Climatic and Environmental Convulsions
California's 2014 Rainfall Totals Approach Record Lows
07/01/2014 20:54
California's rainfall year ended today (June 30), and though the totals are not yet official, the parched state will likely end up with one of its lowest rainfall years since the 1920s.
California's precipitation year runs from July 1 through June 30, to account for the fact that most of...
5 states running out of water
06/29/2014 21:07
Extreme drought leads to extreme measures
The United States is currently experiencing one of the worst droughts in memory. More than 30 percent of the country was experiencing at least moderate drought last month.
In seven states, drought conditions were so severe that each had more than half of...
Earth's magnetic field showing signs of significant weakening
06/24/2014 08:07
The first set of high-resolution results from ESA’s three-satellite Swarm constellation reveals the most recent changes in the magnetic field that protects us from cosmic radiation and charged particles that bombard Earth.
Magnetic field is in a permanent state of flux. Magnetic north wanders, and...
California's Catastrophic Drought Just Got Worse—a Lot Worse
06/23/2014 21:30
How bad is California’s devastating drought? Just in the past week, the percentage of the state identified as being in “exceptional drought”—the most severe category—jumped from a quarter to a third.
The government-funded United States Drought Monitor classifies the entire state as in drought, and...
A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane — And Nobody Knows What's Causing It
06/22/2014 17:35
Dr. Glen MacPherson doesn't remember the first time he heard the sound. It may have started at the beginning of 2012, a dull, steady droning like that of a diesel engine idling down the street from his house in the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. A lecturer at the University of British...
Study says Earth on brink of mass extinction event
06/19/2014 06:19
A landmark study by an international group of scientists has concluded that planet Earth is on the brink of a mass extinction event comparable in scale to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The researchers found that extinction rates are currently 1000 times higher than...
Big 'Beast' Asteroid Flies by Earth Sunday
06/06/2014 19:28
Humanity should be thankful "The Beast" doesn't have Earth in its crosshairs.
This Sunday (June 8), the near-Earth asteroid 2014 HQ124 — which some observers have nicknamed "The Beast" — will give the planet a relatively close shave, coming within 777,000 miles (1.25 million kilometers) at its...
Rising Sea Levels Threaten Military Bases: ‘Where Will We Move Them?’
06/05/2014 21:02
A top Obama advisor said at an American Association for the Advancement of Science conference on Thursday that climate change threatens our national security, including military bases that could be misplaced by rising sea levels.
“It could, for example, affect our military mission,” Alice Hill,...
Endless winter: Yes, there’s still ice on Lake Superior
06/05/2014 07:29
Unimaginably, there’s still ice from the savage winter of 2013-14 on the south shore of Lake Superior near Marquette, Mich.
The Marquette Mining-Journal newspaper reports that according to some forecasts, the ice may last until July:
“To many area residents who suffered through one of the worst...
What's going on with the sun? Scientists puzzled
06/04/2014 20:51
The sun has been acting strangely of late, prompting some solar physicists to suggest that once current sunspot activity peaked, which appeared to happen last fall, it could tank and remain that way for several decades.
A prolonged period with few or no spots would have a slight, temporary cooling...
3-D Image of Joplin's 2011-05-22 Tornado
