Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

China Faces Worst Floods in Years

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© Reuters/StringerFishermen salvage fishing nets from their capsized boat after Typhoon Conson hit Mariveles, Bataan province, north of Manila July 15, 2010.
Heavy rains and powerful winds battered East Asia on Thursday, pressing authorities to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in Japan and putting China on alert for its worst floods in years.

In the Philippines, power was gradually restored to millions of homes in and around Manila after Typhoon Conson hit the capital harder than expected on Tuesday night, killing 23 people and leaving dozens missing.

Tropical Storm Risk downgraded the typhoon to a tropical storm on Thursday, but the Philippines' weather bureau said it was expected to regain strength as it moved over the South China Sea and headed toward southern China and northern Vietnam.

Conson was due to hit land late on Friday, the Tropical Storm Risk website said.

Magnify

Methane Eating Microbes Multiply in Gulf Oil Spill

Thick oil
© Agence France-PresseThick oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill floats on the surface of the water and coats the marsh wetlands in Bay Jimmy near Port Sulphur, Louisiana, June 11, 2010
The number of naturally occurring microbes that eat methane grew surprisingly fast inside a plume spreading from BP's ruptured oil well, an oceanographer who was one of the first to detect the plumes said Tuesday.

Samantha Joye, a marine sciences professor at the University of Georgia at Athens, said it's good news that the microbes are eating the methane. However, the microbes also use oxygen in the water, and Joye said the repercussions of the resulting oxygen depletion aren't yet known.

Joye said she hadn't completed her analysis yet, but that the data so far show that the microbes are much more abundant in the plume than they are in the water layers above and below it.

Bomb

The Escalating Chemical War on Weeds

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© Paul Hoppe

The Return of Agent Orange

A few weeks back, the New York Times made mention of an astounding development, which has, for whatever reason, received little fanfare or recognition. Despite its Vietnam War notoriety, Agent Orange is in vogue again, this time down on the farm. Its reemergence, and in this particular setting, raises a host of troubling questions that are not being well considered.

Over the past year, there have been increasing reports of emerging superweeds resistant to Roundup, the preferred weedkiller of America's farmers. Roundup is sold in tandem with Roundup-ready seeds, both marquee products of the Monsanto Corporation. In the 1990s, when the latter product hit the market, it was momentous, revolutionary - a godsend: Roundup-ready seeds are genetically designed to resist application of the potent herbicide. By sowing Roundup-ready seeds and dousing their fields with the trademark weedkiller, farmers could forego the expense and toil of tilling the land, and losing valuable topsoil in the process. Production was enhanced, time and money saved. It was quite an economic boon to farmers, at least in the short run. Environmentalists were also pleased in light of the topsoil angle. Needless to say, Monsanto was thrilled that farmers were even more dependent on its products.

Bizarro Earth

Eight dead after Typhoon Conson smashes Philippines

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© Unknown
At least eight people were confirmed dead on Wednesday after Typhoon Conson ripped across the Philippines, sweeping shanties into the sea and bringing the nation's capital to a standstill.

Conson, the first typhoon of the year, hit the Southeast Asian archipelago late on Tuesday before sweeping over the heavily populated main island of Luzon with maximum gusts of 120 kilometres (74 miles) an hour.

"The wind howled like a child screaming," said Rigor Sambol, 52, a father of six who lives in a coastal shanty town on the outskirts of Manila that was partly destroyed.

"It was so strong, our houseboat nearly got flipped over. I had to take the children one by one to a nearby gym where they spent the evening on the cold floor."

Bizarro Earth

Chile: Earthquake Magnitude 6.5 - Bio-Bio

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© USGS
Date-Time:
Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 08:32:22 UTC

Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 04:32:22 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
38.002°S, 73.282°W

Depth:
28.4 km (17.6 miles)

Region:
BIO-BIO, CHILE

Distances:
55 km (35 miles) SE of Lebu, Bio-Bio, Chile

100 km (65 miles) NW of Temuco, Araucania, Chile

100 km (65 miles) SW of Los Angeles, Bio-Bio, Chile

560 km (345 miles) SSW of SANTIAGO, Region Metropolitana, Chile

Cloud Lightning

Canada: Golf ball-sized hail, thunderstorms pummel Calgary, southern Alberta

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© Gavin Young, Calgary Herald
High winds, heavy rain, and most of all, large hail, left a swath of damage across some communities in Calgary and southern Alberta during a Monday afternoon marked by tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings. The forecast for tomorrow raises the possibility of a repeat performance.

To the east, tornado warnings were issued through the afternoon for areas ranging from Drumheller, through the Strathmore region and into south eastern Alberta counties as at least three storm cells moved through, bringing rain, hail, high winds and the threat of even more severe weather. At least one funnel cloud was spotted near Strathmore during the storm, prompting some to head to their basements to wait out the severe weather.

Environment Canada meteorologist Sandy Massey said more rain is expected, with some areas north of Calgary predicted to see up to 70 mm falling tonight and tomorrow. Wednesday is expected to be a bit drier, she said.

Bizarro Earth

Deadly Landslides Hit South-West China

landslide
© Associated PressIn Xiaohe, Yunnan, officials said the side of a mountain collapsed
At least 17 people have been killed and dozens more are missing after a series of landslides in south-west China, state media says.

The landslides, which were triggered by days of heavy rain, struck three rural communities in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.

Four people were killed and 42 others were missing after one landslide in Xiaohe in Yunnan's Zhaotong city.

In Sichuan, two separate landslides left 13 people dead and two missing.

Meanwhile further to the west in Qinghai province, 10,000 people have been evacuated from the area around an overflowing reservoir.

Bizarro Earth

Top China miner pollutes river leading to massive fish kill

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© AFPDead fish wash up on the beach of Hong Kong's Lamma Island. Pollution from a mine owned by a top gold producer has severely contaminated a river in southeastern China, leading to a massive fish kill, the government and state media said Monday.
Pollution from a mine owned by a top gold producer has severely contaminated a river in southeastern China, leading to a massive fish kill, the government and state media said Monday.

Seepage from a mining waste pond owned by the Zijinshan Copper Mine has contaminated the Ding River and a reservoir in Fujian, the province's environmental protection bureau said in a statement.

The leak was first detected on July 3, prompting the bureau to issue an emergency order to begin monitoring it, the statement said.

Xinhua news agency said the mine is owned by the Hong Kong-listed Zijin Mining Group Co, China's largest gold producer.

Pollution from the sludge pond has killed or poisoned 1.89 million kilogrammes (4.2 million pounds) of fish on the Ding River and in the Mianhuatan reservoir, the report said.

The smell of dead fish was discernible 10 kilometres (six miles) from the reservoir, it added.

"The county government has issued a circular asking residents to turn in poisoned fish for collective disposal," the report quoted local villagers as saying, adding that villagers would be compensated for the fish they collect.

Better Earth

Global Backup Generator For Past Climate Change?

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© IPRC/SOESTThe top panel shows the glacial conveyor belt flow 21,000 years ago. The bottom panel shows a reorganized conveyor belt flow 17,500-15,000 years ago with deep-water sinking in the North Pacific.
Toward the end of the last ice age, a major reorganization took place in the current system of the North Pacific with far-reaching implications for climate, according to a new study published in the July 9, 2010, issue of Science by an international team of scientists from Japan, Hawaii, and Belgium.

Earth's climate is regulated largely by the world ocean's density-driven circulation, which brings warm surface water to the polar regions and transports cold water away from there at depth. As poleward flowing salty waters cool in the North Atlantic, they become so heavy that they sink. This sinking acts as a pump for the ocean's conveyor belt circulation.

A well-established fact by now is that there have been times in the past when the North Atlantic branch of the conveyor belt circulation was shut down by melting ice sheets, which released so much fresh glacial meltwater that the sinking of cold water in the Nordic Seas stopped and the Northern Hemisphere was plunged into a deep freeze.

Info

Florida Sinkhole Swallows Car, Endangers Condominium


A big sinkhole at a condominium complex in Florida has swallowed a car and it might not be done yet.

The sinkhole opened up Sunday morning near Tampa and claimed a Toyota Camry, pulling it down beneath its shifting sands.

The sinkhole is as wide as two parking spaces and is said to be about that deep, too.