Earth ChangesS


Better Earth

Earth Will Recover Faster from Global Warming Show Prehistoric Evidence

A team of scientists has analysed evidence from a prehistoric event and came to the conclusion that the Earth may be able to recover from rising carbon dioxide emissions faster than previously thought.

The study led by a Purdue University team showed that when faced with high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and rising temperatures 56 million years ago, the Earth increased its ability to pull carbon from the air.

This led to a recovery that was quicker than anticipated by many models of the carbon cycle - though still on the order of tens of thousands of years, Gabriel Bowen, the associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, who led the study, said.

"We found that more than half of the added carbon dioxide was pulled from the atmosphere within 30,000 to 40,000 years, which is one-third of the time span previously thought," Bowen, who also is a member of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center, said.

"We still don't know exactly where this carbon went, but the evidence suggests it was a much more dynamic response than traditional models represent," he explained.

Cloud Lightning

12 Tornadoes Confirmed In Central Ohio


Cloud Lightning

US: 'Mothership' supercell cloud seen over Mississippi State University on Wednesday

Severe thunderstorms are hitting the Mississippi area hard, with large hail and damaging winds being reported.
Image
Ryan Hoke of MSU sends this picture on Twitter of what looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. We didn't know what it was so we asked our meteorologist.

"What you are seeing is referred to as the mothership, the mesocyclone of the rotating base and mid levels of a thunderstorms", Senior Meteorologist Kevin Martin said. "Today was excellent for those, but only isolated tornadoes would pop. Sometimes the most pretty storms do not produce tornadoes!"

Bizarro Earth

Earthquake with Magnitude of 6.0 Hits Off Coast of Honshu, Japan

A powerful 6.0-magnitude tremor has stuck near the eastern coast of Japan's Honshu Island.

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The US Geological Survey website says the earthquake occurred at 10:12 am GMT on Saturday at a depth of 38.9km, 160km east of the city of Morioka. There have been no immediate reports of damage or casualties. The latest tremor comes along the series of aftershocks that followed the March 11 mega earthquake and ensuing tsunami that devastated Japan's northeast.

Cloud Lightning

US: Reported tornado hits St. Louis, Missouri airport

Heavy winds from a severe storm caused significant damage, shattered windows and sent debris raining down on passengers at an airport in St. Louis Friday night.


The Lambert-St. Louis International Airport is closed indefinitely while officials investigate the damage, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay told reporters.

"There was a reported sighting of a tornado. Although that has not been confirmed, that storm caused significant damage to the airport," he said.

Bizarro Earth

US: Shark deaths in Redwood City, California spur search for cause

leopard shark
© Lance Iversen / The ChronicleA dying leopard shark thrashes around in a Redwood Shores slough. At least a dozen such sharks have been found.

At least a dozen leopard sharks have been found dead or dying within the past several days in bayfront lagoons in Redwood City, putting local researchers on alert for some kind of infection or toxic discharge in San Francisco Bay.

The deaths, including both juvenile and adult sharks, appear isolated and far less serious than previous die-offs in 2006 and 2007, which left shark carcasses strewn all over the bay, officials said. Shark experts fear there may be more of the strikingly patterned creatures floundering in Bay Area waterways and succumbing to pollution and disease.

"In the last decade, we've seen an increase in the animals trapped in culverts and pumps that used to be tidal canals or poisoned by periodic pollution events," said Sean Van Sommeran, executive director of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation, a Santa Cruz group that tracks sharks in Monterey and San Francisco bays.

Bizarro Earth

Solomon Islands - Earthquake Magnitude 6.9

Solomon Quake_230411
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Saturday, April 23, 2011 at 04:16:55 UTC

Saturday, April 23, 2011 at 03:16:55 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
10.349°S, 161.233°E

Depth:
81.6 km (50.7 miles)

Region:
SOLOMON ISLANDS

Distances:
76 km (47 miles) W of Kira Kira, San Cristobal, Solomon Isl.

173 km (107 miles) SE of HONIARA, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands

184 km (114 miles) SSE of Auki, Malaita, Solomon Islands

2084 km (1294 miles) NNE of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia

Bizarro Earth

US: 15 dead sharks wash ashore in Manatee County, Florida

dead sharks
© Photo/Anna Maria Island SunThree of the sharks found dead on Manatee County beaches.

A mystery is brewing on Manatee County's beautiful beaches -- researchers are trying to figure out why sharks are washing ashore dead.

Recently more than a dozen dead sharks were found on the north ends of Longboat Key and Anna Maria Island.

"There were no real indicators of what went wrong with them," Dr. Nick Whitney, Staff Scientist for the Center for Shark Research at MOTE Marine Laboratory said. "There are no obvious signs of damage from fishing or net damage or anything like that."

Cloud Lightning

US: Storms hit St. Louis airport, injuries reported

A vicious storm that included a possible tornado ripped through the St. Louis area on Friday night, closing down the city's airport where flying glass and blowing debris reportedly caused several injuries.

"We've had several reports of damage," said National Weather Service meteorologist Ben Miller. "We know the airport is closed. We're assuming that (a tornado) is what it was."

Video of the Lambert Airport in St. Louis shown on the Weather Channel showed an airport shuttle bus teetering over the ledge of a parking garage where it apparently was blown.

Flights from Lambert were being diverted to other airports.

Fish

US: Odd Animal Deaths, Deformities Linked to Gulf Oil Spill?

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© AnonymousA red snapper recently caught in the Gulf of Mexico displaying abnormal black markings.
Scientists befuddled by dolphin deaths, diseased fish.

On the first anniversary of the Gulf oil spill, scientists are observing strange deaths and deformities in animals that could be related to the disaster, experts say.

In the past six months, the numbers of dolphin and sea turtle deaths in the Gulf of Mexico (map) have risen, and some fish that inhabit the Gulf's coral reefs have developed abnormalities.

Yet projects to document and measure the oil's effects on Gulf marine life are still in the very early stages, scientists caution. Preliminary results may not be available for months, and it may be several years before any kind of scientific consensus is reached.

Such uncertainty is not unusual for oil-spill studies, noted William Patterson, a marine biologist at the University of West Florida (UWF) in Pensacola.

"If you look at the literature surrounding the Exxon Valdez oil spill [in 1989], there are still some unknowns associated with that," Patterson said.