Desdemona Despair

There have been significant changes in the water mass characteristics of the Beaufort Sea which may impact species distribution and primary production.

The freshwater and heat content of the Beaufort gyre has significantly increased relative to the 1970s. The temperature increase has been related to a twofold increase in the temperature of the Atlantic water layer. This warmer Atlantic water enters the Arctic via the Fram Strait, and has contributed to the net warming of Arctic waters. The freshening of the Beaufort gyre is related to input from both Pacific waters and Arctic Ocean surface waters.

Melting sea ice has contributed to the increasing freshwater content of the Arctic Ocean surface layer.

Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat Science Advisory Report 2010/030, 2010 Canadian Marine Ecosystem Status and Trends Report [pdf], July 2010

By Nasir Jaffry (AFP)
29 October 2010

ISLAMABAD — International aid agency Oxfam warned Friday that three months into Pakistan's unprecedented flood crisis funds were drying up, putting millions at risk with swathes of farmland still under water.

The stark warning came as the United Nations refugee agency said thousands of people displaced by the floods were likely to spend the winter in camps.

The UN issued a record two-billion-dollar appeal for funds to cope with Pakistan's worst humanitarian disaster, which ravaged an area roughly the size of England and affected 21 million people.

The World Bank and Asian Development Bank have estimated the damages at 9.7 billion dollars -- almost twice those of Pakistan's 2005 earthquake which killed more than 73,000 people.

"Funds for the UN flood appeal are drying up and threatening the aid and reconstruction effort," Oxfam said in a statement marking the third month since heavy monsoon rains began falling in northwestern Pakistan.

"The crisis is far from over," said Oxfam’s director in Pakistan, Neva Khan.

The United Nations issued the funding appeal on September 17 in New York. Officials say around 35 percent of the appeal has been funded.

"Cases of disease are increasing and large areas remain under water in southern Sindh province," said Oxfam. "As winter approaches, seven million people are still without adequate shelter."

UN officials say 10 million people are in need of immediate food assistance and health authorities have reported scores of confirmed cases of cholera.

"The funding shortfall is so serious that existing regular food rations to 3.5 million people could be in jeopardy," Oxfam said. …

Stark warning three months into Pakistan flood crisis

ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 2010) — In a research paper published online October 27 in the Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans, a publication of the American Geological Union (AGU), scientists reported the southern Baffin Bay off West Greenland has continued warming since wintertime ocean temperatures were last effectively measured there in the early 2000s.

Temperatures in the study were collected by narwhals, medium-sized toothed Arctic whales, during NOAA-sponsored missions in 2006 and 2007. The animals were tagged with sensors that recorded ocean depths and temperatures during feeding dives from the surface pack ice to the seafloor, going as deep as 1,773 meters, or more than a mile.

Scientists have had limited opportunities to measure ocean temperatures in Baffin Bay during winter months because of dense ice and harsh conditions. Cost is also a factor -- it requires millions of dollars to mount a conventional expedition using an ice-breaking vessel and other specialized equipment and people. As a result, for the past decade, researchers used climatology data consisting of long-term historical average observations rather than direct ocean temperature measurements for winter temperatures in the area.

The published study reported that highest winter ocean temperature measurements in 2006 and 2007 from both narwhals and additional sensors deployed using helicopters ranged between 4 and 4.6 degrees Celsius (39.2 and 40.3 degrees Fahrenheit). The study also found that temperatures were on average nearly a degree Celsius warmer than climatology data. Whale-collected temperatures also demonstrated the thickness of the winter surface isothermal layer, a layer of constant temperature, to be 50 to 80 meters less than that reported in the climatology data.

"Narwhals proved to be highly efficient and cost-effective 'biological oceanographers,' providing wintertime data to fill gaps in our understanding of this important ocean area," said Kristin Laidre from the Polar Science Center in the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory. "Their natural behavior makes them ideal for obtaining ocean temperatures during repetitive deep vertical dives. This mission was a 'proof-of-concept' that narwhal-obtained data can be used to make large-scale hydrographic surveys in Baffin Bay and to extend the coverage of a historical database into the poorly sampled winter season." …

Tagged narwhals track warming near Greenland

By DINA FINE MARON of ClimateWire
October 26, 2010

FOURMILE CANYON, Colo. -- On a hot afternoon in late September, Allen Owen looked into the distance, hoping for rain.

He crawled along unmarked dirt roads in his white Dodge Ram four-wheel drive truck, passing handwritten signs saying, "Thank you firefighters!" and "Be hopeful!" surveying the mounds of charred metal and debris that had been homes just three weeks earlier.

There was other damage he couldn't see. The state's emergency wildfire fund was now down to zero -- drained to extinguish the blazes that cut through more than 6,000 acres of land that month. As for the local and federal firefighting forces that brought the fire under control after eight days, they were exhausted.

Though the fire had been contained, Owen, the Boulder District forester for the Colorado State Forest Service, was still worried. Fire had dried out the trees and brush that had not succumbed to the blazes, and the resulting risk of future fire on the Front Range was high.

Weeks earlier, fierce winds had apparently helped embers from a backyard fire pit take flight, and the resulting megafire had destroyed more than 160 homes in an area where fancy suburban houses are nestled in woodland settings several miles west of Boulder.

Land managers call places like this "the wildland-urban interface," or WUI, for short. As Western forests grow hotter and drier, WUI areas have become an increasingly risky and expensive proposition for nearly everyone involved.

This most recent fire cost roughly $10 million to fight and caused an estimated $217 million in property damage, making it the most expensive wildfire in Colorado history.

Fires like this put questions about climate change into stark relief: With climate models predicting snowpack melts earlier, giving way to future hotter, drier summers, there will likely be increased fire risk. Meanwhile, homes that are continuing to sprout up within wildlands are not helping the situation.

Roughly 20 percent of Coloradans -- 1 million people -- have chosen to live close to nature, surrounded by that wilderness high-risk space. But the same trees that give homeowners their seclusion also could incinerate their property. …

But in Colorado, at least, the people who chose to live in homes abutting wilderness are not planning on surrendering the territory. In fact, the state's population is projected to blossom in the next 30 years -- with much of the growth expected to occur in those woodsy areas, according to the Colorado Statewide Forest Resource Assessment. …

In Colorado, Freedom to Burn -- 'It Ain't Our Fire'

By David Hammer, The Times-Picayune
Thursday, October 28, 2010, 12:30 PM

National Oil Spill Commission investigators have found that the Halliburton cement used to seal the bottom of BP's wild Gulf well in April was unstable and was used despite multiple failed tests in the weeks leading up to the massive well blowout.

What's more, the commission investigators found Halliburton knew about the problems and used the cement mixture anyway.

The finding from commission chief counsel Fred Bartlit Jr. and his investigative team could be among the most significant to date as several investigations try to establish clear causes for the disaster, which killed 11 rig workers and fouled the Gulf with nearly 5 million barrels of oil.

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who has been seeking subpoena power for the Oil Spill Commission, saw it as a watershed finding.

"The fact that BP and Halliburton knew this cement job could fail only solidifies their liability and responsibility for this disaster," Markey said. "This is like building a car when you know the brakes could fail, but you sell the cars anyway."

Still, the cement is just one of several possible failure points that may not have caused the blowout in and of themselves, but appear to have worked in combination to doom the Deepwater Horizon oil rig April 20.

Other questions have emerged from other investigations of the incident, and those remain on the table: about BP's decisions to use potentially riskier designs for lining the well and to skip important steps in sealing the well closed, as well as BP's alleged misinterpretation of the results of a final test of pressure in the well hole. The Oil Spill Commission may present more conclusions about those issues at a presentation scheduled for Nov. 8 in Washington.

But in a letter to commissioners Thursday, Bartlit focused only on the question of the cement that was supposed to have sealed the well's metal linings to the drilled-out bedrock. Bartlit wrote that the foam cement's instability "may have contributed to the blowout."

A commission staffer, who was authorized to speak for the commission in a news briefing but was not permitted to give his name, went a little further.

"Had the cement done its job, the hydrocarbons would have been isolated and there should not have been a blowout," he said. …

Oil Spill Commission finds Halliburton’s cement was unstable, failed multiple tests before Deepwater Horizon disaster

Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC)
26 Oct 2010

Three months after floods began in Pakistan the DEC is extremely concerned that 99 cases of cholera from across the flood-affected areas of the country have now been publically confirmed for the first time.

The World Health Organisation has announced today (26.10.10) that it was informed by the Pakistan Ministry of Health on 12 October that laboratory tests had shown there were people affected by the disease in Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.

Severe diarrhoea has for some time been the most common health problem facing the more than 20 million people affected by the flooding. A lack of clean drinking water and unsanitary conditions enable cholera and other diarrhoeal diseases to spread extremely rapidly.

Disasters Emergency Committee Chief Executive Brendan Gormley said:

"The scale and duration of the crisis in Pakistan is staggering. The human impact has in many cases been appalling and aid workers have struggled to support all those affected.

"Cholera is endemic in Pakistan but nonetheless the confirmation of these outbreaks across the country is extremely worrying given the continuing vulnerability of so many flood survivors. …

Cholera hits Pakistan 3 months after floods start

By Staff Writers
Nagoya, Japan (UPI) Oct 26, 2010

China's soaring demand for luxury wood furniture is fueling the destruction of Madagascar's forests, says a new report launched Tuesday at the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Nagoya, Japan.

The report from Global Witness and the Environmental Investigation Agency shows that about 98 percent of the Madagascar wood -- mostly ebony, rosewood and pallisander -- is destined for the Chinese luxury furniture market.

"In China, Malagasy rosewood beds sell for a million dollars apiece, yet less than 1 percent of the profits remain with local people," EIA Executive Director Alexander von Bismarck said in a release. He noted that the group's investigations found that Chinese traders were often aware that the wood they purchased was endangered and not legally cut. …

While Madagascar earlier this year reinstated a ban on the export of all precious woods, the report shows that further shipments of wood have left Madagascar's ports since then and logging continues.

An article in The New York Times also reported environmental groups saying the illicit trade has increased at least 25 fold in the last year, with the value of the timber totaling at least $167 million during that period.

The illegal trade has been facilitated by the weak law enforcement of the country's transitional government as well as complicity by some of the country's state authorities, the report states.

EIA and Global Witness called on China to take immediate action to halt imports of wood from Madagascar and adopt stricter policies for the country's traders and companies manufacturing products from the wood. …

Madagascar's illicit wood trade to China

By David Fogarty; editing by Ron Popeski
Wed Oct 27, 2010 7:00am EDT

NAGOYA, Japan (Reuters) - About a fifth of the world's vertebrates are threatened with extinction, a major review has found, highlighting the plight of nature that is the focus of global environment talks underway in Japan.

The study by more than 170 scientists across the globe used data for 25,000 species from the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of threatened species and examined the status of the world's mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fishes.

The authors found, on average, 50 species of mammals, birds and amphibians move closer to extinction each year because of expansion of farms and plantations, logging and over-hunting. Another factor was competition from other species, particularly those introduced from other areas.

But the study, published in the journal Science, also found that conservation efforts had curbed the overall rate of loss. …

"This is clear evidence for why we absolutely must emerge from Nagoya with a strategic plan of action to direct our efforts for biodiversity in the coming decade," said Julia Marton-Lefevre, director-general of IUCN, which groups governments, scientists and conservation groups.

The study found Southeast Asia suffered the most dramatic recent losses largely because of rapid expansion of palm oil plantations and rice crops and logging.

A separate study published in Science said the world's biological diversity would continue to decline this century, but the rate could be slowed with the right policy choices. …

Co-leader of the study, Paul Leadley of the University Paris-Sud, France, said doing nothing would lead to catastrophic biodiversity loss. …

Fifth of vertebrates face extinction: study

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
27 Oct 2010

Butterflies and bees are declining because of the loss of wild flowers in the countryside, according to a major Government report.

A team of researcher from the Centre for Hydrology and Ecology (CEH) monitored 500 plots of ‘semiwild’ land across the UK between 1990 and 2007 on the edge of farms, alongside hedgerows or streams and even at the bottom of people’s gardens.

Over 17 years the number of different plants on each plot reduced significantly, with at least one species lost in every patch of ground.

Most of the plants lost were wild flowers like poppies, willow herb and forget-me-nots.

These ‘good weeds’ not only make the countryside look pretty but are essential to sustaining the population of nectar-feeding insects.

Butterflies and bees need variety in their diets and rely on different plants to provide this diversity. Also, wild flowers provide nectar when agricultural plants have been harvested.

Lindsay Maskell, a vegetation scientist at CEH, blamed ‘bad weeds’ like nettles, thistles and ivy for crowding out the wild flowers.

She explained that run-off from farms and nitrogen from factories have fertilised the soil, helping coarse rough grass to grow but hindering more delicate plants like speedwell.

She said the decline in wild flowers was affecting insects and could eventually reduce the harvest of crops like strawberries and apples that rely on pollinators.

“The habitat pollinating insects rely on is disappearing and becoming in a worse condition,” she said. “It is just one of a number of factors such as disease affecting insects like bees. If there is insufficient land to maintain the pollinators it could affect agriculture.” …

Loss of wildflowers in countryside

By Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro, www.guardian.co.uk
Tuesday 26 October 2010 04.25 BST

One of the most important tributaries of the Amazon river has fallen to its lowest level in over a century, following a fierce drought that has isolated tens of thousands of rainforest inhabitants and raised concerns about the possible impact of climate change on the region.

The drought currently affecting swaths of north and west Amazonia has been described as the one of the worst in the last 40 years, with the Rio Negro or Black river, which flows into the world-famous Rio Amazonas, reportedly hitting its lowest levels since records began in 1902 on Sunday.

In 24 hours the level of the Rio Negro near Manaus in Brazil dropped 6cm to 13.63 metres, a historic low.

The Solimoes and Amazonas rivers have also seen their waters plunge since early August, stranding village dwellers who rely on the Amazon's waterways for transport and food and marooning wooden boats on brown sand banks. …

"In my whole life I have never seen a drought like this one," 50-year-old river-dweller Manoel Alves Pereira told the local A Critica newspaper. …

Rafael Cruz, a Greenpeace activist in Manaus who has been monitoring the drought, said that while the rise and fall of the Amazon's rivers was a normal process, recent years had seen both extreme droughts and flooding become worryingly frequent. …

Drought brings Amazon tributary to lowest level in a century

A shortage of bears' traditional food near the Arctic Circle has forced the animals to eat human corpses, say locals

By Luke Harding in Moscow, www.guardian.co.uk
Tuesday 26 October 2010 15.32 BST

From a distance it resembled a rather large man in a fur coat, leaning tenderly over the grave of a loved one. But when the two women in the Russian village of Vezhnya Tchova came closer they realised there was a bear in the cemetery eating a body.

Russian bears have grown so desperate after a scorching summer they have started digging up and eating corpses in municipal cemetries, alarmed officials said today. Bears' traditional food – mushrooms, berries, and the odd frog – has disappeared, they added.

The Vezhnya Tchova incident took place on Saturday in the northern republic of Komi, near the Arctic Circle. The shocked women cried in panic, frightening the bear back into the woods, before they discovered a ghoulish scene with the clothes of the bear's already-dead victim chucked over adjacent tombstones, the Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomelets reported.

Local people said that bears had resorted to scavenging in towns and villages - rummaging through bins, stealing garden carrots and raiding tips. A young man had been mauled in the centre of Syktyvkar, Komi's capital. "They are really hungry this year. It's a big problem. Many of them are not going to survive," said Simion Razmislov, the vice-president of Komi's hunting and fishing society.

World Wildlife Fund Russia said there had been a similar case two years ago in the town of Kandalaksha, in the northern Karelia republic. "You have to remember that bears are natural scavengers. In the US and Canada you can't leave any food in tents in national parks," said Masha Vorontsova of WWF Russia.

"In Karelia one bear learned how to do it [open a coffin]. He then taught the others," she added, suggesting: "They are pretty quick learners." …

Russian bears treat graveyards as 'giant refrigerators'

By Tim Wheeler
October 20, 2010

The last house standing on Holland Island, an eroding sliver of land in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, has been claimed by the water.

The two-story frame structure, abandoned and badly damaged by Tropical Storm Isabel in 2003, has been teetering on the brink of collapse for some time.  High winds over the weekend apparently did it in.  The picture here was taken by Shawn Ridgley, an educator at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Karen Noonan Center in southern Dorchester County.

Tip of the Sun visor to former colleague Tom Pelton, now with the Bay Foundation, who first reported this on the foundation's Bay Daily blog.

Once occupied by 2-300 people and more than 60 homes, the island had been eaten away so badly by storms and the bay's rising sea level that it was abandoned in the early 20th century.  It was used as a hunting preserve and a campsite by countless kayakers and boaters in ensuing decades.  An Eastern Shore minister and former waterman bought the island in the 1990s, and set up a foundation intent on preserving it - but ultimately couldn't muster enough resources or help.

For more on this vanishing slice of bay geography and history, go here and here.

Bay claims last house on disappearing island

By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 25, 2010

ON HOLLAND ISLAND, MD. The story was strange enough to be a child's fable: In an isolated section of the Chesapeake Bay, there was a two-story Victorian house that seemed to emerge directly from the water.

And, scurrying around it, there was a retiree, trying to keep the house from falling in.

Finally, the man gave up. And last week, the house did, too. Raked by a storm, it cracked at the spine and collapsed into a one-story wreck.

The tale of the house and the man illustrates the Chesapeake's problem with rising oceans and sinking land. It has already erased life on most of the bay's islands and now is threatening to erase the islands themselves.

The century-old house was the last structure left on Holland Island, an abandoned watermen's community. Waves had eroded so much land that, at high tide, the house seemed to sit directly on the waves. …

Sea levels in the Chesapeake, scientists say, are rising faster than they are in some other coastal regions of the United States.

The Earth's oceans are rising, scientists say, because polar ice is melting, and because warmer water expands. They have noticed the effect of climate change more in the past couple of decades, government scientists say. …

It definitely won't, however, be the end of the Chesapeake's erosion problems. A few miles away, a watermen's community on Smith Island is just a few inches above the waves. And Maryland is contemplating how to, in one official's words, "facilitate abandonment and retreat" when faster-rising waters eventually threaten towns on the Eastern Shore's mainland. …

Losing battle against the bay

By Sarah Walters | News reporter
Published: Sunday, October 17, 2010

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, visited the University Saturday to talk about the scientific impacts of climate change on the Earth's species and the importance of protecting the planet for future generations.

Hansen, a Columbia University professor of earth and environmental sciences, used photographs of his grandchildren as a means of portraying the importance of preserving the planet for future generations, and said that the government has been incompetent in handling environmental problems, citing U.S. President Barack Obama's lack of action during the Gulf oil spill and not urging for alternative energy sources.

University students, Eugene citizens and youth from around the Eugene area were in attendance to listen to Hansen talk about global warming and get their own questions answered.

So many people were in attendance at the University's law school that an overflow room was necessary. …

Humans' dependency on fossil fuels is changing the planet's climate.

"The future climate is going to be determined by humans, not by natural causes," Hansen said. …

Global warming will be a problem for youth, NASA climatologist warns

ScienceDaily (Oct. 26, 2010) — As the ice-capped Arctic Ocean warms, ship traffic will increase at the top of the world. And if the sea ice continues to decline, a new route connecting international trading partners may emerge -- but not without significant repercussions to climate, according to a U.S. and Canadian research team that includes a University of Delaware scientist.

Growing Arctic ship traffic will bring with it air pollution that has the potential to accelerate climate change in the world's northern reaches. And it's more than a greenhouse gas problem -- engine exhaust particles could increase warming by some 17-78 percent, the researchers say.

James J. Corbett, professor of marine science and policy at UD, is a lead author of the first geospatial approach to evaluating the potential impacts of shipping on Arctic climate. The study, "Arctic Shipping Emissions Inventories and Future Scenarios," is published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Corbett's coauthors include D. A. Luck, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.; James J. Winebrake, of the Rochester Institute of Technology; Susie Harder of Transport Canada in Vancouver, British Columbia; Jordan A. Silberman of GIS Consulting in Unionville, Pa.; and Maya Gold of the Canadian Coast Guard in Ottawa, Ontario.

"One of the most potent 'short-lived climate forcers' in diesel emissions is black carbon, or soot," says Corbett, who is on the faculty of UD's College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. "Ships operating in or near the Arctic use advanced diesel engines that release black carbon into one of the most sensitive regions for climate change." …

As Arctic warms, increased shipping likely to accelerate climate change

Pre-fishery biomass (in 1000s of tonnes) of Pacific herring in three subregions of the North Coast and Hecate Strait ecozone. The top left panel is for the Central Coast, the top right panel for Haida Gwaii, and the lower panel for the Prince Rupert District. The horizontal line represents the minimum spawning stock biomass. 2010 Canadian Marine Ecosystem Status and Trends Report

Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat Science Advisory Report 2010/030, 2010 Canadian Marine Ecosystem Status and Trends Report [pdf], July 2010

By Lee-Maree Gallo
October 25, 2010 - 11:36AM

Increased snowfall in the Antarctic has been linked to drought in south-western Australia.

Researchers, including Australian Antarctic Division principal research scientist Tas van Ommen, have been analysing ice cores in the Antarctic and revealed snowfall variability may be linked to climate in the Southern Ocean and the South-West.

Dr van Ommen said the ice cores, drilled at Law Dome in the Antarctic, provided a record of annual variations in snowfall and provided a record stretching more than 750 years back.

He said during the past 30 years the cores showed there had been an increase in snowfall in the area.

"This inversely correlates to the occurrence of a significantly lower rainfall and subsequent drought that has been experienced in the south-west of Australia," Dr van Ommen said.

"So when there's extra moisture at Law Dome, the same circulation pattern is starving Western Australia of moisture."

Dr Ommen said the events coincided with human induced changes in the atmosphere which may be contributing to global warming.

"The snowfall increase we see in the last 30 years lies well outside the natural range recorded over the past 750 years," Dr van Ommen said. …

Antarctic snowfall linked to south-western drought via The Oil Drum

MSH/ZHD/HRF
Sun Oct 24, 2010 6:29AM

More than 7 millions are still without shelter in Pakistan as water-borne diseases and nutrition are still a grave concern for millions of the country's flood victims after the July-August flooding, a Press TV correspondent said in a report on Sunday.

This is while the United Nations has launched several appeals to fund aid efforts aimed at helping the victims of the worst natural disaster in Pakistan's history.

According to the report, millions of Pakistani flood victims are leading miserable lives in several districts in southern Sindh Province.

Some 2,000 people have lost their lives and 21 million others have been affected by the weeks-long floods that engulfed large regions of the South Asian country.

Winter, cold and hunger are also threats looming over millions of people still without basic necessities.

14 million Pakistanis in dire need of aid

By Haider Ali Hussein Mullick
Best Defense chief Pakistan correspondent
Monday, October 25, 2010 - 10:53 AM

I just got back from my third trip to Pakistan this year, where I examined the scope and scale of its counterinsurgency strategy and al Qaeda's response.

The bottom line is that al Qaeda's big plans for world dominance have failed, but its ability to keep the United States and allies on high alert is increasing. There are two primary reasons for this paradoxical situation: First, al Qaeda's very successful nine-year 'train the trainer' program, which multiplies its strength without expanding its numbers. Second, the August floods that devastated Pakistan are a game changer, a godsend for al Qaeda, diverting 30,000 Pakistani counterinsurgents and key enablers (helicopters, engineers, medics, etc.) away from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to flood relief and reconstruction activities. To overstretch armies, smart insurgents always pray for the opening of multiple fronts. The damage from the floods couldn't be worse -- 1/5th of Pakistan (size of New England) inundated, seven million people lost their homes, and $30 billion in total damages. The timing was equally terrible: The Pakistani surge was finally working, and troops were holding Swat and South Waziristan since 2009.

Today, the nuclear-armed Pakistani army is under great stress, and reluctant to go into North Waziristan, home to al Qaeda, the Haqqani network, and the Pakistani Taliban. The army is the police, National Guard, relief organization, reconstruction agency, and governing body in critical areas in the north and south, while the weak civilian government is perceived to be corrupt, inept, and aloof as it wrestles with the Supreme Court. Half of 180 million Pakistanis are under the age of 25 and facing high prices, unemployment and little opportunity. They watch the rich pay virtually no taxes and they find solace in U.S. and India bashing, and blissful ignorance about their actual enemies, which are the al Qaeda syndicate, corruption and poverty. Al Qaeda couldn't ask for a better home.

What's worse is that we don't have any good options in Pakistan, and President Barack Obama has made that clear again and again. …

In Pakistan, corruption and floods are keeping al Qaeda fat and happy

Caption by William L. Stefanov, NASA-JSC
October 25, 2010

The Merowe Dam is located near the 4th cataract of the Nile River, in the Nubian Desert of the Republic of the Sudan (also known as Sudan). The dam was built to generate hydroelectric power—electricity intended to further industrial and agricultural development of the country. This astronaut photograph illustrates the current extent of the reservoir, which has been filling behind the dam since the final spill gate was closed in 2008. The Merowe Dam is located approximately 350 kilometer (215 miles) to the northwest of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. The nearest settlement downstream of the dam is Karima.

Following Sudan’s independence from Egypt and the United Kingdom in 1956, allocation and control of Nile River water was divided between Egypt and Sudan by the Nile Waters Treaty signed in 1959. Today, other countries within the Nile basin—including Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda—are seeking more equitable allocation and utilization of the water and recently (2010) signed a new water use pact challenging the 1959 treaty.

Beyond the issues of water rights, several local tribes will be displaced by the planned 170 kilometer (105 mile) reservoir, and the flooded region contains significant but little-studied archeological sites. The Sudanese government has a resettlement program in place for the tribes, and a variety of international institutions have been conducting “salvage” or “rescue” archeological surveys since 1999. Such rescue surveys seek to preserve as much information as possible from sites that will be destroyed or otherwise made inaccessible (in this case by flooding).

Merowe Dam, Nile River, Republic of the Sudan

By Natalia Real
Friday, October 22, 2010, 14:10 (GMT + 9)

The Australian Antarctic Division has conducted study on ocean acidification and found that increased levels of carbon dioxide kill krill embryos.

Krill is one of the main types of plankton, itself the basic food source of nearly all animals in the ocean.

Krill were exposed to different levels of carbon dioxide to determine the potential effect of acidification on the early development of the species. Krill biologist Dr So Kawaguchi informed that, when exposed to higher levels of carbon dioxide, most of the embryos did not develop and none of them hatched properly.

“We used the Antarctic Division’s krill aquarium to set up three sea water tanks bubbled with the current (380 parts per million (ppm)), medium (1000ppm) and high (2000ppm) levels of carbon dioxide,” Kawaguchi said.

“There was no change detected in the development of the krill embryos in the tanks with the current and medium levels, but in the tank with higher levels, none of the embryos survived to hatch,” she explained.

It has been determined that ocean acidification is not uniform in the water column: the greater the depth, the higher the levels of carbon dioxide.

The carbon dioxide levels deep in the Southern Ocean could grow as high as 1400 ppm by 2100, a time when atmospheric carbon dioxide is anticipated to more than double to 788 ppm.

“If carbon dioxide increases to these levels and the ocean becomes more acidified, it could have a huge impact on krill populations and therefore the entire Southern Ocean ecosystem. Krill spawn eggs at the surface which then sink to between 700 and 1000 m before the larvae hatch and swim back to the surface,” Kawaguchi told.

“Hence, vertically migrating animals like krill will experience one of the most drastic changes in the ocean and potentially face greater mortality,” she concluded. …

Further, a 20-year study found that krill in the Southern Ocean is declining at an alarming rate. Dr Graham Hosie, the scientist leading the project, is unable to explain the dive, ABC reports. …

Ocean acidification a lethal threat to krill via Ocean Acidification

By Bob Marshall, The Times-Picayune
Saturday, October 23, 2010, 7:22 PM    

A Coast Guard official said Saturday the orange substance floating in miles-wide areas of West Bay on the Mississippi River delta appears to be algae, not oil as reported Saturday morning by The Times-Picayune.

Lt. Cmdr. Chris O'Neil said a Coast Guard pollution investigator has collected samples near the mouth of Tiger Pass and, while those samples need to be tested in a lab, "based on his observation and what he sees in the sample jars, he believes that to be an algal bloom."

Last August large red algae blooms were confirmed on the Mississippi River delta as well as in Breton and Chandeleur sounds.

LSU researchers said such large blooms are not unusual along the Louisiana coast from spring through fall if the nutrient-rich water flowing into the Gulf from the Mississippi River becomes warm enough.

However, boat captains working in the BP oil spill response team who first reported the sightings as oil said Saturday they were not convinced by the Coast Guard's initial assessment.

"I've never seen algae that looked orange, that was sticky, smelled like oil and that stuck to the boat and had to be cleaned off with solvent," said one captain, who like the others wished to remain anonymous for fear of losing their BP contracts. "I'll wait for the lab reports. In fact, we're also sending some samples off."

Boat captains had said Friday they had become frustrated by a lack of response from the Coast Guard after a week of reporting the sightings. …

Coast Guard says substance found floating in Gulf is algae, not oil

The Nation of Pakistan
Published: October 24, 2010

NEW YORK – The United States is pressuring Pakistan to allow more CIA officers into the country to expand US secret operations aimed at eliminating militant havens near the Afghan border, a prominent American newspaper reported Saturday.

“The US asked Pakistan in recent weeks to allow additional Central Intelligence Agency officers and special operations military trainers to enter the country as part of Washington’s efforts to intensify pressure on militants,” The Wall Street Journal said, citing unnamed senior US officials.

The newspaper, however, said that Islamabad hasn’t yet approved the US demand. A senior Pakistani official said that relations with the CIA remain strong but Islamabad continues to oppose a large increase in the number of American personnel on the ground, according to The Journal.

The newspaper also added that the United States has recently increased the number of CIA officers in Pakistan. “The number of CIA personnel in Pakistan has grown substantially in recent years. The exact number is highly classified,” it said, adding that currently there are about 900 US military personnel in Pakistan, 600 of which are providing flood relief and 150 of which are assigned to the training mission.

US-led foreign forces have carried out a record number of airstrikes and drone attacks in Pakistan this year in violation of international law. …

CIA seeking wider role in Pakistan

Study near Gulf of Mexico spill site finds surprisingly high methane uptake by microbes

Contact: Steve Bradt, steve_bradt@harvard.edu, Harvard University
20 October 2010

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 20, 2010 -- Microbes living at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico may consume far more of the gaseous waste from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill than previously thought, according to research carried out within 100 miles of the spill site.

A paper on that research, conducted before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded six months ago today, will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal Deep-Sea Research II. It describes the anaerobic oxidation of methane, a key component of the Gulf oil spill, by microbes living in seafloor brine pools.

"Because of the ample oil and gas reserves under the Gulf of Mexico, slow seepage is a natural part of the ecosystem," says Peter R. Girguis, associate professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University. "Entire communities have arisen on the seafloor that depend on these seeps. Our analysis shows that within these communities, some microbes consume methane 10 to 100 times faster than we've previously realized."

Girguis is quick to note that methane is just part of what spilled from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon well for three months earlier this year, and that the rate at which methane spewed from the damaged well far exceeds the flow that microbes would ordinarily encounter in the Gulf.

Key to the work by Girguis, Harvard research scientist Scott D. Wankel, and their colleagues was the ability to use on-site mass spectrometry to obtain direct, accurate measurements of seafloor methane. It's been difficult to make such measurements because most tools don't work accurately 5,000 to 7,000 feet below the surface, where pressures can reach roughly 220 atmospheres.

Using this new technique, the scientists were able to ascertain methane concentrations in brine pools surrounding gas seeps at the bottom of the Gulf -- which were extremely high -- as well as in the water column above the pools. Combining this data with measurements of microbial activity, they were able to extrapolate just how quickly the microbes were consuming the methane.

"In fact, we observed oxidation of methane by these microbes at the highest rates ever recorded in seawater," Girguis says. …

Microbes may consume far more oil-spill waste than earlier thought

By Ker Than for National Geographic News
October 18, 2010

Around the world, surface winds are slowing down, a new study says. Strangely enough, the alleged culprits aren't new buildings but new trees.

The easing breezes—if also detected higher up—could affect movements of air pollution but may not necessarily give the wind power industry a case of the doldrums, experts say.

For the new study, published Sunday by the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists analyzed nearly 30 years' worth of wind speed data collected from more than 800 land-based weather stations, mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, where long-term wind-data collection has been most reliable.

The average annual surface wind speed in countries in mid-northern latitudes—including the United States, China, and Russia—had dropped by as much as 15 percent, from about 10.3 miles (17 kilometers) an hour to about 9 miles (14 kilometers) an hour, the study found.

Wind speeds in the Southern Hemisphere are probably slowing too, the team speculates. Winds in different parts of the world are coupled, so average wind speed can't decrease at one latitude but increase in another—a hypothesis perhaps underscored by Australian data also showing mysteriously slowing surface winds.

If wind speeds higher in the air are also slowing down, that could affect the spread of atmospheric pollutants or even the dispersal of windblown seeds, said study leader Robert Vautard, a researcher at the Climate and Environment Science Laboratory in France. "We are not saying it's a good or bad thing," he added. "We are just observing it and trying to explain it." …

But reforestation can explain only about 60 percent of the wind speed reductions, the study says. Changes in air circulation due to global warming may be responsible for the rest, but more studies are needed to be sure, according to Vautard.

"So far we only have pieces of the puzzle," he added. "We have not completely attributed the phenomenon." …

Winds Slowing Around the World, Study Suggests via Apocadocs

This graph shows bank failures by week in 2008, 2009 and 2010.
At this time last year, there were 106 bank failures - on the way to 140 total failures in 2009. This year there are 139 failures so far, and, at this pace, it looks like there will be around 175 total failures in 2010.

That would be the highest total since the 181 bank failures in 1992.
Bank failures peaked at 534 in 1989 during the S&L crisis.

And on total assets from the December Congressional Oversight Panel’s Troubled Asset Relief Program report:

[A]lthough the number of failed banks was significantly higher in the late 1980s than it is now, the aggregate assets of failed banks during the current crisis far outweighs those from the 1980s. At the high point in 1988 and 1989, 763 banks failed, with total assets of $309 billion. Compare this to 149 banks failing in 2008 and 2009, with total assets of $473 billion.

Note: This is in 2005 dollars and doesn't include the failures in 2010 (only estimates are available so far for 2010). However this does include the failure of WaMu in 2008 with $307 billion in assets that didn't impact the DIF. 

Number of Bank Failures: 2010 about to surpass 2009

By Patrick Hennessy and Rebecca Lefort
Published: 8:30PM BST 23 Oct 2010

Ministers are planning a massive sell-off of Britain's Government-owned forests as they seek to save billions of pounds to help cut the deficit, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, is expected to announce plans within days to dispose of about half of the 748,000 hectares of woodland overseen by the Forestry Commission by 2020.

The controversial decision will pave the way for a huge expansion in the number of Center Parcs-style holiday villages, golf courses, adventure sites and commercial logging operations throughout Britain as land is sold to private companies.

Legislation which currently governs the treatment of "ancient forests" such as the Forest of Dean and Sherwood Forest is likely to be changed giving private firms the right to cut down trees.

Laws governing Britain's forests were included in the Magna Carta of 1215, and some date back even earlier.

Conservation groups last night called on ministers to ensure that the public could still enjoy the landscape after the disposal, which will see some woodland areas given to community groups or charitable organisations.

However, large amounts of forests will be sold as the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) seeks to make massive budget savings as demanded in last week's Spending Review.

Whitehall sources said about a third of the land to be disposed of would be transferred to other ownership before the end of the period covered by the Spending Review, between 2011 and 2015, with the rest expected to go by 2020. …

Ministers plan huge sell-off of Britain's forests

Long-term records of sea surface temperature show a period of colder surface waters from the period 1945–1978, switching to a long period of warmer surface waters from 1978–2006. The zooplankton community composition and several fisheries time series (e.g. salmon marine survival and sablefish recruitment) are correlated with large-scale climate signals (i.e. El Niño Southern Oscillation events and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation). In addition, sea surface salinity shows a continuous pattern of freshening through the full period of records.

Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat Science Advisory Report 2010/030, 2010 Canadian Marine Ecosystem Status and Trends Report [pdf], July 2010

By Mark Kinver Science and environment reporter, BBC News
22 October 2010 Last updated at 05:53 ET

Future warming could have "profound implications" for the stability of freshwater ecosystems, a study warns.

Researchers said warmer water affected the distribution and size of plankton - tiny organisms that form the basis of food chains in aquatic systems.

The team warmed plankton-containing vessels by 4C (7F) - the temperature by which some of the world's rivers and lakes could warm over the next century.

The findings appear in the journal Global Change Biology.

"Our study provides almost the first direct experimental evidence that - in the short-term - if a [freshwater] ecosystem warms up, it has profound implications for the size structure of plankton communities," said lead author Gabriel Yvon-Durocher from Queen Mary, University of London.

"Essentially, what we observed within the phytoplankton (microscopic plants) community was that it switched from a system that was dominated by larger autotrophs (plants that photosynthesise) to a system that was dominated by smaller autotrophs with a lower standing biomass."

Dr Yvon-Durocher added that a greater abundance, but lower overall biomass, of smaller phytoplankton had "very important implications for the stability of plankton food webs".

"This meant that the distribution of biomass between plants and animals changed from a... situation where you had a large amount of plants and a smaller amount of animal consumers to an 'inverted pyramid' where you have a smaller quantity of plant biomass and a larger amount of animal biomass," he told BBC News.

"Systems that tend to have larger consumer biomass relative to the resource biomass tend to be less stable over time." …

Warming 'destabilises aquatic ecosystems' via Apocadocs

By Karin Brulliard
Saturday, September 11, 2010

IN KARACHI, PAKISTAN Even in the best of times, Pakistan is a tenuous federation riven by regional, ethnic, sectarian and class rivalries.

These are not the best of times.

The South Asian nation is struggling to cope with cataclysmic floods that inundated every province, destroying infrastructure and leaving millions homeless. But instead of forging unity, the disaster seems to have deepened age-old fissures in ways that some analysts, aid workers and politicians warn are hobbling relief efforts and could incite strife over what is bound to be a prolonged recovery period.

Pakistan's four provinces, which have long battled one another for resources and influence, are engaging in cutthroat battles for shares of flood aid money. Well-connected landowners have been accused of diverting floodwaters to save their own properties while drowning those of the poor. Reports abound of relief denied to minorities and political opponents, while ethnic violence has flared as flood refugees stream into the tinderbox city of Karachi.

Islamist militants, meanwhile, appear to have launched a new wave of violence after weeks of relative silence. More than 110 people have been killed this month in bombings targeting minority sects and police. …

There are separatist movements in three of four provinces, all of which harbor a resentment for Punjab, the wealthiest, most populous and influential province. Though Punjab was hit hard by flooding, that anger still courses. Other regions have been outraged by Punjabi officials' assertion - backed by the prime minister - that much damage could have been averted had other provinces allowed construction of a controversial major dam that non-Punjabi leaders assert would harm their provinces by displacing residents and depriving them of water.

"Instead of helping us, the typical Punjabi-minded politicians opened this new Pandora's box," said Arbab Mujeeb Khan, a leader of the ruling Pashtun nationalist party in the northwest's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Many of the complaints carry more sinister, and plausible, allegations of wrongdoing. In the southwest province of Baluchistan, where separatists are waging a low-level insurgency, politicians say flood refugees have been severely neglected. Mengesha Kebede, a United Nations official, told reporters last week that relief camps in the province were the most "disgusting" he had ever seen and warned that displaced people might soon migrate west to Iran for help.

Baluch leaders and politicians have accused landlords in neighboring Sindh - including the federal sports minister - of pressuring irrigation officials to breach dikes so that waters surged away from their lands and swamped Baluch villages. The sports minister has denied the allegation. …

Last month in Karachi, police opened fire on refugees who moved into 450 vacant apartments with the backing of a Sindhi nationalist party. Two were killed. Many Karachi observers fear more such outbreaks will follow if the refugees get too settled. …

Pakistani flooding inflames divisions

By NATION CORRESPONDENT
Posted Friday, October 8 2010 at 10:35

Efforts to restore the Mau Complex were intensified on Friday when a one-week quit notice was issued to those who have encroached on the Maasai Mau Forest.

The notice, according to Narok South DC Chimwaga Mongo, has been given to fresh encroachers who had gone deeper into the forest in the last one month.

Panicky residents of Nkoben, Kalyasoi and Chepalungu sections of the 46,278-hectare forest said they had received notices from their chiefs.

Some 15,000 people are settled on the forest, which is a trust land of the Narok County Council. Past evictions in the area have been acrimonious.

“We were going on with our work in the farms when the chief appeared and told us to prepare to quit by 14th October,” said Mr Richard Sigilai from Nkoben area.

He added that the notice came when their crops were ready for harvesting, making the situation complicated for them.

Mr Mongo said the notice was given after it was discovered many people had settled in the forest in the last one month.

“Some invaders crossed River Ewaso Ng’iro into virgin sections of the forest and began felling trees and burning charcoal,” the DC said.

Mr Mongo added that he and his Narok North counterpart Godfrey Kigochi met with the settlers and warned them before issuing the notice.

State issues one week quit notice to forest ‘invaders’

By PMPS
Fri, Oct 22, 2010

The government has promised to resettle genuine squatters who were evicted from the Mau forest allaying fears that they had been forgotten.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga told the mau evictees that the government would speed up the resettlement exercise.

"'All those people evicted from the Mau forest voted for me overwhelmingly and I am not mad to forgot about them'' he said.

The Premier was speaking Friday when he launched the construction of 63 kilometres Londiani-fortenan Muhoroi road that will cost of over Sh 4billion.

The PM said that when completed, the road will open up the western circuit which is endowed with vast resources.

He said that the road which is set to be completed in the next 24 months will greatly benefit farmers from the vast Kipkelion, Londian, and Muhoroni regions.

Raila said that Kenya is now in a new constitutional dispensation which is set to change governance by taking services and decision making to the grassroots.

While likening the country to a football match, the he said that the new set of laws “will enable Kenya to play in a super league” like the Asian tigers; China, Korea, and Singapore. …

PM assures Mau evictees