Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Dozens Dead as Storm Hovers Over Central U.S.


Press TV
Fri, 25 Dec 2009 05:35 UTC
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© AFPDrivers try to navigate through heavy snow in Alexandria, Virginia.
Dozens of Americans have lost their lives because of a massive winter storm just before the Christmas holidays, according to emergency services.

The fatalities attributed to the storm began Wednesday, with hundreds of Thursday flights cancelled at airports from Minneapolis to Dallas. The weather is not expected to clear before Saturday.

Five people died on Kansas's icy roads, the state highway patrol reported, and six people have died on Nebraskan roads.

Three people were killed after a dust storm near Phoenix caused a 22-vehicle pileup, the Arizona Republic reported.

Three were killed on the slippery roads in New Mexico and one other person died in a Minnesota crash, local media reported.
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Life Preserver

Sea Invades Venice

Jim Andrews
AccuWeather
Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:07 UTC
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© AccuWeather
Unusually high tides filled many streets of Venice Wednesday as atmospheric forces lifted the northern Adriatic Sea.

The official water level in the city reached 56.6 inches (144 cm) above the average, highest of the year. City authorities reckoned that about 60 percent of the city's streets and piazzas were put under water. On Saint Mark's Square, flood waters stood knee deep, forcing tourists to wade or follow raised boardwalks.

The flooding stopped well short of last year's mark of 63 inches, which yielded the city's worst flooding in more than 20 years.
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Bizarro Earth

Major Storm Gains Intensity in Midwest U.S. for Christmas


Reuters
Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:43 UTC
The central United States is expected to see a white but slick and blustery Christmas as snow will be coupled with blinding winds in western areas and freezing rain in the east, a forecaster predicted Thursday.

"This is major winter storm continuing to gain intensity today and tomorrow, impacting a wide area," said Joel Burgio of DTN Meteorlogix.

The forecast called for snowfall of 12 inches or more through Saturday, with blizzards in several northern areas.

Northeast Nebraska, northwestern and north-central Iowa, northeastern portions of the Dakotas and Minnesota are expected to get heavy snowfall through the weekend.
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Bizarro Earth

Cold-Related Death Toll Exceeds 100 in Europe


Press TV
Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:29 UTC
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© AFPWorkers clear away the snow at the airport in Duesseldorf, Germany, on December 21, 2009.
Sub-zero temperature across Europe has resulted in airport closures, flight cancellations, delays in services of trains, buses and subways.

More than 100 people are thought to have frozen to death in extreme weather conditions across the continent.

Cold weather and heavy snowfall could not have come at a worse time in Europe, as thousands of holiday travelers have been stranded by train and flight cancellations.

In Germany, Frankfurt Airport - the third busiest airport in Europe - was closed for about four hours Monday night due to icy runways, stranding about 8,000 passengers. It reopened on Tuesday but passengers still experienced delays and cancellations.

Berlin's Tegel Airport was also briefly closed on Tuesday amid freezing rain with some flights being temporarily diverted to the capital's Schoenefeld airport. Airports in London, Milan and Duesseldorf have also experienced closures.
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Magnify

Soil Studies Reveal Rise in Antibiotic Resistance


ScienceDaily
Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:00 UTC
Antibiotic resistance in the natural environment is rising despite tighter controls over our use of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, Newcastle University scientists have found.

Bacterial DNA extracted from soil samples collected between 1940 and 2008 has revealed a rise in background levels of antibiotic resistant genes.

Newcastle University's Professor David Graham, who led the research, said the findings suggest an emerging threat to public and environmental health in the future.

"Over the last few decades there has been growing concern about increasing antibiotic resistance and the threat it poses to our health, which is best evidenced by MRSA," explained Professor Graham, who is based in the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Newcastle University.
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Better Earth

Earth's atmosphere "breathing" more rapidly

Andrea Thompson
Space.com
Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:37 UTC
Earth's atmosphere was known to "breathe" in a cycle lasting nearly a month. Now scientists say the planet takes a quick breath every few days.

The breathing-like activity is the result of high-speed solar wind disturbances that cause a recurrent expansion and contraction of Earth's atmosphere every few days, satellite observations show. This atmospheric mode could affect radio communication, orbiting satellites and possibly the Earth's climate, researchers say.

The expansion and contraction happens way up in the Earth's thermosphere, the layer of the atmosphere that extends from about 60 to 300 miles (96.5 to 483 kilometers) above the planet's surface. The thermosphere is constantly interacting with the sun's upper atmosphere as it expands out into the solar system, said one of the researchers who made the discovery, Jeff Thayer of the University of Colorado in Boulder, during a press conference at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco yesterday.

This interaction causes an energy exchange that can change the density of the thermosphere (how closely the gas molecules within it are packed together). As its density changes, the thermosphere expands and contracts.
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Question

Do Agribusiness Giants Fear Organics?

Gina-Marie Cheeseman
Triplepundit.com
Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:29 UTC
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organic farm
Last month, Michael Mack, the chief executive of Syngenta, said organic farming takes up 30 percent more land than non-organic farming for the same yield. Syngenta is a Swiss agribusiness company that makes pesticides and seeds. "If the whole planet were to suddenly switch to organic farming tomorrow, it would be an ecological disaster," he said.

In terms of yields, he continued, organic food is the "productive equivalent of driving an S.U.V." Mack mentioned what he believes is the "mistaken belief that natural is always better." Pesticides, he added, "have been proven safe and effective and absolutely not harmful to the environment or to humans" by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
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Igloo

Global What? Over 50% of the USA is now covered in snow


Watts Up With That?
Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:56 UTC
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© NASA Earth ObservatorySnow blanketed over half of the US in December
The Mid-Atlantic states were completely white on Sunday, December 20, 2009, in the wake of a record-breaking snow storm. The storm deposited between 12 and 30 inches of snow in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. on December 19, according to the National Weather Service. For many locations, the snowfall totals broke records for the most snow to fall in a single December day.

The storm shut down the federal government in Washington DC, stranded travelers, left hundreds of thousands without power and sharply cut holiday sales the weekend before Christmas.
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Arrow Down

Earth's Upper Atmosphere Cooling Dramatically

Andrea Thompson
Space.com
Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:37 UTC
Image
© Unknown
When the sun is relatively inactive - as it has been in recent years - the outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere cools dramatically, new observations find.

The results could help scientists better understand the swelling and shrinking of our planet's atmosphere, a phenomenon that affects the orbits of satellites and space junk.

The data, from NASA's TIMED mission, show that Earth's thermosphere (the layer above 62 miles or 100 km above the Earth's surface) "responds quite dramatically to the effects of the 11-year solar cycle," Stan Solomon of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said here this week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

Knowing just how the energy flowing out from the sun naturally impacts the state of the thermosphere also will help scientists test predictions that man's emissions of carbon dioxide should cool this layer. (While that may seem to contradict the idea of global warming, it has long been known that carbon dioxide causes warming in the lowest part of the atmosphere and cooling in the upper layers of the atmosphere.)
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Better Earth

Goose photographed flying upside down


UK Telegraph
Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:34 UTC
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© ALBANPIX
Brian MacFarlane was amazed when he looked at the photo he had captured of the bird in flight.

The incredible display of mid-flight acrobatics is also a remarkable feat of wildlife photography.

Mr MacFarlane was simply photographing geese buffeted by strong winds at Strumpshaw in Norfolk and did not expect to capture a moment of contortionism.
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