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Researchers Find Ocean Temperatures Rising, Even in the Depths

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© ReutersUnderwater "Submarine" Volcano Erupts near Japan
An important piece of the global-warming picture has come into clearer focus with a confirmation by scientists that the world's oceans have soaked up much of the warming of the last four decades, delaying its full effect on the atmosphere and thus on climate.

The warming of the deep oceans had long been predicted, and the consequent delaying effect long thought to exist.

But until now the ocean's heat absorption had not been definitively demonstrated, and its magnitude had not been determined.

The finding, by scientists at the National Oceanographic Data Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, is based on an analysis of 5.1 million measurements, by instruments around the world, of the top two miles of ocean waters from the mid-1950's to the mid-1990's.

Comment: The oceans are not soaking up the warming from above, they are heating from below.


Igloo

Selection and substitution of data: Blame the cold on natural cycles, but the rain is humanity's fault!

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© Irish TimesA pedestrian battles the elements in Dunboyne, Co Meath, Ireland in January
Last winter's weather might have been extreme but according to a new report it was within 'normal variability'

The heavy rainfalls and the resultant floods they caused last November were not triggered by climate change. Nor does the big chill that froze things solid at the turn of the year mean that global warming has somehow passed us by.

Both events - though certainly extreme - were within the range of "natural variability", according to a study published this morning by the Royal Irish Academy.

Comment: Oh, so when there is a heatwave, it is down to man-made global warming, but when there is a deep freeze, it is down to natural cycles. What passes for consistency in mainstream "science" today is breathtaking!

The widespread flooding along the west coast from Galway down to Cork sparked considerable public concern. There were fears that submerged homes would now be the norm due to climate change.

These fears are misplaced however, according to Prof Ray Bates, chairman of the RIA's climate change sciences committee.

"We are not saying global warming is not significant, it is very significant," he said in advance of the report's launch. Climate change induced by human activity remains "a long-term threat", he says.

Comment: Just you wait Henry Higgins, just you wait! Sott.net's 4-year weather forecast: floods, lots of them. Droughts and sudden localised heatwaves too, but predominantly deluges of rain, later turning to storeys-high snow and ice with a risk of psychopaths-induced Ice Age.


Bizarro Earth

Russia: Earthquake Magnitude 6.2 - Off The East Coast of Kamchatka

Kamchatka Quake_300710
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Friday, July 30, 2010 at 03:56:14 UTC

Friday, July 30, 2010 at 03:56:14 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
52.535°N, 159.919°E

Depth:
21 km (13.0 miles)

Region:
OFF THE EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA, RUSSIA

Distances:
101 km (63 miles) ESE (122°) from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Russia

333 km (207 miles) NE (50°) from Severo-Kuril'sk, Kuril Islands, Russia

496 km (308 miles) SW (236°) from Nikol'skoye, Komandorskiye Ostrova, Rus.

2455 km (1526 miles) NE (34°) from TOKYO, Japan

Attention

Plankton, Base of Ocean Food Web, in Big Decline

Washington - Despite their tiny size, plant plankton found in the world's oceans are crucial to much of life on Earth. They are the foundation of the bountiful marine food web, produce half the world's oxygen and suck up harmful carbon dioxide.

And they are declining sharply.

Worldwide phytoplankton levels are down 40 percent since the 1950s, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The likely cause is global warming, which makes it hard for the plant plankton to get vital nutrients, researchers say.

The numbers are both staggering and disturbing, say the Canadian scientists who did the study and a top U.S. government scientist.

Binoculars

Montana, US: Woman Recounts Bear Attack as Caught Grizzly ID'd

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© Matthew Brown/AP PhotoAn unidentified U.S. Forest Service Employee closes the gate at the entrance to the Soda Butte Campground in Cooke City, Mont., Thursday, July 29, 2010.
One of the survivors of a deadly grizzly bear attack said Thursday she realized her only hope was to play dead after feeling the bear's jaw clamp onto her arm in the middle of the night.

Wildlife officials were testing the DNA of a bear captured at the site of the early Wednesday mauling to confirm it was the animal that also killed a Michigan man and hurt another camper near Yellowstone National Park, but they said they were confident they had caught the right animals.

"Something woke me up, and a split second later, I felt teeth grinding into my arm," Deb Freele of London, Ontario, said from her bed at a Wyoming hospital. "I realized, at that split second, I was being attacked by a bear, but I couldn't see it.

"It was behind me and I screamed. I couldn't help it - it's kind of like somebody else was screaming," she told The Associated Press. "And then it bit me harder, and more. It got very aggressive and started to shake me."

Bizarro Earth

More than 30,000 trapped by floods in China's northeast

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© Unknown
More than 30,000 people are thought to be trapped by floodwaters in a town in northeast China, state media said Wednesday, as torrential rain that has killed over 300 in two weeks continues.

China is struggling with its worst flooding in a decade tat has left 1,405 dead or missing since the beginning of the year and caused at least 26 billion dollars in damage, and authorities have warned of more to come.

In the central city of Wuhan, tens of thousands of people have been evacuated as authorities brace for flood crests from the Yangtze River and one of its tributaries to converge there.

More than 200 rescue workers have been sent to northeastern Jilin province's Kouqian town to reach 30,000 residents thought to be trapped after a nearby reservoir overflowed, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The local train station was also surrounded by water with over 80 people trapped inside, it said.

Bizarro Earth

EPA: 1M gallons of oil may be in Michigan river

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EPA says 1 million gallons of oil may have spilled in Mich. river, governor criticizes cleanup.

Federal officials now estimate that more than 1 million gallons of oil may have spilled into a major river in southern Michigan, and the governor is sharply criticizing clean-up efforts as "wholly inadequate."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the update Wednesday night, shortly after Gov. Jennifer Granholm lambasted attempts to contain the oil flowing down the Kalamazoo River. She warned of a "tragedy of historic proportions" if the oil reaches Lake Michigan, which is still at least 80 miles downstream from where oil has been seen.

Granholm called on the federal government for more help, saying resources being marshaled by the EPA and Enbridge Inc., which owns the pipeline that leaked the oil, were "wholly inadequate."

Bizarro Earth

Philippines: Earthquake Magnitude 6.6 - Moro Gulf, Mindanao

Moro Quake_290710
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 07:31:56 UTC

Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 03:31:56 PM at epicenter

Location:
6.474°N, 123.379°E

Depth:
618.8 km (384.5 miles)

Region:
MORO GULF, MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES

Distances:
128 km (80 miles) SW (229°) from Cotabato, Mindanao, Philippines

151 km (94 miles) ESE (109°) from Zamboanga, Mindanao, Philippines

152 km (94 miles) S (185°) from Pagadian, Mindanao, Philippines

943 km (586 miles) SSE (164°) from MANILA, Philippines

Binoculars

New garbage patch discovered in Indian Ocean

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© NOAAMap of the five ocean gyres
Scientists recently announced the existence of a garbage patch in the Indian Ocean - the third major collection of plastic garbage discovered in the world's oceans. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located in the North Pacific Ocean gyre, is well known. And more recently scientists confirmed the existence of a second garbage patch in the North Atlantic gyre.

Marcus Eriksen, cofounder of 5 Gyres Institute, reports that all of the 12 water samples collected in the 3,000 miles between Perth, Australia, and Port Louis, Mauritius (an island due East of Madagascar), contain plastic.

"We did find another large concentration of plastic debris," says the marine scientist who co-founded 5 Gyres Institute with his wife, Anna Cummins, to research plastic pollution in the world's oceans. The team works in collaboration with Algalita Marine Research Foundation and Pangaea Explorations.

Bizarro Earth

Scientists Discover and Image Explosive Deep-Ocean Volcano

underwater volcano
© NOAA and NSFROV Jason gets a close view of magma explosions and lava flows on West Mata volcano (May 2009).
Scientists funded by NOAA and the National Science Foundation recorded the deepest erupting volcano yet discovered, describing high-definition video of the undersea eruption as "spectacular." Eruption of the West Mata volcano, discovered in May, occurred nearly 4,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, in an area bounded by Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.

Imagery includes large molten lava bubbles approximately three feet across bursting into cold seawater, glowing red vents explosively ejecting lava into the sea, and the first-observed advance of lava flows across the deep-ocean seafloor. Sounds of the explosive eruption were recorded by a hydrophone and later matched to the video footage.

"We found a type of lava never before seen erupting from an active volcano, and for the first time observed molten lava flowing across the deep-ocean seafloor," said the mission's Chief Scientist Joseph Resing, a chemical oceanographer at the University of Washington who collaborates with NOAA through the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean. "Though NOAA and partners discovered a much shallower eruption in 2004 in the Mariana Arc, the deeper we get, the closer the eruption is to those that formed most of the oceanic crust."