• Studies agree on a rise in sea levels of between 0.7 and 1.2 meters during the next 100 years

    A joint study by universities and research institutions from England, China, and Denmark finds that IPCC 2007 estimates that sea level would rise by less than half a meter in the next 100 years were too low; the researchers now estimate that sea levels will rise between 0.7 and 1.2 meters during the next 100 years; instead of using temperature to calculate the rise in sea levels, the researchers have used the radiation balance on Earth — taking into account both the warming effect of greenhouse gasses and the cooling effect from the sulfur clouds of large volcanic eruptions, which block radiation

  • End-of-the-world shelter company selling bunker space

    A California-based company offers people a chance to survive the end of the world; for $50,000 per person, the company will sell you a spot in an underground shelter guaranteed to survive nuclear attacks, bio terrorism, chemical warfare, super volcano eruptions, asteroids, solar flares, tsunamis, earthquakes, pole shifts, the return of Planet X, and social and political anarchy;

  • Study: U.S. Northeast seeing more, fiercer rainstorms

    Rainstorms in the U.S. Northeast have become more frequent and fiercer over the last six decades; there is a debate whether or not this 60-year trend is an indication of, or is related to, global warming; what is more certain is the potential economic impact should the 60-year trend continue, requiring billions of dollars in infrastructure improvements to things in the region including roads, bridges, sewers, and culverts

  • New software spots vulnerabilities in flood defenses

    Spanish researchers develop a computer system could provide more detailed flood-risk information; the system developed at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) identifies flood risks more quickly and effectively than satellite imagery, particularly in areas where there are dramatic changes in land over small spaces

  • The lessons of Chile earthquake to California building code

    Since the Chile earthquake, many U.S. engineers have visited Santiago and other affected cities to study the failures and successes of building codes here; Chile is of particular interest to American engineers because it employs similar building codes to those in California and also has widespread use of reinforced concrete; one observation from Chile’s earthquake that could find its way into U.S. building code concerns confining reinforcement; confining reinforcement is meant to keep vertical bars from bucking, but the design proved insufficient in Chile; one solution: requiring confining reinforcement along a greater length of the wall

  • Searching for Earth-threatening dark objects in space

    NASA’s WISE — for Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer — search for “dark” objects in space like brown dwarf stars, vast dust clouds, and Earth-approaching asteroids; WISE finds them by sensing their heat in the form of infrared light most other telescopes can not pick up

  • New theory: a comet swarm struck America 13,000 years ago

    One way to prevent an asteroid from hitting Earth is to blast it with a large nuclear weapon; trouble is, the blast would cause a barrage of asteroid debris to fall to Earth; indeed, there is a new suspect in the quest to understand what might have killed the ice-age megafauna of North America — a shower of debris from a disintegrating comet

  • Chile's concrete code for buildings called into question

    Since 1985, some 10,000 buildings three stories or higher were built in Chile — constructed in compliance with a strict building code introduced after a power earthquake which rocked the country; only 1 percent will have to be demolished as a consequence of the magnitude-8.8 earthquake that struck on 27 February; still, engineers who inspected the damage in many of the bearing-wall concrete frames of 12- to 26-story buildings say the damage calls into question the effectiveness of Chile’s building code, which does not require confinement reinforcing steel for concrete members

  • Does toad behavior predict earthquakes?

    Italian researchers studying toads’ mating habits noticed that a large number of toads left L’Aquila province of Italy a few days before it was hit with a devastating earthquake last April; the researchers suggest that toads sense changes in radiation emitted from Earth’s ionosphere, changes which typically precede earthquakes; other researchers say: not so fast

  • Researchers say a global database is needed to identify victims of mass disasters

    Hundreds of thousands of people may die in natural disasters such as the Asian tsunami or the Haiti earthquake; many of the bodies of victims are never recovered because of collapsed buildings, mud slides, and more; but there are difficulties even with the recovered bodies: many of them cannot be identified and, often, entire families are killed, leaving no one behind to identify the remains; researchers say that forensic anthropology may be of help here

  • Chile Earthquake shifted Earth's axis by 3 inches

    The 27 February 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile has shifted the Earth’s axis by three inches, causing each day to be shorter by 1.26 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second); the Earth is not a perfect sphere, with continents and oceans distributed unevenly around the planet — there is more land in the north, more water in the south; NASA scientists calculate that the Chilean quake shifted enough material to change the mass balance of the entire planet

  • U.S. accelerating move toward disaster insurance reform

    Premium increases, against a backdrop of increasing weather disasters and strained state finances, will focus Congress’s attention on weaknesses in the current U.S. catastrophe insurance framework; this is likely to stimulate reform, leading to the creation of a national disaster insurance/reinsurance pool and federal guarantees for certain catastrophe bonds

  • More than a third of the U.S. faces historic, possibly deadly flooding this spring

    Forecasters say wet winter, El Nino could cause major flooding; Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): “We are looking at potentially historic flooding”

  • No way to tell whether last Tuesday's L.A. earthquake was a precursor to the Big One

    Experts say it is impossible to tell whether small quakes are a sign that bigger ones may follow; thus, it is not possible to say whether or not last Tuesday’s 4.4 magnitude earthquake in California is a sign that the Big One is around the corner

  • Chilean economy faces major slowdown

    The two areas hit hardest by the 27 February quake account for 13 percent of Chile’s gross domestic product and 20 percent of its industrial output, and some sectors of the economy will have to rebuild from scratch