Earth ChangesS


Phoenix

Volcano erupts on Indonesia's Sumatra after 400 years

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© Reuters / Tarmizy HarvaMount Sinabung volcano spews smoke outside the city of Medan, North Sumatra August 28, 2010
A volcano erupted on the Indonesia island of Sumatra on Sunday for the first time in four centuries, sending smoke 1,500 meters (about 5,000 feet) into the air and prompting the evacuation of thousands of residents, officials said.

There were no reports of casualties so far and aviation in the area was unaffected.

Mount Sinabung in the north of Sumatra began erupting around midnight after rumbling for several days and lava was overflowing its crater, Surono, head of Indonesia's vulcanology center, told Reuters. The volcano had been placed on red level, the highest alert.

Cowboy Hat

Climate Corruption - UN board could rein in $2.7 billion carbon market

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© Unknown
An obscure U.N. board that oversees a $2.7 billion market intended to cut heat-trapping gases has agreed to take steps that could lead to it eventually reining in what European and U.S. environmentalists are calling a huge scam.

At a meeting this week that ended Friday, the executive board of the U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism said that five chemical plants in China would no longer qualify for funding as so-called carbon offset credits until the environmentalists' claims can be further investigated.

The "CDM" credits have been widely used in the carbon trading markets of the European Union, Japan and other nations that signed onto the 1997 Kyoto Protocol requiring mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases.

Bad Guys

Climate Change - No Transparency, No Consensus

You can't buy the truth, but you can buy a committee interpretation of it.

One year ago a group of eminent scientists wrote a letter to congress provocatively titled "You are being deceived." Now, in a similar vein, but with all the gory details, John McLean has put together a 66 page compilation of the modus operandi and history of said deception. It's a story of how small committees of activists cite their own work, ignore contradictory information and dissenting reviewers, use the peer review system to lock out opponents, and blithely acknowledge crippling uncertainties (but only in tracts of text that few will read, and never in summation when it matters).

Fish

Snow Crabs Found Clustered Around Methane Vents at Bottom of Sea of Japan

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© Unknown
Large clusters of a type of snow crab called benizuwaigani have been discovered around methane vents at the bottom of the Sea of Japan, but scientists are not quite sure why.

Methane may play an important role in the feeding habits of the crab, as microorganisms are known to gather around methane vents to receive nutrients, providing the crabs with a source of food, researchers from the University of Tokyo and other institutes speculated when the finding was announced Wednesday.

Experts believe the Sea of Japan may be home to deposits of methane hydrate, a methane compound with a sherbet-like texture known as "burning ice" for its potential uses as a next-generation fuel source.

"We might be able get some insights on methane hydrate exploration by looking into these crab clusters," said Prof. Ryo Matsumoto of the University of Tokyo.

The research team noted that the sea off Niigata Prefecture is home to both methane deposits and the benizuwaigani crab. Using an underwater robot called Tsuna Sando, the group photographed 12 locations of 800 square meters (2,624.7 square feet) each at the bottom of the sea 30 (18.6 miles) to 40 kilometers (24.85 miles) off Naoetsu Port, a site known as a major benizuwaigani habitat.

Fish

Cold Empties Bolivian Rivers of Fish

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© Never TejerinaThe San Julián fish farm in the Santa Cruz department of Bolivia lost 15 tonnes of pacú fish in the extreme cold.
Antarctic cold snap kills millions of aquatic animals in the Amazon.

With high Andean peaks and a humid tropical forest, Bolivia is a country of ecological extremes. But during the Southern Hemisphere's recent winter, unusually low temperatures in part of the country's tropical region hit freshwater species hard, killing an estimated 6 million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles and river dolphins.

Scientists who have visited the affected rivers say the event is the biggest ecological disaster Bolivia has known, and, as an example of a sudden climatic change wreaking havoc on wildlife, it is unprecedented in recorded history.

Bizarro Earth

Circumzenithal Arc Spotted in North Tyneside

Circumzenithal Arc
© Mark HumeMark Hume spotted a circumzenithal arc in North Tyneside.
It may look like an upside down rainbow, but a circumzenithal arc has been spotted in North Tyneside.

Rainbows occur by light refracting off raindrops falling in the sky, but the circumzenithal arc is created by refraction of light from ice crystals.

These crystals are part of cirrus clouds which lie 15,000 - 16,000 kilometers high in the sky.

Unlike normal rainbows, only a quarter of the multi-coloured arc is formed as opposed to a full circle of a rainbow.

Bizarro Earth

US: Hurricane Danielle becomes Category 4 storm

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© Reuters/NOAAHurricane Danielle heading westward in the open Atlantic Ocean in a satellite image taken August 24, 2010.
Hurricane Danielle became a Category 4 storm early Friday far out over the Atlantic as it headed in Bermuda's direction and threatened to bring dangerous rip currents to the U.S. East Coast.

Danielle's maximum sustained winds were near 135 mph (215 kph) with some slight strengthening possible.

Danielle was located Friday about 480 miles (770 kilometers) southeast of Bermuda and moving north-northwest near 12 mph (19 kph). The hurricane's center is forecast to pass well east of Bermuda on Saturday night. But large waves and dangerous surf conditions were expected in Bermuda over the next few days, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Swells from Danielle would also begin arriving on the East Coast of the U.S. on Saturday and were likely to cause dangerous rip currents through the weekend.

Bizarro Earth

US: Homes evacuated overnight near Montana wildfire

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© AP Photos/Lisa HolshueFlames from a prescribed burn that turned into a wildfire are visible from Highway 279 on Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010 near Canyon Creek, Mont. Forest spokeswoman Kathy Bushnell says the wind kicked up at about 1 p.m. driving the fire beyond the boundaries of the prescribed burn.
Wildfires drove early morning evacuations in western Montana and brought dozens of fresh firefighters to Washington state on Friday as crews battled dozens of blazes throughout the northwest.

Cooler temperatures and calmer winds helped firefighters control wildfires that had flared up Thursday across eastern Washington in hot, gusty winds.

But in Montana, a cold front brought lightning and sparked seven fires on forest service and private land.

Ravalli County authorities began knocking on doors at 3 a.m. Friday, warning residents about three miles west of Hamilton that a fire in the Bitterroot National Forest was threatening their homes.

The Downing Mountain fire was reported at 8 p.m. Thursday and quickly grew to 50 to 100 acres.

More than 50 homes or structures in the Blodgett and Canyon Creek areas are threatened.

Radar

Blacklisted Scientist Challenges Global Warming Orthodoxy

The American and international press have also ignored this publication.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for years has been predicting the greenhouse effect can spin out of control. They claim that there exists a scientific consensus that CO2 is pushing the planet into an unrestrained greenhouse effect, that it's raising global temperatures and it must be stopped. IPCC was created in the 1980s by the United Nations. They have released findings that say that carbon-based emissions released into the atmosphere by humans, mostly in wealthy, Western countries, must be reduced, or a catastrophe will result. They have frequently used this scare tactic. It has been easy to frighten people, as the science involved takes some significant and serious study. Most people have relied on expert opinions because they lack their own expert knowledge in the field, a factor the IPCC has relied upon in the past.

Bizarro Earth

Shrinking Atmospheric Layer Linked to Low Levels of Solar Radiation

Earth's atmosphere
© NASAImage of the Earth's atmosphere.
Large changes in the sun's energy output may drive unexpectedly dramatic fluctuations in Earth's outer atmosphere.

Results of a study published today link a recent, temporary shrinking of a high atmospheric layer with a sharp drop in the sun's ultraviolet radiation levels.

The research, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU), indicates that the sun's magnetic cycle, which produces differing numbers of sunspots over an approximately 11-year cycle, may vary more than previously thought.

The results, published this week in the American Geophysical Union journal Geophysical Research Letters, are funded by NASA and by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCAR's sponsor.

"This research makes a compelling case for the need to study the coupled sun-Earth system," says Farzad Kamalabadi, program director in NSF's Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, "and to illustrate the importance of solar influences on our terrestrial environment with both fundamental scientific implications and societal consequences."

The findings may have implications for orbiting satellites, as well as for the International Space Station.