Pacific Ocean Volcanoes Forming off the Coast of Oregon as Predicted by State University Geologists for 2015

""NEWPORT, Ore. – Axial Seamount, an active underwater volcano located about 300 miles off the coast of Oregon and Washington, appears to be erupting – after two scientists had forecast that such an event would take place there in 2015.

Geologists Bill Chadwick of Oregon State University and Scott Nooner of the University of North Carolina Wilmington made their forecast last September during a public lecture and followed it up with blog postsand a reiteration of their forecast just last week at a scientific workshop.

They based their forecast on some of their previous research – funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which showed how the volcano inflates and deflates like a balloon in a repeatable pattern as it responds to magma being fed into the seamount.

Since last Friday, the region has experienced thousands of tiny earthquakes – a sign that magma is moving toward the surface – and the seafloor dropped by 2.4 meters, or nearly eight feet, also a sign of magma being withdrawn from a reservoir beneath the summit. Instrumentation recording the activity is part of the NSF-funded Ocean Observatories Initiative. William Wilcock of the University of Washington first observed the earthquakes.

“It isn’t clear yet whether the earthquakes and deflation at Axial are related to a full-blown eruption, or if it is only a large intrusion of magma that hasn’t quite reached the surface,” said Chadwick, who works out of OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport and also is affiliated with NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. “There are some hints that lava did erupt, but we may not know for sure until we can get out there with a ship.”

In any case, the researchers say, such an eruption is not a threat to coastal residents. The earthquakes at Axial Seamount are small and the seafloor movements gradual and thus cannot cause a tsunami. Nor is the possible eruption tied to a possible Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake.

“I have to say, I was having doubts about the forecast even the night before the activity started,” Chadwick admitted. “We didn’t have any real certainty that it would take place – it was more of a way to test our hypothesis that the pattern we have seen was repeatable and predictable.”

Axial Seamount provides scientists with an ideal laboratory, not only because of its close proximity to the Northwest coast, but for its unique structure.

“Because Axial is on very thin ocean crust, its ‘plumbing system’ is simpler than at most volcanoes on land that are often complicated by other factors related to having a thicker crust,” said Chadwick, who is an adjunct professor in OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. “Thus Axial can give us insights into how volcano magma systems work – and how eruptions might be predicted.”

Axial Seamount last erupted in 2011 and that event was loosely forecast by Chadwick and Nooner, who had said in 2006 that the volcano would erupt before 2014. Since the 2011 eruption, additional research led to a refined forecast that the next eruption would be in 2015 based on the fact that the rate of inflation had increased by about 400 percent since the last eruption.""

http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2015/apr/researchers-think-axial-seamount-northwest-coast-erupting-%E2%80%93-right-schedule

Startling Report Says the Pacific Ocean off the California Coast is turning into a Desert

""The ocean is dying, by all accounts – and if so, the food supply along with it. The causes are numerous, and overlapping. And massive numbers of wild animal populations are dying as a result of it.

Natural causes in the environment are partly to blame; so too are the corporations of man; the effects of Fukushima, unleashing untold levels of radiation into the ocean and onto Pacific shores; the cumulative effect of modern chemicals and agricultural waste tainting the water and disrupting reproduction.

A startling new report says in no uncertain terms that the Pacific Ocean off the California coast is turning into a desert. Once full of life, it is now becoming barren, and marine mammals, seabirds and fish are starving as a result. According to Ocean Health:

The waters of the Pacific off the coast of California are a clear, shimmering blue today, so transparent it’s possible to see the sandy bottom below […] clear water is a sign that the ocean is turning into a desert, and the chain reaction that causes that bitter clarity is perhaps most obvious on the beaches of the Golden State, where thousands of emaciated sea lion pups are stranded.

[…]

Over the last three years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has noticed a growing number of strandings on the beaches of California and up into the Pacific north-west. In 2013, 1,171 sea lions were stranded, and 2,700 have already stranded in 2015 – a sign that something is seriously wrong, as pups don’t normally wind up on their own until later in the spring and early summer.

“[An unusually large number of sea lions stranding in 2013 was a red flag] there was a food availability problem even before the ocean got warm.”Johnson: This has never happened before… It’s incredible. It’s so unusual, and there’s no really good explanation for it. There’s also a good chance that the problem will continue, said a NOAA research scientist in climatology, Nate Mantua.

Experts blame a lack of food due to unusually warm ocean waters. NOAA declared an El Nino, the weather pattern that warms the Pacific, a few weeks ago. The water is three and a half to six degrees warmer than the average, according to Mantua, because of a lack of north wind on the West Coast. Ordinarily, the north wind drives the current, creating upwelling that brings forth the nutrients that feed the sardines, anchovies and other fish that adult sea lions feed on.

Fox News added:

The warm water is likely pushing prime sea lion foods — market squid, sardines and anchovies — further north, forcing the mothers to abandon their pups for up to eight days at a time in search of sustenance.

The pups, scientists believe, are weaning themselves early out of desperation and setting out on their own despite being underweight and ill-prepared to hunt.

[…]

“These animals are coming in really desperate. They’re at the end of life. They’re in a crisis … and not all animals are going to make it,” said Keith A. Matassa, executive director at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center, which is currently rehabilitating 115 sea lion pups.

The same is true of seabirds on the Washington State coast:

In the storm debris littering a Washington State shoreline, Bonnie Wood saw something grisly: the mangled bodies of dozens of scraggly young seabirds. Walking half a mile along the beach at Twin Harbors State Park on Wednesday, Wood spotted more than 130 carcasses of juvenile Cassin’s auklets—the blue-footed, palm-size victims of what is becoming one of the largest mass die-offs of seabirds ever recorded. “It was so distressing,” recalled Wood, a volunteer who patrols Pacific Northwest beaches looking for dead or stranded birds. “They were just everywhere. Every ten yards we’d find another ten bodies of these sweet little things.”

“This is just massive, massive, unprecedented,” said Julia Parrish, a University of Washington seabird ecologist who oversees the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST), a program that has tracked West Coast seabird deaths for almost 20 years. “We may be talking about 50,000 to 100,000 deaths. So far.” (source)

100,000 doesn’t necessarily sound large, statistically speaking, but precedent in the history of recorded animal deaths suggests that it is, in fact massive. Even National Geographic is noting that these die off events are “unprecedented.” Warmer water is indicated for much of the starvation faced by many of the dead animals.

Last year, scientists sounded the alarm over the death of millions of star fish, blamed on warmer waters and ‘mystery virus’:

Starfish are dying by the millions up and down the West Coast, leading scientists to warn of the possibility of localized extinction of some species. As the disease spreads, researchers may be zeroing in on a link between warming waters and the rising starfish body count. (source)

[…]

The epidemic, which threatens to reshape the coastal food web and change the makeup of tide pools for years to come, appears to be driven by a previously unidentified virus, a team of more than a dozen researchers from Cornell University, UC Santa Cruz, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and other institutions reported Monday. (source)

Changing temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, driven by the natural cycle of gyres over decades, shifts wildlife populations, decimating the populations of species throughout the food chain, proving how fragile the balance of life in the ocean really is.

Recently, the collapse of the sardine population has created a crisis for fisheries and marine wildlife alike on the West Coast:

Commercial fishing for sardines off of Canada’s West Coast is worth an estimated $32 million – but now they are suddenly gone. Back in October, fisherman reported that they came back empty-handed without a single fish after 12 hours of trolling and some $1000 spent on fuel.

Sandy Mazza, for the Daily Breeze, reported a similar phenomenon in central California: “[T]he fickle sardines have been so abundant for so many years – sometimes holding court as the most plentiful fish in coastal waters – that it was a shock when he couldn’t find one of the shiny silver-blue coastal fish all summer, even though this isn’t the first time they’ve vanished.” [emphasis added]

[…]
“Is it El Nino? Pacific Decadal Oscillation? [La] Nina? Long-term climate change? More marine mammals eating sardines? Did they all go to Mexico or farther offshore? We don’t know. We’re pretty sure the overall population has declined. We manage them pretty conservatively because we don’t want to end up with another Cannery Row so, as the population declines, we curb fishing.” said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) official Kerry Griffin. (source)

According to a report in the Daily Mail, the worst events have wiped out 90% of animal populations, falling short of extinction, but creating a rupture in food chains and ecosystems.

And environmental factors are known to be a factor, with pollution from chemicals dumped by factories clearly tied to at least 20% of the mass die off events of wildlife populations that have been investigated, and many die offs implicated by a number of overlapping factors. TheDaily Mail reported:

Mass die-offs of certain animals has increased in frequency every year for seven decades, according to a new study.

Researchers found that such events, which can kill more than 90 per cent of a population, are increasing among birds, fish and marine invertebrates.

The reasons for the die-offs are diverse, with effects tied to humans such as environmental contamination accounting for about a fifth of them. ""

Read On:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-ocean-is-dying-marine-and-animal-life-die-offs-california-coast/5451836

California Coast Oil Pipeline Rupture Spills 21,000 Gallons of Crude in the Ocean and on the Beach

""An estimated 21,000 gallons (79,500 liters) of crude oil dumped into the ocean from a broken pipeline just off the central California coast before it was shut off on Tuesday, creating a spill stretching about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) along the beach, the US Coast Guard said.

Santa Barbara County health officials have shut down Refugio State Beach, the central site of the spill, though many had abandoned the site already because of the foul smell.

That smell brought county firefighters to the beach earlier in the day to discover the spill.

"They found about a half-mile slick of dark, black crude oil in the ocean," fire Capt. Dave Zaniboni said.

A few hours later the pipeline had been shut off, but the spill had stretched to about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) of beach for about 50 yards (45 meters) out into the water, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Andrea Anderson.They traced the oil to the onshore pipeline that spilled into a culvert that ran under the U.S. 101 freeway and through a storm drain into the ocean.

The 24-inch (60-centimeter) pipeline is owned by Plains All American Pipeline, which said it shut down the flow of oil and the culvert carrying the oil to the ocean was blocked.

"Plains deeply regrets this release has occurred and is making every effort to limit its environmental impact," the company said in a statement.

The scenic stretch of coastline about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of the pricey real estate of Santa Barbara is dotted with state-run beaches that are popular with campers, and the spill comes just a few days before the Memorial Day holiday weekend and subsequent summer camping season begin.

The stretch of coastline is also home to many oil rigs and drilling operations, and small amounts of tar and seepage show up on beaches, but in much smaller amounts.

The Coast Guard, county emergency officials and state parks officials had begun cleaning up the spill.

Boats from the nonprofit collective Clean Seas were being used in the cleanup.

There was no immediate estimate of how long the cleanup might take.

The Santa Barbara-based Environmental Defense Center said such a spill was inevitable with coastal oil development, but still unwelcome.

"To see this level of spill into such a sensitive and treasured environment is devastating to watch," the EDC said in a statement. The group expressed special worry for the many species of whale that migrate through the area.""

http://www.firstpost.com/world/oil-pipeline-spills-off-california-coast-dumps-21000-gallons-crude-oil-ocean-2253586.html

Pacific Ocean Current Heat Wave Possibly Due to Fukushima Radiation Catastrophe

""Media outlets are widely reporting on two recent studies in the journal Geophysical Research Letters describing a giant "blob" of warm water that may be responsible for recent ecological and weather anomalies across the United States -- from California's drought to the East Coast's severe winter to the thousands of dying sea lions washing up along the West Coast.

The "blob" -- more precisely, the "warm anomaly" -- is a patch of ocean water just off the coast of the Pacific Northwest that is about 1,000 miles across, 300 feet deep, and 3 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than usual. It received its nickname from Nick Bond of Washington State University, lead author of one of the new studies.

Do the new studies actually explain what the media are claiming? Are there potential explanations that are being ignored?

What did the studies find?

Already, researchers have linked the blob to many of this past year's alarming ecological occurrences. Warmer water is less rich in nutrients, which scientists say has caused effects including a crash in the population of copepods (tiny animals that form the base of the ocean's food web) and the starvation of sea lion pups, causing thousands of the animals to strand themselves onshore. The warm water has also caused tropical fish to appear near Seattle.

The new study by Bond and colleagues also links the blob to the recent weather disturbances. The researchers claim that the blob actually has an atmospheric cause: an unseasonal ridge of high-pressure air hovering above it. This high-pressure air (instead of the low-pressure air typical for the winter) has been associated with the ocean becoming unseasonably calm and warm, removing a major source of rain for the West Coast and contributing to California's drought and the West Coast's warmer-than-usual winter, according to the researchers.

The second study traced the blob to another patch of unseasonably warm water, this one in the Tropics near the intersection of the Equator and the International Date Line. This warm water has been heating up the air above it, directly leading to the unseasonably warm patch of air that is heating the waters off the U.S. coast.

"It's like throwing a rock into a pond," researcher Dennis Hartmann said. "The wave eventually makes its way to the other side."

This same wave of warm air actually crosses the entire North American continent, the researchers found, eventually causing a wet, low-pressure system over the central and eastern United States. This system, called a "North Pacific Mode," contributed to this year's remarkably cold and snowy winter, the researchers claim.

Although North Pacific Modes have been observed before, this past year's was more extreme and longer lasting than has been seen before.

Potential Fukushima link not being investigated

According to media reports, no one knows what has caused the unusually warm Tropical waters responsible for all of these climate and ecological effects. But some have asked whether radioactive material emitted into the ocean by the Fukushima disaster might not be partially responsible.""

http://www.naturalnews.com/049523_Pacific_Ocean_warm_blob_climate_anomalies.html

Persistent Earth Hum Anomaly Phenomenon Resolved?

""The noise has been talked about worldwide and also made local newspaper headlines in the UK. It is often referred to as a “phenomenon” and “the hum”, usually prefixed with the location of where it is heard.

In Britain, the most famous example was the “Bristol hum” that made the news in the late 1970s. One newspaper asked readers in the city: “Have you heard the Hum?” and at least 800 people said they had – according to the BBC – and some had suffered headaches and nosebleeds from it.

It has been described like “a diesel car idling in the distance” by a BBC interviewee and the maddening sound has driven people stir-crazy in trying to figure it out. Especially when they can only hear it at home and during the night.

People living on the south coast have complained this week of a constant and low-pitched sound for which they have found no cause – as reported by Plymouth Herald.

It has been mistaken for leaking pipes, phone masts, wind farms, low-frequency submarine communications and even mating fish.

“For the first few years I lost sleep, couldn’t concentrate and was unable to do anything. I was constantly in tears, which put a great strain on my husband. It has changed me from an active, creative person to a stifled, angry pessimist,” a woman told The Independent back in 1994.

Doctors blamed patients’ abilities to hear it on tinnitus, until Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge had confirmed sometime in the 1990s that the cause is external.

However, the search for the truth could now be over as researchers claim that microseismic activity from long ocean waves impacting the sea bed is what makes our planet vibrate and produces the droning sound.

The pressure of the waves on the seafloor generates seismic waves that cause the Earth to oscillate, said Fabrice Ardhuin, a senior research scientist at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France.

The continuous waves produce sounds lasting from 13 to 300 seconds. They can be heard by a relatively small proportion of people – who are sensitive to the hums – and also by seismic instruments.""

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/have-you-heard-the-hum-mystery-of-earths-low-droning-noise-could-now-be-solved-10182111.html

Droughts in the West Caused by Atlantic Water Currents as Likely Culprit with Waxing and Waning of Pacific Ocean Winds

""To understand why the west has been so dry since the turn of the century, cast your eye further west—to the natural waxing and waning of Pacific Ocean winds.

Strong trade winds have been forcing heat into ocean depths, contributing to a temporary slowdown in land surface warming over the past 15 to 20 years that some have called a warming hiatus, pause, or false pause. New research published in the Journal of Climate has gone further—implicating those winds in stubborn droughts afflicting western states.

“We know there’s a lot of natural variability in the (climate) system,” Tom Delworth, a climate modeler at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey, said. “It’s not surprising, but it’s important to understand mechanisms for this hiatus.”

Delworth and his colleagues looked at the role strong winds blowing out of the east have played in pushing warm water across the Pacific and eventually forcing it below the surface. Meanwhile, cooler-than-normal water has risen up to replace it in the eastern Pacific, a mechanism that has temporarily helped slow the rate of warming on land, despite continued global warming. (Globally, 2014 was the hottest year on record, and 13 of the hottest 15 years have been recorded since 2000.)

The ocean and atmosphere are intimately linked, so the story doesn’t just stop in the watery depth of the Pacific. Delworth’s analysis shows the precipitation deficit that has driven drought in the western US since the early 2000s is due to these changes in the Pacific region. In particular, ocean conditions have helped set up a ridge pattern that deflects storms into Canada.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s what has been happening to California, the current epicenter of a decade-long western drought and victim of the ridiculously resilient ridge. But just three years ago, it was Oklahoma and Texas in the drought’s bullseye, and much of the region has dealt with some form of drought since at least 2002.

The results of the research show that 92% of the dry conditions in the west can be tied back to the trade wind shift in the Pacific, with the remainder due to humanity’s greenhouse gas pollution.

Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said not factoring in the role of heat in driving and reinforcing drought was a major oversight in the new study. He noted recent research on the California drought, which shows how rising temperatures there have increased the odds of drought.

Delworth said that the role of human-influenced heat in drought wasn’t necessarily the aim of the study, but that it could certainly be a factor.

The results contribute to a growing body of research on the slowdown in the rise of global temperatures. Much of that work ties the phenomenon to ocean cycles, though volcanoes might also have a role to play.

“It’s the ocean hiding the heat, which would normally warm the surface,” Ka-Kit Tung, a climate modeler at the University of Washington, said. “The question is which ocean and this paper is not fully answering that question.”

Tung’s own work has pointed to the Atlantic as the main driver of the hiatus. Delworth said the Atlantic could be a possible driver of the Pacific’s weird winds, but understanding their exact cause remains “the million dollar question.""

http://qz.com/383343/new-research-shows-that-the-pacific-winds-are-tied-the-california-drought/