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Fri, 05 Nov 2021
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Igloo

Gulf Stream mysteriously slowed in 2009

Brian Handwerk
National Geographic News
Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:00 UTC
Image
© Mari Darr-Welch/AP
High tides lash a Destin, Florida, pavilion—usually on dry land—ahead of tropical storm Claudette on August 17, 2009.
The immediate cause of the unexpected rise has now been solved, U.S. officials say in a new report (hint: it wasn't global warming). But the underlying reason remains a mystery.

Usually, predicting seasonal tides and sea levels is a pretty cut-and-dried process, governed by the known movements and gravitational influences of astronomical bodies like the moon, said Rich Edwing, deputy director for the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

But NOAA's phones began ringing this summer when East Coast residents reported higher than predicted water levels, much like those associated with short-term weather events like tropical storms. But these high seas persisted for weeks, throughout June and July.

The startling rise caused only minor coastal flooding - but major head scratching among scientists.
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Cloud Grey

China starts televising the sunrise on giant TV screens because Beijing is so clouded in smog

James Nye
Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 17 Jan 2014 13:21 UTC
Image

Virtual sunlight: The LED screen shows the rising sun in Tiananmen Square which is shrouded with heavy smog on January 16, 2014 in Beijing, China. Beijing Municipal Government issued a yellow smog alert this morning
The smog has become so thick in Beijing that the city's natural light-starved masses have begun flocking to huge digital commercial television screens across the city to observe virtual sunrises.

The futuristic screens installed in the Chinese capital usually advertize tourist destinations, but as the season's first wave of extremely dangerous smog hit - residents donned air masks and left their homes to watch the only place where the sun would hail over the horizon that morning.

Commuters across Beijing found themselves cloaked in a thick, gray haze on Thursday as air pollution monitors issued a severe air warning and ordered the elderly and school children to stay indoors until the quality improved.

The air took on an acrid odor, and many of the city's commuters wore industrial strength face masks as they hurried to work.

'I couldn't see the tall buildings across the street this morning,' said a traffic coordinator at a busy Beijing intersection who gave only his surname, Zhang. 'The smog has gotten worse in the last two to three years. I often cough, and my nose is always irritated. But what can you do? I drink more water to help my body discharge the toxins.'

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Arrow Down

Golfer swallowed up by 12-foot sinkhole in Waterloo, Illinois

Derek Burnett and Emma Thomas
Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 17 Jan 2014 12:27 UTC
Image

Mike Peters, Hank Martinez, and Ed Magaletta call to Mark Mihal in the sinkhole
  • 43-year-old mortgage banker Mark Mihal was playing golf with three friends
  • He was at the 14th hole of the Annbriar golf course in Waterloo, Illinois
  • Noticing a depression in the ground, he walked over and ground gave way
  • He became trapped in the 12-foot sinkhole and had to be rescued
  • Mr Mihal suffered a broken shoulder and torn tendons after the fall
A claustrophobic mortgage banker has told the story of how a round of golf ended up with him plunging into a sinkhole that opened as he walked across the 14th hole.

Mark Mihal, 43, and his partner Mike Peters, were easily beating regular opponents Ed Magaletta and Hank Martinez during a game in early March last year.

Mr Mihal and Mr Peters had both outdriven the other pair on the 14th hole of the Annbriar golf course in Waterloo, Illinois.

Each landed the ball nicely on the fairway, leaving Mr Magaletta and Mr Martinez at the edge of the woods trying to clear a bunker.

But while Mr Mihal was waiting for Mr Peters to hit his second shot, he noticed a shallow, bathtub-size depression in the grass of the fairway.

It was out of place on the well-kept course, and looked as if it would be tricky to play out of.

He walked over and stepped into the depression - and promptly vanished.
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Eye 2

Like frogs and bats, snakes now face deadly new epidemic

Richard Conniff
takepart.com
Fri, 20 Dec 2013 11:25 UTC
Image
© USGS National Wildlife Health Center
Snake Fungal Disease could send some species spiraling into an "extinction vortex," said one expert.

Somewhere in the back of our minds, we all worry about the sort of nightmare pandemic envisioned in films like Contagion or The Hot Zone, with some horrific new disease sweeping across the continents and mowing down human victims like so much hay. But wildlife biologists worry more than most, because they've already seen emerging diseases devastate two major animal groups.

Now it seems to be happening yet again, while the two other wildlife pandemics are still raging unresolved: Over the past two decades, the chytrid fungus has contributed to the extinction of perhaps 100 amphibian species - including some of the most colorful, charismatic frogs in the world - with many more extinctions now being predicted. White nose syndrome, another fungal disease, first discovered in 2006, has already killed off 6 to 7 million North American bats and now threatens some species with extinction. No reliable remedy is known for either disease.

The victims of what seems to be a new epidemic are snakes, and they may prove even harder to save, because they are widely unpopular and because populations in many areas tend to be small and scattered. Wildlife biologists first noticed the new pathogen in 2006, among New Hampshire's only surviving population of the timber rattlesnake.

The first victim turned up dead in early June, from a severe fungal infection in the mouth. Other victims displayed skin lesions around the head and, in one case, a severely swollen eye. Within a year, half the population was dead.
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Info

White Spot Syndrome outbreak detected in Ernakulam shrimp farms, India


manoramaonline.com
Fri, 17 Jan 2014 10:54 UTC
Image

Varappuzha: Shrimp farms in Ernakulam district are witnessing an outbreak of the contagious White Spot Syndrome (WSS), putting farmers in a fix.
Exports as well as domestic markets earn top dollars for shrimp farmers and the spread of WSS and the resultant death of shrimp in large numbers have created panic among farmers. The spread of WSS was first spotted in 40-50 day old shrimp of 'Kara' breed in Paravoor, Kottuvalli, Varappuzha and Ezhikkara regions.

Fully grown shrimp of Kara breed fetches Rs 500-800 in market depending on the count. Fearing the outbreak of WSS, farmers are now bringing even shrimp, which are not yet fully grown, to the market, but they are unable to attract even one-third of the normal market rate. Unless they are fully-grown, shrimp cannot be exported also, putting farmers in a dilemma. The outbreak of WSS was first revealed after the examination of the shrimp samples conducted at Panangad Fisheries College under the aegis of Kerala Aqua Farmers Federation. There are no effective preventive measures to check the outbreak of WSS

Further examination of shrimp samples revealed the outbreak of the virus in farms located in southern regions of Thrippunithara, Kumbalangi and Chellanam, Kerala Aqua Farmers Federation State Secretary K X Sebastian said.
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Heart - Black

More than 1,000 rhinos killed in South Africa in 2013

Adam Vaughan
The Guardian
Fri, 17 Jan 2014 10:34 UTC
Image
© Alet Pretorius/Getty Images
Carcass of a rhino shot in the Kruger national park of South Africa. Both black and white rhino are killed for their horns.
Poachers killing animals at record rate, sparking fear of demise of entire population within 20 years

More than 1,000 rhinos were killed in South Africa last year at a record-breaking rate that could wipe out the country's entire population of white and black rhinos in a little over two decades.

The environment ministry said 1,004 animals were killed in 2013, mostly in poaching hotspot Kruger national park, as the poaching crisis escalated. The number is a big increase on the 668 killed in 2012, which was in itself a record year, up from just 13 in 2007.

Appetite for rhino horn from Asia, in particular Vietnam, has driven the killing in South Africa, which ministers have warned in turn threatens the country's tourism sector. Demand is so high that a kilogramme of rhino horn is now worth more than gold or cocaine.

The UK prime minister, David Cameron, is hosting a summit in London next month in a bid to tackle the trade which has also seen tens of thousands of elephants killed in Africa annually in recent years.
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Igloo

"97%" of the climate scientists have been wrong for 16 years

P. Gosselin
No Tricks Zone
Fri, 17 Jan 2014 09:15 UTC
Today I would like to debunk the claim that we have to act now because there's a "97% consensus".

In debates I keep hearing the claim that "97% of scientists agree" on global warming science and thus, with such an overwhelming consensus, taking action is a no-brainer. For example Hollywood actor and college dropout George Clooney recently parroted the argument that if 97 of 100 doctors recommend a procedure and 3% don't who are you going to listen to?

Would you listen to the 97 if you knew they had been wrong for 16 years and the remaining 3 had been right all along?

First of all, this "97%" of all climate scientists agree on global warming is bogus to begin with, and is based on a faulty paper by John Cook and Dana Nuccitelli. read here and here.

So in climate science and policy, should we listen to the "97%" and act now? Or should we listen to the outlier 3% fringe group? The answer to that question is: Don't listen to the winner of the popular vote, rather listen to the group that is right. And it turns out that the "97%" have been wrong for the last 16 years and the 3% minority have been right.

97% have been wrong for 16 years

Let's look at the models coming from the "97% consensus" and see how they are doing compared to the real observed data. Here's a plot by Dr. Roy Spencer:

Climate models and observations
© Dr. Roy Spencer
Almost all the models from the "97%" have been flat out wrong.
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Igloo

Falling temperatures are giving climate alarmists chills

David Deming
Washington Times
Fri, 17 Jan 2014 10:10 UTC
Image
Global warming is nowhere to be found. The mean global temperature has not risen in 17 years and has been slowly falling for approximately the past 10 years. In 2013, there were more record-low temperatures than record-high temperatures in the United States.

At the end of the first week in January, a brutal spell of cold weather settled over most of the country. Multiple cold-temperature records were shattered across the country. Some sites experienced frigid conditions not seen since the 19th century. Chicago and New York City broke temperature records set in 1894 and 1896, respectively. These extremes were not singular, but exemplary of conditions throughout much of the continent. Temperatures in Chicago were so cold that a polar bear at the Lincoln Park Zoo had to be taken inside.
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Frog

Winter wildfire destroys homes near Los Angeles

Dan Whitcomb
The Chicago Tribune
Fri, 17 Jan 2014 00:42 UTC
Image
© Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
A helicopter makes a water drop on the Colby Fire in Glendora, California
A fast-moving California wildfire, started accidentally by three campers, roared out of control in foothills above Los Angeles on Thursday, destroying five homes and forcing some 3,600 residents to flee, fire and law enforcement officials said.

The wind-whipped blaze began before dawn in the Angeles National Forest north of Glendora, about 40 miles east of downtown Los Angeles in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.

By mid-morning, the so-called Colby Fire had blackened more than 1,700 acres of drought-parched brush and vegetation, Los Angeles County fire officials said. A thick pall of black smoke hung over eastern Los Angeles County, stretching west over the Pacific Ocean.

But as winds diminished and temperatures cooled later in the day some 700 firefighters, aided by eight fixed-wing aircraft and seven helicopters, were able to keep the flames from advancing any further.

Comment: Wildfires in winter? Right after 'polar vortexes'?! What's going ON with this weather?!

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Arrow Up

Recovery! In 2013 global sea ice was above average for first time in 9 years - Now similar to 1986!

P. Gosselin
No Tricks Zone
Fri, 17 Jan 2014 09:03 UTC
Global sea ice is supposed to be melting away. We are often led to believe that it is at or near record lows. It's global warming after all, and everyone knows that warmth melts ice. But if ice is growing, maybe it's a sign that things are cooling down.

From the chart that follows we do see that global sea ice did take a small hit in the 2000s, especially the Arctic. However the trend for the last three years is definitely a strong upward one.
Global sea ice 1979-2013

Source: arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/global.daily.ice.area.jpg
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