Signs Supplement: Climate and Earth Changes
June 2004




Midwest, South Clean Up After Storms
Tuesday June 1, 2004 9:31 AM
By DEANNA WRENN
Associated Press Writer

MARENGO, Ind. (AP) - The death toll from a chain of Memorial Day holiday thunderstorms and tornadoes stood at 10 as residents of the South and Midwest struggled with power outages, debris and water-logged streets.

Storms produced heavy rain, high winds and dozens of tornados along an arc from Louisiana to New England. More thunderstorms moved across parts of the Great Lakes states Monday.

Gov. Joe Kernan surveyed the damage from a helicopter Monday, a day after the storms that destroyed dozens of homes, and said the town of Marengo "just got clobbered.'' The National Weather Service estimated winds up to 170 mph blew through the town of 800 people.

Two Indiana National Guard units were expected to arrive Tuesday in Marengo, about 35 miles northwest of Louisville, Ky., to move heavy debris to help reopen roads, said Lt. Col. Larry Powers, a Guard spokesman.

Kernan has extended a disaster emergency he issued last week for the entire state. He said he expected Federal Emergency Management Agency officials to arrive Tuesday to begin reviewing whether areas would be eligible for disaster aid. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Jordan appeals to save Dead Sea
By Dale Gavlak
BBC correspondent in Amman

Jordan has launched an appeal to the international community to save the Dead Sea from extinction.

The Dead Sea's days as a tourist resort could be numbered.

It said the world's saltiest body of water, found at the lowest point on the earth's surface, will disappear in 50 years' time unless more water is pumped into it.

It has proposed that nearly two billion cubic metres of water per year be pumped from the Red Sea into the Dead Sea.

Click here to comment on this article


Planet Earth dims then brightens
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor

A study of sunlight bounced between the Earth and the Moon shows that during the 80s and 90s the Earth reflected less of our star's light out into space.

But the trend seems to have been reversed during the past three years.

Researchers think this may be because of the natural variability in cloud cover, which can act to push back the Sun's heat and light away from Earth.

The effect must be taken into account in estimates of future global warming, they report in the journal Science.

Click here to comment on this article


Swiss Alpine town on flood alert
GENEVA (AFP) Jun 03, 2004

Authorities in the Swiss town of Thun have put the local population on flood alert after the nearby lake rose to danger level Thursday because of heavy rain. Lake Thun, 25 kilometres (15 miles) south of the Swiss capital Bern and on the edge of the Alps, reached the high water level of 558.3 metres above sea-level early on Thursday and was expected to overflow later in the day, town authorities said in a statement.

Fire services and civil protection units worked overnight to help people seal their ground floor entrances and cellars, and the 41,700 inhabitants were advised to listen to the radio.

"If the level carries on rising, we will ask for help from neighbouring towns," Thun official Hans Ueli Gerber told the Swiss news agency ATS.

The river Aar, which flows through Bern, has also risen in recent days because of heavy rain in the Swiss Alps.

Click here to comment on this article


Red Cross trebles appeal for Caribbean flood victims
GENEVA (AFP) Jun 01, 2004

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Tuesday trebled an appeal for funds for the victims of the deadly floods that have lashed Haiti and the Dominican Republic. [...]

The federation put the death toll from the floods that swept through towns and villages in the two countries that make up the island of Hispaniola at an estimated 2,000 people. [...]

According to an official tally, between the two countries, 1,406 people are known to have died and many have been buried in mass graves. Nearly 30,000 people have been forced from their homes.

Click here to comment on this article


Eleven killed, five injured in southwest China landslide
SHANGHAI (AFP) Jun 01, 2004

Eleven people were killed and five injured after heavy rainstroms caused a large landslide in China's southwestern Guizhou province, state press reported Tuesday.[...]

In a separate landslide further north in Sichuan province, at least three people were killed and four hurt when a four-story residential building collapsed in Chongqing municipality on Monday.

Click here to comment on this article


Washington under growing domestic pressure on climate change: EU official
BRUSSELS (AFP) Jun 02, 2004

The US government is coming under increasing pressure from its own companies to sign up to the Kyoto protocol on climate change, EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstroem said Wednesday.

"Slowly but steadily things are also changing in the US," she told reporters. "It is coming from the bottom up. There are also big American companies or multinational companies (which) look to Europe. "They understand that they will have to do something about greenhouse (gas) emissions and climate change. There is a completely different scenario and political understanding of this problem," the Swedish official said.

US President George W. Bush, in one of his first acts on taking office, turned his back on the Kyoto protocol in March 2001 arguing the commitments it enforced on industrialised nations would be too costly for the US economy. After the US withdrawal, Russia now holds the agreement's future in its hands under its complex ratification arithmetic.

Under the protocol, countries are supposed to slash their emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide in a bid to stop the warming of the earth's atmosphere.

In February the US Defense Department downplayed a report on climate change that it had commissioned that warned that abrupt climate change "could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy" as countries war over dwindling resources.

Wallstroem said: "But from the administration of course we have no other signals... But ultimately, they will have to and especially if a majority of countries around the world will actually ratify the Kyoto protocol."

Click here to comment on this article


World 'appeasing' climate threat
By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent

One of the UK's best-known scientists, Professor James Lovelock, says only a catastrophe will prompt the world to tackle the threat of climate change.

He says the global climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, is simply an attempt to appease a self-regulating Earth system.

Professor Lovelock thinks the Earth's attempts to restore its equilibrium may eliminate civilisation and most humans.

[...] Professor Lovelock said: "In the late 1930s when I was a student we knew that war was imminent, but there was no clear idea of what to do about it.

Future fears

"I find a marked similarity between attitudes over 60 years ago and those now towards the threat of global [climate] change.

"Most of us think that something unpleasant may soon happen but we are as confused over what to do about it as we were in 1938.

"Our response so far is just like that in 1938, an attempt to appease. The Kyoto agreement is uncannily like that of Munich, with politicians out to show that they do respond but in reality are bidding for time."

Professor Lovelock said global warming was "the response of our outraged planet", and the consequences for humanity were likely to be far worse than any war.

"We are at war with the Earth itself", he said. "We are Gaia's target now." Professor Lovelock added that we had still to wake up to the seriousness of our plight, with some people continuing to deny that global change even existed.

Heeding them, or the deep Greens who rejected science, would allow the planet to return to its normal state of health, "but by eliminating the majority of humans and probably civilization as well".

Comment: What is not clear in the studies of climatic changes is the influence of the cosmos. There are reports of severe climate change on the other planets of the solar system, and surely these planets are not affected by the pollution, etc, engendered by humans on earth. But perhaps we are creating other forms of influence, of which our destruction of the planet is the manifestation? Or we are under the influence of forces of which we have no knowledge? Or both?

Click here to comment on this article


Atlantic wild salmon stocks at historic low
CBC
Thu, 03 Jun 2004 22:46:09

FREDERICTON - Wild Atlantic salmon stocks on North America's east coast are at a historic low, a report from the Atlantic Salmon Federation said on Thursday.

Without strong domestic and international action, wild salmon could eventually disappear from its North American habitats altogether, according to the New Brunswick-based federation.

"Since 1974, we have gone from more than 1.5 million salmon to fewer than 500,000 today," Bill Taylor, president of the federation, said in Fredericton. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Nearly 300,000 Texans Still Without Power
By SHEILA FLYNN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jun 3, 4:58 PM ET

DALLAS - Nearly 300,000 customers remained without power Thursday after hurricane-force winds, heavy rains and hail the size of tennis balls hit northern Texas on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Utility officials said the storms were the area's worst ever in terms of lost power — at one point leaving 500,000 customers in the dark. Insurance officials estimated the damage at $100 million.

Tens of thousands also were without power in Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and West Virginia as a result of storms this week. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Calif. Levee Breaks, Flooding Forces Evacuations
Thu Jun 3, 3:03 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A levee broke in an agricultural area 80 miles east of San Francisco on Thursday, sending water flooding over fields and forcing the evacuation of workers, state officials said.

fficials said the break near Stockton, California, occurred early in the morning and forced the evacuation of farm workers and equipment in the sparsely populated area but did not appear to threaten any homes. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Lowest Tides in 19 Years Draw Crowds
-AP

"There are 36 factors that affect the tides, from the Earth's proximity to the sun and the moon to the moon's angle in relation to the equator, said Richard Strickland, who teaches oceanography at the University of Washington.

Every 19 years, those factors line up just so - creating the lowest low tides and the greatest differences between low and high tides, he said. Virtually everywhere outside of the tropics will have seen the lowest low tides in 19 years between about Friday and Sunday, he said."

Click here to comment on this article


Calif. Wildfire Scorches 6,000 Acres
June 6, 2004

GAVIOTA, Calif. - A wildfire in Southern California scorched more than 6,000 acres and forced the evacuation of hundreds of people from a gated community nearby, authorities said Sunday.

The flames spread quickly through a line of narrow canyons and steep hillsides covered with dense, old-growth brush, burning on both sides of Highway 101 about 27 miles north of Santa Barbara.

Fire department spokesman Barry Peckham said temperatures in the area were expected to reach 90 degrees, making it easier for the fire to spread.

"There's quite a potential for extreme fire behavior," he said.

More than 300 firefighters battled the blaze, which was reported shortly before noon on Saturday, said Charlie Johnson, spokesman for the Santa Barbara County Fire Department. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Methane 'belch' theory gets boost
By Julianna Kettlewell
BBC News Online science staff

Scientists have found a series of vents in the Nordic Seas that may have burped enough methane to cause massive global warming 55 million years ago.

The early Eocene Period witnessed a dramatic increase in temperature, which was triggered by a sudden surge of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

But just where these gases came from has been something of a mystery.

Nature magazine reports the discovery of gas vents dating from the right time and which could represent the source.

Click here to comment on this article


Storms Flood North Texas, Knock Out Power (Again)
June 7, 2004

FORT WORTH, Texas - Thunderstorms battered northern Texas with heavy rain and wind up to 70 mph during the night, flooding streets and homes and knocking out power in areas where some people were still in the dark because of last week's violent weather.

An estimated 6 inches of rain fell through early Monday in parts of Fort Worth, Denton and communities along Interstate 35, which was blocked by high water in places. Three to 5 inches of rain fell in an area from Jacksboro toward Decatur.

People had to be rescued from stalled cars and from homes flooded by water 3 to 6 feet deep in Fort Worth and Tarrant County late Sunday, authorities said.

Wind gusted to as high as 70 mph at Saginaw late Sunday, the National Weather Service (news - web sites) said.

The storms knocked out electrical service for large areas of the Fort Worth suburbs of White Settlement and Benbrook, authorities reported.

Last week, about 500,000 customers were blacked out by severe storms Tuesday and Wednesday in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. Fewer than 500 of those homes and businesses were still without power Monday in Tarrant County, Grand Prairie and DeSoto, said Scott Withers, spokesman for TXU Electric Delivery.

Just over 5 inches of rain fell in adjacent areas of southern Oklahoma, but there were no immediate reports of flooding or damage, state and local officials said.

Click here to comment on this article


RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET IN DENVER FOR JUNE 7TH
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DENVER CO
424 PM MDT MON JUN 07 2004
AT 336 PM MDT...THE HIGH TEMPERATURE AT DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT REACHED 98 DEGREES. THIS BREAKS THE 130 YEAR OLD RECORD OF 97 DEGREES WHICH WAS SET IN 1874.

Click here to comment on this article


Alert issued as storm Conson approaches Taiwan
TAIPEI (AFP) Jun 07, 2004

Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau issued an alert Monday as tropical storm Conson approached the island, bringing with it the possibility of torrential rains that could trigger landslides and floods.

At 8:00 pm (1200 GMT) the center of the storm was 560 kilometers south-southwest of Oranpi, the southernmost tip of Taiwan.

With a radius of 150 kilometers, the storm was moving north-northeast at an hourly speed of 14 kilometers.

The bureau said the edge of the storm may swipe at Taiwan late Tuesday if it kept moving at the present direction and speed.

Click here to comment on this article


Chimps could be extinct in 50 years
By Ed Stoddard
Tuesday June 8, 08:34 AM

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Humanity's closest relative the chimpanzee could be extinct in around 50 years because it is hunted for meat and threatened by deforestation and disease, researchers say.

Only 8,000 remain of the most vulnerable chimpanzee subspecies, the Pan troglodytes vellerosus, which is found predominantly in Nigeria, and it could be extinct in two decades, according to a study.

The study was presented at a conference of The Pan African Sanctuaries Alliance (PASA) in Johannesburg. PASA sanctuaries care for orphaned or injured great apes. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Spain sends planes to fight locust swarms
By Elizabeth Nash in Madrid
08 June 2004

Spain has sent nine planes to Morocco to combat a plague of locusts that is sweeping the southern Maghreb and threatens to head for Europe. Clouds of desert locusts have darkened Moroccan skies for months in the worst such plague since 1986.

Light aircraft sent by the Spanish foreign ministry are combating the creatures with insecticide, spraying hundreds of thousands of hectares from the Atlantic coastline to the Algerian border.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warns that if the plague is not stopped, the locusts - which can measure up to 15cm - could devastate crops throughout southern Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. With a favourable wind, they could reach Europe where they would be more difficult to control, the FAO says.

Desert locusts, or Shistocerca gregaria, travel in swarms millions strong and devour any vegetation in their path. The creatures' usual habitat is the Sahara, and they move between north and south according to the season.

But if the wind changes, they can head north across the Mediterranean. In 1956, locusts reached Extremadura in south-western Spain and in 1987 they descended upon Rome. [...]
Spain mounted the aid project as a matter of urgency, said Juan Peña, Spain's aid and co-operation organiser in Morocco. "It's in the interests of both our countries to stop the locusts crossing the Gibraltar Strait," Mr Peña said.

"It's much easier to control the plague in the desert than in Spain." He recalled his experience of the last plague, between 1984 and 1987. "If you get caught up in a cloud of locusts you have to stop the car because they blot out the sun," he said yesterday. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Human impact delaying ice age, study finds
Some News SourceBy CHRIS DOLMETSCH
Bloomberg News
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Earth's current climate may last for at least another 15,000 years, barring any effects from human intervention, according to a new study of Antarctic ice published in the latest issue of the journal Nature.

Click here to comment on this article


Two Dead, 18 Missing as Tornado Hits Philippines
June 10, 2004

MANILA (Reuters) - A tornado ripped through a town in the central Philippines, destroying hundreds of flimsy houses and killing at least two people, the national disaster agency and the coast guard said on Thursday.

A dozen residents from the coastal town of Dulag on Leyte island were reported missing.

The tornado, which lasted 35 minutes on Wednesday morning, destroyed about 900 houses, leaving one elderly man dead and four people wounded, agency officials said. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Electrical storms in northern Germany spark fires, flooding
HAMBURG, Germany (AFP) Jun 09, 2004

Fierce storms lashed northern Germany Wednesday, snarling traffic and sparking hundreds of fires, authorities said.

Fallen trees and branches blocked rail lines and roads and damaged roofs and cars while heavy rains flooded several streets.

Rail travel between the ports of Hamburg and Kiel was disrupted and trains bound from Hamburg to Berlin had to be rerouted. Traffic on the autobahns around Hamburg was backed up for several kilometers (miles).

Lightning was believed to have started a fire at a Dow chemical plant in the city of Stade, when hydrogen-based exhaust from a ventilation pipe on the roof ignited. The company said the blaze caused no damage.

Electrical storms led to a fire at a wind farm in the town of Wulfshagen. Firefighters let the windmill's rotor burn because they were unable to reach it with hoses.

In Hamburg, the fire brigade took 260 emergency calls while large swathes of the state of Schleswig-Holstein on the Danish border lost electricity.

Meteorologists warned of further storms in the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg and said tornadoes were possible.

Click here to comment on this article


Lightning kills four in central Pakistan
MULTAN, Pakistan (AFP) Jun 09, 2004

Three women and a man were killed by in a lightning strike in central Pakistan in an early monsoon thunderstorm, police and hospital officials said Wednesday.

"Four persons including three women died and more than a dozen people were injured by lightning," Aftab Ahmed Shaikh, senior medical officer in Leiah district told AFP. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Power outages plague Island
WebPosted Jun 9 2004 03:49 PM ADT

CHARLOTTETOWN - Maritime Electric said crews will be working through Wednesday to restore power to parts of Prince Edward Island.

At noontime around 3,100 customers were without power. A lightning storm earlier in the day is being blamed for the outages. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


In sweltering summer heat, China sounds alarm bell over water shortages
BEIJING (AFP) Jun 09, 2004

Facing another hot and dry summer, China is sounding the alarm bell over its worsening water shortage and the very real effect it has already started to have on the economy, state media said Wednesday.

The bad news is that China's water supply is under greater pressure than ever, and the even worse news is that the situation will go on deteriorating until 2030, when the population peaks at 1.6 billion, the China Daily said.

"By then, China may be plunged into a water crisis," said Suo Lisheng, vice minister of water resources. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Heat wave sweeps northern China
www.chinaview.cn 2004-06-12 08:32:20

BEIJING, June.12 (Xinhuanet) -- In the midst of the nation's first long heat wave for the summer, visiting a location in China's north sounds likes the ideal solution -- but just make sure that place is not Beijing, China Daily reported on Saturday.

Sweltering weather prevailed over the country's capital again on Friday with a top of 38 C, even higher than cities further south and inland which are noted for their hot temperatures.

Click here to comment on this article


No Injuries Reported As Tornado Hits Iowa
Fri Jun 11,11:43 PM ET

DES MOINES, Iowa - Tornadoes and severe thunderstorms rolled across northern Iowa Friday, causing damage to some farms but no injuries, authorities said.

About five tornadoes touched down in rural Clay County amid heavy thunderstorms in northwest Iowa. [...]

The storms damaged buildings on some farms, but most of the damage was to crops, the sheriff said. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


50 dead dolphins wash ashore on Mauritania's beaches

DAKAR (AFP) Jun 11, 2004

Forty-nine dolphins have been found dead on beaches in Mauritania, the deputy head of the northwest African country's oceanography and fishing institute, Mika Diop, told AFP here Friday.

The dolphins' carcasses were found early this week on beaches in southern Mauritania, near the border with Senegal.

A team from the oceanography institute had seen four dead dolphins on the beach on Mboyo island, seven kilometers (4 miles) from the Senegalese border on Monday, and the following day found the carcasses of 45 more dolphins nearby, said Diop.

Rumours of the mammals' deaths had been circulating in the Senegalese capital Dakar among environmental activists, who said they believed the dolphins had died after underwater explosions were carried out to look for oil.

The precise reason for the dolphins' deaths is still not known, said Diop.

Click here to comment on this article


UPDATE: Tornadoes Damage Farms in Midwest
Sun Jun 13,12:58 AM ET

DES MOINES, Iowa - Tornadoes damaged farm buildings and crops as violent thunderstorms battered southeastern Minnesota, northern Iowa and Nebraska. One twister destroyed David Mickelson's barn, home, garage, machine shed and silo south of Otho, Iowa.

"You work all your life to build up a place like this and in a matter of seconds it's all gone," Mickelson said.

No injuries were reported in the storms that started Friday afternoon and continued through the evening.

At least six tornadoes touched down near the south-central Kansas town of Mulvane on Saturday evening, destroying one home and damaging another, overturning cars and downing power lines.

everal other tornadoes were reported elsewhere in the state, but there were no immediate reports of injuries. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Killer storm a twister
CBC
Jun 11 2004 09:09 AM EDT

OTTAWA - Environment Canada has confirmed a tornado touched down in eastern Ontario, just north of Gananoque.

The small twister cut a five-kilometre swath through the countryside near Lansdowne during a storm Wednesday.

One man died when a tree crushed his front porch.

Click here to comment on this article


23-acre body of water disappears in St. Louis suburb
The Associated Press
Updated: 4:42 p.m. ET June 11, 2004

WILDWOOD, Mo. - To folks around Wildwood, it is nothing but freaky: an entire 23-acre lake vanished in a matter of days, as if someone pulled the plug on a bathtub.

Lake Chesterfield went down a sinkhole this week, leaving homeowners in this affluent St. Louis suburb wondering if their property values disappeared along with their lakeside views.

“It’s real creepy,” said Donna Ripp, who lives near what had been Lake Chesterfield. “That lake was 23 acres — no small lake. And to wake up one morning, drive by and it’s gone?”

What once was an oasis for waterfowl and sailboats was nothing but a muddy, cracked pit outlined by rotting fish.

Click here to comment on this article


UPDATE: Severe Storms Cause Two Deaths in Midwest
Yahoo News

Click here to comment on this article


Typhoon Chanthu Kills Seven in Vietnam
Sun Jun 13,11:22 PM ET

HANOI, Vietnam - Typhoon Chanthu killed seven people and left seven more missing when it swept through central Vietnam over the weekend, officials said Monday.

Five fishermen were killed when their boat sank Saturday off the coast of Binh Dinh province, some 650 miles south of Hanoi, said the official from the provincial floods and storms control bureau, who identified himself only as Tuan.

Another man, who was washing his feet in a river, drowned after being sucked in by the strong current. A sixth fisherman was killed when strong winds forced two fishing boats against the dock, crushing him, the official said.

The typhoon also injured five people and destroyed or damaged more than 180 houses in the province. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Lightning Strike Injures 17 Army Reservists In Wisconsin
Local6.com
12:27 pm EDT June 14, 2004

Severe thunderstorms swept across the Plains and Midwest during the weekend, spinning off tornadoes, causing power outages and delaying travel for airline passengers.

Two people were killed in weekend storm-related accidents in Missouri.

Lightning struck the ground outside a tent at the Army's Fort McCoy in west-central Wisconsin on Sunday, injuring 17 Army Reservists from the San Antonio, Texas, area, said public affairs officer Linda Fournier. One soldier remained hospitalized Monday. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Flood toll could climb to 2bn
JAMES REYNOLDS ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT

TWO billion people worldwide will be at risk of devastating flooding by 2050 due to climate change, deforestation and rising sea levels, according to experts at the United Nations University (UNU).

One billion people, the majority of them among the world's poorest inhabitants, are estimated to live in the potential path of a permanent flood and unless preventive efforts are stepped up worldwide, that number could double or more in two generations.

Click here to comment on this article


Scientists sound alarm on Canadian weather forecasts
Last Updated Thu, 17 Jun 2004 17:59:06

TORONTO - Continuing funding cuts threaten Canadian research on reducing smog and climate change, and improving the accuracy of severe weather forecasts, top government and university scientists warned Thursday.

The group of 21 scientists sounded the alarm in a new report, saying since the mid-1990s, there are fewer meteorologists working at Environment Canada's weather office and much of the equipment is out of date.

It's time for the federal government to put more funding into the meteorological service so it can better predict severe weather patterns, said Peter Taylor, an atmospheric scientist at Toronto's York University.

Click here to comment on this article


New bug indicates global warming
Thursday, 17 June, 2004

An insect that normally inhabits warm countries has been found living and breeding in the UK, entomologists say.

The green "shield" bug, which attacks a broad range of crops, is usually seen in the Mediterranean, Middle East, Australia, North America and Africa.

Its arrival in Britain is a clear sign of climate change, claim experts from the Natural History Museum, London.

"I'm always reluctant to invoke global warming but it is the only explanation" said curator of beetles, Max Barclay.

Stink bugs

The green vegetable bug (Nezara viridula) is similar to our native green shield bug (Palomena prasina), but is paler in colour and has a longer, narrower shape. Also, unlike its British cousin, the green vegetable bug has no brown markings.

The insects - sometimes known as "stink" bugs, because of the foul odour they emit when threatened - are regular stowaways to the UK.

They often get shipped in with imported vegetables but, until recently, they have not been able to stand Britain's cold climate.

Now three healthy colonies have been found in London - two in the Queen's Park area and one in Kings Cross.

"When somebody first brought a specimen to me I didn't believe it," Max Barclay told BBC News Online. "I thought somebody had picked it up on their holidays, but it really was eating their tomatoes in London."

Of course, if three colonies have been found, the actual number is likely to be far higher.

"It is not something that is going to attract much attention," said Dr Barclay. "So there may well be several colonies living unnoticed."

Clear sign

This is not the first time an insect that usually likes warm weather has come to the UK. But the really interesting thing about the green vegetable bug is that we know it could not survive here in the past.

"World experts on this group said in 1959 that it can't establish in the British Isles," said Dr Barclay. "They said it is a regular import - it is always coming in - but it can't live here.

"And for forty years there was no record of it, so they seemed to be correct. But obviously something has changed now."

He continued: "I have been looking at a lot of new species that have come in over the years - but this is the only one that tells a clear story about global warming.

"In all the other cases people say, 'Is this to do with global warming?' And we have to say we are not sure. But in this case we are sure."

Click here to comment on this article


Western drought beats Dust Bowl
By Angie Wagner
The Associated Press

LAS VEGAS -- The drought gripping the West could be the biggest in 500 years, with effects in the Colorado River basin considerably worse than during the Dust Bowl years, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey said Thursday.

"That we can now say with confidence," said Robert Webb, lead author of the new fact sheet. "Now I'm completely convinced."

The Colorado River has been in a drought for the entire decade, cutting an important source of water for millions of people across the West.

Click here to comment on this article


Water From Burst Dam Floods Brazil City
Fri Jun 18, 4:05 PM ET

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A dam ruptured in northeastern Brazil, flooding a small city and killing at least three people, officials said Friday.

The Camara Dam on the Mamanguate River burst Thursday night and flooded the city of Alagoa Grande in Paraiba state, some 1,300 miles northeast of Sao Paulo.

"Rescue workers have recovered three bodies, but at least four people are reported missing and feared dead," said Marco Alfredo, spokesman for the Paraiba state government.

Antonio Soares da Silva of the state's Water Resources Department said the rupture was caused by a "construction flaw."

Click here to comment on this article


Floods submerge 50 villages in eastern India
June 19, 2004

PATNA, India (AFP) - At least 50 villages were submerged and rail services paralysed as the first of the annual flash floods hit the eastern Indian state of Bihar, an official said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties, the official in the state's flood control centre said. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Firefighters working to contain biggest wildfire of the year in B.C.
Canadian Press

Kaloops — Firefighters are working to contain what officials say is the biggest fire yet this year in B.C.

The wildfire is burning up the sides of a mountain near Lilooet, about 100 kilometres west of Kamloops.

Fire Information Officer Kevin Matuga says nine fires were sparked in the area last night by lightning from a large thunder storm. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Crews Battle Wildfires in N.M., Utah
Sat Jun 19, 9:31 PM ET

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The weather gave firefighters a break Saturday as they battled a fire that burned nearly 300 acres and prompted evacuations along the Rio Grande in central New Mexico.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Saturday said that it has authorized the use of federal funds to battle the Bernardo fire. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


3 Dead As Typhoon Dianmu Hits Japan
By NATALIE OBIKO PEARSON
Associated Press Writer
Sunday June 20, 2004

TOKYO (AP) - A powerful typhoon pummeled southern Japan on Sunday, killing at least three people as it headed north toward the country's more densely populated islands.

Classified as "large and very powerful,'' Typhoon Dianmu was packing sustained winds of nearly 60 mph, with some gusts reaching 100 mph, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.

Dianmu - Mandarin Chinese for "Mother of Lightning'' - was centered about 800 miles southwest of Tokyo and traveling north. Forecasters said it could hit Japan's southernmost main island of Kyushu by Sunday evening.

The agency predicted up to 16 inches of rain in parts of Kyushu.

The typhoon raked Okinawa's main island Saturday and stormy weather continued to disrupt dozens of flights and some ferry services in the area Sunday. The Meteorological Agency recorded waves of up to 39 feet.

Two of the dead were college students apparently swept away by rough seas while barbecuing on the beach Saturday in Shizuoka, 95 miles west of Tokyo. Their bodies were found washed ashore Sunday.

A 32-year-old windsurfer died Saturday in high waves off southern Okinawa island, coast guard officials said.

A 73-year-old Tokyo resident remained missing after he went fishing Friday near Kozu island about 75 miles south of Tokyo. Officials feared he may have gotten lost in high waves.

Click here to comment on this article


New National Research Effort Needed To Secure Clean, Adequate Water Supply In Coming Decades
The National Academies
2004-06-18

WASHINGTON -- The United States needs to make a new commitment to research on water resources in order to confront the increasingly severe water problems faced by all parts of the country, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies' National Research Council. In particular, a new mechanism is needed to coordinate water research currently fragmented among nearly 20 federal agencies, said the committee that wrote the report.

"Water crises are not confined to western states," said committee chair Henry J. Vaux, professor emeritus and associate vice president emeritus, department of agricultural and resource economics, University of California, Berkeley. He cited as an example the recent conflict between Maryland and Virginia over Potomac River water rights that had to be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court. To be sure, semiarid western states are still in need of new water supplies for fast-growing populations, a problem that has been complicated by recent drought. And regulation of water levels and flows in the Klamath and Missouri rivers have sparked considerable debate as well. "Decision-makers at all levels of government are going to have to make difficult choices in the coming decades about how to allot limited water supplies, and they need sound science to back them up," Vaux added.

Given the competition for water among farmers, environmental advocates, recreational users, and other interests -- as well as emerging challenges such as climate change and the threat of waterborne diseases -- the committee concluded that an additional $70 million in federal funding should go annually to water research, with the aim of improving the decision-making of institutions that control water resources and better understanding the water-use challenges that lie ahead. The committee noted that overall federal funding for water research has been stagnant in real terms for the past 30 years, and that the portion dedicated to research on water use and related social science topics has declined considerably. For example, while other fields such as the health sciences have seen large funding increases over the last three decades, per capita spending on water-resources research has dropped from $3.33 to $2.44, despite the growing number of water conflicts around the country. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Egg-size hail stones injure 32 in northern China, cause serious damage
Mon Jun 21,12:07 PM ET

BEIJING (AFP) - Egg-size hail stones pounded China's northern city of Handan, injuring 32 people and causing serious damage to houses, farmland and trees.

The 30-minute hail storm on Sunday also caused a blackout in the city in Hebei province, the Xinhua news agency said Monday.

It caused an estimated 105 million yuan (12.7 million US dollars) in damage and affected some 640,000 people.

The 32 people who were injured were in a stable condition, Xinhua said.

Officials were sent to the area to coordinate rescue efforts and the government was allocating funds to help the city, it said.

Click here to comment on this article


Wind and Hail Pound Texas Panhandle
By LINDA FRANKLIN, Associated Press Writer
June 22, 2004

AMARILLO, Texas - Wind gusting to 70 mph and hail the size of baseballs pounded the Texas Panhandle, smashing almost all of the windows on one end of a six-story hospital, where one patient was injured by flying glass.

"It blew out the lobby. The windows are shattered. They blew in on the patients," said Mary Barlow, a spokeswoman for Baptist St. Anthony's Hospital. [...]

Damage estimates were not yet available Tuesday, but were expected to total millions of dollars, authorities said.

Homes and vehicles were damaged by hail up to baseball size. [...]

Heavy rain flooded some underpasses and rural roads, and Hartley County Sheriff Franky Scott said water was up to 4 feet deep in some areas.

"It had the barbed wire fence covered up," Scott said.

Storm spotters reported several twisters in the Amarillo area, including one along Interstate 40.

Click here to comment on this article


Shell Oil Chief Admits Grave Fears For The Planet

'Confession' Shocks Industry
By David Adam
Science Correspondent
The Guardian - UK
6-17-4

The head of one of the world's biggest oil companies has admitted that the threat of climate change makes him "really very worried for the planet".

In an interview in today's Guardian Life section, Ron Oxburgh, chairman of Shell, says we urgently need to capture emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, which scientists think contribute to global warming, and store them underground - a technique called carbon sequestration.

"Sequestration is difficult, but if we don't have sequestration then I see very little hope for the world,"said Lord Oxburgh. "No one can be comfortable at the prospect of continuing to pump out the amounts of carbon dioxide that we are pumping out at present ... with consequences that we really can't predict but are probably not good."

His comments will enrage many in the oil industry, which is targeted by climate change campaigners because the use of its products spews out huge quantities of carbon dioxide, most visibly from vehicle exhausts.

His words follow those of the government's chief science adviser, David King, who said in January that climate change posed a bigger threat to the world than terrorism.

"You can't slip a piece of paper between David King and me on this position," said Lord Oxburgh, a respected geologist who replaced the disgraced Philip Watts as chairman of the British arm of the oil giant in March.

Companies including Shell and BP have previously acknowledged the problem of climate change and pledged to reduce their own emissions, but the issue remains sensitive, and carefully worded public statements often emphasise uncertainties over risks.

Robin Oakley, a climate campaigner with Greenpeace, said: "This is an important statement to make but it does have to come with a commitment to follow through, and that means making the case to his peers in the oil industry who are still sceptical of climate change."

Mr Oakley said a gulf was opening between more progressive oil companies such as Shell, which invests in alternative energy sources including wind and solar power, and ExxonMobil, the biggest and most influential producer, particularly in the US.

In June 2002 ExxonMobil's chairman, Lee Raymond, said: "We in ExxonMobil do not believe that the science required to establish this linkage between fossil fuels and warming has been demonstrated."

Lord Oxburgh's words will also fuel arguments over sequestration. Supporters say it will allow a smoother transition to reduced emissions by allowing us to burn coal, oil and gas for longer. Critics argue that the idea is an expensive and probably unworkable smokescreen for continued reliance on fossil fuels.

Last year the Guardian revealed that ministers were considering plans for a national network of pipelines to carry millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from power stations to be buried under the North sea.

"You probably have to put it under the sea but there are other possibilities. You may be able to trap it in solids or something like that," said Lord Oxburgh, who claimed even vehicle emissions could be trapped and disposed of. "The timescale might be impossible, in which case I'm really very worried for the planet because I don't see any other approach."

According to a 3,000m (about 10,000ft) ice core from Antarctica revealing the Earth's climate history, carbon dioxide levels are the highest for at least 440,000 years.

Lord Oxburgh said the situation is particularly urgent because many developing countries, including India and China, are sitting on huge untapped stocks of coal, probably the most polluting fossil fuel.

"If they choose to burn their coal, we in the west are not in a very good position to tell them not to, because it's exactly what we did in our industrial revolution."

Bryony Worthington, a climate campaigner with Friends of the Earth, said: "It isn't a responsible attitude to say we're going to pledge to do sequestration but if the plans don't work out then the world's messed up. He's done quite a clever job by making it clear he's concerned but at the same time not pledging to do anything about it."

She called for tougher emission standards for new vehicles, as well as greater investment in energy efficiency measures and renewable sources.

A former non-executive director with Shell, Lord Oxburgh was catapulted into the chairman's role after the company was forced to reveal it had overstated the extent of its reserves. He was widely viewed as a safe pair of hands.

He followed his long-standing academic career with spells as chief science adviser to the Ministry of Defence and rector of Imperial College, London. A crossbench life peer, he still chairs the Lords science and technology select committee, although he must retire from Shell next year.

Click here to comment on this article


Climate film put to computer test
By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent
Tuesday, 22 June, 2004

A worldwide experiment to test the plausibility of the disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow starts on 22 June.

Computer users across the world are being invited to download and run a climate model of what may happen this century.

The test will see how predictions may change if the behaviour of the Gulf Stream is affected, as the film shows.

The project is the work of climateprediction.net, a consortium of UK universities and the Met Office.

Last September the group launched a global online effort to generate "the world's most comprehensive probability-based forecast of 21st century climate".

Visitors to its website were able to download a unique version of the Met Office's climate model, simulating several decades of global climate at a time.

That experiment has recruited 49,000 participants in 130 countries, but the new one aims to go further.

Dr David Frame, the project coordinator, said: "So far we have been asking people to simulate how the climate could respond to rising carbon dioxide levels.

"Now we are extending the project to investigate how predictions might change if the thermo-haline circulation in the oceans were to slow down, altering the flow of the Gulf Stream."

'Physically plausible'

Dr Mat Collins of the Met Office said: "Extreme scenarios make great films, but for practical planning we need to know how likely it is that such events will actually happen."

The University of Oxford scientist leading the experiment is Nick Faull. He said: "We are not trying to predict the odds on a shut-down of the thermo-haline circulation, but we are asking: 'If it did happen, what are the chances it would offset the warming due to rising greenhouse gases and cause a cooling?

What consequences would it have for the atmosphere and oceans?'" Anyone wanting to join the experiment can download a secure software package, including a version of the Met Office's state-of-the-art climate model, from the climateprediction.net site.

Each model, the organisers say, is a slightly different but "physically plausible" representation of processes going on in the atmosphere, land and near-surface ocean.

Click here to comment on this article


NSF'S North Pole Researchers Study Climate Change in the Arctic
June 17, 2004

Long before a Hollywood blockbuster about catastrophic climate change packed cinema multiplexes this spring, researchers at the top of the world, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), were using an array of scientific tools to build a comprehensive scientific picture of environmental change in the Arctic and what it may mean for the rest of the globe.

Led by oceanographer James Morison, of the University of Washington, NSF- supported scientists from Oregon State University, as well as others supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Naval Post-graduate School, and the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center, are conducting an array of experiments at the North Pole to understand this little-known, but extremely important region.

The Polar regions, scientists believe, will sound the earliest warnings that changes in global climate are underway and, in recent years, the Arctic has experienced a well-documented warming trend. Whether this change is permanent or part of a cycle and what the potential effects of a warmer Arctic Ocean could be are questions the team hopes to answer. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Venus Transit May Cause Serious Flooding Chinese Scientist Claims
June 21.04

Wise, Va. -- While local amateur astronomers gathered to watch the recent Venus Transit at The University of Virginia's College at Wise observatory, not-a-one of them realized that spectacular transit of Venus across the face of the Sun may lead to disastrous flooding along China's Yellow River or other more Earthly inclement weather conditions.

Geng Guoqing, an expert on natural calamities in The People's Republic of China, was more worried about the consequences for China's second-longest river, according to the Xinhua news agency.

Geng has compared historical records reaching 2,187 years back and found a clear correlation between Venus transits and serious floods along the river's middle and lower reaches, reports Xinhua.

Geng, a researcher at the Special Committee on Natural Calamities Forecasting under the China Geophysics Society, says that flooding could be that Venus blocks part of the Sun's radiation that should have been transmitted to Earth.

The Venus Transit causes climatic disturbances across the globe, he argues to skeptics.

Dr. Mitchell Gordon, an astrophysicist at The University of Virginia's College at Wise, recently conducted a lecture the evening prior to the transit but made no note or passing observation of any correlation between a transit of Venus and natural disasters on Earth in a review of its history.

One Venus Transit observer, tongue-in-check, noted that "here in Wise it did rain almost immediately following the Venus Transit June 8 and almost every day two-weeks thereafter!"

Click here to comment on this article


Australia's koalas face extinction, foundation says
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
By Michael Perry, Reuters
SYDNEY — Koalas, an iconic symbol of Australia, face extinction as rapid urbanization along the eastern seaboard destroys their fragile habitat, environmental activists have warned. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Global sewage torrent harms young
By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent in Budapest, Hungary

The amount of raw sewage entering the river Ganges every minute is 1.1 million litres, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says.

Its Atlas Of Children's Health And The Environment says large quantities of sewage are also flushed into rivers, lakes and oceans worldwide.

One gram of faeces can contain 10 million viruses, one million bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts and 100 worm eggs.

It also says up to a million lives could be saved annually by hand-washing.

Launched at a conference of European health and environment ministers in Budapest, Hungary, the atlas says polluted water and air, together with other hazards linked to the environment, kill more than three million children under the age of five every year.

While 10% of the world population falls within that age group, it says, 40% of the environment related disease burden affects these small children.

Click here to comment on this article


The New Blue Gold
By Silja J.A. Talvi
AlterNet
June 23, 2004

The rush to privatize water is underway across the world. In the new documentary 'Thirst,' filmmakers Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow set out to explore the consequences.

There are untold profits to be made from controlling the simplest and most vital ingredient of our survival: water.

The only question, from a profit standpoint, is why it has taken this long.

"You can't do anything without water," says Alan Snitow, co-producer and co-director of Thirst, a groundbreaking and provocative new film about the rush to privatize what the filmmakers rightly define as the very "essence of life."

In their third collaborative documentary film after the successes of Blacks and Jews (1997) and Secrets of Silicon Valley (2001), Bay Area-based filmmaking duo Deborah Kaufman and Snitow take an unflinching and multifaceted look at water privatization in Bolivia, India, Japan and the U.S.

What Kaufman and Snitow find is that the "water rush" is likely to turn into one of the most volatile and potentially galvanizing issues of the 21st century.

"This is an incredible struggle, and yet it's still so far below the radar that we're trying to give it a voice," Kaufman says. "People are already willing to die for [water], but it's something that many of us still take for granted."

The grab for corporate control of water is indeed already here in our own backyards. But the conflict over water supplies perhaps most familiar to news-savvy audiences is the place where Thirst goes first: to Cochabamba, Bolivia. After the country auctions off the water system of its third-largest city to U.S.-based Bechtel Corporation in 1999, residents experience water price hikes of 30-300%, and the situation eventually erupts in a cross-class protest that makes headline news worldwide.

By April 2000, the government responds to civil unrest by declaring martial law. Shortly thereafter, Victor Hugo Daza, a 17-year-old peaceful protester, is shot dead in the streets by a government sniper.

Daza's death doesn't quell dissent the way it was intended to. In fact, protests heat up to the point that water consortium execs beat a hasty retreat, and Cochabamba's water system gets handed over to a community-run utility. In an unlikely turn of events, the citizens actually get what they want; water gets treated like a human right, not as the last frontier of the commercialization and privatization of earth's natural resources.

"They're on the defensive in the global South," Kaufman explains. "In many ways, they're ahead of us responding to what's in the near future for all of us."

In point of fact, American cities and towns are the new staging ground for rapid and strategic power plays over who controls water supply. In 2004, 85% of U.S. municipal water systems are publicly owned, with a shocking 15% already in the hands of corporations. Unbeknownst to most residents, municipal governments are being heavily courted in the here and now to turn over control of their water supply to multinational companies like Suez Water, whose U.S. subsidiary took control of Atlanta's water in 1999.

The incentive for local governments is hard to miss; with an estimated cost of a trillion dollars, the prospect of replacing aging pipes and improving the condition of public water plants is increasingly seen by city leaders as a budgetary drain best dealt with through privatization.

To exemplify the point, Kaufman and Snitow turn their camera to Stockton, California, where a well-run locally controlled water purification and distribution system is about to be offered to the highest bidder. (Notably, the public utility itself isn't allowed to be one of the bidders.)

The transfer of power over the water supply is intended to take the form of a "public-private partnership," and Stockton Mayor Gary Podesto is a firm supporter.

"This can be done for less dollars," as Mayor Podesto says.

A subsequent, well-orchestrated grassroots mobilization by city residents -- baristas, orthodontists, environmentalists, utility employees and union members among other unlikely allies -- fails to capture any attention from the national media. But Kaufman and Snitow have the instinct to jump into the heart of the conflict, meeting and talking with all sides of the privatization debate.

But there is no storybook ending in Thirst where Stockton's citizenry are concerned. By February 2003, in fact, the Mayor and a severely divided City Council hand over the $600 million, 20-year contract to a two-company consortium of corporate water giants: OMI and Thames.

All along, Stockton residents who did their research were emphatic that corporate claims of cost effectiveness, quality and safety had not been realized elsewhere.

In Atlanta's case, for instance, the city's $428 million, 20-year contract with Suez-subsidiary United Water Services was cancelled after a series of citywide EPA alerts advising residents to boil their tap water because of toxic contaminants. Finally, after five such "boil-alerts," staff cutbacks, leaking water mains, and rising sewer bill costs, city administrators yanked back control of the utility.

Little victories aside, corporate water grab is still fully underway, working in collusion with governments and international financial agencies, wreaking environmental havoc and inflating water prices all the while. In the final analysis, the battle over water, says Kaufman, has more to do with democracy than what's coming out of your tap. And it's toward this end, say the filmmakers, that they fully intend their documentary to spur further activism and to educate audiences about the extent to which water has already been commodified.

As captured in Thirst, John Briscoe, the Senior Water Advisor to The World Bank, puts it this way to an assembly at the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan.

"What does it mean to say that water is a human right?" he asks." Those who proclaim it so would say that it is the obligation of [governments] to provide free water to everybody. Well, that's a fantasy."

In touring the U.S. with their film, Kaufman and Snitow have already become cautiously optimistic that the tide of privatization can be turned. A model ordinance to safeguard water as a public trust has already been drafted in concert with Madison, Wisconsin Mayor David Cieslewicz, and will be presented at the upcoming 72nd U.S. Conference of Mayors in Boston, which runs from June 25-29th. (Perhaps not so coincidentally, the conference's website is being sponsored by Veolia Water, which has become North America's leading private "service provider" for local government water and wastewater supplies.)

"It's a festival of privatization," as Snitow says. "But what they don't yet fully realize is that for many people, water is the final boundary that can't be crossed."

Click here to comment on this article


Two dead, several injured as storms hit Germany
June 24, 2004

BERLIN (AFP) - Two people were killed, several injured and widespread damage was caused in storms, including a tornado, that have hit Germany, state police said.

Wind gusting at up to 115 kilometres (65 miles) per hour tore down trees and damaged houses and property in the states of Saxony-Anhalt in the north, neighbouring Lower Saxony and the southern region of Bavaria.

A boat with three people aboard was caught in a storm on the Chiemsee lake in Bavaria on Wednesday. A 62-year-old man drowned, police said.

In Lower Saxony, a falling tree killed a man in the afternoon and another fell in the evening on a group of 16 students, badly injuring two of them.

A tornado struck the village of Micheln in Saxony-Anhalt injuring at least six people, damaging some 300 buildings and tearing roofs from homes.

Around 200 rescue workers were mobilised Thursday to reconnect electricity supplies and re-open roads that were blocked around the village.

"We have seen pictures of devastation like those we know of from the United States. It's the sort of thing you only usually see on television," said Bernhard Boedecker, coordinator of the rescue efforts.

More of them same weather was expected in Germany on Thursday.

Click here to comment on this article


Yukon swelters under hottest stretch recorded
Jun 23 2004 01:41 PM CDT

WHITEHORSE - People in the Yukon are experiencing a record-breaking heat wave.

Environment Canada says Dawson City had the highest temperature ever recorded in that community.

The official thermometer showed 34.5 on Sunday, the hottest it's been since Environment Canada starting keeping records there in 1976.

The weather office says, however, that earlier data from other sources at the town site indicate that it did get up to 35 Celsius back in 1950.

In Whitehorse, Old Crow, Faro and Watson Lake, records have been set for the longest stretches of hot weather ever documented. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Midsummer misery as gales blow in
By Jane Mulkerrins and Catriona Davies

Gales, floods, fallen trees and landslips caused havoc across much of the south of England yesterday as flaming June felt more like miserable November.

The weather caused a washout at Wimbledon and a backlog of 175 matches. Spectators bought 1,000 umbrellas, 2,500 rain ponchos and 150 kagouls but the All England Club will have to refund almost £1 million to 25,000 people who bought tickets in advance. [...]

About 35,000 homes were left without electricity in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex after trees brought down lines belonging to EDF, supplier to a quarter of Britain. Last night more than 10,000 homes were still without power.

Other families were evacuated from homes threatened by hundreds of tons of sand following a landslip in Porthowan, Cornwall.

The remains of the concert hall at Brighton's crumbling West Pier fell into the sea. Fire had reduced the Grade I listed structure to its metal frame in March last year.

All Channel ferries from Dover were suspended for several hours. Hundreds of passengers were stranded on eight ferries which were unable to dock because of Force 10 storms reaching 60 mph and took shelter off Deal.

Several London Underground lines, including the Waterloo and City and Metropolitan lines, were closed because of flooding and trees across tracks. A 12-year-old girl broke a leg when she was hit by debris from a roof in Blaenymaes, near Swansea, where 20 houses were damaged by high winds.

Floods led to road closures in Dorset and Cornwall and driving conditions were difficult across the South as the rain moved slowly north to Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


U.S. Toxic Pollution Rose 5 Percent in 2002
seattlepi.nwsource.com
Toxic chemical releases into the environment rose 5 percent in 2002, marking only the second such increase reported by the Environmental Protection Agency in nearly two decades, and the first since 1997. Some 4.79 billion pounds were released in 2002, the latest for which figures are available, not including releases from metal mining, the EPA reports. The agency stopped including that data because of a recent court decision in an industry challenge. A study by two environmental groups said EPA was underreporting the air pollution portion of releases of chemicals and emissions by 330 million pounds a year.
Comment: Some notable researchers (i.e. us) are proposing a link between the increase in release of toxic pollution and the increase in press conferences given by the White House in the same period, however more research is needed before a definitive conclusion can be reached...

Click here to comment on this article


Fifty-four feared dead, 168,000 evacuated in massive China rainstorms
Fri Jun 25, 3:03 AM ET

BEIJING (AFP) - Twenty-seven people were confirmed dead and another 27 were missing after massive rainstorms lashed central China's Hunan province, forcing the evacuation of 168,000 people, an official said.

The rainstorms engulfed 30 counties in the province over a six-day period, disaster relief official Fang Zhiyong told AFP Friday.

"Some people died because the floods washed them away, and some because their homes collapsed," the Beijing-based official said. "The floods also triggered mudslides."

Nearly eight million people live in areas affected by the storms, and 168,000 had to be relocated as their homes were threatened by the downpour and accompanying floods and landslides, he said.

The storms caused thousands of houses to collapse, with material losses estimated at three billion yuan (360 million dollars), he said.

"Some roads are extremely muddy or simply flooded," said Fang. "Traffic is very bad."

Among the worst-hit cities was Yueyang near giant Dongting Lake, which was also at the centre of large floods two years ago. [...]

This year could be no less disastrous. With the flood season approaching, China has warned that nearly 30,000 reservoirs have safety problems, and some might even collapse. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


US experts say global warming faster than thought
Thu Jun 24,12:40 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A new US supercomputer has shown that global temperatures could be rising more than scientists had thought, experts said.

The computer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research projects that temperatures could rise by 2.6 degrees Celsius (4.7 degrees Fahrenheit) if countries continue to emit large amounts of carbon dioxide.

The previous estimates were a rise of about two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Farmers contend with frost
Some News Source

SASKATOON - Wednesday night's frost has had a dampening effect on the spirits of many Saskatchewan farmers.

Even if it turns out there wasn't extensive frost damage, the frost will delay the development of many crops.

Lorne McClinton, a farmer from near Yellow Grass, says the frost is a challenge that producers don't need right now.

He worked late Wednesday night spraying herbicide on his late maturing crops and when he woke up, McClinton was dismayed to see frost on his vehicles.

He says this has been a trying year. First it was too dry—then too wet. He has experienced flooding, hail, and now frost.

"Maybe I should be checking Exodus and making a check list of the plagues of Egypt because so far, like I said we're doing well on them. All we need is locusts and we'll just about have them." [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Europe tackles freak weather risk
By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent
Friday, 25 June, 2004, 16:24 GMT 17:24 UK

Rising temperatures are shrinking all but two of the main glaciers that give Europeans clean water, scientists say.

A report by the European Environment Agency says the current rate of glacier retreat is now reaching levels higher than those of the last 10,000 years.

It says climate change is affecting the whole environment, from the plight of glaciers to plants' growing seasons.

The EEA is developing a continent-wide internet information system to help people to prepare for extreme weather.

Looking for help

From 1850 to 1970, it says in EEA Signals 2004, glaciers in the European Alps lost about a third of their area and half their mass, with 20-30% of the remaining ice lost since 1980.

It says about 75% of the glaciers in the Swiss Alps are likely to disappear by 2050.

The agency's executive director, Professor Jacqueline McGlade, said what happened during extreme events was perhaps more important than the monitoring of climate change's impacts.

Speaking at a conference in Hungary of European environment and health ministers organised by the World Health Organisation, Professor McGlade said the EEA had placed on its website satellite images of the distribution of fires in Italy and Portugal in recent summers.

Pinpointing the problems

She said: "We noticed a significant increase in web traffic and were informed after the event that the public had been unable to obtain local information of where fires were spreading and were therefore using the EEA site instead."

So the agency was building "a geo-referenced public information service on the environment, called In Your Backyard".

Professor McGlade told BBC News Online: "What that means is you'll be able to type in your postcode, wherever in Europe you live, and find information about your neighbourhood.

"Some of it will be about landfill sites, or power plants, for example, and that part should be ready by the end of this year.

"But by mid-2005 we hope to be providing details of threats from events like heatwaves, droughts and floods."

"The time has come when extreme weather needs dealing with systematically, not simply as something you forget about the day after it's happened." [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Chilly weather keep golfers off links
CBC Winnipeg

WINNIPEG - The low temperatures over the past couple of months has been more than unpleasant for people in the golf business. They're losing money.

Manitoba has suffered through its coldest spring in almost 60 years; May and June temperatures have been locked in the low teens – 10 degrees below normal. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Lightning sparks new fires
Jun 25 2004 08:49 AM PDT

VANCOUVER - There were at least 4,200 lightning strikes as a major storm system moved across across B.C. on Thursday, triggering more wildfires.

The B.C. Forest Service says there are now more than 358 forest fires burning. On the same day last year, there were only 57 wildfires burning in B.C. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Abrupt Climate Change: New Research Supports Hypothesis That Ocean Currents Redistributed Heat During Rapid Warming And Cooling
Georgia Institute Of Technology
2004-06-25

A paper published this week in the journal Science supports the hypothesis that heat transfer by ocean currents – rather than global heating or cooling – may have been responsible for the global temperature patterns associated with the abrupt climate changes seen in the North Atlantic during the past 80,000 years.

Authored by the University of Bremen's Frank Lamy and colleagues, the paper provides new evidence that Southern Hemisphere climate may not have changed in step with Northern Hemisphere climate. Though these new measurements of ocean surface temperature off Chile are consistent with information from Antarctic ice core samples, they still contradict measurements made on land in the Southern Hemisphere – suggesting additional research will be needed to resolve the issue.

Scientists have found evidence of rapid and dramatic climate change that took place in a matter of decades during cool periods of the last 80,000 years in the North Atlantic. Knowing whether climate changes took place simultaneously in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres is vital to understanding the mechanism involved – and assessing whether similar abrupt climate change could be a threat today.

"People are very interested in these dramatic climate changes because they occur on very human time scales," said Jean Lynch-Stieglitz, associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology and author of a "Perspectives" article accompanying the Lamy paper in Science. "It's really important to understand what is causing them and what conditions are necessary for the climate to rapidly transition from cold to warm and back again." [...]

"The real significance of this paper is that it gets us closer to understanding the mechanism causing these rapid climate changes," she said. "Earlier sediment core work at lower resolution has suggested that the Southern Hemisphere has been doing its own thing. The record from Antarctica is nicely resolved and shows that the Southern Hemisphere is not participating either in magnitude or timing with the climate changes that have occurred in the North Atlantic."

The Lamy researchers studied sediment cores taken from a location off the coast of southern Chile where sediment builds up rapidly, providing detailed information about climate change with good time resolution. Their 50,000-year record is consistent with Antarctic ice core data showing that Southern Hemisphere climate change did not occur at the same or in the same magnitude as Northern Hemisphere change.

"What this paper suggests is that that when it was really cold off Greenland in the North Atlantic, it was actually a bit warm off Chile," said Lynch- Stieglitz. "That's very similar to the record in Antarctica. The fact that the ocean off Chile looks so much like what has been going on in Antarctica gives us hope that there may be a consistent response throughout the Southern Hemisphere."

Knowing what was happening in the Southern and Northern Hemispheres is important because the mechanisms that could have caused synchronized change differ dramatically from those that could have caused unsynchronized change.

Both hemispheres warming and cooling at the same time would imply global changes caused by rising levels of greenhouse gases. But one hemisphere cooling while the other warmed would suggest simple heat transfer, accomplished by changes in ocean or atmospheric currents.

"You can make the climate cool in certain places just by redistributing the heat through changes in ocean currents, atmospheric circulation or both," said Lynch-Stieglitz. "The most fully developed theory to account for these rapid climate changes is that they do represent changes in the transport of heat into the North Atlantic by what we call overturning circulation of the ocean."

In that scenario, warm water flows northward from the Southern Hemisphere into the North Atlantic, where it gives up its heat. Being denser, the cooled water then sinks and flows back south. The scenario accounts for both heating in the north and cooling in the south.

It's possible, Lynch-Stieglitz notes, that both global warming and changes in ocean heat transport occurred simultaneously, though records of carbon dioxide concentrations do not show concentration increases that would be enough by themselves to account for the climate change. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


US experts say global warming faster than thought
WASHINGTON, June 24 (AFP)-

A new US supercomputer has shown that global temperatures could be rising more than scientists had thought, experts said Thursday.

The computer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research projects that temperatures could rise by 2.6 degrees Celsius (4.7 degrees Fahrenheit) if countries continue to emit large amounts of carbon dioxide.

The previous estimates were a rise of about two degrees Celsiusdegrees Fahrenheit).

Information from the Community Climate System Model, known as CCSM3, will be presented to the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change, an international body of experts established by the United Nations to assess the environmental impact of climate change.

According to the US National Science Foundation (NSF), a variety of models in the past have been used to understand the effects of carbon dioxide, a common greenhouse gas emitted by cars and power plants.

Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have increased significantly in recent decades to about 370 million parts per million today and levels are continuing to rise.

If carbon dioxide emissions were to double, most scientific models agree that this would signifigantly increase global temperatures.

But, the models have been unable to produce consistent results in trying to determine the impact of other sources global warming, such as radiation from clouds or thunderstorms and the effect aerosol gases have on the environment.

Clifford Jacobs, an NSF scientist, said that with the new models "the degree of uncertainty has narrowed."

"We have a higher degree of confidence in these results than in the previous results."

Jacobs said scientists now hope their models will become sophisticated enough to predict how climate change will affect specific regions, such as in Africa or the American Midwest.

He hopes the scientific breakthrough will "better inform the ongoing debate" over global warming.

"The key question is: How much of the change is a natural variability and how much of the change is caused by activities of mankind on the face of planet," he said.

Click here to comment on this article


Floods Hit Guam As Typhoon Strikes Area
Mon Jun 28, 8:27 AM ET

HAGATNA, Guam - The Northern Mariana Islands were under a typhoon warning Monday as Tropical Storm Tingting was upgraded to typhoon status. As the storm moved through the region, it dumped record-breaking rains, causing flooding and mudslides on neighboring Guam.

Saipan and Tinian were under a typhoon warning as the storm moved northwest at about 9 mph, according to the National Weather Service.

As of early Monday afternoon, the storm had maximum winds of 75 mph with gusts of 90 mph, with damaging winds extending up to 140 miles from the center, forecasters said.

The center of the typhoon was located 100 miles north-northeast of Saipan, 175 miles north-northeast of Rota and 230 miles north-northeast of Guam. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Heavy Rains Cause Flooding in Colo. Areas
By P. SOLOMON BANDA
Associated Press Writer
Sun Jun 27,11:23 PM ET

DENVER - More than 2 inches of rain along the Rocky Mountain foothills Sunday afternoon flooded streets and basements, destroyed a house, sent mud down a hillside and forced the rescues of several people.

A 12-year-boy riding his bicycle through a creek was swept nearly a mile downstream by a wall of water in Colorado Springs, said firefighter spokesman Capt. Randy Royal. He was transported to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries and evaluation for hypothermia.

"He's lucky he survived that," Royal said.

Several other people needed to be rescued by passers-by and firefighters as creeks quickly turned into raging rivers.

"It surprised them," Royal said. "It was a lot of rain in a short amount of time." [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Fires force RCMP to close Alaska Highway
globeandmail

Vancouver — Nineteen people were forced to flee their homes late Sunday night as a forest fire raced towards two tiny communities on the Yukon-B.C. border.

Everyone who was asked to leave did, said Cynthia Mann, a provincial fire information officer.

Yukon fire crews fighting the Cole River fire placed sprinklers on all threatened structures, but by Monday afternoon, Ms. Mann said it wasn't clear on whether anything had been damaged.

“The wind is blowing the ash ahead of the fire and its creating new fires ahead of it and that's usually associated with extreme fire behaviour,” Ms. Mann said, adding the fire is about 100 square kilometres in size. [...]

Click here to comment on this article


Températures records en Espagne pour un 28 juin
Yahoo France
Comment: Sections of Spain experienced record heat on Monday, with temperatures passing 40 degrees C (104 F) in the south. Madrid reached 39.3 degrees, breaking a previous record of 38.1 on June 28, 1931. The heat wave is expected to last until Thursday.

Click here to comment on this article


Strong winds buffet Saga Prefecture
Some News Source

FUKUOKA (Kyodo) - Strong winds blew through Saga Prefecture on Sunday morning, causing blackouts, damage and minor injuries to 13 people, according to local fire and police officials.

The gusts, which occurred at around 7:20 a.m., knocked down five power poles, causing up to 6,300 houses in the Saga area to lose electricity, Kyushu Electric Power Co. officials said. Traffic lights also stopped working.

About 260 houses were damaged and some cars were blown on to their sides. The roof of an elementary school and gates at a high school pool were damaged.

The Saga Local Meteorological Observatory said the gusts may have resulted from a tornado traveling at a speed of 180 kph to 248 kph.
The observatory said the atmospheric pressure dropped sharply due to a seasonal rain front in the prefecture.

The gusts recorded a wind velocity of 65.16 kph at 7:22 a.m.
"Due to rain clouds that developed around Saga, a situation was created under which tornadoes and gusts could easily occur," an observatory official said.

Click here to comment on this article


Rice yields dip as planet warms
BBC News

There is a strong link between increasing night temperatures and decreasing rice yields

Global warming could have a severe effect on rice production, say scientists working in the Philippines.

The researchers studied 12 years of rice yields and 25 years of temperature data, to work out how they are linked.

Yields dropped by 10% for each degree of warming, an alarming trend since rice is the staple diet for most of the world's expanding population, they say.

[...] They found that average daytime temperatures, which increased by 0.35C since 1979, had little effect on productivity.

However, there was a strong link between increasing night temperatures - which rose by an impressive 1.1C over 25 years - and decreasing rice yields, they discovered.

[...] Computer models of climate change suggest that night-time temperatures will continue to rise faster than in the day - by several degrees C in the coming decades.

This is bad news for rice because it often grows in the tropics - very near the top end of its temperature range. So a slight increase in temperature can bear a heavy cost.

Click here to comment on this article


Continue to July 2004

 



Remember, we need your help to collect information on what is going on in your part of the world!

We also need help to keep the Signs of the Times online.


Send your comments and article suggestions to us Email addess


Fair Use Policy

Contact Webmaster at signs-of-the-times.org
Cassiopaean materials Copyright ©1994-2014 Arkadiusz Jadczyk and Laura Knight-Jadczyk. All rights reserved. "Cassiopaea, Cassiopaean, Cassiopaeans," is a registered trademark of Arkadiusz Jadczyk and Laura Knight-Jadczyk.
Letters addressed to Cassiopaea, Quantum Future School, Ark or Laura, become the property of Arkadiusz Jadczyk and Laura Knight-Jadczyk
Republication and re-dissemination of our copyrighted material in any manner is expressly prohibited without prior written consent.