Crazy Weather/Earth

Did anyone hear that monster lightning bolt/thunder that hit last night right at 10 pm (link)? I thought the house was going to fall down. Thunderstorm in January (with flurries)? Made me think about a list I had been compiling since I was in Seattle and had emailed to some people in the past that in my mind gives indications that the world is a changing whether due to classic global warming theories, some other theories or a combination of numerous theories.

Here are a few places that keep track of the changing weather:
(link) The Boom Shelter (link) Signs of the Times

- Snow for the first time ever in the UAE (link)
- LA / California nearing all time record rain fall and we still have over half a year to go (link)
- Mt Kilimanjaro snow almost gone (First time in about 11,000 years) (link)
- The Gulf Stream is slowing (first signs showing now) (link)
- Local: We have a bad draught here, snow pack was about 10% of normal. Maybe a big fire season up here. (link)
- Local: The Salmon run only about 10% of usual in the Columbia river. No one knows why.(link)
- Dead Zones in the sea increasing (most notably Gulf of Mexico appears early this year.) (link)
- Snow for the first time ever in Somalia (link)
- Crack in earth TX (link)
- Hot earth unexplained (link)
- Dead fish (link)
- Plankton disappearing 18 July 05 (link)
- Sea life problems 13 July 05 Warmer Ocean (link)

New/Updated
- Deep freeze in EurAisa (link)
- 2005 Warmest year on record (link)
- Oklahoma gassing (link)
- Seattle nearly set record rainfall (link)

Baffled Scientists Say Less Sunlight Reaching Earth (link) By LiveScience Managing Editor posted: 24 January 2006"After dropping for about 15 years, the amount of sunlight Earth reflects back into space, called albedo, has increased since 2000, a new study concludes. That means less energy is reaching the surface. Yet global temperatures have not cooled during the period. Increasing cloud cover seems to be the reason, but there must also be some other change in the clouds that's not yet understood. "The data also reveal that from 2000 to now the clouds have changed so that the Earth may continue warming, even with declining sunlight," said study leader Philip R. Goode of the New Jersey Institute of Technology. "These large and peculiar variabilities of the clouds, coupled with a resulting increasing albedo, presents a fundamental, unmet challenge for all scientists who wish to understand and predict the Earth's climate." [...]

Comment: Well this article states that Scientists don't know why clouds are increasing. It fails to mention that there are theories for why the cloud cover is increasing. (Note: The first reference is lengthy and I haven't fully investigated it - adding it here to show theories do exist to explain cloud cover.)

(link) The Effects of Galactic Cosmic Rays on Weather and Climate on Multiple Time Scales September 14, 2002 Abstract
"In this article, evidence is presented that galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) are a major forcing agent on weather and climate on multiple time scales ranging from weekly through glacial-interglacial. Known effects of GCRs are used to explain phenomena and observations in the fields of meteorology, climatology, paleoclimatology and paleoecology. Evidence is presented that primary effects of increases in levels of GCRs are increases in the amounts of low clouds- especially over the tropics, increases in the albedo of low clouds and decreases of the temperature of and increases of the strength of the stratospheric polar vortex." [...]

(link) Cosmic rays 'linked to clouds' By Alex Kirby BBC News Online environment correspondent "German scientists have found a significant piece of evidence linking cosmic rays to climate change. They have detected charged particle clusters in the lower atmosphere that were probably caused by the space radiation. They say the clusters can lead to the condensed nuclei which form into dense clouds. Clouds play a major, but as yet not fully understood, role in the dynamics of the climate, with some types acting to cool the planet and others warming it up. The amount of cosmic rays reaching Earth is largely controlled by the Sun, and many solar scientists believe the star's indirect influence on Earth's global climate has been underestimated." [...]

(link) Columbia Crew Catches A Mysterious TIGER In The Indian Ocean
WASHINGTON -- "An unprecedented flash observed by the space shuttle Columbia crew in 2003 over the Indian Ocean may be a new type of transient luminous event, like lightning sprites, but one that is not necessarily caused by a thunderstorm. The discharge was observed less than two weeks before the shuttle was lost during its Earth reentry." [...]

(link) Cosmic raise in cloud New evidence that events in outer space affect the weather and climate of Earth has been revealed in a study by meteorologists at the University of Reading published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society on Wednesday 18 January. "In their paper ‘Empirical evidence for a non-linear effect of galactic cosmic rays on clouds’, Drs Giles Harrison and David Stephenson suggest that cosmic rays have a significant effect on the Earth’s lower atmosphere – particularly on levels of cloudiness." [...]

(link) Unknown Energy Surges Continue to Hit Planet, Global Weather Systems in Chaos By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to the Russian Academy of Sciences
"An increasingly panicked global effort is now underway by the worlds top scientists to understand an unprecedented series of ‘blasts’, energy surges, which the planet has been taking from as an yet unknown source which has been bombarding Antarctica with cosmic rays and disrupting Northern Hemisphere weather systems on a global scale." [...]

Comment: Track Gamma Ray Burst at home. Fun for the whole family. (link)