Global warming spurring ocean waves' speed

Global warming is speeding up ocean waves, a new study by Canadian researchers from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, has found.Geophysicists predict that as the ocean surface warms, these so-called planetary waves should speed up.To test this theory, John Fyfe and Oleg Saenko modelled the changes to ocean wave patterns over the 20th and 21st centuries.They found that gigantic ocean waves, spanning hundreds of kilometres from crest to crest, had speeded as a result of global warming."We were really surprised at how quickly the ocean responded to temperature change," said Fyfe.The model further showed that by the end of the 21st century, the waves would be a further 20 to 40 per cent faster compared with pre-industrial speeds."We knew we'd see an effect, but we didn't think it would be significant for at least another two centuries," said Fyfe, adding that the faster planetary waves will have an effect on global weather.The study appears in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, reports New Scientist.

As I thought, blue moon this month

This month there will be two full moons and, according to folklore, that makes it a Blue Moon month.The phrase 'Blue Moon' has been around a long time, well over 400 years and during that time its meaning has shifted over the last four centuries of literature and folklore, there have been at least six different meanings which have been carried over into countless songs and verse.As an example, in song, blue moons are a symbol of loneliness - when love conquers all.
The most obvious meaning of Blue Moon is when the full moon appears to a casual observer to be unusually bluish, which is a rare event but it can happen.The effect can be caused by smoke or dust particles in the atmosphere.Water droplets when the air is damp and heavy scatter red and green light while allowing other colours to pass. A white moonbeam passing through such a misty cloud turns blue. Clouds of ice crystals, fine-grained sand, volcanic ash or smoke from forest fires can have the same effect.There is another reason for Blue Moons as well and our eyes are the culprit. Our eyes have automatic 'white balances' just like digital cameras. Go outdoors from a cozy camping tent lit by an oil lamp (yellow light) and the Moon will appear blue until your eyes adjust.In recent times, people have taken to using the term Blue Moon based on the Gregorian calendar. While most years contain twelve full moons to match the twelve months, every two or three years there is a year with thirteen full moons. On average, this happens once every 2.72 years and we have a Blue Moon. The last time we experienced a blue moon was in August 2004,The next one won't happen until December 2009.The second full moon over our area this month will be on June 30.

Wild weather

Friday June 8, 06:52 PM
Nine people were missing after a section of highway collapsed in torrential rain north of Sydney, and an elderly couple swept away in their car while crossing a creek are also unaccounted for, as wild weather lashed much of NSW on Friday.The dangerous conditions are continuing across much of NSW on Friday night, with high winds and heavy rain bringing down trees and powerlines, blacking out homes and causing flash flooding. Police and State Emergency Service (SES) personnel are searching for two adults, two children and five bystanders who went to their aid when a section of the Old Pacific Highway collapsed at Somersby, near Gosford, at about 4pm (AEST) on Friday.The car the group was travelling in has been found, but police say there is no sign yet of the missing.Police and the SES have also been searching for two people washed off a bridge by flood waters at Clarence Town, near Dungog, in the Hunter Valley.The SES has responded to more than 2,000 calls for assistance since Thursday and are expecting to remain busy with the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) forecasting 90 to 100km/h winds and heavy rain into Saturday."We're expecting more calls overnight as the weather moves into Sydney," an SES spokesman said."We're seeing heavy rain in Sydney but nothing like the torrential downpours on the Central Coast and in the Hunter."The wild weather has left 60,000 homes without power and rainfalls of more than 100mm have been recorded since 9am (AEST) in parts of the Mid North Coast, the Hunter Valley and the Central Coast.Storms have dumped a whopping 174mm at Wyong, near Gosford, while flooding has forced the evacuation of several properties at Dungog and Muswellbrook in the Hunter.Warragamba dam, Sydney's major water supply, has received 20mm since 9am (AEST).A BoM spokesman said some of the falls could be close to breaking 30 year records in some areas.Ferry and JetCat services to and from Manly in Sydney have also been suspended due to unsafe conditions on the harbour.

Arctic warming

The thunderous sounds of Arctic warming

The brightly painted houses of Illulissat, a town in western Greenland where tourists travel to look at the icebergs.
Photo: Reuters ATOP Greenland's Suicide Cliff, from which old Inuit women used to hurl themselves when they felt they had become a burden to their community, a crack and a thud like thunder pierce the air."We don't have thunder here. But I know it from movies," says Ilulissat nurse Vilhelmina Nathanielsen, while walking through the melting snow. "It's the ice cracking inside the icebergs. If we're lucky we might see one break apart."It's too early in the year to see icebergs crumple regularly, but the sound is a reminder.As politicians squabble over how to act on climate change, Greenland's icecap is melting faster than scientists had thought possible.A new island in East Greenland is a clear sign of how the place is changing. It was dubbed Warming Island by US explorer Dennis Schmitt when he found in 2005 that it had emerged from beneath the ice. If the icecap melts entirely, oceans would rise by seven metres. A total meltdown would take centuries, but global warming — which climate experts blame mainly on human use of fossil fuels — is heating the Arctic faster than anywhere else on Earth.
Greenland, the world's largest island, is mostly covered by an icecap of about 2.6 million cubic kilometres which accounts for a 10th of all the fresh water in the world. Over the past 30 years, its melt zone has expanded by 30 per cent. Now the cap loses 100 to 150 cubic kilometres of ice every year — more than all the ice in the Alps. "Some people are scared to discover the process is running faster than the models," said Konrad Steffen, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a Greenland expert who serves on a US Government advisory committee on abrupt climate change. In the past 15 years, winter temperatures have risen about five degrees on the cap, while spring and autumn temperatures increased about three degrees. Swiss-born Dr Steffen is one of dozens of scientists who have peppered the Greenland icecap with instruments to measure temperature, snowfall and the movement, thickness and melting of the ice. The more the surface melts, the faster the ice sheet moves towards the ocean. The glacier that Swiss Camp rests on has doubled its speed to about 15 kilometres a year in the past 12 years, while its tongue retreated 10 kilometres into the fjord. "It is scary," Dr Steffen said. "This is only Greenland. But Antarctica and glaciers around the world are responding as well."The rush of new water leaves scientists with crucial questions about how much sea levels could rise and whether the system of ocean currents that ensures Western Europe's mild winters could shut down. If you're a fisherman in Greenland, however, global warming is doing wonders for your business because the harbour no longer freezes over.
Warmer weather also boosts tourism, a source of big development hopes for the 56,000 mostly Inuit inhabitants of Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark.

Cornucopia

A cornucopia of life thrives upon this land!
Bees, butterflies, birds, abundant variety of fruit and vegetables, edible fungi all creatures great and small.
...and so it is...