Volcano, Mauna Loa

 

The world’s largest active volcano erupted for the first time in 38 years. Notice that Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano in the world, was going to erupt — as it did this week for the first time in nearly four decades — came to people on the Big Island of Hawaii an hour before the lava began to flow. Public officials scrambled to alert nearby residents. Scientists rushed to predict which areas of the island might be in danger. The curious made plans to observe what could shape up to be an event of a lifetime: the exhalation of a massive mountain.

The eruption was years in the making, matched not quite in scale by the ongoing effort to monitor the volcano with seismometers, spectrometers, tiltmeters, GPS units, and other state-of-the-art tools. “Mauna Loa is one of the most well-instrumented volcanoes in the United States,” said Wendy Stovall, a volcanologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Even still, so much about the inner workings of the mountain is unknown, Dr. Stovall and other scientists said.

Weston Thelen, a volcanologist with the U.S.G.S. who monitored the mountain from 2011 to 2016, said that sheer size, mineral composition and heat all presented logistical difficulties for scientists and public officials hoping to predict its movements. “Mauna Loa is a beast,” he said.

With the eruption underway, researchers on the Big Island, including Jim Kauahikaua, a volcanologist with the U.S.G.S. Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, have had to strike a careful balance between concern for public safety, given the many unknowns, and the desire to collect data.

Last eight years hottest on record, UN report warns

 

The past eight years are on track to be the hottest ever recorded, a United Nations report has found, as UN chief Antonio Guterres warned that the planet was sending “a distress signal”.

The UN’s weather and climate body released its annual state of the global climate report on Sunday with another warning that the target to limit temperature increases to 1.5C (2.7F) was “barely within reach”.

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America's gift to the future. The new climate reality, a different geography. Rebuilding. Raising the cities 10, 20, 30, 40 feet as severe weather increases.

An aqueduct is a watercourse constructed to carry water from a source to a distribution point far away. In modern engineering, the term aqueduct is used for any system of pipes, ditches, canals, tunnels, and other structures used for this purpose. Wikipedia

Rebuilding the bigger infrastructure.

channel

a length of water wider than a strait, joining two larger areas of water, especially two seas.

During the 1850s and 1860s, engineers carried out a piecemeal raising of the level of central Chicago to lift it out of the low-lying swampy ground. Streets, sidewalks, and buildings were physically raised on jackscrews. The work was funded by private property owners and public funds.

Severe weather is any dangerous meteorological phenomenon with the potential to cause damage, serious social disruption, or loss of human life. 

Types of severe weather phenomena vary, depending on the latitude, altitude, topography, and atmospheric conditions. 

Climate-related disasters jumped 83 percent — from 3,656 events during the 1980-1999 period to 6,681 in the past 20 years. Major floods have more than doubled, the number of severe storms has risen 40 percent, and there have been major increases in droughts, wildfires, and heatwaves

UFO, UAP

 An unidentified flying object also called a UAP, is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained.

The moon is hollow approximately 15 miles deep.

The earth has a UAP base. They never left.

Mars has a base also.

Roughly 100 homes burned by Mill Fire

 Roughly 100 homes were burned by Mill Fire in Northern California; Mountain Fire grows nearby

Mountain Fire

9/2/2022

Siskiyou

3,395

5%

Tower Fire

9/2/2022

Calaveras

73

75%

Mill Fire

9/2/2022

Siskiyou

4,254

25%

Woods Fire

9/1/2022

Tuolumne

21

80%

Walker Fire

9/1/2022

Mendocino

109

40%

Branstetter Fire

9/1/2022

Shasta

34

90%

Border 32

8/31/2022

San Diego

4,438

65%

Route Fire

8/31/2022

Los Angeles

5,208

71%

McCovey Fire

8/29/2022

Humboldt

25

100%

Polio found in U.K. for the first time in nearly 40 years

Polio was found in the U.K. for the first time in nearly 40 years. Here's what it means

June 22, 20227:19 PM ET

Michaeleen Doucleff 2016 square

MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF

Aerial view of the Beckton Sewage Treatment Works in London. Between February and May, U.K. scientists found several samples containing closely related versions of the polio virus in wastewater at the plant.

For the first time in nearly 40 years, health officials in the U.K. have identified a likely outbreak of polio in London.

So far, there have been no cases of polio detected directly in the U.K. But instead, scientists have discovered the outbreak through an indirect route. They've found multiple versions of the virus in sewage water, the U.K. Health Security Agency said Wednesday in a press release.

The risk to the general public is extremely low, the agency said, because the vast majority of people in Britain are vaccinated against polio during childhood – and therefore protected against infection.

But the agency encourages anyone not fully immunized to schedule an appointment right away.

Between February and May, U.K. scientists found several samples containing closely related versions of the virus in wastewater at the London Beckton Sewage Treatment Works – the largest water treatment plant in the U.K.

The viruses' genetic sequences suggest "there has been some spread between closely linked individuals in north and east London," the UKHSA said.

People infected with polio, or who have been vaccinated with a live version of the virus, shed traces of the virus in their stool – which eventually end up in sewage wastewater. So the current hypothesis is that an infected person brought the virus into London and then spread it to others who weren't immunized.

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"It sounds like the outbreak is very small," says virologist Angela Rasmussen, who studies polio at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. "The outbreak could be within an extended family. Transmission would require a concentration of people who had not yet been vaccinated."

Scientists in England are quickly expanding surveillance of sewage samples to try and pinpoint where the outbreak occurred and whether it's still ongoing so they can stop it with targeted immunization. "We are urgently investigating to better understand the extent of this transmission," said epidemiologist Vanessa Saliba, who consults for the UKHSA, in the statement.

Polio causes permanent paralysis in people who are not fully vaccinated in about 5 out of every 1,000 cases. Polio spreads through the fecal-oral route. That is, when a person accidentally consumes infected stool.

The last case of polio in the U.K. occurred in 1984. The U.K. was declared free of polio in 2003.

The pandemic has given polio the opportunity to come surging back in many countries, Rasmussen says, because it disrupted childhood vaccination programs around the world.

"My biggest concern is the fact that there is a larger population now that hasn't been vaccinated on schedule," Rasmussen says. "I think that applies everywhere. And that's because of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic."

Back in 2016, the world recorded only a few dozen polio cases across four countries. From 2019 to 2020, the number of polio cases worldwide almost tripled, NPR reported in April, resulting in more than a thousand known cases spread across nearly 30 countries. Last year, the world recorded more than 600 cases of polio.

Here in the U.S., polio immunization is part of the routine vaccination schedule for babies and children. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends they receive four doses of the inactivated polio vaccine. One shot each at 2 months, 4 months, 6 months and then at 4 to 6 years old.

"If you're not up to date on your polio vaccine, now's the time to go out and get up to date," Rasmussen says.