Disaster Management Practitioners Forum

Another Large Earthquake Off Coast Of Sumatra Likely

2008-12-04T06:21:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (Dec. 4, 2008) — The subduction zone that brought us the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and tsunami is ripe for yet another large event, despite a sequence of quakes that occurred in the Mentawai Islands area in 2007, according to a group of earthquake researchers led by scientists from the Tectonics Observatory at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

"From what we saw," says geologist Jean-Philippe Avouac, director of the Tectonics Observatory and one of the paper's lead authors, "we can say with some confidence that we're probably not done with large earthquakes in Sumatra."

The devastating magnitude 9.2 earthquake that occurred off the western coast of Sumatra on December 26, 2004—the earthquake that spawned a lethal tsunami throughout the Indian Ocean—took place in a subduction zone, an area where one tectonic plate dips under another, forming a quake-prone region.

It is that subduction zone that drew the interest of the Caltech-led team. Seismic activity has continued in the region since the 2004 event, they knew. But have the most recent earthquakes been able to relieve the previous centuries of built-up seismic stress?

Yes . . . and no. Take, for instance, an area just south of the 2004 quake, where a magnitude 8.6 earthquake hit in 2005. (That same area had also been the site of a major earthquake in 1861.) The 2005 quake, says Avouac, did a good job of "unzipping" the stuck area in that patch of the zone, effectively relieving the stresses that had built up since 1861. This means that it should be a few centuries before another large quake in that area would be likely.

The same cannot be said, however, of the area even further south along that same subduction zone, near the Mentawai Islands, a chain of about 70 islands off the western coasts of Sumatra and Indonesia. This area, too, has been hit by giant earthquakes in the past (an 8.8 in 1797 and a 9.0 in 1833). More recently, on September 12, 2007, it experienced two earthquakes just 12 hours apart: first a magnitude 8.4 quake and then a magnitude 7.9.

These earthquakes did not come as a surprise to the Caltech researchers. Caltech geologist and paper coauthor Kerry Sieh, who is now at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, had long been using coral growth rings to quantify the pattern of slow uplift and subsidence in the Mentawai Islands area; that pattern, he and his colleagues knew, is the result of stress build-up on the plate interface, which should eventually be released by future large earthquakes.

But was all that accumulated stress released in 2007? In the work described in the Nature letter, the researchers analyzed seismological records, remote sensing (inSAR) data, field measurements, and, most importantly, data gathered by an array of continuously recording GPS stations called SuGAr (for Sumatra Geodetic Array) to find out.

Their answer? The quakes hadn't even come close to doing their stress-reduction job. "In fact," says Ali Ozgun Konca, a Caltech scientist and the paper's first author, who did this work as a graduate student, "we saw release of only a quarter of the moment needed to make up for the accumulated deficit over the past two centuries." (Moment is a measure of earthquake size that takes into account how much the fault slips and over how much area.)

"The 2007 quakes occurred in the right place at the right time," adds Avouac. "They were not a surprise. What was a surprise was that those earthquakes were way smaller than we expected."

"The quake north of this region, in 2005, ruptured completely," says Konca. "But the 2007 sequence of quakes was more complicated. The slippage of the plates was patchy, and it didn't release all the strain that had accumulated."

"It was what we call a partial rupture," adds Avouac. "There's still enough strain to create another major earthquake in that region. We may have to wait a long time, but there's no reason to think it's over."

Their findings were published in a letter in the December 4 issue of the journal Nature.

Other authors on the paper include Anthony Sladen, Aron J. Meltzner, John Galetzka, Jeff Genrich, and Don V. Helmberger from Caltech; Danny H. Natawidjaja from the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI); Peng Fang and Yehuda Bock from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla; Zhenhong Li from the University of Glasgow in Scotland; Mohamed Chlieh from the Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis in France; Eric J. Fielding from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory; and Chen Ji from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The work was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Journal reference:

. Partial rupture of a locked patch of the Sumatra megathrust during the 2007 earthquake sequence.Nature, December 4, 2008

Adapted from materials provided by California Institute of Technology, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Source :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081203131042.htm

Evidence Of Tsunamis On Indian Ocean Shores Long Before 2004

2008-11-01T04:54:00.000-07:00

ScienceDaily (Oct. 31, 2008) — A quarter-million people were killed when a tsunami inundated Indian Ocean coastlines the day after Christmas in 2004. Now scientists have found evidence that the event was not a first-time occurrence.

A team working on Phra Thong, a barrier island along the hard-hit west coast of Thailand, unearthed evidence of at least three previous major tsunamis in the preceding 2,800 years, the most recent from about 550 to 700 years ago. That team, led by Kruawun Jankaew of Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, included Brian Atwater, a University of Washington affiliate professor of Earth and space sciences and a U.S. Geological Survey geologist.

A second team found similar evidence of previous tsunamis during the last 1,200 years in Aceh, a province at the northern tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra where more than half the deaths from the 2004 tsunami occurred.

Sparse knowledge of the region's tsunami history contributed to the loss of life in 2004, the scientists believe. Few people living along the coasts knew to heed the natural tsunami warnings, such as the strong shaking felt in Aceh and the rapid retreat of ocean water from the shoreline that was observed in Thailand.

But on an island just off the coast of Aceh most people safely fled to higher ground in 2004 because the island's oral history includes information about a devastating tsunami in 1907.

"A region's tsunami history can serve as a long-term warning system," Atwater said.

The research will reinforce the importance of tsunami education as an essential part of early warning, said Jankaew, the lead author.

"Many people in Southeast Asia, especially in Thailand, believe, or would like to believe, that it will never happen again," Jankaew said. "This will be a big step towards mitigating the losses from future tsunami events."

The team found evidence for previous tsunamis by digging pits and auguring holes at more than 150 sites on an island about 75 miles north of Phuket, a Thai tourist resort area ravaged by the 2004 tsunami. That tsunami was generated 300 miles to the west when the seafloor was warped during a magnitude 9.2 earthquake.

At 20 sites in marshes, the researchers found layers of white sand about 4 inches thick alternating with layers of black peaty soil. Witnesses confirmed that the top sand layer, just below the surface, was laid down by the 2004 tsunami, which ran 20 to 30 feet deep across much of the island.

Radiocarbon dating of bark fragments in soil below the second sand layer led the scientists to estimate that the most recent predecessor to the 2004 tsunami probably occurred between A.D. 1300 and 1450. They also noted signs of two earlier tsunamis during the last 2,500 to 2,800 years.

There are no known written records describing an Indian Ocean tsunami between A.D. 1300 and 1450, including the accounts of noted Islamic traveler Ibn Battuta and records of the great Ming Dynasty armadas of China, both of which visited the area at different times during that period. Atwater hopes the new geologic evidence might prompt historians to check other Asian documents from that era.

"This research demonstrates that tsunami geology, both recent and past tsunamis, can help extend the tsunami catalogues far beyond historical records," Jankaew said.

The new findings also carry lessons for the northwest coast of North America, where scientists estimate that many centuries typically elapse between catastrophic tsunamis generated by the Cascadia subduction zone.

"Like Aceh, Cascadia has a history of tsunamis that are both infrequent and catastrophic, and that originate during earthquakes that provide a natural tsunami warning," Atwater said. "This history calls for sustained efforts in tsunami education."

Findings from both teams are published in the Oct. 30 edition of Nature.

Other co-authors of the Thai paper are Yuki Sawai of the Geological Survey of Japan, Montri Choowong and Thasinee Charoentitirat of Chulalongkorn University, Maria Martin of the UW and Amy Prendergast of Geoscience Australia.

The research was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, Thailand's Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Thailand Research Fund.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081029141037.htm

Cyclones in the Indian Ocean: Facts and figures

2008-10-16T23:38:00.000-07:00

Greg O'Hare explains the what, why, when and how of cyclones, and reviews their effects in South Asia.

'Tropical cyclone' is the general term for low-pressure atmospheric circulations in the tropics. These have anticlockwise rotating winds in the northern hemisphere and clockwise rotating winds in the southern hemisphere.

Low to moderate intensity tropical cyclones bring much needed rain for agriculture around the northern Indian Ocean. But, when tropical cyclones strengthen, they can bring great loss of life and property to the region.

Cyclonic structures

All tropical cyclones have low atmospheric pressure at ground level, and a vortex of converging winds and rising air. They all have extensive rain-bearing layered clouds (deep nimbostratus) and towering vertically extensive cumulonimbus rain-bearing clouds. Yet despite these common features, tropical cyclones in South Asia vary greatly in size, frequency and intensity, and have varying effects on the land they cross.

Table 1 shows four types of tropical cyclones. These weather systems form a continuum — if conditions are right and surface pressure continually falls, a tropical low can develop over time into a tropical depression, then into a tropical storm and eventually into an intense tropical storm. In South Asia, as in the western world, the most intense tropical storms are called hurricanes. But, confusingly, the most intense circulations in the Pacific are called cyclones.

Type of tropical cyclonic system

Speed (m/sec)

Height (km)

Duration (days)

Width (km)

Frequency

Rainfall (cm)

Low

2–4

1–3

150–300

frequent

5–10

Depression

8–17

4–8

2–5

250–500

common

10–20

Storm

17–32

8–10

3–10

300–600

occasional

20–50

Hurricane

>32

8–12

5–7

400–1000

rare

50–150

Table 1: Types of tropical cyclones in India [1]

Lows and depressions are the most frequent systems and produce most of India's annual rainfall (about 890mm). Indeed, with their lower intensity rainfalls, they form the backbone of South Asian agriculture.

But when a long series of deep tropical depressions occur (lasting three to four weeks), the cumulative rainfall can lead to extensive flooding, dam collapses and landslides. In southern Bangladesh, more than 100 families were washed away when a dam collapsed in July 2004. In 2008, summer monsoon flooding and landslides in India (especially in Bihar State) killed 1065 people and affected approximately 7.9 million people.

How do hurricanes form?

Tropical cyclones affecting south Asia originate over surrounding oceans, especially in the Bay of Bengal. They require at least five conditions to form and develop: low pressure at the surface; abundant moist air capable of convective or upward movement in the atmosphere; ocean surface temperatures over 26–27 degrees Celsius; small wind shear — the rate at which wind strength and direction change with height in the atmosphere — (especially for the taller more intense systems); and the power of the Earth's rotation to spin the system into a rotating vortex.

Tropical cyclones in South Asia derive their main energy from intense evaporation over warm water — not, as in mid-latitude cyclones, from contrasting temperatures between cold and warmer air masses.

Water vapour, evaporated from the sea, is drawn into the developing cyclone. As the rising air within the cyclone cools, the evaporated moisture becomes cloud, forming billions of tiny water droplets. Converting the water vapour to water droplets releases a great amount of (latent) heat, providing energy that helps invigorate and maintain the cyclone's development.

Timing and monsoon regulation

The tropical cyclones that influence South Asia are part of the regional monsoon wind system. The South Asian monsoon has moist south-westerly winds blowing from the southern oceans over the South Asian continental land mass in summer, and dry north-easterly winds blowing in the opposite direction in winter.

The differential heating of land and sea drives this movement. In the summer, the land heats up more quickly than the oceans, producing low pressure over land and high pressure at sea. Winds blow from high to low pressure, bringing strong, moist winds from the oceans towards South Asia. During the winter months, the differential heating and pressure systems are reversed, and strong dry north-easterly winds end up blowing from South Asia towards the southern oceans.

Most rainfall over the region comes in the summer months (June to September) from relatively weak but frequent tropical lows and depressions. Driven by monsoon winds, these systems eventually move over land along the west coast of India, but more frequently affect the eastern coast of India and Bangladesh.

The more intense tropical storms and hurricanes, which also tend to form mainly in the Bay of Bengal, often occur as the wet summer changes to a dry winter monsoon (October to November) when wind shear is low. Powerful cyclones, which tower up into the atmosphere, do not easily form during the main monsoon season (June to September) because high wind shear easily destabilises them, knocking them over.

Hurricane damage

The areas of South Asia most vulnerable to hurricanes are the low-lying coastal regions around the Bay of Bengal (Bangladesh, Eastern India and Myanmar). These are the first areas storms hit when they reach land and are also some of the most agriculturally fertile — and densely populated — areas in South Asia, including coastal river deltas like the Godavari, Ganges and Irrawaddy.

Hurricanes' high wind speeds, intense rainfalls and storm surges (unusually high sea levels) destroy life and property, and can leave areas devastated. Winds, often travelling at more than 117 kilometres per hour, remove or seriously damage flimsy housing.

High intensity rainfall over a relatively short period (up to and above 50 centimetres over three to seven days) can cause serious flooding and major crop loss. As with the less intense cyclones, such flooding can increase loss of life and property if it causes reservoir collapses and landslides.

But the most destructive part of a cyclone is the storm surge at the front of the storm pushed up to high levels as it moves inland. Storm surges from powerful hurricanes can reach two to five metres in height along the eastern coast of Andhra Pradesh in India. At the head of the Bay of Bengal, where the coastline becomes restricted, storm surges can reach a staggering 12 or 13 metres and kill many people (see Table 2).

Region	Date	Deaths
Andhra Pradesh	10 Oct 1679	20,000
Bangladesh	07 Oct 1737	300,000
Bangladesh	13 Nov 1970	500,000
Andhra Pradesh	26 Nov 1977	>10,000
West Bengal	29 Apr 1991	140,000

Table 2: Hurricane deaths in the Bay of Bengal region [1]

Hurricanes in a warming world

There is every chance that hurricanes will do more damage in South Asia in the future as population densities increase in coastal areas. The numbers of people at risk may also rise if hurricanes become more intense as the world and oceans warm up.

Some studies have found no evidence for an increase in hurricanes' frequency or intensity in the Caribbean. [2,3] Others have found little change in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes globally during the last 20 years. [4]

By contrast, other strong evidence based on good quality data has shown that in recent years hurricanes, particularly the stronger ones (categories four and five), have become more intense in all hurricane regions, including the northern Indian Ocean (Table 3). [5,6]

Basin

1975–1989

1990–2004

No.

Percentage of all hurricanes

No.

Percentage of all hurricanes

East Pacific

West Pacific

116

North Atlantic

South West Pacific

Indian Ocean

Table 3: Changes in the number and percentage of category four and five hurricanes for the periods 1975–89 and 1990–2004 for different ocean basins. [5]

Vulnerable populations

The people most vulnerable to hurricanes around the world include those with limited economic resources, low levels of technology, poor information and skills, minimal infrastructure and unstable or weak political institutions (Table 4). Such groups are not fully able to prepare for, or protect themselves from, hurricanes, nor to respond and cope with their effects.

Low cast communities

Ethnic minorities

Women, especially those who may be widowed or deserted

Old men and women

Children, particularly girls

The disabled

People dependent on low incomes

People in debt

People isolated from transport, communication and health services infrastructure

Table 4: Disaster prone groups in India [1]

When a category four hurricane hit the Godavari delta region of eastern India in November 1986, various marginalised groups responded differently to the hurricane's impact. For example, poor female agricultural labourers working in flood damaged rice fields had to sell their few possessions and become maids in nearby villages, or migrate to other paddy regions in order to cope. By contrast, poor fishing communities along the delta coast (where many people died due to storm surges) relied on close family and kinship links for money, food and fishing tackle to get over the storm's effects.

Basic precautions

There are ways to make the likely rise in hurricane impact less damaging in the region. One solution is to improve the physical structures that protect people. For example, many new hurricane shelters are being built along the coast of eastern India. Deaths from hurricanes will certainly decline if more local people can be encouraged to use the shelters.

Improvements in government-built early warning and evacuation procedures will also help save lives, although access to these may be limited because many communities suffer from isolation, language barriers, and poor transport and communication (including radio/phone) systems. Still, because of improvements, albeit slow, in the introduction and uptake of such systems, hurricanes that would have killed 10,000 people in Andhra Pradesh in the late 1970s kill around 1,000 today.

Governments and international agencies can also do a lot more to mitigate storm impacts through rehabilitation policies, such as providing basic relief (food, shelter, cooking oil and clean water). It is also crucial that affected communities get better health services, since the spread of water-borne diseases (like typhoid and dysentery) after hurricanes often kills far more people than flooding, landslides or even storm surges.

Greg O'Hare is a professor of geography at the University of Derby, United Kingdom.

REFERENCES

[1] O'Hare, G. Hurricane 07b in the Godavari Delta, Andhra Pradesh, India: vulnerability, mitigation and the spatial impact. The Geographical Journal167, 23–38 (2001)

[2] Michaels P.J., Knappenberger, P.C. & Davis, R.E. Sea surface temperatures and tropical cyclones in the Atlantic basin. Geophysical Research Letters 33, (2006)

[3] Hoyos, C.D., Agudelo, P.A., Webster, P.J. et al. Deconvolution of the factors contributing to the increase in global hurricane intensity. Science 312, 94–97 (2006)

[4] Klotzbach, P.J. Trends in global cyclone activity over the past 20 years (1986-2005) Geophysical Research Letters 33, (2006)

[5] Webster P.J., Holland, G.J., Curry, J.A. et al. Changes in tropical cyclone number, duration and intensity in a warming environment. Science 309, 1844–1846 (2005)

[6] Elsner, J.B., Kossin, J.P. & Jagger, T.H. The increasing intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones. Nature 455, 92–95 (2008)

Rigorous Earthquake Simulations Aim To Make Buildings Safer

2008-08-25T04:07:00.000-07:00

ScienceDaily (Aug. 24, 2008) — Engineering researchers from UC San Diego and the University of Arizona have concluded three months of rigorous earthquake simulation tests on a half-scale three-story structure, and will now begin sifting through their results so they can be used in the future designs of buildings across the nation. The engineers produced a series of earthquake jolts as powerful as magnitude 8.0 on a structure resembling a parking garage.

The one-million pound precast concrete structure is the largest footprint of any structure ever tested on a shake table in the United States. The earthquake tests were conducted at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering’s Englekirk Structural Engineering Center, which is about eight miles east of the university’s main campus. As part of the project, the researchers are testing the seismic response of precast concrete floor systems used in structures such as parking garages, college dormitories, hotels, stadiums, prisons and office buildings. They are also trying to figure out ways to improve the connections in precast concrete buildings.
“One of the purposes of our research is to develop better designs for precast concrete buildings,” said Jose Restrepo, co-principal investigator of the project and a structural engineering professor at UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering. “The results of our research have been tremendous.”
Precast concrete, which is built in pieces and then put together to construct buildings, has been a breakthrough in the industry in terms of saving time and money, and increasing durability. While precast concrete has proven to be a robust design material for structures, researchers are working to provide the industry with new methods of connecting these pieces more efficiently.
“This is really important to our industry because we’ll be able to develop structures that can resist nature’s most difficult loads, including earthquakes,” said Tom D’Arcy, spokesman for the Precast/Prestressed Institute and chairman of The Consulting Engineers Group, Inc.
The $2.3 million research project is a collaboration between UC San Diego, the University of Arizona and Lehigh University. It is funded by the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute and its member companies and organizations, the National Science Foundation, the Charles Pankow Foundation and the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES).
During the tests, the researchers simulated earthquakes for different regions of the country, including Berkeley, Calif..; Knoxville, Tenn; and Seattle, Wash.
“We conducted tests from lower seismicity all the way to higher seismicity and shook the building stronger and stronger each time with a higher intensity,” Restrepo said.
The results of the research are expected to be implemented into building codes across the United States within the next few years. The researchers and industry leaders hope that this project and others like it will help prevent the future failure of buildings, much like what happened during the 6.7 magnitude earthquake in Northridge, CA. in 1994, with the collapse of several precast parking structures.
“Since that time, we have been working to come up with designs that will make these structures survive a Northridge earthquake or stronger,” said Robert Fleischman, principal investigator of the project and a civil engineering professor at the University of Arizona.
Seismic Simulation
Before the testing, the researchers performed computer simulations to help design the three-story structure and to determine where sensors should be placed on it. The data recorded by the sensors were used to take measurements of certain physical phenomena on the structure such as displacements, strains, and accelerations caused by the shaking; and to estimate forces in the structure. The data collected will also explain behavior of the structure during and after jolts, and will be used to compare directly to the simulations to either validate or adjust the computer models.
The use of these sensors, along with the computer simulation, may help lower costs of future seismic tests.
“We are only able to perform physical experiments on that one structure, but if we can show that our models capture important response properly, we can run hundreds of earthquake simulations a year for the cost of a graduate student, a fast computer and a software license, which, at around $50,000, is substantially less than the costs of these kinds of tests,” Fleischman said, adding that the researchers hope to have their first formal report on the seismic tests completed by early 2009.
The $9 million Englekirk shake table is one of 15 earthquake testing facilities. The UCSD-NEES shake table, the largest in the United States and the only outdoor shake table in the world, is ideally suited for testing tall, full-scale buildings.
“The Englekirk Center is very important to the research community and to the industry because it has an outdoor environment where we can perform large scale tests that can’t be done anywhere else in the world,” Restrepo said.
The recent seismic tests are an example of how the Jacobs School is performing research at the forefront of the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080822131253.htm

Earth cracks in UP seismic related: Expert

2008-06-21T00:39:00.000-07:00

Motion of a massive granitic body under the earth could be the probable reason behind alarming cracks on the earth crust that have created a panic like situation in northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (UP).
“If this granitic craton motion is changed due to some tectonic reason, one may see subsidence at large scale—since a fault is present along Kanpur-Lucknow—there could be danger of large surface deformation,” cautioned an US based Indian scientist Ramesh Singh.
The effect of motion of this block will be reflected in widespread cracks, he said. Singh is a Professor at George Mason University in Washington and vice chair of GeoRisk Commission of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics.
He further said that the Government of India should monitor seismic activities in the area to avert any major disaster due to this motion.
Singh, who had extensively studied the seismology in this part of UP during his stint at IIT Kanpur as a Professor said if the orientation of such long cracks was in the east-west direction, then the cracks could be due to stress on the surface of the earth due to motion of this massive craton (granitic body) exposed near Jhansi.
He said this massive body underlying the region is inclined towards northeast with depth reaching 300-500 metres near Kanpur and 1,200 metres in Lucknow.
About 18 months back, scientists observed a shift in the position of the Sangam—the confluence of rivers Ganges and Yamuna and mythical Saraswati near Allahabad—and thought it was due to the sediment load in the rivers or due to plate motion, Singh said.
“Now, the appearance of large widespread cracks is clear evidence of neo-tectonic activities associated with the building of stress in this region and we must monitor seismic activities along Kanpur-Lucknow and Moradabad faultlines,” the Professor said.
Singh said he initially suspected that the cracks might be due to subsidence as a result of excessive groundwater withdrawal but ruled it “since the cracks were seen on a regional scale in many parts of Kanpur, Hamirpur, and Allahabad.”
The formation of cracks on the earth continues to affect various districts of UP and two villages near Lucknow are the latest to witness long fissures on the surface.
Fields in Kakori block’s two villages, Dullu Khera and Vader Khera, about 10 km from Lucknow, have developed wide cracks up to 250 metres long, officials said.
Besides the villages in Lucknow district, six districts of Uttar Pradesh have been witnessing this phenomenon for about a week.

Source: http://www.igovernment.in/site/earth-cracks-in-up-seismic-related-expert/

Learning from failures in disaster response

2008-06-20T03:29:00.000-07:00

The Myanmar cyclone and Chinese earthquake highlight the need for effective dissemination of information, both before and after a disaster.The effectiveness with which a country deals with a major accident or disaster is a revealing indicator of its sensitivity to the needs of its population. It depends heavily on the country's ability to respond to the population's need for information, prior to and following the event.In the mid-1980s, a key factor in the collapse of the communist regime in the Soviet Union was public resentment of the mishandling of information about the near meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear plant. It took authorities more than 24 hours to publicly acknowledge the accident, and the lack of evacuation strategies added to losses from the disaster.The recent impact of cyclone Nargis in Myanmar (formerly Burma) and the earthquake in Sichuan province, China, has posed major challenges to both countries in dealing with the event, and handling information about prevention and mitigation.Each has raised important questions about the failure to integrate scientific knowledge into disaster planning, at the cost of thousands of lives. And each has highlighted the need for accurate communication of information, if the impact of major disasters is to be minimised and if government officials are to be held accountable for their efforts — or lack thereof.Clearest lessonIn the case of Myanmar, the failures are glaringly obvious.Firstly, there has been the failure to take on board increasingly widespread knowledge about how the destruction of mangrove forests dramatically increases the vulnerability of coastal populations.This was one of the clearest lessons of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and has been acknowledged in other countries, including Bangladesh. But Myanmar authorities seem to have paid little attention to mangrove conservation. UN Food and Agriculture Organization officials say the Irrawaddy delta — the country's largest mangrove area, where Nargis struck — has lost half its mangrove area since 1975 (see UN: Mangrove loss 'intensified' Myanmar cyclone damage).Secondly, it is clear that the country lacks the comprehensive communication infrastructure — and perhaps even the political will — to ensure that information about impending disasters reaches the areas where it is most needed.Warnings about the imminent cyclone were posted by the country's meteorological office. But there was no way of rapidly communicating these warnings to those most in danger. Furthermore, the lack of protection measures meant that even those aware could do little about it.Widespread praiseIn China, the situation has been different. The government has won widespread praise for the speed with which it has acknowledged the size of the disaster and submitted its rescue efforts to international scrutiny — in stark contrast to the Tangshan earthquakes of 1976.This new attitude has been reflected in the willingness of earthquake specialists to open themselves up to queries from local journalists. In the past, they would have insisted that all such questions be directed to government officials. Through a fortunate accident of timing, a new law on public access to information came into effect on 1 May, requiring them to act differently. But even in China, important questions have been raised.For example, there is no guarantee that the scientists who have made themselves accessible in an emergency situation will maintain this attitude in less urgent times. In addition to their willingness to deal with the media, scientific institutions must be trained to release information in a fast and comprehensible way.At the same time, media reporting on baseless rumours of new earthquake shocks has reinforced the need to train science journalists to make their own judgments about when to trust apparently scientific statements.Equally important is the need for some probing journalism into why so many schools collapsed, particularly when buildings around them often remained standing. In many cases, the problems appear to have been caused not by a lack of scientific or technical information, but by a failure to put information to use.Intense pressureIncreased openness is not without cost. The more the Soviet government unveiled information about the Chernobyl disaster, the greater became the criticism of its failure to protect its citizens.Undoubtedly, this fear lies at the heart of the situation in Myanmar. The sight on state-run television of the country's prime minister visiting a few hastily erected camps for survivors — all looking remarkably well-fed — is far less likely to generate internal criticism than film of bloated bodies and starving children almost three weeks after the cyclone.In the long-term, attempts to impose heavy-handed restrictions on the coverage of disasters, particularly in an era of global electronic communication, will inevitably be counterproductive. As they learn more about the reality of the situation, the less confidence they will have in those who tell them that the situation is different.Providing citizens with the information they need to protect themselves against future cyclones or earthquakes is a crucial role for science communicators. Identifying the political or other obstacles that prevent this information from getting through or being put into practice is potentially even more important.

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/editorials/learning-from-failures-in-disaster-response.html

Active Submarine Volcanoes Found Near Fiji

2008-06-20T03:01:00.000-07:00

ScienceDaily (June 20, 2008) — Several huge active submarine volcanoes, spreading ridges and rift zones have been discovered northeast of Fiji by a team of Australian and American scientists aboard the Marine National Facility Research Vessel, Southern Surveyor.

On the hunt for subsea volcanic and hot-spring activity, the team of geologists located the volcanoes while mapping previously uncharted areas. Using high-tech multi-beam sonar mapping equipment, digital images of the seafloor revealed the formerly unknown features.
The summits of two of the volcanoes, named ’Dugong’, and ’Lobster’, are dominated by large calderas at depths of 1100 and 1500 metres.
During the six-week research expedition in the Pacific Ocean, scientists from The Australian National University (ANU), CSIRO Exploration & Mining and the USA, collaborated to survey the topography of the seafloor, analysing rock types and formation, and monitoring deep-sea hot spring activity around an area known as the North Lau Basin, 400 kilometres northeast of Fiji.
The voyage’s Chief Scientist, ANU Professor Richard Arculus describes the terrain – the result of extreme volcanic and tectonic activity – as spectacular. “Some of the features look like the volcanic blisters seen on the surface of Venus,” he says.
“These active volcanoes are modern day evidence of mineral deposition such as copper, zinc, and lead and give an insight into the geological make-up of Australia,” he says.
“It provides a model of what happened millions of years ago to explain the formation of the deposits of precious minerals that are currently exploited at places like Broken Hill and Mt Isa. It may also provide exploration geologists with clues about new undiscovered mineral deposits in Australia.
“These deep-sea features are important in understanding the influences that have shaped not only our unique continent but indeed the whole planet,” Professor Arculus says.
Such discoveries highlighted man’s lack of knowledge about the world’s oceans. “We know more about the surface of Mars than we know about the ocean seafloor,” Professor Arculus says.
CSIRO’s Director of Research Vessels, Captain Fred Stein, says the expedition was a humbling experience. “It was a reminder that at the beginning of the 21st century it is still possible – on what is often regarded as a thoroughly explored planet – to discover a previously unknown massif larger than Mt Kosciuszko,” he says.
“We are fortunate that we can offer the scientific capability of the Southern Surveyor to Australian scientists. It’s the only Australian research vessel that can provide the opportunity to conduct such valuable research to make these kinds of discoveries possible.”

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080619093259.htm

Chinese scientists call for better quake prediction

2008-06-20T02:54:00.000-07:00

BEIJING] Scientists in China are calling for improvements in earthquake prediction, including the establishment of an early-warning system and methods for scientists to share quake information.
The calls come after the Sichuan earthquake — the country's most serious earthquake in 30 years — hit on 12 May (see China displays openness in earthquake response).
Ni Sidao, a professor of geophysics at the University of Science and Technology of China, says that although current scientific methods cannot accurately predict an earthquake, an early-warning system could alert people to leave for open spaces before buildings are destroyed.
Ni made his remarks last week (25 May) alongside other scientists at the China Science and Humanities Forum in Beijing, operated by the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
He said that P waves — early-arriving non-destructive seismic waves — can be used to detect and calculate the scale of an earthquake within ten seconds with the aid of computers.
In the case of Sichuan, the later-arriving, destructive seismic waves (S waves) took 30 seconds to reach Beichuan — the most seriously hit county, 90 kilometres north of the epicentre — and nearly 100 seconds to reach Qingchuan County, 200 kilometres from the epicentre.
People in Beichuan could have had a ten-second warning of the earthquake with an early-warning system, allowing some to move outdoors and trains to stop to avoid derailing, said Ni.
But he admitted that current seismic monitoring stations in most parts of China are too isolated to form a warning network.
Ren Luchuan, a senior researcher at China Earthquake Networks Centre (CENC), welcomes Ni's suggestions, but says such a system is very difficult to operate.
"[The time difference between P and S waves] is so short that it is very hard to establish a system to notify residents," he told SciDev.Net, though he says such a system could be used for key sites such as nuclear power stations, which could close reactors.
Longer-term prediction seems to be just as fraught with problems.
In the latest issue of the Chinese language journal Science and Technology Review (28 May), Wu Lixin from the Chinese University of Mining and Technology, Beijing, and colleagues report an abnormal temperature rise in the thermal satellite images of the eastern front of Qinghai–Tibet plateau — the fault that caused the earthquake — 20 days before the Sichuan earthquake.
The authors suggested this rise could be caused by tectonic plate movement, and could be an indicator for earthquake prediction.
But Ren says many factors could cause the abnormal temperature increases, leading to uncertainty in using temperature change to predict earthquakes.
In a separate article published in the same issue, however, Wu writes that there should be more intensive, accurate and consistent analyses of thermal satellite images, and that these should be frequently checked against seismic wave monitoring.
In addition, Wu says an earthquake information sharing system should be established, so that general researchers can analyse or input data about abnormal observations into a system for professional seismologists to screen.

Source : http://www.scidev.net/en/news/chinese-scientists-call-for-better-quake-predictio.html

Earthquake In Illinois Could Portend An Emerging Threat

2008-04-30T05:34:00.000-07:00

ScienceDaily (Apr. 25, 2008) — To the surprise of many, the earthquake on April 18, 2008, about 120 miles east of St. Louis, originated in the Wabash Valley Fault and not the better-known and more-dreaded New Madrid Fault in Missouri's bootheel.

The concern of Douglas Wiens, Ph.D., and Michael Wysession, Ph.D., seismologists at Washington University in St. Louis, is that the New Madrid Fault may have seen its day and the Wabash Fault is the new kid on the block.
The earthquake registered 5.2 on the Richter scale and hit at 4:40 a.m. with a strong aftershock occurring at approximately 10:15 a.m. that morning, followed by lesser ones in subsequent days. The initial earthquake was felt in parts of 16 states.
"I think everyone's interested in the Wabash Valley Fault because a lot of the attention has been on the New Madrid Fault, but the Wabash Valley Fault could be the more dangerous one, at least for St. Louis and Illinois," said Wiens, professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences. "The strongest earthquakes in the last few years have come from the Wabash Valley Fault, which needs more investigation."
Wiens said that seismologist Robert Hermann of Saint Louis University, Gary Pavils of Indiana University, and several geologists including Steven Obermeir of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), have made studies of the Wabash Valley Fault. Pavils also has run a dense local array of stations and recorded many very small earthquakes at the Wabash Valley Fault. Hermann has studied the 1968 magnitude 5.5 earthquake, the largest ever recorded there. Obermeir and others have found disturbed sediments from previous earthquakes along the fault with estimated magnitudes of about 7 on the Richter scale over the past several thousand years.
According to Wysession, there are 200,000 earthquakes recorded every year, with a magnitude 6 earthquake happening every three days somewhere in the world.
"There hasn't been a magnitude 6 earthquake on the New Madrid zone in more than 100 years, yet in 20 years there have been three magnitude 5 or better earthquakes on the Wabash Valley Fault," said Wyssession, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences. "There is evidence that sometime in the past the Wabash Valley Fault has produced as strong as magnitude 7 earthquakes. On the other hand, the New Madrid Fault has been very quiet for a long time now. Clearly, the Wabash Valley Fault has gotten our deserved attention."
Wysession said a recent re-analysis of data by USGS shows that the New Madrid fault risk is much less than was thought three decades ago. The three notable earthquakes that occurred at the end of 1811 and the beginning of 1812 were not magnitude 8s, rather magnitude 7s. A magnitude 8 is 30 times more energetic than a magnitude 7.
"The damage to the region by those earthquakes has been exaggerated," Wysession said. "St. Louis was here at the time, and all that happened was some chimneys fell in East St. Louis. The little village of St. Genevieve, closer to the fault zone, had no damage at all. But, let's face it, St. Louis is the biggest city in the region of both faults, and the Wabash Valley Fault is closer to us. If the big one does occur, it's looking more like it will come out of Illinois."
Wysession said that the North American Earth's crust is filled with cracks and faults, and that an earthquake can occur anywhere on the continent. Many of the faults are undetected.
"As the continents bang into each other, sometimes they pull apart, and the crust cracks and ruptures, causing earthquakes," he explained. "This whole region of New Madrid and the Wabash Valley seismic zone became a rift zone about 750 million years ago when the continent almost broke apart. There was a lot of volcanic activity, a lot of seismic activity. The crust got stretched and thinned. By looking at seismometers, we can actually see many of these faults in the thinning of crusts underground."
Wysession said that an earthquake in the Midwest will be felt ten times farther away than one occurring in the western United States because the crust beneath the Midwest is very old, stiff and cold. The rock is about 1.7 billion years old and the seismic waves can travel very long distances through this type of crust. It can be felt hundreds of miles away, even if it was a smaller earthquake. In the western United States, the rock is hotter, and thus it dampens the shock waves and they are not felt as far away.
Despite the fact that most seismologists, including Wysession and Wiens, don't think it likely that earthquakes ever will be predicted — which inevitably dredges up memories of the 1990 Midwest earthquake scare sparked by Iben Browning — Wysession says that there are some precursory phenomena that have been observed right before some earthquakes. Radon or helium gas may leak out of the ground as the ground cracks. Sometimes water well pressure changes, or there's a change in the magnetic field. Electrical resistivity changes have been noted, too.
"These are changes we can measure with instruments, but we can't sense them as humans," he said. "Many people think that animals sense atmospheric changes. You always get stories about Rover going bananas right before an earthquake. But until Rover learns to tell us what he's barking about, we won't be able to employ animals in any predictive way. "

Source:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424171350.htm

RISING TEMPERATURES, MORE EXTREME WEATHER

2008-03-26T05:55:00.001-07:00

The planet's temperature is rising, and it's rising at an accelerated pace that most scientists say is down to manmade factors. As the climate changes, they predict it will lead to more dramatic weather and disasters - not just droughts, but storms, floods and spreading disease too.
Climate change increases risk of conflict 250 million people could be displaced by climate-related disasters by 2050 The world's poor - the most vulnerable to climage change - need help adapting

Statistics from the International Disaster Database show a steep rise in weather-related disasters since the middle of the 20th century, and the number of people affected is also going up. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the world can expect more heatwaves and droughts, heavier rains, stronger storms and rising sea levels due to global warming caused by emissions of greenhouse gases.

Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia - where the climate is already more extreme and arid regions are common - are likely to be most affected as rainfall declines and its timing becomes less predictable. Large numbers of people could be forced to find new homes as their living environments are submerged, or food and water become scarce. British-based aid and development agency Christian Aid quotes a scientist's estimate that up to 250 million people could be displaced by climate-related disasters by the middle of the century. And experts say diseases will spread to new places as the planet changes. In 2007, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to the IPCC and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore for their work in building up and spreading knowledge about climate change. This underlined growing awareness of the potential impact climate change could have on security. Most experts say tensions caused by the environmental impact of climate change won't necessarily lead to conflict - but where they add to or make other stresses worse, there is an increased risk of violence. There's intense debate and a wide range of competing ideas on how to tackle what could be the most important issue of our time. Many developing countries believe richer nations should make greater commitments to curbing their carbon emissions, and provide more funding to help them adapt to climate change.
In December 2007, at a major meeting in Bali, nearly 200 nations agreed to launch negotiations on a new pact to follow the Kyoto Protocol, which binds rich nations to cap emissions of greenhouse gases until 2012. The United States is the only industrialised country that has not signed the Kyoto Protocol. Aid agencies are also waking up to the impact of climate change on their projects and the communities with which they work. Increasingly, they are helping local people reduce the risk of climate-related disasters, and calling for more international support to cope with the negative consquences of climate change.

Source: Reuters

Glaciers Are Melting Faster Than Expected, UN Reports

2008-03-19T04:26:00.000-07:00

ScienceDaily (Mar. 18, 2008) — The world's glaciers are continuing to melt away with the latest official figures showing record losses, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) announced today

Hanging glaciers on Dome Blanc Langtang Himal, Himalayas, Nepal. Himalayan glaciers are receding in a similar way as glaciers in other mountain ranges at low latitudes. Many glaciers in these areas could disappear within the coming decades. (Credit: iStockphoto/Steve Estvanik)

Data from close to 30 reference glaciers in nine mountain ranges indicate that between the years 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 the average rate of melting and thinning more than doubled.
The findings come from the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), a centre based at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and that is supported by UNEP. It has been tracking the fate of glaciers for over a century. Continuous data series of annual mass balance, expressed as thickness change, are available for 30 reference glaciers since 1980. Prof. Dr. Wilfried Haeberli, Director of the Service said: "The latest figures are part of what appears to be an accelerating trend with no apparent end in sight." The Service calculates thickening and thinning of glaciers in terms of 'water equivalent'. The estimates for the year 2006 indicate that further shrinking took place equal to around 1.4 metres of water equivalent compared to losses of half a metre in 2005. "This continues the trend in accelerated ice loss during the past two and a half decades and brings the total loss since 1980 to more than 10.5 metres of water equivalent," said Professor Haberli. During 1980-1999, average loss rates had been 0.3 metres per year. Since the turn of the millennium, this rate had increased to about half a metre per year.
The record loss during these two decades – 0.7 metres in 1998 – has now been exceeded by three out of the past six years: 2003, 2004 and 2006. On average, one metre water equivalent corresponds to 1.1 metres in ice thickness indicating a further shrinking in 2006 of 1.5 actual metres and since 1980 a total reduction in thickness of ice of just over 11.5 metres or almost 38 feet. Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: "Millions if not billions of people depend directly or indirectly on these natural water storage facilities for drinking water, agriculture, industry and power generation during key parts of the year," said Mr Steiner. "There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine. The glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise and it is absolutely essential that everyone sits up and takes notice," he said. "To an important and significant extent that is already happening—indeed the elements of a Green Economy are already emerging from the more than $100 billion being invested in renewable energies to the responsible investment principles endorsed by 300 financial institutions with $13 trillion-worth of assets," said Mr Steiner. "The litmus test will come in late 2009 at the climate convention meeting in Copenhagen. Here governments must agree on a decisive new emissions reduction and adaptation-focused regime. Otherwise, and like the glaciers, our room for man oeuvre and the opportunity to act may simply melt away," he added. The WGMS findings also contain figures from around 100 glaciers, of which 30 form the core assessment, found in Antarctica, Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America and the Pacific. Some of the most dramatic shrinking has taken place in Europe with Norway's Breidalblikkbrea glacier thinning by close to 3.1 metres (2.9 metre water equivalent) during 2006 compared with a thinning of 0.3 metres (0.28 metres water equivalent) in the year 2005.
Other dramatic shrinking has been registered at Austria's Grosser Goldbergkees glacier, 1.2 metres in 2006 versus 0.3 in 2005; France's Ossoue glacier, nearly 3 metres versus around 2.7 metres in 2005; Italy's Malavalle glacier 1.4 metres versus around 0.9 metres in 2005; Spain's Maladeta glacier, nearly 2 metres versus 1.6 metres in 2005; Sweden's Storglaciaeren glacier, 1.8 metres versus close to 0.080 metres in 2005 and Switzerland's Findelen glacier, 1.3 metres versus 0.22 metres in 2005. Not all of the close to 100 glaciers monitored posted losses with some thickening during the same period including Chile's Echaurren Norte glacier while others, such as Bolivia's Chacaltaya glacier; Canada's Place glacier; India's Hamtah glacier and the Daniels and Yawning glaciers in the Untied States shrank less in 2006 than they did in 2005. However, for the close to 30 reference glaciers only one (Echaurren Norte in Chile) thickened over the same period.
Melting glaciers and water needs
Himalayan glaciers are receding in a similar way as glaciers in other mountain ranges at low latitudes. Many glaciers in these areas could, at current rates of global warming, disappear within the coming decades. Half a billion people in the Himalaya-Hindu-Kush region and a quarter billion downstream who rely on glacial melt waters could be seriously affected. The current trends in glacial melt suggest that the Ganga, Indus, Brahmaputra and other rivers that criss-cross the northern Indian plain may become seasonal rivers in the near future as a consequence of climate change with important ramifications for poverty and the economies in the region. North America: "Heavily-utilized water systems of the western US and Canada, such as the Columbia River, that rely on capturing snowmelt runoff will be especially vulnerable," says the Fourth report of IPCC Working Group II. A two degree C warming by the 2040s is likely to lead to sharply reduced summer flows coinciding with sharply rising demand. The report estimates that Portland, Oregon will by then require over 26 million additional cubic meters of water as a result of climate change and population growth. This will coincide with a fall in summer supplies from the Columbia River by an estimated five million cubic meters. Meanwhile, just over 40 per cent of the supply to southern California is likely to be vulnerable by the 2020s due to warming triggering losses of the Sierra Nevada and Colorado River basin snow pack. In Latin America, the IPCC warns of a melting of most tropical glaciers in the near future (2020-2030). The glacier retreat trend reported in the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC is continuing and reaching critical conditions in Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador.

Recent studies indicate that most of the South American glaciers from Colombia to Chile and Argentina (up to 25ºS) are drastically reducing their volume at an accelerated rate. Changes in temperature and humidity are the primary cause for the observed glacier retreat during the 2nd half of the 20th century in the tropical Andes. In the next 15 years inter-tropical glaciers are very likely to disappear, affecting water availability and hydropower generation.
Adapted from materials provided by U.N. Environment Programme.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080317154235.htm

Satellite data reveals seismic link to volcanoes

2008-03-11T04:16:00.000-07:00

Local earthquakes boost volcanic activity in Indonesia, researchers have shown using satellite data. The finding could, they say, point to a predictive role for satellite imaging.
Volcanic activity in two ongoing eruptions, Merapi and Semeru on the Indonesian island of Java, increased following a local earthquake in May 2006 that measured 6.4 on the Richter scale. The flare-up began three days after the earthquake and lasted for nine days.
The researchers, led by Andrew Harris of the University of Hawaii, used thermal imaging data from an instrument on a NASA (the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration) satellite.
This provides near real-time data on global hotspots such as volcanic eruptions and wildfires. The team used data from a 35 day period, including the time of the earthquake.
"We found clear evidence that the earthquake caused both volcanoes to release greater amounts of heat, and lava emission surged to two to three times higher than prior to the tremor," Harris told NASA.
The researchers believe that the changes in eruption were due to seismic waves from the earthquake travelling to the area round the volcano and triggering an increased flow of molten rock.
But Dave Rothery, a vulcanologist in the Department of Earth Sciences at the UK-based Open University, warned that the study’s focus — one earthquake stimulating two volcanoes — could be a coincidence and more examples are needed.
The researchers say the work shows that satellite imaging could play a predictive role in eruptions, ultimately alerting people living near volcanoes to increased volcanic activity.
"I'm not sure we're up to early warning yet," Harris told SciDev.Net. "But immediately once an eruption begins we can detect its thermal signature, post its location on our global map, and perhaps alert people via automated email."
Rothery added that anyone with internet access could identify when volcanic activity is increasing in their area, information which could be "factored into decisions about evacuation".
The research was published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Source:

http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=3553&language=1

Deadly tremors that strike without warning- Facts About Earthquakes

2008-03-10T07:09:00.000-07:00

Every day an earthquake happens somewhere in the world. Many are so light that they cannot be detected. On average just 100 quakes cause damage out of the estimated 1.4 million earthquakes that occur every year.
Scientists cannot predict when an earthquake will strike, but they have been able to map where earthquakes are most likely to happen.
Most of the largest earthquakes occur within the Pacific "Ring of Fire", a horseshoe-shaped band of volcanoes and fault lines circling the edges of the Pacific Ocean.
Tsunami are large water waves typically generated by underwater earthquakes or landslides triggered by seismic activity.
KEY FACTS:
The largest recorded earthquake in the world was magnitude 9.5 in Chile, May 22, 1960.
Most earthquakes occur at depths of less than 80 km (50 miles) from the Earth's surface.
The world's deadliest recorded earthquake occurred in 1556 in central China, where most people lived in caves carved from soft rock. An estimated 830,000 people died.
The earliest recorded evidence of an earthquake dates back to 1831 BC in China's Shandong province.
Source: The U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Facts page.

Study helps predict big Mediterranean quake

2008-03-10T07:07:00.000-07:00

LONDON, March 9 (Reuters) - Scientists have found evidence that an overlooked fault in the eastern Mediterranean is likely to produce an earthquake and tsunami every 800 years as powerful as the one that destroyed Alexandria in AD 365.
Using radiocarbon dating techniques, simulations and computer models, the researchers recreated the ancient disaster in order to identify the responsible fault, they said in a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Sunday.
"We are saying there is probably a repeat time of 800 years for this kind of earthquake," said Beth Shaw, a seismologist at the University of Cambridge, who led the study.
Scientists study past earthquakes in order to determine the future likelihood of similar large shocks. Identifying the fault for the AD 365 earthquake and tsunami is important for the tens of millions of people in the region, Shaw said.
The fault close to the southwest coast of Crete last produced a big enough quake to generate a tsunami about 1300, which means the next powerful one could come in the next 100 years, she added in a telephone interview.
Shaw and her colleagues calculate the likely intervals by measuring the motion of either side of the fault to gauge how often such large earthquakes would have to occur to account for that level of motion, she said.
Their computer model suggested an 8 magnitude quake on the fault would produce a tsunami that inundates the coastal regions of Alexandria and North Africa, the southern coast of Greece and Sicily all the way up the Adriatic to Dubrovnik, Shaw said.
This would be similar to the ancient quake in AD 365 that caused widespread destruction in much of Greece and unleashed a tsunami that flooded Alexandria and the Nile Delta, likely killing tens of thousands of people, she said.
"This is consistent with the historical record of the tsunami," she said. (Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Source: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07804229.htm

Will Global Warming Increase Plant Frost Damage?

2008-03-05T02:22:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (Mar. 4, 2008) — Widespread damage to plants from a sudden freeze that occurred across the Eastern United States from 5 April to 9 April 2007 was made worse because it had been preceded by two weeks of unusual warmth, according to an analysis published in the March 2008 issue of BioScience. The authors of the report, Lianhong Gu and his colleagues at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and collaborators at NASA, the University of Missouri, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, found that the freeze killed new leaves, shoots, flowers, and fruit of natural vegetation, caused crown dieback of trees, and led to severe damage to crops in an area encompassing Nebraska,Maryland,SouthCarolina,andTexas.

Subsequent drought limited

regrowth.Valentia orange tree damaged

by frost. Global warming may result in

increased plant frost damage.

(Credit:Stockphoto/Loretta Hostettler)

Rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are believed to reduce the ability of some plants to withstand freezing, and the authors of the BioScience study suggest that global warming could lead to more freeze and thaw fluctuations in future winters. This pattern is potentially dangerous for plants because many species must acclimate to cold over a sustained period. Acclimation enables them to better withstand freezes, but unusual warmth early in the year prevents the process. A cold spring in 1996, in contrast to the 2007 event, caused little enduring damage because it was not preceded by unusual warmth.
The 2007 freeze is likely to have lasting effects on carbon balance in the region. Plants cannot resorb nutrients from dead tissue that would normally be remobilized within the plants during autumnal senescence, so many nutrients became less available for plants in 2008. Wildlife is expected to have suffered harm from lack of food, and changes to plant architecture could have long-term implications.
Gu and his colleagues propose that the 2007 spring freeze should not be viewed as an isolated event, but as a realistic climate-change scenario. Further study of its long-term consequences could help refine scenarios for ecosystem changes as carbon dioxide levels increase and the climate warms.
Reference: The 2007 Eastern US Spring Freeze: Increased Cold Damage in a Warming World. Lianhong Gu, Paul J. Hanson, W. Mac Post, Dale P. Kaiser, Bai Yang, Ramakrishna Nemani, Stephen G. Pallardy, and Tilden Meyers
Adapted from materials provided by American Institute of Biological Sciences.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080303072651.htm

Promising New Material For Capturing Carbon Dioxide From Smokestacks

2008-03-05T02:18:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (Mar. 4, 2008) — Scientists and engineers in Georgia and Pennsylvania are reporting development of a new, low-cost material for capturing carbon dioxide from the smokestacks of coal-fired electric power plants and other industrial sources before the notorious greenhouse gas enters the atmosphere.

In the new study, Christopher W. Jones and colleagues point out that existing carbon capture technology is unsuitable for wide use. Absorbent liquids, for instance, are energy intensive and expensive. Current solid adsorbents show promise, but many suffer from low absorption capacities and lack stability after extended use. Stronger, longer-lasting materials are needed, scientists say.
The scientists describe development of a new solid adsorbent coined a hyperbranched aminosilica (HAS) that avoids those problems. When compared to traditional solid adsorbents under simulated emissions from industrial smokestacks, the new material captured up to seven times more carbon dioxide than conventional solid materials, including some of the best carbon dioxide adsorbents currently available, the researchers say. The material also shows greater stability under different temperature extremes, allowing it to be recycled numerous times.
The article "Designing Adsorbents for CO2 Capture from Flue Gas-Hyperbranched Aminosilicas Capable of Capturing CO2 Reversibly" is scheduled for the March 19 issue of the ACS' Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Adapted from materials provided by American Chemical Society, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080303163804.htm

Increased Hurricane Losses Due To More People, Wealth Along Coastlines, Not Stronger Storms

2008-03-03T02:06:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (Mar. 1, 2008) — A team of scientists have found that the economic damages from hurricanes have increased in the U.S. over time due to greater population, infrastructure, and wealth on the U.S. coastlines, and not to any spike in the number or intensity of hurricanes

“We found that although some decades were quieter and less damaging in the U.S. and others had more land-falling hurricanes and more damage, the economic costs of land-falling hurricanes have steadily increased over time,” said Chris Landsea, one of the researchers as well as the science and operations officer at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami. “There is nothing in the U.S. hurricane damage record that indicates global warming has caused a significant increase in destruction along our coasts.”
In a newly published paper in Natural Hazards Review, the researchers also found that economic hurricane damage in the U.S. has been doubling every 10 to 15 years. If more people continue to move to the hurricane-prone coastline, future economic hurricane losses may be far greater than previously thought.
“Unless action is taken to address the growing concentration of people and property in coastal hurricane areas, the damage will increase by a great deal as more people and infrastructure inhabit these coastal locations,” said Landsea.
The Natural Hazards Review paper, “Normalized Hurricane Damage in the United States: 1900-2005,” was written by Roger A. Pielke Jr. (University of Colorado), Joel Gratz (ICAT Managers, Inc.), Chris Landsea, Douglas Collins (Tillinghast-Towers Perrin), Mark A. Saunders (University College London), and Rade Musulin (Aon Re Australia).
The team used two different approaches, which gave similar results, to estimate the economic damages of historical hurricanes if they were to strike today, building upon the work published originally by Landsea and Pielke in 1998, and by Collins and Lowe in 2001. Both methods used changes in inflation and wealth at the national level. The first method utilized population increases at the county coastal level, while the second used changes in housing units at the county coastal level.
The results illustrate the effects of the tremendous pace of growth in vulnerable hurricane areas. If the 1926 Great Miami Hurricane were to hit today, the study estimated it would cause the largest losses at $140 billion to $157 billion, with Hurricane Katrina second on the list at $81 billion.
The team concludes that potential damage from storms – currently about $10 billion yearly – is growing at a rate that may place severe burdens on exposed communities, and that avoiding huge losses will require a change in the rate of population growth in coastal areas, major improvements in construction standards, or other mitigation actions.
Adapted from materials provided by National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration.

Source:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080228074324.htm

Quake jolts UK, damages to property worth 10 mn pounds

2008-02-29T01:49:00.000-08:00

Britain was on wednesday jolted by an earthquake, the biggest to hit the country in nearly 25 years that damaged property worth over 10 million pounds. The tremor, measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale, hit shortly before 1:00 am (0630 IST) with its epicentre in Lincolnshire, but people were woken as far away as Wales, Scotland and Yorkshire. One person narrowly escaped death when a chimney smashed through the roof of his terraced home and crashed into his bedroom in Wombwell in South Yorkshire. The Association of British Insurers said that the cost of damage to homes and property is likely to be in excess of 10 million pounds.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) initially gave the magnitude for the 12.56 am earthquake as 5.3 on the Richter scale but has now said it was closer to 5.2. It said the epicentre was eight km east of Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, and 22 km south west of Grimsby. The tremor is the biggest in Britain since 1984 when north Wales was hit by a quake which was registered at 5.4 on the Richter scale. "There is slight structural damage, cracks and a couple of chimneys damaged. There's nothing serious at present. "Mostly people were distressed by it so there were a large quantity of calls coming in."

The police in the Midlands received more than 5,000 calls in an hour and in Dudley, 12 people walked into the local police station in their pyjamas.

The BGS said it records around 200 earthquakes in the UK each year - an eighth of which are able to be felt by residents. Buildings are deemed to be at risk from earthquakes above 5 on the Richter Scale, according to the Environment Agency.

The United States Geological Survey claimed that while the event was "light to moderate" on a world scale, it was "very significant", given the UK's relatively uneventful seismic history. Rafael Abreu, a geophysicist at the USGS National Earthquake Information Service, said: "It was a light to moderate event in relation to what has happened in Indonesia recently. But what is interesting about this event is that it was in an area where you would not expect it. "In an seismic area like this it is very significant. The UK usually has minor activity -- it's not particularly seismic."

The largest earthquake recorded in the UK was about 120 km from north east of Great Yarmouth in the North Sea on June 7, 1931. It measured 6.1 and was felt across Britain, in eastern Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and parts of Germany, France, Norway and Denmark. People in Newcastle, Yorkshire, Manchester, the Midlands and Norfolk and also parts of Wales, felt the tremor. Seismologist Dr Brian Baptie of the BGS said: "This is a significant earthquake for the UK and will have been widely felt across England and Wales." A Lincolnshire police spokeswoman said the force had received dozens of calls from residents.

Sources : PTI

12 simple things you can do... for combating Climate Change

2008-02-18T22:06:00.000-08:00

Source: UNDP India

Human Development Report (HDR) 2007-2008

2008-02-18T21:59:00.000-08:00

2007/2008 Human Development Report tackles climate change27 November - The report warns that the world should focus on the development impact of climate change, which could bring unprecedented reversals in poverty reduction, nutrition, health and education.
Download the HDR here
http://www.undp.org.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=312&Itemid=481

New Materials Can Selectively Capture Carbon Dioxide, Chemists Report

2008-02-18T21:55:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (Feb. 17, 2008) — UCLA chemists report a major advance in reducing heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions in the Feb. 15 issue of the journal Science.

The scientists have demonstrated that they can successfully isolate and capture carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming, rising sea levels and the increased acidity of oceans. Their findings could lead to power plants efficiently capturing carbon dioxide without using toxic materials. "The technical challenge of selectively removing carbon dioxide has been overcome," said Omar M. Yaghi, UCLA's Christopher S. Foote Professor of Chemistry and co-author of the Science paper. "Now we have structures that can be tailored precisely to capture carbon dioxide and store it like a reservoir, as we have demonstrated. No carbon dioxide escapes. Nothing escapes -- unless you want it to do so. We believe this to be a turning point in capturing carbon dioxide before it reaches the atmosphere." The carbon dioxide is captured using a new class of materials designed by Yaghi and his group called zeolitic imidazolate frameworks, or ZIFs. These are porous and chemically robust structures, with large surface areas, that can be heated to high temperatures without decomposition and boiled in water or organic solvents for a week and still remain stable. Rahul Banerjee, a UCLA postdoctoral research scholar in chemistry and Anh Phan, a UCLA graduate student in chemistry, both of whom work in Yaghi's laboratory, synthesized 25 ZIF crystal structures and demonstrated that three of them have high selectivity for capturing carbon dioxide (ZIF-68, ZIF-69, ZIF-70). "The selectivity of ZIFs to carbon dioxide is unparalleled by any other material," said Yaghi, who directs of UCLA's Center for Reticular Chemistry and is a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. "Rahul and Anh were so successful at making new ZIFs that, for the purposes of reporting the results, I had to ask them to stop." The inside of a ZIF can store gas molecules. Flaps that behave like the chemical equivalent of a revolving door allow certain molecules -- in this case, carbon dioxide -- to pass through and enter the reservoir while blocking larger molecules or molecules of different shapes. "We can screen and select the one type of molecule we want to capture," Phan said. "The beauty of the chemistry is that we have the freedom to choose what kind of door we want and to control what goes through the door." "The capture of carbon dioxide creates cleaner energy," Yaghi said. "ZIFs in a smokestack would trap carbon dioxide in the pores prior to its delivery to its geologic storage space." In ZIFs 68, 69 and 70, Banerjee and Phan emptied the pores, creating an open framework. They then subjected the material to streams of gases -- carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, for example, and another stream of carbon dioxide and nitrogen -- and were able to capture only the carbon dioxide. They are testing other ZIFs for various applications. Carbon dioxide is killing corral reefs and marine life, damage that will be irreversible, at least for many centuries, Yaghi noted. Currently, the process of capturing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants involves the use of toxic materials and requires 20 to 30 percent of the plant's energy output, Yaghi said. By contrast, ZIFs can pluck carbon dioxide from other gases that are emitted and can store five times more carbon dioxide than the porous carbon materials that represent the current state-of-art. "For each liter of ZIF, you can hold 83 liters of carbon dioxide," Banerjee said. The word zif, Yaghi noted, is used in the Bible to describe a region of splendor. It also means comeliness and brightness. This name is fitting for this new class of materials, he said, because its members are many and of quite beautiful constructions. On a fundamental level, the invention of ZIFs has also addressed two major challenges in zeolite science. Zeolites are stable, porous minerals made of aluminum, silicon and oxygen that are employed in petroleum refining and are used in detergents and other products. Yaghi's group has succeeded in replacing what would have been aluminum or silicon with metal ions like zinc and cobalt, and the bridging oxygen with imidazolate to yield ZIF materials, whose structures can now be designed in functionality and metrics. Banerjee and Anh automated the process of synthesis. Instead of mixing the chemicals one reaction at a time and achieving perhaps several reactions per day, they were able to perform 200 reactions in less than an hour. The pair ran 9,600 microreactions and from those reactions uncovered 25 new structures. "We keep producing new crystals of ZIFs every day," Banerjee said. "These reactions produce crystals that look as beautiful as diamonds." Co-authors are Bo Wang, a UCLA graduate student in chemistry in Yaghi's laboratory; Carolyn Knobler and Hiroyasu Furukawa of the Center for Reticular Chemistry at the UCLA's California NanoSystems Institute; and Michael O'Keeffe of Arizona State University's department of chemistry and biochemistry. In the early 1990s, Yaghi invented another class of materials called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which have been described as crystal sponges and which also have implications for cleaner energy. Yaghi can change the components of MOFs nearly at will. Like ZIFs, MOFs have pores -- openings on the nanoscale in which Yaghi and his colleagues can store gases that are usually difficult to store and transport. Yaghi's laboratory has made several hundred MOFs, with a variety of properties and structures. Molecules can pass in and out of them unobstructed. BASF, a global chemical company based in Germany, funded the synthesis of the materials, and the U.S. Department of Energy funded the absorption and separation studies of carbon dioxide.
Adapted from materials provided by University of California - Los Angeles.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080214144344.htm

Earth's Getting 'Soft' In The Middle, Geologists Note

2008-01-29T03:14:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (Jan. 28, 2008) — A new study suggests that material in part of the lower mantle has unusual electronic characteristics that make sound propagate more slowly, suggesting that the material there is softer than previously thought. The results call into question the traditional techniques for understanding this region of the planet.

Since we can't sample the deepest regions of the Earth, scientists watch the velocity of seismic waves as they travel through the planet to determine the composition and density of that material. Now a new study suggests that material in part of the lower mantle has unusual electronic characteristics that make sound propagate more slowly, suggesting that the material there is softer than previously thought. The results call into question the traditional techniques for understanding this region of the planet.
The lower mantle extends from about 400 miles to 1800 miles (660-2900 kilometers) into Earth and sits atop the outer core. Pressures and temperatures are so brutal there that materials are changed into forms that don't exist in rocks at the planet's surface and must be studied under carefully controlled conditions in the laboratory. The pressures range from 230,000 times the atmospheric pressure at sea level (23 GPa), to 1.35 million times sea-level pressure (135 GPa). And the heat is equally extreme--from about 2,800 to 6,700 degrees Fahrenheit (1800K--4000K).
Iron is abundant in the Earth, and is a major component of the minerals ferropericlase and the silicate perovskite in the lower mantle. In previous work, researchers found that the outermost electrons of iron in ferropericlase are forced to pair up under the extreme pressures creating a so-called spin-transition zone within the lower mantle.
"What happens when unpaired electrons--called a high-spin state--are forced to pair up is that they transition to what is called a low-spin state. And when that happens, the conductivity, density, and chemical properties change," explained Goncharov. "What's most important for seismology is the acoustic properties--the propagation of sound. We determined the elasticity of ferropericlase through the pressure-induced high-spin to low-spin transition. We did this by measuring the velocity of acoustic waves propagating in different directions in a single crystal of the material and found that over an extended pressure range (from about 395,000 to 590,000 atmospheres) the material became 'softer'--that is, the waves slowed down more than expected from previous work. Thus, at high temperature corresponding distributions will become very broad, which will result in a wide range of depth having subtly anomalous properties that perhaps extend through most of the lower mantle."
The results suggest that scientists may have to go back to the drawing board to model this region of the Earth.
The authors, including Alexander Goncharov from the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory, present their results in the January 25, 2008, issue of Science.
This research was partly funded by Carnegie Institution of Washington, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Agency through the Carnegie/DOE Alliance Center' and the W. M. Keck Foundation.
Adapted from materials provided by Carnegie Institution.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080124145022.htm

First Evidence Of Under-ice Volcanic Eruption In Antarctica

2008-01-23T05:56:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (Jan. 22, 2008) — The first evidence of a volcanic eruption from beneath Antarctica's most rapidly changing ice sheet has been reported. The volcano on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet erupted 2000 years ago (325BC) and remains active.

The subglacial volcano has a 'volcanic explosion index' of around 3-4. Heat from the volcano creates melt-water that lubricates the base of the ice sheet and increases the flow towards the sea. Pine Island Glacier on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is showing rapid change and BAS scientists are part of an international research effort to understand this change.
Using airborne ice-sounding radar, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) discovered a layer of ash produced by a 'subglacial' volcano. It extends across an area larger than Wales.
Lead author* Hugh Corr of the BAS says, "The discovery of a 'subglacial' volcanic eruption from beneath the Antarctic ice sheet is unique in itself. But our techniques also allow us to put a date on the eruption, determine how powerful it was and map out the area where ash fell. We believe this was the biggest eruption in Antarctica during the last 10,000 years. It blew a substantial hole in the ice sheet, and generated a plume of ash and gas that rose around 12 km into air."
The discovery is another vital piece of evidence that will help determine the future of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and refine predictions of future sea-level rise. Glaciers are like massive rivers of ice that flow towards the coast and discharge icebergs into the sea.
Co-author Professor David Vaughan (BAS) says,"This eruption occurred close to Pine Island Glacier on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The flow of this glacier towards the coast has speeded up in recent decades and it may be possible that heat from the volcano has caused some of that acceleration. However, it cannot explain the more widespread thinning of West Antarctic glaciers that together are contributing nearly 0.2mm per year to sea-level rise. This wider change most probably has its origin in warming ocean waters."
About the volcano
The volcano is located beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet in the Hudson Mountains at latitude 74.6°South, longitude 97°West. Volcanoes are an important component of the Antarctic region. They formed in diverse tectonic settings, mainly as a result of mantle plumes acting on the stationary Antarctic plate. The region also includes amongst the world's best examples of a long-lived continental margin arc (Antarctic Peninsula), a very young marginal basin (Bransfield Strait) and an oceanic island arc (South Sandwich Islands). Many extinct volcanoes are very well preserved and others are still active (e.g. Deception Island, Mount Erebus, and the South Sandwich Islands).
Volcanic eruptions were common during the past 25 million years, and coincided with the great period of climatic deterioration that resulted in the formation of the Antarctic ice sheet. Many of the volcanoes show the effects of interaction with ice. BAS has played a major role in describing these effects and modelling their influences on the resulting volcanic sequences. It is important to describe and understand these interactions in geologically recent times in order to predict future configurations of the ice sheet and its role in the global system.
*The paper 'A recent volcanic eruption beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet' by Hugh F Corr and David G Vaughan is published in the February edition of Nature Geosciences (online).
Adapted from materials provided by British Antarctic Survey.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080120160720.htm

Earth Quakes in 2000 to 2007

2008-01-03T06:10:00.000-08:00

* Up to Jan 2008 (till Date)

Major Disasters in 2007

2008-01-03T06:03:00.000-08:00

Source: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/doc110?openform&cat=2007

Global warming brings busy year for UN disaster teams

2007-12-31T23:31:00.000-08:00

The United Nations office that sends expert teams around the world to help governments deal with natural disasters was busier than ever in Latin America this year, a fact it at least partially blames on climate change.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said in a statement that a record nine missions were dispatched to the region during 2007, among 14 sent around the globe, itself a higher than usual number.

Map Showing the effects of Climate Change in 2050

Of the 14 global missions, 70% were in response to hurricanes and floods, the OCHA statement

said, calling this "possibly a glimpse of the shape of things to come given the reality of climate change." In Latin America the proportion was even higher.

There were the rains in November that left most of the southern Mexican state of Tabasco under water for weeks, including large parts of the city of Villahermosa.
In October, Tropical Storm Noel triggered flash floods in the Dominican Republic that killed dozens. In September, Honduras faced the category five Hurricane Felix, just as Jamaica and Belize had been battered by the similarly strong Hurricane Dean the month before.
In South America, Uruguay suffered its worst flooding in 50 years and hundreds of thousands of Bolivians were inundated and their crops ruined at the beginning of the year, warranting two UN missions alone.

The remaining UN disaster team sent to the region went to help with the relief effort following an 8.0-magnitude earthquake along the Peruvian coast.
There were also other significant disasters which did not receive UN attention because the teams were not invited in by the local government. Hurricane Felix caused its greatest devastation in Nicaragua, but the UN mission was only sent to neighbouring Honduras.
"The number of disasters is increasing and it is connected to climate change but we cannot at this juncture directly link any one incident," OCHA spokesperson Stephanie Bunker told the Guardian. "More studies will have to be done before that is possible."

In 2006, the number of missions to Latin America was just two. In 2005 it was five.
Previously the highest number of missions to the region was the eight sent in 1998 after Hurricanes Mitch devastated Central America and Hurricane Georges ripped through the Caribbean.

Since its establishment in 1993, the OCHA has sent 167 disaster assessment missions. The largest number were in response to the tsunami and earthquake that killed around 230,000 people in 12 Indian Ocean nations on Boxing Day 2004. This year, aside from the missions to Latin America, the UN also sent teams to Madagascar, Pakistan, and Ghana in response to floods, as well as to the Solomon Islands following an earthquake and tsunami, and to Laos to help with disaster preparedness efforts.

Source: Jo Tuckman in Mexico CityThursday December 27, 2007 Guardian Unlimited

A 'Gizmo' That Saves Lives After Disasters

2007-12-24T06:22:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (Dec. 24, 2007) — When Javier Rodriguez Molina visited the Atocha Train Station Memorial in Madrid last summer, the Barcelona native felt a great sadness for the victims of the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings. But he also felt some hope that his advanced emergency technology work at University of California, San Diego can some day save lives in similar disasters.

Police, firefighters and other emergency workers responding to natural or manmade disasters may someday save more lives with the help of “Gizmo,” an advanced mobile wireless communications device.
Rodríguez is Gizmo’s lead gadgeteer. He’s an electrical engineering graduate student and programmer analyst at UC San Diego's California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), one of the most advanced, interdisciplinary research institutes in the world. "Gizmo," which looks like a cross between a remote-controlled toy truck and a lunar landing vehicle, may eventually transform disaster response by collecting and transmitting in real time any information that emergency personnel need via any communications system they're using.
“In almost any emergency, the most important thing is immediate, accurate information,” Rodriguez said. “Gizmo will eventually be able to go anywhere on its own and send back in real time whatever information you might need."
From the Circuits Lab at Calit2, Rodriguez hopes to build many varieties of Gizmos -- even one that flies. The devices could go anywhere that it's too dangerous for humans, including urban emergencies such as hostage situations, terrorist attacks or a building collapse. The current Gizmo is the size of a remote-controlled toy truck. But future models may be alternately much smaller (so they could enter a hostage situation without being detected), or much bigger, such as a full sized truck, which could penetrate disaster situations even in the harshest conditions, such as a hurricane.
"Using technology to try to save lives is the most important thing for me now," Rodriguez said. "I'm taking part in work that can make people more secure by helping police, helping firefighters, helping anybody who is responding to a dangerous situation."
Working under Ramesh Rao, an internationally recognized expert in emergency technology and director of the UC San Diego division of Calit2, Rodriguez is now guiding a team of engineering undergraduates who are building Gizmos, which create their own wireless network bubble wherever they go. One Gizmo can create a wireless network 200 meters in diameter; several working in conjunction can create an exponentially larger network.
The mission of Calit2 is to apply the most advanced technology to real-world problems, and produce solutions that people can actually use. One of the biggest problems for responders in any emergency situation is losing communications with one another and not knowing what's going on inside a dangerous area. So, Rodriguez and his colleagues concentrated on building Gizmo to collect accurate information in emergency situations and transmit it back to responders immediately using whatever communications system is operating.
The data collected by Gizmos can be sent back via wireless network connection to virtually anywhere, whether it's a police command station a block away or a research laboratory on the other side of the world. Gizmos can be controlled by cell phone, laptop or a gaming joystick hooked to a computer. The platform on each Gizmo can be mounted with any kind of device - high definition cameras; super sensitive microphones; sensors that detect dangerous gases, radiation or high heat levels; or a remote controlled arm that can collect samples. Then, that information can be sent to any communications device - cell phones, lap tops, Bluetooth, or whatever type of wireless transmitter emergency personnel are using. If one communications system fails, emergency personnel can switch to another. Like any wireless Internet system, Gizmo can send information through walls or other obstructions.
Another goal for Rodriguez is to make sure that Gizmo is relatively cheap -- under $1,000 - and constructed with many easy-to-replace parts so that they can be mass produced. That way, almost any police, fire and other emergency agencies could buy them off the shelf. If one Gizmo is destroyed in the line of duty, it can be easily replaced.
For now, Gizmos are wheeled vehicles, but Rodriguez and his colleagues already are building one with tank treads so it can go up stairs or over curbs and rocks. The opportunities for Gizmo are immense. Rodriguez envisions using them at delicate archeological ruins, underground cave-ins or even for routine security patrols.
"People see Gizmo and immediately think of a new idea for what it can do," he said. "I'm sure it has important uses that we haven't even thought of yet."

Resource:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071217141422.htm

Without Its Insulating Ice Cap, Arctic Surface Waters Warm To As Much As 5 C Above Average

2007-12-17T22:13:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (Dec. 17, 2007) — Record-breaking amounts of ice-free water have deprived the Arctic of more of its natural "sunscreen" than ever in recent summers. The effect is so pronounced that sea surface temperatures rose to 5 C above average in one place this year, a high never before observed, says the oceanographer who has compiled the first-ever look at average sea surface temperatures for the region.

Such superwarming of surface waters can affect how thick ice grows back in the winter, as well as its ability to withstand melting the next summer, according to Michael Steele, an oceanographer with the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory. Indeed, since September, the end of summer in the Arctic, winter freeze-up in some areas is two months later than usual.
The extra ocean warming also might be contributing to some changes on land, such as previously unseen plant growth in the coastal Arctic tundra, if heat coming off the ocean during freeze-up is making its way over land, says Steele, who spoke December 12 at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
He is lead author of "Arctic Ocean surface warming trends over the past 100 years," accepted for publication in AGU's Geophysical Research Letters. Co-authors are physicist Wendy Ermold and research scientist Jinlun Zhang, both of the UW Applied Physics Laboratory.
"Warming is particularly pronounced since 1995, and especially since 2000," the authors write. The spot where waters were 5 C above average was in the region just north of the Chakchi Sea. The historical average temperature there is -1 C -- remember that the salt in ocean water keeps it liquid at temperatures that would cause fresh water to freeze. This year water in that area warmed to 4 C, for a 5-degree change from the average.
That general area, the part of the ocean north of Alaska and Eastern Siberia that includes the Bering Strait and Chukchi Sea, experienced the greatest summer warming. Temperatures for that region were generally 3.5 C warmer than historical averages and 1.5 C warmer than the historical maximum.
Such widespread warming in those areas and elsewhere in the Arctic is probably the result of having increasing amounts of open water in the summer that readily absorb the sun's rays, Steele says. Hard, white ice, on the other hand, can work as a kind of sunscreen for the waters below, reflecting rather than absorbing sunlight. The warming also may be partly caused by increasing amounts of warmer water coming from the Pacific Ocean, something scientists have noted in recent years.
The Arctic was primed for more open water since the early 1990s as the sea-ice cover has thinned, due to a warming atmosphere and more frequent strong winds sweeping ice out of the Arctic Ocean via Fram Strait into the Atlantic Ocean where the ice melts. The wind effect was particularly strong in the summer of 2007.
Now the situation could be self-perpetuating, Steele says. For example, he calculates that having more heat in surface waters in recent years means 23 to 30 inches less ice will grow in the winter than formed in 1965. Since sea ice typically grows about 80 inches in a winter, that is a significant fraction of ice that's going missing, he says.
Then too, higher sea surface temperatures can delay the start of freeze-up because the extra heat must be discharged from the upper ocean before ice can form. "The effect on net winter growth would probably be negligible for a delay of several weeks, but could be substantial for delays of several months," the authors write.
The work is funded by the National Science Foundation.

Adapted from materials provided by University of Washington.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071212201236.htm

Top 11 Warmest Years On Record Have All Been In Last 13 Years

2007-12-13T22:32:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (Dec. 13, 2007) — The decade of 1998-2007 is the warmest on record, according to data sources obtained by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The global mean surface temperature for 2007 is currently estimated at 0.41°C/0.74°F above the 1961-1990 annual average of 14.00°C/57.20°F.

The University of East Anglia and the Met Office's Hadley Centre have released preliminary global temperature figures for 2007, which show the top 11 warmest years all occurring in the last 13 years. The provisional global figure for 2007 using data from January to November, currently places the year as the seventh warmest on records dating back to 1850.
Other remarkable global climatic events recorded so far in 2007 include record-low Arctic sea ice extent, which led to first recorded opening of the Canadian Northwest Passage; the relatively small Antarctic Ozone Hole; development of La Niña in the central and eastern Equatorial Pacific; and devastating floods, drought and storms in many places around the world.
The preliminary information for 2007 is based on climate data up to the end of November from networks of land-based weather stations, ships and buoys, as well as satellites. The data are continually collected and disseminated by the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) of WMO’s 188 Members and several collaborating research institutions. Final updates and figures for 2007 will be published in March 2008 in the annual WMO brochure for the Statement on the Status of the Global Climate.
WMO’s global temperature analyses are based on two different sources. One is the combined dataset maintained by both the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorological Office, and the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, UK, which at this stage ranked 2007 as the seventh warmest on record. The other dataset is maintained by the US Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which indicated that 2007 is likely to be the fifth warmest on record.
Since the start of the 20th century, the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74°C. But this rise has not been continuous. The linear warming trend over the last 50 years (0.13°C per decade) is nearly twice that for the last 100 years.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 4th Assessment (Synthesis) Report, 2007, “warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.”
2007 global temperatures have been averaged separately for both hemispheres. Surface temperatures for the northern hemisphere are likely to be the second warmest on record, at 0.63°C above the 30-year mean (1961-90) of 14.6°C/58.3°F. The southern hemisphere temperature is 0.20°C higher than the 30-year average of 13.4°C/56.1°F, making it the ninth warmest in the instrumental record since 1850.
January 2007 was the warmest January in the global average temperature record at 12.7°C/54.9°F, compared to the 1961-1990 January long-term average of 12.1°C/53.8°F.
Regional temperature anomalies
2007 started with record breaking temperature anomalies throughout the world. In parts of Europe, winter and spring ranked amongst the warmest ever recorded, with anomalies of more than 4°C above the long-term monthly averages for January and April.
Extreme high temperatures occurred in much of Western Australia from early January to early March, with February temperatures more than 5°C above average.
Two extreme heat waves affected south-eastern Europe in June and July, breaking previous records with daily maximum temperatures exceeding 40°C/104°F in some locations, including up to 45°C/113°F in Bulgaria. Dozens of people died and fire-fighters battled blazes devastating thousands of hectares of land. A severe heat wave occurred across the southern United States of America during much of August with more than 50 deaths attributed to excessive heat. August to September 2007 was extremely warm in parts of Japan, setting a new national record of absolute maximum temperature of 40.9°/105.6°F on 16 August.
In contrast, Australia recorded its coldest ever June with the mean temperature dropping to 1.5°C below normal. South America experienced an unusually cold winter (June-August), bringing winds, blizzards and rare snowfall to various provinces with temperatures falling to -22°C/-7.6°F in Argentina and -18°C/-0.4°F in Chile in early July.
Prolonged drought
Across North America, severe to extreme drought was present across large parts of the western U.S. and Upper Midwest, including southern Ontario/Canada, for much of 2007. More than three-quarters of the Southeast U.S. was in drought from mid-summer into December, but heavy rainfall led to an end of drought in the southern Plains.
In Australia, while conditions were not as severely dry as in 2006, long term drought meant water resources remained extremely low in many areas. Below average rainfall over the densely populated and agricultural regions resulted in significant crop and stock losses, as well as water restrictions in most major cities.
China experienced its worst drought in a decade, affecting nearly 40 million hectares of farmland. Tens of millions of people suffered from water restrictions.
Flooding and intense storms
Flooding affected many African countries in 2007. In February, Mozambique experienced its worst flooding in six years, killing dozens, destroying thousands of homes and flooding 80,000 hectares of crops in the Zambezi valley.
In Sudan, torrential rains caused flash floods in many areas in June/July, affecting over 410,000 people, including 200,000 left homeless. The strong southwesterly monsoon resulted in one of the heaviest July-September rainfall periods, triggering widespread flash floods affecting several countries in West Africa, Central Africa and parts of the Greater Horn of Africa. Some 1.5 million people were affected and hundreds of thousands homes destroyed.
In Bolivia, flooding in January-February affected nearly 200,000 people and 70,000 hectares of cropland. Strong storms brought heavy rain that caused extreme flooding in the littoral region of Argentina in late March/early April. In early May, Uruguay was hit by its worst flooding since 1959, with heavy rain producing floods that affected more than 110,000 people and severely damaged crops and buildings. Triggered by storms, massive flooding in Mexico in early November destroyed the homes of half a million people and seriously affected the country’s oil industry.
In Indonesia, massive flooding on Java in early February killed dozens and covered half of the city of Jakarta by up to 3.7 metres of water. Heavy rains in June ravaged areas across southern China, with flooding and landslides affecting over 13.5 million people and killing more than 120. Monsoon-related extreme rainfall events caused the worst flooding in years in parts of South Asia. About 25 million people were affected in the region, especially in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. Thousands lost their lives. However, rainfall during the Indian summer monsoon season (June-September) for India was, generally, near normal (105% of the long-term average), but with marked differences in the distribution of rainfall in space and time.
A powerful storm system, Kyrill, affected much of northern Europe during 17-18 January 2007 with torrential rains and winds gusting up to 170km/h. There were at least 47 deaths across the region, with disruptions in electric supply affecting tens of thousands during the storm.
England and Wales recorded its wettest May-July period since records began in 1766, receiving 406 mm of rain compared to the previous record of 349 mm in 1789. Extensive flooding in the region killed nine and caused more than US$6 billion in damages.
Development of La Niña
The brief El Niño event of late 2006 quickly dissipated in January 2007, and La Niña conditions became well established across the central and eastern Equatorial Pacific in the latter half of 2007.
In addition to La Niña, unusual sea surface temperature patterns with cooler than normal values across the north of Australia to the Indian Ocean, and warmer than normal values in the Western Indian Ocean, were recorded. These are believed to have modified the usual La Niña impacts in certain regions around the world.
The current La Niña is expected to continue into the first quarter of 2008 at least.
Devastating tropical cyclones
Twenty-four named tropical storms developed in the North-West Pacific during 2007, below the annual average of 27. Fourteen storms were classified as typhoons, equalling the annual average. Tropical cyclones affected millions in south-east Asia, with typhoons Pabuk, Krosa, Lekima and tropical storms like Peipah among the severest.
During the 2007 Atlantic Hurricane season, 14 named storms occurred, compared to the annual average of 12, with 6 being classified as hurricanes, equalling the average. For the first time since 1886, two category 5 hurricanes (Dean and Felix) made landfall in the same season.
In February, due to tropical cyclone Gamède, a new worldwide rainfall record was set in French La Reunion with 3,929 mm measured within three days.
In June, cyclone Gonu made landfall in Oman, affecting more than 20,000 people and killing 50, before reaching the Islamic Republic of Iran. There is no record of a tropical cyclone hitting Iran since 1945.
On 15 November, tropical cyclone Sidr made landfall in Bangladesh, generating winds of up to 240 km/h and torrential rains. More than 8.5 million people were affected and over 3,000 died. Nearly 1.5 million houses were damaged or destroyed. Often hit by cyclones, Bangladesh has developed a network of cyclone shelters and a storm early-warning system, which significantly reduced casualties.
Australia’s 2006/2007 tropical season was unusually quiet, with only five tropical cyclones recorded, equalling the lowest number observed since at least 1943-44.
Relatively small Antarctic ozone hole
The 2007 Antarctic ozone hole was relatively small due to mild stratosphere winter temperatures. Since 1998, only the 2002 and 2004 ozone holes were smaller. In 2007, the ozone hole reached a maximum of 25 million square kms in mid-September, compared to 29 million square kms in the record years of 2000 and 2006. The ozone mass deficit reached 28 megatonnes on 23 September, compared to more than 40 megatonnes in the record year of 2006.
Record-low Arctic sea ice extent opened the Northwest Passage
Following the Arctic sea ice melt season, which ends annually in September at the end of the northern summer, the average “sea ice extent” was 4.28 million square kms, the lowest on record. The “sea ice extent” at September 2007 was 39% below the long-term 1979-2000 average, and 23% below the previous record set just two years ago in September 2005.For the first time in recorded history, the disappearance of ice across parts of the Arctic opened the Canadian Northwest Passage for about five weeks starting 11 August. Nearly 100 voyages in normally ice-blocked waters sailed without the threat of ice. The September rate of sea ice decline since 1979 is now approximately 10% per decade, or 72,000 square kms per year.
Sea level rise continues
The sea level continued to rise at rates substantially above the average for the 20th century of about 1.7 mm per year. Measurements show that the 2007 global averaged sea level is about 20 cm higher than the 1870 estimate. Modern satellite measurements show that since 1993 global averaged sea level has been rising at about 3 mm per year.
Global 10 Warmest Years Mean Global temperature (°C) (anomaly with respect to 1961-1990)
1998 0.52
2005 0.48
2003 0.46
2002 0.46
2004 0.43
2006 0.42
2007(Jan-Nov) 0.41
2001 0.40
1997 0.36
1995 0.28
UK 10 Warmest Years Mean UK Temperature (°C) (anomaly with respect to 1971-2000)
2006 +1.15
2007 (Jan to 10th Dec) + 1.10
2003 + 0.92
2004 + 0.89
2002 + 0.89
2005 + 0.87
1990 + 0.83
1997 + 0.82
1949 + 0.80
1999 + 0.78

Adapted from materials provided by World Meteorological Organization.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071213101419.htm

Natural Climate Changes Can Intensify Hurricanes More Efficiently Than Global Warming

2007-12-13T22:27:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (Dec. 13, 2007) — Natural climate variations, which tend to involve localized changes in sea surface temperature, may have a larger effect on hurricane activity than the more uniform patterns of

In the debate over the effect of global warming on hurricanes, it is generally assumed that warmer oceans provide a more favorable environment for hurricane development and intensification. However, several other factors, such as atmospheric temperature and moisture, also come into play.
Drs. Gabriel A. Vecchi of the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and Brian J. Soden from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science analyzed climate model projections and observational reconstructions to explore the relationship between changes in sea surface temperature and tropical cyclone 'potential intensity' - a measure that provides an upper limit on cyclone intensity.
They found that warmer oceans do not alone produce a more favorable environment for storms because the effect of remote warming can counter, and sometimes overwhelm, the effect of local surface warming. "Warming near the storm acts to increase the potential intensity of hurricanes, whereas warming away from the storms acts to decrease their potential intensity," Vecchi said.
Their study found that long-term changes in potential intensity are more closely related to the regional pattern of warming than to local ocean temperature change. Regions that warm more than the tropical average are characterized by increased potential intensity, and vice versa. "A surprising result is that the current potential intensity for Atlantic hurricanes is about average, despite the record high temperatures of the Atlantic Ocean over the past decade." Soden said. "This is due to the compensating warmth in other ocean basins."
"As we try to understand the future changes in hurricane intensity, we must look beyond changes in Atlantic Ocean temperature. If the Atlantic warms more slowly than the rest of the tropical oceans, we would expect a decrease in the upper limit on hurricane intensity," Vecchi added. "This is an interesting piece of the puzzle."
"While these results challenge some current notions regarding the link between climate change and hurricane activity, they do not contradict the widespread scientific consensus on the reality of global warming," Soden noted.
The journal article is entitled "Effect of Remote Sea Surface Temperature Change on Tropical Cyclone Potential Intensity."

Adapted from materials provided by University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071212201954.htm

Climate Conflict: Study Shows Climate Change May Trigger Wars and Population Decline

2007-11-29T21:43:00.000-08:00

The study, published November 19 in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), revealed that as temperatures decreased centuries ago during a period called the Little Ice Age, the number of wars increased, famine occurred and the population declined.
Data on past climates may help accurately predict and design strategies for future large and persistent climate changes, but acknowledging the historic social impact of these severe events is an important step toward that goal, according to the study’s authors.
“Even though temperatures are increasing now, the same resulting conflicts may occur since we still greatly depend on the land as our food source,” said Peter Brecke, associate professor in the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and co-author of the study.
This new study expands previous work by Associate Professor David Zhang of the University of Hong Kong and lead author of the study.
“My previous research just focused on Eastern China. This current study covers a much larger spatial area and the conclusions from the current research could be considered general principles,” said Zhang.
University of Hong Kong news release
Brecke, Zhang and colleagues in Hong Kong, China and the United Kingdom perceived a possible connection between temperature change and wars because changes in climate affect water supplies, growing seasons and land fertility, prompting food shortages. These shortages could lead to conflict – local uprisings, government destabilization and invasions from neighboring regions – and population decline due to bloodshed during the wars and starvation.
To study whether changes in temperature affected the number of wars, the researchers examined the time period between 1400 and 1900. This period recorded the lowest average global temperatures around 1450, 1650 and 1820, each separated by slight warming intervals.
The researchers collected war data from multiple sources, including a database of 4,500 wars worldwide that Brecke began developing in 1995 with funding from the U.S. Institute of Peace. They also used climate change records that paleoclimatologists reconstructed by consulting historical documents and examining indicators of temperature change like tree rings, as well as oxygen isotopes in ice cores and coral skeletons.
Results showed a cyclic pattern of turbulent periods when temperatures were low followed by tranquil ones when temperatures were higher. The number of wars per year worldwide during cold centuries was almost twice that of the mild 18th century.
The study also showed population declines following each high war peak, according to population data Brecke assembled. The population growth rate of the Northern Hemisphere was elevated from 1400-1600, despite a short cooling period beginning in the middle of the 15th century. However, during the colder 17th century, Europe and Asia experienced more wars of great magnitude and population declines.
In China, the population plummeted 43 percent between 1620 and 1650. Then, a dramatic increase in population occurred from 1650 until a cooling period beginning in 1800 caused a worldwide demographic shock.
The researchers examined whether these average temperature differences of less than one degree Celsius were enough to cause food shortages. By assuming that agricultural production decreases triggered price increases, they showed that when grain prices reached a certain level, wars erupted. The ecological stress on agricultural production triggered by climate change did in fact induce population shrinkages, according to Brecke.
Global temperatures are expected to rise in the future and the world’s growing population may be unable to adequately adapt to the ecological changes, according to Brecke.
“The warmer temperatures are probably good for a while, but beyond some level plants will be stressed,” explained Brecke. “With more droughts and a rapidly growing population, it is going to get harder and harder to provide food for everyone and thus we should not be surprised to see more instances of starvation and probably more cases of hungry people clashing over scarce food and water.”

Source: http://www.gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/climate-war.htm

NGOS IN AFRICA

2007-11-27T04:24:00.000-08:00

JOHANNESBURG:
'Let's have a test," challenged a colleague recently in Rwanda, "as to what NGO Landcruiser next arrives in the parking lot. "It was no joke. The parking lot of any upmarket restaurant in any African capital speaks volumes about the neo-imperial game being played out in Africa.
Four-wheel-drive after four-wheel-drive emblazoned with the logo of some donor agency or children's charity jostle for space.

The humanitarians are not hard to spot in person either. Usually white, generally loud, they prefer a shabby-chic uniform of T-shirt, jeans and sandals. But they are more powerful and usually less benign than they appear.

Sitting recently in the Café Bourbon in the smart, new shopping precinct of Kigali opened my eyes (and ears) to some of the implications. "We must just transfer the $8.5 million," rasped the American working for a prominent NGO.

Such money grants them considerable power and influence. The average Rwandan earns $240 per year. The government's annual budget is $650 million. Recent events in Chad over alleged orphan smuggling by an NGO illustrate if nothing else the degree of suspicion such relative power produces. Those sympathetic to the (mostly) young people performing humanitarian roles in Africa argue that they bring much needed skills to deprived Africans. The defense normally adds that they are giving up promising careers and suffering hardship in doing so. What they don't emphasize is the less obvious harm they do. Those previously rendering imperial service suffered hardship, disease and violence. There were no emergency medevacs then, no media to dramatize their service, and no pop stars to campaign on their behalf. And even if these forefathers and mothers promoted polices politically distasteful today, they were more accountable than those in this new quasi-colonial service. The imperial agents of old had at least to answer to parliaments and taxpayers, not self-appointed boards of self-important thought-leaders. But this is not the worst of it. Recently Paris Hilton announced that she was going to be really brave and travel to Rwanda. "I'm scared, yeah," she said. "I've heard it's really dangerous. I've never been on a trip like this before. "She was reportedly planning to "leave her mark" - just like many others before her, supposedly helping Africa while helping themselves. Once there she might have considered a visit to the local Millennium Development Village, an idea to help Africa formulated by the Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs. Celebrity airhead might meet celebrity economist.

Explaining what motivated her trip, Paris said "There's so much need in that area, and I feel like if I go, it will bring more attention to what people can do to help." If it eventually happens, hopefully the hotel heiress' visit (now officially rescheduled) will be more successful than the village concept by which Sachs wanted to prove his theory that if you give a small unit enough resources then the inhabitants will prosper, a micro-prototype to the "more aid equals African development" thesis. The cost of the "services" rendered by such foreigners is, as ever, borne by Africans. Their actions, fundraising techniques and prominence strengthen the perception that Africa is unable to help itself - both inside and, especially given foreign NGO funding requirements, outside the country. It perpetuates perceptions of helplessness and a victim mentality. At a time when many have realized that African development depends on Africans determining their own policies and making those choices, such actions transfer power and emphasis away from the continent's decision-makers.

Portraying Africa as an object of pity also ignores the very real progress the continent - now in its fourth straight year of six percent GDP growth - has made in ending conflict and raising living standards. What Africa needs is extraordinary economic growth, not extraordinary pity. That is why eventually Africa will tire of this new generation of imperialists, just as it rejected the last lot.

Greg Mills heads the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation.

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/02/opinion/edmills.php

Humanitarian Assistance Often Lacks Needs Assessment

2007-11-22T02:46:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (Nov. 10, 2007) — The first academic thesis in Sweden on international health assistance in disaster zones is to be presented at the medical university Karolinska Institutet. In his thesis, Dr Johan von Schreeb shows that international assistance is often sent to disaster areas without any prior needs assessment having been made of the affected population.

Dr von Schreeb has carried out needs assessments in a number of disaster situations. He examined the need for international medical assistance after the terrorist action in a school in Beslan, Russia, in 2004, and the low-intensity conflict in the Palestinian territories in 2002. He also studied the use of Foreign Field Hospitals in the natural (sudden impact) disaster zones of Bam (Iran) in 2003, Haiti and Aceh (Indonesia) in 2004 and Pakistan (Kashmir) 2005).

What he discovered was a lack of understanding of people's needs subsequent to the disaster and that international assistance takes inadequate account of existing resources. International field hospitals specialising in life-saving trauma care were dispatched to four areas of natural disaster. Not one arrived within the 48 hours in which lives could still be saved.

If appropriate assistance is to be provided, organisers need access to information about the disaster, the affected area, the size of the population, the socio-economic situation and the available local and regional resources. International donors of humanitarian assistance have jointly decided to distribute the money on the basis of local needs.

There are well-described methods of making needs assessments, but the results are too rarely used. One of Dr von Schreeb's sub-studies examined the extent to which Sida took account of needs assessments in its decisions to fund humanitarian health projects in 2003. Only one third of these decisions contained information about the size of the population to be helped or other factors reflecting their health needs. "My interpretation of this is that it's difficult to provide funding on the basis of needs," says Dr von Schreeb. "Other procedures are needed for having needs govern funding decisions."

During his time as medical coordinator for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) in Kashmir, Dr von Schreeb was able to test a new rapid method of gathering needs assessment data in a disaster area. After the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, he interviewed people at health facilities. His interviewees were geographically representative of the studied population, and the early estimated death and injury toll compared well with the results of a later study in which everyone living in the area was interviewed. "The interviews gave a good, immediate idea of what people needed -- in this case to have their houses repaired before the winter," says Dr von Schreeb.

Thesis: Needs assessments for international humanitarian health assistance in disasters, Johan von Schreeb, Department of Public Health Science, Karolinska Institutet
The public defence of this thesis will be taking place on 23 November 2007 at Karolinska Institutet Campus Solna, Stockholm.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071109101759.htm

'Ultrasound' Of Earth's Crust Reveals Inner Workings Of A Tsunami Factory

2007-11-22T02:35:00.000-08:00

ScienceDaily (Nov. 15, 2007) — Research just announced by a team of U.S. and Japanese geoscientists may help explain why part of the seafloor near the southwest coast of Japan is particularly good at generating devastating tsunamis, such as the 1944 Tonankai event, which killed at least 1,200 people. The findings will help scientists assess the risk of giant tsunamis in other regions of the world.

Geoscientists from The University of Texas at Austin and colleagues used a commercial ship to collect three-dimensional seismic data that reveals the structure of Earth's crust below a region of the Pacific seafloor known as the Nankai Trough. The resulting images are akin to ultrasounds of the human body. The results, published in the journal Science, address a long standing mystery as to why earthquakes below some parts of the seafloor trigger large tsunamis while earthquakes in other regions do not. The 3D seismic images allowed the researchers to reconstruct how layers of rock and sediment have cracked and shifted over time. They found two things that contribute to big tsunamis.

First, they confirmed the existence of a major fault that runs from a region known to unleash earthquakes about 10 kilometers (6 miles) deep right up to the seafloor. When an earthquake happens, the fault allows it to reach up and move the seafloor up or down, carrying a column of water with it and setting up a series of tsunami waves that spread outward.

Second, and most surprising, the team discovered that the recent fault activity, probably including the slip that caused the 1944 event, has shifted to landward branches of the fault, becoming shallower and steeper than it was in the past. "That leads to more direct displacement of the seafloor and a larger vertical component of seafloor displacement that is more effective in generating tsunamis," said Nathan Bangs, senior research scientist at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin who was co-principal investigator on the research project and co-author on the Science article.

The Nankai Trough is in a subduction zone, an area where two tectonic plates are colliding, pushing one plate down below the other. The grinding of one plate over the other in subduction zones leads to some of the world's largest earthquakes.

In 2002, a team of researchers led by Jin-Oh Park at Japan Marine Science and Technology Center (JAMSTEC) had identified the fault, known as a megathrust or megasplay fault, using less detailed two-dimensional geophysical methods. Based on its location, they suggested a possible link to the 1944 event, but they were unable to determine where faulting has been recently active. "What we can now say is that slip has very recently propagated up to or near to the seafloor, and slip along these thrusts most likely caused the large tsunami during the 1944 Tonankai 8.1 magnitude event," said Bangs. The images produced in this project will be used by scientists in the Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone Experiment (NanTroSEIZE), an international effort designed to, for the first time, "drill, sample and instrument the earthquake-causing, or seismogenic portion of Earth's crust, where violent, large-scale earthquakes have occurred repeatedly throughout history." "The ultimate goal is to understand what's happening at different margins," said Bangs. "The 2004 Indonesian tsunami was a big surprise. It's still not clear why that earthquake created such a large tsunami. By understanding places like Nankai, we'll have more information and a better approach to looking at other places to determine whether they have potential. And we'll be less surprised in the future."
Bangs' co-principal investigator was Gregory Moore at JAMSTEC in Yokohama and the University of Hawaii, Honolulu. The other co-authors are Emily Pangborn at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin, Asahiko Taira and Shin'ichi Kuramoto at JAMSTEC and Harold Tobin at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Funding for the project was provided by the National Science Foundation, Ocean Drilling Program and Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Technology.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071115164101.htm

Children At Increased Risk From Effects Of Global Climate Change, Report Says

2007-11-01T05:41:00.000-07:00

ScienceDaily (Nov. 1, 2007) — There is broad scientific consensus that the earth’s climate is warming, the process is accelerating, and that human activities are very likely the main cause. Children are often most vulnerable to adverse health effects from environmental hazards because they are not fully developed physically and psychologically.

A new American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) technical report and policy statement, “Global Climate Change and Children’s Health,” outlines the specific ways global climate change impacts child health, and calls on pediatricians to understand the threats to children, anticipate the impact on children’s health, and advocate for strategies that will lessen the effects.
Direct health impacts from global warming include injury and death from more frequent extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and tornados. For children, this can mean post-traumatic stress, loss of caregivers, disrupted education and displacement. Increased climate-sensitive infectious diseases, air pollution-related illness, and heat-related illness and fatalities also are expected.
As the climate changes, the earth’s geography also will change, leading to a host of health risks for kids. Disruptions in the availability of food and water and the displacement of coastal populations can cause malnutrition, vitamin deficiencies and waterborne illness, the statement said.
“This is a call for us to look at how climate change may be impacted by what we do as an organization, what we do in our personal business and what we do in our home life,” said Helen J. Binns, MD, MPH, FAAP, chair of the AAP Committee on Environmental Health.
The statement encourages pediatricians to be role models for minimizing greenhouse gas emissions by making small changes such as switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs, reducing thermostat settings in the winter and increasing settings in the summer, and using cars less. Pediatricians should make sure their patients understand the air quality index, pollen counts and UV measures used in most metropolitan areas. These conversations can be opportunities to introduce the broader issue of climate change and the importance of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
The statement also advises pediatricians to advocate and support policies that strengthen public transportation, expand green spaces and reward energy efficiency. It’s also crucial that children are given specific attention in emergency and disaster response planning.
Adapted from materials provided by American Academy of Pediatrics.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071029121121.htm

Israeli quake may be precursor to disaster

2007-10-15T05:53:00.000-07:00

Israeli quake may be precursor to disaster
JERUSALEM, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- A 3.0-magnitude earthquake that rattled Israel Sunday may be a precursor to a much larger quake scientists have predicted for the region.
While Sunday's earthquake in Israel's Jordan rift valley area was minor, as were two other recent temblors in the region, scientists are concerned a larger quake could occur due to a nearby rift, Ynetnews reported.
The Syrian-African rift, known for being volatile, is close to the valley area and therefore the site of the recent earthquakes.
Department of Environmental Sciences and Geophysics scientist Shmuel Marko and Oded Katz of the Geophysical Institute of Israel said in a recent study that such seismic activity appears to indicate a more disastrous quake is imminent.
"We know that the area between the Kinneret and the Dead Sea was subject to several large quakes, in 31 B.C., 362 B.C., 749 B.C. and 1033 A.D.," the pair said in that study. "Another major one is coming soon."

Does Underground Water Regulate Earthquakes?

2007-10-12T06:05:00.000-07:00

Does Underground Water Regulate Earthquakes?
Science Daily — Earthquakes happen to be surface (shallow-focus), intermediate and deep ones. Seismologists mark out the boundary between the first two types at the depth of about 70 kilometers, its nature being still unclear.

Russian researchers, specialists of the Institute of Maritime Geology and Geophysics (Far-Eastern Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences), Geophysical Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology (Russian Academy of Sciences) have put forward a hypothesis that the seismic boundary is simultaneously the lower boundary of hydrosphere. The earthquakes character depends on underground water.
Earthquakes taking place “at different sides of the boundary” differ from each other not only by the depth. Shallow-focus earthquakes – they account for about 85% of all recorded events - often take place under the influence of periodic external effects, for example, rising tides, which disturb the entire lithosphere of the Earth. Periodicity is not inherent to deeper earthquakes, they always occur by chance. The conclusion was made by the researchers who had analyzed the world ISC/NEIC catalogues data that covers the 1964-2005 period and takes into account about 80,000 events.
Seismologists connect existence of the 70-kilometer boundary with water state changes in the interior of the Earth. The deeper the water molecules are located, the more compressed they are. At the depth of about 70 kilometers, the water compression strain index increases up to 1.3. This is the way water molecules are squeezed in the crystal lattice. Above this boundary, water exists mainly in free phase, below the boundary – water embeds into the rock crystallite composition.
The rock containing free water (above the boundary) promptly reacts to periodic tidal effects, even the faintest ones. Pressure changes and respective environment density changes cause formation of a crack system, where free water rushes to. The cracks widen, increase, and rock decay gives birth to a seismic focus. In the rock, where free water is absent (below the boundary), weak tidal effects are not accumulated and deformation does not grow.
So, the seismic boundary at the depth of about 70 kilometers (where, according to the researchers’ assumption, the lower hydrosphere boundary runs) separates the events that are able to react to external action and the ones incapable of such reaction. Therefore, this boundary separates different types of earthquakes. However, it is still a hypothesis that requires experimental validation.
Note: This story has been adapted from material provided by Russian Academy Of Sciences.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070915105639.htm

Devastating Earthquake May Threaten Middle East's Near Future

2007-10-05T07:15:00.000-07:00

Devastating Earthquake May Threaten Middle East's Near Future, Geologist Predicts
Science Daily — The best seismologists in the world don’t know when the next big earthquake will hit. But a Tel Aviv University geologist suggests that earthquake patterns recorded in historical documents of Middle Eastern countries indicate that the region’s next significant quake is long overdue.

A major quake of magnitude seven on the Richter scale in the politically-fragile region of the Middle East could have dire consequences for precious holy sites and even world peace, says Tel Aviv University geologist Dr. Shmulik Marco. In light of this imminent danger, Marco, from the school’s Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, has taken an historical approach to earthquake forecasting by using ancient records from the Vatican and other religious sources in his assessment. The past holds the key to the future, he says.
“All of us in the region should be worried,” explains Marco, who dedicates his career to piecing together ancient clues.
Based on the translations of hundreds of documents -- some of the originals of which he assumes reside in Vatican vaults -- Marco has helped determine that a series of devastating earthquakes have hit the Holy Land over the last two thousand years. The major ones were recorded along the Jordan Valley in the years 31 B.C.E., 363 C.E., 749 C.E., and 1033 C.E. “So roughly,” warns Marco, “we are talking about an interval of every 400 years. If we follow the patterns of nature, a major quake should be expected any time because almost a whole millennium has passed since the last strong earthquake of 1033.”

Written by monks and clergy, the documents, which span about two millenia, can help determine the location and impact of future quakes on several fault planes cutting through Israel and its neighboring countries, Marco believes. “We use the records, written in churches and monasteries or by hermits in the desert, to find patterns,” he says. Marco credits the help of an international team of historians, who have deciphered the Latin, Greek, and Arabic of the original correspondence.
He continues, “Even if these papers were not ‘officially’ recording history, they hold a lot of information. ... Some are letters to Europe asking for funding of church repairs. And while many of these accounts are told in an archaic religious manner, they help us confirm the dates and location of major calamities. Following these patterns in the past can be a good predictor of the future.”
One of the most cited Christian chroniclers in history upon whom Marco bases some of his conclusions is a ninth-century Byzantine aristocratic monk named Theophanes, venerated today by Catholics. In one manuscript, Theophanes wrote, “A great earthquake in Palestine, by the Jordan and in all of Syria on 18 January in the 4th hour. Numberless multitudes perished, churches and monasteries collapsed especially in the desert of the Holy City.”
While Christian sources helped Marco confirm ancient catastrophes and cast light on future ones, Jewish sources from the Bible also gave him small pieces of the puzzle. A verse in Zachariah (Ch. 14) describes two instances of earthquakes, one of which split apart the Mount of Olives, he says. Muslim clergy have also collected ancient correspondence, which further broadens the picture.
”Earthquakes are a manifestation of deeper processes inside the earth,” Marco says. “My questions and analysis examine how often they occur and whether there is pattern to them, temporally or spatially. I am looking for patterns and I can say that based on ancient records, the pattern in Israel around the Dead Sea region is the most disturbing to us.
“When it strikes and it will this quake will affect Amman, Jordan as well as Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem. Earthquakes don’t care about religion or political boundaries,” Marco concludes.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071003142432.htm

Earthquake that will trigger a Tsunami (2008-2012)

2007-09-29T01:14:00.000-07:00

The Sumatra quake in 2004 has increased the probability of similar earthquake under the sea. The impact of a probable earthquake will be more in coast of India than the 2004 quake. The above is the map shoing the probability of the epicentre of the quake in the sea. Red spots are the active volcanos.

Source: World-Wide Earthquake Locator Version 5.1, June 2005© Bruce M. Gittings, 1994-2005, with Alison Story, Edmund Kleiser and Emese CseteURL: http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/quakes/

Study of Volatile Earthquake Zone

2007-09-22T01:51:00.000-07:00

Deep-sea Scientific Drilling Program To Study Volatile Earthquake Zone Launched - Source: Science Daily

The Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone Experiment (NanTroSEIZE) gets underway September 21, with the Japanese drilling vessel Chikyu departing from Shingu Port with scientists aboard, all ready to log, drill, sample, and install monitoring instrumentation in one of the most active earthquake zones on Earth.

For further details, visit this site
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070920173431.htm

Position: Livelihood Officer/Manager

2007-09-13T23:41:00.000-07:00

Position: Livelihood Officer/Manager
(Title to be finalized depending on the person's experience).
Organization: Canadian Red Cross-India Delegation, New Delhi

Person specifications:

Preferably MSW;
Experienced in Livelihood program planning, monitoring along with grass-root exposure;
Should be able to direct and support ongoing livelihood programs with a result oriented approach;
A good team player, report writer with ability to deliver to strict timelines under pressure;
Experienced in preparing and using project management tools;
Knowledge of Tamil is a definite advantage;
Experience of working in a multicultural environment/international NGO would be an added advantage

This is a full time, 15 months, Delhi based position, with frequent travel to field (approx 30% of the time)

Respondents could mail resume (mentioning time required to join) to:
irene.stanley@cancrossindia.org
with a copy to thomasjaisons@gmail.com
within a week of the release of this note.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Irene A. Stanley Project Officer Ì
Canadian Red Cross-India Delegation
No 1. Red Cross Road, New Delhi - 110 001 00-91-9810399633
www.redcross.ca

The potential for giant tsunamigenic earthquakes in the northern Bay of Bengal

2007-09-13T23:35:00.000-07:00

This is research paper about the the potential for giant tsunamigenic earthquakes in the northern Bay of Bengal byPhil R. Cummins

do click the link http://npg.nature.com/nature/journal/v449/n7158/full/nature06088.html

Tsunami Warning issued to Andaman and Nicobar

2007-09-12T07:40:00.000-07:00

TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 001PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWSISSUED AT 1124Z 12 SEP 2007THIS BULLETIN IS FOR ALL AREAS OF THE INDIAN OCEAN.... AN INDIAN-OCEAN-WIDE TSUNAMI WATCH IS IN EFFECT ...A TSUNAMI WATCH IS IN EFFECT FOR INDONESIA / AUSTRALIA / INDIA / SRI LANKA / THAILAND / UNITED KINGDOM / MALDIVES / MYANMAR / MALAYSIA / BANGLADESH / MAURITIUS / REUNION / SEYCHELLES / MADAGASCAR / SOMALIA / OMAN / PAKISTAN / IRAN / YEMEN / COMORES / CROZET ISLANDS / MOZAMBIQUE / KENYA / TANZANIA / KERGUELEN ISLANDS / SOUTH AFRICA / SINGAPORE THIS BULLETIN IS ISSUED AS ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT AGENCIES. ONLYNATIONAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO MAKEDECISIONS REGARDING THE OFFICIAL STATE OF ALERT IN THEIR AREA ANDANY ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN IN RESPONSE.AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS ORIGIN TIME - 1110Z 12 SEP 2007 COORDINATES - 4.5 SOUTH 101.3 EAST LOCATION - SOUTHERN SUMATERA INDONESIA MAGNITUDE - 7.9EVALUATION EARTHQUAKES OF THIS SIZE HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO GENERATE A WIDESPREAD DESTRUCTIVE TSUNAMI THAT CAN AFFECT COASTLINES ACROSS THE ENTIRE INDIAN OCEAN BASIN. HOWEVER - IT IS NOT KNOWN THAT A TSUNAMI WAS GENERATED. THIS WATCH IS BASED ONLY ON THE EARTHQUAKE EVALUATION. AUTHORITIES IN THE REGION SHOULD TAKE APPROPRIATE ACTION IN RESPONSE TO THE POSSIBILITY OF A WIDESPREAD DESTRUCTIVE TSUNAMI.

DUE TO ONLY LIMITED SEA LEVEL DATA FROM THE REGION IT MAY NOT BE POSSIBLE FOR THIS CENTER TO RAPIDLY CONFIRM NOR EVALUATE THE STRENGTH OF A TSUNAMI IF ONE HAS BEEN GENERATED.ESTIMATED INITIAL TSUNAMI WAVE ARRIVAL TIMES AT FORECAST POINTSWITHIN THE WARNING AND WATCH AREAS ARE GIVEN BELOW. ACTUALARRIVAL TIMES MAY DIFFER AND THE INITIAL WAVE MAY NOT BE THELARGEST. A TSUNAMI IS A SERIES OF WAVES AND THE TIME BETWEENSUCCESSIVE WAVES CAN BE FIVE MINUTES TO ONE HOUR.

Another Tsunami likely our generation is going to experience

2007-09-12T02:59:00.000-07:00

NEW DELHI: Millions of people living on the Bay of Bengal coast face a tsunami, possibly as devastating as the one in 2004 which killed more than 200,000 people when a 9.3 magnitude earthquake triggered it off Sumatra. Renowned geologist from Geoscience Australia, Phil R Cummins, known to have also predicted the 2004 tsunami, however, claimed that he could not predict the time frame in which such a catastrophic event could happen. In a paper in the journal Nature, Cummins warned that there was a distinct possibility of a quake measuring 8.5-9 on the Richter scale striking the northern region of Bay of Bengal. Quakes of more than 8 magnitude are known to cause such powerful tsunamis. The densely populated coasts of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar would be the most severely hit by such a tsunami if Cummins's prediction comes true. He studied what geologists call the Arakan subduction zone where the Indian and Southeast Asia plates meet. This stretch underlies all the land and water mass from Java and Sumatra to the eastern Himalayas right up to Arunachal Pradesh. A subduction zone refers to a region where, due to several reasons, two plates collide with one plate sliding over the other, causing earthquakes. Current science theories suggest that the subduction is not strong enough in the northern Bay of Bengal region where it weakens because of an oblique movement instead of a 'pure subduction'. But now, Cummins predicts that there is a distinct possibility of such a 'pure subduction'. He backs it up with historical data of tectonic movement from a 1762 earthquake in the Arakan area of Myanmar. But other scientists the world over have taken the paper with a pinch of salt, though terming the paper as a fair warning. R K Chaddha, project leader for seismology at the National Geophysical Research Institute, said.

For more details : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2342500.cms

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2007-08-31T23:59:00.000-07:00

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