Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

'Baikal seriously ill': World's deepest lake suffers alien algae, record water-level drop


RT.com
Fri, 13 Mar 2015 13:27 UTC
Olkhon Island and Lake Baikal
© Wikimedia CommonsOlkhon Island and Lake Baikal.
The shores of Lake Baikal in Siberia, the world's largest body of fresh water and popular tourist destination, are covered with rotting algae dangerous to its unique ecosystem.

Baikal is getting increasingly contaminated by spirogyra, which could pose a threat to the purity of its waters.

Spirogyra is not native to Baikal's ecosystem. It thrives on biological waste which, according to ecologists, is provided in abundance by the sewage facilities of the local holiday centers, as well as private boats.

Now, most of Baikal's shores are covered in rotting spirogyra. Only the western shore remains clean.

"It has never been detected previously in such a mass abundance. Spirogyra is completely occupying more than 50 percent of the coastal area of Lake Baikal," says Oleg Timoshkin from the Limnological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The institute researches the flora and fauna of Siberian lakes.

"Last year, there was more than 1,500 tonnes of rotting algae. Unfortunately, I can definitely say that Baikal is ill. Seriously ill."
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Wolf

Wolves attack dogs in Pacific Rim Park, Canada


cbc.ca
Thu, 12 Mar 2015 19:24 UTC
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Parks Canada is warning people to keep their dogs on a leash while walking in Pacific Rim National Park near Ucluelet, B.C. because of attacks by wolves.
Two dogs are injured and another is missing after a series of wolf attacks near Ucluelet, B.C.

On Tuesday morning, a pair of wolves attacked two dogs being walked off leash on Wickaninnish Beach. While the larger dog escaped, the smaller one — a Jack Russell Terrier — was taken by the pair.

Todd Windle, a human-wildlife conflict expert with Parks Canada, says the dogs' owner was only 200 metres away when the attack happened.

"She saw both wolves come up and they started attacking her larger dog first," says Windle.

The second, smaller dog then came in to defend the larger one. The wolves left the bigger one alone and made off with the smaller one instead.
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Snowflake Cold

Winter has been tough on waterfowl across America

Chris Bosak
The Hour
Thu, 12 Mar 2015 17:24 UTC
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© Chris BosakA male Hooded Merganser swims in a half-frozen Mill Pond in Norwalk.
What would you do if your refrigerator and kitchen cupboards were locked and you didn't have a key? The grocery stores were all boarded up, and it's the dead of winter so your garden has long stopped being productive. Oh, and you can't drive anywhere because of a natural instinct telling you to stay put.

That is what the last six weeks have been like for many birds, especially waterfowl. And it's been a deadly scenario.

I heard the other day that upwards of 70 ducks and geese were found dead at the Norwalk Wastewater Treatment Plant, most likely because of malnutrition. I also received a call from a Westport resident who had five dead Canada geese in her yard one morning. The number swelled to eight as the week went on. Mute Swans have been stranded on frozen water, too, although some of those birds have been saved.

"It's been the most severe winter we've had in 30 years," said Min Huang, a waterfowl specialist with Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP). "We've seen a lot of mortality over the last three weeks up and down the coast, mostly geese and puddle ducks."
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Snowflake Cold

A week before Spring: Nova Scotia blizzard forecast with 40 cm of snow


cbc.ca
Fri, 13 Mar 2015 16:54 UTC
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© Craig Paisley/CBCCBC meteorologist Peter Coade expects "all forms of traffic" to be affected on Sunday, including flights, roads and ferries.
Environment Canada warns of snow squalls for some areas of Maritimes Friday morning

Just a week away from the official start of spring, the Maritimes are bracing for another winter storm.

CBC meteorologist Peter Coade says two weather systems — one from the northwest and another warm and moist disturbance out of the Gulf of Mexico — are forecast to collide and become one, just south of Nova Scotia on Sunday.

The system is expected to produce snow. Coade expects "all forms of traffic" to be affected on Sunday, including flights, roads and ferries.

"Although it is still early to come up with a solid snowfall amount forecast, I think it safe to say that blizzard conditions can be expected with the strong east-to-northeast wind blowing around some 10 to 20 centimetres — possibly as high as 30 to 40 centimetres — of fresh snow," said Coade.
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Cloud Precipitation

Storm and flooding kills 62 in Lobito, Angola


iol.co.za
Fri, 13 Mar 2015 16:23 UTC
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© Rafael MarchanteAn Angolan child crosses a flooded street in a suburb of the capital Luanda in 2010.
Torrential rains have killed 62 people, more than half of them children, in the Angolan town of Lobito, official news agency Angop said on Thursday, citing firefighters.

The Bairro Novo neighbourhood of Lobito, located on the Atlantic coast about 500 kilometres south of the capital Luanda, was worst affected by the downpours on the night from Wednesday to Thursday, with the water up to three metres deep in places, the agency added.

Thirty-five of the 62 dead were children, it said.

President Jose Eduardo dos Santos asked the provincial government to help the families affected by the tragedy, while offering his condolences to the relatives of the dead, a presidency statement said.

Violent storms come to Angola every spring, causing landslides and floods that hit the country's poor neighbourhoods the hardest.

One person was already killed in a storm on Tuesday that also destroyed 137 houses and left more than 400 families homeless in Luanda, the local government said.

Source: AFP

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Attention

1,450 sea lions have washed up on California beaches this year

Jack Healy
New York Times
Thu, 12 Mar 2015 15:40 UTC
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© SeaWorldSea lion pups brought to SeaWorld.
By the time Wendy Leeds reached him, the sea lion pup had little hope of surviving.

Like more than 1,450 other sea lions that have washed up on California beaches this year, in what animal experts call a growing crisis for the animal, this 8-month-old pup was starving, stranded and hundreds of miles from a mother who still needed to nurse him and teach him to hunt and feed. Ribs jutted from his velveteen coat.

The pup had lain on the beach for hours, becoming the target of an aggressive dog before managing to wriggle onto the deck of a million-dollar oceanfront home, where the owner shielded him with an umbrella and called animal control. In came Ms. Leeds, an animal-care expert at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center, which like other California rescue centers is being inundated with calls about lost, emaciated sea lions.

"It's getting crazy," she said.

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Question

19 Green turtles carcasses found on Pulau Tiga, Malaysia

Fatma Wati Munir
New Strait Times
Fri, 13 Mar 2015 15:20 UTC
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State Wildlife department with rangers from Sabah Parks, Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency and Marine police found 19 dead turtles on Pulau Tiga, within the proposed Tun Mustapha Marine Park in Kudat.
Mystery surrounds the discovery of 19 dead turtles on an island within the proposed Tun Mustapha Marine Park in Kudat.

Acting on public information, officers from the State Wildlife department together with rangers from Sabah Parks, the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency and Marine police recovered the carcasses on Pulau Tiga on March 5.

Post mortem will be carried out by the State wildlife department here to determine how the endangered Green turtles ended up dead on the island which is located about three hours by speed boat from Kudat town.
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Blue Planet

Volcanic ash closes Costa Rica's Juan Santamaría International Airport

Zach Dyer
The Tico Times
Fri, 13 Mar 2015 12:33 UTC
Turrialba volcano
© The Tico TimesTurrialba Volcano registered three explosions on Thursday, March 12, 2015, spreading ash over the capital San José and causing the Juan Santamaría International Airport to close around 4:00 p.m.
UPDATED at 7:00 p.m. with airport re-opening time.

Juan Santamaría International Airport will remain closed until at least 8:00 a.m. Friday, March 13, according to airport administration. Airport spokeswoman Silvia Chávez said that the Friday re-opening was conditional on overnight activity at Turrialba Volcano.

UPDATED at 5 p.m. with information on affected flights.

Falling ash from Costa Rica's Turrialba Volcano closed the country's Juan Santamaría International Airport on Thursday afternoon at approximately 4:00 p.m., according to airport management.
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Ice Cube

Unusual ice heave on Otter Tail County lakes, Minnesota

Elizabeth Huwe
dl-online.com
Thu, 12 Mar 2015 21:22 UTC
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Ice damage on Otter Tail Lake mostly has been concentrated on the south shore of the lake, according to Dave Sethre, President of the Otter Tail County Coalition of Lake Associations
Ice is a normal part of winter along Minnesota's lakes. However, this year, some property owners on Otter Tail County lakes are dealing with more ice, and damage, than usual.

Dave Sethre, president of the Otter Tail County Coalition of Lake Associations, called the ice on one of the biggest lakes -- Otter Tail -- "pretty radical" this year.

"This is turning out to be the winter of the ice heave on many of our larger Otter Tail County lakes," Sethre wrote in a March newsletter. "Estimates are that expansion has been 150 to 200 percent at some locations."

According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, ice heaves and ridges are caused by caused by the pushing action of a lake's ice sheet against the shore.
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Snowflake

Very unusual snowfall forces closure of Puebla, Mexico highway


Mexiconewsdaily.com
Thu, 12 Mar 2015 21:06 UTC
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© Mexico News Daily
Cold front delivers snow and hail to central Mexico

Snow closed some roads yesterday in Michoacán, but today the wintry conditions have moved to the State of Mexico and Puebla, closing the Mexico City-Puebla freeway early this morning.

Officials closed the highway about 4:30am between the San Marcos toll booth, on the outskirts of the Federal District, to Río Frío in the State of Mexico, near the Puebla border.

The Federal Highways and Bridges Agency, Capufe, issued a warning via Twitter at 7:51 to urge drivers to use alternate routes. The 5 de Mayo freeway has also been closed, according to another report.

As many as 18,000 residents of the communities of Río Frío, Llano Grande and Avila Camacho are reported to have been cut off by the closure of the highway.

Yesterday, Civil Protection officials in Michoacán described as very rare the sight of snow on various hills in the municipalities of Paracho, Nahuatzén, Cherán and Zacapu.

The Zacapu-Zamora highway was closed for a while due to a heavy hailstorm at about 1:00pm, blanketing the road with four centimeters of ice and causing at least four accidents.

Officials said that with the exception of the Pico de Tancítaro, with an altitude of 3,485 meters, the sight of snow on five hills in the region was uncommon.

The National Meteorological Service said the center of the country is being affected by cold front #41, and the combination of cold air and Pacific moisture are bringing about colder temperatures, rain and snow.

Sources: CNN, El Diario

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