Earthwatch Issue 7 The Kashiwazaki Incident, and more
Issue 07: September 2007: Editor Sally Taylor: www.rockhoundstation1.com
GLOBAL WARMING :
RHS1’s quest for the true cause of climate change
SUN-SPOT CYCLE 24
Image:SOHO:Graph:Hathaway and Wilson’s prediction for the amplitude of Solar Cycle 24.
2012: Solar Maximum.
Our Climate; Our Future; Our Options; Synthesis;
Scary Monsters: The eye of Ra…Part 6The next 11-year solar storm cycle should be significantly stronger than the
current one, which may mean big problems for power grids and GPS systems and other satellite-enabled technology, scientists announced today. The stronger solar storms could start as early as this year or as late as 2008 and should peak around 2012.
“The Wrath of Sekhmet”.
The Egyptian Neter Sekhmet
In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet (also spelt Sachmet, Sakhet, Sakhmet and Sakhmet; Greek name: Sachmis), was originally the war goddess of Upper Egypt, although when the first Pharaoh of the 12th dynasty moved the capital of Egypt to Memphis, her cult centre moved as well. It was said that her breath created the desert. She was also known by some cults to be a daughter of the ancient sun god, Ra (spelled “Ra” or “Re”).
As Lower Egypt had been conquered by Upper Egypt, Sekhmet was seen as the more vicious of the two war goddesses, the other, Bast, being the war goddess of Lower Egypt. Consequently, it was Sekhmet who was seen as the Avenger of Wrongs, and Scarlet Lady, a reference to blood. As the one with bloodlust, she was also seen as ruling over menstruation.
Her name suits her function, and means (one who is) powerful, and she was also given titles such as (One) Before Whom Evil Trembles, Mistress of Dread, and Lady of Slaughter. Sekhmet was believed to protect the pharaoh in battle, stalking the land, and destroying his enemies with arrows of fire, her body being said to take on the bright glare of the midday sun, gaining her the title Lady of Flame. Indeed it was said that death and destruction were balsam for her heart, and hot desert winds were believed to be her breath.
Hello…
The above description from the wikipedia of the Neter Sekhmet sets the stage for this final part of RHS1’s quest for the true cause of climate change/global warming.
Scary Monsters: The eye of Ra. Under this the title we have for 6 month investigated the changes that are taking place on our planet in respect of climate change/global warming, strange title for an article of this type don’t you think?
Well you are about to find out why it was chosen.
Now I will just be talking to you in this conclusion, straight across the space becauseI believe that sufficient material has now been accumulated to say we have a case here for believing that CO2 is not the cause of the present changes taking place on our planet.
First let us recap what we have discovered in our 6 month trek…
- 1…On a global scale…The temperature has risen/ is rising…Confirmed…Valid by The UN World Meteorological Organization. (see article below)
- 2…On a global scale…Climate patterns are changing…Confirmed…Valid by The UN World Meteorological Organization. (see article below)
- 3…We cannot be 100% certain of the validity of information, received, regarding 1&2 in this list…Various errors and data conflicts are present in the body of scientific data collected and conclusion have been arrived at that ignore certain crucial data…
- 4…CO2 as the prime cause of global warming has not yet been validated its still a theory.In a 1996 report by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft. Here they are:1) None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.2) No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man made causes. To the present day there is still no scientific proof that man-made CO2 causes significant global warming.See “Carbon dioxide rebellion” edition 6 of RHS1 Earthwatch
- 5…The Sun has changed its behaviour become more active.Confirmed…Valid by -Max Plank institute Germany et al.
- 6…The Heliosphere of the Sun and the planets it contains has changed status become more active.Confirmed…Valid by -NASA, ESA, et al.
- 7…There is an increase of cosmic dust within our solar system “More solid material available”.Confirmed…Valid by -NASA; Odyssey mission.
As the evidences presented in this series of articles all lead ultimately to the Sun as being the prime mover in the changes talking place on our planet. It is to the sun we must seek answers to our present situation on Earth.
Here is Bill Steigerwald associate editor of the Pittsburgh TRIBUNE-REVIEW to open this subject with an all American, straight forward opinion…
Many critics of the sun being the cause/prime mover cite the fact that the solar constant has not increased so therefore it cannot be the sun that is warming our planet . Well the solar constant is not the only variable in the sun interaction with the Earth. The sun is not simply a big fire the complex interaction between planet and star may not be completely understood yet.
In a new series article in the next edition we will be taking a look at what may be causing the present global warming.
For now necessarily we need to focus attention upon the Sun “the eye of Ra”, as Bill said in his article…
“maybe all those sun-worshipping ancestors of ours were not such dummies after all.”
As of course you have noticed we have used ancient Egyptian symbolism through out this article, this is because it its the best at simplifying and bringing to a human scale cosmic interaction.
Let be perfectly clear here the ancient Egyptian priests/scientists did NOT believe for a moment that human form beings with animal and birds heads called “Gods” existed as supernatural beings.
That the ancient Egyptians worshiped gods with stupid animal heads on ’em, is I suggest a concept that comes from scholars who fancied themselves far more cleverer and intelligent than a “bunch of primitives”.
Well this “bunch of primitives” were capable of calculating the orbit of the moon around the earth correct to 4 decimal places 4000 years Before Christ. At that epoch we in the western world were trying to hit antelopes over the head with large pieces of wood.
There were no gods in ancient Egypt. They had “Neters” instead, this word equates to “a power, “a force” you could call electricity “a neter”. Also the ancient Egyptians were obsessed by 2 things “durability and communication”…
OK lets make a Neter…Life is a force…Death is a force Life we can see, measure, quantify. Death er…Where is it ? How can we quantify a force that exists yet is totally abstract to the observer…Lets give a sign, a symbol, yet what?
How about D E A T H the Greek letters of the alphabet when arrange in this manner convey to the observer the concept of death.
Not bad, but if the meaning of the symbol/letters is lost then it won’t work, its not really “intuitive” is it. This is a situation that probably the ancient Egyptians faced…They were looking for “durability” these were a people who would use granite for their statues were sandstone would do.
So lets take a look at death from the life side of the fence, from the ancient Egyptians point of view. They lived in a desert, on one side of the Nile river is 3,000 miles of desert, on the other side of the Nile 1,000 miles of desert “the world was a desert”.
When something dies in the desert or is near death the first creature to arrive is the vulture, the second to arrive is the Jackal This is true today as it was 6,000 years ago now we are talking “durability”. Yet we cannot use the symbol/picture of a vulture or a Jackal as a symbol for death because they are already in use and mean vulture and jackal in the real world.
OK then, lets use A Jackal’s head with a human body because that does not exist in the real world so there will not be any confusion, will there?… We now have a unique symbol for the neter death…As well when the vultures had finished tearing apart the dead body the Jackal crunched up all the bones and the corpse disappeared .Why not use a vultures head with a human body? Well that’s because it is already in use for another abstract force “Truth”.
The Egyptian Jackal Headed Neter Anubis
OK lets go back now to the Neter Sekhmet;
Sekhmet is a force, a power; that lioness’s head and human body represent something , how ever we do not have a clue yet what the force Sekhmet represents, is! Whatever it is, it certainly scared the hell out of the the ancient Egyptians.
Now given Sekhmet’s attribution by the ancient Egyptians as solar, its something to do with the sun, a power of the sun
Now get ready because we are about to do a back somersault and land on feet right here…Voila!
The Work of Dr Paul LaViolette
PAUL A. LaVIOLETTE, PH.D, is author of The Talk of the Galaxy, Earth Under Fire, Genesis of the Cosmos (Beyond the Big Bang), Subquantum Kinetics, and editor of A Systems View of Man.
He has also published many original papers in physics, astronomy, climatology, systems theory,
and psychology. He received his BA in physics from Johns Hopkins, his MBA from the University
of Chicago, and PhD from Portland State University and is currently president of the Starburst Foundation, an interdisciplinary scientific research institute.
“Arrow of Flame”.
(Fig 1)Image credit: NASA
(Fig 2) Artists Impression of a super solar flare.
Prehistoric Solar Conflagration – prevailing concept (1983):
At the time of LaViolette’s prediction, the general opinion was that the Sun has remained in its present quiescent solar cycle state for hundreds of millions of years. A small group of astronomers, however, dissented with this view.
For example, in 1969, astrophysicist Thomas Gold published lunar rock evidence indicating that, within the last 30,000 years, the radiation intensity on the Moon had reached 100 suns for 10 to 100 seconds, possibly due to a solar nova.
In 1975, astronomer A. Lovell suggested that sun-like stars occasionally produce flares of up to 10^37 ergs, 30,000 times more energetic than the largest solar flare of modern times.
In 1977, astrophysicists Wdowczyk and Wolfendale suggested that the Sun might produce a flare a million times larger (3 X 10^38 ergs) about once every 100,000 years.
Moreover in 1978, NASA astronomers Zook, Hartung, and Storzer had published lunar rock evidence indicating that 16,000 years ago solar flare background radiation intensity on the Moon’s surface had peaked to 50 times the current intensity and that this may have been somehow associated with the retreat of the ice sheets.
The idea that the Earth and Moon might have been affected in the past by the arrival of a giant solar coronal mass ejection had not yet been advanced.
Prediction No. 8 (1983):
In his dissertation, LaViolette proposed that invading cosmic dust would have caused the Sun to become more luminous and engage in continual flaring activity. In chapter 4, he suggested that on one occasion the Earth and Moon may have been engulfed by a large prominence remnant “fireball” (coronal mass ejection) thrown out by the Sun during a period of particularly intense solar activity. He interpreted the findings of Zook and Gold as evidence that the Sun had been in a highly active T-Tauri like flaring state and that at times its flaring activity had been as much as 1000 times currently observed levels. He suggested that these may have scorched the surface of the Earth in ice age times, inducing high temperatures, rapid ice sheet melting, global flooding, and mass animal extinction.
Concordance (1997):
Satellite observations showed solar flares ejecting expanding balls of plasma called “coronal mass ejections”and demonstrated that these were capable of travelling outward beyond the Earth’s orbit. This lent credence to LaViolette’s theory that a large coronal plasma “fireball” thrown off by an immense solar flare may have reached the Earth and Moon and scorched their surfaces.
Concordance (1999):
Astronomers announced that they had observed large explosive outbursts from the surfaces of nearby normal sunlike stars. These “superflares” were observed to range from 100 to 10 million times the energy of the largest flare observed on the Sun in modern times and were estimated to occur about once every hundred years. This confirmed the Lovell hypothesis and increased the plausibility of LaViolette’s suggestion that the Sun was producing mega solar flares and intense plasma fireballs at the end of the last ice age.
Verification (2002):
As early as the late 1970’s Dr. Han Kloosterman was arguing that a global conflagration was the cause of the black layer found in Allerod sediments in southern England and in the Great Lakes Region. Later in 2002, when Dr. LaViolette first became aware of his work, he was on a geological field trip accumulating evidence of the black Usselo Horizon dating from the Allerod/Younger Dryas transition and correlative with similar horizons found in Great Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark, Poland, and the southwestern U.S. Kloosterman concluded that this layer was produced by a global conflagration which was also responsible for the exitnction of the Pleistocene megafauna. Kloosterman’s thesis and evidence of the Usselo horizon confirm the solar CME scenario that LaViolette had proposed.
Geomagnetic Reversals – prevailing concept (1983):
At the time of LaViolette’s prediction, geophysicists believed that geomagnetic reversals and magnetic polarity flips were brought about by causes internal to the Earth, that they arose from instabilities in the inner rotation of the Earth’s core magnetic dynamo. They believed that these field excursions took hundreds of years to occur due to the inherently slow movement of the core material.
Prediction No. 9 (1983):
In chapter 3 of his dissertation, LaViolette proposed that geomagnetic reversals are induced by solar cosmic ray storms. He proposed that at times when invading cosmic dust causes the Sun to become very active and engage in continual flaring activity, major solar outbursts could occur that are a thousand times more intense than those currently observed. Further he proposed that solar cosmic rays from such a mega flare could impact the Earth’s magnetosphere, become trapped there to form storm-time radiation belts, and generate an equatorial ring current producing a magnetic field opposed to the Earth’s. If sufficiently intense, this ring current magnetic field could cancel out the Earth’s own field and flip the residual magnetic field pole to an equatorial location. From this position it could later either recover or adopt a reversed polarity. He proposed that this geomagnetic excursion would be very rapid, occurring in a matter of days.
Verification (1989 – 95):
Geophysicists reported their analysis of a geomagnetic reversal recorded in the Steens Mountain lava formation, conclusively demonstrating that during this reversal the Earth’s magnetic pole changed direction as fast as 8 degrees per day. This overthrew the conventional geocentric view which could not account for such rapid changes with internal motions of the Earth’s core dynamo. It confirmed Dr. LaViolette’s mechanism of rapid change.
Concordance (1995):
Unaware of LaViolette’s publications, two French geophysicists published a paper that sought to explain the Steens Mountain polarity reversal as being due to a solar cosmic ray cause. Their mechanism was the same as that which LaViolette had proposed 6 years before the Steens Mountain discovery. Their independent arrival at the same idea is evidence of parallel idea development and consensus with LaViolette’s earlier theory.
Verification (1994, 1995):
McHargue, et al. discover Be-10 anomalies at 32 kyr and 43 kyrs BP, contemporaneous with the Mono Lake and Laschamp geomagnetic excursions. Unaware of LaViolette’s publications, they suggest they were caused by the passage of supernova shock fronts during a time of unprecidented long-term solar activity.
To learn more about Dr LaViolette’s work click here
OK…Backward somersault again…Back to ancient Eygpt
“I am the goddess Sekhmet,
and I take my seat upon the place by the side
of Amt-ur the great wind of heaven”.
Eygptian Book of the Dead:
Interesting translation above “the great wind of heaven” solar wind?
Now lets just change one word in the above translation “goddess” to “neter” so it now reads…
and I take my seat upon the place by the side
of Amt-ur the great wind of heaven”.
Consider what is attributed to Sekhmet…
According to the legends…
- She was the destructive side of the sun, and a solar goddess and given the title Eye of Ra.
- It was said that her breath created the desert.
- She was created by Ra, the sun god (of Upper Egypt), from his fiery eye, to destroy mortals who conspired against him (Lower Egypt). In the myth, however, Sekhmet’s blood-lust led to her destroying almost all of humanity,
- (One) Before Whom Evil Trembles, Mistress of Dread, and Lady of Slaughter. Sekhmet was believed to protect the pharaoh in battle, stalking the land, and destroying his enemies with arrows of fire, her body being said to take on the bright glare of the midday sun, gaining her the title Lady of Flame. Indeed it was said that death and destruction were balsam for her heart, and hot desert winds were believed to be her breath.
“Her breath created the desert.? Lady of Slaughter? Mistress of Dread?”
If we are not talking about “supernatural beings” what are we talking about?
I suggest we are talking about a solar flare, and flaring activity as much as 1000 times currently observed levels.” the destructive side of the sun, and a solar neter and given the title Eye of Ra.
Is this the truth..Well like you, I can’t know…Seems logical, I cannot think of any natural force capable of fulfilling the legend of Sekhmet such as wiping out the human race and creating deserts.
In his dissertation Dr LaViolette refers to “cosmic dust” as the reason for super solar flaring… Now you do not need a doctorate in thermo-dynamics to understand that if you throw more wood on a camp fire the flames are subsequently “Bigger”.
Now may I draw your attention to No 7 in the list above;
“7…There is an increase of cosmic dust within our solar system “More solid material available”.
Confirmed…Valid by -NASA; Odyssey mission.”
How much more? Three times more than in the 1990s. It takes approximately about 20 years for this dust to traverse the solar system (heliosphere), so around 2012 we will be throwing more wood on the campfire.
“Current Planet/Physical alterations of the Earth are becoming irreversible. Strong evidence exists that these transformations are being caused by highly charged material and energetic non-uniformities in anisotropic interstellar space which have broken into the interplanetary area of our Solar System.
This “donation” of energy is producing hybrid processes and excited energy states in all planets, as well as the Sun. Effects here on Earth are to be found in the acceleration of the magnetic pole shift, in the vertical and horizontal ozone content distribution, and in the increased frequency and magnitude of significant catastrophic climatic events.
There is growing probability that we are moving into a rapid temperature instability period similar to the one that took place 10,000 years ago. The adaptive responses of the biosphere, and humanity, to these new conditions may lead to a total global revision of the range of species and life on Earth. It is only through a deep understanding of the fundamental changes taking place in the natural environment surrounding us that politicians, and citizens a like, will be able to achieve balance with the renewing flow of Planet/Physical states and processes.”
From the paper PLANET/PHYSICAL STATE OF THE EARTH AND LIFE By DR. ALEXEY N. DMITRIEV*
Published in Russian, IICA Transactions, Volume 4, 1997 *Professor of Geology and Mineralogy, and Chief Scientific Member,
United Institute of Geology, Geophysics, and Mineralogy, Siberian Department of Russian Academy of Sciences.
“A sea of madness”
““Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings,
for there is none worthy of the name but God, whom heaven,
earth and sea obey.”
Canute I, or Canute the Great,
(c. 995 – November 12, 1035) Viking king of England,
Denmark, Norway, some of Sweden.
Find all about king Canute by clicking here:
“Men think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds,
while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
“Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”
Charles Mackay
“What happened to the brains of all those panicking politicians
who are now heaping on us an Everest of costs without
bothering to check whether the simple little equation on which
they are based actually corresponds with reality?”
Christopher Booker, UK Sunday Telegraph 23/07/2007
Climate Extremism: the Real Threat to Civilization
Friday, July 20, 2007
“There is nothing particularly unusual about current weather and climate change it is generally well within long-term normal patterns. However, the public believes otherwise due to a combination of the way in which people have been taught to view nature, political exploitation of science and the hidden motives of environmental extremists. How did this happen and where are we headed if climate change hysteria continues unchecked?”
Dr. Timothy Ball and Tom Harris. Canada Free Press.
KICKING THE BALL
Timothy Francis Ball, Ph.D., is a retired university professor and global warming skeptic. He heads the Natural Resources Stewardship Project and formerly headed the activist organization Friends of Science, both of which have been criticised as organizations funded by energy industries.
Now I am taking defence of Tim Ball here…Because he has been subjected to quite a lot of abuse including death threats so it is reported…
“Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate change.One of the emails warned that, if he continued to speak out, he would not live to see further global warming.”
Daily Telegraph UK. 11/03/2007.
The threats are for speaking his mind, disagreeing with the main stream “none exsistant consensus” that CO2 is prime mover in the climate change/global warming scenario…The consensus :-
Global Warming Consensus Nothing But Hot Air, Says NCPA
DALLAS, Aug. 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ —
Literature Review Reveals Changing Viewpoints, Little Agreement, Says NCPA’s Burnett.
Only seven percent of published papers on climate change agree with the “consensus view” that humans were having some effect on global climate change. In an updated study of peer-reviewed works published between 2004 and 2007, 48 percent of the papers were classified as “neutral,” or refusing to agree or disagree with the consensus. This lack of agreement falls in line with previous polls that showed a similar reluctance to point the finger at humans, according to H. Sterling Burnett, senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA).
“I’ve always argued that ‘consensus’ is limited to a narrow scope,” said Burnett. “The only agreement is that the Earth is getting warmer.”
Medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte repeated an earlier study that combed global climate change papers on the ISI Web of Science database. The first study purported to find a majority consensus that human activity contributes to global climate change. The original study covered published works from 1993 through 2004.
“I doubt very seriously that this new study will garner much attention,” continued Burnett. “Especially because it doesn’t carry the message that is currently en vogue: that humans are to blame and we must be stopped.
SOURCE National Center for Policy Analysis
As well certain CO2 adherents keep ranting on about his “I am a scientist” pieces of paper.
Or ” where is his money coming from?”…
Quite frankly these sort of responces to Tim Ball’s declarations are totally immaterial and are wasting everyone’s time.
The only valid question that needs answering is ” what this man is saying, is it correct, or not correct?”
Here are a couple of comments about Al Gores film “An inconvenient truth.” by Tim Ball…
“Gore says C02 is the most important greenhouse gas. This is wrong for two reasons, first, C02 is nowhere near the most important greenhouse gas from a climate perspective. C02 is less than 4% of the greenhouses gases. Water vapor is 95% of the greenhouse gases by volume.
“Second, C02 is not a pollutant as Gore infers. It is, in fact essential to life on the planet. Without it there are no plants, therefore no oxygen and no life. At 385 ppm current levels the plants are undernourished. The geologic evidence shows an average level of 1000 ppm over 600 million years.
Research shows plants function most efficiently at 1000-2000 ppm. Commercial greenhouses use the information and are pumping C02 to these levels and achieve four times the yield with educed water use. At 200 ppm, the plants suffer seriously and at 150 ppm, they begin to die. So if Gore achieves his goal of reducing C02 he will destroy the planet.
This point alone is egregious enough to reject the entire movie and Gore’s message.”
Is the above true?
“Tim charges the mob”
Tim Ball…Environment Climate Change Fiasco. Click here
Indiana…
Image Credits: Earth image courtesy of NASA.
Geneva, 7 August 2007(WMO) – Weather and climate are marked by record extremes in many regions across the world since January 2007. In January and April 2007 it is likely that global land surface temperatures ranked warmest since records began in 1880, 1.89 degrees C warmer than average for January and 1.37 degrees C warmer than average for April. Several regions have experienced extremely heavy precipitation, leading to severe floods. The Fourth Assessment Report of the WMO/UNEP Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes an increasing trend in extreme events observed during the last 50 years. IPCC further projects it to be very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.
WMO and the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services of its 188 Members are working with other UN Agencies and partners towards the establishment of a multi-hazard early warning system. Furthermore, they are putting in place sustainable observation systems needed for monitoring and assessing the impacts of climate change and determining the adaptation priorities for the most vulnerable countries.
Heavy rainfall, cyclones and wind storms
During the first half (June-July) of the Indian summer monsoon season, four monsoon depressions (double the normal frequency) caused heavy rainfall and floods in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Many stations reported 24h rainfall exceeding 350 mm. These monsoon extremes and incessant rains caused large-scale flooding all over South Asia, a situation that continues even now, resulting in more than 500 deaths, displacement of more than 10 million people and destruction of vast areas of croplands, livestock and property.
Cyclone Gonu, the first documented cyclone in the Arabian Sea, made landfall in Oman on 6 June with maximum sustained winds near 148 km/h. Gonu moved through the Persian Gulf making a second landfall in the Islamic Republic of Iran. In Oman, the cyclone affected more than 20,000 people and was responsible for more than 50 fatalities.
Heavy rains during 6-10 June ravaged areas across southern China. Flooding affected over 13.5 million people with more than 120 fatalities due to floods and landslides.
In England and Wales the period May to July in 2007 was the wettest (406 mm) since records began in 1766, breaking the previous record of 349 mm in 1789. The extreme rainfall in June, with 103.1 mm of rain recorded in 24 hours during 24-25 June in northeast England, was followed by a similar event with 120.8 mm of rain on 20 July in central England. Both events resulted in extensive flooding across parts of England and Wales. At least nine people have died and damage is estimated at more than US$6.00 billion.
With 126 mm (normal for 1961-1990: 71 mm], Germany experienced its wettest May since country-wide observations started in 1901. In sharp contrast, the previous month was the driest April since 1901 with an average of 4 mm (7% of the 1961-1990 normal).
A powerful storm system affected much of northern Europe during 17-18 January 2007 with torrential rains and winds gusting up to 170 km/h. There were at least 47 deaths across the region, with disruptions in electric supply affecting tens of thousands during the storm. Initial estimates of losses were reported as 3-5 billion Euros.
The worst flooding event in 6 years hit Mozambique in February. An estimated 30 people were killed and 120,000 evacuated from the central Zambezi basin. Additional flooding and loss of life was attributed to the landfall of tropical cyclone Favio on 22nd February.
Abnormally heavy and early rainfall in Sudan since the end of June has caused the Nile River and other seasonal rivers to overflow, resulting in extensive flooding and damaging more than 16,000 houses. In May a series of large swell waves (estimated at 3-4.5 meters) swamped some 68 islands in 16 atolls in the Maldives causing serious flooding and extensive damages. In early May, Uruguay was hit by the worst flooding since 1959. Heavy rainfall in portions of Uruguay produced floods that affected more than 110,000 people and severely damaged crops and buildings.
Heat Waves
Two extreme heat waves affected south-eastern Europe in June and July, breaking the previous records with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees C. Dozens of people died and fire-fighters worked around the clock fighting blazes devastating thousands of hectares of land. On 23 July, temperatures hit 45 degrees C in Bulgaria, setting a new record.
In May a heat wave affected areas across western and central Russia breaking several temperature records. In Moscow, temperatures on 28 May reached 32.9 degrees C, the highest temperature recorded in May since 1891.
In many European countries, April was the warmest ever recorded with the temperatures reaching more than 4 degrees C over and above the long-term mean in some areas.
Recognizing the severe health impacts of heat waves, the WMO and the World Health Organization (WHO), are at an advanced stage of preparing Guidance on the implementation of Heat Health early Warning Systems (HHWS).
Climate Change and Extremes
According to the most recent climate change scientific assessment reports of the joint WMO/UNEP Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the warming of the climate system is unequivocal. Eleven of the last twelve years (1995-2006) rank among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature. The 100-year trend (1906-2005) is 0.74 degrees C. The linear warming trend over the last 50 years (0.13 degrees C per decade) is nearly twice that for the last 100 years. Paleoclimatic studies suggest that the average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely higher than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely the highest in the past 1,300 years.
IPCC further notes that there has been an increasing trend in the extreme events observed during the last 50 years, particularly heavy precipitation events, hot days, hot nights and heat waves.
Climate change projections indicate it to be very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.
Additional facts:
An unusual cold winter season brought winds, blizzards and rare snowfall to various provinces in South America with temperatures reaching as low as -22 degrees C in Argentina and -18 degrees C in Chile in the beginning of July.
On 27 June a winter weather front moved across South Africa bringing the country’s first significant snowfall since 1981 (25 cm of snow in parts of the country).
In India, a heat wave during mid-May produced temperatures as high as 45-50 degrees C.
Many European countries had their warmest January on record. January temperatures in The Netherlands were the highest since measurements were first taken in 1706, averaging about 7.1 degrees C (2.8 degrees C above 1961-1990 average) while in Germany the temperatures were 4.6 degrees C above the 1961-1990 average.
An increase in intense tropical cyclone activities in the North Atlantic since about 1970 has been observed.
The World Meteorological Organization
This information is based on inputs received from several WMO Members and with the collaboration of the NOAA National Climatic Data Centre (NCDC), USA, Germany’s National Meteorological Service, the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) and the Met Office, UK. It includes an indicative but not exhaustive coverage of the observed weather and climate extremes. More comprehensive information on weather and climate anomalies observed in 2007 will be provided towards the end of the year.
EARTHQUAKE WATCH
The Kashiwazaki Incident
Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant, Japan.
On Jul 16, 2007 RHS1,s earthquake monitoring service reported this quake…Also mentioned in the report was the fact that the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant in Japan owned by the Tokyo Electric Company was in the quake zone. Here is the report…
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6.7: Strong Quake Jolts Northwestern Japan
Strong Quake Jolts Northwestern Japan, Small Tsunamis Reported
TOKYO Jul 16, 2007 (AP)
A strong earthquake jolted northwestern Japan on Monday morning, flattening dozens of wooden houses, and triggering small tsunamis. Media reports said at least 160 people were injured.
National broadcaster NHK showed footage of the collapsed homes along with damaged bridges and roads. Sirens from fire engines could be heard in hard-hit Kashiwazaki city where the homes collapsed.
Flames and black smoke were seen pouring from the Kashiwazaki nuclear plant, which was automatically shut down in the quake. NHK reported the fire was in an electrical transformer, and that no radioactivity had been released. The reactor and two others in the region had shut down automatically.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3380387
Indy
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Photos of burnt out transformer (top) and deformed road nearby (bottom) by Kazuyuki Takemoto . Kazuyuki is a member of CNIC’s board of directors. His car port was flattened by the earthquake.
Information about the damage at Kashiwazaki nuclear plant from CNIC Japan:
Translated into english Report from the anti-nuclear org
“Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center” in Japan: click here to read
List by Greenpeace…
Note 1: The Japanese nuclear industry have been exposed in a number of serious incidents and cover-ups in recent years, including:
March 2007 – It was discovered that the Hokuriku utility did not inform the public or nuclear inspectors about a serious incident at Shika nuclear power plant. On July 18th, 1999, failure of control rods lead to an uncontrolled chain reaction.
April 2006 – A radioactive spill of 40 litres of liquid containing plutonium occurred in a brand new reprocessing plant in Rokkasho-Mura.
August 2004 – A pipe rupture in Mihama nuclear power plant killed five workers. TEPCO utility – the same one operation Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant – was forced to shut down its 17 reactors when it was discovered that if faked documents about safety inspections. September 1999 – Workers at a fuel factory in Tokaimura failed to follow guidelines, leading to an uncontrolled chain reaction that lasted for three days. Three workers died due to high irradiation and local people had to be evacuated from the neighbourhood.
Disappearing the (near) Nuclear Meltdown
Harvey Wasserman… Thursday, 26 July 2007
Nuke PR flacks do the Kashiwazaki quake dance
As you read this, swarms of extremely well-paid PR flacks are spinning the Kashiwazaki nuke quake into an argument for building more reactors. They will deploy utter absurdities and personal attacks, followed by the sound of media-complicit silence.
But the news coming from Japan—and not being covered here—makes it clear the realities of this latest reactor disaster are beyond catastrophic. Seven reactors were put at direct risk, with four forced into emergency shut-downs while suffering numerous fires and emitting unknown quantities of radiation. Most importantly, the quake exceeded the design capabilities of all Japan’s 55 reactors, and worse seismic shocks are expected.
To counter these inconvenient realities, expect to soon see more of Patrick Moore, the alleged ex-Greenpeace founder.
Moore has called the disaster at Three Mile Island a “success story.” Moore claims to be a scientist. He’s obviously not an accountant.
His face stays straight while calling the transformation of a $900 million asset into a $2 billion liability a “success story.” It testifies to a mentality that never saw a polluter’s check that couldn’t be cashed.
On January 28, 1986, I debated a spokeswoman from Cleveland Electric Illuminating who termed the earthquake fault near the Perry Nuclear Plant a “geologic anomaly.”
As we spoke, the Challenger space shuttle blew up because NASA “scientists” said warnings from their own staff about O-rings in cold weather were not “compelling.” The shuttle was shot off to coincide with a planned presidential performance by Ronald Reagan. Seven astronauts died while the whole world watched in horror.
Three days later, a non-anomalous earthquake cracked pipes and pumps at Perry, knocking out roads and bridges. Apparently, neither the O-rings nor the fault line had read the industry’s spin.
Today the nuke flacks say Kashiwazaki was a “success story” because four reactors SCRAMmed into emergency shutdown and three more were damaged, but no apocalypse resulted (yet).
Since this is only the world’s largest nuke complex, with only seven reactors on site, and only several hundred barrels of nuke waste tipped over, and far fewer had their lids fly off, and the gas emissions the utility lied about were only tritium, which is less deadly than plutonium, the fact that all of Japan was not engulfed in a catastrophic radiation release (yet) will be used to sell more reactors.
Expect phrases like these:
- “The reactors withstood the worst nature could throw at them.”
- “The SCRAMs went off perfectly.”
- “The shut-downs will be temporary.”
- “American reactors are far stronger than Japanese ones.”
- “This was a once-in-a-century fluke, and no one was hurt.”
- “Even so, we must have nuke power to fight global warming.”
- “The media has distorted the utility’s good-faith attempts to inform the public.”
- “Those rad-waste barrels were tipped over by eco-terrorists.”
- “Tritium is good for you.”
- “Nuke power is a ‘zero emissions’ technology, therefore the reported leaks could not have occurred.”
- “Those anti-nuke so-called scientists have been discredited.”
But most importantly, expect a tightly enforced media blackout. It starts when all who question the industry are automatically “discredited.”
Dr. John Gofman, universally acknowledged as one of the world’s leading nuclear and medical researchers, was once in charge of health research for the old Atomic Energy Commission. When asked to determine how many people would be killed by radioactive emissions from “normal” reactor operations, he found it would be about 32,000 Americans per year.
The AEC demanded he revise his findings. Gofman refused. So he was forced out of the AEC and “discredited” despite credentials that continue to dwarf those who replaced him.
The list of physicists, engineers, medical researchers and others similarly purged for fact-based reporting is too tragic to reconstruct here.
But it even includes a park ranger at the Pt. Reyes National Seashore who noticed in the spring of 1986 that the number of live bird births had plummeted compared with the previous ten springs. The only logical link was to radioactive fallout from Chernobyl, brought down by a California rainstorm ten days after the explosion.
The ranger soon found himself out of a job.
On the other hand, the industry still falsely asserts that no one died at Three Mile Island. It even produced a “doctor” who traveled through Europe asserting that the enormous radiation releases spewed by the explosion at Chernobyl would ultimately save lives.
Predictably, the Kashiwazaki catastrophe has disappeared from the American media. But in Japan, the news has transcended the truly horrifying.
According to Leo Lewis in The Times, talk is rampant of a “Genpatsu-shinsai,” defined by Japan’s leading seismologist, Katsuhiko Shibashi, as “the combination of an earthquake and nuclear meltdown capable of destroying millions of lives and bringing a nation to its knees.” Shibashi warns that the recent 6.8 magnitude shock exceeded the design capabilities of the Kashiwazaki nuke by a factor of three. A Kobe University research team is reported as saying that if the quake had been 10km further to the southwest, a “terrible, terrible disaster” would have resulted.
Prof. Mitsuhei Murata of Tokai Gakuen University is quoted as warning that a quake at the Hamaoka nuke could bring “24 million victims and the end for Japan.” Japan’s earthquake experts assume the probability of an 8.0 quake within the next 30 years to be 87 percent.
As in the US, Tokyo Electric has long denied that its seven Kashiwazaki reactors were sited atop a fault line, only to have it turn out to be true. As at Three Mile Island, vital data has already disappeared from the Kashiwazaki disaster, and the exact quantities of radiation released are unknown. Radiation at both sites escaped well after the reactors were shut down.
As in the United States, Japanese earthquake experts have warned since the 1960s about the dangers of reactor construction, only to be ignored and “discredited.”
Undoubtedly the Japanese PR nuke spinsters will continue to attack and ignore them.
Here, 2400 central Pennsylvania families will still be denied a federal trial on the death, disease and mayhem spewed upon them by Three Mile Island nearly thirty years ago. And the seven dead Challenger astronauts are not available for comment on the “perfectly safe” O-rings that killed them just prior to the “non-credible” earthquake that struck the Perry nuke.
Any possible problems with a new generation of reactors are equally non-credible. Just ask a flack.
Harvey Wasserman’s SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, A.D. 2030, is at www.solartopia.org He is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and senior editor of www.freepress.org, where this article first appeared.
Press Release 2007/16
IAEA Team to Report on Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant Examination
14 August 2007 | The Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, affected by a strong earthquake on 16 July, shut down safely and damage appears less than expected, a fact finding mission of international nuclear safety experts has concluded. The six member expert team of the International Atomic Energy Agency was dispatched upon the request of the Japanese authorities. The mission report will be issued within a few days.
The Director General of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, said today that he welcomed the cooperation and transparency the team had received from the Japanese authorities. The mission’s findings and the Japanese analyses of the event include important lessons learned – both positive and negative – that will be relevant to other nuclear plants worldwide, he said.
The team conducted a three day physical examination covering the complex of seven units, as well as analysis of instrument logs and other records from the time of the event. It has concluded that plant safety features performed as required during the earthquake. The team’s review of plant operator records and analyses support the Japanese authorities’ conclusion that the very small amount of radioactivity released was well below the authorized limits for public health and environmental safety. Damage from the earthquake appears to be limited to those sections of the plant that would not affect the reactor or systems related to reactor safety.
Detailed checks and inspections by the operator and Japanese authorities are ongoing. According to the IAEA team, significant work, such as detailed examination of the reactor vessels, cores and fuel elements, has still to be performed.
Physical stresses resulting from the earthquake could affect the long term safe operation of some plant components, the team said. Additional engineering analysis of such components would be an important consideration for future examination, to determine whether they should be replaced earlier than otherwise anticipated.
The earthquake significantly exceeded the level of seismic activity for which the plant was designed. However, as with most nuclear plants, additional robustness in design (known to the industry as “design safety margin”) had been incorporated into plant structures, systems and components. The IAEA team said these conservative seismic design measures probably explain why damage was less than it could have otherwise been expected. However, it was essential to conduct further technical analysis to understand the precise design elements that resulted in the plant performance.
The team noted that the plant owner, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), was at the time of the event already performing a seismic hazard re-evaluation, based on new guidelines for seismic design that had been issued in September 2006 by Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC). With the occurrence of the 16 July 2007 earthquake, these evaluations will be expanded to account for the potential existence of active faults underneath the site, the team said.
Analyses of safety events at nuclear facilities are routinely communicated to other nuclear operators and nuclear regulators, so that lessons learned can be incorporated where relevant at other plants. An opportunity for such feedback on the earthquake that affected the Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant will occur in September, when Japan will present a report on the event to a Senior Regulators Meeting at the IAEA General Conference.