Earth ChangesS


Snowman

Alberta walloped with snow

Andrea Stockton
The Weather Network
Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:56 UTC
Image
You're not seeing or hearing things. It's the middle of July and heavy snow is blanketing parts of Alberta.

"There wasn't any snow on the ground last night when I went to bed," says Megan Gibson from the Marmot Basin Ski Resort near Jasper. "I think it started snowing as early as this morning and since about 6:30 this morning, we've had around 18 centimetres fall at the lower chalet."

Gibson adds that even heavier amounts are expected higher up. Usually at this time of year crews are preparing for the next ski season instead of actually partaking in winter-like activities.

While not completely impossible, heavy snow like this in July is pretty rare.

"This is totally out of the blue. To receive this much snow in July and have it stay on the ground is unheard of," says Gibson.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Washington, DC Area Shaken by 3.6 Magnitude Earthquake


The Associated Press
Fri, 16 Jul 2010 05:41 UTC
Image
© USGSPotomac-Shenandoah Region
The DC area was shaken by a minor earthquake early Friday. The quake hit at 5:04 a.m. EDT and had a magnitude of 3.6. The quake was centered in the Rockville, Md., area said Randy Baldwin, a physicist with U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center.

Gloria Jackson, a police communications supervisor for the Montgomery County Police Department, said the department has gotten numerous calls about the earthquake, but that no injuries or significant property damage had been reported as of 5:35 a.m.

Details from USGS:

Date-Time:
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 09:04:47 UTC

Friday, July 16, 2010 at 05:04:47 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
39.167°N, 77.252°W

Depth:
5 km (3.1 miles) set by location program

Region:
POTOMAC-SHENANDOAH REGION

Distances:
15 km (10 miles) NW of Rockville, Maryland

30 km (15 miles) ENE of Leesburg, Virginia

35 km (20 miles) NW of WASHINGTON, D.C.

70 km (45 miles) WNW of ANNAPOLIS, Maryland
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Binoculars

UK: Swarm of 30,000 Bees That "Turned the Sky Black"

Laura Roberts
The Telegraph
Fri, 16 Jul 2010 02:30 UTC
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© MasonsAfter an hour the bees clumped together into a 2ft long 'grape' on a nearby 10ft high conifer tree before flying away
A swarm of 30,000 bees surrounded a home in Lincolnshire "turning the sky black".

Phil Sanderson, 34, said the sound of the insects was the equivalent to "a crowd of people blowing vuvuzelas".

The swarm initially swirled around the father of three's home so loudly that he couldn't hear his partner Serena Reed, 34, talking.

After an hour the bees clumped together into a 2ft long 'grape' on a nearby 10ft high conifer tree before flying away.

Mr Sanderson, a mail order catalogue worker who photographed the bees at home in Pinchbeck, near Spalding, Lincs., said the noise sounded "exactly like being at a World Cup game".
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Cloud Lightning

India: Lightning Bolt Hits School, Injuring 14 Children


The Daily Telegraph
Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:48 UTC
Fourteen children were injured today when a bolt of lightning hit their elementary school in Talcher, eastern India.

The youngsters, 11 girls and three boys, were attending classes at Kalamachhuin Upper Primary School when the bolt struck just after 2pm local time.

Two students were seriously hurt. Nine others were also taken to a local hospital.

The school's headmistress, Hemalata Sethy, said: "Suddenly, I heard a bursting sound and later, I found 10 to 12 students lying on the floor unconscious.

"After I alerted, villagers come to our rescue."
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Fish

Scientists Discover Bizarre Prehistoric Creatures Under Great Barrier Reef


The Telegraph
Thu, 15 Jul 2010 05:13 UTC
Image
© BarcroftA deep-sea anglerfish
Australian scientists have discovered bizarre prehistoric sea life thousands of feet below the Great Barrier Reef, in an unprecedented mission to document species under threat from ocean warming.

Ancient sharks, giant oil fish, swarms of crustaceans and a primitive shell-dwelling squid species called the Nautilus were among the astonishing life captured by remote controlled cameras at Osprey Reef.

Justin Marshall, the lead researcher, said his team had also found several unidentified fish species, including "prehistoric six-gilled sharks" using special lowlight sensitive cameras which were custom designed to trawl the ocean floor, 4,593ft (1,400m) below sea level.

"Some of the creatures that we've seen we were sort of expecting, some of them we weren't expecting, and some of them we haven't identified yet," said Mr Marshall, from the University of Queensland, Australia.
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Binoculars

900-Year-Old Song Dynasty Drains Save Chinese City from Deadly Floods

Malcolm Moore
The Telegraph
Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:50 UTC
Image
© The TelegraphThe drainage system uses the natural camber of the city to quickly channel water outwards.
A 900-year-old drainage system has saved a city in south China from severe floods that have left over one hundred people dead and a million homeless across the region.

Torrential rain and flash floods have caused £1.9 billion of damage in China. Nearly forty people were killed this week alone in a series of landslides.

But the 100,000 residents of the ancient city of Ganzhou, in Jiangxi province, are safe and dry, thanks to two drains built during the Song dynasty (960-1279), which proved far more effective than modern sewer systems at coping with the downpour.

Two long tunnels, built using bricks from the city walls, cross the city and channel floodwater into two ponds that function as reservoirs. The designer of the system, Liu Yi, named the drains "Fu" or Fortune, and "Shou" or Longevity.

"The ancient residents of Ganzhou were very advanced in hydro-technology," said Wang Ronghong, head of the city's project management and maintenance office.
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Bizarro Earth

Thousands of Fish Try to "Commit Suicide" Near Xiamen Binhai Park


What's On Xiamen
Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:51 UTC
Suicidal Fish
© What's On XiamenTens of thousands of small fish kept jumping out the sea near Xiamen Binhai Park
for 15 minutes Wednesday afternoon.
Tens of thousands of fish kept jumping out of the sea near Xiamen Binhai Park Wednesday afternoon for 15 minutes due to unknown reasons, reports the Strait Herald.

"That was too weird, it seems they were trying to kill themselves", said Mr. Wu, a nearby resident, who felt quite concerned about these fish.

At about 1:30 pm on 14th July, Mr. Wu was walking around Xiamen Haibin Park when he saw this strange phenomenon.

At the very beginning, only some fish appeared near the surface. After a while, tens of thousands of fish gathered together and moved towards the seashore. All of a sudden, all these silvery small fish jumped up together to almost one metre high.
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Bizarro Earth

China Faces Worst Floods in Years

Ben Blanchard and Manny Mogato
Reuters
Thu, 15 Jul 2010 02:26 UTC
Image
© Reuters/StringerFishermen salvage fishing nets from their capsized boat after Typhoon Conson hit Mariveles, Bataan province, north of Manila July 15, 2010.
Heavy rains and powerful winds battered East Asia on Thursday, pressing authorities to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in Japan and putting China on alert for its worst floods in years.

In the Philippines, power was gradually restored to millions of homes in and around Manila after Typhoon Conson hit the capital harder than expected on Tuesday night, killing 23 people and leaving dozens missing.

Tropical Storm Risk downgraded the typhoon to a tropical storm on Thursday, but the Philippines' weather bureau said it was expected to regain strength as it moved over the South China Sea and headed toward southern China and northern Vietnam.

Conson was due to hit land late on Friday, the Tropical Storm Risk website said.
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Magnify

Methane Eating Microbes Multiply in Gulf Oil Spill

Renee Schoof
The Vancouver Sun
Wed, 14 Jul 2010 20:09 UTC
Thick oil
© Agence France-PresseThick oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill floats on the surface of the water and coats the marsh wetlands in Bay Jimmy near Port Sulphur, Louisiana, June 11, 2010
The number of naturally occurring microbes that eat methane grew surprisingly fast inside a plume spreading from BP's ruptured oil well, an oceanographer who was one of the first to detect the plumes said Tuesday.

Samantha Joye, a marine sciences professor at the University of Georgia at Athens, said it's good news that the microbes are eating the methane. However, the microbes also use oxygen in the water, and Joye said the repercussions of the resulting oxygen depletion aren't yet known.

Joye said she hadn't completed her analysis yet, but that the data so far show that the microbes are much more abundant in the plume than they are in the water layers above and below it.
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Bomb

The Escalating Chemical War on Weeds

Firmin DeBrabander
Counterpunch
Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:49 UTC
Image
© Paul Hoppe

The Return of Agent Orange

A few weeks back, the New York Times made mention of an astounding development, which has, for whatever reason, received little fanfare or recognition. Despite its Vietnam War notoriety, Agent Orange is in vogue again, this time down on the farm. Its reemergence, and in this particular setting, raises a host of troubling questions that are not being well considered.

Over the past year, there have been increasing reports of emerging superweeds resistant to Roundup, the preferred weedkiller of America's farmers. Roundup is sold in tandem with Roundup-ready seeds, both marquee products of the Monsanto Corporation. In the 1990s, when the latter product hit the market, it was momentous, revolutionary - a godsend: Roundup-ready seeds are genetically designed to resist application of the potent herbicide. By sowing Roundup-ready seeds and dousing their fields with the trademark weedkiller, farmers could forego the expense and toil of tilling the land, and losing valuable topsoil in the process. Production was enhanced, time and money saved. It was quite an economic boon to farmers, at least in the short run. Environmentalists were also pleased in light of the topsoil angle. Needless to say, Monsanto was thrilled that farmers were even more dependent on its products.
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