Earth ChangesS


Arrow Down

Kuwait loses 90% of coral reefs in the Arab Gulf

Yousef Al-Tatan
Global Arab Network
Sun, 19 Sep 2010 23:22 UTC
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© Kuwait Dive Team
Head of the Kuwait Diving Team Walid Al-Fadhel said in a statement to KUNA, "this requires quick action by the competent authorities to find out the real causes, as well as solutions." He also called on frequent goers to these marine natural sites to refrain from any action that may inflict damage in the reefs or kill the creatures co-existing with them.

The comprehensive survey, conducted by the team, included the major locations of coral reefs 50 miles along the shores and 70 km from the southern coast borders, with depths ranging from 1-13 meters.

The combing covered Um Al-Maradim, Kheiran, Ras Al-Zor, Garouh, Um Diera, Teyler, Kubbar and Oraifjan with the result of 90 percent of "bleaching" of the coral reef.

At the begining of noticing this phenomenon, he added, dead fish were found floating on the water surface, or laying between the corals, yet not anymore.

Al-Fadhel said that the team does not know the causes for this disaster, but it is either a natural or human, which requires the competent authorities, whether global or local, to examine and prepare accurate studies. He noted that the diving team proceeded to contact several local and international companies (interested in this matter) and send the necessary reports with some samples of sites affected for study.
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Cloud Lightning

47 killed in Indian rains and landslides


UK Independent
Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:45 UTC
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© AP Photo/Anupam NathA homeless man tries to protect himself from rain with plastic sheets as he sits in a pavement in New Delhi, India, Sunday, Sept.19, 2010. Monsoon rains are active this year in most parts of India.
Heavy monsoon rains and landslides swept the hilly areas of northern India over the weekend, killing at least 47 people, officials said today.

Twenty-four people died yesterday as falling boulders crushed their homes in three villages in Almorah district in Uttrakhand state, said Prashant Kumar Tamta, a state government spokesman.

Another 23 people were either swept away by floodwaters or died when homes collapsed in landslides in Pitthoragarh, Champawat and Uttarkashi regions of state on Saturday and yesterday, Mr Tamta told The Associated Press.

Rains continued to lash the region today, threatening dozens of villages near the Tehri Dam whose water level was nearing the danger level.

The area is 250 miles (400km) south-west of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state.

On Friday, a boat carrying mostly schoolchildren capsized in a flooded river near Faizabad, a town in Uttar Pradesh state, drowning 15 people, said Surendra Srivastava, a police spokesman.

The annual monsoon season from June to October brings rains which are vital to agriculture in India.
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Bizarro Earth

New Zealand - "Unprecedented" Mass Whale Stranding

Paul Harper
New Zealand Herald
Tue, 21 Sep 2010 04:20 UTC
Mass Stranding
© New Zealand HeraldSeen here is a whale stranding at Karikari Beach, Doubtless Bay, August 20, 2010.

Department of Conservation (DOC) staff are calling a mass pilot whale stranding at Spirits Bay in Northland "unprecedented".

Seventy-four whales are stranded across two kilometres on the remote beach north of Kaitaia.

So far nine have been successfully refloated. There are up to 50 whales just off-shore.

When DOC were called at 11am, 32 whales were reported stranded. By the time DOC arrived 43 whales were dead.

"It started off with not many and the number has grown as the day has gone on," spokeperson Sue Campbell said.

"At the moment we're trying to get enough people to help."
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Bizarro Earth

Reflections on the Coming Ice Age

Alan Caruba
The National Anxiety Center
Tue, 21 Sep 2010 22:48 UTC
South Orange, New Jersey - In the Greek myth about Cassandra, she could foresee the future, but no one believed her warnings. Her name is believed to be derived from the words for beauty and the sun.

Any number of solar scientists and others are warning that the Earth is on the brink of a new Ice Age at worst, a mini ice age at best. Dr. Achim Brauer of the German Research Center for Geosciences in Potsdam has concluded that the next Ice Age will come on so swiftly that in barely a year much of the northern hemisphere will be encased in ice and snow.

The last Ice Age lasted 13,000 years. The Little Ice Age from around 1300 to 1850 lasted long enough to transform European society and have a profound affect on the histories of America and France. In England, they went from growing grapes to skating on a completely frozen Thames.
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Bizarro Earth

Massive Solar Flare 'Could Paralyse Earth in 2013'


Daily Mail Online, UK
Tue, 21 Sep 2010 22:36 UTC
Solar Flare_1
© Associated PressA massive solar flare is caught on camera on September 8th. Scientists fear that the Sun's activity could cause havoc on Earth in 2013

A massive solar flare could cause global chaos in 2013, causing blackouts and wrecking satellite communications, a conference heard yesterday.

Nasa has warned that a peak in the sun's magnetic energy cycle and the number of sun spots or flares around 2013 could generate huge radiation levels.

The resulting solar storm could cause a geomagnetic storm on Earth, knocking out electricity grids around the world for hours, days, or even months, bringing much of normal life grinding to a halt.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox, who delivered the keynote address at an international conference on the vulnerability of electricity grids around the world, warned that modern societies' dependence on technology leaves them vulnerable to such events.
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Attention

Scientists to Drill 13,000 Feet Into Active Volcano in Test That Could Cause Earthquake

Nick Squires
The Telegraph, UK
Tue, 21 Sep 2010 15:38 UTC
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© AlamyCampi Flegrei last erupted in 1538, and recent seismic activity in the area has raised fears that it could be ready to blow again
Scientists are planning to drill 13,000ft into the heart of an active volcano in Italy in an attempt to protect the nearby city of Naples by gauging when it is likely to erupt.

But experts have warned that the project could trigger an explosion of red hot magma or even an earthquake.

The team of scientists wants to insert a borehole inside Campi Flegrei, a huge volcanic formation outside Naples, in the hope of gauging how active it is.

Also known as the Phlegraean Fields, Campi Flegrei is an eight-mile-wide caldera lying west of Naples.

It comprises 24 volcanic fissures and craters - one of which was believed by the ancient Romans to be the home of Vulcan, the god of fire - although much of it lies under water as it extends into the Bay of Naples.
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Magic Wand

Ozone layer 'is no longer disappearing and will return to full strength by 2048', says UN report

Niall Firth
UK Daily Mail
Tue, 21 Sep 2010 16:12 UTC
The ozone layer is no longer disappearing and could be back to full strength by the middle of this century, UN scientists have confirmed.

The phasing out of nearly 100 substances once used in products like refrigerators and aerosols has stopped the ozone layer being depleted further, although it is not yet increasing, according to a new United Nations report released last week.

Comment: This was the forerunner to man-made global warming. They tried to convince us that the ozone layer was disappearing because of people's fridges. Now that the ozone layer has replenished itself, they can tell us that their measures to control our choices were successful and thus play the same game with 'global warming' aka man-made climate change.

Temperatures are plummeting in time for them to congratulate themselves on successfully "reducing carbon emissions." This self-styled "success" will spur them on to increase the draconian measures until millions, if not billions more, are starving and freezing to death.

The models used to produce these results are entirely self-referencing; very little empirical measurements taken from the real world are actually used in the production of these reports, which are thinly disguised policy documents masquerading as scientific discovery.

And it claimed that international efforts to protect the ozone layer has averted millions of cases of skin cancer worldwide.

The ozone layer outside the polar regions is projected to recover to pre-1980 levels by 2048, although the annual springtime ozone hole over the Antarctic is not expected to recover until 2073.

Ozone in the stratosphere is important because it absorbs some of the Sun's dangerous ultraviolet radiation.
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Cloud Precipitation

Torrential rains soak quake-hit area in SW China


Xinhua
Tue, 21 Sep 2010 14:24 UTC
More than 6,200 residents were relocated Tuesday as torrential rains pounded Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County in southwest China's Sichuan Province, local authorities said Tuesday.

A rain-triggered landslide has blocked the outlet of the Tangjiashan Barrier Lake formed during the catastrophic quake of 2008, threatening lives and properties, according to a statement issued by the county's government.

Some 300,000 cubic meters of debris brought by the landslide caused a dam, blocking the lake's outlet. The dam's lowest point is 10 meters higher than the present water level, the statement said. Debris still continue to come down from the hills, and if there were more rains, then the lake level would further rise, threatening the lives of people in nearby townships.

The rains had disrupted the normal life of 58,000 local residents in the county, causing huge economic losses, the statement said.
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Sun

Brazil: Drought shrinks Amazon River to lowest level in 47 years


Terra Daily
Wed, 15 Sep 2010 14:01 UTC
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© AFPA motorized canoe travelling between protruding sandbars due to the low water level affecting the Amazon River.
A severe drought parching northern Brazil this year has shrunk the mighty Amazon River -- the world's longest river -- to its lowest level in 47 years, officials said Wednesday.

The waterway's depth at Manaus, the main city in the Amazon region, was just 19.34 meters (63.45 feet) -- well below its average of 23.25 meters (76.28 feet), the country's Geological Service told AFP.

The last time the river was at such a low level was in 1963.

Scientists say it appears Brazil is headed for its worst drought since that year. Final data to be collected up to October were expected to confirm that.

The withering of the Amazon has produced unusual scenes of children playing football in the dried-up riverbed of a tributary, the Quarenta, that crosses Manaus.

Worse, seven remote towns upstream that rely on water traffic as their main link to civilization have been cut off as their own tributary has all but disappeared.

Comment:
Image
© EPA

UPDATE:
State of emergency declared in Brasilia due to drought
September 21, 2010

An unprecedented drought has prompted the imposition of a state of emergency in Brazil's capital Brasilia. The last time it rained in the city 117 day ago.

This is the reason why wildfires have become more frequent in the region. A fire ravaged 10,000 hectares of vegetation in the National City Park last weekend.

The water level in the artificial Lake Paranoa has dropped to the permissible minimum.The city has acquired a different look because of burnt-out lawns and flowerbeds. The nearby farmsteads expect to reap only half their usual harvest size due to the lack of water.

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Binoculars

Six Foot Long Snake Discovered in Toilet in Poland


The Telegraph, UK
Mon, 20 Sep 2010 15:23 UTC
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© Grzegorz Hawalej/Agence France-PresseThe anaconda in quarantine at the zoo
A 73-year-old Polish pensioner was shocked to find a 6.5-foot-long anaconda peering up out of her toilet bowl on Monday in her flat in Wroclaw, south-west Poland, local police said.

"After she raised the lid of the toilet seat, the lady saw a huge snake that wanted to slither out of the toilet bowl.

"She immediately slammed down the toilet lid and called us," Pawel Petrykowski, a Wroclaw police spokesman, told AFP.

"She was certainly very frightened but managed to keep her wits about her," he said.
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