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Archive for May, 2013
California Wildfires May Be Controlled This Weekend, Official Says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2013
New York Times: Wildfires gripping Ventura County, Calif., spread on Friday night but will most likely come under control during the weekend with the aid of favorable weather, a fire official said Saturday. The fires, which had forced evacuations and laid waste to thousands of acres of woodland, took hold late last week. They had spread to 28,000 acres, from 18,000 on Friday, Bill Nash, a spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department, said early Saturday. But 1,895 fire personnel had managed to contain about...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on California Wildfires May Be Controlled This Weekend, Official SaysAwaiting Zuckerberg’s Response to Pro-Keystone XL Ads
Posted by EcoWatch: Conor Kennedy on May 4th, 2013
EcoWatch: Mark Zuckerberg has not yet issued any response to public criticism that his political action group, FWD.us, is funding advertisements supporting construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Gulf of Mexico. FWD.us, co-founded by Zuckerberg with additional donations from a host of his fellow Silicon Valley superstars, has right-wing and left-wing subsidiaries working on parallel tracks to pass bipartisan immigration legislation....
Hurricane Sandy’s Immense Energy Shook the U.S
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on May 4th, 2013
Climate News Network: Sandy, the superstorm that all but submerged New York, was powerful enough to set U.S. earthquake detectors quivering long before it hit the American coastline.
It stirred up Atlantic Ocean waves that slammed into each other, started to shake the sea floor and then shook the Midwestern states so vigorously that the storm's progress could be tracked by seismometer.
The windstorm-induced tremors were very tiny, and not unusual -- and say as much about the sensitivity of modern seismometers as...
Flood control with new hybrid grass
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2013
Living On Earth: The rainfall-runoff plots were engineered so the scientists could collect the rainfall that moved laterally along the soil above and near the surface. There is little opportunity for water to percolate deep into the soil (photo: Kit Macleod)
As the atmosphere heats up, flooding is on the rise throughout the world. Kit Macleod, a scientist at the James Hutton Institute in Scotland, joins host Steve Curwood to discuss a new hybrid grass his team helped breed. It restructures soil to reduce runoff...
Nearly uncontrollable California wildfire grows, threatens 4,000 homes
Posted by CNN: Michael Martinez on May 4th, 2013
CNN: Firefighters and homeowners were anxiously awaiting to learn Saturday whether the emergence of cool ocean breezes and possible rain will weaken a Los Angeles-area wildlfire that has burned 28,000 acres in two days and now threatens 4,000 homes.
The weather change could be a mixed blessing, however, because a chance of isolated thunderstorms this weekend brings a risk of lightning sparking new fires, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.
The Los Angeles area fire, based...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Nearly uncontrollable California wildfire grows, threatens 4,000 homesKeystone foes seek climate measures in case they lose
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2013
Bloomberg: President Barack Obama is being pressed by opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline to tie any approval to measures that would curb climate change, reflecting mounting pressure on the administration to mitigate the project’s impact if it goes forward.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, is among those who want to see new steps to limit greenhouse-gas emissions in the U.S. if TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s petition to build the $5.3 billion pipeline to carry tar-sands oil from Canada to...
Warning as carbon levels hit new high
Posted by Brisbane Times: Bridie Jabour on May 4th, 2013
Brisbane Times: Carbon dioxide levels are about to rise to the highest they have been in five million years, triggering warnings a move towards low carbon economies is not happening quick enough.
The atmospheric concentration of CO2 is expected to rise to 400 parts per million in the next few days, according to readings at the American government's Earth Systems Research Laboratory in Hawaii.
University of Queensland Global Change Institute Director, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, said there have been few,...
Rare May snowstorm annihilates records in Midwest
Posted by Climate Central: Andrew Freedman on May 4th, 2013
Climate Central: A late spring snowstorm in the Midwest has shattered longstanding state snowfall records, with all-time state records for the month of May falling in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. The snowstorm, which walloped the region with snowfall rates of more than an inch per hour at times on May 1-2, delivered 18 inches of snow in Blooming Prairie, Minn., 17.5 inches in Goodhue, and 15.5 inches in Owatonna.
According to the Minnesota Climate Working Group, the state daily May snowfall record had stood...
Climate change or just a late spring: what to make of plant messages?
Posted by Irish Times: None Given on May 4th, 2013
Irish Times: Towards the end of the drought that struck the west for much of early spring, a university geography professor shared with me a photograph he had taken in Connemara. It showed a remarkable vista of bog and mountain dried and bleached to an eerie ash blond. On our side of the bay, too, even lowland tracts of moor grass offered this unreal platinum sheen.
All was caused by evapotranspiration, to use the professor’s term. With some 40 rainless days from mid February to mid April, the relentless and...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate change or just a late spring: what to make of plant messages?Painted turtles set to become all-female
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2013
New Scientist: Males don't stand a chance in a warmer world, if they happen to be painted turtles. A temperature rise of around 1 °C is all it would take for the species to become 100 per cent female and earmarked for extinction.
Painted turtles (Chrysemys picta), found in lakes and streams across North America, are one of many reptile species whose sex is determined by temperature. Eggs in warm nests are likely to hatch as females, while males hatch in cooler nests, although no one is sure why.
In recent...