Immense ice shelf breaks off in Canadian Arctic: researchers

An enormous ice shelf broke away from Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic last year, researchers said, warning it could be another symptom of global warming.

The 66-square-kilometer (25.5-square-mile) ice island tore away from Ellesmere, a huge strip of land in the Canadian Arctic close to Greenland.

The break occurred in August 2005 and was so violent that it caused tremors that were detected by Canadian seismographs 250 kilometers (155 miles) away, but at the time no one was able to pinpoint what had happened.

The Canadian Ice Service contacted geographer Luke Copland of the University of Ottawa, who reconstructed the chain of events by piecing together data from the seismic readings and satellite images provided by Canada and the United States.

Arctic exhibit says need

Now more than ever there’s a need for an Arctic exhibit in Calgary, city zoo officials said on Thursday, citing a U.S. government recommendation to consider polar bears as an endangered species as a good reason to display the animals.

A rush to save Waikiki, a vanishing icon

Waikiki, whose sands bear different names in their stretch from near Diamond Head to the public boat harbor, steadily declined for most of the past 30 years. The plan is to dredge 10,000 cubic yards of sand from about a half-mile offshore, then pump it underwater back to the beach.

The $425,000 test program gives beach lovers hope that Waikiki could be restored to its original splendor, but officials have said it could cost $25 million to repair all of the beach.

Lunar Cycle Changes Ice Stream Flow

From temporary lunacy to werewolf awakenings, the lunar cycle has seen its share of blame. Now, scientists say that the different phases of the moon influence the flow of a massive ice stream in Antarctica.

'Happy Feet' penguins plummet

Rockhopper penguins are seen in an undated file photo. Numbers of rockhopper penguins have plummeted in recent years, possibly due to climate change, a bird charity said in a warning over the creatures made into stars by the recent blockbuster "Happy Feet."(AFP/File)

LONDON (AFP) - Numbers of rockhopper penguins have plummeted in recent years, possibly due to climate change, a bird charity said in a warning over the creatures made into stars by the recent blockbuster "Happy Feet."

White Christmas forecast brings hope to Australian firefighters

MANSFIELD, Australia (AFP) - Firefighters battling Australia's massive wildfires amid soaring temperatures and fierce winds are looking forward to a white Christmas to dampen the bushfire emergency, officials said.

Philippine typhoon survivors struggle to mark Christmas

LEGASPI, Philippines (AFP) - Evelyn Manjares will spend Christmas digging through rubble that was once her home on the foothills of the Mayon volcano in the eastern Philippines where typhoons and mudflows killed more than 1,200 people late last month.

Some 70 dead, 200,000 homeless in Asia floods

JAKARTA (AFP) - Nearly 70 people have been killed and 200,000 forced to flee their homes in flash floods that have swept through parts of Indonesia and Malaysia in the past week.

Tides affect speed of Antarctic ice slide

OSLO (Reuters) - Tides affect the speed at which an Antarctic ice sheet bigger than the Netherlands is sliding toward the sea, adding a surprise piece to a puzzle about ocean levels and global warming, a study showed on Wednesday.

Armadillos marching north to Illinois

An armadillo is photographed looking for food at the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in Florida on April 15, 2003. Illinois officials report that armadillos have been killed on the road just about every year since 2003, reflecting what wildlife specialists say is ample evidence that the creatures with the pencil-thin tail are nudging their way northward from their southern U.S. climes. (AP Photo/Illinois Natural History Survey Mammal Collection, Michael Jeffords)

For years, Lloyd Nelson laughed off as myth reports that armadillos — those armored, football-sized critters with the big claws and bigger nose — had waddled their way into southern Illinois, the same place folks say they've seen cougars.

Folks weren't fibbing about the mountain lions. Nelson knows now they weren't joshing about armadillos, either.

Since his run-in with an armadillo that was turning a woman's flower bed into a crater near here three years ago, the Jackson County animal-control chief says he's logged in this county alone 13 sightings of the stubby-legged kin to sloths and anteaters. Most were dead as doornails along roads — the leathery animals with poor vision are no match against highway traffic.

'Sunshade' Could Ease Global Warming

Dec. 21, 2006 — For those hot days at the ocean, a beach umbrella can help block the sun's heat and ultraviolet radiation. Now an orbiting sunshade could do the same for the planet, in the event of a global warming emergency.

Invisible Mountains Revealed Under Greenland Ice

As scientists try to gauge the effects of global climate change, they are beginning to look closely at conditions beneath Earth's ice sheets, which cover roughly 15 percent of the planet. That's because, just as the surface ice has morphed over its 2.7 million-year life, the world beneath the ice has likely evolved.

Rising sea levels engulfing Indian world heritage islands

Rising sea levels have submerged two islands in the Sunderbans, where tigers roam through mangrove forests in the Ganges River delta, and a dozen more islands are under threat, scientists say.

A six-year study of the impact of future climate change on the world natural heritage site that India shares with Bangladesh came up with alarming results.

Official records list 102 islands on the Indian side of the vast Sunderbans, where the Ganges and Brahmaputra empty into the Bay of Bengal.

But scientists have been able to map only 100 islands and found the other two have been swallowed up, says Sugata Hazra, director of Kolkata's School of Oceanography Studies at Jadavpur University.

60,000 flee flooded homes in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - At least two people are dead and more than 60,000 have fled their homes after floods triggered by torrential rains engulfed whole towns and villages in four Malaysian states, officials said.

Indian, Chinese team to map glacier melt

"The melting of the ice sheets and the glaciers is a crisis in the Himalayas," said H.P.S. Ahluwalia, who runs the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, which is organizing the expedition with China's Institute of Geology and Geophysics.

60 minutes on climate change

60 Minutes did a decent show about global warming, bears and glaciers. There is a link to it on the right. This is a link to it as well.

Confused ducks

Two ducks swim across a pond. Finland's exceptionally warm December has confused migratory birds on their way south for the winter and encouraged other birds to sing and mate as if it were spring, experts said.(AFP/File/Yuri Kadobnov)

Climate Change Has Animals Heading for the Hills

SAN FRANCISCO—Chipmunks, mice and squirrels are heading for the hills, perhaps chased to higher elevations by a changing climate, scientists report.

Since the early 1900s, many small mammals in California have shifted their ranges dramatically, mostly to higher elevations.

Scientists compared modern notes with past museum director Joseph Grinnell, who investigated the diversity of mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds along what he called the Yosemite Transect. With this information, scientists retraced this work, and documented with traps and photos the small mammals in this area that spans portions of the San Joaquin Valley, the Sierra Nevada, including parts of Yosemite National Park.

String of Warm Years Continues in 2006

The average annual temperature in 2006 for the contiguous United States will likely be the third warmest on record since 1880, according to scientists at the NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

The average temperature for this year, based on preliminary data, will likely be 2 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average.

Globally in 2006, the annual temperature for combined land and ocean surfaces is expected to be sixth warmest on record.

Mild December confuses Finnish birdlife

Finland's exceptionally warm December has confused migratory birds on their way south for the winter and encouraged other birds to sing and mate as if it were spring, experts said.

"Some of them (migratory birds) did not even leave because early winter was so warm and probably some of them first went south and came back," Lauri Haenninen, spokesman for environmental group Birdlife Finland, told AFP on Friday.

Australian bushfires leave grisly trail of environmental damage

Tens of thousands of iconic Australian creatures including koalas and kangaroos may have died in fires that swept through vast tracts of southern Australia this week, environmentalists say.

The blazes have devastated thousands of hectares, razed clusters of homes and claimed one life since they began earlier this month.

But they will also leave a significant environmental legacy because of their impact on flora and fauna, according to Wildlife Victoria spokeswoman Sandy Fernee.

"I think we've already lost tens of thousands of animals when you consider how widespread the fires are," she told AFP.

2006 to be sixth-warmest year on record: U.N. agency

2006 is set to be the world's sixth-warmest year since records began 150 years ago, the World Meteorological Organization said on Thursday, offering more evidence of a trend most scientists blame on greenhouse gases.

The ten warmest years have all occurred in the last 12 years, according to the United Nations weather agency.

It said 2006 had been marked by extreme drought and heavy flooding in the greater Horn of Africa, record wildfires in the United States, torrential rainfall in the Philippines, shrinking sea ice in the Arctic and the warmest autumn in Europe.

An average temperature of 0.42 degrees Celsius above the annual average from 1961-90 put 2006 on track to be the "sixth warmest year on record," the WMO said in a preliminary report based on data through November. 1998 was the warmest year.

Penguins offer evidence of global warming

The first Adelie penguin chicks of the season -- black fluffballs small enough to hold in the hand -- started hatching this month, and the simple fact that there are more of them in the south and fewer of them further north is a sign of global warming, scientists say.

Smaller than the more majestic Emperor penguins, the Adelies have some 193 colonies that have a total population of 2.5 million breeding pairs, said researcher David Ainley in a telephone interview from his camp at the penguin rookery at Cape Royds in Antarctica.

"We're looking for dramatic right-hand turns (in the penguin population), which are happening now," Ainley said. "The rate of Adelie penguin colony disappearance is accelerating as the sea ice disappears.

2006 sees record number of wildfires

The nation set a record for wildfires this year and climate experts say 2006 will probably end as the third warmest year on record for the contiguous United States.

Drought and hot conditions contributed to the record wildfire season, with more than 9.5 million acres burned through early December, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

The annual climate report, released Thursday by the National Climatic Data Center, says 2006 will most likely be the third warmest year on record, trailing only 1998 and 1934.

For the world as a whole, 2006 is expect to end as the sixth warmest year on record, the agency said.

Climate change poses hazard to fish, marshes, e-xperts say

CHARLESTON -- In the summer of 2004, a married couple became ill from eating a toxin-polluted barracuda that had been caught off the South Carolina coast.

Never before had anyone caught a fish in South Carolina waters and gotten sick from ciguatera poisoning, a malady normally associated with species in Caribbean waters, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

a note from the editor

Greetings followers of this blog.

Normally I do not post commentary to this blog. My emphasis is to let the scientific evidence and news stories speak, make up your own mind.

I wish to solicit aid in bringing more information to this blog. Over 28,000 people have viewed it so far--and my site meter tells me that this is picking up exponentially.

If you see a news story, article, scientific paper or picture you think would fit on this blog please email me the link at christopherscottirwin@yahoo.com

No politics please, and no propaganda. Just flat out new stories about actual events. Video as well.

I started this blog simply to be a news service, a place to compile information about global warming and climate change. I am a news junkie/geek and I thought it would be nice to have a place where I could gather what I saw. I never dreamed so many people would begin reading the blog. Again, if you see any links or info you think belong on this blog email me at christopherscottirwin@yahoo.com

Eventually I would like to add editors who see the idea of this blog so the coverage could be comprehensive. We could even divide up the news services. Thank you.

Venice's St Mark's Square under water with new 'acqua alta'

A barman poses on a flooded terrace facing San Marco square in October 2006. Venice's historic St Mark's Square was under water as a new episode of "acqua alta" struck the city with the convergence of high tides and a strong sirocco.(AFP/File/Sebastiano Casellati)

Venice's historic St Mark's Square was under water as a new episode of "acqua alta" struck the city with the convergence of high tides and a strong sirocco.

The city's tide monitoring center put residents on alert and raised walkways were put in place on main streets to allow people to get around the city, five percent of which was under water with levels up to 103 centimeters (3.3 feet).

The highest "acqua alta" of the year occurred on October 24, at 112 centimeters.

Bark beetles ravaging western US forests

The forests of the American West are under siege from bark beetles, miniscule but mighty foes that are ravaging the region's leading trees in record numbers.

Scientists say a warming climate is behind the beetle epidemic which has killed vast swaths of spruces, pines and firs in some of the most picturesque regions of the Rocky Mountains.

Hurricane threat for 2007 upgraded by scientific team

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite image shows Hurricane Helene churning over the Atlantic Ocean in September 2006. The Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) consortium of scientists have forecast that the Atlantic hurricane season in 2007 will see "a return to high activity".(AFP/NOAA/File)

After a lull this year, the Atlantic hurricane season in 2007 will see "a return to high activity," scientists have forecast.

"Based on current and projected climate signals, Atlantic basin and US landfalling tropical cyclone activity are forecast to be 60 percent above the 1950-2006 norm in 2007," said Tropical Storm Risk (TSR), a London-based consortium.

Australia sends in troops amid worst bushfires in 70 years

http://www.aus-emaps.com/bushfires.html

Australia has mobilised the army as some of the worst bushfires in 70 years threatened homes and shrouded Victoria state in thick smoke that closed the airport and grounded firefighting aircraft.

The sheer magnitude of the bushfire emergency, not seen since the state's "Black Friday" catastrophe of 1939 which left 71 people dead, prompted the federal government to consider the emergency from a national perspective and offer extra assistance

Alps said to be at warmest in centuries

Global warming has driven temperatures in the Alps to their highest in 1,300 years, according to one of the authors of an EU-backed climate study.

The study reconstructed the climate back to the year 755 in the region encompassing France's Rhone Valley to the west, Budapest, Hungary, to the east, Tuscany, Italy, to the south and Nuremberg, Germany, to the north.

"We are currently experiencing the warmest period in the Alpine region in 1,300 years," Reinhard Boehm, a climatologist at Austria's Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics, said Tuesday.

Warmed-up oceans reduce key food link

In this handout image released Wednesday Dec. 6, 2006 by NASA, the relationship between ocean temperature and ocean biology are shown during the 1997 El Nio events. Ocean plant growth increased from 1997 to 1999 as the climate cooled during one of the strongest El Nio to La Nia transitions on record. Since 1999, the climate has been in a period of warming that has seen the health of ocean plants diminish. The critical base of the ocean food web is shrinking as the world's seas warm, new NASA satellite data shows. And that's got scientists worried about how much food will grow in the future for the world's marine life. (AP Photo/NASA, HO)

In a "sneak peak" revealing a grim side effect of future warmer seas, new NASA satellite data find that the vital base of the ocean food web shrinks when the world's seas get hotter.

And that discovery has scientists worried about how much food marine life will have as global warming progresses.

Rising sea level big concern along S.C.

CHARLESTON, S.C. - Global warming and a rise in sea levels could dramatically affect South Carolina's coast, according to scientists and environmental officials meeting at a conference in Charleston this week.

The rising ocean is "going to shave off a ton of landscape along the coast," which could drown marshes that act as buffers for storm surge, raising the likelihood of major flooding when the next hurricane hits, said Jim Morris, marine studies professor at the University of South Carolina and director of its Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences.

Vast African lake levels dropping fast

At Jinja pier the rusty red hull of a Lake Victoria freighter sat barely afloat in water just six feet deep — and dropping. "The scientists have to explain this," said ship's engineer Gabriel Maziku.

Across the bay, at a fish packing plant, fishermen had to wade ashore with their Nile perch in flat-bottomed boats, and heave the silvery catch up to a jetty that soon may be on dry land and out of reach entirely. Looking on, plant manager Ravee Ramanujam wondered about what's to come.

"Such a large body of water, dropping so fast," he said.

15,000 evacuated as storm heads towards central Philippines

Thousands of people living around Mayon volcano in the eastern Philippine province of Albay were evacuated amid fears that an approaching storm could trigger fresh mudslides, officials said.

The compulsory evacuation came as a fresh typhoon was heading towards the central Philippines bringing heavy rains to a large area, including the Bicol region which includes Albay.

Last week, super typhoon Durian brought heavy rains and strong winds to Bicol, triggering avalanches of volcanic debris from the slopes of Mayon and burying entire villages, leaving over 1,200 people dead or missing.

Tens of thousands remain homeless and are living in crowded evacuation camps in the area, while others have returned to a moonscape of rock and debris where their villages once stood to retrieve belongings from the mud.

New Data Show Global Warming Kills Marine Life

Satellite data revealed for the first time that global warming could devastate key marine life, scientists announced today.

The decade-long analysis showed that as the surface water of the oceans warmed up, phytoplankton biomass declined.

Tiny marine plants, called phytoplankton, impact the network of organisms that directly or indirectly depend on them for food. Changes in ocean color--a measure of phytoplankton mass--detected from space allowed researchers to calculate their photosynthetic rates and correlate these changes to the climate.

As rising air temperatures heat up the ocean's surface, this water becomes less dense and separates from the cold dense layer below, which is full of nutrients. Since phytoplankton need light for photosynthesis, these floating plants are restricted to the surface layer--now separated from nutrients needed for growth.