Pounding waves from weather bomb storm felt across continents

File it under: Amazing

A “Weather Bomb” storm in the Atlantic generates pounding seismic waves that can be detected through the Earth as far away as Japan. They used 200+ stations and could detect the distance and direction of these microseismic waves. This could be pretty useful to figure out more about what’s under the crust in the same way that an “X-ray” works on us.

Weather Bomb, Seismic effect.

Credit: Kiwamu Nishida and Ryota Takagi

Press Release:  An Atlantic “weather bomb,” or a severe, fast-developing storm, causes ocean swells that incite faint and deep tremors into the oceanic crust. These subtle waves run through the earth and can be detected in places as far away as Japan, where facilities using a method called “Hi-net” measure the amplitude of the storm’s P and S waves for the first time.Using a detection network based in Japan, scientists have uncovered a rare type of deep-earth tremor that they attribute to a distant North Atlantic storm called a “weather bomb.”

The discovery marks the first time scientists have observed this particular tremor, known as an S wave microseism. And, as Peter Gerstoft and Peter D. Bromirski write in a related Perspective, their observation “gives seismologists a new tool with which to study Earth’s deeper structure,” one that will contribute to a clearer picture of Earth’s movements, even those originating from the atmosphere-ocean system.

Faint tremors called microseisms are phenomena caused by the sloshing of the ocean’s waves on the solid Earth floor during storms. Detectable anywhere in the world, microseisms can be various waveforms that move through the Earth’s surface and interior, respectively.

So far, however, scientists analyzing microseismic activity in the Earth have only been able to chart P waves (those that animals can feel before an earthquake), and not their more elusive S wave counterpart (those that humans feel during earthquakes).

Here, using 202 Hi-net stations operated by the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention in Japan’s Chugoku district, Kiwamu Nishida and Ryota Takagi successfully detected not only P wave microseisms triggered by a severe and distant North Atlantic storm, known as a weather bomb, but also S wave microseisms, too.

What’s more, the authors determined both the direction and distance to these waves’ origins, providing insight into their paths as well as the earthly structures through which they traveled. In this way, the seismic energy travelling from this weather bomb storm through the Earth illuminated many dark patches of its interior. Nishida and Takagi’s findings not only offer a new means by which to explore the Earth’s internal structure, but they may also contribute to more accurate detection of earthquakes and oceanic storms.

Reference

  1. K. Nishida, R. Takagi. Teleseismic S wave microseisms.Science, 2016; 353 (6302): 919 DOI:10.1126/science.aaf7573
9.2 out of 10 based on 45 ratings

119 comments to Pounding waves from weather bomb storm felt across continents

  • #
    PeterPetrum

    I wonder how long it will be before “climate change” is blamed for the weather bomb?

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  • #
    spangled drongo

    My experience with ocean waves caused by extreme storm force is that once winds reach in excess of 60 knots the sea surface actually gets flattened considerably but at lower wind speeds seas are often bigger and rougher.

    IOW, the seismic message is possibly not proportional to the storm force if it relies on the wave signal.

    113

    • #

      SD, you’ve clearly spent far too much time sailing the oceans and not nearly enough lab time in front of computers. The ocean will only confuse you.

      151

      • #
        spangled drongo

        Yo, mosomoso, my single-handed solo circumnavigations these days are just around the dam in my dinghy.

        Hope thing are great in your NOTW!

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    • #
      RobK

      Some background on waves by John Reid Blackjay
      Breaking Waves

      John Reid

      Surface gravity waves (e.g. ocean waves) have an interesting property. They are “dispersive”. This means that the group velocity (the speed of a “set” of waves) is exactly half of the phase velocity (the speed of an individual wave as it moves through the set). Both of these velocities depend on wavelength; the longer the wavelength, the faster the wave speed. Thus when swells from distant storms arrive at a coastline the longest waves travel fastest and arrive first. This is why swells shorten over time.

      Waves slow down when the water becomes shallower. When they slow down they become shorter and steeper because the same amount of wave energy is contained in a shorter length interval just as cars cluster together on a freeway when the traffic stream slows down. When waves reach a certain critical steepness (wave height = wavelength / 7 approximately) they break.

      Waves also break in the open ocean away from the shore. This is called “whitecapping” and characterises “wind seas” as distinct from swells.

      All this has been known for centuries. However there are some aspects of waves which are still not well understood. Chief among these is frequency downshifting., i.e. the way in which wind waves become longer in wavelength and lower in frequency with increasing fetch. The “fetch” is the distance over water that the wind has been blowing.
      Full article is worth a read.

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      • #
        RobK

        P.S. John’s full article on waves has some revealing insights into laminar and turbulent flow modeling that are very pertinent to climate modeling.

        20

      • #
        ATheoK

        Looks and sounds like more eco-gravy train wannabees.

        Claim:

        “Faint tremors called microseisms are phenomena caused by the sloshing of the ocean’s waves on the solid Earth floor during storms.”

        Only:
        Waves are barely, if at all, felt, on the oceanic floor. e.g. divers barely notice when tsunami waves pass by.

        Slosh is such a technical term…
        As RobK points out, there are wave signals where crest and trough pass over positions. Except in shallow water, distance from crest to trough rarely exceeds a fairly shallow distance; shallow as a percentage of distance to oceanic floor.

        When a wave passes over one point is a bizarre phrasing for a wave that may exist for many kilometers. Crest and trough are visible components of long lines of wave action. At the same time, wave crest and trough are passing over quite literally an infinite amount of points.

        Then there are waves in general. Billions of waves exist at the same time. Even separating out the largest wildest waves is a claim to spotting the rarest and most fleeting signals in what must be a very very busy noise ratio.

        So, when folks claim they’ve managed to siphon cream off of the milk, and the bottle says homogenized, it’s a good time to keep your hands away from your wallets/purses.

        30

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Hmm…….analogies of picking just the right speed to drive over a cattle grid so you dont feel it as much, come to mind…..

      Although under the Glorious Leader decree of believing in Klimat Change, all cattle may be outlawed….they fart too much, allegedly….

      All your BOM are belong to us!!!!!!!!!! ( IT people will get this one…)

      20

  • #

    A weather bomb is affecting the NW right now, raining across from Exmouth to Broome and inland, joined up with the large cold front dropping billions of dollars of good stuff across Australia from a warmer than usual Indian Ocean.
    Bring back global warming, we will be far better off.

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    • #
      Dennis

      Almost there now, warming weather.

      31

    • #
      el gordo

      East Coast Low to develop by Friday, this shouldn’t be happening in a warming world so I’m calling it a regional cooling signal.

      84

      • #
        Albert

        I see regional cooling signals in both hemispheres so get ready for the warmest August in history ! LOL

        22

        • #
          el gordo

          July, according to BoM, saw Maximum about average while ‘Minima were warmer than average across most of Australia, and in the highest 10% of historical records (decile 10) for most of the eastern States, including a region of highest on record in southern New South Wales…’

          I demand an audit.

          11

          • #
            Dennis

            You should have watched ABC Landline last Sunday and the special segment on weather and climate presented by a BoM “expert”.

            20

        • #
          el gordo

          …and Warwick Hughes demands an audit too. He reckons BoM exaggerates, the sixth comment is him.

          http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=4599

          11

        • #

          oh all seeing ALBERT

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          • #
            el gordo

            What is your problem? You do realize global warming ended in 2003 and we have massive model failure? You are not taking this seriously.

            The models will become useful tools in the years head, when they take out the AGW hypothesis and replace it with astronomical theories.

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  • #

    OT, but I think a weather bomb needs to be dropped such that lay people can easily understand how the climate data is being ‘massaged’ to generate graphs etc that effectively falsify what is actually happening.

    I’ve been reading a number of forums where ‘not stupid’ people simply don’t realise/believe that data is being manipulated, but genuinely believe that everything is being represented in an honest and open manner.

    They dismiss any suggestion that things aren’t being ‘massaged’; as how could/would such esteemed organisations as the BOM, NASA etc stoop so low and why would they do so?

    Truth is the first casualty of war and in this war, truth is well and truly a casualty.

    144

    • #
      Dennis

      Don’t forget that after the Minister required BoM management to investigate allegations that their climate change media releases do not match BoM historical records data the report admitted to “errors and omissions” that would be in future avoided.

      94

    • #
      Mari C

      My experience with otherwise thoughtful folks is the same “NASA would not lie! NOAA would not lie! Why should they!!”

      Nothing will change their minds at this point. And even if the temperatures were adjusted, of course “there had to be good reason” !!

      ! Of course there is. Must stay in lock-step with the providers of funding.

      Gearing up for a wicked NE USA winter. Despite the alarm over warming, this winter is looking to be a cold one for us.

      00

  • #
    Phillip Bratby

    The term “weather bomb” sounds like propaganda to me.

    142

    • #
      Annie

      My feeling too. Why cannot it be referred to as a ‘severe Atlantic storm’? The use of ‘weather bomb’ is emotive and silly.

      122

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        The emotive part is the reason that they use the word, “bomb”. The weather is not dropped. It is not planted, nor concealed in somebody’s luggage. The word is there to produce an emotion of fear. Plain and simple. it is B-grade propaganda.

        I am surprised that Twinotter has not claimed the by-line.

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        • #
          Roy Hogue

          Please! Don’t encourage the Twinotter. He’s enough distraction for a dozen trolls all trying to get it wrong at the same time. Leave him well enough alone and silent. 😉

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  • #

    I suggest “weather bomb” be added to “polar vortex”, “Lake Effect”, “potential spring flood conditions” (for snow) and “East Coast Low” in the Dictionary and Thesaurus of Fudge: Climate Section.

    Mind you, we should avoid talk of some “new tool with which to study Earth’s deeper structure”. Curiosity about the physical and natural worlds tends to distract from the ultra-critical non-Kardashian models which are the foundations of modern climate science. Now is not the time to get interested in that big, hot plasticky ball called Earth and its deep hydrosphere.

    We just need to know if the next weather bomb will be worse than we thought. Bet it will be.

    83

    • #
      ianl8888

      Microseismic measurements have been around for many decades, and on various amplitude scales. They’ve been used for detection of underground caving events in mines, monitoring of water storage dam health and a number of varied applications. Detection of non-linear, ocean wave swells through microseismic activity has been known since the 1940’s – what is “gee whiz” new here is the apparent ability of detecting horizontal P-wave source across the globe.

      This has almost nothing to do with climate change, but you are right, I think, in surmising that the conflation of “weather bomb” and “seismic activity” (NOTE: the word “micro” will be dropped by the MSM) will be used as shrill propaganda, with scientific accuracy shot as a useless hostage.

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      • #
        Analitik

        I think you have the P & S around the wrong way.

        I assume the S waves they have detected are Rayleigh rather than Love waves.

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        • #
          ianl8888

          Yes, I did. It is the horizontal S-wave source that is being mapped with new technology, of course.

          Thanks for the catch. I suppose I was elsewhere when I typed the initial comment.

          The opportunity for the MSM to make more shrill nonsense is unabated, of course.

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    • #
      Radical Rodent

      “Lake Effect”? No – don’t tell me, don’t tell me! Let me guess… this is when the inflow into an area is in excess of the outflow due to various topographical features, thus forming a large body of water, otherwise known as a “lake”. Some “lake effects” may be long-term, and are often marked on maps as “lakes”; others might be short-term, and are often referred to as “floods”.

      50

      • #
        Spetzer86

        Lake effect refers to weather conditions effected by a large lake (ex Lake Michigan or Lake Superior in the USA). Often associated with massive dumps of snow in the winter within 30-90 miles of the Eastern lake edge. I lived in Michigan for a few years and lake effect was blamed for snows, rain, and the sun coming up in the East.

        41

    • #
      John F. Hultquist

      “lake effect snow” is not new nor confusing:

      http://scijinks.jpl.nasa.gov/lake-snow/

      “weather bomb” is a silly term

      “ocean waves” need to be thought of as energy moving “across” and water moving “up-down-around” — not forward

      51

      • #

        Quite right. It’s not new, any more than “polar vortex” or “east coast low”. It’s just that the terms are used in place of “heavy snow”, “heavy rain” etc to give the impression of modern climate exceptionalism.

        Two very educated types were informing me of the unique nature of a recent (drumroll!) East Coast Low off Sydney. When I asked how one could get a big dump of rain without a low over the east coast, and when I named a few legendary dumps from way back, the conversation was abruptly suspended. Like the publicly funded website of the same name, our exchange was never meant to be a “conversation”.

        40

  • #
    Sonny

    It seems to me that P and S waves reaching from one side of the earth to the other indicates that the earth is a hollow shell.

    21

  • #
    • #
      el gordo

      ‘This is just a return to the normal of pre-1977 Great Pacific Shift as it was then known, or the PDO flip as we now call it in a shorthand way. It’s a 60 ish year cycle …’

      Yes and 2003 was the great climate shift to a cooler regime, more commonly known as the hiatus.

      52

  • #
    Manfred

    I notice the authors did not use the term ‘weather bomb’, either in their title or in their abstract. The term was used by the spin-meister at Science AAAS.

    When one considers that seven tenths of the Planet Earth is bathed in very deep water of an average depth of 3.7km (a couple of miles give or take), with a total mass (10^21 kg), volume, one considers that there exists an excellent vector for the transmission of surface perturbation. All one requires is a superduper sensitive micro-seismic detector. Now, what would be fascinating would be to see a wind-up of the sensitivity a mite further and pretty soon they’ll be detecting the pico-seismic scamper of the footfalls of people running to get inside in order to avoid a rain blitz.

    Ensuring a climate link guarantees faux-relevance in the alarmosphere of The Conversation. The question one has to ask, remains the obvious, so what? Build a sensitive enough detector and hear a needle drop on the other side of the planet. It might even prove a cheap way to detect coal, oil and gas bearing strata.

    73

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      No no no…you cant create stuff to actually be useful!!

      The whole hysteria of Klimat Chang is predicated on lack of logical thought and mindless following of completely unprovable science……logic has nothing to do with this.

      Take 100 lines…..

      10

  • #
    Ruairi

    In the oceans, a storm raging gust,
    Which can send seismic waves through the crust,
    Might help pinpoint each zone,
    Where an earthquake is prone,
    Would for future research be a must.

    140

  • #
    Peter C

    An Atlantic “weather bomb,” or a severe, fast-developing storm, causes ocean swells that incite faint and deep tremors into the oceanic crust. These subtle waves run through the earth

    All a bit obscure at this point. How do the ocean waves incite deep tremors? Is it when they crash onto the shore?

    50

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      There are certain words that Jo prefers me not to use, even if they do have a long and distinguished Anglo-Saxon history.

      This “weather bomb”, in relation to seismic outcomes, calls for the use of such words. Anybody who has dived below ten or twenty metres or so, will know that you cannot feel the impact of the waves above you. You can observe the tidal drag, in an estuary, but not the wave movement due to wind influence.

      Similarly, you can see the wave motion in aquatic plants, which is somewhat mesmerising. But there is never, ever, enough force to create tremors in the underlying crust or coral formations.

      42

      • #
        Annie

        That was puzzling me too RW. Thanks for bringing it up.

        22

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Well see now what I was wondering is that given the earth is rotating, and we have currents running within a rotating mass of water, and given the buffering effect of water , but also a possible damping effect due to the currents within the rotating mass of water, then couple that very loosely with a rather large chunk of rock with a motlen core ( which would also act as a damper ) and mechanically speaking, while some noise of activity might be transmitted, given the sheer size of the planet, I’m not sure how any ( relatively ) insignificant ( ha ha ) “weather bomb” on the surface is going to cause your Aunt Hildas favourite vase to rattle off a shelf on the other side of the planet….such a “vase event” its more likely to be caused by the local hoons going past with doof-doof happening…

        And possibly Aunt Hilda is a decent shot with a half brick and may have the local hons cowering in respectful silence as they pass her place already….

        20

  • #
    ROM

    To assist the climate alarmists and the posturings of the wet behind the ears MSM reporters and the ABC’s opinionated self serving overpaid leftist rabble rousers who these days mistakenly believe that their own opinions on a subject are the news as it should be reported and that actual observable and real life facts that are directly related to a subject can be and will be ignored in the MSM and the ABC in favour of some obscure reporters and sub-editors personal beliefs and opinions.

    So on with an ANGLE for the benefit of every alarmist reporter who has ever lived and who is always doing his / her damnest to find that “angle” without going to the trouble of having to invent an “angle” or doing any hard yards in researching the story, a reporter’s and an ABC’s highly opinionated, overpaid and mostly ignorant front person, “angle” which may or more often, may not be related in any meaning of the word to the real story.
    ——————-
    Anybody who has rapidly flexed a piece of semirigid metallic material for some period will know that the constant and rapid flexing leads to a warming up of the material as a small part of the energy required to significantly flex the relatively stiff material is turned into heat.

    From this we can immediately see that with “Climate Change” leading to an increase in storms [ don’t bother about the observed and measured reality that storms are decreasing both in number and intensity globally. THIS is after all the cult and science of global warming / climate change we are discussing again! ] and along with the increase in the storms in numbers [ ?? ] and intensity [ ?? ] and therefore more deep earth tremors as the research above has just shown, and therefore more flexing of the Earth’s crust and therefore more heat being generated from all that crustal flexing from all those monster storms particularly in the thin crust of the global sea floors, then we have the perfect explanation for the rapid heating of the oceans from all that heat being generated in the earth’s crust from those seismic waves which arise from those intense ocean storms which arise because of Climate Change.

    And with all that heat being generated by the flexing of the crust and the oceans heating up, that will create more storms from all that extra heat and more crustal flexing etc’.
    And so we are on the merry go round of another  Climate Change disaster for the MSM and the climate alarmists and greens and climate academics and dead kangaroo experts and etc to expand on ad infinitum and pronounce the end of time “unless we do something”!

    I tell you now that when climate science and the climate modellers incorporate these disastrous catastrophe creating factors into their models, we can be assured that the results will show we are DOOMED, DOOMED! I tell you, unless “somebody does something!”

    Damn! I was going to read the comic strip but now I have to go and see a medico to get my tongue extracted from my cheek!

    143

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Damn! I was going to read the comic strip but now I have to go and see a medico to get my tongue extracted from my cheek!

      Or your foot extracted from your mouth. You didn’t really have to hand them their case on a silver platter, did you? 😉

      40

      • #
        ROM

        Aw, Gee, Roy! Do you think my hypothesis is worth a Nobel Peace Prize?

        I’ll go for the Nobel Peace Prize as it is a bit of a pushover to get from a past example or two as you don’t actually have to do anything anytime of any note except to stand in the line before you get around to doing something anything of note.
        Thats if you ever do get around to it.
        But who cares by then?
        You’ve got your Nobel Prize for display on the mantelpiece, so its “so what!” for the next eight years or so.

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  • #
    Don J A

    For info- The term weather bomb is a meteorological term used when a low pressure system “deepens” at least 24 mb in 24 hours. This is the definition/criteria of a “weather bomb.”

    40

  • #
    Olaf Koenders

    Oooh.. This is bad.. Very bad..

    If AGW continues to make worser and worser storms, and they keep bombing the Earth, the core will stop spinning. We’ll have to devise some super snake thingie-mobile with a HUUUUGE lazer on the front and put nucular bombs around the core and set them off ferpectly to get the core spinning again and a token black dude will die.. [nods]

    64

    • #
      AndyG55

      Seriously Olaf???

      Have you been talking to Tim Flim-flam again? 🙂

      44

      • #
        ianl8888

        No, he’s just summarising a particularly silly film called “The Core”.

        Actually, from memory that film had one good line in it. The hero and heroine are arguing over what “science fantasy” move they should make next to save the planet (what else ?). The heroine becomes haughty because her brilliant ideas are being critiqued, so she yells: “My degree is from MIT !!” – to which the hero sings: “…k-e-y M-o-u-s-e !!”

        Oh well, I thought it was funny 🙂

        50

      • #
        Olaf Koenders

        Actually Andy, I was channelling Flim Flam when Gavin Schmidt turned up in there and things got a bit too kissy-kissy so I ran for it. It’s pretty easy to upchuck in a dream, trust me..

        11

    • #
      Analitik

      Stanley Tucci isn’t black – the spray tan is pretty heavy in The Hunger Games series

      11

  • #
    Steve Richards

    It was “all quiet on the home front”. Then the dropped the “weather bomb”. Casualties were large. Scientists worldwide convinced of man made catastrophic global warming were lost as facts and truth washed over the front. Papers were retracted, research projects cancelled, profs. sacked.

    Just one “weather bomb”, correctly targeted will wash away all of the grime of poor science.

    43

  • #
    F. Ross

    Truly earthshaking news!

    —————
    …sorry, couldn’t resist.

    30

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Very interesting but unfortunately I’ll now have to go on another search for information because until I got time to read this I would have said, “What’s a weather bomb?” if you’d mentioned the name. And come to think of it, I couldn’t begin to tell you what a P or S wave is either.

    Another new trick for this old dog. 🙂

    I’ll have to reserve judgment on “Amazing” until I’ve done a little research though.

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      The Internet is the truly amazing thing — P and S waves explained so many ways I could never read them all. But the useful one is a site that shows the difference with an animated display of each type. Both are just classical physics of traveling waves unless I missed something.

      As for weather bomb, it looks like just a convenient name for a storm at sea violent enough to set off seismic waves. I would say that’s the amazing thing, that something related to weather can be so violent that it can be detected clear around the world as if it was an earthquake, never mind that it takes new, more sophisticated equipment to do it.

      And I used to think thunder storms were the most violent weather phenomenon around.

      31

      • #
        ianl8888

        … new, more sophisticated equipment to do it

        I appreciate the fact that you dug out real information to fill in the gaps in your knowledge, but the above point really is the only new “gee whizzery” here -it’s very sophisticated measuring and as a geologist who has used microseismic physics over the decades in many applications, I’m impressed with the sensitivity of the Japanese equipment (mind you, the Japanese have really powerful motives for R&D’ing this stuff).

        The clear and present danger is that the AGW advocates, aided by the MSM highlighting its’ wilfully ignorant sensationalism, will rampage around about “a new report shows that climate change causes earthquakes”.

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        • #
          Roy Hogue

          The clear and present danger is that the AGW advocates, aided by the MSM highlighting its’ wilfully ignorant sensationalism, will rampage around about “a new report shows that climate change causes earthquakes”.

          Ian,

          I understand ht e concern but I think I read that climate change causes earthquakes maybe a year or more ago. I thought that little tidbit had zero value and so I didn’t try to remember where it was; don’t know how serious the author was either. Anyway, someone already tried it. And it seems obvious they’re going to claim every last harmful thing is a result of climate change that they can get away with, right down to a dead battery in your car or a plugged bathtub drain before climate change fear finally dies out. And of course, nothing beneficial can ever come out of climate change. It’s like an old vinyl record stuck in a groove and it can’t get out.

          00

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      This is just my imagination picking up the idea that a hard enough impact on the Earth’s crust can generate waves that look like the signature of an earthquake… …and I began to wonder if something like the “sonic boom” of an airplane flying supersonic over land could set off a similar phenomenon if the shock wave hit the right place. The energy in that sonic boom is considerable, enough to rattle windows and even shake walls as it hits.

      I don’t know how the energy in the weather bomb and the sonic boom compare. So if one of you better experts than I am cares to comment, maybe I can learn something additional from this.

      00

  • #
    handjive

    Coastal councils are already adapting to rising seas – we’ve built a website to help

    Over at The Conversation, an article on the world’s most liveable town, Port Fairy, claims rising sea levels threaten because of Global Warming.

    But, a quick search for some Port Fairy flooding history reveals the inconvenient truths when carbon (sic) was at ‘safe’ levels:

    One extreme flood in March 1946 and a number of minor floods have been recorded in Port Fairy.
    The 1946 flood was a major event driven by an East Coast Low weather front.
    East coast lows mainly affect eastern Victoria and are seldom observed as far west as Port Fairy.

    Other major floods are reported to have occurred in 1870 and 1894 however no historical photographs or flood level information is known to exist for these events.

    PORT FAIRY LOCAL FLOODPLAIN DEVELOPMENT PLAN 1987 (pdf)

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Ah Victoria…..I recall driving down to Cann River from NSW one day…I got to the border and the number of nanny state signs was suffocating….you cant do this, that and many other things..and PS get lost, go home….

      It was kind of like being in a disaster movie when people walk through a previously inhabited city which now sits eerily empty…thus goeth Victoria….the first whole Greenie inspired state sailing along like the Marie Celeste…..

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      • #
        Another Ian

        Steve

        What I noticed was that on the way in the signs told you how far to Melbourne.

        On the way out they told you how far from Melbourne.

        Conclusion was that Victoria was the most centralised state in Oz.

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  • #
    Dennis

    Spare a thought for the almost extinct Frog that will be history if the NSW Government proceeds with a new motorway and residential-commercial precinct above and alongside.

    I understand that the same Frog was claimed for be in the same situation when the Homebush Bay Olympic Games project was under construction in Sydney, it was then living in an ancient brick pit filled with rainwater.

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    • #
      Annie

      They are far from extinct around here (North Central Vic). There’s a loud row at night and yesterday I picked up an inverted enamel bowl to find an indignant large frog staring at the sudden light. I wonder if it’s the supposed rare variety? I expect they’ll bring in the snakes 🙁

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      • #
        Dennis

        I had to laugh last year at the Daintree Queensland when a small Japanese boy came out from public conveniences and shouted to his Japanese parents and tour group members that he had just sighted “a bloody Green Frog”.

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    pat

    Seth makes it clear whih earth he lives on:

    29 Aug: AP: Seth Borenstein: WHY IT MATTERS: Climate Change
    THE ISSUE: It’s as if Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump live on two entirely different Earths: one warming, one not…
    Scientists have connected man-made climate change to extreme weather, including deadly heat waves, droughts and flood-inducing downpours. They even have connected it as one of several factors in the Syrian drought and civil war that led to a massive refugee crisis.
    Climate change is causing the seas to rise, which threatens coastlines. Sea level has risen a foot in the waters around New York City in the past century, worsening flooding from Superstorm Sandy.
    And it is making people sicker with worsened allergies and asthma, heat deaths, diseases spread by ticks and mosquitoes, dirtier air and more contaminated water and food, a federal report said in April…
    The world’s average income will shrivel 23 percent by the year 2100 if carbon dioxide pollution continues at the current pace, according to a 2015 study out of Stanford and the University of California Berkeley…
    It may seem improbable that government action can restore balance to something as vast as the climate. But presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush showed that big things can be done about air pollution…
    http://bigstory.ap.org/article/4bc63552952c450eb13454f29663c674/why-it-matters-climate-change

    29 Aug: Washington Times: Valerie Richardson: Obama will bypass Senate, ratify Paris climate accord himself during trip to China: report
    The South China Morning Post reported that Mr. Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping are “set to jointly announce their ratification” of the ambitious international climate-change pact on Friday, two days before the start of the 11th G-20 Summit in Hangzhou, Zhejiang…
    Myron Ebell, director of the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment, described the report as “curious because ratifying treaties in the United States requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate.”…
    Sen. James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has warned other nations that without Senate approval, the agreement will “soon become another stack of empty promises on global warming.”…READ ALL
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/aug/29/obama-will-bypass-senate-ratify-paris-climate-acco/

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    ROM

    A quote from Jo’s headline piece;

    Here, using 202 Hi-net stations operated by the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention in Japan’s Chugoku district, Kiwamu Nishida and Ryota Takagi successfully detected not only P wave microseisms triggered by a severe and distant North Atlantic storm, known as a weather bomb, but also S wave microseisms, too

    .

    Details of the Japanese Hi-Net network of the very sensitive, bore hole located micro tremor sensing seismic sensors can be found here.

    The Beta version web site of the High Sensitivity Siesmograph Network Beta Version seems to be in the process of being developed into an English language version.

    In development from about 1995 when the Japanese Diet passed the legislation, it is a project that has developed the technology to record large numbers of micro seismic tremors and their accurate locations, depths and intensities across the Japanese islands in an attempt to begin to predict the locations and intensities of any future potentially significant and severe damage causing earth quakes.

    I find it very hard to accept that the Japanese Hi-Net system is actually measuring a major open water mid ocean storm’s or even an unfortunately mis-named “Bomb” Storm’s seismic impact in the Atlantic, a half a world away, at any level of seismic sensor sensitivity.

    The Atlantic Ocean without its shallower adjacent seas has an average depth of about 3340 metres [ 11,000 ft ] and that is the “Average depth”.

    Question; How far do a major storm’s effects penetrate into an ocean depths “

    Well the submariners have a darn good knowledge of this as it provides them with a minimum depth that they will need to submerge to to avoid the storm’s surface turbulence.
    ——————-
    From the relevant Ask Science site ;
    .
    [ quoted ]
    For most submarines, any depth below 100+ feet is good for storms with about 30ft waves. Etc.
    &
    In deep water, the water particles are moved in a circular orbital motion when a wave passes. The radius of the circle of motion for any given water molecule decreases exponentially with increasing depth.
    The wave base, which is the depth of influence of a water wave, is about half the wavelength.
    At depths greater than half the wavelength, the water motion is less than 4% of its value at the water surface and may be neglected.
    .
    Thus;
    For instance, in a pool of water 1 metre deep, a wave with a 2-metre wavelength would barely be moving the water at the bottom.
    In the same pool, a wave with a wavelength of 1 foot would not be able to cause water movement on the bottom.

    NB. – Wavelength = crest to crest. See this convenient chart of typical values
    http://i.imgur.com/jyImn.jpg

    Also, experimental evidence from wavetanks that suggests that a ratio of 1:7 for peak height to wavelength is the maximum.

    http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/waves/watwav2.html

    Taking all of this data, 20 ft waves would potentially mean a wavelength as short as 140 feet, and effects would be unobserved below a depth of 70 feet,

    Of course the wave length can be longer, but then this would be farther from a storm, etc.

    [ / ]
    ————-

    With an average depth of over 3000 metres and major storm turbulence going down no further than a couple of hundred metres at the very most if the science is correct and it will be due to world’s collective of Submariner’s and Navy’s known experiences and experiments , what the Japanese Hi-net system seems to be picking up is more likely to be the turbulence and impact of very large waves onto shallow shores or even against rocky cliffs and shore sides where the impact of very large fast moving waves can be felt underfoot every time one of them smashes into those rocky cliff faces.

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    pat

    and this is only PART 1!

    27 Aug: ABC The Science Show: Beyond the coal rush part 1: The march of coal
    When we burn coal we change the biosphere. As James Hansen says, ‘if we burned all of the coal in the ground, the planet is cooked. It would result in temperature rise of several degrees and sea level rise of tens of metres.’ So do we continue down that road, or change? There are encouraging signs, with the price of renewable energy falling. But there is vast investment in coal. Mining companies are looking to increase production. Tom Morton visits Germany, India and northern NSW where plans are underway for new and bigger coal mines. Local people are fighting back, to save their traditional lands, their ancient villages, animal corridors and rich agricultural lands, all of which are threatened by the ongoing march of coal…
    Research and travel funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Grant “The Coal Rush and Beyond”.
    Additional
    Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney.
    CHECK ALL THE CREDITS
    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/beyond-the-coal-rush-part-1:-the-march-of-coal/7782022

    been there, done that…

    2014: ABC: Tom Morton: Thousands protest against coal mining, forming 8km human chain in River Neisse along German-Polish border
    “If we go on burning coal, we humans will end up like the dinosaurs,” Mr Ulrich said…
    (Tom Morton is Director of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at the University of Technology Sydney. He is in Germany undertaking research funded by the Australian Research Council)
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-27/thousands-protest-against-coal-mining-forming-human-chain/5696082
    PICS/VIDEO: 29 Aug: Daily Mail: Harvey Day: Massive wind turbine catches fire and burns for hours because German fire fighters don’t have ladders long enough to tackle the 100m high blaze
    •The flames struck this morning in Isselburg in North Rhine-Westphalia
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3762477/Massive-wind-turbine-catches-fire-burns-hours-German-fire-fighters-don-t-ladders-long-tackle-100m-high-blaze.html

    UTS Bio: Tom Morton
    Tom Morton is Associate Professor of Journalism in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UTS and Director of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism.
    Before joining UTS in 2010 he was an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and documentary producer with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for more than 20 years…

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      OriginalSteve

      Ho ho…if you dont burn coal, you will go the way of the dinosaurs…..

      How do they find these people?

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    pat

    here is Part 2. transcripts for both programs are available at the links, if u want to glance through, but this single ***comment captures the tone of the parts i read:

    3 Sept: ABC The Science Show: Beyond the coal rush part 2: The age of coal
    Today, Tom Morton continues documenting the struggle against coal on three continents…
    ONE COMMENT ONLY:
    ***by Kevin Dodds:
    I have a hard time understanding the science that has been conveyed in two full programs, unless this is social science. There are snippets of underlying economics and drivers for energy demand which underpins our (global) reliance on coal. Demand in India and China climbs enormously (referred to in program). The reality in Germany is that they still rely on coal even if they say they don’t, just that its other people’s coal (Poland and Austria), which was referred to in the program, however not because its cheap, but because renewables cannot fill the gap quick enough. They face the same problem as South Australia, high energy prices and a skewed distribution network that leads to shortages…READ ON
    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/beyond-the-coal-rush-part-2:-the-age-of-coal/7784790

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    pat

    multiple links:

    29 Aug: Guardian: Gabrielle Chan: Climate sceptic MP appointed chair of environment and energy committee
    The climate sceptic Liberal MP Craig Kelly has been appointed chairman of the backbench environment and energy committee, with National party MP Kevin Hogan as secretary…
    Kelly served on the committee during the last parliament and previously invited (LINK) climate sceptics to “balance” a presentation (LINK) given by top climate scientists…
    He has been writing on the issue (LINK) for a number of years, noting that the convicts found it hotter in the 1700s…READ ALL
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/29/climate-sceptic-mp-appointed-chair-of-environment-and-energy-committee

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  • #
    pat

    photo op:

    29 Aug: Reuters: Roberta Rampton: Climate change looms large in Obama’s final trip to Asia
    With time running out for more action on climate change during his time in office, Obama will drop in to Midway Atoll, a far-flung and largely uninhabited coral reef that is a refuge for sharks, albatrosses and endangered turtles and seals.
    The photo-rich stop is aimed at both raising awareness about the threat posed by climate change, and showcasing Obama’s decision to protect a larger part of the ocean around Hawaii…
    “We have to recognize that climate change and clean energy cooperation has really helped to create better overall stability in the U.S.-China relationship, writ large,” said Andrew Light, a former senior climate official in Obama’s State Department.
    Light, now with the World Resources Institute think tank, said he expects Xi and Obama will try to push other G20 leaders to agree to timelines for implementing the Paris agreement and work on cutting other greenhouse gases like methane and hydrofluorocarbons…READ ALL
    http://news.trust.org/item/20160829153300-o5z9r

    Green Climate Fund can’t even raise an initial $2.5bn.
    from ClimateChangeNews today:

    “The $10bn Green Climate Fund meets from 18-20 October in Quito and 13-15 December in Apia, Samoa to accelerate disbursement of funds. An initial goal of delivering $2.5bn this year is unlikely to be hit, but pressure remains high on an organisation mandated to generate a ‘paradigm shift’ in green funding.”

    as for China, since their chief climate negotiator, Su Wei, was removed from his job just after the visit by Obama’s climate advisor, Brian Deese, the Chinese seem a little less zealous about CAGW, e.g. NO CARBON TAX in new environmental law:

    29 Aug: Reuters: China’s parliament proposes new environmental tax benefits: state media
    ***The government won’t tax companies for their carbon emissions as that is essentially already done by China’s carbon market, which gives companies an incentive to limit their emissions by issuing emissions permits.
    No other details on the proposal were disclosed…
    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-tax-environment-idUSKCN11413L

    29 Aug: CarbonPulse: China power plant shutdowns stoke fears over ETS incentives
    China’s national carbon price could drop to near zero or force the government to spend large sums of money buying back excess permits if it fails to grapple with a looming wave of power plant closures…

    25 Aug: CarbonPulse: Shenzhen CO2 exchange looks to brokers to halt drop in trade, prices
    The Shenzhen emissions exchange has asked its eight licenced brokers to commit to trading upwards of 1 million CO2 allowances each in the second half of 2016 in a bid to put an end to dwindling liquidity and rapidly falling prices, according to sources…

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    TdeF

    Off topic, bombs and all.

    The Australian this morning. JOHN ROSS, SCIENCE WRITER.
    The article itself is odd under WORLD COMMENTARY.
    Cold water poured on fears of carbon-driven drought.

    Quite apart from the general story of things not being as bad as expected as more CO2 means more plants means more water capture means not so bad
    is this little gem.

    US Climate Scientists have foujnd that land across large expanses of the planet – including much of Australia – could become wetter rather than drier as carbon dioxide concentrations quadruple from pre-industrial levels.

    You have just to love how they throw in these Climate facts as self evident? An increase from say 250ppm to 400ppm is just 50% but now they are talking 1000pm as self evident science fact? If it has taken 100 years of industrial revolution and all the cars and wars and 7 billion people and burning everything we have, how are we going to get there? Even if we could unilaterally fill the atmosphere with CO2 and humans are the only reason for the increase of 150ppm and it stayed in the air forever against all the laws of physics and chemistry, how much more oil, gas and coal do we even have left to increase total CO2 by another 600ppm?

    Those danged ‘Climate Scientists’ again. The only mention of the half life of CO2 in the atmosphere in any IPCC report I can find is 80 years and even this would deny such an idea. The self evident half life is 14 years.

    Nonsense in, nonsense out. I think we are hitting Peak Rubbish in science reporting.

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    pat

    best to post the following on this thread.

    30 Aug: EconomicTimesIndia: Umi Goswami: Climate change high on the agenda for John Kerry at the second US-India Strategic Dialogue
    Three issues will dominate the US climate change agenda at the dialogue and its side meetings: formal accession to the Paris Agreement for an early entry into force, the phasedown of chemical refrigerants, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), that are contributing to rising global temperatures, and reducing carbon emissions from international aviation…

    The high priority accorded to climate change is evident from the inclusion of US Special Representative for Environment and Water Resources Jennifer Haverkamp and US Special Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing in the delegation…
    Climate change is a legacy issue for US President Barack Obama and his administration…
    Sources close to the developments acknowledge that an entry into force of the Paris Agreement this year will be difficult without India, which accounts for 6 percent of global emissions…

    Pershing will be in Mumbai on Thursday to meet with members of the financial sector to discuss way to catalyze investment in clean energy…
    Another area of focus for the US is ensuring the adoption of the amendment to the Montreal Protocol at UN-sponsored meet in Kigali, Rwanda in October…
    India and the US continue to have differences over when countries will peak their HFC consumption and begin phasing down use, the pace at which developed and developing countries will phase out use of the chemical refrigerants, and the financial support required for the transition. India has suggested a freeze year of 2031, while US is pushing for 2021. The major concern for India is that the phase down begins when proven alternatives to HFCs are both available and cost-effective. For New Delhi to bring forward the phase down period or freeze year will require increased financial support to offset higher costs…

    The issue is expected to be touched on in the joint CEOs forum. The US co-chair of the forum is ***David Cote, chairman and CEO of Honeywell International, a global leader in the refrigerant gases business…
    The ICAO assembly, scheduled for late September-early October in Montreal, is expected to finalise the mechanism for reducing carbon emission from international flights…
    Experts say given the more visible and high profile nature of global aviation, the US would like an agreement in Montreal to seal Obama’s climate change legacy…
    http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/climate-change-high-on-the-agenda-for-john-kerry-at-the-second-us-india-strategic-dialogue/articleshow/53928025.cms

    *** Wikipedia: David Cote: Before Honeywell, Cote worked for General Electric and TRW. He was on the JP Morgan Chase risk committee during the period in which the firm lost $2 billion trading credit derivatives…
    Cote joined General Electric in November 1979, where he served twenty years…
    Cote was a member of the board of directors at JPMorgan Chase and an advisor to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR). In 2012, Cote came under criticism as one of the three members of JP Morgan Chase’s risk committee, after CEO Jamie Dimon said on May 10, 2012 that the firm’s chief investment office suffered a $2 billion loss trading credit derivatives…
    In February 2014 it was announced that Cote would fill a vacancy on the board of the New York Federal Reserve. Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, writing in The New York Times, raised doubts about the suitability of Cote’s appointment, noting the “systematic breakdown of compliance and risk control” during the period when Cote was on the board of JPMorgan Chase…
    In 2010, President Obama named Cote as one of the Chief Executives he most admired…

    About the writer below: David A. Wirth is Professor of Law at Boston College Law School. He is former Attorney-Adviser for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the State Department, where he had principal responsibility for all international environmental issues. David a graduate of the Yale Law School…and is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

    29 Aug: LawfareBlog: David A. Wirth: Is the Paris Agreement on Climate Change a Legitimate Exercise of the Executive Agreement Power?
    The Executive Branch has indicated its intention to cement President Obama’s climate legacy by submitting its instrument of acceptance for the Paris Agreement by the end of this year. As of this writing, that has not occurred. But even if it does, the U.S.’s crucial emissions reduction undertaking is still only a non-binding aspiration not governed by international law.
    As far as this and other non-binding goals articulated under the Paris Agreement, President Donald Trump, who has voiced scepticism about anthropogenic climate change, need not go through a formal withdrawal process, as required by the Agreement and international law. Instead, he need only say, “The United States changed its mind.” …READ ALL
    https://www.lawfareblog.com/paris-agreement-climate-change-legitimate-exercise-executive-agreement-power

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