Another Monster Earthquake – Thousands Dead!
September 30th, 2009 at 11:41 am by Bill Steffen under Bill's Blog, News, Weather
<–click the image to enlarge. The official death toll is up to 529, but will likely reach “the thousands”. Another huge Earthquake has hit in Indonesia around 6:16 AM EDT Weds. Sept. 30, just off the island of Sumatra. It was 30 miles off the coast of Padang (population 900,000 – that’s more people than actually live in the city of Detroit) . This one has been given a preliminary magnitude of 7.6 and a depth of 49.7 miles. At least 529 are dead and hundreds may be buried (video at link) under the debris of collapsed buildings and landslides. Reports indicate that schools, bridges, a hospital and the roof of the main airport may have collapsed. Here’s the geology of the quake. There were no reports of a significant tsunami. I’ve read several discussions by meteorologists who had predicted more earthquakes due to changes in the Earth’s angular momentum (tied to changes in the sun). Fascinating stuff – these meteorologists are also predicting that the Earth will be in a cooling period from the latter part of this decade to about 2030. Here’s another interesting article that makes some good points.
Bill, do you have links to any of those discussions about the angular momentum and the cooling period predictions?
I don’t have a lot of time to dig around the Internet now. Joe Bastardi of Accu-Weather has talked about this in the last two weeks. That’s a fee-based site that I can’t link to it. Maybe someone can look around and find a link. The whole connection between earthquakes, volcanoes, cosmic dust, angular momentum and changes in the sun is fascinating. This group of scientists has been predicting more earthquakes this year and a trend toward cooler global temperatures between now and 2030. Politically incorrect side note: Since this might have some influence on the carbon-dioxide based global warming predictions and the push toward higher taxes through cap and trade, don’t expect the mainstream-media to give this any attention. However, you have to be impressed when someone makes accurate predictions. I’ll emphasize again…despite what you may hear from the mainstream media on El Nino and how warm it might be this winter because of El Nino…this is a WEAK El Nino and weak El Ninos often bring cold winters to the Eastern U.S. Copy this down if you like and see who was right next April.
Heh, heh. It’s been one blow after another for the Alarmists this year. Dormant sun, eerily quiet hurricane season, tornadoes way down, tons of record low temps, Arctic ice continuing it’s recovery, and now the Hockey Stick has been surely put to rest this week. (All of you who grew up believing that everything was a little bit warmer in the Medieval times were correct after all.) A weak El Nino would be a perfect way to end 2009.
Thanks for the info Bill. If I get time I’ll do some Internet hunting on the topics at hand. When I was studying Aerospace Engineering at UT (Go Vols!) I took an orbital mechanics class with Dr. Gary Flandro – he was one of the guys who worked at JPL in the 70′s and helped develop the gravity assist theories used to get Voyager out of our Solar sytem with a minimal amount of fuel resources. His class was one of my favorites. It’s amazing how there are so many powerful forces in this universe that can change our planet in countless ways. I’m excited to hear that there still are scientists who truly appreciate the BIG picture and desire to take into account ALL the variables that can impact our climate and resources.
Bill, took a note of your weak El Nino guess and will bring it up in April 2010.
SlimJim
This stuff is soooo facinating! I wish they taught this stuff in school when I was in high school, I would have been a meteorologist for sure. Who would have known? Great stuff Bill, we learn something new every day.
Still waiting for some politician to blame earthquakes on AGW… soon it will happen, just like in 2004.
i’ll stay out of global warning discussions but i agree w/christine this is fascinating stuff! thanks again bill.
( and all the other knowlegable people on this site of course!
Fascinating stuff Bill, I have seen a lot of acorns the past couple months. Could be a sign of a bad winter. Christine my school taught Earth Science, I believe for like a week or so we went over weather. I invited Bill to my school when I was a kid it was like the first time he was ever there. I may not be a meteorologist, but I love weather.
This report is very interesting. Was there increased earthquakes at the outset of the Maunder Minimum? Or increased volcanic activity? And, I wonder what a 20 year cooling period could do to climate overall?
West Michigan politically incorrect side note: The US has never really been on board with Global Warming. Sure, we have Cap & Trade on the table, but I doubt it’s going anywhere. I think if you asked Kevin, he’d give a completely different report on the MSM’s performance.
I think it’s time to stop the conservative MSM conspiracy nonsense. Since FOX news is free on every cable outlet, and Rupert Murdoch has been buying up papers like they’re going out of style, and Clear Channel tends to drop any talk show that isn’t conversative, I think we can put the whole MSM conspiracy theory to rest.
ABC, NBC, and CBS have probably done some special “reports” on Global Warming but that doesn’t counter the affect of the daily coverage, which tends to say that the jury is still out. I know that the owners of each outlet pressure their staff to run biased reports. In NBC’s case, I doubt the Global Warming reports are based on anything other than GE’s desire to sell flourescent light bulbs. In a few years, they’ll run some mercury scare tactic special reports and get everyone to switch back. Then they’ll change tactics again. Cha ching. If this doesn’t show up in the MSM, it’s because it doesn’t help them sell anything or it’s not sexy enough. It’s doesn’t have anything to do with political pressure.
So sad all the loss of life with those earthquakes and tsunmis.