[...] As a result of heavy rains and the effects of changing climate,there has been an outbreak of dengue fever in four states of the country. More than 3,000 cases of dengue fever were reported and seven of them died.

Mexican President Vicente Fox Thursday urged relevant authorities to strengthen preventive measures against the deadly disease and prevent the epidemic further spreading.

C-19 separated from the western face of the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica in May 2002, splashed into the Ross Sea, and virtually eliminated a valuable food source for marine life. The event was unusual, because it was the second-largest iceberg to calve in the region in 26 months.

Over the last year, the path of C-19 inhibited the growth of minute, free-floating aquatic plants called phytoplankton during the iceberg's temporary stopover near Pennell Bank, Antarctica. C-19 is located along the Antarctic coast and has diminished little in size. Since phytoplankton is at the base of the food chain, C-19 affects the food source of higher-level marine plants and animals. [...]

C-19 is about twice the size of Rhode Island. When it broke off the Ross Ice Shelf, the iceberg was 32 km (almost 20 miles) wide and 200 km (124 miles) long. It was not as large as the B-15 iceberg that broke off of the same ice shelf in 2001 but among the largest icebergs ever recorded. [...]

Roofs were blown from houses in Port Macquarie and Kempsey. [...]

The landslides, continuing for the ninth consecutive day on Thursday, affected new localities like Collectorate and Masjid Mohalla areas in the town, situated on the foothills of Varunavat mountain, Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Uttarkashi, Mahendra Prasad told PTI. [...]

Tsunami triggered by the Sept. 26 temblor that struck Hokkaido left fishing boats askew at Otsu port.

Though Japan's tsunami warning system is among the best in the world, even it came up woefully short in predicting what to expect from the magnitude 8.0 quake that rocked the northern island of Hokkaido on Sept. 26. [...]

At this location, the sun sets in April and rises in September. During the four-month night, the stars shine constantly against crisp black skies, never rising nor setting, but wheeling about in circles above the automated photometric search equipment. Weather, despite the cold (temperatures average a bone-chilling negative 49 degrees Centigrade!) is relatively mild with few storms and moderate winds. [...]

About 1,000 scientists at a World Climate Change Conference in Moscow ending on Friday were sharply divided over Putin's belief that Russians could benefit overall from a world with less bone-chilling winters.

But some experts say that agricultural output in the key southern grain areas could be hit by a forecast decline in rains even though a warmer climate will extend growing areas further north as the permafrost thaws in Siberia.

"Climate change will generally not benefit Russia," said Joseph Alcamo of the University of Kassel in Germany. Harvests in the south might be hit by more frequent droughts, he added. [...]

A tsunami wave higher than any in recorded history threatens to ravage the US coastline in the aftermath of a volcanic eruption in the Canary Islands, UK and US scientists will report today. Locations on both African and European Atlantic coastlines - including Britain - are also thought to be at risk.

The new research, a collaboration between Dr. Simon Day of the Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre at UCL and Dr. Steven Ward of the University of California, reveals the extent and size of the mega-tsunami, the consequence of a giant landslide that may be triggered by a future eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano.

Previous research by Simon Day and colleagues predicted that a future eruption would be likely to cause a landslide on the western flank of Cumbre Vieja. A block of rock approximately twice the volume of the Isle of Man would break off, travelling into the sea at a speed of up to 350 kilometres per hour. The disintegration of the rock, this earlier study predicted, would produce a debris avalanche deposit extending 60 kilometres from the island. The energy released by the collapse would be equal to the electricity consumption of the entire United States in half a year.

The new model - which provides further insights into the consequences of the collapse - predicts that the landslide would create an exceptionally large tsunami with the capability to travel great distances and reaching speeds of up to 800 kilometres per hour. Immediately after Cumbre Vieja's collapse a dome of water 900 metres high and tens of kilometres wide will form only to collapse and rebound. As the landslide continues to move underwater a series of wave crests and troughs are produced which soon develop into a tsumani 'wave train' which fuels the waves progress. After only 10 minutes, the model predicts, the tsunami will have moved a distance of almost 250 kilometres.

The greatest effects are predicted to occur north, west and south of the Canaries. On the West Saharan shore waves are expected to reach heights of 100 metres from crest to trough and on the north coast of Brazil waves over 40 metres high are anticipated. Florida and the Caribbean, the final destinations in the North Atlantic to be affected by the tsunami, will have to brace themselves for receiving 50 metre high waves - higher than Nelson's column in London, some 8 to 9 hours after the landslide. Towards Europe waves heights will be smaller, but substantial tsunami waves will hit the Atlantic coasts of Britain, Spain Portugal and France.

Dr Day continued: "The collapse will occur during some future eruption after days or weeks of precursory deformation and earthquakes. An effective earthquake monitoring system could provide advanced warning of a likely collapse and allow early emergency management organisations a valuable window of time in which to plan and respond."

Nine other states, including New York, Massachusetts and Oregon, as well as environmental groups like the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, are expected to join the suit. The legal strategy, an effort to prod federal action on global warming, sets up a battle between the Bush administration and the states over policy on climate change.

In California, the suit is also seen as an effort to stave off challenges to the state's plan to regulate automotive emissions of greenhouse gases.

"This issue is vital to the future of our state," Gov. Gray Davis said in a statement. "It affects important resources like our rich agricultural lands; Sierra snowpack; the safety of our forests and our seaside communities." [...]

"Landslides are not uncommon at the hill but this time, it is the worst occurrence," said Bukit Larut supervisor Wan Mohd Roslan Wan Abdul Rahman yesterday. [...]

"This is the worst flooding in three years and more than 2,000 families are affected," said Lim, who brought over 800 packages of food and drinks for the flood victims. [...]

German officials warned that the river is only 38 centimetres deep in some places, and unless it rains it will soon be possible to wade across it on foot.

The problem of the disappearing Rhine was illustrated this week when a ship carrying 400 tonnes of diesel fuel ran aground on a sandbank near Bonn. River police in nearby Cologne blamed the accident on record low water levels. Nobody was injured.

The accident was the second caused by a lack of water in the Rhine, Europe's busiest waterway, in three days.

Emergency officials continued their search for two pilots whose cargo plane was thought to have crashed into the sea off the Kapiti coast, about 50 kilometres north of Wellington, late yesterday.

A police spokesman said it was difficult to say whether Barry Crowley, 57, and Paul Miller, 50, could have survived the night in rough seas.

South-east of Auckland, police and searchers found the body of a young woman swept away while trying to cross a swollen river in a four-wheel drive vehicle, National Radio reported.

Police said the 18-year-old was with two other people in a utility truck which tried to cross a flooded stream in the early hours of yesterday morning.

They were washed downstream but her companions made it to shore safely.

A state of civil emergency was declared Friday night after flooding in Paekakariki, 42 kilometres north of Wellington, where a swollen river swept water, mud and rocks through homes and over a road and railway.

The conclusion was reached by scientists involved in China's second scientific expedition which returned to Shanghai on Sept. 26 after a 74-day exploration in the Arctic.

The thickness of the ice layer in the Arctic is now roughly at 2.75 meters, a significant decrease from 4.88 meters in the 1980s, said Dr. Zhang Zhanhai, leader of the expedition and director with the Shanghai-based China Polar Research Center.

Statistics indicate that as of September 2002, the ice layer in the Arctic shrank to approximately 5.18 million square kilometers, around 1.03 million fewer than in the 1980s.

Scientists have also found that the ice layer is usually about two meters thick at the areas around 80 degrees north latitude in the Canadian basin. In the areas south of 78 degrees north latitude, scientists could barely find the old ice layer, which isnormally thicker than three meters.

Liu Xueshan, deputy head of Dongming county in Shandong, said the inner dikes in Lankao county of the neighboring Henan "are no longer able to hold up the floodwater, which is overflowing the river's inner dikes toward nearby shoal areas at the lower reaches."

Three slits along the river, one 200 meters long and two others 100 meters long, are gushing and spurting out water to inundate plain areas in western Shandong, endangering the life of over 86,000 locals in 127 villages and submerging 10,800 ha of cropland, he said.

Mexico rushed relief supplies to the coast and put thousands of relief personnel on alert Saturday as Tropical Storm Larry churned toward land, Nora became a hurricane in the Pacific and Tropical Storm Olaf gathered force south of Acapulco.

With Mexico facing three storms hitting in the coming days, by far the greatest danger was posed by Larry. Mexico extended tropical storm warnings and a hurricane watch for the Gulf coast from Tuxpan to Campeche as residents braced for high tides, punishing rains and heavy floods.

Larry's center was slowly moving toward the coast Saturday and was forecast to make landfall Sunday. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said that tropical-storm force winds could begin lashing the coast late Saturday.[...]

Meanwhile, Hurricane Kate swirled in the Atlantic far away from land, about 695 miles southeast of Bermuda, packing maximum sustained winds of 115 mph, making it a major Category 3 storm. Kate was forecast to weaken significantly before hitting Newfoundland in eastern Canada sometime Tuesday.

"It's going to remain over the sea," said meteorologist Mike Campbell in an interview yesterday.

"Our big concern is just rainfall." [...]

[...] The big, fan-shaped glacier had vanished completely. The edge of the lake was now marked with bare rock walls, and the lake itself was swollen with extra meltwater. The area was barely recognisable.

It was with a heavy heart that I loaded my new slides into the projector after my return to Wales. As the image came up, my father leaned forwards with a stricken expression. 'Good God, I can't believe it. That was the whole character of the place. It's so sad.' He paused, as if to take it in. 'It's so sad,' he said again. [...]

The China International Committee for Natural Disaster (CICND) said tens of millions of rural people in China's central and western areas have suffered from the shortage of drinking water.

The State Electricity Regulatory Commission said recently that power supply and demand last year was balanced generally while this year the demand exceeded the supply and some areas faced severe power shortages.

[...] On those scorching days, some blackouts occurred as local residents switched on their fans and air conditioners.

[...] Besides people just wanting to cool off, economic officials attributed the electricity shortage to the higher production by enterprises after the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak.

Because a drought has continued to affect the Yellow River, power supply is strained in Qinghai and Gansu provinces and the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in its valleys. These regions all rely heavily on hydroelectric power.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said during a recent visit to fire-hit areas in southern France a total of 54,000 hectares of woodlands had been destroyed across the country thus far this year -- the worst total in 15 years.

Geomagnetic storms are predicted to reduce by a similar extent, from an average 40 per year to about 13. This is in marked contrast to the past 100 years, which saw rising numbers of solar flares, sunspots and geomagnetic storms.

The change could go some way towards counteracting the effects of global warming, say the researchers. In the last century the Sun is thought to have contributed between 4% and 20% of global warming. This and the blanketing effect of greenhouse gases raised the Earth's temperature by an average 0.7C.

The British Atlantic Survey research suggests that in years to come the Sun will make less of an impact on climate. Dr Mark Clilverd, who led the study, said: "This work is speculative and relies on the idea that the Sun shows regular cycles of activity on timescales of 10 to 10,000 years, and that its heat output and activity are related".

"But we believe the work is well grounded and the effect of solar activity on Earth's environmental system will not increase in the way it has during the century." [...]

The computer is 40 times faster than any other machine in operation in the world. It will enable scientists to tell years in advance whether storms or droughts can be expected in specific regions of the Earth. [...]

The best supercomputers to date have only been able to predict far off weather trends in regions no smaller than 250 square kilometres. The Earth Simulator takes this resolution down to 10 square kilometres - small enough to encompass individual storm systems.

According to statistics from the State Forestry Administration, over 300 species of terrestrial vertebrate animals and some 410 species of wild plants are at risk, the Xinhua news agency said.

By 2010, China will have a total of 3,000 to 4,000 plants on the brink of being wiped out, the report cited experts as warning. [...]

Almost half of the animals have made their homes in buildings - with lofts and attics favourite targets. One couple said they had caught at least 43 in their attic over the last year.

The Society for Wildlife Ecology and Conservation estimates the number of raccoons in Germany could be as high as one million.

The animals, which are native to North America, were introduced to Germany in 1934 by poultry breeder Rolf Haag who convinced the authorities that they would "enrich the fauna".

Yang Yanyin, Chinese vice-minister of civil affairs, said the central government had reinforced disaster relief efforts as the nation had suffered more than the usual number of natural disasters this year.

China was jolted by a total of 29 earthquakes above five on Richter Scale this year in addition to severe insect pest problems in the north and flooding in the south. Approximately 2.62 million residential buildings tumbled and damages or cracks were brought to 6.8 million. Over 50.7 million hectares of crops were seriously affected by various natural adversities. About 6.31 million people were displaced from their homes. [...]

During floods in early 2002, at least 30 people were killed and 300,000 were forced to flee their homes. The biggest flood in the city's history hit 168 of 262 subdistricts and paralyzed the capital for days. [...]

It was the first major storm of the fall and brought down power lines and trees.

No one is reported hurt.

The outages occurred from Powell River and the Sunshine Coast to Surrey and Langley and most were quickly repaired.

This is already having a major impact of some aspects of life for the people who live in the mountains - and the government of the country is worried that the situation could get much worse.

In the last three decades Peruvian glaciers have lost almost a quarter of their area.

"This is an indicator which gave us some concern on how the future was going to be on these tropical glaciers," Patricia Iturregui, head of the Climate Change Unit of Peru's National Council for the Environment, told BBC World Service's One Planet programme.

"All our estimations on the basis of this data are that in the next ten years the top tropical glaciers of Peru - and eventually other Andean countries - above 5,500 metres will disappear if climate conditions remain as the last ten years."

The most immediate threat is coming from the change to water supplies in the area. During the dry season, river water comes exclusively from the glaciers, which melt naturally at that time of year. They then replenish themselves in the wet season.

But this balance has been upset - the glaciers are melting faster than they can replenish themselves. As they thaw, dozens of new lakes have spread all over the highland.

A recent report by US space agency Nasa suggested that a large chunk of ice in the area could break off and fall into one of these lakes, triggering a devastating flood.

Satellites had detected a crack in the glacier overlooking Lake Palcacocha.

One city under threat would be Huaraz, with a population of 100,000. The news from Nasa came as a very worrying shock to many in the city. [...]

These "oases" are actually warm patches in the normally ice-covered ocean along Antarctica's coast, enabling vast stretches of open water to support the microscopic plants that are the base of a food chain that ultimately feeds penguins, whales, seals and other animals.

Some of these stretches of open water, known as polynyas, are as big as mini-oceans themselves - at least one is the size of California - but because they are surrounded by ice, they are impossible to see by ship.

For this reason, Stanford University scientists used satellite data to analyse the plant life in these areas.

And while some have predicted that quality should be sufficiently strong that high prices will compensate for lost revenues, the Onivins association warned that nothing was guaranteed.

Five other people were injured in the incident, the agency said, adding that schools across the province had been closed by the winds blowing at 80 kilometres (50 miles) an hour.

The main northwestern towns in Izmir, Canakkale and Istanbul also suffered power cuts and damage such as fallen trees, damaged roofs and overturned cars, the agency said.

Several ferry lines were also suspended due to the rough seas while there was some flooding from Istanbul to Izmir.

Mindy was expected to curve away from Florida and the rest of the mainland, likely to die in the open Atlantic early next week. [...]

The research appears in Friday's issue of the journal Science. According to one meteorologist, the study may help scientists to understand climate variability in Canada's North.

[...] Nathan Gillett of the University of Victoria's School of Earth and Ocean Sciences has now demonstrated another worrisome consequence of the ozone hole.

Gillett, a postdoctoral researcher, has made a computer model of Antarctica. It varies levels of stratospheric ozone and then measures wind speeds and temperatures at sea level.

He has found winds around the South Pole, down into the lower atmosphere, have strengthened.

The winds "have strengthened in the model, up to four metres per second, which is something like seven knots," Gillett said.

The province, which had been hit by rain for five days, reported 11 deaths from collapsed houses Sunday in the counties of Shanyang, Heyang and Longxian. And the new reports came from Lintong district and the counties of Chengcheng and Baishui. [...]

Hoping to improve understanding of the field, the National Research Council renewed on Tuesday its recommendation for a concentrated research effort into both intentional and accidental weather modification. [...]

Washington -- For several years the Environmental Protection Agency has been studying whether an increasingly popular -- but environmentally controversial -- drilling technique used by Halliburton Co. and other big oil and gas operators pollutes underground drinking water supplies.

Now Republicans drafting broad energy legislation have decided not to wait for the EPA to issue its final report. Instead, the House-Senate compromise on the energy bill exempts the technique, known as "hydraulic fracturing," from some of the controls of the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act. [...]

ROOSEVELT -- The concrete steps from a house that stand haphazardly in the bed of Wildcat Wash and the grass sprouting from the two inches of mud on a new bedroom carpet tell only part of the story.

Yes, there was a flood here Sept. 9, when 10 inches of rain fell on a 140-square mile area near Globe in three hours. And yes, when the usually dry Pinto Creek and Campaign and Wildcat washes filled, floodwaters wiped out people's homes.

But the other part of the story is this: Since the flood, very little has been done by the state or federal governments to help the 1,000 people living here. That has residents asking one question: How much does a community need to suffer before governments can help? [...]

The vast sub-aquatic meadows that grow on shallow shelves around the continents are in their own way as important to coastal waters as trees are to the above ground environment, says the report from the United Nations Environment Program World Conservation Monitoring Center. [...]

In the latest edition of The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, published today, the leading peaks in three continents have had their heights revised downward from the previous edition four years ago.

But while this is mainly through more accurate surveying techniques, the maps chart the rapid retreat of bodies of water such as the Dead Sea and Lake Chad as a result of climate change and irrigation.

Among the mountains to lose height is Tanzania's Kilimanjaro, the tallest in Africa, which has lost three metres to stand at 5,892 metres (19,330.7ft).

Mount Cook in New Zealand, the highest peak in Australasia, was physically reduced by 10 metres (30.5ft) to 3,754 metres (12,316ft) following an avalanche of rock and ice in 1991 that removed the entire top. Aconcagua in the Andes, the loftiest point on the Americas continent, was reduced by a metre (3ft) to 6,959 metres (22,831ft), as was Mount Kosciuszko, Australia's highest mountain, which is now 2,229 metres (7,313ft) [...]

The storm had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (80 kph) Wednesday, an increase of 10 mph (16 kph) from the day before, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. [...]

In Maine, the same storm system spawned thunderstorms that knocked out power to tens of thousands, and Gov. John Baldacci declared a state of emergency.

Thousands of residents in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania also lost electric service because of the storm. [...]

The amount of ice lost between 1995 and 2000 was equivalent to to a sea level rise of about 0.105 millimetres per year.

Scientists combined space observation and survey data to study the 63 largest Patagonian ice fields.

Comparing ice loss rates between 1968-1975 and 1975-2000, they found it had more than doubled.

The researchers, led by Eric Rignot from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California said: "The glaciers are thinning more quickly than can be explained by warmer air temperatures and decreased precipitation, and their contribution to sea level per unit area is larger than that of Alaska glaciers." [...]

The move, which aims to probe environmental changes in the Lop Nur area, is part of a national program which focuses on studying the continental environment in China.

Covering 2,570 square kilometers, Lop Nur, to the north of Ruoqiang County, used to be the biggest lake in northwest China, but it dried up in 1972 as a result of desertification and deterioration of the ecological environment.

In its dystopian vision, the first mega city around New York began construction in 2030, intended to house three to four million people.

In a sign of how quickly future dystopias age, the new Times Atlas of the World lists the growing club of real mega cities, all of them with predicted populations of more than 10 million - not by 2030, but by 2005.

According to these estimates, Tokyo - the world's largest city - will hit nearly 27m. Sao Paolo in Brazil will reach just under 20m and Mexico City 19m. Sixteen other cities are expected to exceed the 10m mark, including Bombay (Mumbai) 18m, and Dhaka in Bangladesh, 15m.

Two cities in Africa are expected to go mega - Lagos in Nigeria and Cairo in Egypt. According to the atlas - the 11th edition since it was first published in 1895 - the phenomenon is a mark of a global population in the grips of rapid urbanisation, where close to 50 per cent of the population now lives in cities.

Indeed, the latest estimates predict that urban dwellers will outnumber the rural population for the first time by 2007. [...]

But the mega cities are not the only major human impact noted by the atlas. There has also been a catastrophic impact on the environment. The atlas's authors estimate that 90,000 square kilometres (35,500 sq miles) of forest are being lost each year, the equivalent, since the last edition of the atlas in 1999, of an area the size of the British Isles.

But the greatest impact has come through global warming, with successive editions of the atlas showing shrinking ice fields and evaporating lakes.

It reveals the rapid retreat of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, once the world's fourth largest lake and now the tenth. Since the 1967 edition of the atlas it has shrunk by 39,994 sq km (15,800 sq m). Since the 1975 edition, the surface of the Dead Sea has dropped by a massive 17 metres.

It is the availability of new digital satellite technology that has made the changes so shockingly apparent.

The atlas's chief cartographer, Sheena Barclay, said: 'We are seeing things that you would not have seen 10 or even 15 years ago, changes that we can see by overlaying versions of our satellite images. And we are seeing a lot of concerning things.'

Perhaps the most compelling evidence of global climate change has come not between editions of the atlas but during the preparation of the present volume when the cartographers had to redraw the coastline of Antarctica after the Larsen ice shelf, which is the size of Luxembourg, disintegrated last year.

Record sea temperatures are killing off the plankton on which all life in the sea depends, because they underpin the entire marine food chain. Fish stocks and sea bird populations have slumped. [...]

Such was the case about a month and a half ago in the Yukon River village of Ruby when word--and then a videotape--began circulating about a swath of trees the size of a football field, some with trunks as big as 55-gallon barrels, that had mysteriously snapped off on an island nine miles upstream.

The 150 or so residents in the remote village 200 miles west of Fairbanks immediately began speculating what caused it.
"There were different theories," said local resident Pat McCarty, who inspected the site twice.

While some residents thought it was caused by wind, others suggested that a meteor, or even a UFO, was responsible for the destruction, said McCarty. [...]

About 300 people were removed from the Mount Currie reserve near Squamish in the afternoon - less than 24 hours after about 100 people had fled the town itself.

A few residents who had ignored Friday night's evacuation orders were stranded on their property, Squamish Mayor Ian Sutherland told CBC News.

Officials scrambled to move more people to higher ground Sunday, as flood waters swept through communities north of Vancouver.

Welcome to the "sixth extinction."

That's the chilling term used by John Arnason, a professor of biology at the University of Ottawa, to describe the steady decline of the planet's rich trove of biological species, both plants and animals. [...]

Flood warnings were posted Monday for rivers in several counties of western Washington, especially the Skokomish, Nooksack and Skagit rivers, which overflowed Friday and Saturday, the National Weather Service said.

Seattle broke a one-day rainfall record, with the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport reporting 3.48 inches by Monday evening. The previous record of 3.41 inches was set in 1959. [...]

Dr. Umeh said "the results of my study is not friendly, the environment is contaminated, it is abused, the water is not fit for human consumption. All the fishes in the rivers are contaminated with heavy metals such as iron, zinc, lead, cobalt and so on and this is contrary to the standard of the World Health Organization (WHO)." [...]

Dr. Umeh said that "government must come out to tell the oil companies that they must obey the rules of the environment. Do you know that these oil companies obey the rules in their countries but they abuse environment here? The environment does not need you to live but you need the environment to live", he said.

The huge bubbles can erupt from undersea deposits of solid methane, known as gas hydrates. An odorless gas found in swamps and mines, methane becomes solid under the enormous pressures found on deep sea floors. [...]

"Before Texaco, we were free. We drank from the river, bathed in the river and everything was peaceful because it wasn't polluted," 67-year-old Secoya Indian Esteban Lusitande said in broken Spanish.

"Now there's nothing. We can't even swim." [...]

A sunspot cluster 10 times larger than Earth released a chunk of the sun's outer atmosphere early Wednesday morning, said Larry Combs, a forecaster at the federal Space Environment Center in Boulder.

The so-called "coronal mass ejection" contains more than a billion tons of matter and is streaking toward Earth at nearly 1 million mph, Combs said.

It is expected to slam into Earth's magnetic field Friday, generating a strong geomagnetic storm that could spark a shimmering auroral display as far south as Oregon.

A major solar flare exploded from the same sunspot cluster, known as Region 484, on Sunday. X-rays from the flare knocked out high-frequency radio communications over the continental U.S. for more than two hours, Combs said. Such communications are used by airliners and ships.

The sun reached the peak of its 11-year activity cycle in 2000. The number of sunspots and surface eruptions has been declining since then.

"It's somewhat unusual to have this much activity when we're approximately 3 1⁄2 years past solar maximum," Combs said Wednesday.

Sunspots are dark, relatively cool regions of the sun's surface. They occur when strong, distorted magnetic fields trap heat beneath the sun's surface, keeping the spots slightly cooler than their surroundings. Region 484 is the fourth-largest sunspot cluster in the current 11- year solar cycle, Combs said.

A solar flare is an explosive release of energy that can last minutes or hours. The equivalent of 40 billion Hiroshima-size atomic bombs can be released.

The Space Environment Center is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Earlier this month, Congress threatened to close the center, which provides around-the-clock warnings of solar activity.

In the past three days, two strong centers of dynamic activity have emerged on the sun. The largest is a sunspot cluster roughly 10 times larger than Earth which has already produced a major flare. The NOAA predicts the region will grow and produce additional substantial flare activity. The second not yet visible active region resulted in two powerful eruptions yesterday. The NOAA states, "These eruptions may herald the arrival of a volatile active center with the potential to impact various Earth systems." [...]

In a Special Advisory Bulletin issued yesterday, the NOAA related:

"Further major eruptions are possible from these active regions as they rotate across the face of the sun over the next two weeks. Agencies impacted by solar flare radio blackouts, geomagnetic storms, and solar radiation storms may experience disruptions over this two-week period. These include satellite and other spacecraft operations, power systems, HF communications, and navigation systems." [...]

More than 3,500 acres of the San Bernardino National Forest have been scorched since the fire started on Tuesday, said Maria Daniels, a fire information officer for the blaze.

The fire, which was 17% contained on Thursday night, was not an immediate threat to homes in the Lytle Creek area, 55 miles (88 kilometres) east of Los Angeles. But firefighters did not want the area's 1,000-plus residents to get trapped by the approaching flames, said Tricia Abbas, another fire spokeswoman. [...]

Rescue teams were still working to restore power and rescue people stranded on the roads.

The worst hit areas were primarily in eastern and southern Austria. A major road leading west from Vienna was blocked for three hours after several trucks either crashed or became stranded.

Traffic disruption resulted in part because hundreds of trucks and cars were still equipped with summer tyres, the national automobile association said.

In the region surrounding the southern city of Graz, thousands were without power after snow brought down trees and power lines. Power was also knocked out in parts of the capital Vienna.

Meteorologists said that it was the earliest snowfall in Vienna in 60 years.

In the low-lying area surrounding Vienna, snow usually falls for the first time in late November. The mountainous areas in the Alps, however, see snow much earlier.

More snow and frost was expected for the coming days.

"It is happening now. We cannot afford to wait a long period of time for technological solutions," said David Rind of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

"Change is in the air -- literally," he told a press conference here Thursday. [...]

"Small changes in ice could mean big impacts on the water cycle and ultimately the global climate," warned NASA. [...]

Forecasters said the stormy weather could disrupt satellite communications and poses a threat to power grids on Earth.

The active Sun also presents a nice opportunity for anyone to view sunspots, though safe viewing techniques must be employed to prevent eye damage.

The first storm of charged particles was unleashed by a dark region on the solar surface called Sunspot 484. The huge spot, about the size of Jupiter's surface, has been growing for several days and has rotated into a position that now points squarely at Earth.

Another giant sunspot is brewing and more storms could be generated.

Odd timing

The stormy space weather comes as the Sun is actually in a declining mode of activity. An 11-year solar cycle peaked during 2001 and 2002. Sunspots are fewer now and activity will ramp down during the next three to four years. But, scientists say, isolated severe space weather can occur at any time.

"Its somewhat unusual to have this much activity when were approximately three-and-a-half years past solar maximum," said Larry Combs, a forecaster with the NOAA Space Environment Centers Space Weather Operations. "In fact, just last week, solar activity was very low with an almost spotless Sun."

In scientific circles where solar flares, magnetic storms and other unique solar events are discussed, the occurrences of September 1-2, 1859, are the star stuff of legend. Even 144 years ago, many of Earth's inhabitants realized something momentous had just occurred. Within hours, telegraph wires in both the United States and Europe spontaneously shorted out, causing numerous fires, while the Northern Lights, solar-induced phenomena more closely associated with regions near Earth's North Pole, were documented as far south as Rome, Havana and Hawaii, with similar effects at the South Pole.

"Remarkably, science has documented solar events a hundred times more intense," said Dr. Bruce Tsurutani, a plasma physicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "But none of them interacted with the Earth in such a violent manner.

What happened in 1859 was a combination of several events that occurred on the Sun at the same time. If they took place separately they would be somewhat notable events. But together they create the most potent disruption of Earth's ionosphere in recorded history. What they generated was the perfect space storm," he said. [...]

Five hundred species of fish have been identified since the project began three years ago but scientists believe there are 10 times as many yet to be discovered.

A total of 210,000 species of marine animals and plants are known to science but the true number could be closer to two million - and some are threatened with extinction before they are even named. [...]

The blaze, which has charred about 12,600 acres since starting Tuesday, forced thousands of people to leave their homes in the hilly residential area near the San Bernardino National Forest. Flames have already destroyed four houses and firefighters found themselves battling the fire in back yards. [...]

In a disastrous week for Southern California, about 20,000 acres have been scorched across the region. [...]

The fire, only 17 percent contained, also stretched to the outskirts of Fontana and Rialto in the sprawling suburbs about 50 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

The flames were fanned by hot, dry desert winds of 25 mph and higher, and temperatures soared into the 90s. Forecasters said the wind would only get stronger -- with sustained winds of up to 35 mph Saturday and up to 40 mph Sunday, with higher gusts. [...]

The fire, which authorities blamed on arson, was one of several that swept the region this week. [...]

Several thousand people have been evacuated, as the flames move towards built-up areas.

Hundreds of firefighters are trying to contain the blaze in San Bernardino county, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) east of Los Angeles. [...]

Several areas in provinces to the south of Bangkok were inundated when authorities released water from three dams after very heavy rain last week.

A cold snap in southern Germany saw temperatures overnight plunge to below minus 12 degrees Celsius (10 degrees Fahrenheit), the coldest temperature ever recorded there in October. [...]

The results strongly suggest that Canada's forests won't be able to soak up anywhere near as much excess carbon dioxide as the federal Kyoto action plan assumes.

Because higher carbon dioxide levels make plants grow faster, Ottawa was counting on our forests to soften the impact of greenhouse warming by taking in more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it for decades in the soil as organic matter and other forms of carbon.

By 2008, roughly one-sixth of Canada's Kyoto target reduction in carbon dioxide emissions annually is supposed to come from these forest and farmland "sinks." Federal officials have never made public the detailed studies to support that estimate.

Now, research warns that the projected carbon storage by our forests could be cut in half because of interference from ground-level ozone, a leaf-scorching gas that also comes from burning fossil fuels. And the forests could become a net source of carbon dioxide years sooner than projected.

"Any benefit you get from high carbon dioxide is largely wiped out by ozone," David Layzell told MPs and policy advisers at a briefing about the carbon cycle here this week.

As night fell Sunday, flames had consumed more than 840 square kilometres in four counties that were under a state of emergency. [...]

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This is reported as the worst plague there in three decades.

An independent Sudanese daily said authorities in Gezira State have declared a state of emergency in the hospitals of Wad Medani city to contain the epidemic that broke out when the swarms arrived last Wednesday.

Five people have died among 600 reported cases of asthma in Wad Medani, about 180km southeast of Khartoum.

Presumably, the grasshoppers produced huge clouds of dust.

[...] Grasshoppers were threatening crops of peanuts, sorghum, wheat and cotton throughout Gezira which has the richest farmland in Sudan.

Tree were pulled from the ground, two houses demolished, fruit crops battered and sheds destroyed in the hail storm.

The Stanthorpe State Emergency Service's Col Lindenmayer says the storm only spanned 500 metres, but the intensity was terrific.

"The people there said they had never encountered anything like it in their lives...there was timber...just waves of timber...there was one place where there was 10 acres of pine trees just completely flattened, but the main damage to a lot of the farmers...their hail netting was just torn to ribbons," he said.

BANGKOK (Reuters) -- Heavy floods south of the Thai capital Bangkok have forced thousands of people from their homes and severed the railway line to the south of the country, officials said on Sunday. [...]

Complimentary breakfasts at the Annapolis Marriott Waterfront Hotel -- for guests stuck in the building's upper floors -- were ferried in by rowboat. A minivan parked across the street from the hotel was in water as high as its steering wheel. [...]

At least 1,134 homes had been destroyed and 15 people killed as of Tuesday by five separate blazes scattered around Southern California. Two more people were killed in Mexico.

The flames dotted an area that extended on a 100-mile line from the Mexican border north to the suburbs of Los Angeles.

A handful of other fires that hadn't hit any homes also consumed tens of thousands of acres of brush and forest lands, bringing the total burned to more than 500,000 acres - or about 780 square miles, roughly three-quarters the total area of Rhode Island.

"It's a worst-case scenario. You couldn't have written anything worse than this. You can dream up horror movies, and they wouldn't be this bad," said Gene Zimmerman, supervisor of the San Bernardino National Forest, the area in which two of the most destructive fires began last week. [...]

Few lives were untouched by the fires, which shut down freeways, grounded planes, halted trains and burned power poles. Highways glimmered with an endless stream of headlights at midday with smoke fouling the air. Shoppers grabbed up dust masks and put them on in the store. Parents kept children inside or brought them to work.

Thousands were without power in mountain communities above San Bernardino, prompting a run on electrical generators, which sell for $300 to $800, along with flashlights and batteries. [...]

Due to crop losses caused by drought conditions that started in July, another 31 counties have been named "contiguous disaster counties." [...]

The vast cloud of gas - which with a temperature of 1.8million degrees fahrenheit is more powerful than a billion hydrogen bombs - will hit our planet's atmosphere some time this morning.

There is no chance of it connecting with the Earth's surface or endangering mankind.

But the effect of it bouncing off our planet's magnetic field will create a 'geomagnetic storm' with the power to disable the National Grid. [...]

WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 - The largest ice shelf in the Arctic, a solid feature for 3,000 years, has broken up, scientists in the United States and Canada said Monday. They said the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, on the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada's Nunavut territory, broke into two main parts, themselves cut through with fissures. A freshwater lake drained into the sea, the researchers reported.

LARGE ICE ISLANDS also calved off from the shelf and some are large enough to be dangerous to shipping and to drilling platforms in the Beaufort Sea. [...]

Only 100 years ago the whole northern coast of Ellesmere Island, which is the northernmost land mass of North America, was edged by a continuous ice shelf. About 90 percent of it is now gone, Vincent's team wrote. [...]

"This may well be the worst disaster the state has faced," outgoing California Governor Gray Davis said of the 14 fires, many of which are now thought to have been sparked by arsonists.

"I expect the cost in the next few days to near two billion dollars," he said, adding that the figure included loss of infrastructure, relief and firefighting efforts. [...]

As many as 100,000 people could be affected by the order affecting a wide swath of the San Bernardino mountains, some 120 miles east of Los Angeles.

People reported seeing two men setting fire to a bush near San Bernardino. Melted cigarette lighters and firelighters have been found near the source of three fires around San Diego, where ash has been falling like snow.

A lost hunter who accidentally started a fifth fire north of San Diego with a flare is expected to be charged within 48 hours. [...]

"The situation is very alarming...about 80 percent of families have been affected by the calamity," Agriculture Minister Mamadu Badji said after a visit to the affected regions last week. [...]

More than 2,000 mm (80 inches) of rain have been recorded since the end of August, a figure much higher than in the past 10 years, the weather service said.

That is the claim of two US geologists who carried out a new analysis of rocks from South Africa which were previously dated to the Archaean period - when life first began to diversify.

The findings could have important implications for our understanding of the early Earth and the microbial life forms that lived there.

But one authority on the geology of the Barberton greenstone belt - where the rocks are found - launched a vigorous defence of evidence that they contain ancient hydrothermal vents.

[...] The new study estimates this process took place at the Earth's surface within the last 100,000 years. Consequently, the pods "contain no record of Archaean life or environments".

The report claims the pods are mostly composed of the iron oxide goethite, which is unstable above temperatures of 80-100 Celsius.

"If the pods were part of Earth's original continental material, they would have been exposed to temperatures exceeding 300 [Celsius]," said Professor Gary Byerly of Louisiana State University, US, one of the report's authors.

[...] But Dr Cornel de Ronde of New Zealand's Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences said some rocks described by the US team were miles away from the pods he studied, and probably have a distinct geology.

He suggested "classic" ironstone pods were largely composed of haematite, with a weathered goethite layer.

"Haematite forms at 220-260 Celsius. This stuff can't form at low temperatures - it's impossible," he said.

"By 2010 we forecast just under 20 percent of the global consumption of oil will be supplied by Western and Southern Africa," he said, speaking at the Africa Upstream conference in Cape Town.

"We consider aquaculture as an important source of pollution," said Fouad Abousamra, coordinator of the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP), a UN-backed initiative investigating pollution in the sea that washes the edges of Europe, Africa and Asia.

More than half of Greece's fish production now comes from aquaculture and as one of the leading Mediterranean fish farming nations the country contributes a substantial amount to marine pollution. [...]

Aquaculture can cause environmental damage in several ways: food left uneaten by the fish being reared (up to 30 percent); fish excrement; chemicals used to clean nets; drugs used against marine parasites and diseases.

For every tonne of products it turns out, intensive fish farming spins off large quantities of nitrogen and phosphorus, a MAP report said.[...]

Lu, who was a research astrophysicist before becoming an astronaut in 1994, estimates that he spent 100 hours watching the northern and southern lights during half a year in space. The auroral light show, which takes place well below the station's 380km altitude, shimmers and pulses depending on natural variations in incoming solar particles trapped by the Earth's magnetic field.

On three occasions - July 11, September 24 and October 12 - Lu saw something markedly different: flashes as bright as the brightest stars, which lasted only a second then blinked off again. In one instance, he called crew-mate Yuri Malenchenko over to the window to see the bursts. Lu says they appeared very different from the random but harmless retinal flashes that many astronauts experience when heavy cosmic rays hit their eyeballs. [...]

The 100-acre Cherokee Ranch fire swept across hills of scattered pine and sent smoke pouring into Denver's far southern suburbs. Evacuation calls relying on the Reverse 9-1-1 Emergency System reached 3,000 homes and businesses, and went out less than three hours after the Cherokee Ranch fire was reported. Authorities say 21 busloads of students were also evacuated from an elementary school north of Castle Rock.

Another blaze exploded to some 4,000 acres northwest of Boulder and has burned an unknown number of structures. One official said it would be ``suicidal'' to fight the blaze head on, and air tankers are grounded by high wind. The so-called "Overland Fire" is believed to have been sparked by a downed powerline.

Elsewhere, a brush fire blew up to between 15-hundred and 2,000 acres near Interstate 76 in Morgan County. It was reportedly 70 percent contained early Wednesday evening. Another fire was reported east of Evergreen along Highway 74 near Idledale, and apparently began inside a building. The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved a request from Governor Owens and the state Forest Service for federal resources to deal with the fires.

A shockwave from the Sun has hit the Earth, causing a rare phenomenon in the southern skies near Perth.

Perth Observatory director James Biggs says he observed an aurora, seen as whitish milky light in the sky.

Louis Garneau, spokesman for the company that handles Canada's civil aviation navigation service, described the disruptions as an "inconvenience" for air traffic controllers at Canadian stations that handle an average of 300 northern flights daily.

"The solar flares are causing some disruption on our high frequency voice-radio communications," he said. [...]