Earth ChangesS

Cloud Lightning

Oregon, US: Lightning starts additional fires

Lightning storms have sparked more than 100 new fires on the Willamette and Umpqua national forests since Saturday, with more lightning forecast through today.

About 75 of those fires are on the Willamette National Forest and all were initially pegged at less than an acre. Judith McHugh, spokeswoman for the Willamette, said crews and equipment are being sent to the fires but acknowledged that there are too many to attack all at once.

Cloud Lightning

US: Lightning sparks wildfires in Washington state

Seattle - Lightning has started hundreds of fires in Washington state, and some of the biggest are still raging.

The Foam Creek fire has been burning since last week in the Glacier Peak Wilderness near the Snohomish/Chelan county line.

Roses

Future impact of global warming is worse when grazing animals are considered, scientists suggest

The impact of global warming in the Arctic may differ from the predictions of computer models of the region, according to a pair of Penn State biologists. The team -- which includes Eric Post, a Penn State associate professor of biology, and Christian Pederson, a Penn State graduate student -- has shown that grazing animals will play a key role in reducing the anticipated expansion of shrub growth in the region, thus limiting their predicted and beneficial carbon-absorbing effect. The team's results will be published in the online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences sometime between 18 and 22 August 2008.

muskoxen
©Eric Post, Penn State University
Research by Post and Pederson found that muskoxen graze more heavily than do caribou in certain areas, perhaps due to the sedentary nature of the muskox.

Cloud Lightning

US: Witnesses recount 'wild weather'

Donna Marcotte saw a ball of fire, Pamela Moore feared that glass was falling on her and Gini Kernozicky ducked under the bar she was tending after hearing what she thought was a gunshot ring out Saturday in Keene.

Chalk it up to another unpredictable day of weather during this wet and wild New Hampshire summer.

Bizarro Earth

Flashback Wisconsin, US: Why The Wild Weather?

Tuesday, July 15th was the hottest day of the year so far, but it's the middle of July! By now, we should have hit 90 and beyond. It's all part of a strange year of weather: tornadoes in January, all that snow, and don't forget about the record rains.

Why is it happening?

The rare January tornadoes in Kenosha County gave us an idea of the wild weather we would experience this year, and we still have five months to go. Nineteen winter storms buried most of southern Wisconsin this winter. Nearly two dozen snowfall records were shattered. Milwaukee ended up with 99.1 inches, the most since 1885.

Snowman

Flashback Something Strange is Happening at the Coldest, Driest Place on Earth

For someone who has experienced "freaky weather" in the Antarctic up close and personal, reports this week that baby Antarctic penguins are freezing to death due to "freak rain storms," came as no surprise.

Fellow explorer Jon Bowermaster had this to say:
"Everyone talks about the melting of the glaciers but having day after day of rain in Antarctica is a totally new phenomenon. As a result, penguins are literally freezing to death."
The sad truth is there's been a lot of freaky things happening in the Antarctic lately.

Info

Georgian forest fires cover 200 hectares, still burning

TBILISI -- Forest fires in a Georgian national park that Georgia accuses Russia of starting deliberately have swept across 200 hectares (494 acres) of land and are still burning, an official said here Sunday.

Russia, which invaded swathes of Georgia on August 8, denies setting the forest park ablaze.

The Georgian foreign ministry said Saturday that the Borjomi Gorge in south-west Georgia had been targeted by Russian helicopters dropping firebombs in a dozen locations.

"Fires in the Borjomi forests are still continuing. There was unfortunately no progress in the fight against the fires," Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP.

"Two hundred hectares have been burned down."

The Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park, about 125 kilometres (80 miles) southwest of Tbilisi, is the source of Borjomi mineral water -- one of Georgia's most celebrated exports.

Fish

Caribbean resorts threatened by "poisonous" fish invasion



Image
©AP
Although lionfish are not aggressive towards humans, their sting is very painful

A luridly striped fish with poisonous spikes has invaded the Caribbean where it is quickly spreading - and endangering the beautiful environment so beloved of tourists.

The red lionfish is a native of the Indian and Pacific ocean. But it started appearing in the Caribbean 16 years ago after a tropical storm smashed a private aquarium near Miami.

Now it is colonising the entire sea, feasting on native species of fish and crustaceans and delivering painful stings to divers. A single animal was seen to eat 20 smaller fish in just half an hour.

Until recently, the lionfish invasion was mostly concentrated on the Bahamas, where it infested beaches, reefs and mangrove thickets where baby fish grow. In the past year, its numbers increased tenfold in some parts of the archipelago

Cloud Lightning

Hundreds evacuated from Grand Canyon as dam breaks

Phoenix - An earthen dam weakened by heavy rains broke near the Grand Canyon early Sunday, flooding a tribal town and forcing officials to pluck hundreds of residents and campers from the gorge by helicopter. No injuries were immediately reported.

About 400 members of the Havasupai tribe live in the town of Supai. The town was not under water after the Redlands Dam broke, said Grand Canyon National Park spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge.

Some campers and river runners in the canyon were being rescued by seven helicopters and were being taken to a Red Cross shelter in Peach Springs, about 60 miles southwest of Supai, Oltrogge said


Cloud Lightning

Tropical storm Fay lashes Cuba, leaves 4 dead

Havana - Tropical Storm Fay lashed southeastern Cuba with downpours and heavy winds Sunday and was expected to churn its way over the center of the island before heading toward Florida.

Authorities evacuated dozens of sparsely populated, low-lying communities and ordered Cubans to pay close attention to the storm, which they said could spark strong storm surges, flooding and mudslides.

Jose Rubiera, Cuba's chief meteorologist, said Fay had brought gusts of wind of up to 70 mph (110 kph) per hour as its center roared close to two coastal communities on the island's southern tip. Still, he said civil defense officials were mostly concerned about the effects of heavy rains.

The storm was expected to gain force and could be near hurricane strength when it moves over Cuba late Sunday and zeros in on Florida, where officials declared a state of emergency. It has already killed at least four people, after battering Haiti and the Dominican Republic with weekend torrential rains and floods.