Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Extreme weather kills 13 in Europe

BERLIN - Hurricane-strength winds howled across Europe over the weekend, killing 13 people and leaving a trail of destruction as cars were blown off the road, roofs were ripped off and trees fell like matchsticks.

The storm, dubbed "Emma" by forecasters, brought with it winds of up to 200 kilometres (125 miles) an hour and heavy rains as it ripped its way across central Europe.

Cloud Lightning

Severe storm hits Europe

Storm Emma has left a trail of destruction across Europe. Nine people have in total have lost their lives, four in Austria, three in Germany, and two in the Czech Republic. In the United Kingdom thousands of rail passengers suffered delays caused by the severe weather conditions. High winds blew several containers from goods trains onto the rails, blocking the most important rail routes between England and Scotland.

Better Earth

Earthquake felt in Florence, Bologna

An earthquake in central Italy measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale was felt in the cities of Florence and Bologna, news reports said.

No injuries to people or damage to buildings were immediately reported in the earthquake which struck early Saturday, the ANSA news agency said.

Snowman

Global warming sceptics buoyed by record cold

Global warming sceptics are pointing to recent record cold temperatures in parts of North America and Asia and the return of Arctic Sea ice to suggest fears about climate change may be overblown.

According to the US National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), the average temperature of the global land surface in January 2008 was below the 20th century mean (-0.02°F/-0.01°C) for the first time since 1982.

Arrow Down

Avalanche kills five in Kyrgyzstan

An avalanche in the Issyk-Kul district in northern Kyrgyzstan, has left five people dead, the Central Asian state's emergencies ministry said on Friday.

The tragedy occurred on Thursday evening near the mountainous resort of Lake Issyk Kul. Rescuers have managed to recover three of the bodies while the search is continuing for the others, a spokesman said.

Arrow Down

Avalanche hits Russian passenger train in Urals

An avalanche hit a passenger train overnight injuring the driver and blocking the track in the Chelyabinsk district, a South Urals railways spokesman said on Friday.

"The locomotive and the first two carriages, one of which was a freight wagon, took the brunt of the impact. The driver was hospitalized with leg fractures, but no passengers were injured," the spokesman said.

Bug

Famed geneticist creating life form that turns CO2 to fuel

A scientist who mapped his genome and the genetic diversity of the oceans said Thursday he is creating a life form that feeds on climate-ruining carbon dioxide to produce fuel.

Snowman

Global Warming? New Data Shows Ice Is Back

Are the world's ice caps melting because of climate change, or are the reports just a lot of scare mongering by the advocates of the global warming theory?

Scare mongering appears to be the case, according to reports from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that reveal that almost all the allegedly "lost" ice has come back. A NOAA report shows that ice levels which had shrunk from 5 million square miles in January 2007 to just 1.5 million square miles in October, are almost back to their original levels.

Snowman

Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling



World temperature chart
©Hadley Center for Climate Prediction
World Temperatures according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. Note the steep drop over the last year.

Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming

Bizarro Earth

Polluted Prey Causes Wild Birds To Change Their Tune

Considerable attention has been paid to the effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals in aquatic environments, but rather less attention has been given to routes of contamination on land. A new study by researchers at Cardiff University, reveals that wild birds foraging on invertebrates contaminated with environmental pollutants, show marked changes in both brain and behaviour: male birds exposed to this pollution develop more complex songs, which are actually preferred by the females, even though these same males usually show reduced immune function compared to controls.

European starling
©iStockphoto/Andrew Howe
European starling feeding a fledgling. Researchers found that those birds exposed to environmentally-relevant levels of synthetic and natural estrogen mimics developed longer and more complex songs compared to males in a control group.