Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Hurricane Ike over Gulf of Mexico, aims at Texas

Hosuton - Hurricane Ike churned through the Gulf of Mexico's warm waters on Wednesday on a track that will likely skirt the heart of the U.S. offshore oilpatch before it slams into the Texas coast on Saturday.

Image
©REUTERS/Claudia Daut
Palm trees are swayed by outer bands of Hurricane Ike in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, September 9, 2008.

Ike, a Category 1 storm with 85 mile-per-hour (140 kph) winds, has left a trail of destruction across the Caribbean after toppling decrepit buildings in Cuba's capital and ripping the communist-run island from end to end.

Forecasters said Ike would likely regain power in the Gulf of Mexico's warm waters and become a major storm again, revving up to a Category 3 on the five-step hurricane intensity scale with a minimum of 115 mph (178 kph) winds.

But latest projections pointed Ike toward the middle of the Texas coast, skirting to the west of the main region for offshore production in the gulf, which provides a quarter of U.S. oil and 15 percent of its natural gas.


Better Earth

Climate: New Spin On Ocean's Role

New studies of the Southern Ocean are revealing previously unknown features of giant spinning eddies that have a profound influence on marine life and on the world's climate.

These massive swirling structures - the largest are known as gyres - can be thousands of kilometres across and can extend down as deep as 500 metres or more, a research team led by a UNSW mathematician, Dr Gary Froyland, has shown in the latest study published in Physical Review Letters.

"The water in the gyres does not mix well with the rest of the ocean, so for long periods these gyres can trap pollutants, nutrients, drifting plants and animals, and become physical barriers that divert even major ocean currents," Dr Froyland says.

"In effect, they provide a kind of skeleton for global ocean flows. We're only just beginning to get a grip on understanding their size, scale and functions, but we are sure that they have a major effect on marine biology and on the way that heat and carbon are distributed around the planet by the oceans."

One of the best known large-scale gyres in the world's oceans is that associated with the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic, notes fellow researcher Professor Matthew England, co-director of the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre.

Info

Recovery Efforts Not Enough For Critically Endangered Asian Vulture

Captive breeding colonies of a critically endangered vulture, whose numbers in the wild have dwindled from tens of millions to a few thousand, are too small to protect the species from extinction, a University of Michigan analysis shows.

endangered vulture
©Munir Virani
Captive breeding colonies of a critically endangered vulture are too small to protect the species from extinction.

Adding wild birds to the captive colonies, located in Pakistan and India, is crucial, but political and logistical barriers are hampering efforts, says lead author Jeff A. Johnson.

The study was published online August 15 in the journal Biological Conservation.

With a seven-foot wingspan, the oriental white-backed vulture (Gyps bengalensis) was an awesome presence in south Asia until the mid-1990s, when populations began to collapse. At first the cause was unclear, but researchers eventually zeroed in on an anti-inflammatory drug, diclofenac, that is used to alleviate arthritis-like symptoms in livestock but is toxic to vultures. Vultures that feed on carcasses of animals treated with the drug die of kidney failure within a day or two after eating the tainted meat. And although India, Nepal and Pakistan outlawed its manufacture in 2006, diclofenac is still available, and birds are still dying.

Ambulance

Quake in Iran kills 3, sends tremors across Gulf

Tehran, Iran - A strong earthquake rocked southern Iran on Wednesday, killing three people and sending tremors across the Persian Gulf to the skyscrapers of Dubai.

The country's seismological center said the magnitude 6 quake struck at 3:30 p.m., with the epicenter about 850 miles south of the capital Tehran in the province of Hormozgan. The region's main city, Bandar Abbas, is one of Iran's key ports and home to a large oil refinery that primarily serves the domestic market.

Umbrella

UK: Morpeth fights back after floods



Morpeth flood victims
©Unknown
Shops near the Chantry area were worst affected

The streets of Morpeth are buzzing with activity as clearing up continues after the worst flooding in Northumberland for 50 years.

Rescue and damage stories can be heard on every corner, while many shops and homes still bear the scars of the weekend's downpour.

More than 1,000 properties were affected, and about 400 people were moved to safety when the River Wansbeck burst its banks on Saturday.

People

Flood victims in Bangladesh suffering from waterborne diseases

Dhaka - Waterborne diseases coupled with poor relief efforts, lack of jobs and price hike of essentials, are putting the lives of poor flood-hit people in Bangladesh in misery, leading newspaper The Daily Star reported Tuesday.

The flood situation is worsening in the central parts while the situation is improving in the northern districts, the newspaper said.

Waterborne diseases like dysentery and diarrhea have broken out in the central Faridpur district, as flood situation worsened in the last 24 hours. Medicine and oral saline are being distributed among the victims.

In northwestern Sirajganj district, about 200 people were infected with diseases like diarrhea, pneumonia and skin infections.

Target

Strong earthquake off Solomon Islands

A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 6.1 has struck off the Solomon Islands.

Bizarro Earth

Over 50 people killed in Chinese landslide

More than 50 people have been killed and hundreds may be missing in northern China after a reservoir of mining waste collapsed, burying cars and homes under a wall of sludge.

Laptop

Hurricane Ike Tracking: Computer Model Projected Path - Gulf Coast

Tracking the projected path of Hurricane Ike - Hurricane Ike moved toward western Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico oil fields early on Tuesday.

Ike weakened on Monday as it bore down on Cuba, where it blew off roofs, toppled trees and flattened sugar cane fields like a giant lawn mower on a path toward the U.S. oil hub in the Gulf of Mexico.

Ike
©Unknown

Better Earth

Parrots wreak havoc at New Zealand bird sanctuary

Wellington, New Zealand -- A gang of unruly teenage bush parrots have wrought havoc at a bird sanctuary in New Zealand by using their powerful beaks to destroy nesting boxes.

Image
©AP/Kakori Sanctuary
Teenage native Kaka parrot

The native Kaka parrots - juvenile birds that haven't reached sexual maturity - have torn off nesting box doors and vandalized the bird homes, sanctuary conservation officer Matt Robertson said Friday.

Twenty-four of 44 new Kaka nest boxes built over the winter have been ripped apart, he said, adding that the birds then gouged out chunks of wood with their strong beaks.

"It may be that the challenge of taking doors off nest boxes is the Kaka equivalent to the Rubik's Cube," said Robertson. "As far as I'm aware, this extent of destruction has never been observed."

Kaka are acutely threatened by loss of habitat, competition from introduced species, and predators like stoats, ferrets and wild cats. They disappeared from the capital Wellington in the late 19th century when forests were cleared for settlement.

After an absence of more than a century, Kaka parrots were reintroduced to the Karori Sanctuary in Wellington in 2002 with six captive-raised birds. Since then, sanctuary staff have counted more than 100 juvenile parrots.

The birds are highly intelligent and extremely resourceful, Robertson said.