Earth ChangesS


Cow

Ranchers ravaged by fires, drought and scarce alfalfa

Laura Zuckerman
Reuters
Fri, 13 Jul 2012 14:15 UTC
'We're going to run out of grass. It's shaping up to be scary,' says expert
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© George Frey/ReutersRanchers herd cattle through Fairview, Utah, in order to get them away from a nearby wildfire on June 26.
It took less than an hour last month for a Montana wildfire to reduce Scott McRae's ranch to thousands of blackened acres devoid of the grasses that were to sustain hundreds of cattle.

"That is 500 mouths to feed with nothing to eat in sight," said McRae, 53, co-owner of a family ranch founded in the 1880s in southeastern Montana.

McRae is among scores of ranchers across the West whose grazing lands have been charred by blazes or ravaged by drought amid a regional shortfall of the alfalfa hay that could stave off starvation.

With drought affecting more than half the contiguous United States and less than a quarter of the nation's pasture and range rated good to excellent, cattle producers from Montana to Nevada are bracing for a rough season.

While some ranchers like McRae use private lands for grazing, many others pay modest fees to graze herds on acreage managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service under decades-old laws governing grazing on the West's vast federal lands.

Comment: Largest natural disaster area ever declared in U.S., over half the country in drought
Global food crisis looms as grain prices soar

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Umbrella

5-mile-long landslide in Alaska national park

Miguel Llanos
MSNBC
Fri, 13 Jul 2012 11:05 UTC
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© Glacier Bay National ParkRock and debris from a landslide lie along five miles of what had been an ice-white glacier inside Glacier Bay National Park.
A massive landslide sent tons of rock and debris tumbling more than five miles down a glacier in Alaska, the National Park Service reported in an event that could be yet another sign of a warming world.

Located in a remote area of Glacier Bay National Park, the slide was so big it registered on earthquake monitors as a magnitude 3.4 event.

Officials noticed the monitor blip on June 11 but it wasn't until July 2 that a pilot passing over the site took photos that showed just how large it was, Glacier Bay National Park announced on its Facebook page.

Larger landslides have happened over geologic history, Marten Geertsema, a natural hazards researcher for the Forest Service in nearby British Columbia, told msnbc.com, but it certainly was "one of the longest runout landslides on a glacier in Alaska and Canada in recent times."
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Cow Skull

Largest natural disaster area ever declared in U.S., over half the country in drought

Dylan Stableford
Yahoo! News
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 16:55 UTC
US drought map
© USDA
The United States Department of Agriculture has declared natural disaster areas in more than 1,000 counties and 26 drought-stricken states, making it the largest natural disaster in America ever.

The declaration - which covers roughly half of the country - gives farmers and ranchers devastated by drought access to federal aid, including low-interest emergency loans.
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Cow Skull

Global food crisis looms as grain prices soar

Veronica Brown & Nigel Hunt
Reuters
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 09:38 UTC
The world is watching and waiting while US farmers struggle with the worst drought in 25 years

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© Seth Perlman/APSteve Niedbalski shows his drought and heat stricken corn while chopping it down for feed Wednesday, July 11, 2012 in Nashville Ill. Farmers in parts of the Midwest are dealing with the worst drought in nearly 25 years.
What looks to be the worst U.S. drought in a quarter of a century has given rise to an old-fashioned commodity rally on world markets, with key grain prices hitting highs which caused food crises in vulnerable parts of the globe last time around.

Seeking to protect their populations from hunger this time, many countries relying heavily on imports have held off for now, touting healthy stock levels and hoping other sources will come through and bring prices down.

But their hopes may be dashed if they all return to market at once.

With so much of the world putting faith in a record U.S. corn crop, it is little wonder that prices have surged around 40 percent in the past three weeks as relentless dry weather melted yield expectations for cereals. Soybeans are at record highs, while wheat is not far behind.

"Production potential looked great and it kind of lulled these end-users into a false sense of security. At that point we were seriously looking at (corn) prices under $5 if weather conditions remained ideal, but now we've rallied sharply higher and never looked back," Jefferies Bache analyst Shawn McCambridge said.
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Bizarro Earth

Noctilucent Clouds observed in Poland as they continue Southward advance


Spaceweather.com
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 13:45 UTC
This morning a vast bank of electric-blue noctilucent clouds rippled across northern Europe. "It was like water in the sky," says Barbara Grudzinska, who photographed the display from Warsaw, Poland:
Noctilucent Clouds
© Barbara Grudzinska
"These are the first noctilucent clouds this year so clearly visible at our latitude in Warsaw (52 N)," says Grudzinska.

When NLCs first appeared in the 19th century, the mysterious clouds were confined to the Arctic, most often seen in the same places as Northern Lights. In recent years, however, their "habitat" has been expanding, rippling as far south as Colorado, Virginia, Kansas, and Utah. (Here are some examples of sightings in the lower United States.) There is growing evidence that the expansion is a sign of climate change, although this remains controversial.

Whatever the reason, noctilucent clouds aren't just at high latitudes anymore, so sky watchers everywhere should be alert for them.

Observing tips:

Look west 30 to 60 minutes after sunset when the sun has dipped 6o to 16o below the horizon. If you see luminous blue-white tendrils spreading across the sky, you've probably spotted a noctilucent cloud.

Comment: Indeed, something is 'up'...

Cosmic Climate Change is Underway

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Info

Amazon Due for Numerous Species Extinctions

Joseph Castro
LiveScience
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 13:01 UTC
Burnt Amazon Forest
© Alexander LeesDuring the last half century, the seemingly endless Amazon has lost at least 17 percent of its forest cover, according to WWF. Shown here, a burnt Amazon forest.
When species lose their natural habitat to deforestation and other causes, they don't immediately disappear. Instead, they gradually die off over several generations, racking up an "extinction debt" that must eventually be paid in full. New research shows that the Brazilian Amazon has accrued a heavy vertebrate extinction debt, with more than 80 percent of extinctions expected from historical deforestation still impending.

While the results are alarming, this deathly time lag provides a conservation opportunity to save some of the disappearing species, scientists said, stressing that actions taken in the next few years are critical.

"Now that we know where the extinction debt is likely to be, we can go to the ground to restore habitat and take remedial actions to try to regenerate new habitats," said study lead author Robert Ewers, an ecologist at Imperial College London in the U.K. "We can try to put off ever having to pay that debt."
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Cloud Lightning

Massive storm floods Edmonton streets - Lightning, Hail damage homes


CBC News
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 10:54 UTC
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© Chris BienschHail stones from Thursday's storm are shown next to a ping pong ball.
A severe thunderstorm has flooded streets, yards, basements and construction sites in Edmonton. Sections of Whitemud Drive are underwater at 111th Street west of Calgary Trail. City workers arrived shortly after 7:30 a.m. to begin clearing the water.

Dharminder Gill told CBC News he was driving to work at 3 a.m.when his car stalled in the rising water. Within five minutes the water was waist deep, he said, and when he opened his window to escape the water began pouring in.

"I was scared," he said. "I took my bag and ran through the water and moved to a safe place."

The normally busy Mill Woods intersection at 66 Street and 34 Avenue is also flooded.

Firefighters spent much of the morning rescuing people from submerged vehicles, with at least 18 cars becoming trapped due to rainstorm, and responding to alarms set off by the storm.

Additional photos
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Cloud Lightning

20 Inches of Rain Cause Flash floods in Japan leaving trail of destruction

Arata Yamamoto
NBC News
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 10:49 UTC

An unprecedented 20 inches of rain descended on the town of Aso in southwestern Japan, inundating homes and rice paddies and killing at least 6 people. 20 people are still reportedly missing.

Images on local news reports showed cars being dragged into the raging rivers and houses destroyed by landslides. But by around noon time the rain had stopped, allowing for the clean up efforts to kick in.

The local fire department in Aso District said they had managed to rescue 8 people trapped in mudslides.
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Bizarro Earth

5.8 Magnitude Earthquake in Afghanistan, tremors felt in Punjab, Kashmir


NDTV.com
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 10:30 UTC
Image
© Unknown
A magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck northern India on Thursday evening. Tremors were felt in parts of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir reportedly. The epicentre of the quake was in Hindukush region.

Press Trust of India (PTI) reported that the powerful earthquake also jolted parts of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provinces of Pakistan though there were no reports of casualties or damage to property.

The tremor, which lasted about five seconds, occurred at about 7 pm and was followed by powerful aftershocks. It was felt in Islamabad, Lahore and other parts of Punjab, Peshawar and across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
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Arrow Down

Six dead, 8 injured in French Alps avalanche


Press TV
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 06:20 UTC
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Rescue crews fly in a helicopter on July 12, 2012 in Chamonix, in the French Alps, to the Mont Maudit, a mountain in the Mont Blanc Massif where an avalanche killed at least six people and injured eight, during the night.
An avalanche in the French Alps has claimed the lives of at least six climbers, leaving eight more injured, local and police authorities say.

"There are reportedly people missing," mountain police said on Thursday, adding rescue forces have been sent to find those missing in the incident.

The avalanche, described as the most deadly of recent years, has buried about 28 climbers from several countries, policed added.

The gendarme service was alerted around 5:25 a.m. (0325GMT) Thursday to the avalanche on Mont Maudit Mountain.

The mountain is the third highest peak in the Mont Blanc Massif which is located near French and Italian joint border.
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