By Mark Dunphy - Sun May 15, 1:24 pm
A round up of weather and earth science-related news from around the world.
IRELAND/USA: A County Cork man has been rescued by helicopter from near the summit of North America?s tallest mountain, Mount McKinley in Alaska 40-year old, Ballinhassig native Jeremiah O?Sullivan was airlifted at 19.500 feet, less than 900ft from the summit.? Mr. O?Sullivan suffered frostbite and a broken leg.? One member of his climbing party, a native of Switzerland, died from unknown causes.? The death was the first on Mount McKinley this year. The rescue tied the highest-ever by a helicopter in the United States or Canada.
JAPAN: A worker at Japan?s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant died on Saturday, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said. The cause of the worker?s death was unknown.? Three workers at the complex have so far died since a massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan in March.
INDONESIA: A moderate 5.7 magnitude earthquake struck Papua in the east of the country today. The quake hit at 13:47 p.m. ((6.47AM GMT), 110 km Southwest of the city of Aberpura. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. A 5.2-magnitude earthquake struck beneath the sea between Australia?s Christmas Island and the Indonesian island of Java yesterday, Saturday. Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a seismically active region. http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=221508
SPACE: Over the coming weeks the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter will be visible in the morning sky, according to Astronomy Ireland.? All four planets will be visible just before sunrise, close to the horizon in the eastern sky.? However make sure you get to see this over the next few days as Mercury will disappear soon.
NEW ZEALAND: Forecasters are predicting severe weather for much of the country over the coming days. MetService says a fast front is moving across the South Island this evening, and should cross to the North Island by tomorrow morning. Heavy snow is likely to be above 400 metres tonight on the South Island while strong winds and thunderstorms are forecast for the whole country.? MetService says the winds have the potential to damage trees, power lines and insecure structures.
TAIWAN: The rare tornado that struck the Taiwanese capital, Taipei lasted just a few minutes according to the country?s Central Weather Bureau (CWB).? The Bureau said the tornado was most likely triggered by an active convection current accompanied by a frontal system. The CWB said it had received reports of similar events in Taitung and Tainan counties in southern Taiwan during the past three years.? Read Irish Weather Online story
USA: Global Weather Oscillations Inc. (GWO), a climate cycle forecast company, is claiming to have accurately forecast this year?s historical Mississippi River flood, and predicts the next great Mississippi River flood to be in the year 2035. It added that climate cycles often occur in tandem and the area should be on alert for another possible flood in 2015.?? Chief climate forecaster and CEO David Dilley in Ocala Florida, says GWO?s proprietary climate forecasting model tracked multiple climate cycles which are related to the great floods of 1927, 1951, 1973 and 1993, and then accurately predicted for this year?s great flood. More
SWITZERLAND/BELGIUM: A Swissbuilt solar energy plane made the world?s first international flight powered by the sun on Friay. The Solar Impulse took off from an airfield at Payerne in western Switzerland in the morning and landed 370 miles away at Brussels airport after a 13-hour flight.
BANGLADESH: Farmers in parts of Bangladesh?s southeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) face a seed crisis that is undermining the food security of thousands, the World Food Programme (WFP) says.? Seed prices in Sajek Union ? about US$11 per kilo ? have increased more than five times since 2006, while interest rates are up to 100 percent.? The seed crisis started when the region was infested by a rat population that bred four times faster than normal during the bamboo flowering season from 2007 to 2008.? The rodents consumed all the grains and cash crops from the fields and in storage, forcing people to eat seeds they would normally save for cultivation.
SPACE: NASA will hold a news briefing on Tuesday, May 17, on the agency?s next Earth-observing satellite mission, Aquarius/SAC-D, scheduled to launch on June 9. Panelists will discuss the international spacecraft mission, a collaboration between NASA and Argentina?s space agency, Comisi?n Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), with participation by Brazil, Canada, France and Italy. CONAE provided the SAC-D spacecraft.? The mission?s primary instrument, NASA?s Aquarius, will make the agency?s first space-based global measurements of the salinity of the ocean surface. Salinity, a key missing variable in satellite observations of Earth, links ocean circulation, the global balance of freshwater and climate.
CHILE: There have been violent clashes in Chile between the police and environmentalists opposed to plans to build five new dams in Patagonia.? Regulators have given the go-ahead for the project, aimed at providing hydro-electric power, but critics say it will destroy swathes of land and threaten endangered species.
USA: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Service said today it was authorizing the states of Washington and Oregon to lethally remove specific California sea lions that congregate 140 miles from the Pacific Ocean just below the Columbia River?s Bonneville Dam to eat thousands of adult salmon and steelhead swimming upriver to spawn. Some of the salmon and steelhead are listed as threatened or endangered.? ?This is not an easy decision for our agency to make, but a thorough analysis shows that a small number of California sea lions preying on salmon and steelhead are having a significant effect on the ability of the fish stocks to recover,? said William W. Stelle Jr., Northwest regional administrator for NOAA?s Fisheries Service.
SWITZERLAND: A proposed Global Framework for Climate Services designed to help countries ? especially the most vulnerable ? cope with climate variability and climate change is one of the priorities which will be discussed at the Sixteenth World Meteorological Congress in Geneva tomorrow, Monday. Other key discussion items include: strengthening the WMO?s disaster risk reduction program in the context of increased likelihood and impact of extreme weather, climate and water-related hazards and events in a warming world with a growing population; and reinforcing the aeronautical meteorology programme in view of its importance to air traffic and the need for quality assurance of these services.
IRELAND: National Dawn Chorus Day, BirdWatch Ireland?s most popular annual event, took place in venues across the country. Wildlife enthusiasts set their alarm clocks a little earlier than usual to go out to enjoy a morning of beautiful birdsong. BirdWatch Ireland branches throughout the country hosted a range of dawn chorus walks and other birdsong-themed events.
CANADA: Newfoundland?s once prosperous sealing industry is facing another disastrous season due to low ice levels, the high price of fuel and the low price for furs.? Fewer than 50 have taken part in seal hunts this year compared to the normal 200-300.?? As of May 10, about 38,000 seals had been landed of the 450,000 quota.
MARINE RESEARCH: Scientists have discovered that marine diatoms, tiny phytoplankton abundant in the sea, have an animal-like urea cycle, and that this cycle enables the diatoms to efficiently use carbon and nitrogen from their environment. The researchers, from the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) and other institutions, published their findings in this week?s issue of the journal Nature. The team, led by lead author Andrew Allen from JCVI and co-author Chris Bowler, Institute of Biology, Ecole Normale Sup?rieure, Paris, believes that the cycle could be a reason for the domination of diatoms in marine environments, especially after upwelling events?the upward movement of nutrient rich waters from the deep ocean to the surface. In response to ocean upwelling, diatoms are able to quickly recover from prolonged periods of nutrient deprivation and rapidly proliferate.
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