Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Thundersnow or meteor event the cause of flashes in Arctic sky over Alaska?

Carey Restino
Alaska Dispatch News
Sat, 21 Feb 2015 13:05 UTC
Image
Thundersnow
Facebook lit up almost as brightly as the sky over Kotzebue and other areas of the Arctic last Sunday morning, as people speculated about what the bright flashes in the sky were.

More than a dozen people reported seeing several bright flashes in the sky, unexplained by air traffic or other human activity. One thought neighborhood children were pulling a prank at first. Another suggested a meteor had split into three parts. Another reported hearing booms.

Then came a post showing a Chicago-based meteorologist on The Weather Channel standing in a blinding snowstorm with the sky flashing behind him. The ecstatic reporter hooted as he and his camera man captured "thundersnow" on camera several times in the course of a few minutes.

Though rare, thundersnow is a real phenomenon, a snow thunderstorm that occurs under circumstances similar to a thunderstorm as a cold or warm front moves into an area. The thunder is often muffled by the snow, but the flashes may still be visible.

"It's pretty rare, but it's not out of the question in the winter," said John Lingaas, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Fairbanks. "The conditions have to be just right."

Comment: See also: Weatherman goes berserk over 'thundersnow' in Boston

Freak 'thundersnow' storm wreaks havoc on Toronto

Rare thundersnow in Dallas, Texas: 'How is this possible?'

Virginia, US: 'Thundersnow' behind mysterious blue flashes of light?

Read More...
Arrow Down

Catastrophe-hopping Spiegel: German news magazine rolls out latest climate horror vision: A burning North Pole

Pierre L. Gosselin
No Tricks Zone
Fri, 27 Feb 2015 04:27 UTC
This week's hard copy of Spiegel features the front cover story dubbed "Der verheizte Planet" - The heated planet - (see image below). Thus, Spiegel is returning and keeping to its long tradition of promoting end-of world scenarios.

The following image sequence shows how the burning planet is just the latest and newest climate catastrophe designed to get an apocalypse-weary public to worry (and to buy its magazines). So far the reaction, however, has been a big yawn. The world is, after all, full with other real concerns.
Climate
© SpiegelSpiegel depictions over the last decades. 1986 and 2015 were even front cover images. 1974: cooling. 1986: sea level rise. Now, 2015: it’s a burning planet.
Read More...
Eye 2

Snake makes a rare winter appearance in Stephenville, Maryland

Angela Price
The Star Democrat
Wed, 25 Feb 2015 22:58 UTC
Image
© Jake ClaypooleA Snake in Winter
Jake Claypoole of Stevenville spotted something unusual when he took his son sledding near the park and ride across from Kent Landing Shopping Center, commonly called Kmart hill, about noon Wednesday, Feb. 18. He noticed a 3-foot snake on top of the ice on the storm water management pond.

Claypoole said he thought the snake was dead at first, but then he noticed its tongue moving and it began slithering toward the snow.
He said he watched and took pictures for about 20 minutes as the snake made its way off the ice, across the snow and into some nearby brush.

He said he had never seen a snake out in the winter on snow or ice before.

Read More...
Ice Cube

King crab from Arctic waters found on Redcar beach, UK

Dave Robson
The Gazette
Tue, 24 Feb 2015 22:24 UTC
Image
King Crab on Redcar beach

Red king crab could be first on our shores, crustacean is usually found in icy waters like the Arctic

He's spent his working life beneath the sea but even oceanographer David McCreadie was baffled by a rare visitor to Redcar.

For the formidable-looking red crustacean found by David's fiancee Diane Weinoski looks for all the world like a king crab - and they hardly ever stray from considerably icier waters.

Members of the lithododid family, king crabs are large, tasty and usually found in seas MUCH colder than Redcar's.

And despite having worked and played in oceans across the world since the mid-1960s, David has never heard of one being found this far south.
Read More...
Ice Cube

Deadly winter takes toll on waterfowl in Michigan

Tony Wittkowski and Liz Shepard
The Times Herald
Tue, 24 Feb 2015 20:14 UTC
Image
© Andrew Jowett / Times HeraldDucks sit on a shelf of ice Monday along the St. Clair River in Port Huron.
Harsh weather is taking a toll on the waterfowl concentrated in the St. Clair River.

Terry McFadden, a wildlife biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, said waterfowl across the state are dying because of the extreme cold and growing ice cover.

Below-zero temperatures have caused rapid ice formation, blocking ducks from food sources in the water and sometimes trapping the birds in the ice.

"Most likely it's going to be similar to last year, we lost quite a few last year," McFadden said. "We don't have a really good estimate, but it was in the thousands."

McFadden said waterfowl, including long-tailed and canvasback ducks, are concentrated in the St. Clair River, where some of the region's only remaining open water is located.

That large concentration of birds depletes available resources as the ice forms.

Read More...
Ice Cube

Massachusetts animal shelters report large numbers of suffering wildlife due to record cold weather

Bella English
The Boston Globe
Thu, 26 Feb 2015 19:51 UTC
Image
© John Tlumacki/Globe StaffA screech owl sat on a perch mending a fractured wing at the New England Wildlife Center in Weymouth.
The casualty list is wide ranging: possums with frostbite, a turtle frozen in a block of ice, a swan hit by a plow, a fox hit by a car.

If this month's record cold and snowfall have taken a toll on human residents in Massachusetts, they have also wreaked havoc on the animal population, particularly wildlife. Animal shelters are beyond capacity with weather-related injuries.

"This is the worst winter that we've seen in terms of straight-up starving animals coming in," said veterinarian Maureen Murray, who practices and teaches at the Tufts University Wildlife Clinic in North Grafton. "With this historic amount of snow and extremely low temperatures, animals need more energy to stay warm, but they're not able to find food sources for that energy, so it's a really big strain on them."

Although it's difficult to determine whether wildlife populations have suffered permanent damage, local experts say it's clear the animals are under extreme stress.
Read More...
Eagle

Symbolism? Battling Bald eagles crash down onto tree in Tuckerton, New Jersey

Ben Wurst
The Gloucester City News
Tue, 24 Feb 2015 19:02 UTC
Image
© Ben WurstTwo bald eagles interlocked, injured and hanging from a tree in Tuckerton, NJ.
On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 we got a call about a couple injured bald eagles from our colleagues with the Endangered and Nongame Species Program. They were reported hanging from a pine tree off a road in Tuckerton, NJ by some local residents. We didn't know how long they were there, but we knew that we needed to respond quickly if a bird had a chance to survive. We arrived at the scene to find two adults that were indeed, hanging from a tree. Luckily the local residents on the scene knew someone who worked for AC Electric (he also lived on the same road the birds were off of) and had a truck with a cherry picker on it. After the cherry picker arrived I went up to free the two birds.

Read More...
Wolf

Two women mauled by packs of feral dogs in Bareilly, India

Priyangi Agarwal
The Times of India
Thu, 26 Feb 2015 18:48 UTC
Image
Feral dogs in India
The stray dog menace in Baheri tehsil has taken on a new dimension as the canines have now started targeting adults as well. Two women, aged 37 and 50, were reportedly mauled by dogs in separate incidents in the district on Tuesday.

According to reports, Reshamvati, 37, was attacked by a pack of ten dogs while she was collecting fodder in a field in Faizganj Kamthena village. She received injuries on stomach, legs and hands. Locals rushed to the spot after hearing her cries and rescued her. The villagers attacked the dogs with bamboo sticks and shooed them away. The woman has been admitted to community health centre (CHC) in Baheri where she is undergoing treatment.

In a similar incident, 50-year-old Heerakali, 50, was attacked by a pack in Nazarganj village when she had gone to the outskirts of the village for some work. However, with timely intervention of locals, the woman managed to escape with minor injuries. She is also being treated at a CHC.
Read More...
Binoculars

The canary in the coal mine? Nesting wading bird population crashes by 28% in a year, Florida Everglades

Luis Hernandez
wlrn.org
Tue, 03 Feb 2015 18:09 UTC
Image
© Joe Rimkus Jr. / Miami Herald StaffWoodstorks gather on the dike on the south side of the conservation area.
It's not a canary or a coal mine in Florida, but the idea from Audubon of Florida is the same. Wading birds hold the same function as the canary, and in this case the coal mine is the Everglades. Tabitha Cale with the society says things are dire.

The 20th anniversary of the Wading Bird Report is out and there's some bad news. Everglades restoration is not going well. The report shows that in 2014 there were 34,714 wading bird nests in the Greater Everglades. That's 28 percent fewer than in 2013.

The biggest drops included little blue herons, 83 percent, tricolored herons, 42 percent, and snowy egrets, 47 percent.

Counting wading bird nests is an indicator of where water flows are improving. The report shows the area with great progress is the Kissimmee River Basin. Meanwhile, Everglades National Park still needs improvement.
Read More...
Attention

Moose went "out of its way" to trample woman in Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Daniel Xu
outdoorhub.com
Wed, 25 Feb 2015 16:43 UTC
Image
© US Fish and Wildlife ServiceA dog walker found herself on the wrong side of a bull moose last weekend
The popular ski resort town of Steamboat Springs is well-known for its hot springs, skiing festivals, and abundant moose population. Visitors are often warned to give the area's resident moose a wide berth, but sometimes the animals have ideas of their own. According to CBS4, a dog walker was injured on Sunday when she was trampled by a spooked moose.

The victim, who has been identified by Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) as Katharine Hash, sustained serious injuries during the encounter and was later airlifted to a Denver hospital. Witnesses told investigators that the bull moose had struck Hash from behind, despite having ample space to run around her, and some even said that the animal deliberately crossed the road to trample the dog walker.

"At this point, our best guess is something else happened on an adjacent property and caused the moose to run (into Storm Mountain Ranch), and for whatever reason it came across the woman and ran over her," CPW wildlife manager Jim Haskins told the Steamboat Pilot. "Whatever happened probably didn't have anything to do with the dogs."
Read More...