, something that's never happened in its record of watches dating to 1970, said Greg Carbin, warning coordination meteorologist for NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.

"Every day that goes by is quite remarkable (because) we're normally seeing very active day-to-day weather somewhere in the country," Carbin said. "Four watches is also unprecedented."

Even in tornado-prone Oklahoma, the dominant weather pattern of cold, stable air that prevents a tornado's ingredients from coming together means the state is again starting storm season in sluggish fashion, a repeat of the year before, said state climatologist Gary McManus.

"We haven't had the prime conditions here in Tornado Alley because the predominant weather pattern doesn't lend itself to severe weather," McManus said. "Not only are we not seeing the tornadoes, we're not seeing the supercell storm systems that spawn these tornadoes."

Adam Houston, associate professor of atmospheric science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, cautioned that with spring just starting, so too is the peak time for tornadoes, and conditions are likely to change. For example, it was May when twisters raked the Oklahoma City suburbs of Moore and El Reno during a two-week period in 2013, killing dozens of people and injuring hundreds more.

"January and February are not active months, so (the tornado drought) hasn't been particularly surprising," he said. "If we're having this conversation in June, then there would be something substantial here."

The Hubble spotted this smiley face in space

By Rachel Feltman 
In the centre of this image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is the galaxy cluster SDSS J1038+4849 — and it seems to be smiling. (NASA & ESA, acknowledgement to Judy Schmidt)
Pictures of space get a lot of smiles around here, but it's pretty rare for one of them to smile back at us.

This adorable image -- in which the galaxy cluster SDSS J1038+4849 seems to be smiling at the camera -- comes courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope. It was spotted by Judy Schmidt, who submitted a version of the image to the Hubble's Hidden Treasures image processing competition, where anyone can sift through the Hubble's massive data pools to highlight hitherto ignored sights from the stars.

Our tendency to find faces in inanimate objects is due to a neurological phenomenon called pareidolia. The cause isn't totally clear, but it's probably an evolutionary quirk: Humans are adapted to be really, really good at recognizing human faces as other humans, even when they're new to us or the lighting isn't great. It could be that our brains jump the gun a little and find pseudo facial features where we know there aren't any, leading us to have the unsettling-but-amusing sense that our electric sockets are gaping at us.

In this case, the cosmic "face" is actually caused by a neat galactic phenomenon as well: gravitational lensing. Large galaxy clusters sometimes produce such a strong gravitational pull that they warp the time and space around them. This can be a great thing for scientists on Earth, because that warping can act as a natural "lens" and magnify faraway objects behind the clusters, making them more visible to space telescopes. But the magnification also warps the objects.

The ring that makes up the "face" is called an Einstein Ring, and it's produced by a very particular view of one such warped galactic cluster. Another line of warping forms a lopsided smile.
Inside the ring, two bright galaxies are perfectly positioned as eyes, completing the illusion.