Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Mysterious Whale Die-Off Is Largest on Record

Jeremy Hsu
LiveScience
Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:10 UTC
Mass death among baby right whales has experts scrambling to figure out the puzzle behind the largest great whale die-off on record.

Observers have found 308 dead whales in the waters around Peninsula Valdes along Argentina's Patagonian Coast since 2005. Almost 90 percent of those deaths represent whale calves less than 3 months old, and the calf deaths make up almost a third of all right whale calf sightings in the last five years.

"This is the single largest die-off event in terms of numbers and in relation to population size and geographic range," said Marcela Uhart, a medical veterinarian with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). She represents an associate director in Latin America for the WCS Global Health Program.
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Bizarro Earth

Pakistan: Hailstorm hits twin cities

Mobarik A. Virk
The News
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:58 UTC
Islamabad - An unusual weather phenomenon caused widespread hailstorm in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad on Monday afternoon. Following duststorm in which the wind velocity touched 96 kilometres per hour in Rawalpindi and 55 kilometres per hour in Islamabad, thick grey clouds swarmed the skies and after a slight spell of drizzle the hailstorm struck.

Meteorological Office Director Dr. Mohammad Hanif told The News that hailstorms in the transitional period between winter and spring is not unusual because of sudden change in temperature. "But the slightly unusual phenomenon was that the hailstorm that struck the twin cities engulfed a vast area."

Usually hailstorms in such transitional periods remain confined to small pockets but on Monday it was widespread covering vast areas over Rawalpindi and Islamabad. At many places, the intensity of the hailstorm was unusually high," he said.
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Igloo

Snow storms and high winds leave 20,000 homes without power across Scotland


The Daily Record
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:50 UTC
Image
A car is pushed in the snow at Denny, Stirlingshire
Twenty thousand homes were left without power today as high winds, snow storms and rain battered Scotland and ice gripped overhead power lines.

Ten lorries were also stranded on the M90 as temperatures plunged below freezing. Police urged drivers to take care on some of the water-swamped roads this evening and forecasters predicted the cold snap would last for another two days.

The 20,000 homes without power are in central and southern Scotland, said ScottishPower.

Ayrshire was worst hit, with 7,000 homes in Largs and Fairlie affected.

A spokesman said some of the 20,000 homes affected throughout today were only without electricity for a few minutes.
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Bizarro Earth

Magnitude 6.6 - Andaman Islands, India Region


US Geological Survey
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:37 UTC
Andaman Earthquake
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 16:54:48 UTC

Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 10:24:48 PM at epicenter

Location:
13.616°N, 92.858°E

Depth:
45.4 km (28.2 miles)

Distances:
215 km (135 miles) N of Port Blair, Andaman Islands, India

405 km (250 miles) SSW of Pathein (Bassein), Myanmar

825 km (510 miles) W of BANGKOK, Thailand

2310 km (1440 miles) SE of NEW DELHI, Delhi, India
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Cloud Lightning

Massachusetts, Rhode Island Declare Rain Emergencies

Aaron Clark
Bloomberg
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:25 UTC
Massachusetts and Rhode Island declared emergencies and Boston recorded unprecedented rainfall as storms pounded the U.S. Northeast for a second day today.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick mobilized about 1,000 National Guard troops because of the threat of "beach erosion, major flooding and widespread road closures," according to a statement on his Web site yesterday.

"In some cases there has been two months of rain in the matter of a few days," Tom Kines, a senior meteorologist for AccuWeather Inc., said in a telephone interview. "When you get that much rain over a few-day period, that spells trouble."

Boston's Charles River is set to break the record crest of 9.24 feet reached in August 1955 after two hurricanes dumped more than 26 inches of rain on the region in less than two weeks, according to the National Weather Service.
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Sun

The Sun Points Radio-Active Sunspot at Earth

Ian O'Neill
SpaceWeather.com
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 03:11 UTC
Sunspot
© Discovery News
As the sun continues to ramp up in activity after a long period in the doldrums, solar astronomers have been treated to an up-tick in sunspot numbers, solar prominences and flares.

And now, radio astronomers have joined the fun, listening to the roar of a particularly "noisy" sunspot currently pointing in our direction.

Not all sunspots emit strong radio emissions, but sunspot 1057 certainly isn't shy. As reported by SpaceWeather.com, a radio astronomer in New Mexico received a mix of Type III and Type V radio emissions:
"It was sunspot 1057. All day long it had been producing small radio bursts around 21 MHz. Then, at 1813 UT, it let loose a big one. The burst only lasted a minute, but it saturated the radios." --Thomas Ashcraft, radio astronomer.
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Bomb

Undersea volcano threatens southern Italy


Agence France-Presse
Mon, 29 Mar 2010 21:25 UTC
Marsili Volcano
© International Institute of Geophysics and VolcanologyThese images of the Marsili volcano show magnetic and gravity anomalies, which researchers say increase chances of a collapse.
Rome - Europe's largest undersea volcano could disintegrate and unleash a tsunami that would engulf southern Italy "at any time", a prominent vulcanologist warned in an interview published Monday.

The Marsili volcano, which is bursting with magma, has "fragile walls" that could collapse, Enzo Boschi told the leading daily Corriere della Sera.

"It could even happen tomorrow," said Boschi, president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).

"Our latest research shows that the volcano is not structurally solid, its walls are fragile, the magma chamber is of sizeable dimensions," he said. "All that tells us that the volcano is active and could begin erupting at any time."
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Bizarro Earth

Australia: New South Wales facing huge locust plague

Brad Markham
ABC News
Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:01 UTC
Image
© Brad MarkhamLocust eggs discovered on a property near Parkes in September 2009
There're fears NSW could be facing its worst locust plague since 2004.

Heavy rains have triggered a surge in locust activity. The pest has already ravaged early oat crops in the state's south. Some of the biggest clusters of baby locusts ever seen in NSW have been found in the far-west around Tibooburra.

The state's locust coordinator Simon Oliver is urging all landholders to check their paddocks for the pest.

"We've had good rain across NSW over the past three months," he says. "That's led to strong pasture growth and as a result the locusts have reinvigorated themselves. We're now finding large numbers in most parts of western NSW."
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Snowman

The white stuff is back! Snowfall heralds start of British Summer Time


UK Daily Mail
Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:24 UTC
Image
© PAWhite wilderness: Snow covers the ground as far as the eye can see at Fintry, Scotland
The arrival of British Summer Time has brought wet and windy weather, with snow already falling in some parts of the country.

Snow this morning in central and northern Scotland and there will be more to come as the cold weather pushes south.

Although shielded from the worst, southern England is likely to see sleet and frigid temperatures by the end of the week.

Brendan Jones, of MeteoGroup said: 'It's a small taste of what will come tonight. In northern Scotland overnight it reached -4c and -5c in some inland areas.

'It will be more significant over the coming evening and night. It will be significant over the hills and mountains but also lower levels will see some snow as well.

'There's rain moving up from the south hitting colder air in Scotland. The southern uplands and Perthshire hills could see 4in to 6in through tonight and into tomorrow.
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Attention

Plight of Bees Worsens This Winter and Scientists Spot Stew of Pesticides in Pollen, Hives

Seth Borenstein
The Los Angeles Times
Wed, 24 Mar 2010 05:06 UTC
Image
© AP PhotoScavenger bees in a dead hive (Merced, California)
The mysterious 4-year-old crisis of disappearing honeybees is deepening. A quick federal survey indicates a heavy bee die-off this winter, while a new study shows honeybees' pollen and hives laden with pesticides.

Two federal agencies along with regulators in California and Canada are scrambling to figure out what is behind this relatively recent threat, ordering new research on pesticides used in fields and orchards. Federal courts are even weighing in this month, ruling that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency overlooked a requirement when allowing a pesticide on the market.

And on Thursday, chemists at a scientific conference in San Francisco will tackle the issue of chemicals and dwindling bees in response to the new study.
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