Backyard bandit: ‘Rocksy’ the raccoon knocks on door when she wants food (VIDEO)

Backyard bandit: ‘Rocksy’ the raccoon knocks on door when she wants food (VIDEO)

Sea Level Rise Accelerating For US East Coast

A striking image of Verrazano Bridge in Brooklyn as Hurricane Sandy approaches on Oct. 29, 2012.

CREDIT: Carlos Ayala

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — This summer the North Carolina Senate passed a bill banning researchers from reporting predicted increases in the rate of sea level rise. But the ocean, unbound by legislation, is rising anyway — and in North Carolina this rise is accelerating, researchers reported here yesterday (Nov. 6) at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America.

On the coast of North Carolina and at other so-called "hotspots" along the U.S. East Coast, sea levels are rising about three times more quickly on average than they are globally, researchers reported during a session devoted to sea level rise.

That's the fastest rise in the world.

"What we're seeing here is unique," said Asbury Sallenger, an oceanographer at the U.S. Geological Survey in St. Petersburg, Fla.

The accelerating rise

And this rise is accelerating, said Tal Ezer, a researcher at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va.

His colleague, Larry Atkinson, said computer models suggest that if this acceleration continues at the same pace, the rise along the East Coast — from North Carolina to Massachusetts — could be 5.3 feet (1.6 meters) by 2100.

Sea levels on this stretch of land have climbed as much as 1.5 inches (3.7 centimeters) per decade since 1980, while globally they've risen up to 0.4 inches (1.0 cm) per decade, according to a study by Sallenger published in June.

Why is the rise accelerating? Researchers said it's due in part to the sinking of land in the mid-Atlantic, a process called subsidence. Also, warming oceans have decreased the flow rate of the Gulf Stream, a current that ferries warm water from the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico northeast across the Atlantic. With a less intense Gulf Stream, water is backed up toward the shore, causing sea level rise. Differences in coastal geography, temperature and salinity (salt content) cause different rates of rise along the East Coast, Atkinson said.

Sea levels worldwide are rising due to melting of glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic, as well as expansion of water caused by heating, researchers said. [8 Ways Global Warming Is Already Changing the World]

All too vulnerable

Although the original bill by the North Carolina Senate was rejected by the state House of Representatives in June following international outcry, a compromise was reached that bans state agencies from making plans or laws based on exponential extrapolations of sea level rise for the next three to four years, according to local news reports.

North Carolina lawmakers were the butt of jokes at this session on sea level rise, but underlying the humor was a sense of anxiety, even desperation.

One session titled "Does acceleration matter?" concluded that yes, of course it does, but current efforts to deal with the problem are completely insufficient.

Robert Young, a scientist at Western Carolina University, said that by developing low-lying coastal areas, we are all too vulnerable to storms at current sea levels, as was made clear last week in the New York area by the devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy.

"We cannot expect as a society to respond to accelerating sea level rise if we can't even respond to linear sea level rise and storms," he said. "Every single storm is an opportunity to take a step back from the coast. Instead, coastal development continues."

Young cited the example of Dauphin Island, Ala., which has been inundated by storms eight times in 26 years. Each time, he said, the federal government has stepped in and paid to rebuild the island's infrastructure. "That's crazy," Young said.

Some uncertainty

There is some uncertainty and disagreement between scientists about the particulars of the accelerating sea level rise. One of the biggest questions is how long this acceleration might last. Sallenger's calculations suggest it could continue  for about a century, while others are less certain.

But there is no question that sea levels are rising and that this rise has significant impacts. An internal study by the Hunting Ingalls shipyard in Newport News, Va., the sole builder of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, found that squalls capable of bringing threatening storm surges near its facility have become more common. These storms once occurred every 80 years; now they are likely to happen every two years, Atkinson said.

Sea levels are measured by tidal gauges are various points along the East Coast. One gauge at Sandy Hook, N.J., was reporting a 0.15 inch (3.9 mm) rise per year, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

But it won't be collecting any more data, said John Boon, a researcher at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. It was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.

Douglas M. Main, OurAmazingPlanet Staff Writer

http://www.livescience.com/

Viet Nam: Serious Land subsidence in Lam Dong

Viet Nam: Serious Land subsidence in Lam Dong province- Length; 656ft, Width; 66ft, Depth; 23~33ft

Nov 15, 2012
Lam Dong province examined the phenomenon of subsidence occurred from 3-10 in irrigation reservoir Dak Long Thuong (Loc Ngai, Bao Lam district).
Subsidence location identified in the coffee garden of 1.5 hectares of family Ms. Nguyen Thi potential, cardiac irrigation dam about 250m northwest.
Area subsided lost about 5.000m ², the average width of 20 m, the arc length of about 200 m, a depth of 7-10m. Locations around many local rift subsidence 10-50cm wide.

poleshift.ning.com

Incredible UFOs Filmed Over Denver, Colorado USA

According to FOX 31 News channel, they first learned about these sightings when a metro area man, who does not want to be identified brought us his home video. He captured the images on his digital camera from a hilltop in Federal Heights looking south toward downtown Denver.

He said, "The flying objects appear around noon or 1:00 p.m. at least a couple of times a week." The strangest part is they are flying too fast to see with the naked eye, but when we slowed down the video, several UFOs appear.

http://www.ufo-blogger.com/

Sun BELCHES twice, mighty plasma loops miss Earth - NASA vid

The Sun lashed out with two plasma eruptions one after the other early on Friday morning.

NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) spotted the solar flares, when red-hot loops of plasma burst out of the surface of the Sun.

The flares both happened within a four-hour window between 6am and 10am GMT, when prominences in the Sun became unstable and belched out hot gas made of electrically charged hydrogen and helium.

During a flare, the plasma flows out along a tangled and twisted structure of magnetic fields generated by the Sun's internal dynamo.

According to NASA:

The action was captured in the 304 Angstrom wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. It seems possible that the disruption to the Sun’s magnetic field might have triggered the second event since they were in relatively close proximity to each other.

Luckily, the flares were not aimed at Earth, but spewed out into space. Had the resulting particle clouds been headed for us, there could have been issues for spacecraft and astronauts in orbit, though the only effect normally seen for most of us is boosted polar aurorae. ®

By Brid-Aine Parnell 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/

Mystery Sighting Spooks Soldiers

Units of the Indian Army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force (ITBP) have reported Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) in the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir.

An ITBP unit based in Thakung, close to the Pangong Tso Lake, reported over 100 sightings of luminous objects between August 1 and October 15 this year. In reports sent to their Delhi headquarters in September, and to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), they described sighting "Unidentified Luminous Objects" at day and by night. The yellowish spheres appear to lift off from the horizon on the Chinese side and slowly traverse the sky for three to five hours before disappearing.

These were not unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), drones or even low-earth orbiting satellites, say Army officials who have studied the hazy photographs taken by ITBP. Drone sightings are verified and logged separately. The Army has reported 99 sightings of Chinese drones between January and August this year: 62 sightings were reported in the western sector, the Ladakh region, and 37 in the eastern sector in Arunachal Pradesh. Three of these drones intruded into territory claimed by India along the 365-km-long border with China in Ladakh, manned by ITBP.

Such mysterious lights have been sighted before in Ladakh, a barren, 86,000 sq km heavily militarised zone wedged between Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir and Chinese-occupied Aksai Chin. The persistent sightings by the ITBP this year, however, worried the Army's Leh-based 14 Corps. The ITBP, did not respond to a detailed India Today questionnaire.

In September, the Army moved a mobile ground-based radar unit and a spectrum analyser-that picks up frequencies emitted from any object-to a mountaintop near the 160-km-long, ribbon-shaped Pangong Lake that lies between India and China.

The radar could not detect the object that was being tracked visually, indicating it was non-metallic. The spectrum analyser could not detect any signals being emitted from them. The Army also flew a reconnaissance drone in the direction of the floating object, but it proved a futile exercise. The drone reached its maximum altitude but lost sight of the floating object.

In late September this year, a team of astronomers from the Indian Astronomical Observatory at Hanle, 150 km south of the lake, studied the airborne phenomena for three days. The team spotted the flying objects, Army officials say, but could not conclusively establish what they were. They did, however, say that the objects were "non celestial" and ruled out meteors and planets.

Scientists however say, the harsh geography and sparse demography of the great Himalayan range that separates Kashmir Valley from Ladakh, lends itself to unusual sightings. "The region is snowbound in winter, has few roads and is one of the most isolated places in India," says Sunil Dhar, a geologist at the government Post Graduate College in Dharamshala, who has studied glaciers in the region for 15 years.

Yet, none of the experts from the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO)-in charge of technical intelligence-and Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO), has been able to identify the objects. This has caused embarrassment rather than fear in the establishment. "Something is clearly wrong, if our combined scientific resources can't explain the phenomena," says a senior Army official in Delhi. Intelligence officials say these objects could be a crude psychological operation by China, or sophisticated probes attempting to ascertain India's defences in Ladakh.

"We can't ignore these sightings. We need to probe what new technology might have been deployed there," says former Indian Air Force (IAF) chief Air Chief Marshal (retired) P.V. Naik.

In 2010, the IAF probed and dismissed Army sightings of such luminous objects as "Chinese lanterns". 'UFO' sightings have been endemic to Ladakh over the past decade. In late 2003, 14 Corps sent a detailed report on sightings of luminous objects to Army headquarters. Army troops on posts along Siachen had seen floating lights on the Chinese side. But reporting such phenomena risks inviting ridicule. When told about them at a northern command presentation in Leh, the then army chief, General N.C. Vij, had angrily dismissed the reports as hallucinations.

Scientists say the mysterious objects are not necessarily from outer space. "There is no evidence of 'ufos' being of extra-terrestrial origin," says reputed Pune-based astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar. "The implication of them being alien objects is fancy, not fact," he says.

There is still no explanation, however, for what is believed to be the clearest 'UFO' sighting yet, in the Lahaul-Spiti region of Himachal Pradesh less than 100 km south of Ladakh in 2004. A five-member group of geologists and glaciologists led by Dr Anil Kulkarni of the isro's Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad were on a research trip through the barren Samudra Tapu Valley. They filmed a four-foot tall 'robot-like' figure, that 'walked' along the valley, 50 m away from them. The humanoid object then rapidly became airborne and disappeared. The encounter lasted 40 minutes. It was seen by 14 persons including the six scientists. Kulkarni then interviewed each expedition member separately to verify what the team had seen. Copies of his detailed report were circulated to the PMO, ISRO, the Army and several intelligence agencies. Kulkarni established his team hadn't seen natural phenomenon. The matter, however, was buried soon after.

Sunil Dhar, who was part of the 2004 expedition, terms the sighting of the unidentified object an unforgettable experience. Locals, he says, have reported sighting mysterious objects for many years. "These are unsolved mysteries that need more intensive study," he says. Left unexplained, the Ladakh sightings risk slipping into the crack between fact and science fiction.

By Sandeep Unnithan. India Today 

http://in.news.yahoo.com

Warming Temperatures Will Change Greenland's Face, Experts Predict

Professor Marco Tedesco balances at the edge of a supraglacial lake. (Credit: Copyright M. Tedesco/WWF)

Global climate models abound. What is harder to pin down, however, is how a warmer global temperature might affect any specific region on Earth.

Dr. Marco Tedesco, associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at The City College of New York, and a colleague have made the global local. Using a regional climate model and the output of three global climate models, they can predict how different greenhouse gas scenarios would change the face of Greenland over the next century and how this would impact sea level rise.
The resulting fine-scale model gives a high-resolution picture of the island's future. "We put Greenland under a microscope to see what accounts for melting and for ice mass changes in different regions," said Professor Tedesco.
He and his colleague, Xavier Fettweis of the University of Liege, Belgium, reported their results online November 8 in Environmental Research Letters.
They compared two possible future CO2 scenarios: a concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere projected for the end of the century of 850 parts per million (ppm) versus a more aggressive projection of 1370 ppm. The first approximates the current rate of increase.
The Greenland ice sheet would lose more ice and snow to melting than it would accumulate in both scenarios. Basins on the southwest and north coasts would suffer the greatest losses. Temperatures would only have to increase by 0.6 to 2.16 degrees Celsius (1.8-3.9 ° F) to tip the balance into more loss than gain.
The new model shows how a melting would alter the topography of "one of the world's refrigerators," potentially affecting adjacent ocean circulation and salinity, and speeding further melting.
Though dramatic, Professor Tedesco said the predictions he reported might be too conservative. "They don't take into account progressive effects of the changing elevations and topography and the acceleration of ice sheet movement." These results, however, represent a step forward toward understanding the potential repercussions of warming temperatures; an improvement on models that give a much coarser view into the future, he added.
"Some areas will be 400 meters below the current elevation just because of melting. This might very well impact the speed and amount of ice that is flowing to the ocean. It would increase the rate of melting, because conditions get warmer at lower elevations" he noted. "Imagine an ice cream that is melting much faster in one area. This will change the shape of the ice mass over Greenland."
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation.

www.sciencedaily.com