Environmental News

Huge iceberg breaks off Greenland glacier

A giant chunk of ice, measuring 120,000 square kilometers (around 46,332 square miles), has torn away from a glacier in Greenland, causing more concerns over global warming.

Press TV

20 July, 2012

Satellite images, recorded by NASA, showed the huge piece of ice had broken off the Petermann Glacier on the northwestern coast of Greenland, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

It is the second time in less than two years that a huge piece of ice has broken free from the glacier. In 2010, a similar ice island, twice as large, was chopped off the glacier.

NASA said the rift in the glacier was spotted in 2001, and that its polar-orbiting Aqua satellite, which passes over the North Pole several times a day, had observed the break on July 16-17.

The recent incidents of iceberg calving have raised concerns among scientists who have warned that Greenland ice shelf is thinning extensively amid rising global temperatures.

"We have data for 150 years and we see changes that we have not seen before," said Oceanographer Andreas Muenchow of the University of Delaware.

Poul Christoffersen of the University of Cambridge Scott Polar Institute, also expressed concerns about the rate at which the glaciers on Greenland were melting, saying the ice on Greenland has been melting faster for the last 20 years because of global warming.

The latest calving is not expected to cause a rise in sea levels as the ice was already floating. 

BP oil spill partially to blame for high dolphin deaths in the Gulf of Mexico

The largest oil spill on open water to date and other environmental factors led to the historically high number of dolphin deaths in the Gulf of Mexico, concludes a two-year scientific study released today.

Physics

19 July, 2012

A team of biologists from several Gulf of Mexico institutions and the University of Central Florida in Orlando published their findings in the journal PloS

ONE. For the past two years, scientists have been trying to figure out why there were a high number of dolphin deaths, part of what's called an "unusual mortality event" along the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Most troubling to scientists was the exceptionally high number of young dolphins that made up close to half of the 186 dolphins that washed ashore from Louisiana to western Florida from January to April 2010. The number of "perinatal" (near birth) dolphins stranded during this four-month period was six times higher than the average number of perinatal strandings in the region since 2003 and nearly double the historical percentage of all strandings.

"Unfortunately it was a 'perfect storm' that led to the dolphin deaths," said Graham Worthy, a UCF provosts distinguished professor of biology and co-author of the study. "The oil spill and cold winter of 2010 had already put significant stress on their food resources, resulting in poor body condition and depressed immune response. It appears the high volumes of cold freshwater coming from snowmelt water that pushed through Mobile Bay and Mississippi Sound in 2011 was the final blow."

The cold winter of 2010 was followed by the historic BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in April 2011, which dumped millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, likely disrupting the food chain. This was in the middle of the dolphins' breeding season. A sudden entry of high volumes of cold freshwater from Mobile Bay in 2011 imposed additional stress on the ecosystem and specifically on dolphins that were already in poor body condition.

"When we put the pieces together, it appears that the dolphins were likely weakened by depleted food resources, bacteria, or other factors as a result of the 2010 cold winter or oil spill, which made them susceptible to assault by the high volumes of cold freshwater coming from land in 2011 and resulted in distinct patterns in when and where they washed ashore," said Ruth Carmichael, a senior marine scientist at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, an assistant professor of Marine Sciences at the University of South Alabama and the lead author of the study.

The majority of perinatal strandings were centered on the Mississippi-Alabama coast, adjacent to Mobile Bay, the 4th largest freshwater drainage in the U.S. The onshore movement of surface currents during the same period resulted in animals washing ashore along the stretch of coastline where freshwater discharge was most intense.

Others who contributed to the study include: William M. Graham and Stephan Howden from the University of Southern Mississippi, Stennis Space Center and Allen Aven from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and the University of South Alabama.

Worthy is the Hubbs Professor of Marine Mammalogy. He received his PhD in 1986 from the University of Guelph in Canada and then completed post-doctoral training at the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he studied elephant seals, bottlenose dolphins and California sea lions. He spent 11 years as a faculty member in the Department of Marine Biology at Texas A&M University at Galveston and served as the State Coordinator for the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network.

Worthy and his team at UCF have been studying dolphin populations in the Pensacola and Choctawhatchee bays for years.

Mexico culls 3.8 million chickens as H7N3 virus spreads- prepares 80 million vaccine doses for chickens 

 

The Poultry Site

19 July, 2012

The National Health, Food Safety and Food Quality Service (SENASICA) reported that as a result of the implementation of the National Animal Health Emergency Plan to contain and eradicate the outbreak of H7N3 avian influenza in Jalisco state, they have inspected 253 poultry farms, in 82 of which there was no presence of viruses, another 33 where the virus was confirmed, while the rest continue to be diagnosed. Senior editor, Chris Wright, reports.

SENASICA’s report, with information updated on 16 July, indicates that the 82 poultry farms which do not have the presence of exotic viruses have been issued an official certificate to allow them to move their products to market, since they do not represent a risk to poultry or consumers.

The farms that have confirmed the H7N3 avian influenza virus remain under quarantine and isolation, in order to control movement and prevent live birds, waste and litter from moving to virus-free regions.

SENASICA will keep the Emergency Plan in place on commercial farms and backyard poultry in the Los Altos region of Jalisco state, mainly in the towns of Acatic and Tepatitlan, with a flock of 16.5 million birds, primarily egg layers, of which 9.3 million are found within the surveillance area.

For article GO HERE

Drought spreads, boosts corn to record price

The worst drought in a half century will continue to plague most of the U.S. Midwest crop region for at least the next 10 days, with only occasional showers providing some relief mainly in the east, an agricultural meteorologist said on Thursday.

Reuters

19 July, 2012

America's top two corn and soybean producing states, Iowa and Illinois, are now in the center of the drought as the dryness spreads to the northwest to leech what little moisture remains in already parched soils.

"It looks a little wetter today for Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, but the west is still dry with above-normal temperatures," said Jason Nicholls, meteorologist for AccuWeather.

Rain for the next 10 days will run the gamut from just 40 to 75 percent of normal, with the greatest stress in the western Midwest crop states such as top producer Iowa.

"It got up to 102 to 103 degrees Fahrenheit in Iowa yesterday with no rain, and will be in the 90s today with no rain," Nicholls said.

Rainfall overnight Wednesday left up to 1.5 inches in Chicago and an inch in Rockford, Illinois. "Only isolated rains, no drought buster," he stressed. In addition to rain in northeastern Illinois, showers fell in southern Wisconsin, Indiana and southwestern Michigan.

"It will be cooler on Friday but the heat will be back for the weekend into early next week. The 11- to 15-day forecast shows the ridge moving west over the Rockies so that may help cut back on the heat, but there is still no significant rain in sight," he said.

An atmospheric high pressure ridge has entrenched itself over the heart of the U.S. corn and soybean producing states, preventing moisture from moving into the crop belt, leading to a buildup of heat, causing crop losses and spawning record-high corn and soy prices.

Commodity Weather Group (CWG) on Thursday predicted the heat would last longer next week than had earlier been forecast.

More than half of the Midwest was severely dry.

"The most concern is in west central Indiana, much of Illinois, far northern Missouri, most of Iowa, southwest Minnesota, southern South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas," said CWG meteorologist Joel Widenor.

Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) corn has soared nearly 50 percent in just six weeks to a record high $8.08-1/2 per bushel on Thursday, besting the previous record of $7.99-3/4 set 13 months ago.

CBOT soybeans notched record highs for two days in a row reaching a peak of $17.23 per bushel on Thursday, above the previous record of $16.85-1/2 hit the previous day and up 30 percent since early June.

As the drought, rated the worst since 1956, expands to the northern and western Midwest, areas that had previously been spared, analysts were slashing corn yield estimates by the hour. Some were also starting to cut their forecasts on the number of acres that will be harvested as farmers opt to plow under some of their parched fields to claim insurance.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), in its weekly crop progress report issued on Monday, said that just 31 percent of the corn crop was in good to excellent shape, down from 40 percent a week earlier and below analysts' average estimate of 35 percent.

Soybean conditions fell to 34 percent from 40 percent in the good-to- excellent category, likewise below estimates for 35 percent.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in a report on Monday that, based on the Palmer Drought Index, 55 percent of the contiguous United States was under moderate to extreme drought in June. That is the largest land area in the United States to be affected by a drought since December 1956.