PHOTOS: World's Volcanoes Erupt

This photo, released by the Alaska Volcano Observatory/U.S. Geological Survey, shows the top vent in the Redoubt summit crater near Kenai, Alaska, March 21, 2009. The volcano erupted three times starting Sunday night, sending an ash cloud an estimated 50,000 feet into the air. The ash cloud is expected to reach the Susitna Valley, including Talkeetna and Willow about 90 miles north of Anchorage. Authorities said about six eruptions were detected between Sunday night and Monday night. The activity sent volcanic ash plumes more than nine miles into the air. The area is bracing for an ashfall, according to The Associated Press.

(Cyrus Read/Alaska Volcano Observatory/U.S. Geological Survey)

Astronauts on board the International Space Station were treated to this view of Sarychev volcano erupting June 12, 2009. The volcano is in Russia's Kuril islands, northeast of Japan. Sarychev Peak is one of the most active volcanoes in the chain of islands. The volcano last erupted in 1989. Commercial airline flights were diverted from the area to minimize the danger of engine failure from the intake of ash, according to NASA.

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Ant mega-colony takes over world

A queen and worker Argentine ant have many, many relatives

A single mega-colony of ants has colonised much of the world, scientists have discovered.

Argentine ants living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan belong to the same inter-related colony, and will refuse to fight one another.

The colony may be the largest of its type ever known for any insect species, and could rival humans in the scale of its world domination.

What's more, people are unwittingly helping the mega-colony stick together.

Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) were once native to South America. But people have unintentionally introduced the ants to all continents except Antarctica.

These introduced Argentine ants are renowned for forming large colonies, and for becoming a significant pest, attacking native animals and crops.

In Europe, one vast colony of Argentine ants is thought to stretch for 6,000km (3,700 miles) along the Mediterranean coast, while another in the US, known as the "Californian large", extends over 900km (560 miles) along the coast of California. A third huge colony exists on the west coast of Japan.

The enormous extent of this population is paralleled only by human society Entomologists reveal the ant colony's true size

While ants are usually highly territorial, those living within each super-colony are tolerant of one another, even if they live tens or hundreds of kilometres apart. Each super-colony, however, was thought to be quite distinct.

But it now appears that billions of Argentine ants around the world all actually belong to one single global mega-colony.

Researchers in Japan and Spain led by Eiriki Sunamura of the University of Tokyo found that Argentine ants living in Europe, Japan and California shared a strikingly similar chemical profile of hydrocarbons on their cuticles.

CONTINUE

Earth faces 'Waterworld' as global warming 'lasts centuries'

Earth faces a bleak future as a "waterworld" much like the one depicted in a Hollywood blockbuster starring Kevin Costner, scientists have warned.

Sea-level rise is now inevitable and will happen much quicker than most of us thought - and will last for centuries, according to experts.

Even if greenhouse gas emissions stopped tomorrow the oceans will continue to swell as they warm and as glaciers or ice sheets slide into the sea.

The growing consensus among climate scientists is the "official" estimate of sea level rise by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - 20cm to 60cm by 2100 - is misleading.

It could well be in the region of one to two metres - with a small risk of an even greater rise.

In a report in New Scientist magazine, climate expert Dr Eric Rignot, of California University, said: "When we talk of sea level rising by one or two metres by 2100 remember that it is still going to be rising after 2100."

For many islands and low lying regions including much of the Netherlands, Florida and Bangladesh even small rises will spell catastrophe.

Large parts of London, New York, Sydney and Tokyo could be among cities submerged beneath the waves unless a massive engineering effort can protect them against the waves.

Dr Stefan Rahmstorf, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said: "There is a very close and statistically highly significant correlation between the rate of sea level rise and the temperature increase above the pre-industrial background level."

His calculations suggest sea level will rise between 0.5 and 1.4 metres - and the higher estimate is more likely because emissions have been rising faster than the IPCC's worst case scenario.

He said: "I sense than now a majority of sea level experts would agree with me that the IPCC projections are much too low."

Dr Paul Blanchon's team at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Cancun has been studying 121,000 year-old coral reefs in the Yucatan Peninsula formed during the last interglacial period when sea level peaked at about six metres higher than today.

His findings suggest at one point the sea rose three metres within between fifty and one hundred years. We just don't know if this could happen again in the 21st century.

But even the lowest and most conservative estimates are now higher than the IPCC's highest estimate.

Dr Robert Bindschadler, of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, said: "Most of my community is comfortable expecting at least a metre by the end of this century."

Sea Ice At Lowest Level In 800 Years Near Greenland

New research, which reconstructs the extent of ice in the sea between Greenland and Svalbard from the 13th century to the present indicates that there has never been so little sea ice as there is now. The research results from the Niels Bohr Institute, among others, are published in the scientific journal, Climate Dynamics.There are of course neither satellite images nor instrumental records of the climate all the way back to the 13th century, but nature has its own 'archive' of the climate in both ice cores and the annual growth rings of trees and we humans have made records of a great many things over the years - such as observations in the log books of ships and in harbour records. Piece all of the information together and you get a picture of how much sea ice there has been throughout time.

"We have combined information about the climate found in ice cores from an ice cap on Svalbard and from the annual growth rings of trees in Finland and this gave us a curve of the past climate" explains Aslak Grinsted, geophysicist with the Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.

In order to determine how much sea ice there has been, the researchers needed to turn to data from the logbooks of ships, which whalers and fisherman kept of their expeditions to the boundary of the sea ice. The ship logbooks are very precise and go all the way back to the 16th century. They relate at which geographical position the ice was found. Another source of information about the ice are records from harbours in Iceland, where the severity of the winters have been recorded since the end of the 18th century. Story Here

Article continues: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090701102900.htm

Scientific reasons for Earth’s seasons

Our planet’s tilt dictates cycle of summer and winter

Earth's tilt affects seasons. In this graphic, distances and sizes are not to scale.

The seasons are a powerful force in our lives. They affect the activities we do, the foods we crave, the clothes we wear — and quite often, the moods we are in. The seasons officially change once again Sunday, with summer beginning in the Northern Hemisphere and winter starting in the south.

What is it that causes the change in seasons?

The ability to predict the seasons — by tracking the rising and setting points of the sun throughout the year — was key to survival in ancient times. Babylonians, the Maya and other cultures developed complex systems for monitoring seasonal shifts. But it took centuries more to unravel the science behind the seasons.

Nicolai Copernicus (1473-1543) radically changed our understanding of astronomy when he proposed that the sun, not Earth, was the center of the solar system. This led to our modern understanding of the relationship between the sun and Earth.

We now know that Earth orbits the sun elliptically and, at the same time, spins on an axis that is tilted relative to its plane of orbit. This means that different hemispheres are exposed to different amounts of sunlight throughout the year. Because the sun is our source of light, energy and heat, the changing intensity and concentration of its rays give rise to the seasons of winter, spring, summer and fall.

Solstices and equinoxes CONTINUE

New forecast: 'Mass starvation'

Commodity analyst says crop failure would shock

A commodities expert has launched a warning that the next major crop failure around the world could be a bigger shock than $150 oil and result in "mass starvation."

The forecast comes from Chicago-based Don Coxe, a leading agricultural industry expert, in a report in the Commodity Online publication.

"When we have the first serious crop failure, which will happen, we will then have a full-blown food crisis, which we will not be able to get out of because we will still be struggling to catch up (as a result of diminished crop yields)," he told the publication.

He suggested that even could happen this year.

Coxe explained climate change
will make growing seasons shorter, generating lower crop production, which would squeeze supplies.

Coxe, whose credentials include analysis of agriculture interests for more than three decades in the U.S. and Canada, including management of Harris Investment Management, said the result would be a domino effect.

A crop collapse in North America
would hit hard among international markets that depend heavily on U.S. exports.

The lower food production also is being aggravated, he noted, by governments in North America. CONTINUE

Millions face tsunami risk across Mediterranean warn experts

ALERT: Health workers on standby for disaster


Millions of people living and holidaying along the Mediterranean coast are at risk of being hit with a tsunami, a new report warns.

The World Disasters Report, by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said there is no tsunami early-warning alert system for the region, even though it is considered to be more vulnerable than the Indian Ocean.

More than 300,000 people were killed when a tsunami struck Indonesia and southern Thailand in December 2004.

Disaster expert, Peter Rees-Gildea, said the perception that climate change is a Third World problem is changing since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and flooding caused chaos Gloucester in Britain.

"If you look at population density along the Mediterranean coast and the topography and what could happen with a major tsunami, the figures are self-evident," he said.

"It would be absolutely catastrophic.

Serious

"Why we do not have an early warning system I do not understand. This is a real serious problem where millions of lives could be lost."

David Andrews, chair of the Irish Red Cross, said Ireland was not immune to the affects of climate change.

He revealed up to 6,000 trained and highly skilled Red Cross members are on standby to support the HSE and other agencies to deal with disasters such as a flu pandemic or flooding.

"Over a period of years, we have seen hundreds of people forced out of their homes as a result of floods," said Mr Andrews.

"The Irish Red Cross is a key player, at the request of the Government, in developing community resilience throughout Ireland to such disasters."

The Red Cross said 2008 was the second deadliest in terms of disasters after the Indian Ocean tsunami, with 138,336 people killed or presumed dead after Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar (Burma), while a further 87,476 died in the Sichuan earthquake in China.

Millions more were also affected by flooding and drought.

Funds raised by the Irish Red Cross helped support victims of disasters in Myanmar, China, Bangladesh, and across Africa.

Mr Rees-Gildea called on governments to wake-up and take action before disasters strike, by donating cash to preventative measures which would save money in the long term.

Cuts

Launching the world disasters report, Minister for State for Overseas Development, Peter Power, said any cuts to the Irish Aid budget in December will be made to protect longer-term interest of the country and Irish people.

"We have a very strong moral obligation to help those who are on the very margins on society," said Mr Power.

"I believe there is still a wealth of goodwill among Irish people to promote international aid and development."

Nearly A Million Bats Dead from Mysterious Disease

Three years ago, a few hundred bats were found dead in hibernating caves in the northeastern state of New York. The event barely registered for some scientists. By the following winter, the death toll had risen to a few thousand bats, sparking concern among some experts. This year, the death toll could near a million, and has set off an alarm among scientists and farmers. The dramatic reduction in the bat population and and its potential extinction could have extensive health, economic and environmental effects.

Bats are dying by the thousands

Hundreds of thousands of bats have died in the northeastern region of the United States. According to some experts, the death toll is close to a million. The bats are succumbing to a disease called White Nose Syndrome, with a white fungus appearing on the nose, ears and wings of the bats.

"It is really unknown exactly what is causing the condition but in addition to the white nose by mid-winter these animals have lost most of their body fat," said Tom Kunz, an authority on bats at Boston University.

Bats that don't hibernate through winter risk dying

CONTINUE

A 'time bomb' for world wheat crop

Oregon State scientist Mary Verhoeven is among those working to develop wheat varieties resistant to a strain of “stem rust” that a colleague calls “a time bomb

The Ug99 fungus, called stem rust, could wipe out more than 80% of the world's wheat as it spreads from Africa, scientists fear. The race is on to breed resistant plants before it reaches the U.S.

The spores arrived from Kenya on dried, infected leaves ensconced in layers of envelopes.

Working inside a bio-secure greenhouse outfitted with motion detectors and surveillance cameras, government scientists at the Cereal Disease Laboratory in St. Paul, Minn., suspended the fungal spores in a light mineral oil and sprayed them onto thousands of healthy wheat plants. After two weeks, the stalks were covered with deadly reddish blisters characteristic of the scourge known as Ug99.

Nearly all the plants were goners.

Crop scientists fear the Ug99 fungus could wipe out more than 80% of worldwide wheat crops as it spreads from eastern Africa. It has already jumped the Red Sea and traveled as far as Iran. Experts say it is poised to enter the breadbasket of northern India and Pakistan, and the wind will inevitably carry it to Russia, China and even North America -- if it doesn't hitch a ride with people first.

"It's a time bomb," said Jim Peterson, a professor of wheat breeding and genetics at Oregon State University in Corvallis. "It moves in the air, it can move in clothing on an airplane. We know it's going to be here. It's a matter of how long it's going to take."

Though most Americans have never heard of it, Ug99 -- a type of fungus called stem rust because it produces reddish-brown flakes on plant stalks -- is the No. 1 threat to the world's most widely grown crop. CONTINUE

Massive volcanic eruption in Kamchatka

A cloud of ash 40 km. by 20 km. (25 x 12.5 miles) has issued from the crater of the Shiveluch volcano on the isolated Russian Kamchatka Peninsula along the Bering Sea, and the column of ash pouring from the volcano reaches 7.7 km. (4.8 miles) above sea level today, Gazeta.ru reports.

The volcano is one of the most active and the northernmost of about 30 live volcanoes on the peninsula. Its eruption has been going on for more than a year, and has gained momentum in the last month and a half. More than 170 localized earthquakes have also been reported at the volcano.

The nearest settlement to the volcano is the village of Klyuchi, 50 km. (31 miles) away. It has a population of 5000 and is not considered endangered by the volcano. Aviation may be disrupted by the eruption, however, RIA Novosti notes. The volcano’s ash, which may fall and cover hundreds of square kilometers in a thin layer, is an irritant to humans and animals. The last major eruption of the volcano was in 1964. It also erupted in 1980-1981, 1993-1995 and 2001-2002.

Kamchatka is also the site of numerous geysers.

Dead fish found again

Sightings of dead fish again are being reported by citizens as well as biologists of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and the Department of Environmental Quality. The number of rivers the reports have come from is small, but "significant numbers of fish with lesions" have been noted, according to the game and fisheries agency.

The discovery of dead or suffering fish mirrors those of past years, but scientists recently found a link between aeromonas salmonicida - a bacterium found in diseased river fish - and lesions and/or deaths of experimentally infected laboratory fish.

The source of the bacterium and how it is transmitted are keeping the state biologists busy. This has been an ongoing riddle, and no one has been able to pinpoint the source of the problem. Most of the affected fish thus far have been smallmouth bass and sunfish, and with warming water temperatures the fish kills are not likely to disappear.

The North Fork of the Shenandoah River in Shenandoah County (from the New Market area downstream to beyond Woodstock) again is one of the troubled waterways; so is the upper portion of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River in Rockingham County (primarily upstream of Elkton). Add also the lower sections of the North, Middle and South rivers in Augusta and Rockingham counties and the upper James River near Buchanan in Botetourt County.

The public is asked to report the location of sick and dying fish by calling the DEQ's Harrisonburg office at 540/574-7800 or by making a toll-free call if you're in Virginia at 800/5925482. Reports can also be made by e-mail; send them to fishreports@deq.virginia.gov.

Maryland turkey harvest up - Virginia has not released its total spring gobbler take, but Maryland hunters reported shooting 2,910 wild tom turkeys during the recently concluded spring season - nearly a 3 percent increase over the 2008 harvest of 2,833 turkeys. The hunter success rate appears to show the turkey population statewide is doing well, the Department of Natural Resources said.

No wasting disease in deer - Laboratory test results in Maryland showed there is no evidence of the dreadful chronic wasting disease that can occur among deer. Brain and lymph node tissue samples collected from 996 deer during the 2008-09 deer hunting season revealed no signs of the disease. The DNR said additional samples collected from sick or injured deer also indicated the absence of the neurological disease, which is fatal to whitetail deer and other members of the deer family. Similar to mad cow disease in cattle, the disease attacks the brain and spinal cord of deer and is believed to be caused by prions, rogue proteins that destroy healthy tissue. Chronic wasting disease is classified as a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy and is not known to be transmissible to humans.

Tuna fishing anyone? - The Maryland Saltwater Sportfishermen's Association's annual three-day "Tuna-ment" will be held June 26 through June 28, and all the waters of the Middle Atlantic are open to the tuna fishing competition. Participants can weigh their catches at either the Sunset Marina in Ocean City, Wachapreague (Va.) Marina or Captain Bob's in Chincoteague, Va. All the weigh stations will be operated by an official MSSA weigh master who uses a certified, calibrated scale. For entry cost and registration information, go to mssa.net or phone 410/255-5535. The MSSA also reminds anglers not to miss the pretournament cookout June 25 at the Wachapreague Marina.

Climate change may displace up to 200 million

(CNN) -- A new kind of refugee is on the rise. And by 2050, there could be as many as 200 million of them.

They are not fleeing despicable acts of violence or persecution but the very land and water on which their livelihoods depend. They are some of the world's poorest, forced from their homes by global climate change.

Alarmed by the predictions on climate refugees, humanitarian agencies warn that recent gains in the fight against poverty could vanish unless issues of forced migration become an integral part of the dialogue on global warming.

"What can we say? This is not a pretty picture," said Charles Ehrhart, climate change coordinator for CARE International.

Ehrhart helped author a report for CARE that was unveiled Wednesday at climate talks underway in Bonn, Germany. Attended by delegates from 184 countries, the Bonn conference is meant to serve as a precursor to a crucial United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change summit in December in Copenhagen, Denmark.

That summit is expected to produce agreement on how to tackle global warming after the Kyoto Protocol, which sets binding targets for industrialized nations for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, expires in in 2012.

"The consequences for almost all aspects of development and human security could be devastating," says the new study, cosponsored by the Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network and the U.N. University's Institute for Environment and Human Security.

Ehrhart said the breakdown of ecosystem-dependent livelihoods is likely to remain the main driver of forced migration during the next few decades. In the Mekong River Delta, for instance, the sea level rising by 2 meters (6.5 feet) could mean the loss of millions of acres of agricultural land, reducing it by half, Ehrhart said.

Climate change will exacerbate stressful conditions unless vulnerable populations, especially the poorest, are assisted in building climate-resilient livelihoods, Ehrhart said. It's morally imperative for developing nations to adopt policy that addresses these global change, he said.

Simple changes can help address potential catastrophe. In flood-prone Bangladesh, for instance, CARE is helping women who raise chickens switch to ducks. In other regions, it could mean something as simple as changing water-craving crops to more resilient foods.

"So if the rains don't come when needed, you don't lose an entire crop," Ehrhart said.

Ehrhart said climate migration could climb to staggering levels, its consequences reaching far and wide.

Without money or resources, climate refugees will likely stay within their own borders, accelerating movement from rural areas to urban centers and crowding into cities already bursting at the seams.

That could lead to government instability and further unrest.

Koko Warner, head of the U.N. University's Institute for Environment and Human Security and lead author of the report released Wednesday, said the challenge is to better understand the dynamics of climate-related migration and displacement.

"New thinking and practical approaches are needed to address the threats that climate-related migration poses to human security and well-being," Warner said.

For development experts, such as Ehrhart, climate change is a formidable foe that must be tackled. He doesn't want to see the hopes of the world's poorest turned to dust.

The Amazon is dying

The Brazilian government is legalising deforestation and western superbrands are benefiting from it.
This needs to stop now

Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, writing in the Guardian in March, offered us these words of hope: "No country has a larger stake in reversing the impact of global warming than Brazil. That is why it is at the forefront of efforts to come up with solutions that preserve our common future." Lula's words are fine. But we are still waiting for real action.

For the last 10 years, Greenpeace has been working in the Amazon alongside communities to protect the rainforest. Last week, Greenpeace released a report which was the result of a three-year investigation into the role of the cattle industry in driving illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The report, Slaughtering the Amazon, reveals the devastating impacts cattle ranching is having on the climate, biodiversity and local communities.

Cattle ranching is the biggest cause of deforestation, not only in the Amazon, but worldwide. The report reveals that the Brazilian government is a silent partner in these crimes by providing loans to and holding shares in the three biggest players – Bertin, JBS and Marfrig – that are driving expansion into the Amazon rainforest.

Greenpeace is now about to enter into negotiations with many of the companies that have either found their supply chain and products contaminated with Amazon leather and beef or who are buying from companies implicated in Amazon deforestation – big brands such as Adidas, Clarks, Nike, Timberland and most of the major UK supermarkets. Meanwhile, back in Brazil, the federal prosecutor in Para state has announced legal action against farms and slaughterhouses that have acted outside of the law. It has sent warning letters to Brazilian companies buying and profiting from the destruction. Bertin and JBS are in the firing line – companies part-owned by the Brazilian government. CONTINUE

'The World's Fish Will Die Out Within 50 Years'

The world's fish will be extinct by the middle of this century if we continue to plunder the oceans, a new film has claimed.Dubbed "An Inconvenient Truth for fish", the two-year global documentary, The End Of The Line, highlights the fact around 75% of the world's fish stocks are severely depleted.

It blames increasing demand from consumers, supermarkets and restaurants, fishermen breaking their quotas and politicians ignoring the problem.

The film's executive producer, Christopher Hird, told Sky News online: "There are three things people need to do. They need to change their eating habits so they only eat sustainably-caught fish.

"They need to put pressure on politicians to make sure the law that already exists is enforced and extended.

"And they need to join the campaign to create great reserves of the oceans which will for a period of time be completely free of commercial fishing."

Every year around 7m tonnes of unwanted fish - or bycatch - is thrown back into the sea.

In UK waters, stocks of some fish, like cod, have been reduced to less than 10% of what they were 100 years ago.

Despite the problems though, the vast majority of us do not bother buying sustainable fish.

According to a YouGov survey carried out for Waitrose, 78% of us ignore the labelling on fish packaging which is a sign of sustainable stock - such as the Marine Stewardship Council's stamp.

CONTINUE

Ancient Mountains Discovered Deep Beneath Antarctic Ice

Today scientists announced they had discovered mountains and valleys buried deep beneath antarctic ice, which is now rapidly melting away (pictured). The land revealed has remained untouched for 14,000,000 years. You know what that means.

The Alps-like landscape revealed with cutting-edge imaging technology is a reminder that the Antarctic was once a thriving biosphere. That's why HP Lovecraft set his famous short story "At the Mountains of Madness" in an Antarctic mountain range hidden by snow, which had once held a thriving civilization. There's nothing like digging up 14,000,000 year old mountains if you want to find some weird alien life. According to a news report on the findings:

The imaging comes from a gruelling effort by Chinese glaciologists to probe the mysterious realm beneath the East Antarctic heights, one of the most forbidding places in the world.

In 2004-5 and again in 2007-8, the team hauled deep-penetrating ground radar around a box-shaped sector, measuring 30 kilometers (18 miles) by 30 kilometres, at a point called Dome Argus, or Dome A.

Dome A lies at 4,093 metres (13,302 feet) above sea level and has an average annual temperature of -58.4 degrees Celsius (-73 degrees Fahrenheit).

Beneath it is an ice sheet between 1,649 and 3,135 metres thick that smothers the Gamburtsev mountains, a range named after a Soviet geophysicist, Grigoriy Gamburtsev, who detected the peaks in 1958.

The radar reflections revealed "classic Alpine topography" similar to Europe's Alps, showing that once there were river valleys that cut their way through the mountains.

Later, these valleys were gouged and deepened by glaciers.

"The landscape has probably been preserved beneath the ice sheet for around 14 million years," says the paper.

Guillermo Del Toro was at one point going to direct a version of "At the Mountains of Madness," though the project seems to have fallen by the wayside. Maybe this discovery will reawaken his interest.

Report: Climate change already a ’silent human crisis’

A report unveiled in London today assesses for the first time the human costs of climate change, both now and in the future.

“Human Impact Report: Climate Change — The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis” was produced by the Global Humanitarian Forum. The study was reviewed by international experts including Rajendra Pachauri of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University and Barbara Stocking of Oxfam.

According to the report, more than 300,000 people a year are dying from the effects of climate change. That figure is expected to rise to a half-million annually by 2030.

In addition, climate change is already having a serious impact on the lives of 325 million people, a number that will likely reach 660 million in 20 years. By affecting 10 per cent of the world’s population, that makes global warming the planet’s largest emerging humanitarian challenge, according to the report.

The economic costs of climate change are also steep, the report finds. Losses today total more than $125 billion a year — a figure that’s greater than the total amount of annual aid that currently flows from industrialised countries to developing nations. By 2030, the economic losses due to climate change will have almost trebled to $340 billion annually.

“Climate change is a silent human crisis,” said Kofi A. Annan, president of the Global Humanitarian Forum. “Yet it is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time. Already today, it causes suffering to hundreds of millions of people most of whom are not even aware that they are victims of climate change. We need an international agreement to contain climate change and reduce its widespread suffering.”

He continued, “Despite its dangerous impact, climate change is a neglected area of research since much of the debate has focused on the long-term physical effects. The point of this report is to focus on today and on the human face of climate change.”

With international talks on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol set to begin in Copenhagen this December, the world “finds itself at a crossroads,” Annan said.

“Put simply, the report is a clarion call for negotiators at Copenhagen to come to the most ambitious international
agreement ever negotiated, or continue to accept mass starvation, mass sickness and mass migration on an ever growing scale.”

Powerful Earthquake Leaves at Least 6 Dead in Honduras

The magnitude-7.1 earthquake, which struck at 2:26 a.m. (0826 GMT) and whose epicenter was located offshore roughly 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of the port city of La Ceiba, has been followed by at least 20 aftershocks ranging up to magnitude-5.

TEGUCIGALPA – A magnitude-7.1 earthquake centered off Honduras’ Caribbean coast killed at least six people early Thursday and damaged homes and other structures in several northern, central and western areas of this Central American country, officials said.

The head of the COPECO emergency management commission, Marco Burgos, told reporters that the quake, the epicenter of which was located under the Caribbean Sea, had killed at least six people, injured 13 and damaged 50 homes in several provinces in the country’s north and west.

COPECO also preliminarily registered damage to two important bridges, two hotels in the country’s second-largest city, San Pedro Sula, three assembly plants, a church and 10 schools.

The commander of the national firefighters’ brigade, Carlos Cordero, told local media that the La Democracia bridge in the northern city of El Progreso was severely damaged, cutting off the road link to San Pedro Sula. CONTINUE

Mysterious 'ice circles' in remote Siberian lake baffle scientists

This strange almost perfect 'ice circle' has appeared on a frozen lake in Siberia. While scientists have ruled out UFO involvement, they are puzzled as to how the mysterious, 2.5mile-wide geological phenomenon has formed in Lake Baikal.


The ice circle measures 2.5miles across and was spotted on Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake in the world

It was spotted at the southern edge of the lake while another was seen near the centre. The images were taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station circling 220 miles above Earth.

They charted the progress of the circles when they first appeared on April 5 until April 27 when the ice was beginning to split apart.

The two mysterious circles were pictured by astronauts
aboard the International Space Station

'Throughout April the circles are persistent,' a Nasa spokesman said.

'They appear when ice cover forms, and then disappear as ice melts. The pattern and appearance suggest that the ice is quite thin.'

Ice cover changes rapidly at this time of year on the Russian lake and can melt and freeze overnight. Scientists believe a spurt of warm water rose to the surface creating the distinctive pattern but are puzzled by the source of heat.

CONTINUE

Why Coral Reefs Around The World Are Collapsing

ScienceDaily (May 28, 2009) — An explosion of knowledge has been made in the last few years about the basic biology of corals, researchers say in a new report, helping to explain why coral reefs around the world are collapsing and what it will take for them to survive a gauntlet of climate change and ocean acidification.

Corals, it appears, have a genetic complexity that rivals that of humans, have sophisticated systems of biological communication that are being stressed by global change, and are only able to survive based on proper function of an intricate symbiotic relationship with algae that live within their bodies.

After being a highly successful life form for 250 million years, disruptions in these biological and communication systems are the underlying cause of the coral bleaching and collapse of coral reef ecosystems around the world, scientists report in the journal Science.

The research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation.

Continue

U.S. Not Prepared for Strong Solar Storm

For the scientists gathered recently for the 2009 Space Weather Enterprise Forum in Washington, D.C., the talk of the Earth being hit by catastrophic solar storms — both past and predicted — was almost casual, the currency of the work they do.

There was the legendary "Carrington Event," a series of magnetic storms from the sun that hit the Earth in August and September of 1859, disrupting telegraph lines across the U.S. and triggering auroras so bright they turned the night skies into day as far south as the Caribbean. The storm went on for days.

They spoke of a solar storm in May of 1921 that stunned scientists with its power, and one in March of 1989 that blacked out the entire power grid in Quebec in just 92 seconds.

In 2003, the "Halloween storm" caused a massive blackout in the Northeast U.S. and $10 billion worth of damage to electrical systems. CONTINUE