Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Oil spill's surface slick now larger than the US states of Maryland and Delaware combined

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© AP Photo/NASAA May 17, 2010 satellite image provided by NASA shows a large patch of oil visible near the site of the Deepwater oil spill, and a long ribbon of oil stretched far to the southeast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday that a small portion of the slick had entered the so-called loop current, a stream of fast moving water that circulates around the Gulf before bending around Florida and up the Atlantic coast.
Drip by drip, day by day, the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico is adding up to mind-boggling numbers.

Using worst case scenarios calculated by scientists, a month's worth of leaking oil could fill enough gallon milk jugs to stretch more than 11,300 miles. That's more than the distance from New York to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and back. That's just shy of 130 million gallons.

If the government's best case scenario is used - and only 5.25 million gallons have spilled - those milk jugs would cover a bit more than a roundtrip between New York and Washington. But the government is revising that number, with a team of scientists working around the clock to come up with a more realistic and likely higher figure.

Here's another way to think of just how much oil has gushed out since April 20: At worst, it's enough to fill 102 school gymnasiums to the ceiling with oil.

That's nothing compared to the vast expanse of the Gulf of Mexico, where there are 643 quadrillion gallons. Even under the worst case scenario, the Gulf has five billion drops of water for every drop of oil. And the mighty Mississippi River pours 3.3 million gallons of new water into Gulf every second.

Cloud Lightning

NASA sees one of Cyclone Laila's thunderstorms almost 11 miles high

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© NASA/SSAI, Hal PierceThis 3-D image of Cyclone Laila was made using data from TRMM's Precipitation Radar. It shows that the powerful thunderstorms northwest of tropical cyclone Laila shot up to heights above 17.5 kilometers (~57,415 feet/10.8 miles).
A NASA 3-D look inside Cyclone Laila as it made landfall yesterday revealed a towering thunderstorm reaching almost 11 miles high! NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite has been capturing images of Cyclone Laila since it was born in the Northern Indian Ocean as tropical depression 1A earlier this week.

Scientists at NASA can use TRMM data to provide meteorologists a 3-D look at the storm's cloud heights and rainfall, which are extremely helpful in forecasting.

"One of the interesting capabilities of the TRMM satellite is its ability to see through clouds with its Precipitation Radar (PR) and reveal the 3-D structure within storms such as Cyclone Laila," said Hal Pierce, on the TRMM mission team in the Mesoscale Atmospheric Processes Branch at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Pierce created a 3-D image of Laila. He used data captured on May 20 when TRMM also got a "top down" view of the storm's rainfall, and created a 3-D image that shows thunderstorm tops reaching to almost 17.5 kilometers (10.8 miles) high in the eastern side of the storm!

Attention

Contaminants in groundwater used for public supply

More than 20 percent of untreated water samples from 932 public wells across the nation contained at least one contaminant at levels of potential health concern, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey.

About 105 million people - or more than one-third of the nation's population - receive their drinking water from one of the 140,000 public water systems across the United States that rely on groundwater pumped from public wells.

The USGS study focused primarily on source (untreated) water collected from public wells before treatment or blending rather than the finished (treated) drinking water that water utilities deliver to their customers.

"By focusing primarily on source-water quality, and by testing for many contaminants that are not regulated in drinking water, this USGS study complements the extensive monitoring of public water systems that is routinely conducted for regulatory and compliance purposes by federal, state and local drinking-water programs," said Matthew C. Larsen, USGS Associate Director for Water. "Findings assist water utility managers and regulators in making decisions about future monitoring needs and drinking-water issues."

Bizarro Earth

Poland: Flooding Kills 9 People

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© AP Photo/Katarzyna MalaFirefighters deliver food to residents in Cisek, in southern Poland.
Authorities say flooding in Poland has killed nine people this week. Residents and officials in Warsaw are working to strengthen the capital's flood defenses.

National police spokesman Mariusz Sokolowski said Friday the victims drowned in flooding that submerged some farms and residential areas in southern Poland following heavy rains.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the high water levels were receding slowly. Further north, in Warsaw, water levels on the Vistula river were expected to peak Friday.

Cloud Lightning

Death Toll from Sri Lanka's Flooding Hits 20

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© AP Photo/Eranga JayawardenaA man walks through a flooded road in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, May 17, 2010.
Colombo - The Sri Lankan government says 20 people have died in floods and mudslides after a week of powerful storms brought heavy rain across the country.

The Disaster Management Center said on its website Friday that most of the deaths occurred in western Gampaha district.

The government says many homes have been inundated and roads washed out. The navy has stepped up operations to rescue those stranded and to distribute relief.

Sun

At least 230 die of heat stress in Myanmar

At least 230 people have died of heat stress in Myanmar's second largest city of Mandalay up to the weekend, the local 7-Day News quoted Mandalay municipal authorities as reporting Wednesday.

Mandalay's weather temperature was recorded at as high as 45 degree Celsius.

Among the dead, most were liquor drinkers, the report said, adding that the Mandalay local authorities have banned selling of liquor in the city.

Fish

Fish Fear Their Own Reflections

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© Todd Anderson/Stanford UniversityTwo male cichlids spar with each other by showing what big mouths they have. When two fish fight, all their movements are at least slightly out of sync. But when the foe is a fish's mirror image, the "opponent's" actions are perfectly in time, which seems to trigger an element of fear.
Looking at themselves in a mirror is enough to scare some fish, a new study finds.

Fish looking at a mirror showed increased brain activity in regions linked to fear than fish faced with an actual fish separated by glass, the study showed. However, in both instances the fish responded the same physically, engaging in a routine of combative gestures to try to fight the other fish - be it a reflection or an actual opponent.

"It seems like something they don't understand," said Julie Desjardins, researcher and post-doctoral biologist at Stanford University. "I think this stimulus is just so far outside their realm of experience that it results in this somewhat emotional response."

Desjardins and Stanford biologist Russell Fernald arranged 20 minute-long sparring sessions for male African cichlids, a freshwater territorial fish. A clear wall across the middle of the tank kept the combatants apart when two fish were pitted against each other, so there was never any actual fish-to-fish contact. In some instances, the clear wall was replaced with a mirror.

Cow Skull

Nightmare scene as oil smothers Louisiana wetlands

oil spill
Crude oil spread through fragile US marshlands Thursday, a month after a drilling rig blast released a devastating spill that now threatens Florida, Cuba and even beyond.

Oil has been pouring into the Gulf of Mexico since the massive April 20 explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 and ruptured an underwater well pipe.

While British Petroleum said Thursday that a tube was now siphoning away 3,000 barrels of oil a day from the leak, a nightmare scene was unfolding in Louisiana wetlands.

"The day that we have all been fearing is upon us today," Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said Wednesday after seeing thick oil washing into the state's coastal marshlands.

Crude is also being dragged towards Florida's popular tourist beaches and fragile coral reefs, by an oceanic current that could wash oil ashore on the state's coastline in as little as six days, before carrying it up the US East Coast and even into the Gulf Stream.

Fish

Florida fears deepen as oil enters the Loop Current

oil slick

Oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill is being picked up by a strong ocean current that will take it to Florida in days and possibly on up the Atlantic coast, experts warned Wednesday.

The Loop Current has started sweeping leaking crude from the giant slick off Louisiana towards Florida's popular tourist beaches and fragile coral reefs, threatening a whole new dimension to the unfolding environmental disaster.

Scientists laid out a worst-case scenario in which the oceanic conveyor belt would see the first oil wash up in Florida in as little as six days, before carrying it up the US east coast and even into the Gulf Stream.

Better Earth

Earth's mantle flows 20-30 times faster that previously thought

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© Unknown
The Earth's mantle flows far more rapidly around a sinking tectonic plate than previously thought, according to new computer modeling by UC Davis geologists. The findings could change the way that we think about plate tectonics and the amount of energy available for earthquakes. The results will be published May 20 in the journal Nature.

"Our model suggests that some parts of the mantle are moving at screaming speeds compared to what we can observe directly at the Earth's surface," said Magali Billen, associate professor of geology at UC Davis and co-author of the paper. "There is much more mixing and more rapid transport of heat in these regions of the Earth than we suspected."

Billen and graduate student Margarete Jadamec, now a postdoctoral researcher at Monash University in Australia, studied the Alaskan subduction zone, where the Pacific plate is diving beneath Alaska and pushing up Mt. McKinley.

To do so, they built the most detailed computer model to date of the plate and the surrounding mantle. The model revealed that rather than moving at roughly the same speed as the plate, the mantle was flowing much faster. "We expected it to flow faster, but the surprise was that it is flowing 20 to 30 times faster," Billen said.