Research has revealed that the extremely hot, dry and windy conditions on Black Saturday combined with structures in the atmosphere called 'horizontal convective rolls' -similar to streamers of wind flowing through the air - which likely affected fire behaviour. The study is the first of its kind to produce such detailed, high-resolution simulations of weather patterns on the day and provides insights for future fire management and warning systems.

The work was led by Dr Todd Lane and Ms Chermelle Engel from The University of Melbourne with Prof Michael Reeder (Monash University) and Dr Michael Rezny (ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science).

The team examined meteorological conditions across Victoria on 7 February, 2009. The analysis used a very high-resolution weather forecasting model, which represented the airflow over the entire state on 400 metre weather grids, which are about ten times smaller than the grids used in operational weather forecasting. Weather conditions observed on the day were used to validate the model.

Philippine authorities warned Monday an intensifying storm could bring more misery to the flood-battered capital and surrounding areas, where nearly half a million were in evacuation centres.

While flooding that covered 80 percent of Manila last week had largely subsided, vast areas of mainly rice-growing provinces to the north were still under water that in some places remained neck-deep.

Most of the 411,000 people crammed into gymnasiums, schools and other government evacuation centres were in the flooded farming provinces, with many others struggling by living in partly submerged homes.

Twin earthquakes that devastated rural villages in northwest Iran on the weekend killed 306 people, most of them women and children, and have sparked fears of disease outbreak, officials said on Monday. Another 3,037 people were injured, of whom 2,011 were given first aid at the scene and the rest were taken to hospital, where 700 surgeries were performed, Health Minister Marzieh Vahid told lawmakers in a report published on the parliament's website.

"We are continuing the search for bodies," she said. Authorities called off rescue operations on Sunday after saying all possible survivors had been recovered.

Forest and land fires in Southeast Asia kill an additional 15,000 people annually when the El Nino weather phenomenon grips the region, scientists have estimated. The deaths are caused by higher particle pollution and higher local levels of ozone, both of which are stressors for the lungs and heart, they said.

Environmental scientists in the United States looked at airborne levels of particles from fires in Southeast Asia from 1997 to 2006. The fires are annual events, set by local farmers to clear fields or forests. But in dry conditions, the fires can ignite carbon-rich peatland soil that can burn uncontrollably for months.

The risk was highest in years of El Nino, the disruptive weather pattern that causes drought and dryness in the tropical western Pacific but heavy rainfall or flooding on the ocean's eastern side.

Galveston -- Hundreds of thousands of dead fish have washed up on the beach in Galveston, where crews went to work Monday to remove the dead fish.

Peter Davis of the Galveston Island Beach Patrol said Sunday the small shad fish likely were killed by low oxygen levels in the Gulf of Mexico.

Davis estimated hundreds of thousands of fish have died.

Galveston County health officials said the water is fine for beachgoers.

Biologist Steven Mitchell with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said calm conditions and summer heat may have contributed to the fish kill.

He said there's a possibility of a dead zone in the water off Galveston.

Testing is expected this week.

Date-Time:
Tuesday, August 14, 2012 at 02:59:42 UTC
Tuesday, August 14, 2012 at 12:59:42 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
49.796°N, 145.113°E

Depth:
625.7 km (388.8 miles)

Region:
SEA OF OKHOTSK

Distances:
160 km (100 miles) ENE (66°) from Poronaysk, Russia

361 km (225 miles) NNE (28°) from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia

445 km (277 miles) SSE (160°) from Okha, Russia

1630 km (1013 miles) NNE (14°) from TOKYO, Japan

Thousands of people were without power, buildings were ripped apart and airplanes were damaged at an area airport after storms raged through north Texas.

Aerial footage showed damage to at least 15 small planes and several buildings at Fort Worth's Meacham International Airport after winds reached more than 70 mph.

As the storm tore through the airport, many of the airplanes were tossed around the tarmac and walls and roofs of the nearby buildings were pulled off.

In nearby Denton County, northwest of Fort Worth, The Dallas Morning News reported several structures, including a home and barns, were also damaged.

More than 22,000 people were still without power on Monday, a figure down from the around 50,000 people that had lost power due to the bad weather, the newspaper reported.

No injuries were reported.

Germany is being invaded by what is estimated to be over a million raccoons. Worried residents have been driven to take extreme measures to deter or eradicate the furry pests, but experts fear the nocturnal marauders are here to stay.

A retired man in Harleshausen, a suburb of the central German city of Kassel, had nothing more in mind than removing the tarp covering his lawn furniture. But then a hissing animal with markings like a safecracker's mask shot toward him and sank its teeth into his left hand. It was a female raccoon intent on protecting her young, and she next attacked the man's foot. The struggle lasted a minute or so before the man staggered into his house bleeding.

That altercation is symptomatic of a nuisance that's spreading through the country. Procyon lotor, the common raccoon, is not native to Germany, but its range is increasing. The population will soon number over a million, according to forest biologist Ulf Hohmann.

These predatory mammals originally from North America can weigh over 10 kilograms (22 pounds). They're known for their intelligence, and many Native American legends assign raccoons the trickster role that Germans associate with Reynard the Fox in European fables. Both the real-life trapper Daniel Boone and the fictional hero of the Leatherstocking Tales novels wore fur caps made from raccoon pelts, easily identifiable by their bushy black and white tails.

The first raccoons were brought to Germany in around 1920 to be bred in captivity for their pelts. Their controlled introduction into the wild occurred on April 12, 1934, when Prussian hunting and game authorities released two pairs of raccoons near the Edersee, a reservoir near Kassel. Their stated purpose was to "enrich the fauna" of the area.

Exposure to radioactive material released into the environment have caused mutations in butterflies found in Japan, a study suggests.

Scientists found an increase in leg, antennae and wing shape mutations among butterflies collected following the 2011 Fukushima accident.

The link between the mutations and the radioactive material was shown by laboratory experiments, they report.

The work has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Two months after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in March 2011, a team of Japanese researchers collected 144 adult pale grass blue (Zizeeria maha) butterflies from 10 locations in Japan, including the Fukushima area.

When the accident occurred, the adult butterflies would have been overwintering as larvae.

My papers and those of Jan-Erik Solheim et al predict a significant cooling over Solar Cycle 24 relative to Solar Cycle 23. Solheim's model predicts that Solar Cycle 24, for the northern hemisphere, will be 0.9º C cooler than Solar Cycle 23. It hasn't cooled yet and we are three and a half years into the current cycle. The longer the temperature stays where it is, the more cooling has to come over the rest of the cycle for the predicted average reduction to occur.

So when will it cool? As Nir Shaviv and others have noted, the biggest calorimeter on the plant is the oceans. My work on sea level response to solar activity (link) found that the breakover between sea level rise and sea level fall is a sunspot amplitude of 40:
As this graph from SIDC shows, the current solar amplitude is about 60 in the run-up to solar maximum, expected in May 2013: