Earth ChangesS


Ice Cube

Record-breaking cold spell sees rare 8ft-high snowdrifts in Guernsey, one of UK's warmest spots

Francesca Infante
Daily Mail UK
Fri, 15 Mar 2013 09:06 UTC
It describes itself as the warmest corner of the British Isles ... not that you'd know it from this picture. The worst snow storms in 26 years have caused havoc on the Channel Islands this week, leaving drifts up to 8ft deep. The airport on Guernsey had to be shut for two days while more than 15,000 tons of snow were removed from the runway.

The islands caught the same storms that crippled northern France, where shoulder-deep drifts led to Channel Tunnel trains being cancelled and long queues on the M20 as lorries waited for delayed ferries. Although most of the Guernsey and Jersey snow is now melting, weather men predict another cold snap next week.

This picture was taken by Danielle Stonebridge, 21, a Guernsey resident and part- time photographer, of her father Dave, 61.
Image
Snowy: These pictures were taken by Danielle Stonebridge, 21, of her father Dave, 61
Additional images
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Igloo

Moscow braces for biggest March snowfall in 50 years


Vision.org
Thu, 14 Mar 2013 21:15 UTC

Residents of Moscow are surely used to wintry weather-- but the city is bracing itself for the biggest March snowfall on record in 50 years.

Heavy snowfall started early Wednesday morning, with forecasters predicting that up to 25 centimetres of snow will fall in the next three days.

Local authorities promised to use more than 15,000 snow-ploughs to clean up the roads. The mayor's office urged locals to keep their cars off the roads and use public transport instead.

Temperatures are expected to go below minus 20 degrees Celsius in the next 24 hours. Even for Moscow,known for its harsh climate, the snowfall is unusual this time of the year.

This week, Russians traditionally mark the coming of spring with celebrations.
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Bizarro Earth

Pomegranate disease mystery

Chris McLennan
WeeklyTimesNow, Australia
Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:28 UTC
Pomegranate Disease
© Glenn MilneMystery: Pomegranate grower Graham Robertson has lost 70 per cent of his trees this year.
Growers remain bewildered by the mysterious death of pomegranate orchards across Australia.

"I've lost 70 per cent of my crops in the past year," Mildura district horticulturalist Graham Robertson said.

"Of the 10,000 trees I put in, I've got about 2500 left."

Pomegranates, a Middle-Eastern native and a traditional homestead fruit tree, have roared back into favour on the back of healthy lifestyle fruit drinks and low-fat snack options.

Australia's rapidly changing ethnic mix in the cities has also been responsible for their newfound popularity.

The fruit was seen by many as a saviour for irrigators who have pulled their grape vines because of the glut in wine.

"The only thing we have got left around here is asparagus farms and horse paddocks," said Mr Robertson, from Cardross.

Pomegranate orchards from Western Australia, Queensland, NSW and now in northern Victoria have fallen victim to a baffling dieback.
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Butterfly

Mexico monarch butterfly population smallest in years, study says

Richard Fausset
LA Times
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:23 UTC
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© Marjorie Miller, Associated PressA scientist collects a monarch butterfly near Zitacuaro, Mexico
The amount of land occupied by the migrating creatures shrank 59% from a year ago, scientists say. The decline could hurt tourism and the ecosystem.

Scientists who take the annual measure of Mexican forestland famously occupied by migrating monarch butterflies said Wednesday that the butterfly population is the smallest they have seen in two decades.

The likely cause is unseasonably warm weather recently in the United States, as well as a dramatic loss of habitat in the U.S. Corn Belt, the scientists said.

In a survey carried out in December and January, researchers found nine monarch colonies wintering in central Mexico, occupying a total of 1.19 hectares, or 2.94 acres, a 59% decrease compared with the previous year's study.

It was troubling news for the Mexican states of Michoacan and Mexico, where the yearly arrival of the butterflies is a major tourist attraction. Of even greater concern, experts say, is the potential impact that a diminished butterfly population could have on interconnected habitats and species across North America.

The results were released by the World Wildlife Fund, the Mexican government and giant Mexican cellphone company Telcel, which has supported butterfly habitat conservation.
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Cloud Grey

Climategate 3.0 has occurred - the password has been released

Anthony Watts
WattsUpWithThat.com
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 12:12 UTC
A number of climate skeptic bloggers (myself included) have received this message yesterday. While I had planned to defer announcing this until a reasonable scan could be completed, some other bloggers have let the cat out of the bag. I provide this introductory email sent by "FOIA" without editing or comment. I do have one email, which I found quite humorous, which I will add at the end so that our friends know that this is valid. Update - the first email I posted apparently was part of an earlier release (though I had not seen it, there are a number of duplicates in the all.zip file) so I have added a second one.- Anthony

===========================================================
Subject: FOIA 2013: the password

It's time to tie up loose ends and dispel some of the speculation surrounding the Climategate affair.

Indeed, it's singular "I" this time. After certain career developments I can no longer use the papal plural ;-)

If this email seems slightly disjointed it's probably my linguistic background and the problem of trying to address both the wider audience (I expect this will be partially reproduced sooner or later) and the email recipients (whom I haven't decided yet on).

The "all.7z" password is [redacted]

DO NOT PUBLISH THE PASSWORD. Quote other parts if you like.

Releasing the encrypted archive was a mere practicality. I didn't want to keep the emails lying around.

I prepared CG1 & 2 alone. Even skimming through all 220.000 emails would have taken several more months of work in an increasingly unfavorable environment.

Dumping them all into the public domain would be the last resort. Majority of the emails are irrelevant, some of them probably sensitive and socially damaging.
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Igloo

Thousands without electricity in France winter storm


France24
Tue, 12 Mar 2013 23:29 UTC
French Snow
© France24Cars drive through the snow on March 11, 2013 in Honguemare-Guenouville, northwestern France. More than 68,000 homes were without electricity in France and hundreds of people were trapped in their cars after a winter storm hit with heavy snow.
More than 68,000 homes were without electricity in France and hundreds of people were trapped in their cars after a winter storm hit with heavy snow, officials and weather services said.

An accident near the northern city of Lille involving three cars that skidded in icy conditions on a motorway left 14 people injured, including six firefighters.

Twenty-six regions in northwest and northern France were put on orange alert because of heavy snowfalls, which Meteo France said were "remarkable for the season because of the expected quantity and length of time".

Conditions were forecast to improve early Wednesday.
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Bad Guys

Tilling the soil with pesticides

Dr. Vandana Shiva
The Asian Age
Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:14 UTC
Image
© thelangarhall.com
The ministry of agriculture had organised a conference on Doubling Food Production from February 1-3. The "eminent speakers" invited were not members of International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) or top Indian scientists. Rather they were spin masters of biotechnology industry who claimed to have founded the anti-GMO movement and openly promoted it. The old paradigm of food and agriculture is clearly broken. On April 15, 2008, the IAASTD report findings, carried out by 400 scientists over six years, were released. The report has noted that business as usual is no longer an option. Neither the Green Revolution nor the genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can guarantee food security. We need a new paradigm of working with the laws of nature and ecological sustainability.
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Snowflake Cold

Unseasonal winter storm strikes northern Europe


France 24
Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:59 UTC
Unseasonably severe weather struck much of France on Tuesday, leaving tens of thousands of homes temporarily without electricity and paralysing travel across Europe.


Just when many in France allowed themselves hope that spring may be around the corner, a fresh flurry of heavy snowfall struck much of the country, leaving tens of thousands of homes without electricity and disrupting travel across Europe.

French weather service Metéo France put two regions in the northwest on red alert - the highest possible - and 28 other regions across the country's north and northwest on orange alert because of the winter storm, calling the snowfall "remarkable for the season because of the expected quantity and length of time".
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Bizarro Earth

Fairway sinkhole swallows golfer at Waterloo, Illinois course

Marlon A. Walker
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:52 UTC
Hole in One
© golfmanna.comHank Martinez , top, Ed Magaletta , right, Russ Nobbe , left, look into the sink hole that swallowed golfer Mark Minhal. Minhal is recovering with a dislocated shoulder from the fall.
Waterloo - It sure wasn't the hole-in-one Mark Mihal had in mind.

While golfing with friends at the Annbriar Golf Course near here Friday, Mihal, 43, a mortgage broker from Creve Coeur, abruptly dropped into the ground on the fairway of the 14th hole. It was the first time a person - and not a ball - has disappeared beneath the turf in the course's 20-year history.

It also was the first time in the memory of folks who study sinkholes in Illinois that a person has fallen into one.

"I was standing in the middle of the fairway," Mihal said Monday. "Then, all of a sudden, before I knew it, I was underground."

Mihal said he fell into the mud floor of an enclosure shaped like a bell, up to 18 feet deep and 10 feet wide. The rescue was precarious, he said, because no one knew whether the surface hole would grow or the enclosure would collapse.

A companion called the course's pro shop, where general manager Russ Nobbe gathered some rope and a ladder and rushed to the rescue. Mihal had dislocated his shoulder, so Ed Magaletta, a friend and a real estate agent, climbed down and put a rope around Mihal's waist so he could be hoisted to safety.

The rescue took less than 20 minutes, but Mihal said his mind quickly went to an incident two weeks ago in Seffner, Fla., where a sleeping man dropped into a huge sinkhole that opened beneath his bedroom. Authorities never recovered the body of that victim, Jeffrey Bush, 36.

"That certainly went through my mind when I was down there," Mihal said. "It looked like it was more room to go down (in the hole). I wasn't too happy to be in there."
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Attention

Giant mosquito invasion scares Florida


RT
Mon, 11 Mar 2013 18:16 UTC
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© Image credit University of FloridaEntomologist Phil Kaufman shows the size difference between the invasive Asian tiger mosquito, right, and the native species Psorophora ciliata, sometimes called the gallinipper
You might want to think twice about your beach vacation this year: giant mosquitoes are expected to invade Florida this summer. The insects are 20 times larger than most other mosquitoes and their bites feel like stab wounds.

They attack fish, wild animals and pets. Their larvae are so ferocious they can eat small fish and tadpoles. With bodies the size of a quarter, the giant insects can bite through clothing and are known to attack at all times of the day.

"It feels like you're being stabbed," one Florida resident told Fox Orlando, describing the bites of the gallinipper mosquitoes. And these massive mosquitoes are predicted to plague Florida this summer.

The giant insects usually appear after significant rainstorms or floods. Florida already had a high number of gallinippers last year, and is anticipating even higher numbers this year. After Tropical Storm Debby produced torrential storms and dumped more than 20 inches of rain across some areas of Florida last June, the state's gallinipper mosquitoes were given the perfect breeding ground to lay their eggs. The massive bloodsuckers are expected to hatch in the Sunshine State this year, plaguing their victims with itchy and painful bites.
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