Earth ChangesS


Snowflake Cold

Cold wave kills 3 in Bolivia


Latin America Herald Tribune
Mon, 26 May 2014 00:00 UTC
Bolivia map
A cold wave that has been besetting Bolivia since the end of last week has caused the deaths of three people and dozens of head of livestock, authorities said Monday.

Two indigents died on Friday in the eastern city of Santa Cruz when temperatures plummeted from 23 to 8 C (73 to 46 F) due to the cold wave that entered Bolivia from Argentina, according to the government weather service, known by the acronym Senamhi.

The cold front, which originated in Antarctica, is now leaving Bolivia to the north, and so temperatures will begin to gradually improve in the eastern part of the country, Senamhi chief forecaster Marisol Portugal told Efe.
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Fish

Fish deaths a mystery at Lake Mendocino

Glenda Anderson
The Press Democrat
Tue, 27 May 2014 18:26 UTC
Dead Carp_1
© Glenda Anderson/The Press DemocratHundreds of dead carp are lining the shores of Lake Mendocino, but officials aren't sure why.
Hundreds of dead carp, mouths agape, are lining the shores of Lake Mendocino, but the cause of the die-off remained a mystery on Tuesday.

"Right now, we're just in limbo," said Ryan McClymont, a spokesman with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages Lake Mendocino.

The fish were first reported washing ashore on Sunday, McClymont said. State Fish and Wildlife biologists have been asked to investigate the deaths, he said.
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Bizarro Earth

Rock slide shuts down Loveland Pass, Colorado

Tom McGhee
The Denver Post
Tue, 27 May 2014 18:02 UTC
rock slide on US 6
© Steven Teaver via CDOTA rock slide on US 6 Loveland Pass on Tuesday May 27, 2014.
The Colorado Department of Transportation has shut down Loveland Pass after a rock slide on Tuesday afternoon.

The slide on U.S. 6 between Arapahoe Basin and Keystone ski areas is 50 feet wide and about 7 feet deep, said CDOT spokeswoman Crystal Morgan.

"There were no vehicles involved," she said.

Crews are on the scene, and once they secure the area will determine whether the pass can reopen after the rocks and debris are removed from the road, Morgan said, or whether more workwill be needed to stabilize the area above.

"We want to be sure the area above it is secure before we reopen," Morgan said.
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Fish

Thousands of dead fish found on shoreline near Kemah, Texas

Karla Barguiarena
abc13.com
Mon, 26 May 2014 12:07 UTC
Image
If you're passing though Kemah this Memorial Day weekend, you might notice a big stench due to hundreds of thousands of dead fish that have washed ashore.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department says the dead fish began showing up last weekend. Now, the fish litter the shoreline, and the stench fills the air.

"It just stinks really bad," said Yesenia Compean. "You had to cover your nose when you walk by there."

Edward Hinojosa and his family spend almost every other weekend in the Kemah area.

"Never seen nothing like that in my life," said Hinojosa.

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Water

Even remote Arctic sea ice is polluted with plastic

Yereth Rosen
Alaska Dispatch
Sun, 25 May 2014 00:14 UTC
Image
© CourtesRachel Obbard/R. Lieb-Lappen/Dartmouth CollegeA map shows the location where ice cores were taken from sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, and were found to contain microplastics.
Dartmouth scientist Rachel Obbard was looking at samples of Arctic sea ice for small organisms when something else caught her eye: Tiny, bright-colored bits and pieces and miniature string-like objects that did not seem to belong.

Those small specks turned out to be a type of pollution known as microplastics. Their presence in sea ice collected from the central Arctic Ocean showed that some of the vast quantities of garbage and pollution floating in the world's seas has traveled to the northernmost waters.

For Obbard, an assistant engineering professor who specializes in polar-ice studies, the appearance of microplastics in Arctic sea ice was an unpleasant surprise. "I was kind of shocked. I said, 'This shouldn't be here in such a remote place,'" she said.

Worse yet, that sea ice holding the small bits of trash is thinning and likely to shed them back into the water, where they can be ingested by fish, birds and mammals, said a study by Obbard and fellow scientists that was published online Tuesday in the scientific journal Earth's Future.

Comment: See also...
  • Plastic Trash in Oceans May Be 'Vastly' Underestimated
  • What is the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch?
  • Huge Garbage Patch Found in Atlantic Too


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Fish

Rare prehistoric-looking Sawfish caught in Bonyton Beach Inlet, Florida

Oulimata Ba
hngn.com
Mon, 26 May 2014 04:20 UTC
Image
© TwitterA Florida man and his friends caught a rare sawfish while fishing off Bonyton Beach Inlet in south Florida.
A Florida man was fishing with his buddies early Sunday morning when they caught a rare, 500-pound sawfish.

Dustin Richter and his friends had been fishing for nearly an hour off Bonyton Beach Inlet with no bites when one of the lines suddenly began to pull, WSVN-TV reported.

"All that adrenaline was pumping while we're pull him up," Richter told the station.

The group wrestled with the line for two hours while it was still dark out, finally reeling in a nearly 12-foot long sawfish.

"I kinda got to the light and we saw the fish, realized it was a sawfish," Richter told the station.

"We were amazed, because it was 11 feet long and the bill was 4 feet long and it was just a crazy find," Richter said.
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Eye 2

Clarion call? Lost snake species rediscovered on Clarion island, Mexico


BBC
Tue, 20 May 2014 04:03 UTC
Image
© Daniel MulcahyThe Clarion Nightsnake has a distinctive pattern of spots
A lost species of snake that eluded scientists for nearly 80 years has been rediscovered in Mexico, a US museum says.

The Clarion Nightsnake was found on the Pacific island of Clarion in Mexico by a researcher from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.

The snake was first discovered in 1936 by naturalist William Beebe.

Although never declared extinct, it was struck from the record after scientists were unable to rediscover it.

The museum said that researcher Daniel Mulcahy, working with an expert from a Mexican institute, carried out an expedition to Clarion Island where their team identified 11 snakes matching Beebe's description.
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Hourglass

Shiveluch volcano erupts in Kamchatka and ejects ash to 10 km height


ITAR-TASS
Tue, 27 May 2014 01:37 UTC
Shiveluch volcano
© ITAR-TASS
The Shiveluch volcano on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula has spewed ash to a height of up to 10 km above sea level.

The plume from the giant mountain moves towards south-east towards the Kamchatka Peninsula, the local branch of Russia's emergency situations ministry told Itar-tass.

The ash cloud poses no hazard to nearby populated localities, the source said.

According to the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT), the the second highest hazard level the volcano poses to aircraft - aviation orange colour code remains assigned to the giant mountain.

Shiveluch is the northernmost and one of the most active volcanoes of Kamchatka. It has been erupting with short intervals for about 10 years.
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Eye 2

Bullied into submission: 'I recant' says author of infamous Newsweek 'global cooling' article

James Delingpole
Breitbart
Sat, 24 May 2014 20:35 UTC
Image
© Image via LinkedIn
The author of a much-quoted 1975 Newsweek article predicting catastrophic global cooling now says it was a big mistake and the earth was warming all along. (H/T Climate Depot)

Peter Gwynne, began his piece by declaring portentously:
"There are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth."
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Cloud Lightning

Four killed by lightning during unseasonal rain in Telangana, India


webindia123.com
Tue, 20 May 2014 11:11 UTC
Image
Heavy rains coupled with gale winds that lashed several mandals of Warangal,Nizamabad districts in Telangana and East Godavari, Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram districts in coastal AP and parts of Anantapur in Rayalaseema claimed four lives.

According to reports reaching here, four persons including a 20 year old woman died when lightning struck in many places of Warangal during the midnight hours of Monday till the wee hours of today.

Banoth Uma, Kambalapalli Thanda in Mahbubabad Mandal who is going to get married on 21 of this month died when the thunderbolt struck while she is trying to shift material related to the wedding ceremony from outside into her house.

Her mother is also hurt in the incident.
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