Earth ChangesS


Magic Wand

Flashback Moths drink the tears of sleeping birds

A species of moth drinks tears from the eyes of sleeping birds using a fearsome proboscis shaped like a harpoon, scientists have revealed. The new discovery - spied in Madagascar - is the first time moths have been seen feeding on the tears of birds.

©Roland Hilgartner / Mamisolo Raoilison
The moth uses its barbed proboscis (close-up below) to penetrate the eyelid of sleeping birds and drink tears

Arrow Down

I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train

I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened that case. I am now skeptical.

Cloud Lightning

Arizona, Get Ready For Long, Hot Summer

Get ready for a long, hot summer in the Valley.

"The long-term forecast from the National Weather Service, the outlook for the summertime here, are for above normal temperatures centered pretty much right over Arizona, so we can expect most of this summer to be in the 100-degree range and above," said Arizona State University climatologist Randy Cerveney.

Red Flag

Strong quake in eastern Indonesia, cuts power

A strong undersea earthquake has struck Indonesia's Mollucas islands, blacking out power in the town of Labuha, but not triggering a tsunami warning, officials at the country's meteorology agency said on Tuesday.

Bulb

Moscow breaks another heat record

Another heat record has fallen as Russia's capital city continues to bake in unseasonable May weather, with a temperature of 32.1 degrees Celsius (89.7 degrees Fahrenheit) beating a 116-year-old maximum, the Moscow meteorological service said Tuesday.

"At 4:00 p.m. Moscow time (noon GMT), a temperature of 32.1 degrees Celsius was recorded, surpassing a reading of 31.8 degrees Celsius (89.2 degrees Fahrenheit) set in 1891," the service said.

"We will only know this evening by how much that record has been beaten, as temperatures will continue rising several tenths of a degree," it said.

Wolf

Florida: Giant lizard shot, still eludes police

Police say they're sure they shot a four-foot-long, 80-pound monitor lizard that had been lurking in an Orlando suburb for months. Still, neighbors aren't ready to let their children or pets back outside until they see a carcass.

The lizard didn't bite anyone, but police officers were authorized to kill it because of the potential danger it posed to small children and animals.

An officer shot the reptile twice Sunday but wasn't close enough to catch it before the animal scampered into a retention pond, said Lt. Dennis Stewart of the Casselberry Police Department.

"If they did shoot it, I'm sure it's going to be angry if it comes out now," said Ilene Gothelf, whose home borders the pond about 10 miles from Orlando. "I want to know that it is safe for the kids to come out."

Bizarro Earth

Who killed the honeybees?

A round table of experts answer all our pressing questions about the sudden death of the nation's bees. What they have to say has a bigger sting than we ever expected.

Question

Possible culprit identified in decline of honeybees

They are among the most sensitive and hardest-working creatures in nature. Ancient navigators of the air, honeybees are guided between hive and flower by the angle and direction of the sun. Their internal clock signals the time of day a particular flower's nectar is flowing. And daily changes in the earth's magnetic cycle alert those in the darkened hive to sunrise and sunset.

A mysterious ailment, however, is causing the great pollinators to lose their way home. The disorder, called "colony collapse," has resulted in the deaths of millions of honeybees worldwide and up to half of the 2.5 million colonies in the United States.

The chief suspect, say many scientists, is the most commonly used insecticide on the planet: imidacloprid.

Cloud Lightning

Stronger hurricanes not necessarily linked to global warming

Soil samples from the Grande Playa lagoon in Puerto Rico have given US scientists insight into the last 5,000 years of Atlantic hurricanes. The samples suggest that recent devastating storms may not necessarily be linked to global warming.

Better Earth

SOTT Focus: 15-Year-Old Outsmarts U.N. Climate Panel, Predicts End of Australian Drought



©n/a
Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth does indeed have some correct facts, but he says "sometimes you have to exaggerate to send the message to people". So, how are we supposed to know fact from fiction in the global warming debate?

It's easy to see why Al gore's movie should not be shown in schools. An Inconvenient Truth is a political commercial that misrepresents a whole area of science. He admittedly uses scare tactics to get people to listen then shows them a professional slide show that blames every thing bad on so called man made global warming.

Al did not make and publicize this movie because he cares; something obvious when you consider his own lifestyle. He did not make this movie to run for president. This movie has grossed over 60 million dollars to date and it hasn't even made it to cable. Al charges over $100,000 per slide show. But the real money that Al will make is through his new company, Generation Investment Management, a company that seeks to establish the rules and licensing for the new carbon-trading scheme. We have all heard of politicians who lie for money and power; it looks as if Al did not retire after all.
Facts and Fictions of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" by Kristen Byrnes

Ponder the Maunder is an extra credit assignment for Honors Earth Science, Portland High School, by Kristen Byrnes of Portland Maine.

This report is a comprehensive look at the global warming issue without financial or political bias. It uses the most updated information provided by scientists and researchers and interjects common sense, an important component missing from the global warming debate.

As will be revealed post haste, this newest - and likely youngest - member of the growing list of folks skeptical about man's role in climate change actually walks the walk better than she talks the talk.

Yet, despite her youth and precocious scientific acumen, it seems quite unlikely that she'll be sitting down with Matt Lauer or Diane Sawyer any time soon to discuss her research concerning one of the most popular subjects on the media's front-burner. Why?

Because a prediction that she made last month concerning Australia's drought has marvelously borne fruit making the scientists employed by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change look a bit foolish.

Comment: It's not as simple as it seems and shouldn't be considered
to be "outsmarting" the climate scientists. As the article quotes the IPCC, the climate prediction is for the 2030s and most likely refers to the intensifying drought cycles caused by global warming. ENSO is a cyclic phenomenon ranging from anywhere from 2 years to over a decade. It was only a matter of time before it ended. In fact, according to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC TAR) published in 2001:
The TAR stated that it is likely there will be higher maximum
temperatures and heat indexes over many land areas, and reduced frequency of low temperatures, including frosts. More intense precipitation events are likely over many mid- to high-latitude land areas. Increased summer continental drying and associated risk of drought are likely in mid-latitudes. Tropical cyclones are projected to become more intense with higher peak winds and rainfall intensities. Other patterns of climate variability, including the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), may vary in intensity and frequency,
with some climate models suggesting more El Niño-like average
conditions, and others no change.
There is a link from the News Busters version of this article to the IPCC report Working Group II 2007 report (an update on the 2001 report) and nowhere in it does it refer to ENSO. It only refers to intensifying droughts in Australia, which this latest one was, in fact, intensified, it being the worst drought in 100 years.

And if you look at the ENSO index it's quite obvious that it's going negative and thus the drought in the south pacific was ready to end. No climate scientist would pretend that ENSO would cease to exist and the drought would continue indefinitely due to global warming, especially since few, if any, Global Climate Models (GCMs) predict ENSO's anyway.