Ice backs up on the Mississippi River around the Clark Bridge in Alton, Ill., north of St. Louis, on Jan. 24.
Reuters 
MINNEAPOLIS — With the upper Midwest warming up from a deep freeze and one of the snowiest winters in decades, state officials from Nebraska to North Dakota are thinking of spring time — and flooding.
Along ice-choked Midwest waterways, officials hope the deep snowpack will melt gradually enough for the runoff to be absorbed by rivers and remain within the protective dikes and levee systems that could be overwhelmed by a rapid thaw."We are obviously hoping for the best, but planning for the worst at this point," said Cecily Fong, spokeswoman for the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services.
In Nebraska, officials ruled out for now spreading coal ash or using dynamite to break up thick slabs of ice on the Platte River for a second consecutive year after a survey Monday found water moving at key points.
"The channels that we want open are flowing," Nebraska Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Jodie Fawl said, adding that officials would monitor the river closely for refreezing, ice jams and fast melting.
It would be the second straight year, and only the fifth winter in three decades, that Nebraska resorted to using coal dust on the river, said Al Berndt, assistant director for the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency. The ice was 17 inches thick last year.
Story: Send, view images of the wicked winter of 2011 Planning meetings started in January across North Dakota, and Governor Jack Dalrymple issued a statewide disaster declaration on Friday to lay the groundwork for seeking federal aid should severe flooding strike.
Across the border to the east, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton and U.S. Sen. Al Franken met with residents and emergency officials in Moorhead and Crookston on Friday to discuss plans for combating flooding in those regions.
City leaders in Fargo, North Dakota, are seeking volunteers to fill more than 3 million sandbags starting on Monday to hold back floodwaters from the Red River, which crested at nearly 41 feet in March 2009.
Temperatures rose above freezing on Sunday across the Upper Midwest, and some runoff may begin to be seen in rivers. But colder temperatures were expected to return within a week, according to the National Weather Service.
The shift of melting snow toward the rivers is likely to be "quite a lengthy process," though the threat of ice jams is high at several locations, the weather service said.
The National Weather Service is expected to release an updated regional flood forecast on February 17.
In West Fargo, a diversion project and vigilant clearing of ice jams has stemmed the Sheyenne River from flooding the city in recent years as it flows toward the Red River.
"We are pretty much fairly well protected," West Fargo Mayor Richard Mattern said. "We made 10,000 sandbags last year, I think Fargo made millions. We will just have to see how the melt goes, and Fargo is the same way."
Reuters: Two Iranian warships transiting Suez Canal for Syria; Concern Israel may respondlink
By Jamie Coleman || February 16, 2011 at 16:25 GMT
|| 18 comments || Add comment
Traders are buying CHF on news via the Israeli foreign minister that two Iranian warships are moving through the Suez Canal on their way to Syria. The minister hinted at an Israeli response, according to a Reuters headline.
Look for a “risk-off” tone if these headlines gain traction.
USD/CHF has dropped from near 0.9690 to 0.9635 on the report.
Look for a “risk-off” tone if these headlines gain traction.
USD/CHF has dropped from near 0.9690 to 0.9635 on the report.
Some scientists think a brown dwarf or gas giant bigger than Jupiter could be at the outer reaches of the solar system. In this image showing relative size, the white object at the upper left edge represents the sun.
February 15th, 2011
You know how you sometimes can sense that something is present even though you can't see it? Well, astronomers are getting that feeling about a giant, hidden object in space.
And when we say giant, we mean GIANT.Evidence is mounting that either a brown dwarf star or a gas giant planet is lurking at the outermost reaches of our solar system, far beyond Pluto. The theoretical object, dubbed Tyche, is estimated to be four times the size of Jupiter and 15,000 times farther from the sun than Earth, according to a story in the British paper The Independent.
Astrophysicists John Matese and Daniel Whitmire from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette think data from NASA's infrared space telescope WISE will confirm Tyche's existence and location within two years.
The presence of such a massive object in the solar system's far-flung Oort Cloud could explain a barrage of comets from an unexpected direction, according to a December article at Space.com.
Its 27 million-year orbit could also explain a pattern of mass extinctions on Earth, scientists say.
Brown dwarfs are cold "failed" stars; their dimness and lack of heat radiation can make them hard to detect. Gas giants are huge planets – like Saturn, Jupiter and Neptune – that are made up of gases and may lack a solid surface like Earth's.
Whitmire told The Independent that Tyche will probably be composed of hydrogen and helium and have colorful spots, bands and clouds like Jupiter.
"You'd also expect it to have moons," he said. "All the outer planets have them."
Tyche was first hypothesized in 1984 as Nemesis, a dark companion star to the sun. It's been the subject of astronomical research and debate ever since. In July, another Space.com article said the celestial evidence suggests Tyche could not possibly exist.
To distinguish it from the Nemesis star theory, Matese and Whitmire are calling their object Tyche, after the good sister of the goddess Nemesis in Greek mythology.
Is Germany’s West Eifel volcanic field awakening?
15 Feb 11 - Swarm of earthquakes in the area. Last erupted in sync with the ice-age cycle.
See Is Germany’s West Eifel volcanic field awakening?
South Korea chaos - Heaviest snowfall in a century -
More snow on the way
14 Feb 11 - Includes sad video of a deer trapped in the snow.
See South Korea chaos - Heaviest snowfall in a century -
More on the way
More Deep-Sea Volcanic Vents Discovered - But we still blame humans for heating the seas
14 Feb 11 - This is the fourth set of hot springs to be discovered around Antarctica since 2009, suggesting that "deep-sea vents may be more common in our oceans than previously thought." See More Deep-Sea Volcanic Vents Discovered 
15 Feb 11 - Swarm of earthquakes in the area. Last erupted in sync with the ice-age cycle.
See Is Germany’s West Eifel volcanic field awakening?
South Korea chaos - Heaviest snowfall in a century -
More snow on the way
14 Feb 11 - Includes sad video of a deer trapped in the snow.
See South Korea chaos - Heaviest snowfall in a century -
More on the way
14 Feb 11 - This is the fourth set of hot springs to be discovered around Antarctica since 2009, suggesting that "deep-sea vents may be more common in our oceans than previously thought." See More Deep-Sea Volcanic Vents Discovered
Powerful solar flare disrupts radio communications in Southern China
February 16, 2011 – BEIJING – The strongest solar flare in four years disrupted radio communications in southern China, according to the China Meteorological Administration. The solar flare, a huge explosion on the sun’s surface caused by magnetic activity, affected transmissions in southern China on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported, quoting the CMA. The US space administration NASA confirmed that Monday’s solar flare was the largest in four years, and the event sparked predictions of heightened activity on the northern hemisphere of the sun. “X-class flares are the most powerful of all solar events that can trigger radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms,” disrupting telecommunications and electric grids, NASA said. Solar flares are classified as A, B, C, M or X, with each class having a peak 10 times greater than the preceding one. NASA also said the flare caused “sudden ionospheric disturbances” in the atmosphere above China and the CMA warned there was a high probability that large solar flares would appear over the next three days. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory saw a large coronal mass ejection associated with the flash that is blasting toward Earth at about 560 miles per second (900 kilometers per second). Monday’s flare erupted in the sun’s southern hemisphere, which has so far shown less flare activity than the northern hemisphere. It followed several smaller M-class and C-class flares in recent days. A magnetic storm caused by a solar eruption in 1973 plunged six million people into darkness in Canada’s eastern-central Quebec province. -Breitbart.com
Posted in Earth Changes, Solar Event 1 Comment
What’s killing thousands of fish in Turkey?
February 15, 2011 – INSTANBUL – Sudden and unexplained mass fish deaths in the Black Sea region of Turkey have local residents worried about the safety of their water supply and calling on officials to solve the mystery. When residents in Mescitli village in Gümüşhane province first observed dead fish in Harşit stream 15 days ago, they thought the fish had died of natural causes, said village head Cenk İnce. “However, when we realized the number of dead fish had risen, we urgently informed the officials. There were fish for two kilometers along the shore, which worried us. We are using the stream’s water in our agricultural activities,” İnce said, according to the Doğan news agency, or DHA. He added that the villagers have urged officials to investigate immediately. The provincial directorates of health, forest, environment and agricultural have reportedly launched an investigation, taking samples of the dead fish and the water from the stream. Locals believe the deaths are due to pollution. “The fish died due to pollution produced by people,” one villager said. “Forty years ago, we and our animals were able to drink the stream water. Water for our crops was provided from the stream. Now there is nothing growing here, life has ended here,” DHA quoted a local resident as saying. The village has never seen anything like the fish deaths before, said resident Tacettin İnce. –Hurriet Daily News
Are we on the brink of a genetic evolution for untreatable microbes?
February 16, 2011 – LONDON – Scientists have found their first evidence of gene transfer from humans to bacteria – and, guess what, it’s gonorrhea that’s the lucky recipient. Gonorrhea, transmitted through sexual contact, is one of the oldest recorded diseases and one of a few exclusive to humans. Something that sounds very much like it is described in the Bible. Now, Northwestern Medicine researchers have discovered a human DNA fragment in Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and say the gene transfer appears to be relatively recent. “This has evolutionary significance because it shows you can take broad evolutionary steps when you’re able to acquire these pieces of DNA,” said study senior author Hank Seifert. “The bacterium is getting a genetic sequence from the very host it’s infecting. That could have far-reaching implications as far as how the bacteria can adapt to the host.” It’s known that gene transfer occurs between different bacteria and even between bacteria and yeast cells – but never between two species so very different. “Whether this particular event has provided an advantage for the gonorrhea bacterium, we don’t know yet,” Seifert said. The gene transfer was discovered when the genomic sequences of several gonorrhea clinical isolates were determined at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Three of the 14 isolates had a piece of DNA where the sequence of DNA bases (A’s, T’s, C’s and G’s) was identical to an L1 DNA element found in humans. The team sequenced the fragment to confirm it was indeed identical to the human one, and also found that the human sequence was present in about 11 percent of the screened gonorrhea isolates. The team also screened the bacterium that causes meningitis, Neisseria meningitidis – very closely related to gonorrhea bacteria at the genetic level. There was no sign of the human fragment, suggesting the gene transfer is a recent evolutionary event. …”The next step is to figure out what this piece of DNA is doing,” Seifert said. –TG Daily
Posted in Earth Changes, Pestilence Watch, Unsolved Mystery Leave a comment
Part 2: Work at global seed vault accelerates
February 16, 2011 - NORWAY – Farmers from Australia are the latest donors to a polar bear-patrolled Arctic doomsday vault that stores seeds as insurance against an international food emergency. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a converted mine, is located about 800 miles from the North Pole in Arctic Norway. An Australian delegation of farmers and scientists next week will deposit 301 samples of peas and 42 rare chickpeas in the vault, intending to protect the plant species from extinction by climatic or man-made events. “It’s a very robust structure, concrete, made into the side of a mountain at Svalbard in the Spitsbergen Highlands in the Arctic,” said Dr. Tony Gregson, a farmer and scientist with Plant Health Australia, an agriculture industry body. According to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault website, the facility’s main purpose is “to store duplicates (‘back ups’) of all seed samples from the world’s crop collections. Permafrost and thick rock ensure that, even in the case of a power outage, the seed samples will remain frozen.” “It’s as safe as any place on earth, actually,” Gregson said. “It’s built deliberately 60 meters above current sea level, which is above any predicted sea level rise, built into solid rock. “It’s in permanent permafrost, so the temperature will never rise above about minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit) and it is patrolled by polar bears. As far as we can tell, it is the safest place on earth.” –AOL News
Posted in 2012, Earth Changes, Food chain unraveling 1 Comment
Victoria gets inundated by more torrential rain swells
February 15, 2011 – VICTORIA – VICTORIANS should brace for more rain and flash flooding after storms lashed the state last night. Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Terry Ryan said our summer deluge will continue well into the weekend, the Herald Sun said. “There will be more rain today, and possible storms, with the heaviest rain expected in the ranges,” Mr. Ryan said. “And we’re expecting heavy falls tomorrow night or early Saturday morning.” Mr. Ryan said the weekend storms, which could see 50mm rainfalls, could cause significant flash flooding around the state. Last night, dozens of motorists were rescued by SES volunteers as storms lashed the city and suburbs. The SES recorded more than 400 calls for assistance from residents in the outer eastern and southeastern suburbs. Melbourne’s outer eastern suburbs were the worst hit with significant flooding in Lilydale after 69mm of rain fell. –Herald Sun
Posted in Earth Changes, Extreme Weather Event Leave a comment
Chaos: A week off record lows in U.S.- temps flirt with 100 year highs
February 16, 2011 – DALLAS, TX - The big warm-up sweeping the eastern two-thirds of the country this week will reach its peak today through Friday, depending on location. In some places, temperatures will challenge records that go back more than 100 years. Records were already broken Tuesday in parts of Nebraska, Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana, Texas and Nevada. As the warmth spreads north and eastward from the Southwest and Gulf Coast region, highs in the 70s are forecast all the way north into parts of Kansas, Arkansas, the Carolinas, Virginia and Maryland. Some areas of Texas have already been warming into the 80s this week, and soon portions of Florida will join them. While people farther north across the Midwest and Northeast will not experience this kind of warmth just yet, temperatures will still be rising well above normal and even challenging records in some cases. -Accuweather
Climate unraveling: This is clearly a taste of what’s to come this summer in the Northern hemisphere. We will see record high temperatures across the globe along with more turbulent storm systems.
Posted in Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Extreme Weather Event 1 Comment
12 earthquakes shake Faulkner county Arkansas in 24 hour period
February 16, 2011 – GUY, ARK - People who live in northern Faulkner County are feeling the ground shake again. 12 earthquakes have happened in the Greenbrier area between 3:30 this morning and 3:30 this afternoon. The strongest of those registered 2.9 on the Richter Scale. There have been a dozen quakes since Monday around Greenbrier according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). According to Wikipedia, earthquakes that register 2.0 to 2.9 in magnitude are classified as minor and are generally not felt. There are about 1,000 of these everyday around the world. -Arkansas Matters
Posted in Earth Changes, Seismic tremors 2 Comments
February 16, 2011 
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