Earth ChangesS


Snowflake Cold

Global Warming? Unusual winter turned corporate chiefs into meteorologists

Kyle Stock
Bloomberg Businessweek
Wed, 28 May 2014 00:00 UTC
snow swept parking lot
© Darren McCollester/Getty ImagesA snow-swept parking lot with no cars on March 26 in Hyannis, Mass.
In addition to accounting and corporate finance, business schools should teach would-be executives how to pull off a successful snow dance. A little winter weather, it turns out, is a perfect excuse for shoddy results. Unlike revenue and profits, there are no reliable metrics for measuring just how bad a recent winter has been, and executives capable of posting decent results in frigid temperatures can herald the challenge overcome through managerial determination.

With the earnings season coming to a close and summer almost in full swing, Bloomberg Businessweek decided to see just how much executives at S&P 500 companies played the weather card this winter. The short answer: a lot. In earnings conference calls since Feb. 1, they mentioned "weather" 520 times, up from just 313 in the same period last year. The results were the same with other meteorological catchphrases: "winter" (340 times, vs. 172), "snow" (134 times, vs. 69), and "polar" (44 times, vs. 6).

This, of course, is mostly excusable. It was a pretty terrible winter - particularly in the Northeast - and that had an effect on any business that relied on foot traffic or transportation. As Costco (COST) Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti put it: "I'm not trying to make excuses, but it's been unbelievable."
Read More...
Attention

Pygmy sperm whale found dead on Delaware beach

Molly Murray
The News Journal
Tue, 27 May 2014 07:03 UTC
Image
© MERR Institute A dead pygmy sperm whale washed onto the beach at Delaware Seashore State Park on Sunday.
A dying 10-foot long, 800-pound pygmy sperm whale washed up at Delaware Seashore State Park on Sunday and no one is sure, just yet, why the animal died.

"He appeared to be a fairly robust animal with what looked like what might have been a previous entanglement around his tail," said Suzanne Thurman, executive director of the Marine Education Research and Rehabilitation Institute.

"He did have a fairly heavy parasite load in his GI tract, which is indicative of poor health."

But it's unknown whether additional testing on the animal to determine the cause will be done. Thurman said they collected samples and preserved them, but they have no money to send them off for testing.

They reported the stranding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has been tracking a large scale dolphin die-off along the Atlantic Coast over the last year.
Read More...
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.
Read More...
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.
Read More...
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.
Read More...
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.

Read More...
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


Read More...
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.
Read More...
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.
Read More...
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.
Read More...