Earth ChangesS


Sun

Lake Mead's Water Level Plunges as 11-Year Drought Lingers

Lake Mead, Hoover Dam
Lake Mead, the enormous reservoir of Colorado River water that hydrates Arizona, Nevada, California and northern Mexico, is receding to a level not seen since it was first being filled in the 1930s, stoking existential fears about water supply in the parched Southwest.

Heightening those concerns are recent signs that the region's record-breaking, 11-year drought could wear on for another year or longer. July not only saw the lake drop to 1956 levels but also brought cooling temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that signaled a developing La Niña system, historically a harbinger of more hot and dry weather.

The La Niña "appears to be strong, and it might even last two years," said Brad Udall, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Western Water Assessment program at the University of Colorado.

In the 75 years since the workers began to hold back the Colorado River behind the Hoover Dam, the lake's water has taken two precipitous plunges: first during the prolonged drought of the 1950s, which ranks second only to the current dry spell, and again in the mid-1960s, when water managers began filling Mead's cousin 250 miles upstream, Lake Powell.

Neither dip was as severe or prolonged as that of the past decade. Nearly full in 1999, Mead has shrunken to 40 percent capacity, causing the ominous, bleach-white bathtub ring on the surrounding mountainsides to grow taller by the year. In the past five months, the lake steadily shed another 15 feet, to about 1,087 feet above sea level today. Four more feet and the lake surface will hit what would be the lowest mark since 1937 -- something the government projects will happen in October.

Sun

'Permanent Drought' Predicted for American Southwest

Dust bowl farm
© Argent Editions
If you're one of the tens of millions of people who live in the southwestern United States, get ready for drier weather. That's the message from Richard Seager, a climate scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. The American Southwest, says Seager, is soon likely to experience a "permanent drought" condition on par with the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

That rather frightening prediction is the most likely scenario for the region, given the global warming now underway. "It is a matter of simple thermodynamics," says Seager. "The region will face a considerable increase in aridity over the coming decade."

Cloud Lightning

Hurricanes Igor, Julia spin in Atlantic

Image
© REUTERS/NOAA/HandoutThis 1145Z GOES imagery shows Igor east of the northern Leeward Islands, and Tropical Storm Julia located south-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands.

Tropical Storm Julia grew in the far eastern Atlantic into the fifth hurricane of the storm season, while Hurricane Igor weakened slightly but remained a dangerous Category 4 storm, forecasters said on Tuesday.

Neither hurricane posed an immediate threat to land or energy interests, but Igor could threaten Bermuda by the weekend.

Julia reached hurricane status and then continued to strengthen, with top sustained winds of 85 miles per hour. It was about 355 miles west-northwest of the Cape Verde Islands at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Julia was moving west-northwest as a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, forecasters said. Its projected path would keep it out to sea.

Julia could strengthen slowly over the next two days, forecasters said. But as it gets closer to the more powerful Igor, strong upper-level winds flowing out from Igor could shear off and weaken Julia.

Farther west in the Atlantic, Hurricane Igor weakened slightly but still packed a punch, the center said.

Igor was about 710 miles east of the northern Leeward Islands with maximum sustained winds at 135 mph, the center said.

Bizarro Earth

US: Earthquake Magnitude 5.0 quake rumbles along Arizona-Baja border

Image
© Scripps Media, Inc.
A magnitude-5.0 earthquake has shaken a rural area near the border of Arizona and Mexico.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the 3:52 a.m. Tuesday quake was centered 42 miles southwest of San Luis, a Yuma County border town in southwest Arizona. The preliminary 5.4-magnitude shaker was revised to 5.0.

San Luis police dispatcher Elias Gonzalez felt the quake and described it as a brief jolt. He says a few residents telephoned to report feeling the quake, which also set off some burglar alarms, but there are no reports of damage or injury.

Attention

Canada: Blight wiping out Alberta's tomatoes

alberta tomatoes
© Edmonton JournalA fast-spreading fungus that normally infects potatoes is wiping out tomato plants across Alberta this season, says a plant-disease expert
A fast-spreading fungus that normally infects potatoes is wiping out tomato plants across Alberta this season, says a plant-disease expert.

The airborne disease called late blight of potato -- the same organism that led to the Irish potato famine -- is rare in Alberta, said forensic plant pathologist Ieuan Evans. However, a "giant outbreak" of the potato disease is attacking tomato plants this season and causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, Evans said Sunday.

"We've never had this strain in Alberta before -- it's a tomato strain of late blight and it's extremely virulent in tomatoes," he said. "On the prairies, the last time we had an outbreak of late blight of any consequence was 1993, when it went right through Edmonton, but that was a potato strain."

Gardener Katherine Shute spent Sunday afternoon clearing out the withered remains of her diseased fruit. She spent the summer caring for 36 tomato plants in the large garden behind her Riverdale home and they have all rotted.

"It's so heartbreaking," she said. "I always grow a lot of tomatoes. I either make spaghetti sauce, salsa or tomato sauce and freeze them or can them so they last me well into spring, and it's just really discouraging."

Shute first spotted brown blotches on her tomatoes in July. She thought the spots were caused by hail until a friend warned her about late blight and neighbours told her the disease is attacking Edmonton gardens this year.

Cloud Lightning

10 Reasons Our Fresh Water Supply is in Deep Trouble

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© Activist PostDangerously Dry Lake Mead
Fresh clean water is essential to all life forms. It seems that a resource so vital should not be corralled, controlled, or corrupted by any corporation or government. However, with fresh water supplies under assault on multiple fronts, governments seek to further clamp down on individual human usage, while doing very little to reduce the reasons for the contamination. At the same time, corporations that repackage water and sell it back to the public enjoy financial benefits from the scarcity of their "product."

Upon review, water scarcity is an alarming prospect indeed; especially in areas of the world where clean water was limited to begin with. The extended droughts caused by climate shifts, cumulative aspects of general human pollution, dirty industrial and agricultural practices, and blatant chemical contamination significantly reduce the supply of clean water. The more precious this resource becomes, the more our friendly multinational corporations profit from this new "commodity," and the more our governments seek to tax it.

Bizarro Earth

Scientists Find Thick Layer of Oil On Seafloor

gulf oil spill core sample
© Samantha JoyeA core sample from the seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico shows a 2-inch layer of oily material. Researchers are finding oil on the seafloor miles away from the blown-out BP well. Though researchers have yet to chemically link the oil deposits to the BP well, "the sheer coverage here is leading us all to come to the conclusion that it has to be sedimented oil from the oil spill because it's all over the place," says one scientist.
Scientists on a research vessel in the Gulf of Mexico are finding a substantial layer of oily sediment stretching for dozens of miles in all directions. Their discovery suggests that a lot of oil from the Deepwater Horizon didn't simply evaporate or dissipate into the water - it has settled to the seafloor.

The Research Vessel Oceanus sailed on Aug. 21 on a mission to figure out what happened to the more than 4 million barrels of oil that gushed into the water. Onboard, Samantha Joye, a professor in the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Georgia, says she suddenly has a pretty good idea about where a lot of it ended up. It's showing up in samples of the seafloor, between the well site and the coast.

"I've collected literally hundreds of sediment cores from the Gulf of Mexico, including around this area. And I've never seen anything like this," she said in an interview via satellite phone from the boat.

Joye describes seeing layers of oily material - in some places more than 2 inches thick - covering the bottom of the seafloor.

"It's very fluffy and porous. And there are little tar balls in there you can see that look like microscopic cauliflower heads," she says.

It's very clearly a fresh layer. Right below it she finds much more typical seafloor mud. And in that layer, she finds recently dead shrimp, worms and other invertebrates.

Info

Dolphins Shell Out for a Fish Supper

Smart Dolphin_1
© Simon AllenGone fishing ... a dolphin with a sponge on its head for foraging.
Bottlenose dolphins in Western Australia have invented a clever new trick for catching dinner.

They use their long snouts to lift heavy conch shells to the surface and then shake them about in the hunt for fish that have sought refuge inside.

Simon Allen, a marine biologist at Murdoch University, said dolphins in Shark Bay are renowned for their "remarkable array" of sophisticated behaviours, including using sponges as tools and beaching themselves intentionally in pursuit of fish in shallow waters.

But he and his colleagues were shocked when they first saw a dolphin suddenly appear with a massive conch on its head (image below).

"We nearly fell off the boat. It looked like a unicorn," he said. "It was a fantastic wildlife encounter."

They thought the dolphin might have been using the shell as a toy or been showing off to its fellow cetaceans.

Cloud Lightning

North Africa: Lightning Strike Kills 4 At Wedding in Mauritania

Nouakchott - A witness says a lightning strike has killed four people at a wedding in a village in Mauritania.

Wedding guest El Hadi Ould Mohamed says the lightning bolt struck the Friday morning festivities and killed two women and two men.

He says two other people were burned by lightning and taken to a hospital near the village of Idini, which is some 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of Nouakchott, the capital.

He says the bride and groom were not killed or injured.

Question

Mystery Blooms on Walden Pond


Concord - Gwen Acton thought the dime-sized translucent pods she saw on her Sunday swim in Walden Pond were strange, beautiful seeds that had drifted down to the water surface from some flowering plant.

But as she cut through the water in a crawl stroke Monday she noticed their numbers had ballooned. She saw them everywhere. And they were pulsating.

"I said to myself: 'Oh, no. I am surrounded by thousands and thousands of jellyfish,' '' Acton said.

She was.

A deeply mysterious species - freshwater jellies - has bloomed in one of the nation's most visited ponds. The organisms rarely cause health problems in humans, but the discovery has set off a flurry of interest at the New England Aquarium, where scientists have unsuccessfully attempted to breed the elusive creatures.

It is not that the tiny jellyfish are rare; after probably hitching a ride to the United States in the late 1800s on Asian water hyacinth or other ornamental plants, the jelly fish are believed to have spread to lakes and ponds throughout the country because of activities of fishermen and waterfowl.

But because the tiny jellies can lie in a dormant state for years - perhaps decades - and bloom en masse suddenly before disappearing just as quickly, people rarely come across them or do not know what they are looking at when they do. In Massachusetts, where officials began keeping track of the species about five years ago, they have been recorded in about five or six lakes and ponds across the state.