The National Research Council has released a new report on the military impacts of climate change. According to the report, clusters of apparently unrelated events will be exacerbated by a warming climate and will create more frequent but unpredictable crises in water supplies, food markets, energy supply chains and public health systems, placing strains on the military.
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A total solar eclipse will be visible from Australia early in the morning local time on 14 November. The path of totality will start in Kakadu National Park and continue across the Pacific Ocean. For more information about the eclipse, see http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/11/07/3624663.htm.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center downgraded the tsunami warning to an advisory just before 1 a.m., and Hawaii residents were allowed to return home.
The tsunami warning was issued for Hawaii 7:14 p.m., more than two hours after a 7.7-magnitude earthquake off British Columbia. Immediately after the earthquake, the warning center had said Hawaii was not under a tsunami threat from the quake, but may see strong or unusual currents and sea-level changes.
A magnitude 7.7 earthquake hit off of Masset Island, Canada, near 8 pm local time on Saturday the 27th of October. The quake occurred as a result of oblique-thrust faulting near the plate boundary between the Pacific and North America plates, and is likely associated the Queen Charlotte fault system offshore of British Columbia. A tsunami warning was issued for the state of Hawaii, but has now been cancelled.
For more information about the quake, go to the USGS earthquake hazards page.
As Kilauea continues to become more active, with vigorous spattering evident in the summit lava lake in Halemaumau crater, a new study has found a link between Kilauea and its rival volcano, Mauna Loa. Geophysicists in Hawaii and Texas have come up with a mathematical model that could explain how Mauna Loa and Kilauea volcanoes are linked yet has distinct, separate eruptions and slightly different magma sources, geochemically.
The mid-October explosion of a the upper stage of a Russian rocket has produced a cloud of space junk which would threaten the space station. The explosion produced about 500 pieces of debris, which have joined the ~21,000 pieces of space junk bigger than 10 centimetres that NASA tracks as a potential danger to the space station. For more information about this incident, go to http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Record_space_junk_cloud_could_threaten_ISS_report_999.html.
Hurricane Sandy is now headed north, and is expected to hit the northeast coast of the US sometime on Tuesday-Wednesday, just in time for Halloween. Models show that the storm is likely to interact with a strong cold front headed towards the northeast from the west, leading to intensification.
Information on the storm and storm track is available from the NOAA Hurricane Center and Wunderground.
In an analysis of satellite data from the GRACE and CHAMP instruments, geophysicists in Europe have shown that annual and decadal changes in the Earth's magnetic field (as measured by CHAMP) in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean regions are related to changes in the Earth's gravitational field (as measured by GRACE) in these areas.
Earth's magnetic field, which protects us from cosmic radiation, is generated movements of ionized fluids in the outer core. These movements may be related to mass displacements in these regions.
Six seismologists and a government official were found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison. The court found that they had not adequately warned the public about the potential of a dangerous earthquake. L'Aquila, Italy, was rocked by a 6.3 magnitude earthquake on April 6, 2009 that killed 309 people.
For more information about this ruling, visit Earth magazine online.
In a recent report in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, researchers from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences found that around 41,000 years ago there was an abrupt and complete reversal of the Earth's dipole field which lasted only 440 years. During this period, the Earth's magnetic field was significantly weaker, with only 5% of the current field intensity, which would significantly reduce the protection provided the surface from radiation exposure.
