Earth ChangesS


Butterfly

US, Missouri: Hummingbird migration nearing state border


The South Missourian News
Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:34 UTC
If you live in Missouri and have a hummingbird feeder, now is the time to put it out. Observers in Arkansas and Kansas report seeing ruby-throated hummingbirds already.

Lanny Chambers, of Fenton, Mo., maintains a website that encourages birdwatchers from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada to report their first hummingbird sightings each year.

Sighting reports are posted daily at www.hummingbirds.net, so anyone who visits the site can follow the progress of the annual rubythroat migration.
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Arrow Up

Melting ice caps may trigger more volcanic eruptions

Catherine Brahic
New Scientist
Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:31 UTC
A warmer world could be a more explosive one. Global warming is having a much more profound effect than just melting ice caps - it is melting magma too.

Vatnajökull is the largest ice cap in Iceland, and is disappearing at a rate of 5 cubic kilometres per year.

Carolina Pagli of the University of Leeds, UK, and Freysteinn Sigmundsson of the University of Iceland have calculated the effects of the melting on the crust and magma underneath.

Image
©NASA
Vatnajökull in the south-east is the largest ice cap in Iceland and conceals several volcanoes

They say that, as the ice disappears, it relieves the pressure exerted on the rocks deep under the ice sheet, increasing the rate at which it melts into magma. An average of 1.4 cubic kilometres has been produced every century since 1890, a 10% increase on the background rate.

Frequent eruptions

In Iceland there are several active volcanoes under the ice. The last big eruption was in 1996 at Gjàlp, and before then in 1938 - a gap of 58 years. But Pagli and Sigmundsson say that the extra magma produced as the ice cap melts could supply enough magma for similar eruptions to take place every 30 years on average.
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X

Over 30 dead seals washed ashore in Caspian


RIA Novosti
Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:23 UTC
Employees at an oil company have discovered the carcasses of 32 seals along the northern Caspian Sea coast near the Kalamkas oil field in Kazakhstan, the republic's emergencies ministry said on Friday.

The region has already been plagued by a similar tragedy in March 31 - May 14 2007, when a total of 928 seals, including 710 baby seals, died near the Kalamkas oil field.

A research group from Kazakstan's Biological Security Research Institute and Institute of Microbiology and Virology cited the phocine distemper virus (PDV), which has been blamed for the deaths of fin-footed mammals all over the world since 1988, as responsible for the deaths.
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Cloud Lightning

US, Massachusetts: Lightning starts fire

Michelle Laczkoski
Milford Daily News
Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:02 UTC
When police knocked on Donna Lemire's door late Tuesday night and told her to leave, it was not an April Fool's joke.

A passing storm brought torrential downpours and lightning, which struck outside her building in the Shadowbrook Condominium complex around 11:30 p.m., causing a water pipe to burst and flames to erupt from the third floor ceiling.

Fire Lt. Mark Nelson said a lightning bolt struck a tree outside 17 Shadowbrook Lane, traveled into the ground and through Lemire's building.



Image
©Rachel Juzapavicus
A lightning strike Tuesday night at 17 Shadowbrook Lane in Milford shattered the window of this car, started a fire and burst a water pipe at the condo complex.

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Arrow Down

India: Hailstones hit huts, humans & cattle - Ice from sky but not in darjeeling


The Telegraph
Wed, 02 Apr 2008 11:54 UTC
Hail stones the size of cricket balls flattened about 100 huts, injured three persons and killed cattle in the Bindol gram panchayat area last night.

The storm had started around 9.30pm and grew with each passing minute till it stopped two hours later. A fresh shower of hailstones hit the area again early this morning.

"First came the wind. Strong gusts blew away roofs of tiles and tin. Then came the hailstones. As the night progressed, the size of the stones increased and they came hurtling down, some of them as big as cricket balls," said Narayan Bhowmik, a tea stall owner in Bamua, 20km from here and one of the worst hit areas. The storm left scars across a 9km radius.

Image
©Nityananda Sarkar
A heap of hailstones in front of a house in Bindol
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Cloud Lightning

Tornado hits central Arkansas


Associated Press
Fri, 04 Apr 2008 08:31 UTC
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - The National Weather Service says an unknown number of people were injured when a tornado swept through the Little Rock, Arkansas, area last night. At the North Little Rock Airport, the tornado destroyed a hangar and several small planes and left several others flipped over onto their wings.

Gregory Greene has lived in this part of Tornado Alley for all of his 39 years and had never seen a tornado.
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Butterfly

Tasmania Hurricane-Force Winds leaves a $2m bill

Linda Smith
The Mercury
Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:27 UTC
TASMANIANS embarked on a massive clean-up effort yesterday after hurricane-force winds caused damage around the state costing millions.

Homes were left without roofs, major roads were blocked by fallen trees and power lines, boats broke their moorings and debris littered the streets as winds of up to 176km/h stormed through in a wild-weather blitzkrieg.
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Laptop

Storm knocks news sites offline

Darren Osborne
The Australian Business
Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:18 UTC
A number of major news websites have disappeared from the internet this morning following wild storms across south-eastern Australia.
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Nuke

Flashback Electric Earth: The Brandberg Massif

Stephen Smith
Thunderbolts.info
Mon, 25 Jun 2007 19:48 UTC
The deserts of Namibia hold many unusual geological structures that stretch the imagination and defy conventional explanation. Are electric discharges responsible for their formation?

Brandberg - Electric Earth - Namibia
©NASA/USGS
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Umbrella

Still More Rain Forecast this Week for Arkansas after Flooding


Pine Bluff Com
Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:38 UTC
Little Rock (AP) - More rain will fall in Arkansas during the week, likely adding more water to already flooding rivers in the state's eastern sections.
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