Is it just me, or does there seem to be an unusual number of natural disasters happening lately? I don’t know. It seems like we’ve had fewer hurricanes and more of everything else.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Koyaanisqatsi…a Hopi Indian word meaning ‘life out of balance’.
Probably the same general number of natural disasters, but with more of them happening in places where it’s either inconvenient or tragic.
An excellent book: Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America
One of the best policy and history books I’ve ever read. From a review,
I would add that public policies have created environments that are more prone towards disaster. e.g., As a native Floridian, I thought I knew a lot about the state’s history but I didn’t realize how ignorant I was about irresponsible coastal development until I read this book.
I don’t know that there are more natural events, but I venture that we are increasingly more vulnerable for disaster.
Not really, but George Carlin might help.
I blame Obama.
/teabagger
Agreed – it’s Obama’s fault for doing too much/not doing enough.
And still no pony.
yeah! all l got was a unicorn, and it gored me.
Especially not an Icelandic pony.
I blame scantily clad women:
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/scantily-clad-promiscuous-women-cause-earthquakes
And apparently women dressed in parkas and ear muffs cause volcanoes to erupt.
Scantily clad women? I’ll have to investigate that and let you know.
From what I’ve been seeing, it’s not an unusual number of disasters, but more Media reporting of them.
now, if they continue at the present pace, we might have a number on the upper end of the curve, but so far, we appear to be holding near/just above the statistical average…
Plus remember the media group-think. If there’s a major disaster – say an earthquake in Haiti – then suddenly EVERY SINGLE earthquake on the planet gets coverage for the next month or so. It happened after the Tsunami too, it happens after hurricanes, it happens after flooding, it happens after everything except right-wing terrorism…that falls off the radar in a few days.
There does seem to be an unusual amount of tectonic activity. Someone suggested that glacier melting and such is changing pressure on the plates and causing more earthquakes and volcanoes. I have no idea whether this is numerically reasonable, but it sounds plausible.
Actually, the reduced weight on the poles from ice melting will cause the globe to expand along the polar axis (right now it has a pronounced bulge along the equator due to ice pack and glacier weight on the poles and a slightly greater gravitational pull on the globe’s areas that are nearest to the sun). Changing the world’s shape rapidly could cause any number of outcomes, and some scientists have conjectured that it could initiate a polar swap, where the earth’s magnetic poles reverse.
Fun times ahead.
Earth’s spin is a factor in equatorial bulging as well.
True, I left that one out in part because the spin speed of the core vs. the surface rotation speed seems to have something to do with the pole swap as well. Melting ice caps might actually make the surface spin faster as the mass around the equator gets closer to the center of rotation. I have no idea if that will affect core speed or the more critical aspect ratio.
Too many variables to know much for certain, except that any changes in the works will either be stymied or hastened by rapid changes in the earth’s atmosphere and surface. Whether for good or ill only time will tell.
Perhaps the end time is near. /snark
The infernal question. is there more insanity in the whirled, or have the intertubes changed the way disasters are covered?
The USGS claims that we have a huge earthquake (R-7 or higher) every single month. Since most of our iron rock is covered with OHO, and few people are floating in the area, we miss most of them. Every once in a while, we build a town, a village, a city or a nucular reactor on a faulty line. At that time, the song, “I feel the Earth . Move . Under . my feet, I feel . . .” begins to make sense.
Just came across this:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/04/19/global-warming-link-volcanoes-earthquakes-landslides-tsunamis-
royal-society-scientists/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climate
progress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29&utm_content=Twitter
The Royal Society is wondering the same thing.
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Thanks
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
Hurricanes are June – November storms that we can watch for weeks before their arrival.
Earthquakes and volcanos seem more like surprise events to me.
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Periods of exceptional climate change in Earth history are associated with a dynamic response from the solid Earth, involving enhanced levels of potentially hazardous geological and geomorphological activity.
Read more in my diary.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
I read an article regarding earthquakes indicating no change from the norm so it might possibly be the media that is shifting rather than the earth underneath our feet.
Each year there are many quakes less than 7, a number of 7’s and even an 8 or two… Only when we hear about each and every one does the number seem so large.