Sunday, May 31, 2015

[californiadisasters] L.A. County drought plan decried by residents facing big water bills



L.A. County drought plan decried by residents facing big water bills

Gov. Jerry Brown water cuts
Local water agencies around California, under orders by Gov. Jerry Brown to make deep cuts to consumption, have come up with strategies that run the gamut. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

By Abby Sewell

'Who's going to tell the kids that they can only use the bathroom on Monday and Friday?' #CAdrought
L.A. County to vote on unusual drought plan that could lead to doubling or tripling of household water bills
'When you have a scarce commodity, it's going to become more costly,' L.A. County official on water

Andrew Chadd was startled when he opened the notice from the Los Angeles County agency that supplies water to his neighborhood in the unincorporated community of Littlerock.

To conserve during the statewide drought, the letter said, Antelope Valley water customers would have to collectively reduce consumption 32%. But Chadd's family of seven would be required to cut consumption 70% or potentially see their bill triple.

We were trying to figure out ... how we can do this and who's going to tell the kids that they can only use the bathroom on Monday and Friday? - Andrew Chadd

"We were trying to figure out … how we can do this and who's going to tell the kids that they can only use the bathroom on Monday and Friday?" he told county officials at a meeting last week.

Local water agencies around California, under orders by the state to make deep cuts to consumption, have come up with strategies that run the gamut. They include giving cash for ripping out lawns, fining residents who over-water their plants or simply asking customers to decrease their use. But Los Angeles County is considering an unusual conservation plan that is drawing an outcry from residents whose water bills could skyrocket.

Although the state wants to reduce overall urban water use 25%, the county is required to cut consumption 32% in the Antelope Valley and 36% in Malibu and Topanga — among the highest mandated reductions in the state.

Under the proposed plan, which county supervisors are scheduled to vote on Tuesday, the county water districts would calculate a single monthly target for most residential users by deducting the percentage reduction from average usage for the area in 2013. Customers who exceed the target would pay double or triple the base rates.

Residents like Chadd, with larger than average families or properties, say the formula is unfair because it sets the same target for everyone regardless of a customer's current water use or the number of people in the household.

Gary Hildebrand, deputy director of the county's public works department, which runs the county Waterworks Districts, said there would be an appeal process to address households with special circumstances.

But county officials argue that their approach rewards people who are already conserving and gives heavier users the choice to cut back or pay higher rates. The county has implemented irrigation restrictions and offers incentives to residents who remove their lawns or buy water-saving appliances, Hildebrand said.

"Water's becoming more scarce in the drought, and when you have a scarce commodity, it's going to become more costly," he said.

With hundreds of water suppliers around the state developing different plans to meet their conservation goals, experts said there is no standard approach.

Some agencies, including the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, have limited outdoor watering and set fines for violators, but have not put in place the type of penalties for individual customers that the county is contemplating.

Other agencies that have drought surcharges structured them differently than what the county is proposing. The city of Glendale imposes a flat surcharge on each hundred cubic feet of water sold. The Quartz Hill Water District, which serves about 20,300 customers in the Antelope Valley, is requiring customers to cut their use 36% or face penalties. But the target usage amounts are based on each customer's past use, not on an average across the district.

"It wouldn't be fair to ask one customer to cut back 10% and one customer to cut back 50%," said district spokeswoman Debi Pizzo.

She said the district also takes into account factors such as the number of people in a household and the lot size to determine a conservation level for each customer, and wouldn't impose the extra charges on those who are already below that level.

Stephanie Pincetl, director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA, said she had not heard of another agency taking an approach like the one proposed by the county.

"I think it's a first step and we'll see how it works," she said. "It's worth giving it a try and then adjusting afterwards."

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-county-drought-20150601-story.html
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Posted by: Lin Kerns <linkerns@gmail.com>


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[californiadisasters] USGS retracts three 'ghost' earthquakes, blames Northern California sensors



USGS retracts three 'ghost' earthquakes, blames Northern California sensors

Japan earthquake

Commuters are stranded in a train on May 30 after railway service in Tokyo was disrupted by a strong offshore earthquake that shook most of the country.

(Franck Robichon / European Pressphoto Agency)
By Ben Welsh

USGS blames Northern California sensors for false quake alarms

In the past two days, malfunctions in the network of sensors that detect earthquakes in Northern California have issued three false alarms, forcing the U.S. Geological Survey to make a series of embarrassing retractions.

Just after midnight Friday morning, a magnitude 6.7 quake struck off the coast of Alaska. When its waves reached sensors operated by the Northern California Seismic Network, they were mistakenly interpreted as a 5.1 temblor near the Oregon border in Lewiston, officials say.

"There was a ghost in the machine," Don Drysdale, spokesman for the California Geological Survey, said Friday. "There was no earthquake."

The error occurred again Saturday morning after a magnitude 7.8 quake struck off the coast of Japan and the same Northern California sensors misinterpreted its wake as a 4.8 magnitude shaker near San Simeon and a 5.5 magnitude rumble near Brooktrails.

"When the waves from these big quakes hit [the Northern California] network they think it's a local quake," said John Bellini, a USGS geophysicist. "They have some kind of filtering system, but it's not working properly."

USGS officials said they are working to repair the problem and prevent future false alarms.

All three were soon removed from the USGS's website, but not before they triggered a series of news reports – including three by The Times -- which later had to be retracted.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-usgs-retracts-phantom-quakes-20150530-story.html
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Posted by: Lin Kerns <linkerns@gmail.com>


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[californiadisasters] Emergency Manager’s Weekly Report 5-29-15



Hello Everyone,

 

This week's edition is now available at:

https://sites.google.com/site/emergencymanagersweeklyreport/home

 

Emergency Manager's Weekly Report

  • Introduction (Page 4)
  • Executive Summary (Page 7)
  • Emergency Management (Page 15)       
  • Homeland and National Security (Page 17)      
  • Campus Emergency Management (Page 19)
  • Access/Functional Needs (Page 20)
  • Technological and Natural Hazards (Page 21)
  • Public Safety Communications (Page 23)
  • Emergency Services (Page 24)
  • Other (Page 26)
  • Regional Threats: ISIL, Boko Haram, Syrian & Yemen Civil Wars & Migrant Crisis (Page 27)
  • Global Security and Affairs (Page 30)
  • Humanitarian Affairs and Development (Page 31)
  • Civil Protection (Page 32)
  • Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction (Page 33)
  • Climate Change/Global Warming Threats (Page 35)
  • Global Public Health (Page 36)
  • Reports (Page 37)
  • Resources (Page 38)
  • Upcoming Webinars and Training (Page 41)

 

Steve Detwiler



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Posted by: steveorange2003@yahoo.com


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Saturday, May 30, 2015

[Geology2] Fwd: [Tsunami Message - IOC] PTWC TSUNAMI INFORMATION STATEMENT [1 Attachment]

[Attachment(s) from Lin Kerns included below]




TSUNAMI INFORMATION STATEMENT NUMBER 1
NWS PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER EWA BEACH HI
1133 UTC SAT MAY 30 2015

...PTWC TSUNAMI INFORMATION STATEMENT...


**** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE *****

 THIS STATEMENT IS ISSUED FOR INFORMATION ONLY IN SUPPORT OF THE
 UNESCO/IOC PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING AND MITIGATION SYSTEM AND IS
 MEANT FOR NATIONAL AUTHORITIES IN EACH COUNTRY OF THAT SYSTEM.

 NATIONAL AUTHORITIES WILL DETERMINE THE APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF
 ALERT FOR EACH COUNTRY AND MAY ISSUE ADDITIONAL OR MORE REFINED
 INFORMATION.

**** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE *****


PRELIMINARY EARTHQUAKE PARAMETERS
------------------------------
---

  * MAGNITUDE      8.5
  * ORIGIN TIME    1123 UTC MAY 30 2015
  * COORDINATES    27.9 NORTH  140.8 EAST
  * DEPTH          696 KM / 432 MILES
  * LOCATION       BONIN ISLANDS  JAPAN REGION



EVALUATION
----------

  * AN EARTHQUAKE WITH A PRELIMINARY MAGNITUDE OF 8.5 OCCURRED IN
    THE BONIN ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION AT 1123 UTC ON SATURDAY MAY 30
    2015.

  * BASED ON ALL AVAILABLE DATA... THERE IS NO TSUNAMI THREAT
    BECAUSE THE EARTHQUAKE IS LOCATED TOO DEEP INSIDE THE EARTH.


RECOMMENDED ACTIONS
-------------------

  * NO ACTION IS REQUIRED.


NEXT UPDATE AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
--------------------------------------

  * THIS WILL BE THE ONLY STATEMENT ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS
    ADDITIONAL DATA ARE RECEIVED OR THE SITUATION CHANGES.

  * AUTHORITATIVE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EARTHQUAKE FROM THE U.S.
    GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CAN BE FOUND ON THE INTERNET AT
    EARTHQUAKE.USGS.GOV/EARTHQUAKES -ALL LOWER CASE-.

  * FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THIS EVENT MAY BE FOUND AT
    PTWC.WEATHER.GOV AND AT WWW.TSUNAMI.GOV.

  * COASTAL REGIONS OF HAWAII... AMERICAN SAMOA... GUAM... AND
    CNMI SHOULD REFER TO PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER MESSAGES
    SPECIFICALLY FOR THOSE PLACES THAT CAN BE FOUND AT
    PTWC.WEATHER.GOV.

  * COASTAL REGIONS OF CALIFORNIA... OREGON... WASHINGTON...
    BRITISH COLUMBIA AND ALASKA SHOULD ONLY REFER TO U.S. NATIONAL
    TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER MESSAGES THAT CAN BE FOUND AT
    NTWC.ARH.NOAA.GOV.

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Attachment(s) from Lin Kerns | View attachments on the web

1 of 1 File(s)


Posted by: Lin Kerns <linkerns@gmail.com>



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[Geology2] New study shows influence on climate of fresh water during last ice age



New study shows influence on climate of fresh water during last ice age

Date:
May 28, 2015
Source:
Oregon State University
Summary:
A new study shows how huge influxes of fresh water into the North Atlantic Ocean from icebergs calving off North America during the last ice age had an unexpected effect -- they increased the production of methane in the tropical wetlands.

This is a view of Antarctica.
Credit: Andrew Thurber, Oregon State University

A new study shows how huge influxes of fresh water into the North Atlantic Ocean from icebergs calving off North America during the last ice age had an unexpected effect -- they increased the production of methane in the tropical wetlands.

Usually increases in methane levels are linked to warming in the Northern Hemisphere, but scientists who are publishing their findings this week in the journal Science have identified rapid increases in methane during particularly cold intervals.

These findings are important, researchers say, because they identify a critical piece of evidence for how the Earth responds to changes in climate.

"Essentially what happened was that the cold water influx altered the rainfall patterns at the middle of the globe," said Rachael Rhodes, a research associate in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University and lead author on the study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation. "The band of tropical rainfall, which includes the monsoons, shifts to the north and south through the year.

"Our data suggest that when the icebergs entered the North Atlantic causing exceptional cooling, the rainfall belt was condensed into the Southern Hemisphere, causing tropical wetland expansion and abrupt spikes in atmospheric methane," she added.

During the last ice age, much of North America was covered by a giant ice sheet that many scientists believe underwent several catastrophic collapses, causing huge icebergs to enter the North Atlantic -- phenomena known as Heinrich events. And though they have known about them for some time, it hasn't been clear just when they took place and how long they lasted.

Rhodes and her colleagues examined evidence from the highly detailed West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide ice core. They used a new analytical method perfected in collaboration with Joe McConnell at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, to make extremely detailed measurements of the air trapped in the ice.

"Using this new method, we were able to develop a nearly 60,000-year, ultra-high-resolution record of methane much more efficiently and inexpensively than in past ice core studies, while simultaneously measuring a broad range of other chemical parameters on the same small sample of ice," McConnell noted.

Utilizing the high resolution of the measurements, the team was able to detect methane fingerprints from the Southern Hemisphere that don't match temperature records from Greenland ice cores.

"The cooling caused by the iceberg influx was regional but the impact on climate was much broader," said Edward Brook, an internationally recognized paleoclimatologist from Oregon State University and co-author on the study. "The iceberg surges push the rain belts, or the tropical climate system, to the south and the impact on climate can be rather significant."

Concentrating monsoon seasons into a smaller geographic area "intensifies the rainfall and lengthens the wet season," Rhodes said.

"It is a great example of how inter-connected things are when it comes to climate," she pointed out. "This shows the link between polar areas and the tropics, and these changes can happen very rapidly. Climate models suggest only a decade passed between the iceberg intrusion and a resulting impact in the tropics."

The study found that the climate effects from the Heinrich events lasted between 740 and 1,520 years.


Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Oregon State University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. R. H. Rhodes, E. J. Brook, J. C. H. Chiang, T. Blunier, O. J. Maselli, J. R. McConnell, D. Romanini, J. P. Severinghaus. Enhanced tropical methane production in response to iceberg discharge in the North Atlantic. Science, 2015; 348 (6238): 1016 DOI: 10.1126/science.1262005


Oregon State University. "New study shows influence on climate of fresh water during last ice age." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 28 May 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150528142905.htm>.

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Posted by: Lin Kerns <linkerns@gmail.com>



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[californiadisasters] Aftershock assessment: Buildings collapse during earthquake aftershocks



Aftershock assessment: Buildings collapse during earthquake aftershocks

Date:
May 28, 2015
Source:
Inderscience Publishers
Summary:
Earthquakes kill, but their aftershocks can cause the rapid collapse of buildings left standing in the aftermath of the initial quake. Research offers a new approach to predicting which buildings might be most susceptible to potentially devastating collapse due to the ground-shaking aftershock tremors.


Earthquakes kill, but their aftershocks can cause the rapid collapse of buildings left standing in the aftermath of the initial quake. Research published in the International Journal of Reliability and Safety offers a new approach to predicting which buildings might be most susceptible to potentially devastating collapse due to the ground-shaking aftershock tremors.

Negar Nazari and John W. van de Lindt of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and Yue Li of Michigan Technological University, in Houghton, USA, point out that it is relatively obvious that buildings that survive a main shock will be at varying degrees of risk of collapse as aftershocks travel through the earthquake zone. Aftershocks are usually several orders of magnitude less intense than the primary earthquake, but can nevertheless have high ground motion intensity, last longer and occur at different vibration frequencies. In addition, changes in the structure of a building and its foundations, whether crippling or not, mean that the different energy content of the ground acceleration can during an aftershock further complicates any analysis. This adds up to a very difficult risk assessment for surviving buildings.

In order to compute the risk of collapse, the probability, for building damaged by a main shock, the team has introduced a logical method based on two key earthquake variables: magnitude and site-to-source distance. They have carried out tests using different site-to-source distances with an incremental dynamic analysis based on simulated ground motions caused by the main shock and aftershocks and applied this to a computer modeled, two-storey, timber-frame building in a hypothetical town in California relatively close to a geological fault line, as a proof of principle. Full-scale structural data was available from an actual building.

The team found that collapse probability increased if there were a sequence of aftershocks following a main shock just 10 kilometers distant from the building. Stronger aftershocks mean greater risk that correlates with the actual magnitude of the shock. As one might also expect if the site-to-source distance is greater, risk is lower. Overall, however, the analysis allows the team to quantify this risk based on the two variables, distance and aftershock magnitude.


Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Inderscience Publishers. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Negar Nazari, John W. Van de Lindt, Yue Li. Effect of aftershock intensity on seismic collapse fragilities. International Journal of Reliability and Safety, 2014; 8 (2/3/4): 174 DOI: 10.1504/IJRS.2014.069526


Inderscience Publishers. "Aftershock assessment: Buildings collapse during earthquake aftershocks." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 28 May 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150528104110.htm>.

--


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Posted by: Lin Kerns <linkerns@gmail.com>


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[californiadisasters] Little-known quake, tsunami hazards lurk offshore of Southern California



Little-known quake, tsunami hazards lurk offshore of Southern California

Date:
May 29, 2015
Source:
American Geophysical Union
Summary:
While their attention may be inland on the San Andreas Fault, residents of coastal Southern California could be surprised by very large earthquakes -- and even tsunamis -- from several major faults that lie offshore, a new study finds.

This map shows the California Borderland and its major tectonic features, as well as the locations of earthquakes greater than Magnitude 5.5. The dashed box shows the area of the new study. Large arrows show relative plate motion for the Pacific-North America fault boundary. The abbreviations stand for the following: BP = Banning Pass, CH = Chino Hills, CP = Cajon Pass, LA = Los Angeles, PS = Palm Springs, V = Ventura; ESC = Santa Cruz Basin; ESCBZ = East Santa Cruz Basin Fault Zone; SCI = Santa Catalina Island; SCL = San Clemente Island; SMB = Santa Monica Basin; SNI = San Nicolas Island.
Credit: Mark Legg

While their attention may be inland on the San Andreas Fault, residents of coastal Southern California could be surprised by very large earthquakes -- and even tsunamis -- from several major faults that lie offshore, a new study finds.

The latest research into the little known, fault-riddled, undersea landscape off of Southern California and northern Baja California has revealed more worrisome details about a tectonic train wreck in the Earth's crust with the potential for magnitude 7.9 to 8.0 earthquakes. The new study supports the likelihood that these vertical fault zones have displaced the seafloor in the past, which means they could send out tsunami-generating pulses towards the nearby coastal mega-city of Los Angeles and neighboring San Diego.

"We're dealing with continental collision," said geologist Mark Legg of Legg Geophysical in Huntington Beach, California, regarding the cause of the offshore danger. "That's fundamental. That's why we have this mess of a complicated logjam."

Legg is the lead author of the new analysis accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. He is also one of a handful of geologists who have been trying for decades to piece together the complicated picture of what lies beyond Southern California's famous beaches.

The logjam Legg referred to is composed of blocks of the Earth's crust caught in the ongoing tectonic battle between the North American tectonic plate and the Pacific plate. The blocks are wedged together all the way from the San Andreas Fault on the east, to the edge of the continental shelf on the west, from 150 to 200 kilometers (90 to 125 miles) offshore. These chunks of crust get squeezed and rotated as the Pacific plate slides northwest, away from California, relative to the North American plate. The mostly underwater part of this region is called the California Continental Borderland, and includes the Channel Islands.

By combining older seafloor data and digital seismic data from earthquakes along with 4,500 kilometers (2,796 miles) of new seafloor depth measurements, or bathymetry, collected in 2010, Legg and his colleagues were able to take a closer look at the structure of two of the larger seafloor faults in the Borderland: the Santa Cruz-Catalina Ridge Fault and the Ferrelo Fault. What they were searching for are signs, like those seen along the San Andreas, that indicate how much the faults have slipped over time and whether some of that slippage caused some of the seafloor to thrust upwards.

What they found along the Santa Cruz-Catalina Ridge Fault are ridges, valleys and other clear signs that the fragmented, blocky crust has been lifted upward, while also slipping sideways like the plates along the San Andreas Fault do. Further out to sea, the Ferrelo Fault zone showed thrust faulting -- which is an upwards movement of one side of the fault. The vertical movement means that blocks of crust are being compressed as well as sliding horizontally relative to each other-what Legg describes as "transpression."

Compression comes from the blocks of the Borderland being dragged northwest, but then slamming into the roots of the Transverse Ranges -- which are east-west running mountains north and west of Los Angeles. In fact, the logjam has helped build the Transverse Ranges, Legg explained.

"The Transverse Ranges rose quickly, like a mini Himalaya," Legg said.

The real Himalaya arose from a tectonic-plate collision in which the crumpled crust on both sides piled up into fast-growing, steep mountains rather than getting pushed down into Earth's mantle as happens at some plate boundaries.

As Southern California's pile-up continues, the plate movements that build up seismic stress on the San Andreas are also putting stress on the long Santa Cruz-Catalina Ridge and Ferrelo Faults. And there is no reason to believe that those faults and others in the Borderlands can't rupture in the same manner as the San Andreas, said Legg.

"Such large faults could even have the potential of a magnitude 8 quake," said geologist Christopher Sorlien of the University of California at Santa Barbara, who is not a co-author on the new paper.

"This continental shelf off California is not like other continental shelves -- like in the Eastern U.S.," said Sorlien.

Whereas most continental shelves are about twice as wide and inactive, like that off the U.S. Atlantic coast, the California continental shelf is very narrow and is dominated by active faults and tectonics. In fact, it's unlike most continental shelves in the world, he said. It's also one of the least well mapped and understood. "It's essentially terra incognita."

"This is one of the only parts of the continental shelf of the 48 contiguous states that didn't have complete ... high-resolution bathymetry years ago," Sorlien said.

And that's why getting a better handle on the hazards posed by the Borderland's undersea faults has been long in coming and slow to catch on, even among earth scientists, he said.

NOAA was working on complete high-resolution bathymetry of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone -- the waters within 200 miles of shore -- until the budget was cut, said Legg. That left out Southern California and left researchers like himself using whatever bits and pieces of smaller surveys to assemble a picture of what's going on in the Borderland, he explained.

"We've got high resolution maps of the surface of Mars," Legg said, "yet we still don't have decent bathymetry for our own backyard."


Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by American Geophysical Union. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Mark Legg, Monica D. Kohler, Natsumi Shintaku, Dayanthie Weeraratne. High-resolution mapping of two large-scale transpressional fault zones in the California Continental Borderland: Santa Cruz-Catalina Ridge and Ferrelo faults. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 2015; DOI: 10.1002/2014JF003322


American Geophysical Union. "Little-known quake, tsunami hazards lurk offshore of Southern California." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 29 May 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150529131822.htm>.

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Posted by: Lin Kerns <linkerns@gmail.com>


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Friday, May 29, 2015

[Geology2] Watch the devastating aftermath of the Nepal earthquake in virtual reality





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Posted by: Lin Kerns <linkerns@gmail.com>



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[Geology2] Mount Shindake on Kuchinoerabujima blows!




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Posted by: Lin Kerns <linkerns@gmail.com>



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[Geology2] Fwd: 2015-05-30 00:41:13 (M3.4) ILLINOIS 38.5 -88.4 (85f7)





                     == PRELIMINARY EARTHQUAKE REPORT ==



Region:                           ILLINOIS
Geographic coordinates:           38.464N,  88.353W
Magnitude:                        3.4
Depth:                            5 km
Universal Time (UTC):             30 May 2015  00:41:13
Time near the Epicenter:          29 May 2015  19:41:14
Local standard time in your area: 29 May 2015  18:41:13

Location with respect to nearby cities:
9 km (6 mi) N of Fairfield, Illinois
50 km (31 mi) ENE of Mount Vernon, Illinois
68 km (42 mi) E of Centralia, Illinois
74 km (46 mi) SSE of Effingham, Illinois
185 km (115 mi) SE of Springfield, Illinois


ADDITIONAL EARTHQUAKE PARAMETERS
________________________________
event ID                     :  us 20002kg7

This is a computer-generated message and has not yet been reviewed by a
seismologist.
For subsequent updates, maps, and technical information, see:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us20002kg7
or
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/







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Posted by: Lin Kerns <linkerns@gmail.com>



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[californiadisasters] Fwd: Heat Accelerates Dry in California Drought plus 1 more







Heat Accelerates Dry in California Drought 

Link to USGS Newsroom

Heat Accelerates Dry in California Drought

​ (link)​

Posted: 28 May 2015 10:56 AM PDT

Summary: Although record low precipitation has been the main driver of one of the worst droughts in California history, abnormally high temperatures have also played an important role in amplifying its adverse effects, according to a recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey and university partners


Although record low precipitation has been the main driver of one of the worst droughts in California history, abnormally high temperatures have also played an important role in amplifying its adverse effects, according to a recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey and university partners.

Experiments with a hydrologic model for the period Oct. 2013-Sept. 2014 showed that if the air temperatures had been cooler, similar to the 1916-2012 average, there would have been an 86% chance that the winter snowpack would have been greater, the spring-summer runoff higher, and the spring-summer soil moisture deficits smaller.

To gauge the effect of high temperatures on drought, lead author Shraddhanand Shukla (University of California – Santa Barbara, UCSB) devised two sets of modeling experiments that compared climate data from water year 2014 (Oct. 2013-Sept. 2014) to similar intervals during 1916-2012.

In the first simulation set, Shukla substituted 2014 temperature values with the historical temperatures for each of the study's 97 years, while keeping the 2014 precipitation values. In the second simulation set, he combined the observed 2014 temperatures with historical precipitation values for each of the preceding years, 1916-2012. 

"This experimental approach allows us to model past situations and tease out the influence of temperature in preceding drought conditions," said Chris Funk, a USGS scientist and a co-author of the investigation. "By crunching enough data over many, many simulations, the effect of temperature becomes more detectable.  We can't do the same in reality, the here and now, because then we only have a single sample." Funk, an adjunct professor at UCSB, helps coordinate research at the university that supports USGS programs.  

High heat has multiple damaging effects during drought, according to the study, increasing the vulnerability of California's water resources and agricultural industry. Not only does high heat intensify evaporative stress on soil, it has a powerful effect in reducing snowpack, a key to reliable water supply for the state. In addition to decreased snowpack, higher temperatures can cause the snowpack to melt earlier, dramatically decreasing the amount of water available for agriculture in summer when it is most needed.

Although the study did not directly address the issue of long-term climate change, the implications of higher temperatures are clear.

"If average temperatures keep rising, we will be looking at more serious droughts, even if the historical variability of precipitation stays the same," Shukla said. "The importance of temperature in drought prediction is likely to become only more significant in the future."

The research was published online in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

For more information about drought in California, visit the USGS California Water Science Center online.

Drought effects at Trinity Lake, a major California reservoir located about 60 miles NW of Redding, California. USGS photo, Tim Reed, Feb. 2014.
Drought effects at Trinity Lake, a major California reservoir located about 60 miles NW of Redding, California. USGS photo, Tim Reed, Feb. 2014. Photo source: CA Water Science Center








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Posted by: Lin Kerns <linkerns@gmail.com>


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