The prolonged heat across the Midwest has not only set temperature records, it is also expanding and intensifying drought conditions -- and relief isn't on the horizon for most areas, the National Weather Service reported Thursday.

Drought conditions are present in 56 percent of the continental U.S., according to the weekly Drought Monitor.

That's the most in the 12 years that the data have been compiled, topping the previous record of 55 percent set on Aug. 26, 2003. It's also up five percentage points from the previous week.

The drought hasn't been long enough to rank up there with the 1930s Dust Bowl or a bad stretch in the 1950s, David Miskus, a meteorologist at the weather service's Climate Prediction Center, told msnbc.com.

"We don't have that here yet," he said. "This has really only started this year."

But for a single year it's still pretty significant, not far behind an extremely dry 1988.

Police had to launch a desperate late-night rescue operation in China after a section of highway collapsed into a giant sinkhole, trapping a car and killing at least one passenger.

The cavernous hole appeared along a busy stretch of Xiangjiang Road in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, central China, early this morning. The 30m-square pit swallowed a passing car, and at least one person died at the scene before emergency services could haul anyone to safety.

Dozens of wildfires are raging around the western United States, and the large-scale burns are sending smoke as far east as Greenland, according to some atmospheric models.

In all, about 60 wildfires are burning around the nation, from Alaska to Utah to Florida, and satellite images show hazy curtains of smoke hanging over huge portions of the eastern two-thirds of the country.

Smoke travels well, said Georg Grell, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Earth System Research Lab in Boulder, Colo.

The hotter the fire, the higher its smoke can go - and the higher the smoke goes into the atmosphere, the farther it typically travels, Grell told OurAmazingPlanet.

"The winds are much stronger up there, so it gets transported much quicker," he said. In addition, once smoke gets to certain altitudes, it's less likely to be washed out of the air by rainstorms, Grell said.

Smoke from extremely hot wildfires can rise 4 to 5 miles (7 to 8 kilometers) into the atmosphere, and can even trigger massive thunderstorms, but it's likely that the smoke from the recent spate of fires is hanging out about 1 mile (1.5 km) above the ground.

An underwater volcano that erupted near the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa is giving scientists a closer look at how ocean ecosystems could respond to climate change, from dying fish to adapting plankton.

The ecosystem responded much as the researchers would have expected to the high temperatures and changes in acidity caused by the uneasy volcano south of El Hierro island. But the strength of the response was a surprise, study researcher Eugenio Fraile-Nuez of the Instituto Español de Oceanografía in Spain told LiveScience.

"The physical and chemical response of the system was predictable, but we never have imagined that we would reach this magnitude," Fraile-Nuez said. [Images: Wild Volcanoes]

A University of Saskatchewan-led international research team has discovered that aerosols from relatively small volcanic eruptions can be boosted into the high atmosphere by weather systems such as monsoons, where they can affect global temperatures. The research appears in the July 6 issue of the journal Science.

Adam Bourassa, from the U of S Institute of Space and Atmospheric Studies, led the research. He explains that until now it was thought that a massively energetic eruption was needed to inject aerosols past the troposphere, the turbulent atmospheric layer closest to the earth, into the stable layers of the stratosphere higher up.

"If an aerosol is in the lower atmosphere, it's affected by the weather and it precipitates back down right away," Bourassa says. "Once it reaches the stratosphere, it can persist for years, and with that kind of a sustained lifetime, it can really have a lasting effect." That effect is the scattering of incoming sunlight and the potential to cool the Earth's surface.

Over the past 18 months, we've been growing increasingly concerned for the future of all life on planet earth. Sure, the signs that things have been going 'south' have been there for some time, but our concern began in earnest at the very beginning of 2011, when masses of birds began to fall dead from the sky around the world. The phenomenon continued for several months, and birds around the world are still dying for officially unknown reasons. None of the dead birds showed any sign of disease, but in several incidents birds were found to have 'external injuries' like they had been "hit by some kind of blunt instrument". All sorts of explanations for the deaths were offered (like fireworks or birds colliding with each other) including the predictable attempts by 'science experts' to downplay any significance to the bizarre deaths. But among the flurry of speculation, one report stood out.

NewsChannel5 Chief Meteorologist Mark Johnson decided to take a look at the the Doppler radar images from Beebe, Arkansas from the night when many red-winged blackbirds had fallen dead to the ground, and he discovered something interesting.

"There it was. This huge plume of turbulence over the Beebe birds just as they began their frenzied flight," Johnson said.

The turbulence appears above the birds between about 7,000 and 12,000 feet. Johnson realized there are only a few possible explanations for this phenomena.

Having homed in on the probable cause, Johnson then introduced some nonsense:

"Birds don't fly that high, and he quickly ruled out military action, a sonic boom, meteor shower or alien invasion."

While we can understand why Johnson ruled out military action or a sonic boom (there were no flights over the area at the time), Johnson never explained why he ruled out a "meteor shower", although we can understand the inclusion of "alien invasion" - to ridicule by association the idea of a "meteor shower" or other meteorite-related phenomenon.

Johnson then went on to say:

"Something in the atmosphere, something mysterious, occurred over Beebe, Arkansas that night... And I believe it was part of what caused those birds to fly and then die."

Indeed, but with the answer staring him in the face, Johnson lost the plot completely:

Johnson's research captured an unseen temperature reversal just above the birds' roosting area at about 1,500 feet above the ground. This temperature "inversion" acted like a megaphone, amplifying all the noises that occurred in Beebe at that time. As the fireworks exploded, the sound was amplified by the inversion and became much louder than normal. This appears to have startled the birds so much that they burst into flight, running into each other, and nearby buildings. Thousands of the now-disoriented birds then crashed to the ground, dying from blunt force trauma.

Temperature reversal? At 1,500 feet? But previously Johnson stated that the 'turbulence' occurred between 7,000 and 12,000 feet. He even produced a graph of the Doppler radar images that shows this. While temperature inversion does occur and can amplify sound, when birds are startled by noise they don't generally fly into each other and buildings in large numbers. What's most likely, is that the bird deaths of January 2011 (and later) were caused by an overhead meteorite or comet fragment (MoCF) explosion, with either the actual shock wave killing the birds (through blunt force trauma) or associated electrical effects 'frying' their 'circuits'.

This electrical effect can also explain the massive fish die-offs around the same time. Consider this report, just in today, about two children being mysteriously electrocuted to death as they swam in a lake in Missouri on 4th July. The thousands of dead fish found upstream from Beebe on New Year's Eve 2010 could well have had their circuits fried because of significant electrical discharge that accompanied the overhead MoCF airburst. Now check out this Tunguska blast simulation by Sandia lab. An incoming bolide exploding overhead would knock the wind out of anything within a radius relative to the extent of its blast. It would probably knock airplanes out of the sky too - more on that below.

May 2012

Storms, Wind and Rain, Flood and Drought

India Ferry Capsizes Due to Heavy Rain and Winds; 103 Dead, 100 Missing

Wettest April in 100 years - Sodden Britain braces for more floods

Flash floods kill 27 in Afghanistan- scores missing

Huge Dust Storm Swallows Iowa College Campus

Britain to see month's rain in one night as severe weather warnings issued

Widespread floods in Kenya kill 15 as 50,000 left homeless

At least 30 killed following flash flood in Takhar province, Afghanistan

More deadly floods strike north Afghanistan, 10,000 left homeless

Violent rainstorm wreaks havoc in North-Eastern France

Hurricane Season Comes Early This Year

Freak storm lashes Cannes film festival, soaking stars

Hurricane Bud could bring life-threatening conditions to Mexico

Hurricane Bud heading for area near Puerto Vallarta

North Korean Farmers Cite Grave Drought; Aid Unlikely

Montreal Floods: Heavy Rain Causes Power Failures, Shut Down Parts Of Metro

Abnormal Cold or Heat

Rare April Freezing Rain in Brazil

Forget The Floods And Get Ready To Shiver

Frost kills early blooms in Ontario, apple crop losses to top $100M

Farmers worry that May snow and freezing temperatures could bring crop failures to Britain

Scotland colder than the ARCTIC as country hit by snow and freezing weather

Hot Enough for You? Warmest May to April Ever for U.S

Britain's Coldest May in 300 Years

Unusual cold weather wiped out two of Morocco's primary crop exports

Northeast Ohio wine grapes destroyed by hard freeze

The Ice Age Cometh! Heavy snow surprises Bosnians after a hot weekend in mid May

First Time in 50 Years - Snow Hits Bosnian Capital

Snow and unusual weather in the UK Midlands

'Scientific experts' confounded by increasing snow cover on Mount Kilimanjaro

Late-season storm could bring summer snow to Sierra, California

Perth's Coldest May Night in 98 Years

Sinkholes

Family's terror as their Florida house is nearly engulfed by 100ft wide sinkhole

Sinkhole in Arkansas parking lot swallows SUV

Update: Massive Florida Sinkhole Expanding

Three sinkholes open up in Prince William County, Virginia

Huge sinkhole opens in Montreal after student protest

Massive Sinkhole Forms Near Central City, Colorado

Anoka County, Minneapolis sinkhole is growing

Hail, Tornadoes and Typhoons

Deadly tornado rips through eastern Japan

More Weird Weather: Supercell brings tornado to England

Twin Waterspouts Caught on Camera

40 Die in Chinese Hailstorm

Freak storm brings never seen before hail to Philippines, homes destroyed

Hailstorm rips through Cuttack, India, Capital hit too

Tornado Hits Weimar, Texas

Tornado damages 15 homes in North Port, Florida

Tornado Confirmed on Ground near Wausau, Wisconsin

Tornadoes strafe Kansas, damaging homes; 1 hurt

Tornadoes cause heavy property damage near Montreal

Earthquakes

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 5.7 - Michoacan, Mexico

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.0 - Offshore Chiapas, Mexico

Cascadia tension: earthquake swarm continues off the coast of Vancouver

Azerbaijan hit with strongest earthquake in 4 years- swarm of tremors follow

Civil Defense of Peru issues earthquake warnings after two days of abnormal tremor activity

5.3 Magnitude Earthquake Rocks Israel and Palestine

5.4 Magnitude Earthquake Rocks Northeast India

Moderate earthquake hits Tajikistan: USGS

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.2 - Tarapaca, Chile

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.0 - Papua New Guinea

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.2 - Off The Coast of Aisen, Chile

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.0 - Northern Italy

Update: Powerful quake kills at least 3 in northern Italy

In pictures: Italy earthquake

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.0 - Off The East Coast of Honshu, Japan

M6.2 quake and several above M5.0 hit off Northeast Japan in last day

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 5.6 - Bulgaria

Japan Quake Aftershock Tally Exceeds 5,000

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.1 (Magnitude Changed to 6.0) - Hokkaido, Japan

Magnitude 5.8 Bulgarian Earthquake Followed By 80 Aftershocks, Worst in Region Since 1917

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.2 - Norwegian Sea

Earthquake Magnitude 4.8 shakes nervous Christchurch, sending shoppers fleeing into the streets

5.6 earthquake which jolted Bulgaria was strongest since 1858, and the aftershocks continue

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.0 - Bonin Islands, Japan Region

Fourth earthquake rocks East Texas

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.7 - Santiago Del Estero, Argentina

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 5.8 - Northern Italy (aftershocks included)

Update: Italy Hit by 2nd Deadly Quake in Days; Death Toll at 16

Mass Animal Deaths

32 Dead Porpoises Worry Wildlife Experts

Fish Pond in Shenzhen Ravaged Overnight

Peru pelican and dolphin deaths prompt warning to stay off beaches

Mysterious fish kill under investigation in Kuwait

Mystery Surrounds Dead Pelicans Found Along Indian River

Peru Says 5,000 Birds, Nearly 900 Dolphins Dead

2,300 Birds Found Dead Along Chilean Beaches

Mass Bird Deaths: Mystery Linked To El Nino

Pacific Mystery: What's Killing the Dolphins and the Pelicans?

Bee Kills and Genetic Engineering in the Corn Belt

Dead Fish Pile up on Mula-Mutha Banks

Dolphin Deaths in Peru: The Mystery Deepens

60,000 to 100,000 dead fish wash up eastern shores of U.S. near Chesapeake Bay

Black Sea Ecologists Alarmed By Dolphin Deaths

Hundreds of Endangered Antelopes Dying in Kazakhstan

Thousands of Shellfish Found Dead in Peru

Volcanoes

Mount Asphyxia Volcano Erupts - South Sandwich Islands

Popocatepetl Volcano Threatens Millions with Gas and Ash, Mexico on High Alert

Increased Volcanic Activity at Mt. Baekdu

Pagan Island Volcano Erupts in Mariana Islands

Icelandic volcano warming up for eruption: Small glacier flood continues at Katla

Mexico Volcano Spews Huge Ash Cloud, Frightens Villagers

Growing fears that huge North Korean volcano will soon erupt

Blasts Continue to Menace People Near Popocatepetl Volcano

Dramatic eruption seen at Sakurajima volcano in Japan

Guatemala Fuego Volcano Spits Lava and Ash

Is an eruption at Costa Rica's Turrialba Volcano imminent?

Residents evacuated near Costa Rica's Turrialba volcano after gas emission

Growing unrest: preventive alert declared for three Costa Rican volcanoes

500 evacuated from vicinity of Colombia's Nevado del Ruiz volcano

Fires

Three Forest Fires Burn Out of Control in Alberta; Fire Ban in Effect

Clouds of Smoke, Ash from Forest Fire Lead to State of Emergency in Timmins

Wildfires Hit Six U.S. States, Small Towns Evacuated

Miscellaneous

Mysterious smell detected in Tel Aviv, Israel

Mystery smell in Tel Aviv: Source still unknown

Source of Vibrating Houses Traced to Methane Gas From Landfill

Mysterious Noises, Vibrations Reported in Austin

Mystery Earthquake Near McCall Puzzles Scientists, Technicians

Purple Skies

'Roll Clouds' Filmed in Texas, Montana 29-30 May

Greenland Glaciers Are Speeding Up

Bering Sea Sees Surprising Record Ice Cover

Destabilization: Scientists discover new unstable region the size of New Jersey under Antarctica Ice Sheet

Researchers find New Zealand more seismically unstable than previously thought

Japan's Mt. Fuji a Ticking Time-bomb? Scientists Find 30 km Long Active Fault

Sumatra Volcanoes May Pack Deadly Punch

In less than 24 hours, Lake Cachet II in Chile's southern Patagonia vanished

'Climate Change'

Rise and Fall of Underwater Volcano Revealed

Last Ice Age took just SIX months to arrive

Global Cooling on the Way? Lake Sediment Proves Sun Cooled Earth 2,800 Years Ago and Could Happen Again Soon!

Japan tornado: Temperature differences spawned supercell storm

Belief That CO2 Can Regulate Climate Is 'Sheer Absurdity' Says Prominent German Meteorologist

Canadian Journalist exposes UN IPCC 'leading scientists' to be ideologically compatible grad students

US Offense Secretary Panetta: Climate change a national security threat

Global Warming Propaganda Alert! NASA Scientist James Hanson Says Civilization Will Be At Risk if Canada Exploits Oil Sands

Climate Change Nonsense: Dinosaur flatulence may have led to global warming

Plastic found in the stomachs of dead ocean birds reveals the Pacific Ocean off the northwest coast of North America to be more polluted than was realized.

The birds, called northern fulmars, feed exclusively at sea. Plastic remains in their stomachs for long periods. Researchers have for several decades examined stomach contents of fulmars, and in new study they tallied the plastic products in dead fulmars that had beached on the coasts of Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, Canada.

The research revealed a "substantial increase in plastic pollution over the past four decades," the researchers said in a statement.

"Like the canary in the coal mine, northern fulmars are sentinels of plastic pollution in our oceans," said Stephanie Avery-Gomm, the study's lead author and a graduate student in University of British Columbia's Department of Zoology. "Their stomach content provides a 'snapshot' sample of plastic pollution from a large area of the northern Pacific Ocean."

Fed by bone-dry timber and fanned by hot winds, the four major wildfires burning in Wyoming today have destroyed an unknown number of buildings and forced hundreds to evacuate.

The Albany County Sheriff's Office issued an immediate evacuation notice this morning for areas east of Sheep Mountain to Harmony Lane, and south of Lake Hattie as crews battle the Squirrel Creek Fire near Woods Landing southwest of Laramie. The notice includes the area northwest of Lake Hattie to Highway 130.

The evacuation center is the Albany County Fairgrounds. For more information, call 307-721-1801.

Authorities urged evacuees to assist neighbors if necessary.

The Albany County media release also advised that the Arapaho Fire in the county's northeast area is advancing quickly. Authorities said residents should be prepared to leave the area immediately. "This fire is moving at unprecedented rates," the release said.

The Arapaho Fire, currently the state's largest, is burning near Laramie Peak southwest of Wheatland. It had burned nearly 88,000 acres by this morning, fire spokesman Jim Whittington said.

Birds and bees are something most of us take for granted as part of nature. The expression "teaching about the birds and the bees" to explain the process of human reproduction to young people is not an accidental expression. Bees and birds contribute to the essence of life on our planet. A study by the US Department of Agriculture estimated that "...perhaps one-third of our total diet is dependent, directly or indirectly, upon insect-pollinated plants."¹

The honey bee, Apis mellifera, is the most important pollinator of agricultural crops. Honey bees pollinate over 70 out of 100 crops that in turn provide 90% of the world's food. They pollinate most fruits and vegetables - including apples, oranges, strawberries, onions and carrots.² But while managed honey bee populations have increased over the last 50 years, bee colony populations have decreased significantly in many European and North American nations. Simultaneously, crops that are dependent on insects for pollination have increased. The phenomenon has received the curious designation of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), implying it could be caused by any number of factors. Serious recent scientific studies however point to a major cause: use of new highly toxic systemic pesticides in agriculture since about 2004.