Earth ChangesS


Attention

Coral Reefs Suffer Mass Bleaching From Heating Oceans

Image
© AlamyCoral bleaching in Maldives, Indian Ocean
Coral reefs are suffering widespread damage in what is set to be one of the worst years ever for the delicate and beautiful habitats.

The phenomenon, known as coral bleaching because the reefs turn bone white when the colourful algae that give the coral its colour and food is lost, has been reported throughout south east Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.

Divers and scientists have described huge areas of previously pristine reef being turned into barren white undersea landscapes off the coast of Thailand and Indonesia.

The popular island tourist destination the Maldives have also suffered severe bleaching. Reefs in the Caribbean could also be under threat.

High ocean temperatures this year are being blamed for the bleaching, which experts fear could be worse than a similar event in 1998 which saw an estimated 16 per cent of the world's reefs being destroyed.

Bizarro Earth

Papua New Guinea: 2nd Earthquake Magnitude 7.3 - New Britain Region

Image
© USGS
Date-Time:
Sunday, July 18, 2010 at 13:35:02 UTC

Sunday, July 18, 2010 at 11:35:02 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
6.019°S, 150.497°E

Depth:
57.6 km (35.8 miles)

Region:
NEW BRITAIN REGION, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Distances:
65 km (40 miles) SE of Kimbe, New Britain, PNG

105 km (65 miles) ENE of Kandrian, New Britain, PNG

525 km (325 miles) NE of PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea

2385 km (1480 miles) N of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia

Bizarro Earth

Papua New Guinea: Earthquake Magnitude 6.9 - New Britain Region

Image
© USGS
Date-Time:
Sunday, July 18, 2010 at 13:04:13 UTC

Sunday, July 18, 2010 at 11:04:13 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
6.116°S, 150.522°E

Depth:
57.5 km (35.7 miles)

Region:
NEW BRITAIN REGION, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Distances:
75 km (45 miles) SSE of Kimbe, New Britain, PNG

110 km (65 miles) E of Kandrian, New Britain, PNG

520 km (325 miles) NE of PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea

2385 km (1480 miles) N of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia

Snowman

Rare July cold snap blankets half of Argentina in snow, even northern subtropical regions affected

Image
© UnknownKids playing in a rare snowfall - Cordoba, Argentina
Argentina is suffering from some unusually cold weather. In fact, snow fell in over half the provinces on Friday.

Snow in July? Well, that's the case for Argentina this week. It is winter in the southern hemisphere.

An arctic air mass is hovering over the middle of the country, bringing frigid temperatures and leaving snow on the ground. In Cordoba, north and east of the capital, roads and homes were blanketed in white, making driving conditions trecherous, but exciting children with the rare snowfall.

Local newspapers reported that the temperature plunged to -1.5°C in Buenos Aires, on Friday -- making it the coolest day in a decade for the capital. Even the beaches saw white powder. The coastal resort city Mar del Plata was blanketed by snow for two days straight.

Bizarro Earth

Alaska: Earthquake Magnitude 6.7 - Fox Islands, Aleutian Islands

Alaska Earthquake_180710
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Sunday, July 18, 2010 at 05:56:49 UTC

Saturday, July 17, 2010 at 09:56:49 PM at epicenter

Location:
52.970°N, 169.504°W

Depth:
35 km (21.7 miles) set by location program

Region:
FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA

Distances:
43 km (27 miles) W (274°) from Nikolski, AK

222 km (138 miles) WSW (244°) from Unalaska, AK

277 km (172 miles) WSW (243°) from Akutan, AK

1493 km (928 miles) WSW (241°) from Anchorage, AK

Chess

The Prince of Wales Accuses Sceptics of Peddling "Pseudoscience"

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© MET Office - GoogleGoogle Earth map showing the impact of a four-degree increase in global temperature.
The Prince of Wales has accused climate change sceptics of using 'pseudo science' and 'intimidation' to stop the world from addressing catastrophic global warming.

He likened the failure to combat rising temperatures across the world to playing "Russian Roulette with the future of our children".

But instead of acting, the Prince said more and more people are listening to the "siren voices" of climate change sceptics who argue that the theory of man-made global warming is simply a "sinister attempt to undermine the capitalist system".

"It has been profoundly depressing to witness the way the so-called climate sceptics are, apparently, able to intimidate all sorts of people from adopting the precautionary measures necessary to avert environmental collapse," he said.

"For too long we have treated the planet like a perpetual cash machine which doles out money without there ever being any need to check the bank-balance. But now, finally, the money is running out."

Magnify

Scientists Say Plants Can Remember Properties of Light

Image
© Stanislaw KarpinskiThe images showed chemical reactions in leaves that were not exposed to light
Researchers in Poland say plants are able to remember and react to information on light intensity and quality by transmitting information from leaf to leaf.

The scientists, led by Professor Stanislaw Karpinski of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, used fluorescence imaging to view the response of specimens of the Arabidopsisa plant to light shone on them. They found that when light was shone on one leaf at the bottom of the plant the entire plant responded. The response, in the form of a cascade of chemical reactions induced by the light, continued even after the light source was removed, suggesting the plant was remembering the information contained in the light.

Karpinski and colleagues discovered that when light is shone on a leaf a chemical reaction begins in one leaf cell and the reaction is immediately signaled to the rest of the plant by photo-electro-physiological signals (PEPS) from specialized cells called bundle sheath cells. Karpinski said the cells function in a similar way to a nervous system in animals.

Cloud Lightning

Four Kids Struck by Lightning at Bible Camp in Michigan, U.S.

Four teenagers in Montcalm county are hospitalized after getting hit by lightning at a Church Bible Camp.

The sheriff says it happened just after two this afternoon at Rock Lake Methodist Bible Church Camp in Richland township.

The four teenagers were standing near a baseball field huddled under some umbrellas when lightning hit them.

All were knocked to the ground and suffered burns and numbness to their bodies. Paramedics took two of them to a hospital in Grand Rapids, two others were taken to a nearby hospital.

Meteor

A Puzzling Collapse of Earth's Cooling Upper Atmosphere

Image
© John Emmert/NRLLayers of Earth's upper atmosphere.
NASA-funded researchers are monitoring a big event in our planet's atmosphere. High above Earth's surface where the atmosphere meets space, a rarefied layer of gas called "the thermosphere" recently collapsed and now is rebounding again.

"This is the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years," says John Emmert of the Naval Research Lab, lead author of a paper announcing the finding in the June 19th issue of the Geophysical Research Letters (GRL). "It's a Space Age record."

The collapse happened during the deep solar minimum of 2008-2009 - a fact which comes as little surprise to researchers. The thermosphere always cools and contracts when solar activity is low. In this case, however, the magnitude of the collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity could explain.

"Something is going on that we do not understand," says Emmert.

The thermosphere ranges in altitude from 90 km to 600+ km. It is a realm of meteors, auroras and satellites, which skim through the thermosphere as they circle Earth. It is also where solar radiation makes first contact with our planet. The thermosphere intercepts extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photons from the sun before they can reach the ground. When solar activity is high, solar EUV warms the thermosphere, causing it to puff up like a marshmallow held over a camp fire. (This heating can raise temperatures as high as 1400 K - hence the name thermosphere.) When solar activity is low, the opposite happens.

Comment: Forget about CO2, Cosmic Climate Change is Underway


Arrow Down

Peru: Temperatures in Cusco highlands drop to -20°C

Image
© Image Shack
The extremely low temperatures in the highlands of Cusco region reached -20°C (-4°F) this week, one of the lowest this year, reports the regional head of the National Service of Meteorology and Hydrology (Senamhi), Zenon Huaman.

He told Andina news agency that these temperatures were registered in areas higher than 3,800 metres above sea level in the provinces of Canchis, Quispicanchis and Paucartambo.

He also said that the sensation of cold is more noticeable in the city of Cusco, that has had temperatures of 4.2°C(39.6°F), and recommended to wear warm clothes and take precautions to avoid respiratory diseases and infections.