EarthMonitor

Earth Changes Bulletin Update As Of November 6, 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 everyman

An update for the week of October 30 2002 was not created. Here is the latest summary

Solar activity is slightly muted and seems headed downward but Seismic and Volcanic activity is up dramatically. The political stalemate in the U.S. has ended and confusion is dissapating in many quarters even as soul wrenching increases in many others. Some will love the next few years, many will hate them…history has turned and is headed for new territory, but probably not where anyone has in mind… ________________________________________________________________________

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.

REPEAT FROM LAST THREE WEEKS - steady if somewhat flattened showing significant displacement. This appears to continue to demonstrate that the location of Chandler’s Wobble is being displaced more rapidly than in previous years.

To see this latest track, go to:

http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/polarmotion/plots/wobbletrac_Nov6_2002.gif

The upsurge in volcanism and the huge increase in seismic activity during the past two weeks is probably linked to the flattening of the spiral motion of the pole and the (probable) apparent acceleration of the shifting of the "average" location of the spin axis.

If so, some aspects of the pattern of the past two weeks may be repeated with even greater activity in about 13.5 months when the spin axis moves once again through this same quadrant of the Earth to finish up its 6.5 year spiral cycle. Because the spiral track of the motion will be at its maximum size, it will be moving at its most rapid rate, which will increase on both accounts the energy going into the stress patterns in the crust which create both quakes and volcanoes.

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 number of sunspots went up and down during the last two weeks. The highest peak was three days ago when the count reached 215 for one day. The count quickly dipped down to 165 but began to rise again yesterday with a count of 175. From the flux and planetary indexes, as well from the psychic influences, one can infer that the count is likely to increase again today but I would not expect a dramatic rise beyond the patterns of the past two weeks. To follow these numbers, view the Solar Cycle 23 Chart at

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

The failure of the sunspot count to rise with this Venus|Earth Alignment to levels which would equal the alignments of Mercury|Earth this past year suggests that Solar Cycle 23 has indeed past its prime, run out of energy so to speak, and is now beginning a long slow sag. How long this will take to take the monthly average count below 100 is anyone’s guess. By comparison with the past few solar sunspot cycles, the count is likely to stay above 100 on the average through to about January 2003 at the earliest, more likely in the range of about March 2002.

Even if the energy producing sunspots appears to be waning a bit, the sun is still fritzing out huge flares and very very brisk solar winds through the coronal holes (so-called magnetic holes in the sun’s atmosphere) which keep appearing. Take a look at today’s images of solar phenomenon from the SOHO satellite and you will see that the solar surface remains very stormy indeed.

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/?

Severe magnetic disturbances have kept hitting the Earth atmosphere this past two weeks from this type of solar activity, according to the Fluxgate at the U. of Alaska, and NASA reports that the solar wind has increased its speed over yesterday up to a phenomenal 594.5 km/s at a density of 3.3 protons/cm cubic. Though the solar wind speed can climb much higher for a brief period of a few minutes or hours as a result of sudden explosive Coronal Mass Ejections, the speed is only very rarely as high as it is today.

REPEAT FROM LAST WEEK: The general pattern seems increasingly consistent with a gradual turndown in the peak sunspot count of Solar Cycle 23. The graphs seem to show that this may become fairly definite in November. But this may be an illusion created by looking too closely to a limited period of time on the graph. The best time to evaluate what is happening with Solar Cycle 23 for the next twelve months will be about Thanksgiving Day.

SOLAR STORMS

NASA reports a 50% probability of M class flares. A new sunspot complex has the ability to produce x class storms for which NASA has estimated a 10 percent probability during the next 48 hours. If any come in, this may be the last chance this solar cycle for viewing really great auroras.

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.

As predicted, extreme storms and rainfall did indeed continue to escalate this past couple of weeks for an exceptionally wet fall in Northern Eurasia. Ireland often gets the brunt of Atlantic storms which strike Northern Europe and Melody in Ireland reports that it was indeed sogged in with howling wet storms. Scattered floods struck many areas, but none nearly so severe as during the Mercury|Earth alignments earlier this year.

North America mainly got rather cold fairly suddenly in the higher latitudes.

The sun still packs a lot of ionic energy into the Earth and Venus is still so close to the Earth that any flare up in the sun will be transmitted directly to the Earth. With such flare ups, the energy sends most of the equatorial ocean air up much higher in elevation and latitude, leaving drought in the monsoon belts while creating exceptional floods in the Northern latitudes.

So anything could happen to the weather this fall and definitely expect chaos and some extremes to emerge in the weather suddenly fairly shortly after a major solar flare or appearance of a new coronal hole. But in the main, vis a vis solar activity, look now in the main for a long slow gradual return to more normal weather patterns.

EL NINO WATCH: During the last three weeks there has been a sudden upsurge in warm water (above average in the range of 8 degrees F.) standing on the Equator in the Pacific. This irritates me personally because it may make me wrong. There may indeed be El Nino Syndrome set in for the Pacific region this coming winter and spring. The sudden cooling in the northerly latitudes of North America may directly reflect this sudden warming of the mid Pacific.

If this pattern does not break up during the next few weeks, this winter and spring should be a lot like the early months of 1998 – wet, very very wet. This will break the drought in the American Southwest.

EARTHQUAKES

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

For the record, the New Moon and Perigee (closest approach of the Moon to the Earth were only 19 hours apart on the 4^th and the Moon was South of the Equator).

Whewww. This New Moon Syzygy has produced some phenomenal record-breaking quaking. After the last few lackluster, nearly dead New Moon Syzgies, this was the kind of Syzygy which proves the rule: the New Moon near or at perigee is the nastiest of the Syzgies. Quite obviously, when the Moon is closer than normal to the Earth and is on the side opposite to the Sun, the Earth’s crust is pulled apart more than normal to crack and break into quakes, and more often than not, the truly great quakes..

At least three 7.0 plus quakes, maybe four, struck in widely scattered places and central Alaska has been in nearly constant tremulation for the last three days with 4.0 plus quakes striking every couple of hours to punctuate many small swarms. The 7.9 quake which struck about 90 miles south of Fairbanks to set off the nearly non-stop swarms, rattled lake surfaces as far away as Louisiana. Since the area is so remote, few buildings or people were damaged but infrastructure of roads was seriously affected.

So much activity occurred that the USGS databases have been running behind and it is not clear yet just exactly what the real numbers for this period are.

There were an awful lot of quakes and the worst hit was not Alaska but Malaysia. Quakes during the last seven days started mainly in the Mediterranean and along the Mediterranean-Himalayan belt and moved quickly all around the Pacific Rim of Fire. A 7.7 quake struck in the South Seas on November 1 in the Vanuatu Islands and many quakes in Italy and Greece attended the flare up of volcanic activity in Etna and nearby Stromboli near Sicily. Volcanic eruptions in Kashmir, (which are extremely rare) were attended by several sizable but remote quakes, especially on Nov. 2^nd and today. Curiously the South Seas were relatively quiescent after months of 6.0 sized quakes along the Fiji-Papua Tectonic Arc and the 7.7 on the first of November. But a 6.2 quake struck Northern Indonesia along with many others in the 4 to 6 mag range on November 2^nd. But these were upstaged on the same day on the Malay Peninsula where possibly two 7.0 quakes struck minutes apart along with several others in the 4 to 6 range. Damage here must have been extensive but nothing has appeared in Western media.

Curiously, I received a report of a 7.5 quake in the Mid-Atlantic ridge but I cannot find a listing for it in the quake databases. I wonder if the report was a new form of mind virus by pranksters.

Perhaps the prior activity in the South Seas cocked the triggers for the cavalcade of quakes in Alaska, which was attended by a 6.1 to 6.5 quake (size depends on which report you believe) in Japan (North Honsho on the coast) which must have caused serious damage but which has gone unremarked in most media, several quakes on the West Coast of Mexico, two 4 to 5 mag quakes in Baja California and two 3 to 4 mag quakes in the mouth of the Colorado where Baja is sliding past North America , two 5 + quakes in the Yukon, a 5.1 quake in the Queen Charlotte Islands near Vancouver British Columbia Romania, Africa, China, Russia, Myanmar, Mongolia, Nebraska, were all hit as well with quakes, must of which were above 4.0.

The Russian Far Eastern area along Sakhalin Peninsula (a long string of volcanoes) was struck repeatedly as well with quakes ranging between 4 to 6 mag. Several quakes also hit the Kurile Islands just to the North of Japan.

One thing is certain, with all of these quakes the world’s seismologists are already overwhelmed and the catalogs are NOT up to date at the moment with corrected, consolidated information. You can see that it will not take much increase in tectonic motion to totally confuse the world’s geophysicists about what is happening.

The Nebraska/Alaska/Yukon/Charlottes/Baja quake pattern shows us that the entire Rocky Mountain plateau of North America (which runs from Northern Mexico to the Yukon and into central Alaska, moved as a unitary body and produced waves in still water thousands of miles away. Consider then the 7+ activity in Malaysia and in the South Seas. Other major tectonic plates also moved at nearly the same time in a vast slow motion dance across the surface of the Earth. Mama Earth is alive with energy just like all other things.

This is as the creaking and groaning of a ship at sea as it shifts its mass to respond to the forces which impinge upon it.

Despite all this world activity, California was relatively quiescent. For all quakes of all sizes in California /Nevada, the USGS plots a running total of 317 quakes for the past seven days, all too small to note. This number is quite typical of California’s microquakes.

The USGS charts for the Pacific Northwest reveals a slight pick up from 29 micro quakes (two week sum) reported two weeks ago to 45 quakes today for the running total of the past two weeks widely scattered through the Cascades and Eastern Washington.

YELLOWSTONE: The USGS chart for the Yellowstone Area reveals a running total for the past week of 61 small quakes within the cauldera, centered near Old Faithful or just outside the rim. This is up substantially from the 38 reported two weeks ago. The "weak zone" of the Rocky Mountain Plateau, which runs through the valley of the Great Salt Lake and central Utah, showed only 10 quakes for the past week, half the numbers reported two weeks ago.

LONG VALLEY CAULDERA IN CALIFORNIA: The USGS chart for the Long Valley Cauldera (quakes of all sizes for the last week) shows 31 microquakes, which is also up in activity but not dramatically. Second to Yellowstone, this is the most active volcanic area in North America.

WATCH ON PEOPLE WHO ARE SERIOUSLY OUT TO LUNCH AND NEED TO BE FIRED:

Discovery Magazine

And new tremors in Sicily are not connected to the earthquake that crushed at their desk 26 children in southern Italy when their school collapsed on Thursday, according to seismologists.

Can you believe that these crackpots are paid salaries? Pinch me Toto, hard on the butt, I must be lost in the Emerald City again.

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.

Doubtless, with the sudden surge in activity on Etna and in nearby Stromboli, worldwide volcanism has picked up. Nearly 12 volcanoes widely scattered around the world are exhaling ash nearly every day and a few are spilling lava in fits and starts in ways similar to Etna.

Etna, Kilauea, and Rabual are still active with the later two spilling lava continuously as they have for a few weeks now. No one knows if and when they will quiet down. New eruptions in Ecuador and Kashmir are mainly spewing ash. There is little data in the professional databases about the eruption in Kashmir and thus the situation there is most uncertain.

The Southwest Volcano Centre reports 41 volcanoes on the alert status list (up two from two weeks ago), 5 volcanoes on the restless list (same as last report), and 24 on the active eruption list (up one from two weeks ago).

AS PREVIOUSLY REPORTED: Pago and Montserrat remain on high alert status and are considered extremely dangerous. Both of these are likely to erupt explosively this year or sometime next year, probably earlier than later. Montserrat is actively growing a new dome.

Hood remains completely quiescent and El Popo gave us a seven puff day. Centrapred reports for OCTOBER 23 (16:00 GMT) that "After a period of low activity of the Popocatepetl volcano, today at 07:35 (13:35 GMT)a moderate exhalation occurred, producing a small quantity of ash. It reached 4 km above the crater and moved slightly towards the north, according to aircraft reports. A 3 minute intense phase was observed and was followed by high frequency tremor. Minor ash falls were reported in nearby towns like San Juan Tehuixtitlán, San Pedro Nexapa, Amecameca, Ecatzingo,Tepejomulco, Ozumba and San Vicente Chimalhuacán. Also, 4 small exhalations were observed during the last 24 hours"

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.

REPEAT FROM PREVIOUS WEEKS: Subscribers have sent me a large number of reports from the internet from various governments or other institutions around the world which tell of the terrible consequences of this year’s weather (floods and drought) on agricultural crops. Keep the reports coming in. It will take some serious time to wade through them but continue to send references in. It is highly important and no one person will find the diversity of info which your are sending, so I am going to be able to put together a fairly penetrating summary. I will wait until November as I we may be able to "call" the sunspot cycle towards the end of the month, perhaps somewhat sooner, so that the assessment will be even more comprehensive.

GEO-POLITICAL WATCH

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

AS PREVIOUSLY STATED: Elsewhere, as predicted as early as June here, the Bush drive to war with Iraq has destroyed the focus on the war with terrorism and completely aborted any efforts to create peace in Palestine. International reactions have mounted and the U.S. is still creating a downward spiral of increasing isolation. Currently it is likely that the economy is dipping seriously into recession AND THERE IS NO SIGN OF RELIEF with a great many other large economies in the world reeling around in virtual insolvency.

In the long run, Tuesday’s loses by the Democratic Party are a positive break with the existing deadlock and bizarre "centrism" which has done little but masquerade an increasingly dangerous slide into right wing fascism. The triumph of right wing strategies, which have been some 20 years in the making, and the stampede of so-called baby boomer conservatives in arrogant pursuit of "Gilded Age" me first Darwinianism will accelerate the destruction of American society as they mindlessly dismantle institutions which were built by several generations of progressivists and reformers.

As the right wing stampedes its zealotries through the system, they will accelerate the growth of incredible expectations by privileged cliques. Huge mounting deficits, which will be caused by wholesale give aways of tax money (tax reduction for the privileged) along with huge military expenditures, will cause the economy to regenerate a bubble of speculative prosperity and create another bullrun by the fall of 2003 which will be the envy of the world’s elites and wannabes. This bullrun will stampede over the carcass of many failing economies as pirate kings grab up huge piles of assets priced in desperation at $.10 on the dolllar. But soon enough, the baby boomers who have succumbed to the siren call of right wing machinations will hit the brick wall of the Great Depression which will start near the end of 2005 or some time in 2006…as predicted by Edgar Cayce’s long cycle which has been exactly correct for every major economic downturn since the war of 1812. (see Return of the Phoenix Book Two: The Great Breakup)

It will hurt real bad because this time everyone in North America will wake up and realize there are no factories left by which to recover. Hardly anyone in the world will want to buy the only tangible products American’s have left: lawyers, missiles, and armed enforcers.

In the meantime, the Democratic Party will disintegrate. Some will want to continue morphing the Democrats into a Clintonesque Parody of Republican Centrism. Many others will demand a complete rebuild of the party to reflect the aspirations of real people, the huge mass of Mr. and Mrs. Nowhereman’s who have absolutely no concept of how to care for themselves independently in the event of a breakdown of the collective mutual dependency which we call the system. Democratic Party factions, and many other Political Party factions, will begin as well a vigorous assault on the privileged, who are now increasingly difficult to distinguish from the common ordinary but well dressed thieves, crooks, and Dr. Strangelove’s of all the years.

It is really funny, Mr. Jones, how history can turn things upside down and inside out before your very eyes. Just when you thought you had it all figured out and could answer that strange looking kid with the guitar asking that rude question…

SIGN OF THE TIMES: Meanwhile Ken Lay, 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.

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