Floods in Tibet: restrictions and disinformation by China are impeding vital news

Bad news!

Remember China illegally occupies Tibet since 1950!

There have been multiple news reports by different sources that again (like Covid-19) the Communist Party of China is secretive and repressive about the scope and damages of this latest natural catastrophy.

"Censorship in Tibet

In neighbouring Tibet, the difficulties in accessing information are even more worrying, and the contrast with Nepal is striking. At the time of writing, no independent Tibetan media outlet or international news organisation has been allowed access to the disaster-stricken area, according to RSF information.

This reflects a long-standing practice of the Chinese regime, which exercises some of the strictest control in the world over media professionals. As RSF has long noted, only journalists pre-approved by the authorities have been allowed to enter the territory, generally as part of tightly monitored reporting missions.

In the wake of the disaster, the Chinese regime only authorised state media to cover the floods, with reports emphasising the regime’s achievements and successes in relief efforts rather than providing a comprehensive account of the scale and impact of the disaster. According to the Chinese state-run newspaper Xinjing Bao (The Beijing News), the authorities have also punished at least ten internet users for “spreading rumours” related to the disaster. ...

“In recent years, under Xi Jinping’s tenure, Tibet has become a de facto information black hole. No independent Tibetan media, nor any international media, are permitted to freely cover news from this region. ..." ..."

Floods in Nepal and Tibet: restrictions and disinformation are impeding vital news | RSF "As the list of identified victims and missing persons continues to grow, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is sounding the alarm about the obstacles preventing the public from accessing vital information following the floods that struck Nepal and Tibet on 26 August.

In Nepal, partial cuts to telephone and electricity networks, the lack of accessibility to certain disaster zones and misinformation on social media are hindering journalists’ reporting.

In Tibet, these obstacles are compounded by restrictions imposed by the Chinese authorities, who are preventing the press from freely accessing affected areas. This lack of access to reliable information is also fuelling the spread of false reports about the scale and consequences of the disaster."

Nepal: Was it an unusual glacier collapse or frequently occuring massive bedrock failure/glacier collapse?

Recommendable, but again too lengthy an article as is typical for Climate Discussion Nexus!

I just blogged here about the potential culpability of China, because it did not warn or prevent this natural catastrophe.

How much of this catastrophe is due to manmade changes to the environment like construction, bulldozing of mountains etc.

Then there is the growth of population in Nepal from about 8 million to about 30 million since 1950. (Google Search)

"... it was all very predictable, yet they did not predict it, nor did they take even a fraction of the money given by the west to Nepal ... “woke green nonsense” and use it to install inexpensive sensors and sirens that could have given the unfortunate people downstream critical time to escape. ...

“Data shows that glacial failures – the scientific term for a category of events that includes ice avalanches, glacier detachments and rock-ice avalanches – have happened dozens of times since 1900 in the China-Nepal border region that was the site of this week’s devastation.” ..."

"Highlights

• Nepal flood, caused by a massive bedrock failure beneath a glacier, has been elucidated by recent satellite imagery
• Geomorphologists ... revealed that a significant portion of the mountainside bedrock collapsed
• This catastrophic event sent ice and boulders crashing into the valley, burying villages and causing the Trishuli River to surge

..."

Ghouls descend on Nepal - Climate Discussion Nexus

New satellite images reveal surprise cause of Nepal floods: ‘Not just a glacier’ "The Nepal flood cause was a massive bedrock failure that took a glacier with it, according to new satellite imagery analysis"

How much of the effects of the landslide and flash flooding in Nepal are to be blamed on China?

It appears again like with Covid-19, China was not very forthcoming with disclosures and relevant information regarding this natural disaster.

E.g. did China warn Nepal of the impending landslide? As far as I know, China did not warn Nepal despite early warning signs.

Also this natural catastrophe started in China not in Nepal as I understand it.

Caveat: I am not following this event closely nor am I familiar with it's details nor did I do any specific investigations.

Severe droughts caused Indus Valley Civilization's (Harappan) decline more than 4,000 years ago

Amazing stuff! Do severe droughts coincide with warming climate? Maybe besides the well known Medieval Warm Period there were other significant Warm Periods over the past 5,000 years or further back.

Despite all this hysteria and alarmism about climate change since 1970s one would assume the question of the influence of climate change on this early civilization would be raised. Not really or not very satisfactory.

There is too much reference given to today's climate conditions like AMO [Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation] and El Ninja! I don't buy it. These researchers also relied on climate models. They are dubious. The abstract of the research article narrowly mentions "hydroclimatic variations". But what causes hydroclimatic variations like severe, large geographic area and prolonged droughts?

"The culprit behind the mysterious disappearance of one of the most advanced urban civilizations at the time, contemporaries to Mesopotamians and Egyptians, has finally been identified: a series of severe, long-lasting droughts that dried rivers across the Indus Valley more than 4,000 years ago.

A study ... reveals that these dry spells likely pushed communities to move, change crops, and fundamentally reorganize their civilization.

“The most surprising finding is that the Harappan decline was driven not by a single catastrophic event, but by repeated, long, and intensifying river droughts lasting centuries,” ...

The Indus Valley Civilization, also known as the Harappan empire, rose to prominence around 5,000 years ago along the fertile plains of northwest India and Pakistan. During its mature period, the society developed well-planned cities with grid systems of roads, advanced water management, sophisticated drainage, and large granaries. The Harappan were also among the first to cultivate and process cotton.

But around 3,900 years ago, things started falling apart and cities emptied out. ...

Now, a team of scientists ... blended evidence from lake sediments, cave deposits, and other natural archives with high-tech climate models to reconstruct how water moved through the Indus basin around 3,000 years ago. The team found that the decline was not due to a single drought, but a sequence of four major droughts. Researchers dubbed these four events D1, D2, D3 and D4.

Hiren told New Atlas that the most severe droughts were D2 and D3, which lasted between 102 and 164 years, impacting over 90% of the Indus Valley region during the transition from the mature to the late Harappan period. ...

But what flipped the climatic conditions? ... the Pacific and North Atlantic oceans influencing the Indian monsoon through large-scale atmospheric “teleconnections.” When the Pacific warms in an El Niño–like pattern, it weakens the monsoon circulation and reduces summer rainfall over South Asia. At the same time, a cooler North Atlantic (negative AMO phase) suppresses moisture transport into the monsoon system. It shifts atmospheric pressure patterns, further weakening the monsoon. ..."

From the abstract:

"Hydroclimatic variations are among the factors shaping the rise and fall of the Indus Valley Civilization. Yet, constraining the role of water availability across this vast region has remained challenging owing to the scarcity of site-specific paleoclimate records.
By integrating high-resolution paleoclimate archives with palaeohydrological reconstructions from transient climate simulations, we identify the likelihood of severe and persistent river droughts, lasting from decades to centuries, that affected the Indus basin between ~4400 and 3400 years before present.
Basin-scale streamflow anomalies further indicate that protracted river drought coincided with regional rainfall deficits, together reducing freshwater availability. We contend that reduced water availability, accompanied by substantially drier conditions, may have led to population dispersal from major Harappan centers, while acknowledging that societal transformation was shaped by a complex interplay of climatic, social, and economic pressures."

 

Severe droughts caused Indus Valley Civilization's decline

River drought forcing of the Harappan metamorphosis (open access)

Fig. 1: Rainfall variability over Indus Valley Civilization area from 6000 years BP to present (1850 CE).

Fig. 2: Identification of major drought events during Harappan timeframe and corresponding changes in paleoclimate variables.

China plans to deflect near-Earth asteroid in 2030

Good news!

If another, large asteroid were to hit earth that would cause a real climate crisis, not phony Global Warming demagoguery!

"China is looking to get into the planetary defense business. A new paper by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) confirms that in 2030, the country plans to conduct a test mission to deflect a small asteroid from its current course. ...

The Earth is struck by objects from outer space up to 50 times a day. Not that it matters much because most of these are the size of grains of sand. However, on rare occasions much larger objects hit us, and on extremely rare occasions these objects are large enough to cause extinction events like wiping out the dinosaurs.

Even something like a medium-sized asteroid can cause tremendous damage. It doesn't even have to hit the ground. In 2013, a meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia with the force of a 500-kiloton nuclear bomb, shattering windows and damaging buildings on the ground. In 1908, an asteroid exploded over Tunguska, Siberia with a force of up to 50 megatons. In both cases (and others), humanity was very, very lucky. ...

In a paper published in the Journal of Deep Space Exploration, the CNSA outlines a planned mission to demonstrate China's capability to carry out such a deflection. The target is a near-Earth asteroid about 100 ft (30 m) in diameter called (NEO) 2015 XF261, which passed within 31 million miles (50 million km) of us on June 9, 2024.

The purpose of the unnamed mission isn't just to deflect the asteroid, but to determine the shape, size, composition, and structure of the target asteroid using spectral and laser 3D detectors, mid-field color cameras, detection radars, and dust particle analyzers. ..."

China plans to deflect near-Earth asteroid in 2030

Scientific Objectives and Configuration Payloads of Asteroid Defense Test Missions (open access, but in Chinese)

Earth's Weakening Magnetossphere

Posted: 2/1/2017   Updated: 1/12/2019, 2/4/2017

Update Of 1/12/2019

Just read this article published by Nature Journal: Earth’s magnetic field is acting up and geologists don’t know why Erratic motion of north magnetic pole forces experts to update model that aids global navigation.

“On 15 January, they are set to update the World Magnetic Model, which describes the planet’s magnetic field and underlies all modern navigation, from the systems that steer ships at sea to Google Maps on smartphones.

The most recent version of the model came out in 2015 and was supposed to last until 2020 — but the magnetic field is changing so rapidly that researchers have to fix the model now.”

Surprisingly, this article is completely silent about the long overdue magnetic pole flip and the overall weakening of the magnetosphere for the past 200-300 years.

Update Of 2/4/2017

Just discovered this article about a new model that can also be used for the earth’s core:

“ … The new material is made from an alloy of indium and gallium (eGaIn) with various particles suspended within it. When flowing, its ability to generate or modify magnetic fields is up to five times greater than that of pure liquid metal. That, along with a significant increase in electrical conductivity, means researchers can use the material to study the effects of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD)—the magnetic properties of conductive fluids usually only observable in the cores of planets and stars. … Attempts to recreate the Earth's magnetic field have been attempted in other labs, but with limited success. Most involve the use of highly explosive liquid sodium, which requires very large models.

"People have tried these big flow chambers as large as three meters across, filled with liquid sodium and spinning around like a miniature Earth," said Brown.

With the material ... scientists can potentially create models as small as 20 square centimeters to recreate the phenomena of magnetic fields. … allows users to tune its viscosity and levels of magnetism to better fit their own research and applications.”

Original Post

Trigger

Just watched this video NOVA Magnetic Pole Flip 530,000 Years Overdue & Happening Now? on Youtube (Unfortunately, PBS would not allow the original video to be found via Google. You can’t even find this video on Nova’s own website!).

A Weakening Magnetosphere

The above documentary makes a number of scary statements:

1. The magnetosphere has been weakening considerable over the past 200-300 years or so as evidenced by measurements
2. The magnetic pole flip happens about every 200,000 years or so, but the last one occurred 530,000 years ago
3. Without the magnetosphere life on earth is seriously threatened as it e.g. deflects most of the constant solar winds to reach earth’s surface and the atmosphere would disappear over time
4. A magnetic pole flip may take thousands of years. During the transition period wandering multipoles may appear (as opposed to the normal dipole) etc.

An Underreported Apocalypse Waiting To Happen?

It appears to be a strangely underreported, very consequential natural phenomenon. If I were a conspiracy theorist, then I would assume that the citizens of the world are deliberately left in the dark.

Global Warming (a.k.a. Climate Change) and its asserted negative effects are a walk in the park compared to a magnetic pole flip. Unlike Global Warming, which human ingenuity can easily counteract, a permanently weakened or further weakening magnetosphere is beyond human capabilities.