Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

China: New oil spill in Bohai Bay, the third since June

Zhou Yan and Wang Qian
China Daily
Wed, 13 Jul 2011 10:11 UTC
china,oil spill
© CFPA screen grab from China’s Central Television (CCTV) on July 6, 2011, shows the devastation caused by the oil spill at the Penglai 19-3 oil field in Bohai Bay off China's eastern coast.

Beijing - A new oil leak was reported in northern China's Bohai Bay, the third since June.

The leak occurred at the Suizhong 36-1 oilfield at 1:30 am on Tuesday due to a malfunction at the central control system, China National Offshore Oil Corp Ltd (CNOOC), the field's operator, said in a statement.

Technicians managed to seal the leak, which covered one square kilometer. Mats and chemicals were used to disperse the sheen which was likely to be cleaned up by Tuesday evening, the company said.
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Cloud Lightning

Canada: Heavy rain causes flooding in Eckville, Alberta


CBC News
Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:02 UTC
Image
© CBCFlooding was caused by heavy rain that fell over the area Monday.
Heavy rains in central Alberta caused flooding in the town of Eckville Monday.

"People are just kind of dumbstruck," resident Sharon Walker said. "We have had washouts of roads. Some people have got 10 to 14 inches of water in their basements ... we've never seen anything like it."

Signs of flooding were everywhere Tuesday. Belongings from water-filled basements were out on lawns and there was a sinkhole on the side of a busy road.
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Cloud Lightning

U.S.: Heavy Rain Hits Metro Area, Northeast Colorado

Wayne Harrison
TheDenverChannel.com
Tue, 12 Jul 2011 09:54 UTC
Image
Denver-- Torrential rain hit the Denver metro area Tuesday night, flooding streets and some buildings and prompting calls for water rescues.

There were numerous reports of cars stalled in high water, with people on the roofs of their cars, requiring rescue.

The monsoon moisture moved from the southwest to northeast across the metro area, pounding the downtown area starting just after 9 p.m.
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Fish

U.S. More Dead Fish in Oklahoma

Jalah Gray
KXll.com
Tue, 12 Jul 2011 09:49 UTC
Marshall County - Large numbers of dead fish continue to show up in waters all over Oklahoma. Today we talked with local fishermen in Marshall County about what they've been experiencing.

"I don't know whether they run out of oxygen or what it is they ought to be able to test the water and find out." said Jack Campbell.

Jack Campbell has been fishing Wilson Creek all his life. He says 3 weeks ago, small fish started dying and now large fish, many more than 40 and 50 pounds are dying as well.
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Attention

Huge underwater volcanoes mapped near Antarctica

Andrea Mustain
MSNBC
Tue, 12 Jul 2011 02:19 UTC
Image
© British Antarctic Survey Newly discovered volcanoes. The peak in the foreground is thought to be the most active, with eruptions in the past few years.
In a first for the region, a dozen massive peaks, some active, are discovered

A string of a dozen volcanoes, at least several of them active, has been found beneath the frigid seas near Antarctica, the first such discovery in that region.

Some of the peaks tower nearly 10,000 feet above the ocean floor - nearly tall enough to break the water's surface.

"That's a big volcano. That's a very big volcano. If that was on land it would be quite remarkable," said Philip Leat, a volcanologist with the British Antarctic Survey who led a seafloor mapping expedition to the region in 2007 and 2010.

The group of 12 underwater mountains lies south of the South Sandwich Islands - desolate, ice-covered volcanoes that rise above the southern Atlantic Ocean about halfway between South America and South Africa and erupted as recently as 2008. It's the first time such a large number of undersea volcanoes has been found together in the Antarctic region.

Leat said the survey team was somewhat surprised by the find.

"We knew there were other volcanoes in the area, but we didn't go trying to find volcanoes," Leat told OurAmazingPlanet. "We just went because there was a big blank area on the map and we had no idea what was there; we just wanted to fill in the seafloor."
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Better Earth

NASA Eyes Dominican Republic Lake's Mysterious Growth


Dominican Today
Tue, 12 Jul 2011 01:35 UTC
Image
© NASAEnriquillo, Cabrito island within. Photo nasa.gov.
Santo Domingo.- Enriquillo Lake has grown around 9,000 hectares from February 26, 2009, to April 15, 2011, a NASA sensor measurement reveals from space, while the Santo Domingo State University's (UASD) Marine Research Center suggests that two underground currents at the Haiti-Dominican border as the possible cause.

The UASD hypothesis that the subsurface currents from Tierra Nueva and Las Lajas, towns adjacent to Haitian territory, spill their waters into Enriquillo and Azuey lakes, could turn out to be the cause behind the as yet unexplained flooding in both bodies of water.

"That amount of water is still draining towards Enriquillo lake from high territories" in the Dominican Republic, NASA said on its Website, and affirms that the lake's surroundings "have been flooded even more than the floods brought about by the rain sequel caused by Hurricane Noel and Tropical Storm Olga in 2007."

NASA's measurements of Enriquillo's underflow level were done with Landsat and Modis type sensors, which also provided satellite imagery in the study.

Enriquillo received 400 millimeters of water during those rains, and surpass 700 millimeters in the last two years, without any rain in the zone, which reveals the magnitude of the flooding that affects the Caribbean region's biggest lake since 2009.
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Igloo

Australia: Perth's on Another Record Cold Spell

Lucy Rickard
The Sydney Morning Herald
Mon, 11 Jul 2011 00:02 UTC
cold graphic
© n/aPerth is on track to experience longest cold spell in 13 years.
Perth is on track to breaking another weather record as low daytime temperatures continue this week.

Weatherzone meteorologist Robert Wood said widespread cloud cover was contributing to the "massive reduction" in day-time temperatures experienced across WA so far this month.

Perth is set to record its second day in a row where the mercury won't reach 14 degrees, which hasn't occurred for 13 years.

Despite the low maximums, Perth's overnight temperatures remained around 10 degrees for the past two nights, and today's highest temperature - 11.6 degrees at 12.30pm - is just 1.3 degrees higher than the overnight low recorded at 5.30am.

So far this month, Perth has had five consecutive days where the overnight temperatures dropped below five degrees, and on every day except one, the maximum had not exceeded 17 degrees.
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Butterfly

In U.S. Midwest, Butterflies May Be Far Fewer due to GMO and Herbicides

Andrew Pollack
The New York Times
Mon, 11 Jul 2011 23:45 UTC
Monarch Butterfly
© Rich Beauchesne/Portsmouth HeraldThe use of a herbicide has taken away a home for monarchs.
As recently as a decade ago, farms in the Midwest were commonly marred - at least as a farmer would view it - by unruly patches of milkweed amid the neat rows of emerging corn or soybeans.

Not anymore. Fields are now planted with genetically modified corn and soybeans resistant to the herbicide Roundup, allowing farmers to spray the chemical to eradicate weeds, including milkweed.

And while that sounds like good news for the farmers, a growing number of scientists fear it is imperiling the monarch butterfly, whose spectacular migrations make it one of the most beloved of insects - "the Bambi of the insect world," as an entomologist once put it.

Monarchs lay their eggs on milkweed, and their larvae eat it. While the evidence is still preliminary and disputed, experts like Chip Taylor say the growing use of genetically modified crops is threatening the orange-and-black butterfly by depriving it of habitat.
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Cloud Lightning

Volcanoes may cause more rain than realized

Elizabeth Weise
USA Today
Tue, 12 Jul 2011 09:48 UTC
Image
© AP

Volcanoes may release particles that can cause changes in local and regional weather at rates up to 100 million times higher than previously realized.

The eruption last spring of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano provided French scientists with the perfect natural laboratory to measure the levels of weather-changing particles released in such eruptions. Taking measurements at the Puy de Dôme research station in central France, they found was that the eruption released much larger amounts of particles at low levels in the atmosphere than previously known.

Volcanoes typically create two types of particles, big primary particles that quickly fall to the troposphere, the lowest portion of Earth's atmosphere, and smaller secondary particles, mostly composed of sulfuric acid, that react chemically with other molecules in the atmosphere and which are responsible for both local and global precipitation changes.
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Snowman

New Zealand: Severe Weather Warning Issued

Natasha Burling
News Talk ZB
Wed, 13 Jul 2011 03:28 UTC
A severe weather warning has been issued for more rain and snow that's set to batter the country today.

MetService is forecasting more heavy snow to nearly sea level in South Westland and Fiordland.

Snowfalls will affect all the main alpine passes and some roads in Southland and Otago.

Motorists are being advised to take extra care and check road conditions before travelling.

Heavy rain is also forecast for the Tararua Ranges today with 100 to 140 millimetres expected.

Warnings for severe gales in parts of Gisborne, Hawke's Bay and Wairarapa have been lifted.
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