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Archive for July, 2012
Sauna-like heat, low rain help keep Chesapeake Bay clean
Posted by Washington Post: Darryl Fears on July 16th, 2012
Washington Post: The weirdly mild winter, the dry and toasty spring, and the hottest summer heat wave on record apparently had at least one upside: a cleaner Chesapeake Bay. Last year around this time, the bay was smothered by one of its largest dead zones — low-oxygen water caused by pollution where fish and plants cannot survive. This year, with so little rain to move pollution from farms and city streets into waterways, the zone “absolutely is much smaller,” said Bruce Michael, director of the resource assessment...
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Comments Off on Sauna-like heat, low rain help keep Chesapeake Bay cleanDrought worsens for farmers and ranchers
Posted by New York Times: JENNIFER PRESTON on July 16th, 2012
New York Times: Scattered rain fell in parts of the Midwest on Friday, but it was not enough to provide relief to farmers struggling to salvage crops scorched by worsening drought conditions and ranchers worried about feeding livestock.
More than 1,000 counties in 26 states across the country were named natural-disaster areas on Thursday in a statement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It was the single largest designation in the program’s history and the worst drought since 1988, government officials...
Australia: Yallourn coal mine flood worsens
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 16th, 2012
Age: NEARLY six weeks after being flooded by the collapse of an artificial river bank, one of Australia's largest open cut coal mines continues to fill with water, limiting the operation of a major power plant.
An update from mine operator TRUenergy seen by The Age shows the Yallourn coal mine in the Latrobe Valley is holding about 60 billion litres of water, and rising.
It would be enough to fill nearly 24,000 Olympic swimming pools, or the MCG from turf to stadium roof 35 times.
The collapse...
Crazy summer is a result of ‘global weirding’, not warming
Posted by International News: None Given on July 16th, 2012
International News: Forget the arguments about the reality of global warming. Our planet is now in the grip of something over which there can be no argument: global weirding.
Record-breaking heatwaves in cities from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Toronto, Canada; devastating floods in Russia and India, hundreds dead, millions affected. These are not gloomy scenarios put about by eco-warriors; when thousands of local weather records are simultaneously broken in many countries, you know something weird really is happening.
But...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Crazy summer is a result of ‘global weirding’, not warmingA year after near-record floods, shippers face a low Mississippi River amid dry conditions
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 16th, 2012
Associated Press: A year after the Mississippi River swelled to near-historic proportions and flooded farms and homes from Illinois to Louisiana, the level along the waterway's southern half is so low that cargo barges have run aground and their operators have been forced to lighten their loads.
Wide, sandy strips of shoreline usually invisible even in the low season are now exposed, shrinking the river's width and affecting the way tow captains navigate.
Such is life along the nation's main inland waterway,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on A year after near-record floods, shippers face a low Mississippi River amid dry conditionsHeat leaves ranchers a stark option: Sell
Posted by New York Times: Jack Healy on July 16th, 2012
New York Times: As a relentless drought bakes prairie soil to dust and dries up streams across the country, ranchers struggling to feed their cattle are unloading them by the thousands, a wrenching decision likely to ripple from the Plains to supermarket shelves over the next year. Ranchers say they are reducing their herds and selling their cattle months ahead of schedule to avoid the mounting losses of a drought that now stretches across a record-breaking 1,016 American counties. Irrigation ponds are shriveling...
Floods in Japan displace hundreds of thousands
Posted by New York Times: Martin Fackler on July 16th, 2012
New York Times: A quarter of a million evacuees began to return home on Monday after a letup in torrential rains over the weekend that killed at least 27 people in southern and western Japan and flooded the grounds of the famed Temple of the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto. Most of the deaths were on the southern island of Kyushu, where rains fell at a rate of almost four inches per hour, causing flash floods that swept cars off streets and landslides that swallowed homes. Five people were still missing and at least 3,000...
The 2012 Drought Reaches ‘Dust Bowl’ Proportions
Posted by Atlantic: Dashiell Bennett on July 16th, 2012
Atlantic: More than 50 percent of the United States is under drought conditions right now, putting 2012 in the same category with some of the worst droughts in the nation's history. The 54.6 percent figure (not counting Alaska and Hawaii) makes this year's drought the sixth worst on record in terms of area covered, behind only the brutal droughts of the mid-1950s and the "Dust Bowl" era of the 1930s. Other more recent droughts -- such as 2000, 2002, and 1998 -- saw a greater percentage of the country suffering...
Climate Change Impacts High-Elevation Plants
Posted by redOrbit: Derek Walter on July 16th, 2012
redOrbit: Climate change is causing flowers in high elevations to bloom nearly two weeks faster than they did decades ago, according to a recent study. Drummond’s rockcress and glacier lily are among a number of flowers that are blooming much earlier than they did in the past.
According to the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London -- Biological Series study, that such changes are most likely to be the result of the Earth’s warmer temperatures. The lily’s bloom now appears 17 days earlier than it did...
Massive evacuations in Japan due to landslides: Climate change in action?
Posted by Examiner: None Given on July 16th, 2012
Examiner: Climate Change Global Warming NOAA Advertisement As a quarter million people have been evacuated in Japan due to torrential rains and massive landslides, the question looms large: Is climate change causing all these extreme weather events to happen? According to a study done by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2011, the answer to that is likely yes. The study states that climate change partly caused 5 out of 6 extreme weather events in 2011. Previously to that...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Massive evacuations in Japan due to landslides: Climate change in action?