tagged w/ Oceans
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Los Angeles Times...
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BP wins approval for new deep-water drilling in Gulf of Mexico
October 26, 2011 | 12:05 pm
BP
BP won approval from the Interior Department to drill its first exploratory oil well in the Gulf of Mexico since the blowout of its Macondo well a year and a half ago touched off the country’s worst offshore environmental disaster.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said that BP met more stringent safety requirements devised by the federal government in the aftermath of the disaster. The company also planned to follow even tougher voluntary standards that exceeded the government’s rules.
“This permit was approved only after thorough well design, blowout preventer, and containment capability reviews,” said bureau director Michael R. Bromwich.
At more than 6,000 feet, the proposed well would be in deeper water than the Macondo well. It is part of the company’s Kaskida prospect located in an area called the Keathley canyon about 250 miles south of Lafayette, La. The company submitted the application to drill in January.
Cleanup of gulf waters continues in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers and spewed nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the sea over several months.
Last week, the Interior Department granted approval to a broader exploration plan from BP for the Kaskida prospect based on its adherence to the agency’s new rules.
Environmentalists have said that the new regulatory agency, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, is better than its predecessor, the Minerals Management Service, which had exercised uneven, sometimes lax oversight of offshore energy projects, investigations showed.
But they argue that more work needs to be done to improve offshore drilling safety, including a redesign of blowout preventers and modernization of cleanup procedures.
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Photo: BP corporagte logo. Credit: Oli Scarff / Getty ImagesLos Angeles Times...
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BP wins approval for new deep-water drilling in Gulf of... more
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Global warming has often been discussed with regard to its effects for life on land: increased temperatures and heat waves, increased weather extremes, less but more intense rainfall, drought and forest fires.
Water, however, remains less considered. Even discussions of floods or rising sea levels, which focus on water, study mainly their consequences for land inhabitants.
Yet oceans, it is well known, cover three quarters of the earth's surface. And oceans have absorbed about a quarter of all carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, one of four main greenhouse gases causing global warming. This absorption of CO2 is integrally related to the three major factors impacting the oceans: global warming, ocean acidification and decreasing amounts of oxygen. As a result, the current situation of the oceans is dire. And its impact will be severe not only for marine life but also for all life -- plant, animal and human -- on land.
Ocean Acidification
Carbon dioxide (CO2) exists naturally in the air. But through the use of fossil fuels, in particular coal and oil, the amount of CO2 in the air has increased exponentially since the Industrial Revolution began.
As the oceans absorb carbon from the air, their chemistry changes. This process is known as ocean acidification, and it has brutal consequences for marine and land life.
Oceanographers estimate that before the use of fossil fuels, the ocean's PH balance, which measures its acidity, had been relatively stable for the past 20 million years. During the last great extinction of marine life, which occurred 55 million years ago, 50 percent of some groups of deep sea animals were wiped out.
But the current levels of carbon being absorbed by the oceans is far higher than the levels being absorbed then.
A United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report released in 2010 on the "Environmental Consquences of Ocean Acidification" and based on studies conducted over the past two decades off the coast of Hawai'i has confirmed that the increased CO2 concentration levels in the ocean mirror the increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
Ocean Acidification and Phytoplankton
Already the increased levels of ocean acidification have led to a loss of phytoplankton and of coral reefs. And losses of phytoplankton and of coral reefs have a ripple effect.
First, much marine life relies on them for nourishment. Flounder, haddock, pollock, salmon and shrimp all eat phytoplankton. Humans eat many of these fish. Krill eat phytoplankton and whales eat krill. So a decrease in one threatens the liveilhood of the other.
Second, phytoplankton also absorbs carbon dioxide. Phytoplankton floats along the ocean's surface absorbing CO2 as land plants do in photosynthesis. As the CO2 is absorbed, the plant dies and sinks to the ocean floor, releasing CO2 along the way. Cold water can hold higher levels of CO2 than warmer water, so most of the CO2 released, which turns water acidic, is to be found along the ocean floor. But this acidic water does not stay at the ocean's floor. During an upswell, it rises to the surface and even the shore. Its acidity is deadly for the shells of marine life, such as shrimps, clams and oysters.
If the smallest part of the food chain is affected by ocean acidification, it ripples all the way up the food chain, making the largest part of the food chain vulnerable.
"Since the time before the industrial revolution," says the National Resource Defense Council's Lisa Suatoni, "ocean acidity has increased 30 percent."
And the bad news does not end there: According to oceanographers, the water rising from the ocean's depths holds CO2 that has accumulated over the past decades. Thus, in coming years, the increased levels of CO2 absorbed by the oceans will re-emerge as increased ocean acidification reaching the shores. Higher levels of cean acidification have already led to tremendous problems for the oyster industry. In the summer of 2007 oyster harvests began to plummet in the Pacific Northwest. The situation was extreme. The oyster hatcheries were keen to find the culprit, which turned out to be ocean acidification.
More at the linkGlobal warming has often been discussed with regard to its effects for life on land:... more
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Global energy consumption will increase by 53 percent over the next 25 years to a mind-boggling 225,700 terawatt-hours (770 quadrillion BTUs ) as water- and carbon-intensive fossil fuels continue to dominate the world’s economies, despite the global recession and the strong growth in the renewable sector, according to a new annual report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
About half of the projected increase in energy use will occur in China and India, the world’s first- and third-largest energy consumers, respectively. The two developing economies will account for more than 30 percent of the global energy use during the next two decades.
“China alone — which only recently became the world’s top energy consumer — is projected to use 68 percent more energy than the United States by 2035,” said Howard Gruenspecht, the administrator for the EIA, in a press release.
In general, however, the overall projections made in the EIA report only reflect laws and policies as they stood at the beginning of 2011. In other words, the report does not incorporate prospective legislation — in China, for example — that, together with oil-price volatility and the pace of global economic recovery, could significantly affect energy markets.
Coal Production and Consumption
China relies on coal for about 70 percent of its energy generation, consuming 3.15 billion metric tons (3.5 billion tons) of coal last year. Meanwhile, India has been steadily increasing domestic coal production, its major source of energy, reaching over 500 million metric tons (551 million tons) in 2010.
Though future generation from renewables, natural gas, and nuclear power will largely displace coal-fired production, coal will remain the largest source of world electricity through 2035, particularly in developing nations, according to the EIA projections. China alone will account for 76 percent of the projected increase in world coal use.
more at the link
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WE ARE GOING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.Global energy consumption will increase by 53 percent over the next 25 years to a... more
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The last decade was easily the hottest on record. We’ve known that sulfate aerosols (from volcanoes and/or Chinese coal) and the “the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century” masked the rate of warming somewhat.
Even so, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which probably has the best of the long temperature datasets, reported the 12-month running mean global temperature reached a new record in 2010. As a NASA analysis found: “We conclude that global temperature continued to rise rapidly in the past decade” and “there has been no reduction in the global warming trend of 0.15-0.20°C/decade that began in the late 1970s.”
But other datasets appeared to show a slight slowing in the rate of warming, though even that may have been due to flawed data, as in the case of the UK’s Hadley Center.
Scientists have long known that the overwhelming majority of human-caused warming was expected to go into the oceans (see figure below). And many have suspected that deep ocean warming has also been masking surface warming.
Now a new study led by led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) finds that may indeed be the case:
The planet’s deep oceans at times may absorb enough heat to flatten the rate of global warming for periods of as long as a decade even in the midst of longer-term warming….
The study, based on computer simulations of global climate, points to ocean layers deeper than 1,000 feet (300 meters) as the main location of the “missing heat” during periods such as the past decade when global air temperatures showed little trend. The findings also suggest that several more intervals like this can be expected over the next century, even as the trend toward overall warming continues….
“This study suggests the missing energy has indeed been buried in the ocean,” [coauthor Kevin] Trenberth says. “The heat has not disappeared, and so it cannot be ignored. It must have consequences.”
These potential consequences include accelerated warming in the coming decade and melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Let’s take these two in order.
The heat may have been carried deep into the ocean by overturning circulations, which can plunge surface water from the subtropical regions into the ocean’s depths. The burying of warmer water also corresponds with La Nina weather patterns, which are born from cooler-than-average surface water temperatures in the tropical Pacific. And over the last decade, La Nina conditions have dominated, Trenberth said.
That the heat is buried in the ocean, and not lost into space, is troublesome, Trenberth said, since the heat energy isn’t likely to stay in the ocean forever, perhaps releasing back into the atmosphere during a strong El Nino, when sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific are warmer than average.
“It can come back quite fast,” he said. “The energy is not lost, and it can come back to haunt us, so to speak, in the future.”
I asked Trenberth whether we might see a decade where warming is a tad faster than expected, and he emailed me, “Yes.” Once the decade of slower warming “is over, the subsequent warming can play catchup.”
more at link...The last decade was easily the hottest on record. We’ve known that sulfate... more
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Time to get louder at government about this. Time to win this conversation with truth. CO2 traps heat. One of the main points of this, plus some others I divulge. ;l). Thanks Current for this venue for us to tell it like it is.
This video is dedicated to the indigenous peoples of our world and those experiencing the brunt of the effects of climate change/biodistress. May we find it within us to do what is right for all.Time to get louder at government about this. Time to win this conversation with truth.... more
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CNN...
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U.S. beefs up conservation efforts for endangered sea turtles
By Shelby Lin Erdman, CNN Radio
September 18, 2011 8:03 p.m. EDT
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PHOTO: Loggerhead turtles will be divided into nine distinct population groups based on where they live, according to new regulations.
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(CNN) -- The government has revised its rules on sea turtles to try to decrease the number killed every year and reduce the threats they face.
The new regulations place the Loggerhead turtle into nine distinct population groups, depending on where they live, instead of listing the marine animal as a single worldwide species. In all nine segments the turtles are listed as either threatened or endangered.
Officials at both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, both responsible for overseeing the turtle conservation efforts, say they can better address the challenges the turtles face with the new geographical division.
Loggerhead or marine turtles live in tropical and subtropical waters around the world. The new "distinct population segments" for the turtles are: The Northeast Atlantic Ocean group, the Mediterranean Sea, the North Indian Ocean, the North Pacific Ocean, the South Pacific Ocean, the Northwest Atlantic, which includes the Gulf of Mexico and our Atlantic Coast, the South Atlantic Ocean, the Southeast Indo-Pacific Ocean and the Southwest Indian Ocean.
Researchers estimate more than 4,500 loggerheads are killed every year by commercial fishing, but environmentalists believe the number is probably much higher.
Commercial fishing is one of the biggest risks for the turtles, whether they live in the Indian, Pacific or Atlantic oceans, said Jim Lecky, the fisheries director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"They all continue to be challenged by a number of threats, incidental capture in fishing gear, longlines, gill nets, trawl gear, trap and pot lines, which tangle turtles and other species, and dredges; all have incidental mortality of sea turtles in those fisheries," he said.
But Lecky says that's not the only threat for the turtles. "They are all also challenged by losses of habitat, degradation of nesting habitat. There still is direct harvest of eggs in adults ... at some level and they are all subject to vessel strikes."
The turtles are facing all those threats, but at different levels. So the new rules will allow fine-tuning of sea turtle conservation measures and regulations.
"We believe that this revised listing of the Loggerhead will help us and our partners to better focus recovery and conservation efforts by allowing us to take a more regional approach. But, again, the separation of Loggerhead into these population groups will not reduce our current conservation efforts," said Sandy MacPherson, the national sea turtle coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
MacPherson also told CNN Radio, "These new listings will help us to provide more focused recovery and conservation, as well as more focused threat analysis and evaluation of conservation successes."
The Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement that Loggerhead populations "need more protection to survive this century."
The rule revisions also included designating five regional populations as endangered species, which the group characterized as "a wake-up call that a whole host of threats, from oil spills, channel dredging and commercial trawling to longline and gillnet fisheries, continue to kill off turtles faster than the animals can possibly hope to reproduce."
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CNN's Ninette Sosa and Barbara Hall both contributed to this report.CNN...
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U.S. beefs up conservation efforts for endangered sea turtles
By... more
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CNN...
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September 16th, 2011
07:45 AM ET
New species of dolphin discovered off Australia
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Australian researchers have discovered a new species of dolphin living right under their, uh, bottlenoses.
A population of 100 dolphins in Port Phillip Bay and 50 in the Gippsland Lakes on Australia's southern coast have been proven to be genetically unique from dolphins anywhere else in the world, Monash University doctoral researcher Kate Charlton-Robb said in a university release.
"We're very pleased to announce that yes it is a new dolphin species, and I have called it Tersiops Australis," Charlton-Robb said in an interview with Radio Australia.
The new species has been given the common name the Burrunan dolphin, meaning "large sea fish of the porpoise kind" in Aboriginal languages, she said.
The Burrunan dolphins were originally thought to be one of two bottlenose species, but researchers used DNA and skull comparisons to establish they were a new species.
Only three new dolphin species have been recognized since the late 1800s, Charlton-Robb said.
"This animal has been living right under our noses for so many years and just with combining those two different technologies, with looking at the skull morphology and the DNA, you know there's still really exciting discoveries to be made," Charlton-Robb told Radio Australia.
She said the discovery highlights the importance of conservation efforts.
"It would be a shame to discover something and then and lose it. So we really are working hard to try and protect and conserve these animals," she told Radio Australia.
And if you want to get a look at the new species, head to Port Phillip Bay.
"The animals that you would see out in the bay on a normal occasion would be this new species type," Charton-Robb told Radio Australia.
.CNN...
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September 16th, 2011
07:45 AM ET
New species of dolphin discovered... more
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The area covered by Arctic sea ice reached its lowest point this week since the start of satellite observations in 1972, German researchers announced on Saturday.
"On September 8, the extent of the Arctic sea ice was 4.240 million square kilometres (1.637 million square miles). This is a new historic minimum," said Georg Heygster, head of the Physical Analysis of Remote Sensing Images unit at the University of Bremen's Institute of Environmental Physics.
The new mark is about half-a-percent under his team's measurements of the previous record, which occurred on September 16, 2007, he said.
According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), the record set on that date was 4.1 million sq km (1.6 sq mi). The discrepancy, Heygster explained by phone, was due to slightly different data sets and algorithms.
"But the results are internally consistent in both cases," he said, adding that he expected the NSIDC to come to the same conclusion in the coming days.
Arctic ice cover plays a critical role in regulating Earth's climate by reflecting sunlight and keeping the polar region cool.
Retreating summer sea ice -- 50 percent smaller in area than four decades ago -- is described by scientists as both a measure and a driver of global warming, with negative impacts on a local and planetary scale.
It is also further evidence of a strong human imprint on climate patterns in recent decades, the researchers said.
"The sea ice retreat can no more be explained with the natural variability from one year to the next, caused by weather influence," Heygster said in an statement released by the university.
"Climate models show, rather, that the reduction is related to the man-made global warming which, due to the albedo effect, is particularly pronounced in the Arctic."
Albedo increases when an area once covered by reflective snow or ice -- which bounces 80 percent of the Sun's radiative force back into space -- is replaced by deep blue sea, which absorbs the heat instead.The area covered by Arctic sea ice reached its lowest point this week since the start... more
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Taking on controversial claims that clouds are a main driver of temperature changes across the globe, a Texas A&M University atmospheric scientist finds evidence of cherry picking and errors.
By Douglas Fischer
New findings published Tuesday appear to undermine a controversial study - oft-cited by those who downplay the human impacts of climate change - that claimed variations in cloud cover are driving temperature changes across the globe.
You would think, if you have a scientific history of being wrong on so many issues, that you would have a little bit of humility before claiming you've overturned scientific evidence yet again. - Andrew Dessler, Texas A&M University
The latest analysis confirms – as most atmospheric scientists have long held – that the reverse is true: Clouds change in response to temperature changes. There is no evidence clouds can cause meaningful climate change, concluded the report's author, Andrew Dessler, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University. "Suggestions that significant revisions to mainstream climate science are required are therefore not supported," he wrote.
Dessler's findings are the third blow in less than a week to the research of University of Alabama, Huntsville, climatologist Roy Spencer.
On Friday, the editor at the journal that published Spencer's paper resigned, stating that the paper "should ... not have been published."
And on Thursday, a separate study led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher Benjamin Santer purported to disprove earlier Spencer claims that climate models overstate observed warming and thus are unreliable predictors of the future.
Myriad atmospheric events combine to drive weather and climate. That complexity has long stymied researchers trying to predict the impact that changes to the atmospheric system - notably the addition of billions of tons of greenhouse gases from industrial activity - will have on the Earth's climate.
Spencer, a scientist whose views and findings often put him outside the consensus on climate change, co-authored a report in July that concluded the influence of those many variables are too strong to reliably attribute any climate change to humans.
That paper, published in the two-year-old – and relatively obscure – journal Remote Sensing, explored the interaction between changes in ocean heat, cloud cover and surface temperatures. It found that computer models could not adequately explain changes in temperature observed over the past 10 years but - if certain key assumptions are made and a simple climate model is used - random changes in cloud cover could drive temperature changes enough to account for the observations.
The results, widely cited by those who claim the science on the human influence on climate change remains unsettled, cut against the basic tenets of atmospheric science, Dessler said in an interview.
Data vs. assumptions
But Spencer's key assumptions were wrong, Dessler added. And while Spencer and his co-author, University of Alabama scientist Danny Braswell, claimed to have examined 14 climate models, they presented just the results of the six models showing the biggest mismatch with reality.
"You would think, if you have a scientific history of being wrong on so many issues, that you would have a little bit of humility before claiming you've overturned scientific evidence yet again," Dessler said.
More at the linkTaking on controversial claims that clouds are a main driver of temperature changes... more
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Los Angeles Times...
Editorial
Take shark-fin soup off the menu
Shark populations are declining. California can help by passing a shark-fin ban.
PHOTO: A worker carries a frozen carcass of a slaughtered shark on his shoulder at a slaughter house in Puqi town, Zhejiang province on July 25. A bill in California would ban the sale of shark fin and would help protect the threatened fish. (Reuters)
August 25, 2011
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The loss of a cultural tradition is regrettable, but the loss of a species is tragic and the upset of the oceans' environmental balance could be catastrophic. That's why a California bill banning the possession and sale of shark fins should be pulled out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee suspense file Thursday and sent to the Senate floor, where it should be passed.
Shark populations are declining, and close to a third of shark species are in danger of extinction. Contributing to this decline is the practice of shark finning, in which large-scale fishing operations cut off the valuable fins, used for the Chinese delicacy shark-fin soup, and throw the rest of the shark back into the ocean to die. At one time, the expensive soup was out of the reach of all but the wealthiest Chinese families, but the emergence of the Chinese middle class increased demand to the point where an estimated 70 million sharks are killed each year solely for their fins.
Some Chinese Americans vehemently oppose the bill, saying it would end the ages-old tradition of serving shark-fin soup at weddings. A bowl of the soup is a status symbol that costs about $100. Others wholeheartedly support the bill — one of the sponsors is Assemblyman Paul Fong (D-Sunnyvale), who is of Chinese descent — pointing out that there are many ways to honor wedding guests with prestigious treats.
Contrary to opponents' claims, the bill is not discriminatory. Tradition deserves respect, but sometimes custom must give way to environmental imperative, in this case by allowing shark populations to return to healthy levels. Whale meat was historically consumed in Japan, but it is illegal to sell the meat in this country. In Hong Kong, a major trading center for shark fins, a survey earlier this year found that only about 20% of residents felt it would be unacceptable to omit the soup from wedding receptions.
As top predators in the ocean, sharks help maintain the balance of the marine ecosystem. They produce relatively few pups and are slow to mature; their populations do not rebound quickly. The practice of finning already is illegal in waters of the United States, the European Union and many other countries, but is common in international waters. Obviously, a state ban wouldn't stop all shark finning, but it would make a significant difference. Outside of China, California is the biggest market in the world for shark fins.
AB 376 is modeled on a Hawaii ban that became law last year; Oregon and Washington passed bans earlier this year. California's legislative leaders, long in the vanguard of promoting marine environmentalism, should not lose out on this opportunity to protect the oceans.
.Los Angeles Times...
Editorial
Take shark-fin soup off the menu
Shark... more
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Severe storms hit the Midwest on Saturday and are expected later in the Northeast, where flash flooding killed at least three people in Pittsburgh on Friday.
Heavy rains submerged cars in flood water that was nine feet deep in places in Pittsburgh, authorities said.
A mother and her two daughters died when water engulfed their vehicle in a low-lying section of the city's Washington Boulevard near the Allegheny River.
Kimberly Griffith, 45, and her daughters Brenna, 12, and Mikaela, 8, drowned in the vehicle and were pronounced dead at the scene around 6 p.m., a spokeswoman for the Allegheny County medical examiner's office said.
The water pinned their vehicle to a tree and they were unable to escape, authorities said.
Rescue workers also recovered a body from the river believed to be that of an older woman reported missing during the flood, Raymond DeMichiei, the city's deputy director of emergency management, said.
During the flood, more than a dozen cars were stranded along the road, local media reports said, and paramedics in boats went from car to car to rescue drivers and passengers. Some motorists stood on their vehicles' roofs or clung to trees to avoid the rising water.
Rescue crews used inflatable rafts to reach stranded drivers and 11 were rescued.
PHILADELPHIA SOAKED
The Philadelphia area was also soaked by heavy thunder showers Friday, bringing a record rainfall of 12.95 inches for August, according to NWS meteorologist Lee Robertson.
"Actually, we're on the verge of setting a record for any month," Robertson said. The previous record is from September 1999, set when a hurricane pushed rainfall to 13.07 inches.
As more storms were forecast for the region Sunday, the NWS warned in a flood advisory that nearly half of all flood fatalities are vehicle-related.
"As little as six inches of water will cause you to lose control of your vehicle," the NWS stated.
The Weather Channel forecast more storms from the Great Lakes to the Central Plains into Saturday night.
One man died as storms and a tornado roared across northern Wisconsin Friday night, cutting an 8-mile-wide-swath 65 miles north of Green Bay and taking out power to around 2,000 homes, officials said.
Douglas Brem, 43, was staying in a rented trailer at a recycling center in the path of the storm that caused extensive damage to homes, said Marinette County Coroner George Smith.
Damaging winds and hail were the primary threats for cities from St. Louis to Chicago Saturday, according to weather.com.Severe storms hit the Midwest on Saturday and are expected later in the Northeast,... more
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Gulf sheen not from wells, Coast Guard says
'Natural seepage is very common,' official says after fears of another spill
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 8/18/2011 4:58:11 PM ET
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The Coast Guard reported Thursday that none of the well heads or pipelines in the area of a sheen that appeared in the Gulf of Mexico were leaking and suggested the sheen was from a natural seepage.
"The sheen has dissipated," Cheri Ben-Iesau, Coast Guard commander for District 8 in New Orleans, told msnbc.com. "Samples collected returned negative for hydrocarbons."
"None of the well heads or pipelines in the area where found to be leaking," she said, adding "natural seepage is very common" in the Gulf.
The report didn't faze residents of the coast, where small spills are spotted hundreds of times a year and many people have come to see last year's BP catastrophe as a once-in-a-lifetime event.
Gulf Coast fishermen are back on the water and businesses are again packed with tourists on sandy shores since the disaster that hit last summer, when BP PLC's well blew out of control, spooking tourists away from normally packed communities when beaches were left coated in crude.
BP said Thursday that the shiny substance floating on the water's surface didn't come from its operations, and officials said it had since dissipated. Reports of sheen are common: More than 200 were called in last year in an area far from BP's well where the new sheen was reported, and 13 were reported Wednesday alone off Louisiana's coast.
Residents say they aren't afraid of a disaster like the one last summer, when millions of gallons of crude spewed into the Gulf and many scientists and fishermen wondered if the region would ever recover.
"This was probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing this spill here, the big BP oil spill," said Rocky Ditcharo, a 45-year-old shrimp dock owner in Plaquemines Parish, the finger of land south of New Orleans where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf. He looked upon the oil industry favorably, even though last year's spill threatened to ruin his way of life.
"I'm not mad at the oil industry about what happened. You can't hate them unless they went out of their way to intentionally do something. Accidents happen. Nobody wants to kill off a bunch of wildlife, shrimp and fish."
BP said Thursday tests indicated the substance near an abandoned well in the Green Canyon — an undersea area encompassing thousands of miles far from the company's blown-out Macondo well — was silt from the Gulf floor.
The U.S. Coast Guard said the sheen was not large enough to warrant a cleanup; even small amounts of oil can lead to a large sheen on the water.
Sheens are frequently reported in the Gulf, many of them small and a result of the 3,200 oil and gas drilling operations in the Gulf. Leaked fuel from ships can also create sheens, along with oil that naturally seeps from the seafloor or leaks from abandoned or plugged wells. For instance, the Coast Guard said several sheens reported in the past two weeks came from natural seepage or releases from government-approved discharge points on offshore platforms.
Many sheens are never investigated and disappear before anyone determines where they came from. In 2010, for instance, there were 210 spills or sheens reported in the Green Canyon area. About a quarter of the calls described "unknown sheens," without a known source. More than half — 112 of those reported — originated from platforms, but many of the reports are unverified.
There are thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells in the Gulf that are not monitored for leaks after they're plugged.
But, according to Kenneth Arnold, a Houston-based offshore engineering expert, a dead well will leak only if the cement job to close it in was not done properly. He said offshore regulations for closing in wells are stringent.
Yet reports of sheen get much more attention since the BP oil spill, when a drilling rig explosion killed 11 men and sent millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf in what became the worst offshore spill in U.S. history. The coastal tourism industry struggled amid images of tar-coated beaches and oil-stained birds. Many business owners had complained that people canceled vacation plans even in places where oil never washed ashore.
On Thursday, business groups affirmed the region was making a strong comeback.
"It's been a good summer," said Chris Laborde of the Gulf Coast Alliance, a regional business group set up after the BP spill to attract tourists and investors to the Gulf Coast. "From the tourism side, it's been good. Fishing has been superb. Everything is coming out clean (from the spill). It's a lot better than people anticipated."
He said Gulf Coast residents aren't worried a spill on the scale of the BP disaster would be repeated any time soon.
"This one serious accident was out of 40,000-50,000 drillings that have occurred over decades," he said.
And without evidence the BP spill ruined the Gulf's ecosystem, many people seem relaxed. Seafood sampling has found little to no contamination, and scientists have not found the kind of ecosystem-altering damage some predicted.
"All the tests are coming back that the seafood is safe, and that's blessing," said Bridgette Varone, the executive director of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Hospitality & Restaurant Association. The bigger challenge, she said, has been overcoming consumers' perceptions.
Laborde agreed, noting the spill was similar to the aftermath of 2005's Hurricane Katrina, "when people thought New Orleans was flooded years later."
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://media.nola.com/2010_gulf_oil_spill/photo/gulf-oil-east-grand-terrejpg-0056cf933168f378.jpg.
Gulf sheen not from wells, Coast Guard says
'Natural seepage is very... more
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Los Angeles Times...
Radioactive element detected in La Jolla, Calif.
Radioactive isotope, maybe from Fukushima, detected, but ...
August 15, 2011 | 3:17 pm
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Very small amounts of a radioactive isotope of sulfur, believed to have traveled across the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, have been detected in La Jolla, Calif., by UC San Diego scientists.
But there's no need to worry: The amounts are nowhere near enough to cause health problems, researchers said.
Senior author Mark Thiemens and his team keep tabs on levels of sulfur-35 as part of their climate research. Readings collected shortly after the March 11 tsunami in Japan indicated that there were 1,500 atoms of sulfur-35 per cubic meter of air in La Jolla, a significant increase over normal levels.
The UCSD team interpreted the bump as the result of a reaction that would have occurred when plant workers used seawater to cool overheating reactors at Fukushima. Neutrons from the reactor core would have reacted with chlorine in ocean water to create radioactive sulfur, Thiemens said.
"The levels we observed are in no way harmful in California," Thiemens said.
The group reported the measurements Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Thiemens and his colleagues use highly sensitive instruments to detect the minuscule amounts of radioactive sulfur that circulate naturally in the atmosphere. That they detected a bump in levels of radioactive sulfur was "not surprising," said Kai Vetter, who teaches radiation detection at UC Berkeley. Vetter's lab has been tracking incoming radiation from Japan and has reported upticks too -- though again, nothing that would pose a danger to people in the U.S.
But Vetter and other nuclear engineers questioned elements of the research, which used the readings taken in La Jolla to extrapolate the amount of neutron leakage from the Fukushima plant. Elmer Lewis of Northwestern University and Michael Golay of MIT were unconvinced that the radiation in question even originated at the nuclear plant.
Edward Morse, of UC Berkeley, said that the traces of radioactive sulfur probably originated at Fukushima, but he took issue with the team's final calculations.
"They're not nuclear engineers," Morse said. "They were a little out of their depth."
.Los Angeles Times...
Radioactive element detected in La Jolla, Calif.... more
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Scientists are probing whether pollution may have caused 70 pilot whales to strand in north west Scotland last month. The whales may have been poisoned by years of toxic waste.
Experts have now asked the UK government for £20,000 to carry out the first such major diagnostic tests on a super pod in Scotland - which could show the legacy of decades of pouring toxic chemicals into the sea.
No such link between strandings and pollution has ever been proved before - but scientists say they are now finding killer whales with toxic readings "hundreds" of times over the limit.
There are growing fears that Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCB's) - which are now banned - are so prevalent in the marine environment that over a period of time they have entered the food chain widely.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is now being asked for £20,000 of the £50,000 of toxicology tests that the Scottish Agriculture College-led investigation into the recent stranding in Sutherland wants to probe.
The Cetacean Stranding Investigation Programme is continuing to investigate the cause of what is believed to have been Scotland's largest ever stranding of pilot whales, in the Kyle of Durness on July 22. Some 25 of the 70 whales are believed to have died.
Leading experts from the Sea Mammal Research Unit at St Andrews, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science and Institute of Zoology in London will all be involved in the toxicology tests.
Samples have been taken from 16 of the dead whales.
SAC's Veterinary Investigations Officer Dr Andrew Brownlow said these samples provided an "unique" opportunity to conduct a whole range of diagnostic tests.
"Some of the pilot whales were around 50 years old - and their ages range down to those of a calf," he said.
"We want to run the tests to try and find the underlying cause of the stranding. We know these animals feed high-up in the food chain and many had lived a long time. PCBs have been around in the marine environment - perhaps more than anywhere else - for a very long time."
"They were used as coolants for things like generators and transformers. But they are highly toxic and long lasting. They can have a wide range of physiological effects none of which are good. Cetaceans are prone to them because they build up in the fat. Calves can have a particularly high level because they feed on fatty milk from their mothers.
"We want to see what levels of PCBs there were in this group. Some male killer whales have been found to have PCB levels hundreds of times higher than the suggested limit for humans. We just don't know the effect that PCBs are having on marine wildlife and this investigation will help us understand what is going ion in the seas. It could be very important - that is why we have asked for the funding. We hope to have an answer within a couple of weeks."
Dr Brownlow added that the possibility of killer whales, underwater earthquakes and naval explosive clearance in the area would also be probed.
Navy divers who helped in the rescue had been in the area carrying out explosions on undetonated devices in the days prior to the stranding. Nearby Garvie Island is a major military bombing range.
The Navy has denied that its explosions - which it has carried out for years in the area - could have caused the stranding.
But Dr Brownlow that the situation could be like "Russian roulette" - this time with the explosions going off at the wrong time when whales were in the area.
"We have asked the Navy for a timeline of its underwater explosions. I am also pretty sure that whatever brought them into the Kyle it was not food. It maybe that we never find a physical reason why they stranded but it's important that we look."
In May, around 60 pilot whales appeared in Loch Carnan, South Uist, although they left the loch after one of the mammals died. Another dead whale was later found on an island in the loch.
A post-mortem examination suggested the first had died of infection.
At the end of October last year, other pilot whales almost got stranded in Loch Carnan.
Less than a week later 33 whales, believed to be the same group, were found dead on a beach in Co Donegal in Ireland.
Pilot whales are known to prefer deep water but come inshore to feed on squid, their main food.
The investigation is the first one on a mass stranding in the UK for three years when a group of dolphins beached at Weymouth in Dorset.
More at the linkScientists are probing whether pollution may have caused 70 pilot whales to strand in... more
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This is from the:
Snippet from link:
OBuoy Project, where real-time telemetry is used to bring both data and video from a buoy (UBuoy 2) moored in the Barents Sea north of Alaska to anyone with a web connection. Scientists have even spliced images from the buoy into a spectacular movie for all to see.
Prospects for continued documentation of the sea ice melt around the buoy seem to have dimmed somewhat lately, as video transmission has ceased and the temperature of its battery has spiked (suggesting that the buoy may have been swamped by ice).
H/T to Neven's Sea Ice blog contributor R. Gates, who alerted folks there as to the UBuoy Program and to another contributor at Neven's, Rob Dekker, who found the video and the evidence of the buoy's perhaps premature end.This is from the:
Snippet from link:
OBuoy Project, where real-time telemetry is... more
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Los Angeles Times...
China moves to contain newly disclosed oil spills
By Jonathan Kaiman | 6:13 p.m.
The June incidents at two platforms that are jointly owned by U.S. energy giant ConocoPhillips in the Bohai Sea were only reported last week.
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By Jonathan Kaiman, Los Angeles Times
July 14, 2011, 6:13 p.m.
Reporting from Beijing—
China is moving to contain two oil spills in the Bohai Sea off the nation's northeast coast amid complaints from environmental groups and online activists that it took weeks for government regulators and an oil company to publicly disclose the incidents.
The spills occurred below two platforms jointly owned by U.S. energy giant ConocoPhillips' China subsidiary and the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp., or CNOOC, creating a 320-square-mile oil slick that's reportedly spreading.
The State Oceanic Administration, China's coastal regulator, on Wednesday ordered ConocoPhillips to shut down operations at the platforms located at an oilfield known as Penglai 9-13.
Though the first spill occurred June 4 and the second June 17, the incidents were not disclosed to the public until July 5 by the State Oceanic Administration.
Environmental activists said attempts to cover up the spills were thwarted when word leaked online, possibly from a whistleblower.
Officials at CNOOC have denied a cover-up. The coastal regulatory agency could not be reached for comment.
ConocoPhillips said in a statement that it estimates between 1,500 and 2,000 barrels have leaked into the sea due to seepage from a naturally occurring fault. The company said it has contained the spill to trace amounts, equal to a few liters a day and that no oil had reached shore.
Activists remain deeply skeptical about the severity of the spills given China's notoriously weak enforcement of environmental laws, which they say favor economic interests above all.
The spills come a year after one of the worst oil disasters in Chinese history, when explosions rocked two pipelines in the coastal city of Dalian. Although the government said 11,000 barrels of oil were spilled back then, independent experts put the amount at 650,000 barrels.
The Dalian incident came on the heels of another environmental disaster, in which the state-owned Zijin Mining Group Co. waited nine days before disclosing a chemical spill in Fujian province that polluted a river that had been heavily relied upon for its fish.
Ma Jun, head of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a nongovernmental organization in Beijing, said China's disclosure laws for such disasters were vague and fines for polluting were too small.
"For decades, China's policy is to promote economic development," Ma said. "So all of these companies have enjoyed some special protection."
The stiffest penalty oil companies can face for polluting waters in China is about $30,000. By comparison, BP may face tens of billions of dollars in penalties after last year's spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
In recent days, Chinese state media have criticized regulators for being weak.
"We cannot help but wonder: Is the [State Oceanic Administration] a serious watchdog that exists to prevent bigger incidents from happening, or a loving parent who is overprotective of his own child?" read an editorial in the English edition of the Global Times.
Chinese oil demand has soared to fuel its sizzling economic growth. To keep up, the country has had to increasingly rely on foreign sources, including suppliers from some of the most volatile regions in the world.
Seeking a safer alternative, the government has invested billions of dollars in boosting its offshore oil production.
"With more and more interest invested into offshore oil exploration, there's a really urgent need to start improving" environmental safety measures, said Li Yan, the climate and energy campaign manager at Greenpeace East Asia.
If "measures are not taken, this could just happen again," Li said.
It remains to be seen how much damage to wildlife has been caused by the Bohai Sea spills.
Zhai Yuxiu, deputy director of the National Center for Quality Supervision and Testing of Aquatic Products, said that even slight differences in water temperature and quality could be catastrophic for the area's fishing industry.
"The pollution will absolutely have an influence," he said.
This week, a coalition of 11 Chinese environmental advocacy groups announced plans to file a joint lawsuit in hopes of garnering more transparency in the oil industry.
Alex Wang, a Chinese environmental law expert at UC Berkeley Law School, said there was little hope of the lawsuit reaching court.
"In China, incidents of this magnitude are seldom ever handled in the courts," Wang said. "They'll almost always be handled by the government."
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Kaiman is a special correspondent. Nicole Liu in The Times' Beijing bureau contributed to this report.
.Los Angeles Times...
China moves to contain newly disclosed oil spills
By... more
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On the most recent episode of Vanguard, correspondent Adam Yamaguchi goes to Japan, Baja California and Cape Cod to track the powerful -- and popular -- Bluefin tuna.
What did you think of "Sushi to the Slaughter"? Should sushi lovers avoid Bluefin and other endangered species? Are the U.S. and Japan doing enough to protect the ocean and fish?
If you have any questions for Adam or producers Lauren Cerre and Yasu Tsuji, please let us know in comments and we'll work to get them answered.
And if you're Vanguarding while Tweeting, use #WatchingVanguard to let us know what you think!On the most recent episode of Vanguard, correspondent Adam Yamaguchi goes to Japan,... more
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Yet another massive earthquake of a 7.3 magnitude jolted Japan's northeastern coast on Sunday that triggered a brief tsunami warning for the area, which is still recovering from the March 11 earthquake and resulting tsunami that destroyed houses, power and swept away whole towns.
According to public broadcaster NHK, the tsunami alert for the northeast coast has been lifted, about two hours after the quake. Earlier, the workers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were warned to evacuate following an alert for a tsunami of 50 centimeters issued by the country's metreological agency. However, there were no immediate reports of damage from the earthquake.
The earthquake struck at 9:57 local time (0057 GMT). The epicenter of the quake was in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan's main island, Honshu, at a depth of about 20 miles (30 kilometers).
The same area was hit by a massive 9.0 earthquake on March 11 that left nearly 23,000 dead or missing. It also cut power to the Fukishima nuclear power plant that eventually melted down into the worst nuclear disaster ever.
After March 11, due to power loss at the Fukushima nuclear plant, the cooling systems were hurt badly, causing fuel in three of the plant's six reactors to melt down. Apart from that, subsequent hydrogen blasts scattered radioactive waste over a wide area.
Because of the radiation, nearly 80,000 residents have been forced to evacuate. Japan's government has faced tough time for its handling of the disaster, putting more pressure on unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan to quit.
Fortunately, there were no reports of abnormalities at the Fukushima plant caused by Sunday's quake, according to Japan's Kyodo news agency. Airports are also functioning normally.
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Does the Costa Rica's Seafloor hold clues to Japan earthquake?
Scientists believe that pieces of rock and seafloor from deep in the Pacific Ocean near Costa Rica might be helpful in explaining why Japan's deadly magnitude-9.0 quake was so large. Falling within the so-called Ring of Fire zone, both Japan and Costa Rica nations are prone earthquakes. Volcanic arcs and oceanic trenches partly encircling the Pacific Basin form the Ring of Fire, a zone of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Scientists have collected nearly 1 mile of sediment cores (cylinders of earth drilled out from the ground) from the ocean floor off the coast of Costa Rica, revealing detailed records of about 2 million years of tectonic activity along a nearby seismic plate boundary, where one tectonic plate dives beneath another, called a subduction zone. It was the crack of a subduction zone that generated the Japan quake, Insidecostarica reported.
"It's critical to understand how subduction zone earthquakes and tsunamis originate - especially in light of recent events in Japan," said Rodey Batiza of the National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences. "The results of this expedition will also help us learn more about our own such zone off the Pacific Northwest."
Over 80 percent of global earthquakes above magnitude 8.0 occur along subduction zones.Yet another massive earthquake of a 7.3 magnitude jolted Japan's northeastern... more
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Adam Yamaguchi, a ravenous sushi consumer since childhood, examines the cost of the world's insatiable appetite for raw fish, namely the Bluefin tuna.
"Sushi to the Slaughter" premieres on Tuesday, July 12 at 9/8c on Current TV.
"Vanguard" is Current TV's no-limits documentary series whose award-winning correspondents put themselves in extraordinary situations to immerse viewers in global issues that have a large social significance. Unlike sound-bite driven reporting, the show's correspondents, Adam Yamaguchi, Christof Putzel and Mariana van Zeller, serve as trusted guides who take viewers on in-depth real life adventures in pursuit of some of the world's most important stories.
For more, go to http://current.com/vanguard.
Current Media, the Peabody-and Emmy Award-winning television and online network founded in 2005 by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, engages viewers with smart, provocative and timely programming -- stories that no one else is telling in ways that no one else is telling them. Current's programming shines a light where others won't dare and boldly explores important subjects -- opening minds, sparking conversations and forming deep connections with its viewers. The channel's audience is comprised of affluent, curious, social and connected adults who crave the kind of entertaining, enlightening, witty and informative programming found on Current's TV and online properties. Current is now available via cable and satellite TV in 75 million households worldwide -- 60 million households in the US -- through distribution partners Comcast (Channel 107); Time Warner ; DirecTV (Channel 358 nationwide); Dish Network (Channel 196 nationwide); Verizon and AT&T. In the UK and Ireland, Current is available on BSkyB (Channel 183) and Virgin Media (Channel 155), and in Italy, Current is available on Sky Italia (Channel 130). Viewers can also find Current online at http://www.current.com.Adam Yamaguchi, a ravenous sushi consumer since childhood, examines the cost of the... more
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Los Angeles Times...
Pacific Ocean study finds fish tainted by plastic
June 30, 2011 | 4:38 pm
Southern California researchers found plastic in nearly 1 in 10 small fish collected in the northern Pacific Ocean in the latest study to call attention to floating marine debris entering the food chain.
The study published this week by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego estimated that fish in the northern Pacific Ocean are ingesting as much as 24,000 tons of plastic each year.
Although the research found a lower percentage of affected fish than previous studies, it is the latest to quantify how many fish are eating marine garbage — most of it confetti-sized flecks of discarded plastic — that has accumulated in vast, slow-moving ocean currents known as gyres.
The results came from a 2009 voyage a group of graduate students made to the so-called Pacific garbage patch, an area of high concentration of fragments of floating garbage about 1,000 miles off the California coast. Researchers cast nets into the water and collected 141 fish, mostly lanternfish measuring just a few inches, and took them to a laboratory in San Diego to dissect.
Scientists found plastic debris in 9.2% of their stomachs, much of it broken down into multicolored fragments smaller than a human fingernail. However, they believe the actual proportion of fish that have consumed plastic is significantly higher.
“We can’t tell how many fish ate plastic and died, how many fish ate plastic and regurgitated it or passed it out of their intestines,” said Rebecca Asch, a Scripps doctoral candidate in biological oceanography and one of the study's authors.
Because the widespread lanternfish is a common food source for larger fish, the study raises concerns that plastics and pollutants they contain, could be making their way up the food chain into seafood ingested by humans.
Scripps found a lower rate of plastic ingestion than previous research, such as a study by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation that found plastic in the stomachs of 35% of fish in the same general area of the Pacific.
Past studies may have been inflated by keeping nets in the water for longer periods, giving fish the chance to eat bits of plastic swept up in the nets with them, Scripps scientists said.
In their study, they tried to minimize that by towing their net only 15 minutes at a time. They stressed that their study broadly concludes the same thing: garbage is present in the food chain.
“We’re still finding a substantial amount of plastic,” Asch said. “It should be zero.”
--Tony Barboza
Photo: Two lanternfish and several bits of plastic collected in 2009 during the Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition. Credit: J. LeichterLos Angeles Times...
Pacific Ocean study finds fish tainted by plastic
June 30,... more
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