Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

West of the United States faces water 'catastrophe'

Bruce Finley
The Salt Lake Tribune
Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:58 UTC
A new study projects that all reservoirs along the Colorado River -- which provide water for 27 million people in seven Western states, including Utah -- could dry up by 2057 because of climate change and overuse.

If warming led to a 10 percent reduction in the river's flow, it would create a 25 percent chance of depletion, according to the University of Colorado research released this week. Warming resulting in a 20 percent reduction would raise the chance of depletion to 50 percent, the study found.

"In the short term, the risk is relatively low," said Balaji Rajagopalan, associate professor of civil environmental and architectural engineering at the university and lead author on the study, which was accepted for publication by the American Geophysical Union.
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Magnify

Study Finds Chimps Die From Simian AIDS, Dispelling Widely Held Belief

Lawrence K. Altman
New York Times
Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:45 UTC
For the first time, scientists have shown that chimpanzees in the wild become sick and die from the simian version of AIDS.

The finding upsets a widely held scientific belief that chimpanzees, the closest relatives to humans, can get the virus that causes simian AIDS but without harm.

It also suggests that an outbreak of AIDS is contributing to the declining chimpanzee population in Africa, said the leader of the research team, Dr. Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
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Document

Met Office winter 'forecast' 2009-10 attacked as 'reckless misleading nonsense

Piers Corbyn
IceCap
Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:21 UTC
"It should be ignored absolutely. The opposite to whatever the Met Office says in long range has been what happened for the last three years!" Piers Corbyn, astrophysicist of WeatherAction said today, 23 July:

"The Met Office long range forecast attempts at seasonal and world developments totally failed to predict ANY of the 5 notable weather developments since 2007. They predicted the opposite to what occurred for the wet summers 2007, 2008, and 2009, the icy snowy winter 2008/09, and world temperature decline over recent years. On the other hand our WeatherAction Solar Weather Technique predicted all these major situations correctly and did it ahead of the Met Office prognoses.

Their score of zero out of five is lamentable. It could not be worse. They should stop issuing these reckless 'forecasts' which only serve to mislead the public, commerce and emergency authorities and cause unnecessary misery, danger and possible death.

Their forecast for a mild winter in 08/09 disarmed the emergency services and Councils and led directly to the UK running out of road salt, transport chaos and extra road accidents when the snow deluges predicted by us at WeatherAction hit Britain and Ireland. The Met Office stupidity cost the economy billions of pounds. "The recent heavy rains and weather prospects spell failure for the Met Office forecast of a 'barbecue summer' which we advised our own forecast users would fail. For how much longer will government, 'opposition' and much of commerce continue to follow failed methodology which is without scientific basis?
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Bulb

Pacific Northwest Snow Pack - the True Story

George Taylor
IceCap
Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:17 UTC
Snow ack PNW
© Mark Albright, University of Washington

Washington Governor Gregoire recently sent a letter to the Washington House delegation in which she stated that the snow pack has declined 20% over the past 30 years: "Last month, a study released by the University of Washington shows we've already lost 20% of our snow pack over the last 30 years."

Actual snow pack numbers show a 22% INCREASE in snow pack over the past 33 years across the Washington and Oregon Cascade Mountains.
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Bell

Welcome to Solar Minimum

Fred Dardick
Canada Free Press
Tue, 21 Jul 2009 22:12 UTC
Much to the chagrin of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats in Washington pushing for massive taxes on greenhouse gas emissions, the Midwest and Northeast United States has been experiencing uncooperatively cold temperatures this past summer.

New York City did not top 85 degrees last month for only the third time ever, Chicago just had its coolest month of June in 40 years, and Boston is already predicting the coming winter to be the snowiest in at least 8 years.

We've all heard the stories about the coming carbon dioxide caused global warming disaster that was going to melt the ice sheets, transform much of the surface of the earth into uninhabitable desert, and raise the oceans by 50 feet in the next 100 years or so.

And yet it is July and many Americans are already referring to this as the "year without true summer". Regardless of what Al Gore says, it's kind of hard to ignore your own senses that tell you that temperatures are definitely not rising.
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Attention

Hundreds battle wildfire in Spain that killed four firefighters


Terra Daily / Agence France-Presse
Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:56 UTC
Image
© Agence France-PresseFiremen try to extinguish a blaze near the eastern Spanish village of Ures de Medina, close to Medinaceli on July 23, 2009.
Horta De Sant Joan -- Some 500 people were battling Wednesday a wind-fuelled wildfire in northeastern Spain which claimed the lives of four firefighters and seriously injured two others, Defence Minister Carme Chacon said Wednesday.

"We are working against the clock with all the human and material means which are capable of working in an area of difficult access," she told public radio RNE from the site of the blaze in Els Port national park near Tarragona.

The four veteran firefighters were killed Tuesday when the direction of the wind suddenly changed, whipping up the blaze and surrounding the men by flames.

It was the worst tragedy in Spain involving firefighters battling a wildfire since 11 were killed in 2005 as they fought a blaze that destroyed about 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres) of pine forest near the central city of Guadalajara.

One of the two firemen is in "very serious condition" in hospital with kidney failure, the head of the health service in Catalonia, Marina Geli, told reporters. The 31-year-old suffered burns to 50 percent of his body.
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Fish

Flashback Giant Shark Mystery Solved: Unexpected Hideout Found

Helen Scales
National Geographic
Thu, 07 May 2009 15:14 UTC
How do you lose track of the world's second largest fish?

Image
© National Geographic
For decades, that's what scientists have been doing each winter, when basking sharks mysteriously disappear from the cool waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Now the baffled experts have at least part of the answer: Giant basking sharks from New England take tropical vacations.

Previously thought to inhabit only temperate waters, a new study shows that the sharks, which grow up to 32 feet (10 meters) long, make vast migrations to deep, warm-water hideouts.

Before the annual winter disappearance, scientists tagged 25 basking sharks off New England with floating, timed-release satellite transmitters.
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Fish

Giant Basking Shark Stranded on Long Island


National Geographic
Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:37 UTC
Image
© Unknown
A reportedly 20-foot-long (6-meter-long) basking shark that washed ashore on a beach on New York's Long Island on Tuesday appears to have died from some kind of illness.

New York State Parks official George Gorman said researchers will examine the basking shark to determine a cause of death. After that, it will be buried in nearby sand dunes on the beach.

Basking sharks are common in the waters off Long Island. The giant washed ashore on a town beach a few miles east of Jones Beach State Park, a popular recreation area for New York City-area residents.
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Snowman

Historic winter storm in South America

Alexandre Aguiar
IceCap
Wed, 22 Jul 2009 05:40 UTC
Argentina satellite image
© unknownArgentina satellite image.

A major and historic winter storm is underway at this Wednesday morning in Argentina. Snow is falling in many parts of the country and in many areas not used to winter precipitation. Local news reports indicate snow already have been observed in the provinces of Mendoza, San Luis, San Juan, Cordoba, La Pampa and Buenos Aires.

In Bahia Blanca, a coastal city in the Southern part of the Buenos Aires, the snow storm is heavy and local authorities describe it as the worst snow event in 50 years. Roads are already blocked by snow and ice in the regional. TN news channel reports some areas of the Sierra de La Ventana could pick up even 3 feet of snow, unimaginable to the region.
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Roses

English apples make earliest appearance in stores


The Telegraph
Thu, 23 Jul 2009 05:38 UTC
apples early
© Geoff PughDiscovery apples on tree: English apples make earliest appearance in stores. The apples have arrived a good six weeks before their traditional launch at the end of August.
English apples are making their earliest ever appearances in shops after a harsh winter followed by a warm spring hastened their growth.

English apples are making their earliest ever appearances in shops after a harsh winter followed by a warm spring hastened their growth.

Created in what producers have called near-perfect growing conditions, the crop of Discovery apples - traditionally the season's first - are considered high quality by experts.

The apples have arrived more than a week earlier than the previous record set three years ago and a good six weeks before their traditional launch at the end of August, according to Tesco.

UK shoppers will today get to taste the result when the crop goes on sale at Tesco stores in the Sevenoaks area of Kent, near to where they were grown.

Tesco apple buyer David Croxson said: "What for most of us was one of the worst winters in recent memory turned out to be the start of a perfect growing season for English apple growers.
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