Earth ChangesS


Igloo

Snow strands hundreds on New York highway

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© AP Photo/David DupreyVehicles are stranded on the New York State Thruway during a winter storm in Buffalo, N.Y., Thursday, Dec. 2, 2010.
Hundreds of cold and hungry motorists were stranded on a western New York highway Thursday after an accident caused a backup and the idling trucks and cars got stuck overnight in heavy snow. Authorities said 16 miles of eastbound lanes along Interstate 90 were shut Thursday in Buffalo's eastern suburbs, along with a 10-mile westbound stretch. Matt Welling was hauling a double tractor-trailer full of groceries when traffic came to a standstill a few miles east of Buffalo.

He spent the night "sitting back, playing a little Solitaire on the computer, taking a nap," the Wegmans driver said at midmorning, 8 1/2 hours into his wait. "I'm pretty chilly, hungry. A nice cup of coffee would do pretty well right now," he said by cell phone. State Trooper Daniel Golinski said the highway was closed shortly before 3 a.m. Thursday after vehicles backed up behind a truck accident were buried in blowing snow. The truck jackknifed around 8 p.m. Wednesday and has been removed, but crews were still working Thursday to free the stranded vehicles, Golinski said. "There's a lot of work to do yet," he said.

The storm buried the southern neighborhoods of Buffalo and the city's southern and eastern suburbs under two feet of snow, but largely spared downtown. "Very, very light flurries are blowing in the air, but streets downtown are pavement. Maybe an inch is on the ground," police spokesman Michael DeGeorge said from headquarters.

Attention

Mercury Poisoning Makes Male Birds Homosexual

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© Roy Toft/Getty ImagesPoisoned partners?
Low levels of mercury in the diet of male white ibises cause the birds to mate with each other rather than with females. As a result many of the females can't breed, and fewer chicks are produced.

It's the first time a pollutant has been found to change an animal's sexual preference. Many chemicals can "feminise" males or reduce fertility, but males affected in these ways still prefer females.

Mercury is extremely toxic, particularly in the form of methylmercury, which reduces breeding in wild birds by disrupting their parenting behaviours. To find out if it also affected mating, Peter Frederick of the University of Florida in Gainesville and Nilmini Jayasena of the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, captured 160 young white ibises from south Florida. They gave them food laced with methylmercury and monitored them closely.

The birds were split into four groups. One group ate food with 0.3 parts per million methylmercury, which most US states would regard as too high for human consumption. A second group got 0.1 ppm, and the third 0.05 ppm, a low dose that wild birds would be exposed to frequently. The fourth group received none.

Igloo

UK: Millions endure second nightmare journey home from work as forecasters predict eight inches of snow tonight

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© PACrawling along: Motorists edge their way forward in the centre of York today
  • Woman dies after falling into freezing lake in West Yorkshire
  • Body of man in his 50s pulled from stream in Surrey
  • Eight inches of snow forecast tonight for London and South East
  • 900 flights cancelled as Gatwick and Edinburgh airports close
  • Shops running out of basics as lorries struggle to deliver
  • Passengers stranded overnight on freezing trains in South East
  • Police advise people not to go out unless absolutely necessary
  • Temperatures set to fall to -6c, with winds making it feel even colder
Britain's workforce was tonight embroiled in a second night of snow chaos with forecasters warning there is worse to come.

Police in several counties have been urging people to leave work early - with up to eight more inches of snow predicted in London and the South East tonight.

Eurostar said that half of its services would be cancelled today. It advised passengers to only make essential journeys.

Bizarro Earth

Papua New Guinea: Earthquake Magnitude 6.9

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© USGS
The U.S. Geological Survey says a powerful earthquake has shaken Papua New Guinea. The agency says the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.9 and struck Thursday about 20 miles (32 kilometers) beneath the ocean floor. It hit near the island province of New Britain, 295 miles (470 kilometers) northeast of the national capital Port Moresby.

From USGS:

Date-Time:
Thursday, December 02, 2010 at 03:12:10 UTC

Thursday, December 02, 2010 at 01:12:10 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
6.059°S, 149.851°E

Depth:
34.8 km (21.6 miles) set by location program

Region:
NEW BRITAIN REGION, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Distances:
40 km (25 miles) ENE of Kandrian, New Britain, PNG

65 km (40 miles) SSW of Kimbe, New Britain, PNG

475 km (295 miles) NE of PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea

2400 km (1490 miles) N of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia

Radar

Tremors of earthquake under Atlantic Ocean felt on New York's Long Island

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© Environmental Protection AgencyTremors: The earthquake, which measured 3.9 Ritcher Scale, was felt as far away as New York City
An earthquake under the Atlantic Ocean was felt by thousands of U.S. east coast residents yesterday - including people as far away as New York City.

The quake, which was recorded at 10.46am local time, measured 3.9 on the Richter Scale, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The event occurred about 80 miles south-east of Southampton, on New York's Long Island, and about 120 miles east of Toms River, New Jersey.

Most reports of light shaking came from Long Island and Connecticut.

Bizarro Earth

US: Winds lash the East, knock out power; roads flood

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© AP Photo/Montgomery Advertiser, Mickey WelshPeggy Gaines looks at what is left of an awning and fence at her home in Prattville, Ala. following a severe storm on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010.
New York - Wind-whipped rain knocked out power Wednesday to thousands along the East Coast, closed the Statue of Liberty and delayed flights at three major airports. At least three people were killed.

Tornado watches were issued for parts of the Virginias, and sandbags were handed out in Washington, D.C., to protect homes from flooding. Thousands were without electricity in the mid-Atlantic region and New York, and some schools delayed openings.

Suspected tornadoes have touched down from Louisiana to South Carolina since Monday as part of the storm system, which reached the Northeast late Wednesday, with colder air turning the rain into snow.

Bizarro Earth

Fiji Region: Earthquake Magnitude 6.1 - 1st December 2010

Fiji Quake_011210
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Wednesday, December 01, 2010 at 16:01:27 UTC

Thursday, December 02, 2010 at 04:01:27 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
15.905°S, 178.948°W

Depth:
15.2 km (9.4 miles)

Region:
FIJI REGION

Distances:
185 km (115 miles) ENE of Lambasa, Vanua Levu, Fiji

195 km (120 miles) SSW of Sigave, Ile Futuna, Wallis and Futuna

375 km (230 miles) NE of SUVA, Viti Levu, Fiji

2400 km (1490 miles) NNE of Auckland, New Zealand

X

Heavy snow causes flight chaos in UK

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© ReutersFlights cancelled ... planes sit on the tarmac at Gatwick Airport
Heavy snow grounded all flights at London's Gatwick Airport on Wednesday in the worst early winter weather to hit Britain in almost two decades which could cost the economy billions of pounds.

British insurer RSA warned that bad weather in the run up to Christmas would have a major impact on the economy and could lead to significant losses for struggling businesses.

"This cold front couldn't come at a worse time for the UK," said David Greaves, director of RSA.

"If we lose just one fifth of our daily GDP through companies not being able to open and people cancelling spending plans on events and shopping, we're looking at about £1.2 billion every working day," he said.

Snowman

Many years of cold winters lie ahead

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© Unknown
We are likely to experience several years of colder winters with more frequent cold spells similar to the current conditions, according to a UK climate expert.

The change comes as a result of a link between the sun and the high altitude jet stream winds, explained Prof Mike Lockwood of the department of meteorology at the University of Reading.

He and colleagues have established a link between low solar activity and a phenomenon known as "jet stream blocking".

It causes a change in the normal weather patterns, keeping warmer Atlantic air away and instead channelling frigid Arctic and Siberian air across western Europe, including Ireland, he said.

"It looked last week like we had a blocking event formed," he said. "The phenomenon is really a snaking of the jet stream. It can start to pull lower altitude, cold Russian air back in over Europe."

Igloo

Heavy snow hits airports and roads across Europe

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© AFPHeavy snow is pictured on cars in Linlithgow, in Scotland, on November 30, 2010. The earliest widespread snowfall of a British winter since 1993 blanketed Scotland and northeast England at the weekend and the freezing weather has started moving down England's east coast.
Snow and freezing temperatures severely disrupted airports in Germany and Britain and caused chaos and deaths on roads across Europe on Tuesday. More than 200 flights were cancelled at Frankfurt airport in Germany, the continent's third busiest, while southern German states were blanketed by snow. Large parts of Poland were covered in thick snow, causing hundreds of accidents on the roads and at least four people were killed on snowbound roads in the Czech Republic.

It was so cold in France that electricity network RTE warned of cuts in the supply as the country looked set to top record demand levels while 20 percent of high-speed train services to the hard hit southeast were cancelled. Switzerland suffered its coldest November night for 45 years as temperatures plunged below minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit), according to national weather service Meteosuisse. Even Spain and Portugal were shivering after snow fell in the northern half of the Iberian peninsula.

Britain has been taken by surprise by its earliest widespread snowfall since 1993, forcing hundreds of schools in Scotland and rural parts of England to close and causing treacherous conditions on roads and at smaller airports. Scotland and northeast England had fresh snowfall and the freezing weather has started moving down England's east coast while London had its first sprinkling of snow this winter. London City Airport, a popular departure point for business travellers, was forced at one point to suspend all flights because of snow and ice before resuming with a heavily interrupted service.