El Niño Update [1 March 2010]

ENSO Cycle: Recent Evolution, Current Status and Predictions

El Niño Weekly UPDATE prepared by Climate Prediction Center / NCEP –  1 March 2010

The latest weekly SST departures are:

• Niño 4   ~  1.2ºC
• Niño 3.4  ~  1.2ºC
• Niño 3 ~ 0.9ºC
• Niño 1+2 ~ 0.4ºC

El Niño Map. [SOURCE: NOAA/ Climate Prediction Center / NCEP]

SST Departures (ºC) in the Tropical Pacific During the Last 4 Weeks
During the last 4-weeks, equatorial SSTs were more than 1.0°C above average between 175°E and 125°W and near the western S. American coast.

Global SST Departures (ºC) – Click images to enlarge

During the last four weeks, equatorial SSTs were above-average across the central and eastern Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans.

Central & Eastern Pacific Upper-Ocean (0-300 m) Weekly Heat Content Anomalies
Since April 2009, the upper-ocean heat content has been above average across the eastern half of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Sharp increases in heat content during June and October coincide with the development and subsequent strengthening of El Niño, respectively. Recently, heat content anomalies have increased again in association with an oceanic Kelvin wave.

Atmospheric Circulation over the North Pacific & North America During the Last 60 Days

From late December to early January, strong mid-latitude westerlies(East Asian and Atlantic jets) were accompanied by troughs over the North Pacific and the eastern U.S. The troughs contributed to below-average temperatures across portions of the U.S. At higher latitudes, strong ridging led to above-average temperatures across parts of Canada. During mid to late January, the East Asian jet extended farther east and a strong trough became established over the eastern Pacific. Over N. America, strong ridging contributed to above-average temperatures over much of N. America. During February, troughing and below-average temperatures became reestablished over the middle latitudes, along with ridging and above-average temperatures over higher latitudes.

Pacific Niño 3.4 SST Outlook

• A majority of the models indicate that the Niño-3.4 temperature departures will gradually decrease at least into the summer.
• The models are split with the majority indicating ENSO-neutral conditions by May-July 2010 and persisting into the Fall. Several models also suggest the potential of continued El Niño conditions or the development of La Niña conditions during the Fall.

Figure provided by the International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate and Society (updated 16 Feb 2010).

Summary

• El Niño is present across the equatorial Pacific Ocean.
• Sea surface temperatures (SST) are more than 1.0ºCabove-average across much of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific.
• Based on current observations and dynamical model forecasts, El Niño is expected to continue at least into the Northern Hemisphere spring 2010.

Unless otherwise stated, information and images on this page are sourced from Climate Prediction Center/NCEP/NOAA. Edited by FEWW

Related Links:

• Climate Locked into ‘Unending’ El Niño?
• What Florida Might Look Like in 2014
• SE Australia Toasted Brown
• UK Flooding
• Speaking of El Niño, OLR Anomalies in Australia
• El Niño Update [16 Nov 2009]
• Recognizing El Niño
• El Niño and La Niña: Tracing the Dance of Ocean and Atmosphere
• TAO Diagrams
• El Niño Forecasts

El Niño Updates – Last 4 Weeks:

• El Niño Weekly Update [22 February 2010]
• El Niño Weekly Update [15 February 2010]
• El Niño Weekly Update [8 February 2010]
• El Niño Weekly Update [1 February 2010]

• El Niño [Main Page, Links to Weekly Updates Archive]

Chile Earthquake: Topographic Map

Topographic Map of Chilean Coast Showing the Location of the M8.8 Earthquake and Most of the Aftershocks

The above topographic map shows the epicenter of the M8.8 megaquake and the area between the cities Santiago and Concepcion, the Chilean capital  and its 2nd largest city respectively, where most of the aftershocks occurred. The red line marks the boundary line between the Nazca and South America Plates. Nazca plate subducts South America Plate at a rate of 80 mm/year.  Black circles also show the magnitude of the shocks. Image Credit: NASA.

The area has experienced at least 13 events of magnitude 7.0 or greater since 1973. The M8.8 shock on February 27 struck about 230 km north of the epicenter of the M9.5 earthquake that occurred in May, 1960 – world’s largest instrumentally recorded quake which killed 1,655 people in southern Chile.

Related Links:

• Chile quake Update 3 (March 2)
• Chile Earthquake Update 2 (Mar 1)
• Santiago, Chile: Satellite Images
• Chile Earthquake and Tsunami Update 1 (28 Feb)
• Destructive Tsunami Generated by Chile Quake

• Chile 8.8 Megaquake Strikes Offshore Maule
• Earth undergoing significant geophysical disturbances
• Recent Earthquakes ≥ 6.0 Mw
• Powerful Quake Strikes Chile [November 13, 2009]
• The Largest Earthquake

Chile quake Update 3 (March 2)

Chileans Need Food, Water and Care; NOT Bazookas!

Chilean authorities never cease to defy common sense, or harm their own citizens beyond your wildest imagination

The death toll from Chile’s megaquake and tsunami nears 750

The term Shell shock would of course fail to describe the state of the survivors, living victims, of the Chilean earthquake; they were hit by a megaquake. However, the traumatic experience they have suffered is very much the same as being “shell-shocked.”

Now they need food, water and shelter, but more importantly a caring establishment that treats them as vulnerable victims of a massive shock!

What they got instead, were soldiers carrying heavy-caliber machine guns and anti-tank weapons with the muzzles pointed at them!

“Go on, shoot them, put them out of their misery … what do you care? You’re only doing your job [sic.]” Surely, so long as the copper mines continue to yield and the soldiers receive their rations,  the establishment would have no worries.

Chilean soldiers patrol the streets to stop looting and keep the order, as a building burns in the background after a major earthquake in Concepcion March 1, 2010. Chile’s government scrambled on Monday to provide aid to thousands of homeless people in coastal towns devastated by a massive earthquake and tsunamis, as 10,000 troops patrolled to quell looting. Credit: REUTERS/Jose Luis Saavedra. Image may be subject to copyright.

Extent of the quake damage

The megaquake struck near the village/town of Dichato instantly destroying three quarters of the town. Then three successive tsunami waves arrived. “The first two were big and didn’t do much damage, but the last one almost wiped the village off the map,” a local resident said.

“Surging waves triggered by the quake smashed houses and cars in fishing villages on the country’s long Pacific coast. In the town of Constitucion alone, 350 people are believed to have died and a public gym was turned into a makeshift morgue.” Reuters reported.

Looting

Chilean government has imposed a curfew in Concepcion and the adjacent region of Maule, where the megaquake struck, after sporadic “looting” broke out. There are images of looters, of course, who are breaking into shops and warehouses, carrying white goods on their shoulders.  But they are a minority. Nearly three days after the megaquake and the tsunamis struck, the majority of the local folks described as “looters” are simply desperate for basic necessities—food and water.

The desperate “looters” have even raided a fire station looking for water.

“The looters are more organized,” said Concepcion’s mayor, Jacqueline Van Rysselberghe, Reuters reported, asking the Bachelet government to dispatch more of those troops with [antiaircraft rocket-launchers and] intimidating helmets to reinforce “law and order” in the country’s second largest city.

Caught between thirst and hunger,  on the one hand, and soldiers armed with bazookas, on the other, the victims are taking their chances.  Unsurprisingly, they are evolving and becoming more organized.

[To the readers who are sitting at home in the comfort of their armchairs  reading these lines: THIS CAN and PROBABLY WILL HAPPEN to YOU, TOO!  CHANGE YOUR SYSTEM and LIFESTYLES, NOW! IT IS ALREADY WAY TOO LATE!]

We find it hard to term the desperate victims as “looters”; they are traumatized folks struggling for survival.

Related Links:

• Chile Earthquake and Tsunami Update 1 (28 Feb)
• Destructive Tsunami Generated by Chile Quake
• Chile 8.8 Megaquake Strikes Offshore Maule
• Earth undergoing significant geophysical disturbances
• Recent Earthquakes ≥ 6.0 Mw
• Powerful Quake Strikes Chile [November 13, 2009]
• The Largest Earthquake

Related Images:

• Most recent quake photos
• Reuters photo gallery

Kids emulate aggression from violent video games

It’s difficult to comment on the following post without inadvertently insulting the corporations that make violent video games.  Suffice to say old “Ziggy” [Sigmund Freud] would NOT have been amused by the findings made in this study. —Fire-Earth

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Public release date: 1-Mar-2010

Study proves conclusively that violent video game play makes more aggressive kids

Researchers analyze 130 research reports on more than 130,000 subjects worldwide

AMES, Iowa — Iowa State University Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Anderson has made much of his life’s work studying how violent video game play affects youth behavior. And he says a new study he led, analyzing 130 research reports on more than 130,000 subjects worldwide, proves conclusively that exposure to violent video games makes more aggressive, less caring kids — regardless of their age, sex or culture.

Violent Video Games. Source: PC-World. Image may be subject to copyright.

The study was published today in the March 2010 issue of the Psychological Bulletin, an American Psychological Association journal. It reports that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive thoughts and behavior, and decreased empathy and prosocial behavior in youths.

“We can now say with utmost confidence that regardless of research method — that is experimental, correlational, or longitudinal — and regardless of the cultures tested in this study [East and West], you get the same effects,” said Anderson, who is also director of Iowa State’s Center for the Study of Violence. “And the effects are that exposure to violent video games increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior in both short-term and long-term contexts. Such exposure also increases aggressive thinking and aggressive affect, and decreases prosocial behavior.”

The study was conducted by a team of eight researchers, including ISU psychology graduate students Edward Swing and Muniba Saleem; and Brad Bushman, a former Iowa State psychology professor who now is on the faculty at the University of Michigan. Also on the team were the top video game researchers from Japan – Akiko Shibuya from Keio University and Nobuko Ihori from Ochanomizu University – and Hannah Rothstein, a noted scholar on meta-analytic review from the City University of New York.

The team used meta-analytic procedures — the statistical methods used to analyze and combine results from previous, related literature — to test the effects of violent video game play on the behaviors, thoughts and feelings of the individuals, ranging from elementary school-aged children to college undergraduates.

The research also included new longitudinal data which provided further confirmation that playing violent video games is a causal risk factor for long-term harmful outcomes.

“These are not huge effects — not on the order of joining a gang vs. not joining a gang,” said Anderson. “But these effects are also not trivial in size. It is one risk factor for future aggression and other sort of negative outcomes. And it’s a risk factor that’s easy for an individual parent to deal with — at least, easier than changing most other known risk factors for aggression and violence, such as poverty or one’s genetic structure.”

The analysis found that violent video game effects are significant in both Eastern and Western cultures, in males and females, and in all age groups. Although there are good theoretical reasons to expect the long-term harmful effects to be higher in younger, pre-teen youths, there was only weak evidence of such age effects.

The researchers conclude that the study has important implications for public policy debates, including development and testing of potential intervention strategies designed to reduce the harmful effects of playing violent video games.

“From a public policy standpoint, it’s time to get off the question of, ‘Are there real and serious effects?’ That’s been answered and answered repeatedly,” Anderson said. “It’s now time to move on to a more constructive question like, ‘How do we make it easier for parents — within the limits of culture, society and law — to provide a healthier childhood for their kids?'”

But Anderson knows it will take time for the creation and implementation of effective new policies. And until then, there is plenty parents can do to protect their kids at home.

“Just like your child’s diet and the foods you have available for them to eat in the house, you should be able to control the content of the video games they have available to play in your home,” he said. “And you should be able to explain to them why certain kinds of games are not allowed in the house — conveying your own values. You should convey the message that one should always be looking for more constructive solutions to disagreements and conflict.”

Anderson says the new study may be his last meta-analysis on violent video games because of its definitive findings. Largely because of his extensive work on violent video game effects, Anderson was chosen as one of the three 2010 American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientist Lecturers. He will give a lecture at October’s New England Psychological Association (NEPA) meeting in Colchester, Vt.

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Contacts:
Craig Anderson, Psychology, (515) 294-3118, caa@iastate.edu
Steve Jones, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, (515) 294-0461, jones@iastate.edu

Contact: Mike Ferlazzo
ferlazzo@iastate.edu
515-294-8986
Iowa State University