By Jeremy Lovell 2 hours, 14 minutes ago
LONDON (Reuters) - World scientists are aiming to spell out in graphic detail the threat of flooding faced by millions of people from America to Asia as global warming melts the polar ice caps.
A major coordinated study of the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets intends not only to lay the bald facts before world leaders but offer courses of action.
"We want to be more prescriptive," said David Carlson, head of International Polar Year (IPY) starting in March 2007.
The two year study, announced on Wednesday by the International Council for Science (ICSU), will be the first coordinated probe in 50 years of the ice-bound ends of the earth under the onslaught of climate change.
ICSU is a non-governmental organization whose members include the national science academies of 103 countries.
"Part of the reason scientists stay in the comfort zone is that they can always say: 'well we don't know enough,"' Carlson told Reuters. "We are going to take away the uncertainty.
"If we come out of this and say 'we still don't know enough' then we will not have done our job," he added in an interview.
Scientists say the earth's temperature will rise by at least two degrees centigrade this century due to greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels for transport and electricity, putting millions at risk from extreme weather and rising oceans.
A new United Nations' report states that up to 50 million people could become environmental refugees from floods and famines due to climate change within five years.
And a study last year found that Arctic temperatures were rising twice as fast as in the rest of the world.
"I can guarantee that we will have a much more accurate sea level prediction," Carlson said.
"We will know what the West Antarctic ice sheet is going to do. We will know what the Greenland ice sheet is going to do."
One estimate says that if the Greenland ice sheet -- the second biggest after Antarctica -- melts completely, sea levels will rise by seven meters and drown vast areas of the world.
But that is nothing compared with the estimated 200 meters that sea levels will rise if all the Antarctic ice melts in the coming thousands of years.
Carlson is not worried that the scientists might enter the political arena where -- as was illustrated earlier this year in Britain's struggle to get the Group of Eight to agree a climate action plan -- landmines await the unwary.
Right up to the last minute at the July G8 summit in Scotland, U.S. President George W. Bush's officials were stating that global warming was a natural not a man-made phenomenon -- and they even questioned whether it was happening at all.
But it is not just rising sea levels that are at stake.
The melting of the Arctic ice caps will dilute the salinity of the North Atlantic and slow down the life-giving Gulf Stream current that warms northern Europe.
Apart from ice, the IPY research will focus on big themes such as the northern climate system with a faltering Gulf Stream and thawing permafrost, and the ability of the southern oceans to absorb carbon.
"We see the whole event as a real jump," Carlson said. "Instead of more of the same, we want this to be a real focus. Our voice is going to be much stronger."
Taunton, Mass., neighborhoods evacuated as flood threatens TAUNTON, Mass. (AP) ? About 2,000 people in Taunton were being evacuated yesterday because a timber dam was buckling, threatening to flood neighborhoods downstream including the city's downtown. Emergency management officials said the privately owned Whittenton Pond Dam on the Mill River was in danger of failing within the next 24 hours. Mayor Robert Nunes declared a state of emergency around 3 p.m. and told residents who live near the river to head to a shelter in the field house at Taunton High School. "We are erring on the side of caution," Nunes said at a 5 p.m. news conference. "If the dam goes, we will have major problems in our city." Police officers and firefighters were knocking on doors and urging residents near the dam to evacuate, Nunes said.
The Associated Press
| Spain gets first tropical storm -- Vince Oct 11 2:55 PM US/Eastern  Email this story |
Vince, the 20th named tropical storm in the Atlantic this year, is the first storm of its type to reach Spain in recorded history, the National Hurricane Center said.
"Vince is the first tropical cyclone on record to make landfall in Spain," the NHC, a government body, said in a bulletin.
"The historical record shows no tropical cyclone ever making landfall on the Iberian peninsula," added NHC meterologist James Franklin.
Tropical Storm Vince briefly was upgraded to hurricane status Sunday, making it the 11th hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic season, before it lost steam as it churned toward Portugal's Madeira islands.
In a sign of this year's busy storm season, Vince has the distinction of being the first storm in the Atlantic Basin to begin with the letter "V" since storms began acquiring names in 1953, the NHC said.
The US forecasters said that Vince was now a tropical storm, packing winds of 35 miles (56 kilometers) an hour and little rain.
Vince formed Sunday between the Azores and Canary islands, in an area where water temperatures are between 73 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit (23-24 degrees Celsius), cooler than the ideal storm-generating temperatures of 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
This latitude usually spawns subtropical storms, which are not fed by warm water and humidity but by clashing horizontal layers of cold and hot air in the upper atmosphere.
The emergence of Vince made this year's hurricane season the second busiest on record with 20 named storms.
However, the greatest number of unnamed storms in a single season was 21 in 1933, according to NHC hurricane statistics that date back to 1851.
The Atlantic hurricane season officially closes on November 30.
Only one name -- Wilma -- remains on this year's list. If that one is used and more storms form they will be named using the Greek alphabet, beginning with Alpha.
The list of names is maintained by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization, of which the NHC's parent organization, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is an active member.
Copyright AFP 2005, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium
 People wait for food in standing water in Muzaffarabad. | |
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Millions of people remained homeless early Wednesday in the Himalayan regions of northern Pakistan and India following last weekend's earthquake that has claimed more than 41,000 lives.
As Wednesday morning approached, new threats loomed for the people left without shelter following the quake; international health experts warned of potential disease threats from the devastated public sanitation systems.
Medical teams from throughout Pakistan and the international community were heading into the earthquake zone to treat people. (Full story)
On Tuesday, rain, wind and cold hindered relief efforts from the 7.6-magnitude earthquake killed an estimated 41,000 people and left millions homeless in the Himalayan regions of India and Pakistan.
Severe thunderstorms, some containing hail, temporarily grounded relief flights out of Islamabad. And as darkness embraced the area and the storms faded away, the cold air threatened those millions sleeping in tents or on open ground.
And the rain brought a new threat -- mudslides on the steep mountainsides.
But the first trickle of international humanitarian assistance began to reach the region Tuesday, World Food Program spokesman Amjad Jamal told CNN, and WFP assessment teams have spread throughout the earthquake zone.
"One-hundred-twenty metric tons of ready-to-eat food is arriving today," Jamal said. "We estimate that this commodity will be sufficient for 240,000 people for five days." (World boosts quake aid effort)
But Jamal acknowledged that the need was great. He said appeals were being made to the international community for additional donations of food, supplies and money.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri told CNN the international response had been "overwhelming" and "transcends" religion and politics.
"We have had over 20 countries sending rescue teams," he said. "There is hardly a country in the world that has not spoken with me."
Kasuri acknowledged that Pakistan had gratefully accepted aid from its neighbor and nuclear rival, India, with whom it has fought three wars -- two of them over the disputed Kashmir region that took the brunt of Saturday's earthquake. (Full story)
"We have accepted aid (from India)," he said. "We don't want to stand on false pride. ... If I'm not mistaken, one aircraft has arrived or is about to arrive carrying tents and medicine. We have indicated to India the types of things we need.
"We welcome this help from India. When you say, 'Is it an important confidence-building measure?' you can say that. But the response from the entire international community has been overwhelming, and we are deeply touched by that."
Still, the incoming aid was not enough -- early Tuesday afternoon, the United Nations issued an emergency appeal for $272 million to respond to the crisis.
The earthquake killed at least 20,000 in Pakistan, 1,239 in India and one person in Afghanistan, according to government, police and hospital officials.
Local government, police and hospital officials, however, put Pakistan's death toll at more than 41,000. Kasuri told CNN that the national government "can only give the number of the people actually certified as dead."
Confusion over death tolls is common after such disasters, and confirmed death tolls frequently are far lower than original predictions.
Early Tuesday, search teams stepped up rescue efforts after making contact with another person buried under the rubble of a collapsed apartment building in Islamabad. Jubilant rescuers had pulled a 2-year-old girl and her mother from the same wreckage hours earlier.
Hours later, the rescuers pulled out a 75-year-old woman and her 55-year-old daughter. Just before she was pulled out, the older woman asked if her family was still alive. Only upon hearing "Yes" was she willing to be rescued.
A few hours after that rescue, the workers were preparing to bring another woman out alive.
More than 25 people have been rescued at the site, with rescue workers erupting into cheers when they bring out someone alive. Search teams also have found 35 bodies in the rubble.
The fallen building was about 10 years old, and others on the upscale block survived the quake. Pakistani authorities have said they plan an extensive probe into the cause of the collapse.
The quake struck shortly before 9 a.m. Saturday (0400 GMT) near Balakot, a city of about 250,000, 145 kilometers (90 miles) north-northeast of Islamabad. All of the town's buildings were flattened, and the survivors were camping in fields.
The aid offered by the international community includes two planes loaded with relief supplies and personnel from Spain, one coming on Monday and the other on Tuesday, a French Airbus with medical personnel and two French C-135 cargo planes carrying medical and surgical equipment, including an entire field hospital.
The French Foreign Affairs Ministry said it was readying a shipment of 90 tons of humanitarian aid, including tents, blankets and lanterns.
Along with $50 million in relief, the United States sent military helicopters from neighboring Afghanistan to help with relief efforts.
"The reason why we're here is ... to provide humanitarian assistance to the Pakistani people," said Sgt. William Fronz, a U.S. Army pilot at an air base in Rawalpindi, outside of Islamabad.
"We're taking food rations, we're also medevacking and moving casualties that were injured in the earthquake. We're here to provide any assistance that this country needs us to help with and we're happy to be a part of this."
A senior defense official in Washington told CNN that in the next few days the size of the U.S. military helicopter fleet providing assistance will grow substantially -- perhaps to several dozen aircraft -- depending on final arrangements to be worked out with Pakistan.
A pair of C-17 cargo planes were expected to arrive in Islamabad by late Tuesday evening, officials said, both loaded with supplies. Two more were due to arrive Wednesday.
The senior defense official also told CNN that both manned and unmanned U.S. aircraft were in use to conduct reconnaissance over the stricken area, gathering data to pinpoint damage locations.
Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and Vice Adm. David Nichols, the chief of the U.S. 5th Fleet, traveled to Islamabad Monday to assess Pakistan's needs.
The capital, just 90 kilometers south-southwest of the earthquake's epicenter, was spared the worst of the damage. (Full story)
Traveling in the Baramullah district of Indian-controlled Kashmir Tuesday, CNN's Ram Ramgopal said residents of the region were in a "desperate situation."
In addition to the more than 1,200 deaths, police officials in the state capital, Srinagar, reported 7,082 injuries, with significant damage to 34,245 dwellings and another 9,836 destroyed.
"Obviously, people have lost everything," Ramgopal said. "These are people who have been cut off. They have very little means of their own right now and they are relying on states to provide that assistance."
CNN's Matthew Chance, reporting from Balakot in the North-West Frontier province, said nearly every building in the tourist town had been destroyed. (Survivors describe shock)
CNN's Andrew Stevens, Satinder Bindra, Matthew Chance, Ram Ramgopal, Becky Anderson, Syed Mohsin Naqvi, John Raedler, Mukhtar Ahmed and Tom Coghlan contributed to this report.
Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
By Tom Ambrose
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
The U.S. Geological Survey has reported 13 aftershocks following Friday's 7.6-magnitude earthquake in Pakistan. What has gone largely unnoticed in recent media reports, however, is the unusual number and severity of those aftershocks.
According to the National Earthquake Information Center of the U.S. Geological Survey, 13 earthquakes ranging between 5.5 and 6.3 in magnitude on the Richter Scale have hit the already devastated and overwhelmed nation of Pakistan since Friday's temblor.
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The Coming Earthquake on the Mount of Olives
The earthquakes in India, Turkey, Japan and elsewhere are some of the worse I can ever remember. Just the one in India has killed over 100,000. There is no way anyone can make me believe that this is not the beginning of the prophesied Word in Zechariah.Many so-called Prophets are saying that the earthquake on the Mount of Olive mentioned in Zech. 14:4. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olive, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olive shall cleave in the midst therefore toward the east and towards the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half toward the south.
My map says that the Mount of Olive is 782 meters high that is around 2600 feet above Sea Level. That means that the "cleave" mentioned in the above Scripture would have to be at least 2600 feet deep. And you would have to add at least another 50 feet to that for the water to flow from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea and it?s 1300 feet below sea level (the lowest place on earth). Add to that the fact this valley will have to run from Jerusalem to the Med. Sea, around 65 Km. Then from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, another 45 Km. We would have a valley caused by an earthquake that is 2650 feet deep, and 110 Km. Long.
There has never been anything like this ever to happen on earth in the history of mankind. I don?t believe there has ever been anything like it since creation. And if this was to happen it would most likely kill every living creature within hundreds of miles (all the population of Israel). But lets now read verse: 8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them towards the former sea,(Mediterranean) and half of them towards the hinder sea,(Dead Sea) in the summer and in the winter shall it be.
Now we can see quiet easily what is going to happen, the Messiah "Yeshua" on His return, will plant His feet on the Mount of Olive, and there will be an earthquake, it will cause the Mount of Olive to split even up to the Temple Mount. With the Mount of Olive split water will be able to easily run to the Dead Sea, as it already runs to the Dead Sea through the Kidron Valley. This can be seen at the Greek Monastery of Mar Saba near Bet Sahur. With this water running from the Temple Mount it would have no problem finding its way to the Soreq River that runs near Bet Shemesh and into the Mediterranean Sea.
So there will be a terrible earthquake, but not the one so many are prophesying will happen. And while I am at it, the water is not running from the Temple Mount today. But you can be sure it will and it will be a river, not a single drop of water on somebody?s head from a sewage leak.
We find more Scripture on this subject in Ezekiel47:1-12. Verse 1 says the water will come out from under the house. In reference to the Temple Mount or the House of God. Verse 8 Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea; which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed. (The dead waters of the Dead Sea will be healed) The next verse tells us that there will be many fish. And in verse 10 we see fishermen will do very well fishing there.
So the two seas will not run together, this will be fresh water and it will come from the Temple Mount, and when you read Ezekiel 47 you will see it is no little stream it is a river.
I drew the above line to indicate that I am adding something new to this report.
In order for the Dead Sea to be healed, water must run from it, not just into it, or it will continue be a dead sea. Now that poses a great problem, even for all the "Prophets". And what I am going to draw your attention to may cause some to struggle with some possibilities.
In order for the Dead Sea to be healed it must be able to flow into the Red Sea some 350 kilometers to the south at Eilat. And when you consider that the Dead Sea is the lowest place on the planet at 1300 feet below sea level. That means the Dead Sea must rise one way or another to sea level. That would also mean that the entire Jordan Valley would go under water, even the city of Tiberias in the north along with all the Kibbutz in that valley.
One of the largest fault lines in the world runs from Southern Lebanon through the Jordan Valley, on through the Red Sea and on into Africa to the Virgin Falls. With a very distinct line off of it from Jericho up through the Judean Hills through the Mount of Olive?s and on into the Temple Mount. Add to that the fact that over the past few years there has been an increase in tremors along this fault. Connie, Joel and I were in Eilat recently and felt a very strong tremor said to be 3.5 on the scale.
What we are talking about, or rather what God is talking about here is the largest earthquake ever witnessed by mankind. So we might be concerned about Iran, Iraq, North Korea and others, but God has His own plans, and I feel certain we are not far from seeing it come to pass.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, for our son Joel, and all the IDF soldiers, for all those who have come to fight the Islamic enemy. Pray for this Ministry and your part in it. Shalom, jerry golden
2 hours, 16 minutes ago
Hurricane researcher William Gray on Monday forecast two hurricanes, one of them one major, for the rest of October ? nearly double the long-term average for the month.
Gray and fellow researcher Philip Klotzbach of Colorado State University said the likelihood of a major hurricane crossing the U.S. coastline is 15 percent, more than double the long-term average of 6 percent.
"Unfortunately, the very active season we have seen to this point is not yet over," Gray said.
Gray and Klotzbach said the likelihood of a named storm hitting the U.S. coast in October is 49 percent, compared with an average of 29 percent from 1950 to 2000. The probability of a hurricane making landfall in the U.S. is 21 percent, compared with the long-term average of 15 percent, they said.
Through the end of September, the 2005 season has had nine hurricanes, five of them major, and 17 named storms. The 50-year average is 5.9 hurricanes, 2.3 of them major, and 9.6 named storms for an entire season.
Three of this year's major hurricanes ? Dennis, Katrina and Rita ? made landfall. Ophelia hit the North Carolina coast as a Category 1 hurricane although its eye remained just offshore.
Gray and Klotzbach said factors behind this year's active season include warmer-than-average Atlantic Ocean surface temperatures and lower-than-normal sea level pressures, lower-than-average vertical wind shears and moister conditions in the lower and middle atmosphere.
They said they do not attribute the active season to human-induced global warming. Instead, they cited "long-period natural climate alterations that historical and paleo-climate records show to have occurred many times in the past."
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