– Many buildings in Toy-Tepa were damaged by this quake. Witnesses report cracks in many houses there, some of the houses were completely destroyed, as local newspapers are reporting. So far there are no information about injuries.
– From user input, there has been 2 reports of major cracks in houses, and 1 that the power is out. Internet however not.
– Good news – the earthquake has been felt IV-V in Tashkent. This means that there will be likely less damage than first thought.
– According to Uzbekistan Seismology, the earthquake occurred 32km south of Tashkent, and 7 km from Toy-Tepa.
Expected shaking based on the M5.6 Magnitude of USGS. The final Magnitude was set by the Uzbek seismologists to M5.2, seriously weaker and having a lesser impact than this image shows
– A strong earthquake occurred in Eastern Uzbekistan. It is expected that there will be damage.
It has been given a M5.2 locally, at a depth of 12km.
This earthquake is a bit to the south of Tashkent according to the hypocenters.
Expected shaking values of the most important locations near the epicenter
It has hit right by Tashkent. We should remind viewers of the 1966 earthquake which destroyed much of Tashkent and had the same magnitude but was 3-8km in depth and right under Tashkent – 10 were killed, 1000 injured, 100000 homeless where 28000 buildings collapsed. It is important to note that the USSR figures of this event have never been properly corrected.
Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : 5.3
Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2013-05-25 03:18:35
Last updated on May 24, 2013 at 12:00 am EDT by in5d Alternative News
The following is a list of Monsanto Free Seed Companies. If the government will not stand up for our rights, then it is time to make a statement on our own. Personally, I’ve bought seeds from Baker Creek Seed Company, who have a very large assortment of heirloom seeds, but feel free to shop and compare any and all of these companies.
Names are in alphabetical order. Try to search for a company in your bioregion when possible. Also, it never hurts to ask any company if they sell any Seminis seeds or seeds from Seminis’ partners.
(Sites with *asterisks* have the additional approval and endorsement by Farmwars.info and verification by recognized leaders in the battle)
Organic farmers have yet another environmental hazard to contend with, this time compliments of the U.S. Government in the form of chemtrails. A mess of toxic chemicals, these harmful sprays pollute the soil, water and air while compromising the health of humans, animals and plants. And now Monsanto has developed seeds that will weather the effect of the sprays, creating a tidy profit for the corporation while organics suffer. If this poisoning continues, true organic farming may become impossible in the not so distant future.
Chemtrail cocktail
Geo-engineering hides behind the claim of arresting global warming through atmospheric spraying of arsenic, aerosol, aluminum, barium, depleted uranium and substantial amounts of mercury. There’s only one problem – what goes up, must come down. These chemicals are seriously polluting our waterways and soil while seeping into crops and contaminating livestock, not to mention changing the weather patterns. Plants are especially sensitive to the soil degradation that occurs with chemtrail spraying, creating serious issues concerning our food supply.
What does the top GM seed corporation do when crops die from chemtrail contamination? It profits. True to form, Monsanto has used the devastation caused by geo-engineering to its advantage by creating patented GM seeds that withstand the effects of chemtrails. The seeds are designed to survive extreme weather conditions, pollution, salt stress, heavy metals and mineralized soils. According to Farm Wars, the patents for stress-tolerant plants not only include the main GM crops of corn, soybean, wheat, cotton, rice and canola, but also:
What this means is that these mutant plants will be able to survive the onslaught of chemtrail toxins and severe weather changes whereas organic crops are bound to whither and die – giving Monsanto further control over the global food supply. Even if organic farmers shield their crops from atmospheric chemicals and unpredictable weather, toxins still leach into the groundwater, eventually polluting the soil and plants. This scenario is a boon for Monsanto yet a disaster for those who appreciate clean and healthy food.
If we truly want to preserve organic farming, chemtrails must be stopped. Global Skywatchand Kimberly Gamble of Thrive Movement offer several strategies to help shut down the spraying.
Photo by NASA via Getty ImagesA satellite image of Hurricane Sandy as it approached the East Coast last year
The residents of Moore, Oklahoma are still cleaning up from the EF5 tornado that tore through their town on May 20. 24 people died in the twisters, and thousands of homes and buildings were damaged or destroyed. The total bill may come in at over $2 billion, which would make the Moore tornado the most expensive in American history.
So this may not be the best time, but the Moore tornado almost surely won’t be the last billion-dollar weather the U.S. faces in 2013. On Thursday the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its annual outlook on the summer Atlantic hurricane season—and it is not good. Technically it will be “active or extremely active,” which is fine if you’re talking about a workout session, and less good if you’re projecting how many potentially devastating tropical storms will hit the U.S. mainland.
Altogether NOAA predicts a 70% likelihood that 13 to 20 named storms—which have winds that sustain at 39 mph or higher—will occur, of which 7 to 11 could become hurricanes (winds higher than 74 mph). Of those three to six may become major hurricanes, which means Category 3 to 5, with winds above 11 mph. That’s all well above the average for an Atlantic hurricane season, which lasts from June 1 to the end of November.
Why will this summer potentially be so stormy? For one, an atmospheric climate pattern, including a strong African monsoon, that’s been ongoing since 1995 will help supercharge the atmosphere for tropical storms. Warmer-than-average water temperatures in the tropical Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea will lead to more of the wet, hot air that provides the fuel for hurricanes. And there is no El Nino—the alternating climate pattern that means unusually warm sea temperatures—which would usually suppress the formation of hurricanes.
It’s important to remember that NOAA is only predicting whether or not hurricanes and tropical storms will develop—not whether they will make landfall like Superstorm Sandy did last fall. Only three of the 19 named storms that formed in the Atlantic last year made enough of an impact on the U.S. to cause any real damage. Most storms form in the Atlantic and never leave. It’s not just the strength of a storm that makes it dangerous—it’s location.
Superstorm Sandy made that clear. By the time storm made landfall on the East Coast, it had actually weakened to the point that it was barely a hurricane at all, though it was an unusually massive and wet storm. Had it spun back out to sea, we never would have remembered its name. Instead, though, Sandy tore through the most populated and expensive property in the U.S., flooding parts of New York City and causing some $65 billion in damage. We can only imagine what kind of destruction it would have caused had Sandy been an even stronger storm.
There’s no way of knowing how many of the storms to come this summer will indeed make landfall, but it stands to reason that the more storms that form, the greater the chance one will eventually end up in our backyard. According to NOAA, billion-dollar disasters are increasing in the U.S. at a rate of about 4.8% a year—there were 11 just last year. That’s mostly a result of economic growth—as the country gets richer, even with inflation, any weather disaster that disrupt the economy will cost more. But climate change is likely playing a role as well—in the case of hurricanes, warming temperatures seem to make storms stronger, and rising sea levels increase the threat of coastal flooding.
In any case, the growing danger from extreme weather just underlines the need to invest in forecasting, preparation and adaptation, as acting NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan said:
With the devastation of Sandy fresh in our minds, and another active season predicted, everyone at NOAA is committed to providing life-saving forecasts in the face of these storms and ensuring that Americans are prepared and ready ahead of time.” said Kathryn Sullivan, Ph.D., NOAA acting administrator. “As we saw first-hand with Sandy, it’s important to remember that tropical storm and hurricane impacts are not limited to the coastline. Strong winds, torrential rain, flooding, and tornadoes often threaten inland areas far from where the storm first makes landfall.
Of course, if you really want to worry, remember that last year NOAA predict that the Atlantic hurricane season would be just a little above normal. It ended up being considerably more active. But there’s one thing we can be sure of—there won’t be another Hurricane Sandy. That name has been retired.
Strong earthquake in an merely unpopulated are in northern California
Last update: May 24, 2013 at 8:19 am by By Ashish Khanal
A couple of aftershocks up to M 4.9 occured. There are so far no reports of any structural damage.
The populated areas Greenville, Westwood and Chester (5000 inhabitants in total) may have felt a MMI V moderate shaking.
39000 people may have felt a light shaking.
Shaking map of the epicenter are
9000 people may have felt a moderate shaking based on USGS experience reports, this means that this earthquake can be labeled “harmless” for serious damage and injuries.
The many I Have Felt It reports which can be read in this site are confirming the USGS numbers.
11km (7mi) WNW of Greenville, California
43km (27mi) SW of Susanville, California
60km (37mi) NE of Magalia, California
67km (42mi) NE of Paradise, California
159km (99mi) NW of Carson City, Nevada
Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : 5.7
Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2013-05-23 20:47:07
– A large crack also appeared in a bridge in Jakutsk in eastern Siberia, only 1500 km west of the epicenter. Samara and Moscow are more than 6000 km east of the epicenter.
– Some damage reports arrive from Moskow and Samara, where a few buildings cracked. One building in Samara suffered major damage.
In St. Petersburg, one person was sick due to the shaking of the office tower.
– An other country, feeling this quake, is Kazakhstan. 20 people in Uralsk in western part of the country reported authorities they felt it.
– Seems that this quake was felt over the whole Eurasian plate. Russian media report that also some people in Romania felt it. We received reports from Finland and Denmark and a perso from Italy gave their report to ESMC.
In St. Peterburg one more building was evacuated. Both towns, Moscow and St. Petersburg, usually do not have any earthquakes. So people are frightened if it happenes.
There are still no news about damage from Kamtchatka. But usually those buildings widestand larger intensities than V, so no heavy damage is expected.
– Many parts of China were also affected by the quake. People from different provinces said they felt the quake, among them Heilongjiang, Gansu, Hubei, Chongqing, Jiangsu and Sichuan. No damage was reported from China.
– In Moscow at least two offica buildings were evacuated due to the quake. Several hundred people had to leave their workplace for some time. There are no damages reported, but some people in Moscow said they experienced an aftershock. No quake was registered around Moskow.
– Now a reader from Finland told us that this quake was felt there.
– No tsunami was registered on russian coast so far and the tsunami warning was lifted.
Russian newspaper confirm that this quake was also felt in St. Petersburg on Baltic Sea.
– We also received reports of people in Alaska and Canada who might have felt this quake. If you also felt it, please tell us.
So far, there are no reports of damage from Kamtchatka. There it was felt with moderate intensity. Also parts of western Siberia experienced a moderate shaking. People in Moskow and Tomsk report a weak shaking.
India and Japan also experienced only a weak shaking.
– In Petropavlosvsk this quake caused panic. People ran out of their buildings, schools were evacuated.
– The earthquake was felt in many parts of Russia, including Siberia and Moscow. Also people in Japan and India felt this quake. There is a tsunami warning for the russian pacific coasts.
– There exists a very very low tsunami threat from this M8.2 off Kamchatka if the 600km depth is correct.
– The cool subducting plate off the Pacific, slowly moves down into the mantle, and these bits of old crust can still be brittle enough to make big earthquakes, even 600km down.
AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS
ORIGIN TIME - 0745 PM HST 23 MAY 2013
COORDINATES - 54.7 NORTH 153.4 EAST
LOCATION - SEA OF OKHOTSK
MAGNITUDE - 8.2 MOMENT
EVALUATION
BASED ON ALL AVAILABLE DATA A DESTRUCTIVE PACIFIC-WIDE TSUNAMI IS
NOT EXPECTED AND THERE IS NO TSUNAMI THREAT TO HAWAII. REPEAT. A
DESTRUCTIVE PACIFIC-WIDE TSUNAMI IS NOT EXPECTED AND THERE IS NO
TSUNAMI THREAT TO HAWAII.
THIS WILL BE THE ONLY STATEMENT ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS
ADDITIONAL DATA ARE RECEIVED.
USGS gives this massive earthquake with M 8.2, luckily in a relatively safe depth of more than 600 km.
In 2011, a series of violent severe storms swept across the Plains and Southeast U.S., bringing an astonishing six billion-dollar disasters in a three-month period. The epic tornado onslaught killed 552 people, caused $25 billion in damage, and brought three of the five largest tornado outbreaks since record keeping began in 1950. In May 2011, the Joplin, Missouri tornado did $3 billion in damage–the most expensive tornado in world history–and killed 158 people, the largest death toll from a U.S. tornado since 1947. An astounding 1050 EF-1 and stronger tornadoes ripped though the U.S. for the one-year period ending that month. This was the greatest 12-month total for these stronger tornadoes in the historical record, and an event so rare that we might expect it to occur only once every 62,500 years. Fast forward now to May 2012 – April 2013. Top-ten coldest temperatures on record across the Midwest during March and April of 2013, coming after a summer of near-record heat and drought in 2012, brought about a remarkable reversal in our tornado tally–the lowest 12-month total of EF-1 and stronger tornadoes on record–just 197. This was an event so rare we might expect it to occur only once every 3,000 – 4,000 years. And now, in May 2013, after another shattering EF-5 tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, residents of the Midwest must be wondering, are we back to the 2011 pattern? Which of these extremes is climate change most likely to bring about? Is climate change already affecting these storms? These are hugely important questions, but ones we don’t have good answers for. Climate change is significantly impacting the environment that storms form in, giving them more moisture and energy to draw upon, and altering large-scale jet stream patterns. We should expect that this will potentially cause major changes in tornadoes and severe thunderstorms. Unfortunately, tornadoes and severe thunderstorms are the extreme weather phenomena we have the least understanding on with respect to climate change. We don’t have a good enough database to determine how tornadoes may have changed in recent decades, and our computer models are currently not able to tell us if tornadoes are more likely to increase or decrease in a future warmer climate.
Video 1. Remarkable video of the tornado that hit Tuscaloosa, Alabama on April 27, 2011, part of the largest and most expensive tornado outbreak in U.S. history–the $10.2 billion dollar Southeast U.S. Super Outbreak of April 25 – 28, 2011. With damage estimated at $2.2 billion, the Tuscaloosa tornado was the 2nd most expensive tornado in world history, behind the 2011 Joplin, Missouri tornado. Fast forward to minute four to see the worst of the storm.
Figure 1. Will climate change increase the incidence of these sorts of frightening radar images? Multiple hook echoes from at least ten supercell thunderstorms cover Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee in this radar image taken during the height of the April 27, 2011 Super Outbreak, the largest and most expensive tornado outbreak in U.S. history. A multi-hour animation is available here.
Changes in past tornado activity difficult to assess due to a poor database
It’s tough to tell if tornadoes may have changed due to a changing climate, since the tornado database is of poor quality for climate research. We cannot measure the wind speeds of a tornado directly, except in very rare cases when researchers happen to be present with sophisticated research equipment. A tornado has to run over a building and cause damage before an intensity rating can be assigned. The National Weather Service did not begin doing systematic tornado damage surveys until 1976, so all tornadoes from 1950 – 1975 were assigned a rating on the Fujita Scale (F-scale) based on old newspaper accounts and photos. An improved Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale to rate tornadoes was adopted in 2007. The transition to the new EF scale still allows valid comparisons of tornadoes rated, for example, EF-5 on the new scale and F5 on the old scale, but does create some problems for tornado researchers studying long-term changes in tornado activity. More problematic is the major changes in the Fujita-scale rating process that occurred in the mid-1970s (when damage surveys began), and again in 2001, when scientists began rating tornadoes lower because of engineering concerns and unintended consequences of National Weather Service policy changes. According to Brooks (2013), “Tornadoes in the early part of the official National Weather Service record (1950 – approximately 1975) are rated with higher ratings than the 1975 – 2000 period, which, in turn, had higher ratings than 2001 – 2007.” All of these factors cause considerable uncertainty when attempting to assess if tornadoes are changing over time. At a first glance, it appears that tornado frequency has increased in recent decades (Figure 2). However, this increase may be entirely caused by factors unrelated to climate change:
1) Population growth has resulted in more tornadoes being reported. Heightened awareness of tornadoes has also helped; the 1996 Hollywood blockbuster movie Twister “played no small part” in a boom in reported tornadoes, according to tornado scientist Dr. Nikolai Dotzek.
2) Advances in weather radar, particularly the deployment of about 100 Doppler radars across the U.S. in the mid-1990s, has resulted in a much higher tornado detection rate.
3) Tornado damage surveys have grown more sophisticated over the years. For example, we now commonly classify multiple tornadoes along a damage path that might have been attributed to just one twister in the past.
Figure 2. The total number of U.S. tornadoes since 1950 has shown a substantial increase. Image credit: NOAA/NCDC.
Figure 3. The number of EF-0 (blue line) and EF-1 and stronger tornadoes (maroon squares) reported in the U.S. since 1950. The rise in number of tornadoes in recent decades is seen to be primarily in the weakest EF-0 twisters. As far as we can tell (which isn’t very well, since the historical database of tornadoes is of poor quality), there is not a decades-long increasing trend in the numbers of tornadoes stronger than EF-0. Since these stronger tornadoes are the ones most likely to be detected, this implies that climate change, as yet, is not having a noticeable impact on U.S. tornadoes. Image credit: Kunkel, Kenneth E., et al., 2013, “Monitoring and Understanding Trends in Extreme Storms: State of Knowledge,” Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 94, 499–514, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00262.1
Figure 4. Insured damage losses in the U.S. due to thunderstorms and tornadoes, as compiled by Munich Re. Damages have increased sharply in the past decade, but not enough to say that an increase in tornadoes and severe thunderstorms may be to blame.
Stronger tornadoes do not appear to be increasing
Tornadoes stronger than EF-0 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale (or F0 on the pre-2007 Fujita Scale) are more likely to get counted, since they tend to cause significant damage along a long track. Thus, the climatology of these tornadoes may offer a clue as to how climate change may be affecting severe weather. If the number of strong tornadoes has actually remained constant over the years, we should expect to see some increase in these twisters over the decades, since more buildings have been erected in the paths of tornadoes. However, if we look at the statistics of U.S. tornadoes stronger than EF-0 or F-0 since 1950, there does not appear to be any increase in their number (Figure 3.) Damages from thunderstorms and tornadoes have shown a significant increase in recent decades (Figure 4), but looking at damages is a poor way to determine if climate change is affecting severe weather, since there are so many human factors involved. A study in Environmental Hazards (Simmons et al., 2012) found no increase in tornado damages from 1950 – 2011, after normalizing the data for increases in wealth and property. Also, Bouwer (BAMS, 2010) reviewed 22 disaster loss studies world-wide, published 2001 – 2010; in all 22 studies, increases in wealth and population were the “most important drivers for growing disaster losses.” His conclusion: human-caused climate change “so far has not had a significant impact on losses from natural disasters.” Studies that normalize disaster data are prone to error, as revealed by a 2012 study looking at storm surge heights and damages. Given the high amount of uncertainty in the tornado and tornado damage databases, the conclusion of the “official word” on climate science, the 2007 United Nations IPCC report, pretty much sums things up: “There is insufficient evidence to determine whether trends exist in small scale phenomena such as tornadoes, hail, lighting, and dust storms.” Until a technology is developed that can reliably detect all tornadoes, there is no hope of determining how tornadoes might be changing in response to a changing climate. According to Doswell (2007): “I see no near-term solution to the problem of detecting detailed spatial and temporal trends in the occurrence of tornadoes by using the observed data in its current form or in any form likely to evolve in the near future.”
Figure 5. Wind shear from the surface to 6 km altitude in May on days with days with higher risk conditions for severe weather (upper-10% instability and wind shear) over the South Central U.S. has shown no significant change between 1950 – 2010. Image credit: Brooks, 2013, “The spatial distribution of severe thunderstorm and tornado environments from global reanalysis data”, Atmospheric Research Volumes 67-68, July-September 2003, Pages 73-94.
Figure 6. Six-hourly periods per year with environments supportive of significant severe thunderstorms in the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains. The line is a local least-squares regression fit to the series, and shows no significant change in environments supportive of significant severe thunderstorms in recent decades. Image credit: Brooks, H.E., and N. Dotek, 2008, “The spatial distribution of severe convective storms and an analysis of their secular changes”, Climate Extremes and Society
How are the background conditions that spawn tornadoes changing?
An alternate technique to study how climate change may be affecting tornadoes is look at how the large-scale environmental conditions favorable for tornado formation have changed through time. Moisture, instability, lift, and wind shear are needed for tornadic thunderstorms to form. The exact mix required varies considerably depending upon the situation, and is not well understood. However, Brooks (2003) attempted to develop a climatology of weather conditions conducive for tornado formation by looking at atmospheric instability (as measured by the Convective Available Potential Energy, or CAPE), and the amount of wind shear between the surface and 6 km altitude. High values of CAPE and surface to 6 km wind shear are conducive to formation of tornadic thunderstorms. The regions they analyzed with high CAPE and high shear for the period 1997-1999 did correspond pretty well with regions where significant (F2 and stronger) tornadoes occurred. Riemann-Campe et al. (2009) found that globally, CAPE increased significantly between 1958 – 2001. However, little change in CAPE was found over the Central and Eastern U.S. during spring and summer during the most recent period they studied, 1979 – 2001. Brooks (2013) found no significant trends in wind shear over the U.S. from 1950 – 2010 (Figure 5.) A preliminary report issued by NOAA’s Climate Attribution Rapid Response Team in July 2011 found no trends in CAPE or wind shear over the lower Mississippi Valley over the past 30 years.
Figure 7. Change in the number of days per year with a high severe thunderstorm potential as predicted by the climate model (A2 scenario) of Trapp et al. 2007, due to predicted changes in wind shear and Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE). Most of the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains is expected to see 1 – 2 additional days per year with the potential for severe thunderstorms. The greatest increase in potential severe thunderstorm days (three) is expected along the North and South Carolina coast. Image credit: NASA.
How will tornadoes and severe thunderstorms change in the future?
Using a high-resolution regional climate model (25 km grid size) zoomed in on the U.S., Trapp et al. (2007) and Trapp et al. (2009) found that the decrease in 0-6 km wind shear in the late 21st century would more than be made up for by an increase in instability (CAPE). Their model predicted an increase in the number of days with high severe storm potential for most of the U.S. by the end of the 21st century, particularly for locations east of the Rocky Mountains (Figure 7.) Brooks (2013) also found that severe thunderstorms would likely increase over the U.S. by the end of the century, but theorized that the severe thunderstorms of the future might have a higher proportion causing straight-line wind damage, and slightly lower proportion spawning tornadoes and large hail. For example, a plausible typical future severe thunderstorm day many decades from now might have wind shear lower by 1 m/s, but a 2 m/s increase in maximum thunderstorm updraft speed. This might cause a 5% reduction in the fraction of severe thunderstorms spawning tornadoes, but a 5% increase in the fraction of severe thunderstorms with damaging straight-line winds. He comments: “However, if the number of overall favorable environments increases, there may be little change, if any, in the number of tornadoes or hailstorms in the US, even if the relative fraction decreases. The signals in the climate models and our physical understanding of the details of storm-scale processes are sufficiently limited to make it extremely hazardous to make predictions of large changes or to focus on small regions. Projected changes would be well within error estimates.”
Figure 8. From 1995 (the first year we have wind death data) through 2012, deaths from high winds associated with severe thunderstorms accounted for 8% of all U.S. weather fatalities, while tornadoes accounted for 13%. Data from NOAA.
Severe thunderstorms are capable of killing more people than tornadoes
If the future climate does cause fewer tornadoes but more severe thunderstorms, this may not end up reducing the overall deaths and damages from these dangerous weather phenomena. In 2012, the warmest year in U.S. history, the death toll from severe thunderstorms hit 104–higher than the 70 people killed by tornadoes that year. Severe thunderstorms occur preferentially during the hottest months of the year, June July and August, and are energized by record heat. For example, wunderground weather historian Christopher C. Burt called the number of all-time heat records set on June 29, 2012 “especially extraordinary,” and on that day, an organized thunderstorm complex called a derecho swept across a 700-mile swath of the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic, killing thirteen people and causing more than $1 billion in damage. The amount of energy available to the derecho was extreme, due to the record heat. The derecho knocked out power to 4 million people for up to a week, in areas where the record heat wave was causing high heat stress. Heat claimed 34 lives in areas without power in the week following the derecho. Excessive heat has been the number one cause of weather-related deaths in the U.S since 1995, killing more than twice as many people as tornadoes have. Climate models are not detailed enough to predict how organized severe thunderstorm events such as derechos might change in a future warmer climate. But a warmer atmosphere certainly contributed to the intensity of the 2012 derecho, and we will be seeing a lot more summers like 2012 in coming decades. A future with sharply increased damages and deaths due to more intense severe thunderstorms and derechos is one nasty climate change surprise that may lurk ahead.
Figure 9. Lightning over Tucson, Arizona on August 14, 2012. A modeling study by Del Genio et al.(2007) predicts that lighting will increase by 6% by the end of the century, potentially leading to an increase in lightning-triggered wildfires. Image credit: wunderphotographer ChandlerMike.
Lightning may increase in a warmer climate
Del Genio et al.(2007) used a climate model with doubled CO2 to show that a warming climate would make the atmosphere more unstable (higher CAPE) and thus prone to more severe weather. However, decreases in wind shear offset this effect, resulting in little change in the amount of severe weather in the Central and Eastern U.S. late this century. However, they found that there would likely be an increase in the very strongest thunderstorms. The speed of updrafts in thunderstorms over land increased by about 1 m/s in their simulation, since upward moving air needed to travel 50 – 70 mb higher to reach the freezing level, resulting in stronger thunderstorms. In the Western U.S., the simulation showed that drying led lead to fewer thunderstorms overall, but the strongest thunderstorms increased in number by 26%, leading to a 6% increase in the total amount of lighting hitting the ground each year. If these results are correct, we might expect more lightning-caused fires in the Western U.S. late this century, due to increased drying and more lightning. Only 12% of U.S. wildfires are ignited by natural causes, but these account for 52% of the acres burned (U.S. Fire Administration, 2000). So, even a small change in lightning flash rate has important consequences. Lightning is also a major killer, as an average of 52 people per year were killed by lightning strikes over the 30-year period ending in 2012, accounting for 6% of all U.S. weather-related fatalities.
Summary
We currently do not know how tornadoes and severe thunderstorms may be changing due to climate change, nor is there hope that we will be able to do so in the foreseeable future. It does not appear that there has been an increase in U.S. tornadoes stronger than EF-0 in recent decades, but climate change appears to be causing more extreme years–both high and low–of late. Tornado researcher Dr. Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma said in a 2013 interview on Andrew Revkin’s New York Times dotearth blog: “there’s evidence to suggest that we have seen an increase in the variability of tornado occurrence in the U.S.” Preliminary research using climate models suggests that we may see an increase in the number of severe thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes over the U.S. late this century, but these thunderstorms will be more likely to produce damaging straight-line winds, and less likely to produce tornadoes and large hail. This will not necessarily result in a reduction in deaths and damages, though, since severe thunderstorms can be just as dangerous and deadly as tornadoes–especially when they knock out power to areas suffering high-stress heat waves. Research into climate change impacts on severe weather is just beginning, and much more study is needed.
Destroyed buildings and overturned cars left in the wake of the huge tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma, near Oklahoma City, on May 20, 2013. Gene Blevins/LADailyNewsZuma
The story first appeared on the Guardian website and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Global climate change and politics are linked to each other—for better or worse. No clearer was that the case than when Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island gave an impassioned speech on global warming in the aftermath of Monday’s deadly Oklahoma tornado, and the conservative media ripped him. Whitehouse implied that at least part of the blame for the deadly tornado should be laid at the feet of climate change.
Is Whitehouse correct? It’s difficult to assign any one storm’s outcome to the possible effects of global climate change, and the science of tornadoes in particular makes it pretty much impossible to know whether Whitehouse is right.
First, you need warm, humid air for moisture. The past few days in Moore have featured temperatures in the upper 70s to low 80s, with relative humidity levels regularly hitting between 90 percent and 100 percent and rarely dropping below 70 percent.
Second, you need strong jet stream winds to provide lift. As this map from Weather Underground indicates, there were definitely some very strong jet stream winds on Monday in the Oklahoma region.
Image: Weather Underground
Third, you need strong wind shear (changing wind directions and/or speeds at different heights) to allow for full instability and lift. This mid-level wind shear map from the University of Wisconsin shows that there were 45 to 50 knot winds, right at the top of the scale, over Oklahoma on Monday.
Image: University of Wisconsin
Fourth, you need something to ignite the storm. In this case, a frontal boundary, as seen in this Weather Channel map, draped across central Oklahoma, did the trick.
Image: Weather Channel
The point is that all the normal ingredients were there that allowed an EF-4 tornado to spawn and strike. (Examination of the storm site may cause an upgrading to EF-5.) It happened in tornado alley, where warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico often meets dry air from the north and Rocky Mountains for maximum instability. There wasn’t anything shocking about this from a meteorological perspective. It was, as a well-informed friend said, a “classic” look.
The long-term weather question is whether or not we’ll see more or less of these “classic” looks in our changing meteorological environment. It turns out that of all the weather phenomena, from droughts to hurricanes, tornadoes are the most complex to answer from a broader atmospheric trends point of view. The reason is that a warming world affects the factors that lead to tornadoes in different ways.
Climate change is supposed, among other things, to bring warmer and moister air to Earth. That, of course, would lead to more severe thunderstorms and probably more tornadoes. The issue is that global warming is also forecast to bring about less wind shear. This would allow hurricanes to form more easily, but it also would make it much harder for tornadoes to get the full about lift and instability that allow for your usual thunderstorm to grow in height and become a fully fledged tornado. Statistics over the past 50 years bear this out, as we’ve seen warmer and more moist air as well as less wind shear.
Meteorological studies differ on whether or not the warmer and moister air can overcome a lack of wind shear in creating more tornadoes in the far future. In the immediate past, the jet stream, possibly because of climate change, has been quite volatile. Some years it has dug south to allow maximum tornado activity in the middle of the country, while other years it has stayed to the north.
Although tornado reporting has in prior decades been not as reliable as today because of a lack of equipment and manpower, it’s still not by accident that the six least active and four most active tornado seasons have been felt over the past decade. Another statistic that points to the irregular patterns is that the three earliest and four latest starts to the tornado season have all occurred in the past 15 years.
Basically, we’ve had this push and pull in recent history. Some years the number of tornadoes is quite high, and some years it is quite low. We’re not seeing “average” seasons as much any more, though the average of the extremes has led to no meaningful change to the average number of tornadoes per year. Expect this variation to continue into the future as less wind shear and warmer moister air fight it out.
The overall result could very well be fewer days of tornadoes per Harold Brooks of the National Storm Center, but more and stronger tornadoes when they do occur. Nothing about the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, or tornadoes over the past few decades break with this theory.
None of it proves or disproves Whitehouse’s beliefs, either. Indeed, we’ll never know whether larger global warming factors were at play in Monday’s storms. All we can do at this moment is react to them and give the people of Oklahoma all the help they need.
The eruption that started last week at Pavlof, at the far western end of the Alaska Peninsula, is still going strong. AVO says that the lava flows and fountains are continuing, with steam-and-ash plumes reported to be reaching in 5-6 km (low 20,000s feet). However, they did note that the plume doesn’t seem to be very ash rich as much of the volcanic material is staying closer to the summit of the volcano — but that didn’t stop some ash dusting towns as far away as Sand Point, 88 km (55 miles) to the east. Some images of the eruption (see above) clearly show the white plume that is likely mostly derived from melting snow and the dark grey plume made of volcanic ash and tephra. The activity is still producing small pyroclastic flows from snow-lava interactions and lahars further downslope as the volcanic debris mixes with melted snow/ice — be sure to check out the image of Pavlof taken May 16 over on the NASA Earth Observatory showing all these features. The seismicity (volcanic tremor) at Pavlof is almost constant, so there don’t seem to be many signs that the eruption is nearing an end — the current level of activity is likely the new normal at Pavlof for the time being, with some potential for explosions that might produce plumes reaching 9 km.
A strong surge of warm air is flowing into the central U.S. early this week dramatically rising temperatures from near record cold to near record heat at some locations. Meanwhile Alaska continues to be much colder than normal while Washington State much warmer than normal. Here is a brief review of the extremes.
The NWS office in Fairbanks, Alaska announced that the five week period of April 3 through May 7 was the coldest in station history (temperature records began in 1904) with an average of just 19.9°F (previous coldest such period was 20.6°F in 1924). As of today (May 13) the city has not seen an above normal daily temperature since April 2nd. A record daily low for May 13th was set with a 22° reading (old record 26° in 1938). Further north, temperatures fell below zero (-6°F at Killick Pass and -5°F at Antigun Pass) on May 13th as well. The 10° at Bettles beat its previous record low for the date by a full 10° (old record 20° in 2007) and is the coldest temperature ever recorded here so late in the season.
Meanwhile, Washington State enjoyed a record warm spell between May 5-11. In Seattle (at the Sea-Tac Airport site) the temperature rose from a daily record low of 37° on May 1st to record highs of 80° on May 5, 87° on May 6, and 80° on May 11. The 87° on May 6 was the warmest ever recorded so early in the season. Yakima, Washington saw an amazing string of six consecutive days above 90° from May 6-11. The average high for this period is 70°. Like Seattle, May 1st was a record or near-record cold morning in Yakima with a 26° reading just shy of the all-time May record of 25° (set on May 1, 1954). By May 10th the temperature peaked at 97°, the 3rd daily record high in a row (94° on May 8, 95° on May 9) and was also the warmest ever measured so early in the season. It was also the warmest temperature recorded anywhere in the U.S. for that day.
At this time a dramatic warm up is taking place in the central U.S. Chicago saw a low of 36° this morning (May 13) above its record for the date (30° in 1938) but by Tuesday it is expected to be as warm as 87°, a 51° rise in one day which, if it occurs, will be one the greatest one-day warm ups in the city’s history. The greatest was 58° from 0° on February 13, 1887 to 58° on February 14, 1887. Rockford, Illinois saw a near record low of 33° on May 13 (record is 32° set in 1938) and is expected to hit close to 90° on May 14 (record is 92° in 2007). The greatest one-day temperature rise in Rockford’s history was 63° (from 30° on April 9, 1930 to 93° on April 10, 1930). Bismarck, North Dakota measured 23° on May 12th (record for date was 20° in 1888) and reached a high of 91° on May 13 (tying record of 91° in 1932). Pierre, South Dakota saw a record daily low of 25° on May 12 which warmed up to 93° on May 13 (short of the record high of 99° set in 1941). The temperature rose 70° in Aberdeen, South Dakota from the low of May 12th (22°) to the high of May 13th (92°) and the story was just about the same in Huron where 26° on May 12 (1° short of the record 25° set in 1971) rose to 93° on May 13 (record 95° in 1894). Fargo, North Dakota which hadn’t seen its temperature rise above 50° all winter and spring until April 26th (the latest on record for such), spiked up to 93° on May 13th. It was just 24° the day before (May 12th).
Surface temperature map and wind flow for the Upper Midwest at 1 p.m. CST on May 13th. Note the almost 55° spread in temperatures from the Lake Superior area to the central Plains.
The warm surge will be much welcome for the folks in Michigan. Sault Ste. Marie measured 5.9” of snowfall on May 11-12, one of its greatest May snowfalls on record (the snowiest month of May was in 1927 when 7.9” accumulated). Gaylord, Michigan (in the north-central portion of the Lower Peninsula) had a high of just 35° on May 12th, the coldest daily high ever measured during the month of May. They also picked up 2.0” of snow.
Huge wet flakes of snow accumulate in Kalkaska, Michigan on May 12. This was one of the heaviest, latest snowfalls the area has ever seen. By Wednesday or Thursday the cold and snow should be just a memory as temperatures are expected to soar into the 70°s here. Photo by Sarah Robinson for The Weather Channel.
~in5d
Destroyed buildings and overturned cars left in the wake of the huge tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma, near Oklahoma City, on May 20, 2013. Gene Blevins/LADailyNewsZuma
