Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

The Ballooning Shortage of Helium

balloons
© Pete Erickson/AP PhotoKent Couch, the lawn chair balloonist, feels the lift of helium balloons over Oregon in 2007.
We usually think of it as the funny, lighter-than-air gas that makes balloons float and our voices squeak.

But those helium-filled party balloons are about to get a lot more expensive. Like uranium and oil, helium is running out. Created over billions of years, the earth's supply could be gone in 25 to 30 years if we continue to waste it at its current rate, experts say.

The news has touched off a crisis in the science world, where the nontoxic, nonflammable substance holds the key to a myriad of scientific wonders, from modern medical diagnostics to the Large Hadron Collider.

Binoculars

South Africa: Drunk Baboons Plague Cape Town's Exclusive Suburbs

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© AP PhotoEach day, dozens of Cape Baboons gather to strip the ancient vines
The sun is setting over South Africa's oldest vineyard and the last of the wine-tasting tourists are climbing onto their buses. But one large family group has no intention of leaving - and there is little the management can do about it.

Groot Constantia, in the heart of Cape Town's wine country, can deal with inebriated holidaymakers - but it is invading baboons which have developed a taste for its grapes that the wine makers are struggling with.

Each day, dozens of Cape Baboons gather to strip the ancient vines - the sauvignon blanc grapes are a particular favourite - before heading into the mountains to sleep. A few, who sample fallen fruit that has fermented in the sun, pass out and don't make it home.

"They are not just eating our grapes, they are raiding our kitchens and ripping the thatch off the roofs. They are becoming increasingly bold and destructive," said Jean Naude, general manager at the vineyard, which is celebrating its 325th birthday this year. Guards banging sticks and waving plastic snakes have been deployed with only limited success, and not even a blast of a vuvuzela, the plastic horn made famous at the World Cup, seems to frighten them.

Magnify

South Pacific Sea Levels - Best Records Show Little or No Rise?

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© UnknownSea levels: The El Nino / tropical storm anomaly in 1997-1998 is clear. A long sustained rise is not.
Are the small islands of the South Pacific in danger of disappearing, glug, under the waves of the rising ocean? Will thousands of poor inhabitants be forced to emigrate, as desperate refugees, to Australia and New Zealand? Has any of this got anything to do with man-made emissions of CO2?

By looking closely at the records, it turns out that the much advertised rising sea levels in the South Pacific depend on anomalous depressions of the ocean during 1997 and 1998 thanks to an El Nino and two tropical cyclones.

The Science and Public Policy Institute has released a report by Vincent Gray which compares 12 Pacific Island records and shows that in many cases it's these anomalies that set the trends... and if the anomaly is removed, sea levels appear to be more or less constant since the Seaframe measurements began around 1993.

Phoenix

Volcano erupts on Indonesia's Sumatra after 400 years

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© Reuters / Tarmizy HarvaMount Sinabung volcano spews smoke outside the city of Medan, North Sumatra August 28, 2010
A volcano erupted on the Indonesia island of Sumatra on Sunday for the first time in four centuries, sending smoke 1,500 meters (about 5,000 feet) into the air and prompting the evacuation of thousands of residents, officials said.

There were no reports of casualties so far and aviation in the area was unaffected.

Mount Sinabung in the north of Sumatra began erupting around midnight after rumbling for several days and lava was overflowing its crater, Surono, head of Indonesia's vulcanology center, told Reuters. The volcano had been placed on red level, the highest alert.

Cowboy Hat

Climate Corruption - UN board could rein in $2.7 billion carbon market

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© Unknown
An obscure U.N. board that oversees a $2.7 billion market intended to cut heat-trapping gases has agreed to take steps that could lead to it eventually reining in what European and U.S. environmentalists are calling a huge scam.

At a meeting this week that ended Friday, the executive board of the U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism said that five chemical plants in China would no longer qualify for funding as so-called carbon offset credits until the environmentalists' claims can be further investigated.

The "CDM" credits have been widely used in the carbon trading markets of the European Union, Japan and other nations that signed onto the 1997 Kyoto Protocol requiring mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases.

Bad Guys

Climate Change - No Transparency, No Consensus

You can't buy the truth, but you can buy a committee interpretation of it.

One year ago a group of eminent scientists wrote a letter to congress provocatively titled "You are being deceived." Now, in a similar vein, but with all the gory details, John McLean has put together a 66 page compilation of the modus operandi and history of said deception. It's a story of how small committees of activists cite their own work, ignore contradictory information and dissenting reviewers, use the peer review system to lock out opponents, and blithely acknowledge crippling uncertainties (but only in tracts of text that few will read, and never in summation when it matters).

Fish

Snow Crabs Found Clustered Around Methane Vents at Bottom of Sea of Japan

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© Unknown
Large clusters of a type of snow crab called benizuwaigani have been discovered around methane vents at the bottom of the Sea of Japan, but scientists are not quite sure why.

Methane may play an important role in the feeding habits of the crab, as microorganisms are known to gather around methane vents to receive nutrients, providing the crabs with a source of food, researchers from the University of Tokyo and other institutes speculated when the finding was announced Wednesday.

Experts believe the Sea of Japan may be home to deposits of methane hydrate, a methane compound with a sherbet-like texture known as "burning ice" for its potential uses as a next-generation fuel source.

"We might be able get some insights on methane hydrate exploration by looking into these crab clusters," said Prof. Ryo Matsumoto of the University of Tokyo.

The research team noted that the sea off Niigata Prefecture is home to both methane deposits and the benizuwaigani crab. Using an underwater robot called Tsuna Sando, the group photographed 12 locations of 800 square meters (2,624.7 square feet) each at the bottom of the sea 30 (18.6 miles) to 40 kilometers (24.85 miles) off Naoetsu Port, a site known as a major benizuwaigani habitat.

Fish

Cold Empties Bolivian Rivers of Fish

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© Never TejerinaThe San Julián fish farm in the Santa Cruz department of Bolivia lost 15 tonnes of pacú fish in the extreme cold.
Antarctic cold snap kills millions of aquatic animals in the Amazon.

With high Andean peaks and a humid tropical forest, Bolivia is a country of ecological extremes. But during the Southern Hemisphere's recent winter, unusually low temperatures in part of the country's tropical region hit freshwater species hard, killing an estimated 6 million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles and river dolphins.

Scientists who have visited the affected rivers say the event is the biggest ecological disaster Bolivia has known, and, as an example of a sudden climatic change wreaking havoc on wildlife, it is unprecedented in recorded history.

Bizarro Earth

Circumzenithal Arc Spotted in North Tyneside

Circumzenithal Arc
© Mark HumeMark Hume spotted a circumzenithal arc in North Tyneside.
It may look like an upside down rainbow, but a circumzenithal arc has been spotted in North Tyneside.

Rainbows occur by light refracting off raindrops falling in the sky, but the circumzenithal arc is created by refraction of light from ice crystals.

These crystals are part of cirrus clouds which lie 15,000 - 16,000 kilometers high in the sky.

Unlike normal rainbows, only a quarter of the multi-coloured arc is formed as opposed to a full circle of a rainbow.

Bizarro Earth

US: Hurricane Danielle becomes Category 4 storm

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© Reuters/NOAAHurricane Danielle heading westward in the open Atlantic Ocean in a satellite image taken August 24, 2010.
Hurricane Danielle became a Category 4 storm early Friday far out over the Atlantic as it headed in Bermuda's direction and threatened to bring dangerous rip currents to the U.S. East Coast.

Danielle's maximum sustained winds were near 135 mph (215 kph) with some slight strengthening possible.

Danielle was located Friday about 480 miles (770 kilometers) southeast of Bermuda and moving north-northwest near 12 mph (19 kph). The hurricane's center is forecast to pass well east of Bermuda on Saturday night. But large waves and dangerous surf conditions were expected in Bermuda over the next few days, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Swells from Danielle would also begin arriving on the East Coast of the U.S. on Saturday and were likely to cause dangerous rip currents through the weekend.