Mount Etna Erupts

A lab asignment I was working on only yesterday, asked me what volcano has had the most eruptions since 79 a.d. It's ironic that a day later I find this image on reddit of that same volcano erupting. Mount Etna in Italy erupted earlier today spewing ash on nearby towns. The last big eruption was in 1992, and because Etna is the most active volcano in Europe we would all have to think mitigation strategies are cutting edge in the surrounding communities. Right?

While We Are Freezing Here..

While we are freezing in Wisconsin with frigid early temperatures, the UK is experiencing crazy winter storms. The Guardian reports that 100mph winds are battering Scotland and northern England and that severe flooding is next. Above is a clip of the strong winds pushing tall waves past the barriers. I think its interesting to see the power that the walls can withstand. Man made barriers such as these are great for defense, but as with most everything else in life, it has its draw backs. As a matter of fact, one of my research projects focuses on the formation of the Duluth baymouth bar. Looking at historical aireal data, you can see how the feature directs sediment carry and coastal erosion. However, this seems like an instance where the benefit of having the barrier greatly outweighs the negatives. Those waves are massive.

Photograph:Environment Agency showing the warning the UK is under

This other image I ripped from the guardians site shows the areas under severe flood warning. As you can see most of the map is painted red. Along with the snow and cold winter conditions we have been experiencing in the states, it seems that weather has been pretty wild lately. I acknowledge that this could be due to me following it more!

Tornadoes in the Midwest

This week was yet another substantial week for hazard events. The Midwest was ravaged by a serious of tornadoes Sunday. At least 1500 homes are said to be damaged or destroyed. Below is a time lapse video of a tornado rolling through Indianapolis.

The weatherman from a local news station mentioned that it is rare for this event to be this late in the year and this far north. This brings a real interesting topic to light. How will we know to change mitigation strategies change in light of global climate change? I am not declaring this as an event of global warming, but if we see severity in weather events increase rapidly, how could we plan effective strategies to minimize damage? Being proactive is the first step and an important concept to learn from studying hazard mitigation.

Aid for the Phillipines

While the US continues to dole out relief aid to China's neighbors hit by a massive typhoon, China somehow finds itself without money to spare. Originally only offering $100,000, after some heckling China has pledged $1.6 million in cash and materials- still dwarfed by the United States' $20 million. CBS reports that even Ikea (the Swedish furniture chain) has put more money forth.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/philippines-typhoon-relief-efforts-china-gives-less-aid-than-ikea/

Leave it to Stephen Colbert to make sure China's stinginess gets noticed. On the Colbert Report the other night, Stephen called on the nation to "kick China's ass at being compassionate". Viewers were urged to pledge through text message. And sure enough, he rallied enough people to beat out China's donation. The first one anyways.

Typhoon Haiyan Mapped

Looking for more news about the native termed Typhoon Yolanda, I stumbled across a link that gets me excited as a geographer. Max Fisher at The Washington Post wrote this article: 8 maps that explain why Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines so hard.

The maps he gathered from sources such as MapsoftheWorld.com, The News Republic, and the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources really help the average reader get an advanced understanding of the situation. Here is my favorite map of the link. It is good background knowledge, as there will be more posts to come about hazard mitigation of this event.

Typhoon Haiyan's power at different stages across the West Pacific

Disaster in the Phillipines

Typhoon Haiyan

Unless you've been absolutely starved of news this past week, you have probably heard about Typhoon Haiyan devastating regions of the Philippines. The Typhoon formed on November 3rd and made landfall on the Philippine island of Samar of November 7th. Haiyah had winds of 190-195mph at landfall, making it the strongest tropical cyclone to make landfall in world history.

This is a hard topic to cover as you can imagine, due to the shear size and impact of the event.We discussed the event in class from a behavior based view to better understand its impact. The structure of the storm played a big part. It was considered a well defined storm meaning that en route to Manillia and Tacloban winds may blow strong North until the eye focuses on the town. Then things will calm down only to get back up to speed in the other directions. Not many structures can stand up to that. Additionally the storm did not stick to the forecasted path. While Philippine major roadways are already packed, the additional surge of people pre landfall, did not help the matter.

My group discussed the additional factors that made this storm so deadly. Geography of the island made it nearly impossible to get out of the storms way. The options seemed to be to go to higher ground far inland where you have no shelter and could face landslides or go to the community shelter buildings that were only a half mile inland and composed of brick and mortar(which were inundated by the storm surge or had collapsed by wind intensity anyways). We also located in various news articles that officials did not relay the hazard rating of the storm so that the local population in Tacloban could understand the seriousness. Although locals have performed tsunami drills, the communication was not there. On top of everything this is a developing country. Property loss and human life loss are more impactful and slower to recover than if the country was a LDC or MDC.

Experts are divided on the impact of global warming on increased storm intensity, but if this is any indication, the geography of the Philippines make it susceptible either way.

Thanks to the growth in popularity of the world largest encyclopedia, Typhoon Haiyan is covered extensively here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Haiyan

More to come with more research.

Yosemite Hazards Vol 3

While in California, we had to give a 20 minute presentation on a topical research area of our choice. My presentation was about using LiDAR to measure fuel loads of forest canopies. Others spoke about native inhabitants of the Yosemite Vally, giant redwoods, and animal species. One topic that I found very interesting was presented to us by fellow classmate Jerrod. He told us of the ongoing efforts to prevent nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, Japan. I thought this was an event worth briefly discussing.

Failure at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant occurred on March 11th of 2011. It was result of the plant being hit by the tsunami triggered by the Tohoku earthquake. It is reported as the largest nuclear incident since Chernobyl. Source.

Although I will admit, I am not religious in following news, I like to believe that when a situation has the ability to scar the planet like Chernobyl, I will be at least aware of it. Whether I should blame myself, or Brian Williams (love the guy) can be saved for another blog. I just wanted to point out some of the key details of this event, and I'll start with a map.

The green circle around fukushima is an area that was (and could be still) under radiation watch, however the main thing I wanted to point out, is that the blue colored areas on the map represent the ocean. Oceans are known to produce some wave action which can be greatly amplified by hurricanes and earthquake induced waves. I know, I am reading like a jackass. But I guess it makes me a little worried that there are people with significant sums of money who can make decisions like this that have the ability to change the planet.

I understand there are benefits to the location. A big one was the vast water supply to cool reactors. And I know that it has produced a great amount of electricity for the people of Japan. I just wish with such high stakes, they could have built the sea wall with some extra generosity. (Their sea wall was 10 meters high, while the tsunami threw a wave of 13 meters)