Earth ChangesS


Attention

47 dead caribou discovered on Prince Charles Island, Canada

John Van Dusen
cbc.ca
Wed, 03 Aug 2016 14:54 UTC
One of 47 carcasses found on Prince Charles Island.
© Paul SmithOne of 47 carcasses found on Prince Charles Island.
Nunavut's Department of Environment is trying to find out what happened to dozens of dead Baffin caribou found on an uninhabited island in the Arctic.

The carcasses of 47 caribou were spotted in July on Prince Charles Island by a research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

The find comes a year and a half after the Nunavut government imposed an emergency caribou hunting ban on Baffin Island — and including Prince Charles Island — after finding their numbers had plummeted. In 2015, the first-ever Baffin Island caribou quota of 250 animals per year was imposed.

Paul Smith studies Arctic birds and was flying around the island in a Twin Otter airplane scouting locations to build a research station.

From the airplane, Smith saw unusual white shapes on the tundra.
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Attention

Series of earthquakes rattle Northern California

Matt Hamilton
Los Angeles Times
Thu, 04 Aug 2016 04:40 UTC
Janesville, California
© Los Angeles Times
A cluster of moderate earthquakes rocked Northern California on Wednesday night and early Thursday morning.

About 9:55 p.m. Wednesday, a magnitude 4.5 earthquake was reported about 20 miles east of Janesville, near the Nevada border, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Within minutes, two more magnitude 4.4 quakes were reported around the same area in Lassen County, according to the USGS. The epicenters were about 45 miles north of Reno and 10 miles south of Honey Lake, the USGS said.

Early Thursday morning, a magnitude 3.4 earthquake was reported 19 miles from Janesville, according to the USGS. The temblor occurred at 3:13 a.m. at a depth of 3.1 miles.

The shake map compiled by the USGS showed that the quakes were felt in Susanville and Reno.

It's unclear whether the quakes caused any damage.

Comment: Series of 70 small earthquakes in California: Big one coming?

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Water

The plasticisation of the oceans

John Paul Cauchi
Malta Today
Thu, 04 Aug 2016 14:33 UTC
Turtles often confuse clear plastic bags with jellyfish and ingest them, choking to death in the process
Turtles often confuse clear plastic bags with jellyfish and ingest them, choking to death in the process
With 7.3 billion people on the planet, fast rising to nine billion, we treat the ocean as a garbage dump at our peril

It so happens that during these hot, sweltering days we go down for a quick dip into our clear, blue seas, inviting under the shimmering sunlight in the relative quiet of the afternoon. We slowly immerse ourselves into the refreshing waters, entering the marine world while skimming the surface, enjoying the freshness of it all, oozing relaxation...

... until we feel something clingy and papery sticking to our legs. Plastic! Ugh!

All too often, we are greeted by waste on our shores, left by irresponsible sea-goers clearly not giving a hoot about others. Our seas are fast becoming full of plastics and others forms of waste. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, one refuse truck's-worth of plastic is dumped into the sea every minute, and the situation is getting worse. These figures are astounding, and recently it has been estimated that there will be more plastic in the sea by weight than fish by 2050. In recent years, reports have been published on a so-called "great garbage patch" in the Pacific, where all currents eventually lead to, leading to a vast expanse of plastic waste the size of France floating far from human eyes.

Comment: See also: We are rapidly approaching an environmental catastrophe: Plastic waste in the ocean will outnumber fish by 2050

and

Not a fish tale: Thanks to ocean pollution humans are ingesting plastic

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Attention

Whale washes up beach in Aceh, Indonesia


Tempo.co
Thu, 04 Aug 2016 14:26 UTC
Dead whale
A dead whale has been found washed up in Alue Naga Beach, Syiah Kuala Sub-district, Banda Aceh City.

A number of locals and fishermen at the beach Thursday, August 4, 2016, said that the whale was roughly seven-meter-long.

"Several fishermen saw the already dead whale in the waters two miles off the beach. The whale was washed ashore by the waves," local resident Muhammad said.

According to locals, they had yet to see any relevant government institution coming to the scene and examining the whale to determine the cause of death.
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Cloud Lightning

Alberta Canada experiences wettest July weather in 89 years

Huffington Post
Canadian Press
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 17:59 UTC
Wet Alberta Weather
© Jeff McIntosh/CPCalgary Stampede visitors huddle under an umbrella as a storm sweeps over the grounds on July 9, 2016.
In a country known for episodes of extreme weather, even Environment Canada's senior climatologist is shaking his head over the flurry of bad weather hitting the Prairies this year — most notably in Alberta.

David Phillips, who has been on the job for five decades, said the 2016 weather season isn't likely to be one that especially Albertans and others on the Prairie will look back on fondly.

He said the number of tornadoes, winds, hail, thunderstorms and humidity are up in all three Prairie provinces but nobody has had it worse than those living in northern and southern Alberta.

"You saw the terrible thing in Fort McMurray. My God, I'm sure they were wondering would the locusts be next. I mean, it's so Biblical,'' said Phillips.

"They had the fires and the drought and now the floods. They clearly had more than a month's worth of rain in Fort McMurray in two hours, and it's almost as if they couldn't get rain when they prayed for it back in April and May.''

Comment: There was also recent flooding reported in the northern Alberta city of Grande Prairie.

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Arrow Up

Flights disrupted after 3 volcanoes erupt in Indonesia within 2 days


Globalnews.ca
Wed, 03 Aug 2016 16:43 UTC
Mount Sinabung volcano eruption
© Tibta Pangin/Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesA general view of spewing pyroclastic lava is seen during Mount Sinabung volcano eruption, seen from Tiga Pancur village in Karo, North Sumatra, Indonesia on July 28, 2016.
Eruptions at three volcanoes in Indonesia have darkened skies in parts of the archipelago and disrupted some flights.

Mount Rinjani on Lombok Island near Bali, the Sinabung volcano on Sumatra Island and Mount Gamalama in the Moluccas chain of islands have all erupted in the past couple of days.

No one has been injured, but flights at two airports have been disrupted.

Sultan Babullah airport in Ternate, the capital of North Maluku province, was closed Wednesday and Lombok's international airport was closed for several hours on Tuesday.

The three mountains are among about 130 active volcanoes in Indonesia. The archipelago of 250 million people is prone to earthquakes and volcanoes because it sits along the Pacific "Ring of Fire," a string of faults that lines the Pacific Ocean.

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the spokesman for Indonesia's Disaster Mitigation Agency, said that Gamalama and Sinabung erupted again late Tuesday, blasting debris high into the air. Hot ash tumbled down the Sinabung slopes as far as 2,000 metres (yards) southward into a river.
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Bizarro Earth

Rare ball lightning caught on video in Siberian city


The Siberian Times
Wed, 03 Aug 2016 19:50 UTC
Fireball lightening_1
© Roman Tregubov'This is fireball lightening, it's the first time I see one in my life.'
Like an approaching UFO, the bright white luminous ball glides over a field, before heading into woodland.

A local caught on camera this unusual example of ball lightning near his dacha (country house) outside Novosibirsk, Siberia's largest city. His grasp of his cell phone was shaky but his analysis of the phenomenon - as heard on the commentary - was accurate, say experts.

'What is it there?' a female voice asks from a distance.

'Fireball lightening,' answered the man with the mobile phone camera, Roman Tregubov, a graduate of the Novosibirsk State Technical University.

'Look, look, what is it?' another man asks.

'Argh it's moving away,' the cameraman says. 'This is fireball lightening, it's the first time I see one in my life. It's going to move away. Lost it. Where it is? There is it. I wonder if it'll blow off soon. Yep, it blew off.'
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Attention

Bear chases man inside his home in Mammoth Lakes, California (VIDEO)

Ben Hooper
UPI
Mon, 01 Aug 2016 19:24 UTC
Bear breaks into house
Bear breaks into house
A California man who came home to find a mother bear and her cubs in his home captured video of the mother running toward him up the stairs.

Rodney Ginn said in a Facebook post he arrived at his Mammoth Lakes home after work Friday night to discover two doors to his residence were open and the mother bear and her cubs were in his kitchen.

"I came home from work my roommate was asleep both doors wide open so I shut them and looked in my kitchen and there she was with her two cubs so I booked it upstairs," he wrote.

The video shows Ginn filming from the top of a staircase when the mother bear comes bounding up the steps toward him.

Ginn quickly runs into a room and shuts the door before the bear can reach him.

He said the mother bear eventually let herself out by opening a sliding door. He said his roommate was oblivious during the whole affair.

"Pretty much she opened the sliding door and her and the two cubs got out. My roommate was sleeping and said he heard it going on for about 45 minutes and thought I was cooking a late night snack lol and when I got home they were still here for another 30 minutes before they finally [left]," he wrote.

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Cloud Lightning

Horse killed by lightning bolt in Leesburg, Georgia

Mike Fussell
walb.com
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 19:06 UTC
Pretty Boy's owners believe that he was struck by lightning.
© WALBPretty Boy's owners believe that he was struck by lightning.
Two Lee County horses were stuck by lightning on Monday when thunderstorms rolled through the area.

Dallas was killed, but Pretty Boy's owners said he is shaken but recovering.

Riders and horses alike at the Star K Equestrian Center are still reeling after the incident.

When the clouds had cleared after the storm had passed, owner Norma Karst noticed something was off.

"Acted very unusual," said Karst. "Walking around in an unusual way, acting like he couldn't see, twitching his mouth, we knew something was wrong with him."

Pretty Boy was among four horses that refused to come back inside at the Star K Equestrian Center when the storm rolled through Monday.
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Cloud Lightning

Lightning bolt kills 14 cows in Cambodia

Pav Suy
Khmer Times
Thu, 04 Aug 2016 18:54 UTC
Lightning
© MGN Online
Lightning struck a villager's cow stable in Kratie province's Kbal Damrey commune on Tuesday night killing 14 cows, according to the Water Resources Ministry and local police.

"At about 8pm on August 2, 2016, there was a case of lightning killing 14 cows in a stable located in O Tanoeng village, Kbal Damrey commune, Sambo district, Kratie province," the ministry's statement said.

The ministry's statement then moved on to request that people pay close attention to the dangers caused by extreme weather.

Lim Bona, a Sambo district police official, said: "It hit the herd of 14 cows in the stable. All of them died, there was not one left. After that, the owner sold the dead cows at reduced prices. When the lightning struck, it was rainy and windy."

Keo Vy, cabinet chief and a spokesman for the National Committee for Disaster Management, told Khmer Times late last month that lightning had killed 78 people, injured nearly 100 and caused the death of 60 head of cattle from January to July this year.
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