EarthMonitor

Earth Changes Bulletin Update As Of December 11, 2002

You have heard of the Weather Report? Here exclusively is this week’s "Earth Report" - a short review of the "big picture" about how the dynamic changes in the Sun and the Earth are effecting our lives more and more intensely, with the latest prognostications and predictions for weathermen, farmers, investors, businessmen, and every man

It appears we must now rewrite the prognosis for Solar Cycle 23. It is not declining, we may have to endure another ten months of its ravages on the environment. As well, the quieting in the Earth during the past three weeks was but a lulling of the season change. Volcanism, seismic activity, solar activity is now picking up and among humans, all geo-political conditions continue to worsen. Batten all hatches, it is going to be one hard winter in the Northern Latitudes, one hard summer in the Southern Latitudes.

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Program Thesis: What are we trying to do with the Earth Changes Bulletin?

Most news media do not handle technical and scientific subjects like geology and earth sciences very well. They don't understand the causes and effects of activities in the Sun and Earth. Accordingly, they often do not understand if, when, how, why to report earthquakes, volcanic activity, global warming effects The treatment often sounds absent-minded, poorly qualified, and frequently contains various technical errors. Seldom is the treatment entertaining and genuinely educational.

Based on new scientific principles which have emerged during the past thirty years, many of the dynamic activities of the Sun and Earth can be linked together to see how a range of effects are linked together. This makes it possible to paint "the big picture" into a perspective which explains many diverse events and processes, especially climate and weather patterns such as global warming and El Nino. From the "big picture", long range predictions can be made for weeks and even months ahead.

The result is sophisticated cutting-edge information which is objective, balanced, astute, relevant, and can be easily seen and appreciated by lay audiences. The perspective is generally global, seldom parochial.

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POLAR MOTION

What is happening to the motion of the Earth.

AS REPORTED LAST THREE WEEKS: Steady as she goes. As reported for the past few months, the current track of Chandler’s Wobble (the observed locations of the spin axis at the North Pole) continues to show an acceleration in the shifting of the average location of the spin axis. The recent acceleration may be in the approximate range of 6.5%. FOR A DESCRIPTION OF THIS DISPLACEMENT, SEE THE EARTH CHANGES BULLETIN OF NOVEMBER 13, 2002.

SUNSPOTS

The events in the solar atmosphere which impact weather and climate patterns, the magnetic field and auroras, including forecasts for the week, month, and year ahead.

THE SOLAR NEWS IS NOT, NOT, NOT GOOD

The overall Solar Flux Index, which measures the flare strength of the Sun, is now going ever upward from a low of about 145 about three weeks ago. It is at about 160 as of today. THIS IS THE WRONG DIRECTION FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE DROUGHT AND FLOOD PRONE AREAS OF THE WORLD, IT PORTENDS MORE HIGH SUNSPOT COUNTS AND MAJOR IONIC STORMS

This high level of activity will provide a strong stable platform of energy to feed more major storms on the Sun which will feed ions into the Earth’s atmosphere to feed extreme weather patterns.

The sunspot count has zigzagged between 105 and 190 this past week and is at 142 as of yesterday. This extreme variation in the counts is likely to persist for another week at least and it is likely that sunspots will rise again to another peak this next few days.

Despite this rising tide of solar flux, NASA shows a muted Sun, with relatively small chance of major activity for the next 48 hours. Although another coronal hole in the sun’s atmosphere may increase the solar wind beginning on December 13^th, at the moment the Fluxgate Monitor at the U of Alaska shows a virtual flatline (no magnetic disturbances in the Earth’s Atmosphere) and indeed, today’s Solar Wind Speed is a modest 382.2 km/s with an equally modest density of 2.3 protons/cm. Don’t bother looking for auroras tonight.

The current activity is muted, it is apparent that the robust energy output of the Sun in Solar Cycle 23 is not falling off as hoped for during the past six months. It should now be apparent that the high in this Solar Sunspot Cycle may not be any shorter in length than previous cycles. Accordingly, it may be several more months, even possibly through to the summer of 2003 before the current regime of high solar activity and extreme weather patterns breaks.

Last week I reported that the break may come in March at the latest. But I also indicated we had no way of predicting this Solar Cycle 23. It was blown off all predictions, even astrophysicist’s with fancy supercomputers and highly advanced statistical profiling. So the only real prediction which can be made is that nobody will call this one except by blind luck.

EXPECT ANYTHING except a quick reprieve. THIS IS VERY BAD NEWS TO THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST AND OTHER DROUGHT PRONE AREAS.

To follow these numbers, view the Solar Cycle 23 Chart at

http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/topten_monitor.htm

GLOBAL DROUGHT AND FLOOD WATCH

Stories and assessments about drought and flood conditions around the world; global information which provides the ability to assess the impacts to agriculture and the natural environment.

The predicted great gusto in the onset of Winter has certainly been on the mark. Don’t expect any let up and in fact, the coming alignment of Mercury with Earth on January 11, 2003 will bring a huge increase in Sunspots, Flares, Ionic Storms, and bad storms on Earth with nasty attitudes through a great portion of January, from about the 5^th through to the 20^th.

The current pattern of recurring huge storm fronts and extensive precipitation is likely to continue well into February and then begin to dissipate. There are several major inner planet alignments to watch during the next few months and I will post these in a special annual report.

Anything could happen to the weather this Winter but at the current time the odds seemed stacked to chaos and many extremes which will emerge in the weather suddenly after a major solar flare or appearance of a new coronal hole. Since we cannot make any guesses as to the duration of Solar Cycle 23, we cannot look for any abatement at the moment.

Unfortunately, the draught prone areas in the SW are currently not getting much winter precipitation. The Sonoran desert is as dry as a bone. As was the case during the Summer Monsoon, the atmosphere appears to have too much energy and is driving the wet air higher and much further to the North and to the East than normal.

EL NINO WATCH: Possibly better news. The El Nino syndrome along the equator appears to be in decline. The upsurge in warm water (above average in the range of 8 degrees F.) long a very wide expanse of the Equator in the Pacific appears to have ended in early November and definitely appears to be less now, on the way down. It is likely the ocean temperature will continue to decline through the remainder of December and January. If so, the El Nino Weather Syndrome will short out before it is even noticed.

EARTHQUAKES

Around the world to see the current and potential patterns of seismic activity, with coverage of the windows of danger.

As predicted last week, the New Moon activity was pretty tepid, quake activity was muted in both frequency and magnitude. But the Earth may not stay muted. Today a 5.9 and a 6.3 quake struck in the South Pacific. Though the next Full Moon Syzygy Window is still nearly a full week away, activity is picking up rapidly and the Full Moon may hit hard in some areas, especially in four areas. The first is Alaska, the second is around Honshu in Japan, which hosted three quakes near 5 magnitude during the past three days, the third is the tectonic plate boundary off the coast of Coos Bay, Oregon, which has hosted an unparalleled eight quakes in the range of 4 to 5 during the past three days, and the fourth is the mouth of the Colorado River, which hosted two quakes near 4.5 yesterday.

The USGS chart (such charts show all quakes 1.0 and above) for Long Valley Cauldera (Area) shows a modest increase to 48 small quakes for the past week, typically in the range of 1.0 in magnitude, while the USGS Chart of Yellowstone Cauldera Area shows a huge increase to 171 small quakes during the last week, up from 11 the previous week. This level of activity is definitely up from previous weeks and would seem to indicate that volcanic activity is now once again waxing.

The USGS chart for California shows 281 quakes for the past seven days, down nearly 40 from last week and the USGS Chart for the Pacific Northwest reveals a steady activity with 44 micro quakes (two week sum) widely scattered through the Cascades and Eastern Washington (same as last week).

VOLCANOES

Around the world with the most interesting and relevant volcano stories; briefs on the likely eruptions as well as coverage of on-going activity.

Hood remains completely quiescent but El Popo gave us an 5puff day today, down three from last week. Centrapred reports for December 11 (16:00 GMT) that "In the last 24 hours there were only 5 low intensity exhalations accompanied by steam, gas and some times small amounts of ash."

El Popo suggests a downward trend in worldwide volcanic activity while the upsurge in seismic activity in the Yellowstone and Long Valley Caulderas suggest an increase in volcanic activity. What are the facts.

The Southwest Volcano Centre reports 47 volcanoes on the alert status list (up one from last week), 6 volcanoes on the restless list (same as last week), and 29 on the active eruption list (same as during the past three weeks). Close examination of the reports fails to show anything very clearly one way or the other. In other words, activity overall is about the same as last week, some up and some down.

AG INDUSTRY WATCH

Because of the high load of stress which the current peak in the sunspots have placed on the Ag industry, we alert on the changing scene in agriculture and how these are likely to effect the broader economy.

Southwest forestry personnel continue to confuse the cause of the massive die-off of the Pinion and Ponderosa Pines this year. Typically they report that the trees are dying from beetle infestations. I don’t question that the trees are now being invested by beetles, but I do assert the trees died because of acute dehydration, which weakened them and destroyed their biological defenses. This enabled the beetles to invade them with impunity.

Concerning the crop failures and coming food shortages, I have not been able to find time to wade through the inventory of reports I have. Maybe I will get to them in January. Regardless, you can expect that shortages will appear as the inventories disappear this winter. Australia is obviously in bad straits from a brutal summer (right now) and it is likely that their agriculture will show massive failure for the second year in a row.

Since there is a good possibility that the Solar Cycle 23 Peak will not decline until the Summer of 2003 (in the Northern Hemisphere), it is even time to begin to think about another round of ag failures this coming year in the Northern Hemisphere. If this happens, many dire conditions could easily become horrible in some areas of the world.

INTERESTING SCIENCE LEAD

Check this out for what super sensitive seismic sensors can do:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/12/09/MN188582.DTL

GEO-POLITICAL WATCH

How the sunspots are likely to most effect human affairs during the weeks and months ahead?

SIGN OF THE TIMES: Ken Lay, just a good ole boy Texan, the Presiding Officer of the rape of California Consumers, otherwise known as Enron, is still scott free with his crooked billions while the Bush administration harasses a liberal democrat funder, Marsha Stewart, for alleged but unprovable "insider trading" of a minor amount of stock.

NEW HINT: Guess what corporate jets were used to ferry the Bush campaign officials and lawyers around during the recounting of the ballots in Florida and the petitioning of the courts to stop the recounts? Enron’s.

AS PREDICTED: The American right wing is now inventing new rationales for PRESUMING that the U.N. cannot do the job, or will do it wrong, or, that no inspections can possibly work. Nobody in Washington DC in the administration appears to want to calmly explain or prove anything. All they appear to be doing, through people like Rumsfield, Rice, and many many others, is feeding the public the notion that WE, the Grave and Great Leaders of the entire Free World, can PRESUME whatever we want, because, WE are the King of the Hill.

Funny thing about that attitude. It can get you into big trouble. Do you remember when King George III and his cabinet held the same thoughts and took rather violent exception to a group of "terrorists" who threw a boatload of English tea into the Boston Harbor? The damn terrorists threw the entire cargo into the bay.

Unfortunately it does not seem that the inflammation of human emotions which the sunspot activity has caused this past 39 months is going away any time soon. The damage will continue to unfold. The existing confusion, distortion of judgements, and blind over- reactions will continue to reign for yet another season, perhaps for another year.

SIGN #1 OF THIS PATTERN: The Bush administration has warned Iraq this week that it would not hesitate to use tactical nuclear weapons in retaliation if Hussein’s forces use weapons of mass destruction. Since these are all so well hidden (and apparently of such limited quantity) that the world has no proof of their existence, are we to suppose that the Bush administration is prepared to nuke a more findable target, such as blowing up all of the Presidential Palaces and underground bunkers which are scattered throughout Iraq in one fell swoop? Or are we to assume that this statement has the emotional maturity of about age six or seven? In either case, what are we to make of the mental stability of "leaders" who make or serve such statements?

SIGN #2 OF THIS PATTERN: Meanwhile, most leaders of the Arab world keep asserting that much of the problem of militant Islam in the world will resolve itself peacefully if the U.S. would get serious about ending policies which are widely seen throughout the world as duplicitous and then go to work, really, with the same effort it puts into war, to create a peaceful settlement in Palestine. It is a simple, universal request from Middle Eastern peoples. But the ruling American political class, especially the Republicrats who claim the center, is so confused, it cannot hear and cannot respond appropriately, not even remotely. Israel is in the hands of a frightened military clique which has not a clue about how to structure justice for its Palestinian subjects. Accordingly, the U.S. is acting exactly as the Al Qaeda group have claimed and are predicting. Day by day, their support waxes and the U.S. slouches stupidly further into the traps of the extremists. IN THIS HISTORICAL STRUGGLE, TIME IS ON THEIR SIDE, NOT OURS.

AS STATED LAST WEEK: In the short term of the next two or three years, the polarizations and strategies which have been let lose in the world will continue to exacerbate our conditions and make some of them actually yet still worse. Indeed, some Euro sources even hint darkly of suitcase atomic bombs. And all of this of course will collide with the terrible environmental and economic damage which Solar Cycle 23 has created and is still creating. The reckoning for this is yet to come.

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