By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent; Editing by Peter CooneyThu Jan 6, 2011 4:17pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Bacteria ate nearly all the potentially climate-warming methane that spewed from BP’s broken wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico last year, scientists reported on Thursday. Nearly 200,000 tons of methane — more than any other single hydrocarbon emitted […]
By David DeFranza, Washington, DCon January 6, 2011 Between 2005 and 2006, author Fen Montaigne traveled to Antarctica with Fraser to observe the life cycle of the penguins. “This colony was once much larger,” Montaigne says, “but in recent years all the Adélie colonies in the northwestern Antarctic Peninsula have been in steep decline as […]
By John Platt Jan 6, 2011 11:20 AM Six Australian birds that have not been seen in decades have been declared extinct by a team of scientists assessing the health of the country’s bird species. In most cases they could have been saved, says team leader Stephen Garnett, professor of tropical knowledge at Charles Darwin […]
By HENRY BREAN, LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNALJanuary 6, 2011 | 12:00 a.m. A flood that destroyed homes near Mesquite last month also delivered a welcome boost to Lake Mead. High flows on the Virgin River and its tributaries raised the level of the reservoir by about a foot and a half, according to rough projections from […]
By Roland Buerk, BBC News, Tokyo 5 January 2011 A tuna has sold at auction for a record 32.49m yen in Tokyo, nearly $400,000 (£257,320). The fish was a blue fin, a variety prized for making the finest sushi. It was bought by a joint Japanese and Chinese bid. The first auction in January at […]
The first decade of the 2000s, or the years 2001–2010, was warmer than the preceding decades in the whole of Finland, even though 2010 was colder than the long-time average. According to the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s statistics, the first decade of the 2000s (2001–2010) was the warmest decade in the history of Finland’s temperature measurements, […]
By Nick Sundt11/23/2010 The Amazon region is experiencing the third extreme drought in a dozen years — and it may turn out to be the worst on record. The droughts coupled with recent research findings, suggest that rising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will rapidly increase the frequency and severity of droughts in the region. […]
By Hasan Mansoor (AFP)Dec 15, 2010 KHAIRPUR NATHANSHAH, Pakistan — Hajani Chandio broke down in tears when she came home after three months in a refugee camp following the catastrophic floods that ravaged Pakistan earlier this year. “My house looked like a huge rubbish dump. It was littered with rubbish and the smell was unbearable. […]
CBC NewsThursday, January 6, 2011 An explosion has rocked the Horizon oilsands site near Fort McKay in northern Alberta, injuring three employees, officials with Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., which owns the site, confirmed. The explosion occurred around 3:30 p.m. MT Thursday. A contractor at the site said the blast shot flames and smoke hundreds of […]
AAPJanuary 7, 2011 – 11:14AM Towns in northeastern NSW are bracing for major flooding on the weekend, with more heavy downpours forecast for the already sodden region. Northern rivers bulging from weeks of persistent rain are expected to start bursting their banks from Sunday as rain sweeps the region. The State Emergency Service (SES) warns […]
