Dust clouds generated by a huge dust storm in China's Taklimakan desert in 2007 made more than one full circle around the globe in just 13 days, a Japanese study using a NASA satellite has found.
When the cloud reached the Pacific Ocean the second time, it descended and deposited some of its dust into the sea, showing how a natural phenomenon can impact the environment far away.
"Asian dust is usually deposited near the Yellow Sea, around the Japan area, while Sahara dust ends up around the Atlantic Ocean and coast of Africa," said Itsushi Uno of Kyushu University's Research Institute for Applied Mechanics.
"But this study shows that China dust can be deposited into the (Pacific Ocean)," he told Reuters by telephone. "Dust clouds contain 5 percent iron, that is important for the ocean."
In a paper published in Nature Geoscience, scientists described how they used a NASA satellite and mathematical modeling to track and measure the movement of the dust cloud, which formed after the dust storm on May 8-9 in 2007.
The desert is in the Chinese northwestern region of Xinjiang.
Earth Changes
More than 20 people died and hundreds were made homeless as the worst flooding to hit Mongolia in decades wreaked havoc on the landlocked nation, an international aid group said Monday.
Beijing-based International Red Cross spokesman Francis Markus told AFP 23 people had been confirmed killed, citing figures provided by Mongolia's Red Cross Society.
The full damage assessment from the rain storms that struck the capital, Ulan Bator, and the nation's western Gobi-Altai province last week, is still being compiled, Markus said.
However he said nearly 2,000 households had been affected, with 124 homes destroyed.
Beijing-based International Red Cross spokesman Francis Markus told AFP 23 people had been confirmed killed, citing figures provided by Mongolia's Red Cross Society.
The full damage assessment from the rain storms that struck the capital, Ulan Bator, and the nation's western Gobi-Altai province last week, is still being compiled, Markus said.
However he said nearly 2,000 households had been affected, with 124 homes destroyed.
© Agence France-Presse
Pakistani commuters travel by bus along a flooded street after heavy monsoon rainfall in Karachi on July 19, 2009.
Pakistani commuters travel by bus along a flooded street after heavy monsoon rainfall in Karachi on July 19, 2009.
The heavy monsoon rain, which started early Saturday, brought much of the city to a standstill as power and communication systems were badly affected and hundreds of people were forced from their homes.
Meteorological officials said more rain was due in the next 24 hours in southern Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital.
"According to our reports 26 people are confirmed dead and hundreds injured. We are facing an emergency-like situation. We cannot fight with nature," Karachi mayor Mustafa Kamal told AFP.
© Reuters / Andy Clark
Wind and dry conditions were fueling the large blazes that broke out Saturday in the rugged hills along Okanagan Lake west of the city of Kelowna, British Columbia, where housing subdivisions have encroached on the surrounding forest in recent years.
"The winds are definitely adding to the fire activity," said Elise Riedlinger, a spokeswoman for the British Columbia Forest Service, which has not estimated when the fires can be brought under control.
Many farming and fishing communities don't bother with weather predictions made by meteorologists and satellite imaging; they still predict floods, storms and drought the traditional way: by tracking nature.
In the drought-prone coastal province of Ninh Thuan, farmers believe that if the dragonfly flies high it will be sunny and if it flies low there will be rain.
In north-central Thua Thien-Hue Province, fishermen are likely to bring their boats back to the shore if, in January or February, they look to the north and see a silver cloud that quickly disappears - a sign of cold weather, they say.
In the drought-prone coastal province of Ninh Thuan, farmers believe that if the dragonfly flies high it will be sunny and if it flies low there will be rain.
In north-central Thua Thien-Hue Province, fishermen are likely to bring their boats back to the shore if, in January or February, they look to the north and see a silver cloud that quickly disappears - a sign of cold weather, they say.
Perchlorate-contaminated groundwater could be a widespread legacy of the U.S.'s agricultural past, according to researchers who have pioneered perchlorate forensics. The researchers, led by John Karl Bhlke of the U.S. Geological Survey, used isotopes and other geochemical tracers to identify perchlorate sources. The impact of the historic use of Chilean nitrate fertilizer from the Atacama Desert, which contains naturally occurring perchlorate, is emerging from studies such as one published recently in Environmental Science and Technology (DOI link).
The study, which identifies historic use of the fertilizer as the most likely cause of groundwater contamination in some areas of Long Island, New York, is one of the first published reports on the use of such forensics in the field. Similar studies are under way in California, Iowa, Arkansas, and New Jersey, but these are part of ongoing litigation, according to coauthor Neil Sturchio of the University of Illinois Chicago. The Long Island study "is a beautifully conceived and executed work that will be helpful to pinpoint sources in some other cases, as well," says analytical chemist Purnendu ("Sandy") Dasgupta of the University of Texas Arlington.
The study, which identifies historic use of the fertilizer as the most likely cause of groundwater contamination in some areas of Long Island, New York, is one of the first published reports on the use of such forensics in the field. Similar studies are under way in California, Iowa, Arkansas, and New Jersey, but these are part of ongoing litigation, according to coauthor Neil Sturchio of the University of Illinois Chicago. The Long Island study "is a beautifully conceived and executed work that will be helpful to pinpoint sources in some other cases, as well," says analytical chemist Purnendu ("Sandy") Dasgupta of the University of Texas Arlington.
© US Geological Survey
Sunday, July 19, 2009 at 08:35:44 UTC
Sunday, July 19, 2009 at 03:35:44 AM at epicenter
Location:
1.749°S, 80.398°W
Depth:
47.8 km (29.7 miles)
Distances:
70 km (45 miles) NW of Guayaquil, Ecuador
75 km (50 miles) S of Portoviejo, Ecuador
175 km (110 miles) NNW of Machala, Ecuador
270 km (170 miles) SW of QUITO, Ecuador
© Unknown
CN Tower damaged in massive thunderstorm
CN Tower damaged in massive thunderstorm
The scatters of rain that fell in the early evening were pale hint of the violent wind, hail and rain that was to follow, felling power lines, snapping trees in half, and plunging Whyte Avenue into blackness.
By 10 p.m., the winds were so severe they tore down the awning of the CN Tower at 104th Avenue and 100th Street. The building has a second floor wider than its base and the material that made up the overhang came crashing down on an SUV and a truck.
"The winds were just howling," said Brian Danyluk, who was driving down the street just as the crash happened and stopped to photograph the wreckage.
A group of hunters aboard a small boat out of the tiny Alaska village of Wainwright were the first to spot what would eventually be called "the blob." It was a dark, floating mass stretching for miles through the Chukchi Sea, a frigid and relatively shallow expanse of Arctic Ocean water between Alaska's northwest coast and the Russian Far East. The goo was fibrous, hairy. When it touched floating ice, it looked almost black.
But what was it? An oil slick? Some sort of immense, amorphous organism adrift in some of the planet's most remote waters? Maybe a worrisome sign of global climate change? Or was it something insidious and, perhaps, even carnivorous like the man-eating jello from the old Steve McQueen movie that inspired the Alaskan phenomenon's nickname?
The hunters got word to the U.S. Coast Guard, which immediately sent two spill response experts to fly over the mass, which looked sort of rusty from the air. They also approached it by boat. The North Slope Borough, the local government for the vast and sparsely populated cap of Alaska, sent its own people out the main village of Barrow to have a look. They scooped up jars of the stuff for analysis in a state lab in Anchorage.
But what was it? An oil slick? Some sort of immense, amorphous organism adrift in some of the planet's most remote waters? Maybe a worrisome sign of global climate change? Or was it something insidious and, perhaps, even carnivorous like the man-eating jello from the old Steve McQueen movie that inspired the Alaskan phenomenon's nickname?
The hunters got word to the U.S. Coast Guard, which immediately sent two spill response experts to fly over the mass, which looked sort of rusty from the air. They also approached it by boat. The North Slope Borough, the local government for the vast and sparsely populated cap of Alaska, sent its own people out the main village of Barrow to have a look. They scooped up jars of the stuff for analysis in a state lab in Anchorage.
© US Geological Survey
Saturday, July 18, 2009 at 20:32:27 UTC
Sunday, July 19, 2009 at 12:32:27 AM at epicenter
Location:
35.844°N, 43.349°E
Depth:
7.4 km (4.6 miles) (poorly constrained)
Distances:
60 km (35 miles) SSE of Mosul, Iraq
70 km (45 miles) WSW of Irbil, Iraq
105 km (65 miles) WNW of Kirkuk, Iraq
295 km (185 miles) NNW of BAGHDAD, Iraq
