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Archive for September, 2015
Earth’s record streak of record heat keeps on sizzling
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 18th, 2015
Associated Press: Earth's record-breaking heat is sounding an awful lot like a broken record.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday that August, this past summer and the first eight months of 2015 all smashed global records for heat.
That's the fifth straight record hot season in a row and the fourth consecutive record hot month. Meteorologists say 2015 is a near certainty to eclipse 2014 as the hottest year on record. This year, six of the eight months have been record breaking,...
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California’s Valley Fire Death Toll Jumps to Five
Posted by Reuters: Sharon Bernstein on September 18th, 2015
Reuters: Two more bodies were found in areas scorched by one of the two devastating wildfires raging in Northern California for the past week, raising the death toll to five from both blazes, even as fire officials on Thursday reported further progress in subduing the flames. The remains, though not yet positively identified, were believed to be of two men who had been reported missing in separate communities ravaged by the so-called Valley Fire just north of Napa County's wine-producing region, the Lake...
Catching up with an active, destructive California wildfire season
Posted by Mashable: Marcus Gilmer and Andrew Freedman on September 17th, 2015
Mashable: This year has provided a particularly active wildfire season for the state of California as hundreds of thousands of acres have burned, fueled by the state's ongoing drought. What's made this season particularly note-worthy is the destruction caused by this season's blazes, destroying hundreds of homes and structures and forcing mandatory evacuations across multiple communities.
Not that the severity of this season has come as a surprise. California's drought, ongoing since 2012 and officially...
Banning Microbeads Offers Simple Solution to Protect Our Oceans
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on September 17th, 2015
EcoWatch: An outright ban on the common use of plastic “microbeads” from products that enter wastewater is the best way to protect water quality, wildlife and resources used by people, a group of conservation scientists suggest in a new analysis. These microbeads are one part of the microplastic problem in oceans, freshwater lakes and rivers, but are a special concern because in many products they are literally designed to be flushed down the drain. And even at conservative estimates, the collective total...
Arctic research ship probes frigid depths and 4th-lowest sea ice extent on record
Posted by Mashable: None Given on September 17th, 2015
Mashable: Through Sept. 11 of this year, the Arctic -- which serves a crucial role as the Northern Hemisphere's refrigerator -- lost an area of sea ice nearly equal to the states of Texas, California, Montana and New Mexico combined. This led to the fourth-lowest sea ice extent on record since satellite data began in 1979, continuing the long-term decline in summertime ice cover throughout the Arctic.
Both the southerly route of the famed Northwest Passage through Canada and the Northern Sea Route north...
Arctic Warming Produces Mosquito Swarms Large Enough Kill Baby Caribou
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on September 16th, 2015
EcoWatch: Some Alaskans joke that mosquitoes are "Alaska`s state bird," but the pesky insects are becoming no joke. Warming Arctic temperatures have caused their numbers to swell immensely in the region in recent years. Lauren Culler has been studying insects in Greenland for the last several years. Culler, a postdoctoral researcher for Dartmouth College’s Institute of Arctic Studies, along with a team of researchers published a study yesterday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Why the Arctic's mosquito...
Obama Officials to Congress: Shift Wildfire Funding
Posted by Hill: Rebecca Shabad on September 16th, 2015
Hill: Top Obama administration officials are calling on Congress to change the way the government allocates funds for fighting wildfires as western states deal with one of the most destructive seasons on record.
In a letter to Sen. Maria Cantwell (Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan said this year’s fire season is proving to be “disastrous,”...
While you’ve moved on to other news, drought-parched California is still burning
Posted by Grist: None Given on September 15th, 2015
Grist: Over the weekend, apocalyptic first person drive-throughs of burning hellscapes stormed through social media. Though they could easily be teasers for the next big disaster flick, this is no blockbuster movie. It’s California’s drought-fueled wildfire season.
The latest inferno making headlines is the Valley Fire, which burned through 61,000 acres in just 17 hours. The devastation spread through the mountains of northern California’s Napa and Lake counties, destroying 400 homes and sending three...
Water demand from fracking less than 1% U.S. total: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 15th, 2015
Reuters: Fracking by the U.S. oil and gas industry has increased the burden on the nation's water resources, but still accounts for less than 1 percent of America's total industrial water use, according to a paper by researchers at Duke University published on Tuesday. The controversial extraction method consumed roughly 48 billion gallons of water per year from 2012 to 2014, according to the study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, roughly the same amount that flows over...
Fracking Boom Bursts in Face of Low Oil Prices
Posted by EcoWatch: Andy Rowell on September 15th, 2015
EcoWatch: The oil cartel, OPEC, has confirmed what has been obvious to many for months: U.S. shale production is in deep, deep trouble as the fracking boom bursts in the face of low oil prices.
The cartel published its latest monthly oil market report yesterday revealing that it believes it is winning the price war it started with the U.S. shale industry.
The report is seen as a must-read for people within the oil industry.
“In North America, there are signs that U.S. production has started to respond...