The Great Red Comet -Earth Science Chronicles

Strange Cloud Observations

2009-07-17T16:54:00.002-05:00

The heavens have been really showing off these past few weeks -- what with volcanic clouds, blue moons, rainbow clouds, and UW-shaped lightning. Tuesday night was no different. Astute observers from around the northern latitudes of the world noticed a dazzling display of "noctilucent" clouds. They are clouds at the very edge of space, hundreds of thousands of feet in the air. The air is very cold and very dry at that level of the atmosphere, but in the summer time, the rising air from the hotter surface can gradually push a little water moisture to those space-high altitudes (that's why they're seen only in the summer). Scientists are still not quite sure of all the details that cause the clouds to form, although the glow is from simple sunlight -- the clouds are so high they reflect sunlight even after the sun appears well below the horizon from the ground. There are theories that volcanoes can cause them -- and we just had a big eruption of a volcano in Russia last month. Sightings used to be limited to areas above 50 degrees north latitude, but spaceweather.com says the clouds are being seen at lower and lower latitudes these days -- they've seen it a few times in the U.S. Northwest between 45-48 degrees north, and there was a sighting in Nebraska Tuesday night, which is down at 41 degrees north

Red sky at night

2009-07-14T13:47:00.000-05:00

The night skies over Britain will turn a deep shade of crimson this week as the fallout from a Russian volcano blast hits the UK. Millions of tonnes of dust, ash and sulphur dioxide were thrown up to 30 miles into the air when Sarychev Peak on Matua Island in the Kuril Archipelago erupted last month. The blast created what experts call a ‘volcanic aerosol’ - a colourful mixture of ash and sulphur compounds - in the stratosphere. This scatters an invisible blue which, when mixed with the red light of the setting sun, produces a ‘volcanic lavender’, or vivid crimson/violet hue. Strong winds blew the soaring plume more than 2,000 miles across the northern hemisphere before its effects were noticed in Britain last Thursday. The RARE phenomenon has been caught on camera. Meteorologists say the sunset spectacle will last for several days, but will only be visible on clear evenings. It will then continue on its journey across the Atlantic and into the skies above North America
Image: A particularly fiery red sky over fields in Leicestershire last night after an eruption at Sarychev Peak in Russia unleashed a colourful mixture of ash and sulphur. When this 'volcanic aerosol' in the stratosphere mixes with the red light of the setting sun, it produces a vivid crimson hue

Eastern Aral Sea has shrunk by 80% since 2006

2009-07-13T17:29:00.000-05:00

The eastern lobe of the disaster-struck Aral Sea seems to have shrunk by four-fifths in just three years, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Friday.

It released an overlay of photographs taken by one of its Earth observation satellites, Envisat, on July 1 2006 and July 6 2009.

Once the world's fourth-largest inland body of water but now a byword for ecological calamity, the Aral Sea has been retreating over the last half-century after rivers that fed it were diverted for Soviet cotton irrigation projects. Image: Satellite image shows the dramatic retreat of the Aral Sea?s shoreline.

Around two decades ago, it split into the Small Aral Sea in the north, located in Kazakhstan, and the Large Aral Sea, shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
The horseshoe-shaped Large Aral Sea began to split into eastern and western lobes, in 2000.
"The eastern lobe retreated substantially between 2006 and 2009," ESA said in a press release.
"It appears to have lost about 80 percent of its water since the 2006 (image) acquisition, at which time the eastern lobe had a length of about 150 kilometres (93 miles) and a width of about 70 kms (43 miles)."
The Large Aral Sea is expected to dry out completely by 2020, it added.

Frozen carbon a climate change threat

2009-07-12T13:29:00.002-05:00

An Australian-led team of scientists says it has determined the amount of frozen carbon in Earth's northern regions is more than double previous estimates.

We now estimate the deposits contain over 1.5 trillion tons of frozen carbon, about twice as much carbon as contained in the atmosphere, said Charles Tarnocai of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the study's lead author.

Pep Canadell, executive director of Australia's Global Carbon Project and study co-author, said the existence of super-sized deposits of frozen carbon means any thawing of permafrost due to global warming might lead to significant emissions of carbon dioxide and methane -- both greenhouse gases.

Freak weather terrorizes Muscovites

2009-07-12T13:15:00.000-05:00

Freak weather terrorizes Muscovites. A downpour, a hail, and in a few hours a totally clear sky – that’s what the Moscow weather is now all about. For the last few days millions of Muscovites and those who live in the Moscow region have been waking up having absolutely no idea what they will see beyond their windows. The conditions outdoors are changing so rapidly that listening to the weather forecast seems to be a waste of time. Yet another surprise awaited the local population on Friday morning. In some parts of Moscow precipitation levels reached 50 mm overnight, which is MORE THAN A HALF-MONTHLY RATION.

Elsewhere, the heavy rain destroyed parts of the city’s road surface, while somewhere on the roads the puddles were 30 centimeters in depth. Such meteorological capriciousness resulted in kilometers-long traffic jams all around Moscow. The bedlam outside, which Moscow and many other parts of the country fell victim to, has sparked concerns over climate change. For the past five-to-ten years, Muscovites have become acquainted to several different “weather manifestations” uncommon for this part of the country, such as recent tornadoes, the mild winter of 2007 whose snow only appeared in mid-January, while conversely 2003 saw snowfall in June.

Millions hungry as warming shifts seasons

2009-07-08T12:07:00.000-05:00

Rainfall more erratic, shorter. Interviews Oxfam carried out with farmers in 15 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America show that SEASONS ARE SHRINKING IN NUMBER AND VARIETY. This is destroying harvests, pushing farmers to abandon traditional crops and causing widespread hunger -- which, the agency predicts, will likely be "climate change's most savage impact on humanity in the near future". Rainfall is reported to be more erratic, shorter and more violent. UNUSUAL weather events -- including storms, drier spells and fluctuating temperatures -- are happening more often. And farmers say winds and storms have got stronger. "We think that 'changing seasonality' may be one of the most significant impacts of climate change for poor farmers, and that is happening now." "In sub-Saharan Africa, (yields of) maize, which is a staple crop, will decrease by 15 percent by 2020 and that is a big number. Drought is now happening on a yearly basis, and there is increased hunger and starvation because of declining food stocks."

Torrential rain in China leaves at least 20 dead

2009-07-06T17:53:00.000-05:00

BEIJING: At least 20 people have died and more than 670,000 had to be evacuated in China after torrential rain and floods destroyed houses, damaged roads and caused rivers to overflow, state media said on Sunday.

The fatalities occurred over several days of relentless heavy rain in the centre and south of the country, also leaving another five people missing, according to Xinhua news agency.

Water levels of some rivers in the southern Guangxi region were the highest since 1998, when downpours led to the worst flooding in over 100 years and resulted in more than 3,600 deaths nationwide, China Central Television said Saturday.

Rhine three degrees warmer than 100 years ago

2009-07-02T16:43:00.000-05:00

BERLIN (AFP) — The Rhine river between Germany and the Netherlands is on average three degrees warmer than 100 years ago, with power stations the main culprits, the German green group BUND said on Tuesday.
According to a study commission by BUND, this stretch of the river is warmed two degrees Celsius by waste water pumped in by industry and by nuclear and coal-fired power plants, and by one degree by global warming.
The warming of one of Europe's biggest rivers affects wildlife, with salmon known to stop swimming upstream to spawn if the water temperature reached 25 degrees Celsius (77 Fahrenheit), BUND said. Temperatures of 28 degrees (82 Fahrenheit) have been recorded.
"The waste heat from all German power plants would be enough to warm every single building in the country," Joerg Nitsch, head of BUND in the German state of Hesse, said in a statement.
"This gigantic waste of heat that the Rhine has to deal with shows how utterly inefficient producing electricity with coal and nuclear power is," he said.

Unusual Volcanic Sunsets

2009-06-30T12:09:00.002-05:00

As expected, reports are filtering in of spectacular sunsets from the Sarychev volcanic eruption earlier in June. This picture is from Canada: keep an eye on the sky for potential over your back yard too!

The volcanic cloud reached upwards of 65,000 feet, penetrating well into the lower stratosphere. Here, the sulfur dioxide gas combines with water vapor to form a weak sulfuric acid solution. These droplets remain aloft for up to three years, producing a slight haze which reflects and refracts sunlight into amazing color schemes.

Photo: Brian Whittaker / Canada

Ten dead in Czech floods, central Europe on alert

2009-06-27T19:43:00.002-05:00

NOVY JICIN, Czech Republic (Reuters) - At least 10 people died in flooding in the eastern Czech Republic, and rising river levels prompted flood warnings across central Europe following heavy rains this week.

Officials said at least six people were drowned late on Wednesday and four more died when medical teams were unable to reach them.

Rescuers evacuated hundreds of people from wrecked houses and buildings threatened by high water, and the government moved to deploy up to 1,000 soldiers to help.

The flooding is the central European country's worst natural disaster since heavy floods in 2002, when 17 people died and water ravaged the historic center of Prague, costing the state around $3 billion in repair costs.

More than 100 reported dead in Indian heatwave

2009-06-27T19:32:00.002-05:00

BHUBANESWAR, India (AFP) — An acute heatwave roasting much of India has claimed at least 100 lives, with more deaths feared because the annual monsoon rains have yet to come, officials said Thursday.Indians have been watching the skies anxiously after the monsoon failed to appear two weeks ago, prompting concerns about the impact on agriculture and water supplies as lakes run dry after a long, hot summer.

In the capital New Delhi temperatures over the past week have touched 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit).

City in Brazil's Amazon faces worst floods in 56 years

2009-06-24T15:08:00.000-05:00

RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) – Manaus, a city deep in Brazil's Amazon jungle, is suffering the worst flooding it has seen in 56 years, civil defense officials said Monday.
Torrential rain in Brazil's north has swollen the Amazon river and its tributaries, including the Negro river on which Manaus sits, they said.
Over the weekend, the Negro river rose to 29.62 meters (88.32 feet) -- just a centimeter off the level it reached in 1953, when it hit 29.63 meters.
At least 18,000 people have been affected by the deluge, which has swamped part of Manaus and washed sewage and trash into houses.
Around 60 people died in April and May when torrential rains lashed the normally dry north and northeast of Brazil.

Summers In UK 'Will Be Like Spain'

2009-06-22T16:04:00.000-05:00

British summers could soon be akin to those in the drought-ridden Mediterranean and our winters characterised by severe flooding, according to a new report on climate change.

UK Climate Impacts Report predicts extremes of temperature will hit the UK if global temperatures continue to rise.
The report is the Met Office's most comprehensive assessment yet of what might happen by the middle to end of the century.
Image: Southern Spain today - but is this the future for the UK?

Tibet drought worst in 30 years

2009-06-22T15:54:00.000-05:00

A drought in Tibet has intensified into the region's WORST IN THREE DECADES, leaving thousands of hectares parched and killing more than 13,000 head of cattle. The report follows a warning by China's top weather official last month that the Himalayan region faced a growing threat of drought and floods as global warming melts its glaciers. Drought conditions have hit five of Tibet's six prefectures since last year, affecting 15.3 percent of the remote plateau. Some weather stations had not received significant rainfall in 226 days. "The drought has also been worsened by higher than normal temperatures. Tibet has experienced temperatures 0.4 to 2.3 degrees Celsius (0.7 to 4.1 Fahrenheit) higher than normal years." Experts have repeatedly warned of catastrophic consequences downstream if global warming continues to melt the snows and glaciers of mountainous Tibet, source of many of Asia's mightiest rivers.

UK maps climate change forecasts

2009-06-19T21:51:00.001-05:00

Detailed forecasts of how climate change may affect the UK during this century are to be released by the government later.

The report will predict how temperature and rainfall are likely to change at regional and local scales.

Scientists believe winters will be wetter, particularly in the north, and summers drier, especially in the south.

The projected impacts are "worse than the government had feared," according to a source familiar with the project.

The government hopes the UK Climate Projections 2009 report (UKCP09) will allow citizens, local authorities and businesses to plan better for future decades.

"The picture it paints is an alarming one"

Brazilian scientists say killer H1N1 virus has already mutated

2009-06-17T12:24:00.000-05:00

The swine flu H1N1 virus has already mutated much faster than anyone feared.

Scientists in Brazil have identified a new strand of the killer disease in a patient in Sao Paulo.
The mutated form has been named A/Sao Paolo/1454/H1N1 by bacteriologists at the Adolfo Lutz Institute after experts compared the mutated virus with samples of the original swine flu from California.
Scientist Terezinha Maria de Pavia discovered that the mutation had occurred in a haemoglobin protein.
It is not yet known if the mutation is more deadly than the A/H1N1 strand which has already been declared a pandemic by the WHO.

Could swine flu, like Spanish flu in 1918 which killed millions of people, mutate into a deadly form?

Meanwhile the original strand of swine flu has claimed further victims. In Argentina, acting health minister Carlos Soratti announced that three more people had died.

Stifling heat wave claims lives in Aden

2009-06-16T14:23:00.000-05:00

Two people have died and others suffered fainting over the last two days as a result of the second worst heat wave in the last three years to hit Yemen's port city of Aden. Power problems such as persistent cut-offs helped worsen the situation in Aden leading to discomfort among the patients in Aden, which is witnessing a high temperature associated with high humidity. The electrical current is cut off five times a day, affecting those people with dangerous diseases. Even though the electrical current is available, air conditioners have become insufficient to ease the heat wave amid high prices of electricity. Two years ago, a strong heat wave hit the city, claiming the lives of 24 people, most of them were elderly people.

Earthquake recording stations to be located in Missouri

2009-06-16T14:09:00.002-05:00

Since 2004, an array of 400 seismometers has been slowly moving across the United States, from west to east. The stations are in place for two years, and then they are moved eastward. In addition to recording data on earthquakes, scientists can gather important information about the Earth's inner structure. Seconds after a significant earthquake, geophysicists around the world can access the information recorded by each of the stations to learn more about that part of the Earth. 43 earthquake recording stations will be placed in Missouri and southern Iowa in 2010-2011.

WHO declares first 21st century flu pandemic

2009-06-11T11:42:00.001-05:00

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization declared the first flu pandemic of the 21st century on Thursday, urging countries to shore up defenses against the virus which is "not stoppable" but has proved mainly mild so far.

The United Nations agency raised its pandemic flu alert to phase 6 on a six-point scale, indicating the first influenza pandemic since 1968 is under way.

"This is a very important and challenging day for all of us. It is important because we will be raising our pandemic alert level to level 6," WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan told reporters on a teleconference.

New Cloud Type Discovered?

2009-06-09T15:22:00.000-05:00

An "asperatus" cloud rolls over New Zealand's South Island in an undated picture.

This apparently new class of clouds is still a mystery. But experts suspect asperatus clouds' choppy undersides may be due to strong winds disturbing previously stable layers of warm and cold air.

Asperatus clouds may spur the first new classification in the World Meteorological Organization's International Cloud Atlas since the 1950s, Gavin Pretor-Pinney said.

Since the last addition to the atlas, the emergence of satellite imagery has pushed meteorologists to take a much broader view on weather and focus less on small-scale cloud formations.

But "the tide is turning back again," in part because the humble cloud is seen as a "wild card" in climate-change prediction, Pretor-Pinney said.

LeMone agreed that clouds are a "big unknown" in climate change, mostly because climate-change models do not provide a high-enough resolution to determine what clouds' impacts will be on a changing world.

—Photograph courtesy Merrick Davies

Drought-hit LA, San Diego impose water ban

2009-06-03T08:58:00.000-05:00

LOS ANGELES (AFP) — Hit by a severe drought for the third year in a row, Los Angeles and San Diego on Monday imposed tough restrictions on the use of tap water, local officials said.
Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States with four million residents, hiked prices to encourage users to cut their consumption by 15 percent.
Watering lawns will now only be allowed on Mondays and Thursdays, tightening an earlier ban on watering gardens between 9:00 am and 4:00 pm.
Local officials will patrol the area and those caught flouting the ban could face fines of up to 600 dollars.
In San Diego, some 200 kilometers (120 miles) further south, gardens may only be watered three days a week and only for 10 minutes at a time. Fines for breaking the rules could stretch to 1,000 dollars in the city of 1.3 million residents.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared an emergency in his state at the end of February as it was hit by a drought for the third year running.
Spring and summer 2008 were the driest on record in California with 76 percent less rainfall than usual. But precipitation levels have dropped even further since the start of 2009.

Extreme weather stokes climate worries

2009-06-03T08:43:00.000-05:00

Sand dunes had been advancing for decades, and two years ago, they finally swallowed the houses of 13 families in Ilha Grande, an island in the Parnaiba river delta in northeastern Brazil. "It is beautiful now, but beauty brings misery. The cause of this is natural, but it is man-made as well." Experts blame deforestation and population increases for the huge dunes that are advancing by about 25 metres a year, threatening to wipe the town of 8,500 people off the map. But they and residents also blame stronger winds and drier weather in recent years. "The wind has been getting stronger. It is the motor of this process." Image: An aerial view of a flooded farm in the northeastern state of Maranhao. A bout of extreme weather, including floods in the north and drought in the south, has reignited the debate about how climate change is affecting Latin America's largest country, home to the world's biggest rain forest and one of the world's bread baskets.

A bout of extreme weather has reignited a debate about how climate change is affecting Latin America's largest country, home to most of the world's biggest rain forest and one of the world's bread baskets. Unusually heavy rains in the north and northeast have made hundreds of thousands of people homeless and killed about 45.

Meanwhile, southern Brazil has been hit by a series of droughts, devastating farmers and cutting by a third the flow of water over the famed Iguacu waterfalls. "Brazil is feeling climate changes that are happening in the world, when there is a severe drought in a place that didn't have them, when it rains in places where it didn't used to." "We are seeing the warming and we are seeing conditions in many parts of the country that appear to be associated." Southern states have suffered droughts in seven of the past 11 years and the first hurricane recorded in Brazil hit the southern coast in 2004. The Amazon area had its worst drought in decades in 2005.

Warming also plays a key role in models of a so-called "tipping point" in which drier weather and deforestation combine to turn much of the Amazon forest into a savanna and possibly cut the flow of rain to southern farming states. About half of the forest is "teetering on the edge" of not having enough water to survive the more intense dry seasons. The drying process, which raises the amount of destruction by fires, is on course to release about 20 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere over the next two decades, about twice the current annual total of global emissions.

Millions displaced by cyclone in India, Bangladesh

2009-05-27T16:21:00.002-05:00

KOLKATA, India, May 27 (Reuters) - Cyclone Aila has displaced millions of people in India and Bangladesh, only a fraction of whom have access to food and drinking water, officials said on Wednesday.

Image: Flood-affected people move to safer places after receiving relief supplies on the outskirts of Siliguri in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, May 26, 2009. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri

The cyclone has killed at least 210 people in the flood-prone region, though officials said the death toll could rise, and rescuers have struggled to reach millions still marooned. Cyclone Aila hit parts of coastal Bangladesh and eastern India on Monday, triggering tidal surges and floods.

Officials say more than one million people have been displaced in India's Sundarban islands in West Bengal state alone, one of the world's biggest tiger reserves and which is already threatened by global warming.

Heavy rain triggered by the storm raised river levels and burst mud embankments in the Sundarbans delta, destroying hundreds of thousands of houses and causing widespread flooding in the eastern state, and triggered landslides. Global warming experts say rising sea levels have seen the fragile Sundarbans lose 28 percent of its habitat in the last 40 years.

Nearly 2.3 million people have been displaced and tens of thousands have moved to government shelters in West Bengal, the aid agency Save the Children told AlertNet

Rare Cyclonic Storm over Nothern Argentina

2009-05-27T14:38:00.000-05:00

A RARE cyclonic storm inundated Argentina and Paraguay. A low-pressure weather system over the heart of South America developed into an UNUSUAL cyclonic storm in mid-May. The storm “remained quasi-stationary for 48 hours and was incredibly symmetric, resembling a tropical cyclone in the middle of the continent.” On May 22, with clear skies all around, the ball of clouds hung over the border between Argentina and Paraguay.

Near the top center of the storm, the clouds had a boiling appearance that is often associated with towering thunderstorms. Near the bottom of the storm, a few wispy streamers of clouds suggest the clockwise inward spiral of the storm. “Any kind of cyclonic formation is VERY RARE in the Chaco region of northern Argentina and Paraguay. This system...unleashed heavy rain (over 200 mm) in Paraguay and displaced 500 people."

Prestigious Australian Real Estate Washed Away

2009-05-27T14:29:00.000-05:00

ONE of Byron Bay's most prestigious rows of real estate is eroding away in king tides and massive swells that continued hammering the coast last night.

Belongil Beach has copped a hammering since the start of the wild weather last Thursday, with erosion exposing car wrecks, rocks and hundreds of sandbags.

The remains of car wrecks were dumped on the beach in the 1970s in an attempt to stabilise the dunes. Yesterday two rusted bodies poked through what little sand was left on the beach.

Image: Beach buggy ... an old car axle is exposed on Belongil beach Picture: David Clark