State gets $2 million in drought relief

Last month was the hottest July since the Dust Bowl in 1936.

Drought has approached records in many parts of the country, where conditions have been driest from May through June since 1988.

The drought peaked two or three weeks ago, Agriculture Department meteorologist Brad Rippey said. Some places have gotten rain recently, but not enough.

“The rains came too late for summer crops,” Rippey said. “It takes pastures and rangeland a long time to recover from such a serious summer of heat and drought. So we’re just now beginning to see some of the pastures to green back up a little.”

Johanns outlined the $780 million in drought aid:

Scientists pinpoint polar cataclysm date

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - A 30-mile maze canyons in Antarctica was carved out of bedrock by the catastrophic draining of subglacial lakes during global warming between 12 million and 14 million years ago, according to university researchers who warn a similar event today could have serious environmental consequences.

Hurricane John now a Category 4 storm

ACAPULCO, Mexico - Hurricane John strengthened into a dangerous Category 4 storm Wednesday, with forecasters predicting its center would come closer to land during its march up Mexico's Pacific coast, as its outer bands lashed tourist resorts with heavy winds and rain.

National Hurricane Center in Miami told The Associated Press that the storm has became a Category 4 storm with winds exceeding 130 mph.

While its eye was not projected to hit land, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said hurricane-force winds were likely to begin lashing beaches northwest of Acapulco and Ixtapa late Wednesday.

Beached tuna discovered at coast

Conservation experts say the waters off Wales are being visited by a host of unusual species after a tuna was found beached at Burry Port, Carmarthenshire.

The fast-swimming fish, usually seen in the warm waters of the Mediterranean or Atlantic was discovered in a small bay.

It follows a sighting of fin whales last week, while sun fish and trigger fish are regularly seen in Welsh seas.

The 60lb (27.2kg) tuna was found on a mud bank by local angler Nick Roberts and pulled ashore by three teenagers

Animals and plants 'prove' that spring arrives earlier every year

Scientists claim to have produced the first conclusive proof that spring is arriving earlier as a result of global warming.

In Britain trees are coming into leaf 10 days earlier than they did 30 years ago while in countries with more pronounced warming, such as Spain, they are doing so by a fortnight. On average spring has advanced by between six and eight days across Europe.

According to the study, the biggest of its kind, the extended growing season has resulted in autumn being delayed by three days.

Climate linked to plague increase

Climatic changes could lead to more outbreaks of bubonic plague among human populations, a study suggests.

Researchers found that the bacterium that caused the deadly disease became more widespread following warmer springs and wetter summers.

The disease occurs naturally in many parts of the world, and the team hopes its findings will help officials limit the risk of future outbreaks.

Flooding torments N.D. town's residents

DEVILS LAKE, N.D. - Hundreds of families displaced. Traumatized children causing problems in schools. Landowners losing everything and sickened from the stress. It sounds like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, but these symptoms are appearing much farther north — in North Dakota. A popular lake often used for recreation is rising ominously and spreading, drowning homes and lucrative fields of crops.

"It's like a cancer," says Joe Belford, a business owner and county commissioner.

Devils Lake, west of Grand Forks in the north-central part of the state, has risen about 26 feet since 1993. If it keeps rising and the area's "wet cycle" continues, as some meteorologists predict, the lake could rise an additional 11 feet by 2012.

More tropical fish sighted in R.I. water

NEWPORT, R.I. - An unusually large number of tropical fish have been spotted this summer in Rhode Island waters by divers, fishermen and environmentalists.

Among the fish seen so far: juvenile orange filefish, snowy grouper and lookdowns. A local lobsterman pulled up a large trigger fish in one of his traps.

"We're always catching tropicals during the summer months, but I mean there are a lot more. Probably about double the amount," Jean Bambara, an aquarist at Save the Bay's Exploration Center in Newport, told The Providence Journal.

Global warming affects hurricane intensity: study

MIAMI (Reuters) - Global warming is affecting the intensity of Atlantic hurricanes, according to a new study by a university professor in Florida who says his research provides the first direct link between climate change and storm strength.

James Elsner of Florida State University said he set out to perform a statistical analysis of the two theories in a raging debate within the scientific community: Whether recent intense hurricanes are the result of climate change or natural ocean warming and cooling cycles.

"Is the atmosphere forcing the ocean or the ocean forcing the atmosphere?" Elsner asked.

The issue has a wide-ranging impact on insurance companies, municipal planners, some 50 million residents of hurricane-prone U.S. coastal communities and millions of others in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean islands.

Mild winters hitting grouse stock

The opening day of the grouse-shooting season is suffering from a fall in bird stocks blamed on mild winters.

The Game Conservancy Trust (GCT) said not much shooting would take place on the "Glorious Twelfth" in an attempt to boost the grouse population.

The situation is put down to parasitic worms that thrive in mild winters and affect the gut of red grouse.

Also, tick infestations in red grouse chicks have risen in the past two decades - from 4% to 92%.

Global warming 'will cause more forest fires, droughts and floods'

Forest fires, droughts and floods are all likely to become more severe and more common if global warming heats the planet as seriously as some scientists predict.

A study of what may happen if global average temperatures rise by 3C or more over the next 200 years suggests that extreme weather events are going to be more frequent and more severe.

Chinese government says global warming contributing to disastrous typhoon season

BEIJING (AFP) — Global warming is contributing to an unusually harsh typhoon season in China that started about a month early and has left thousands dead or missing, government officials and experts say.

"The natural disasters caused by typhoons in our country have been many this year," the head of the China Meteorological Administration, Qin Dahe, said in recent comments on his organization's website.

"Against the backdrop of global warming, more and more strong and unusual climatic and atmospheric events are taking place.

TIBET IS MELTING AND TURNING INTO DESERT

TIBET IS MELTING

DISCOVERY ON GLOBAL WARMING

TOM B. ON GLOBAL WARMING

SOUTH EAST ASIA DROUGHT VIDEO

THIS IS A YOUTUBE VIDEO ON SOUTH EAST ASIA DROUGHT.

China drought leaves 17 million without water

BEIJING (Reuters) - About 17 million people in southwest China don't have access to clean drinking water due to sustained drought, state media reported on Sunday.

Crops on large tracts of farmland in Sichuan province and the nearby Chongqing municipality have withered due to the month-long drought, causing economic losses of 9.23 billion yuan ($1.15 billion), the Beijing News and the Xinhua news agency said.
Local governments have allocated funds to help residents fight the drought by tapping ground water and improving water conservation facilities, Xinhua said.
The searing heat meant 14 million people in Chongqing and three million in Sichuan lack clean drinking water, the media said.
State television showed pictures of trucks transporting water to the worst-hit areas and villagers digging wells.
The water level in the Chongqing section of the Yangtze river -- China's longest river -- hit 3.5 metres (11.5 feet), its lowest in 100 years, the online edition of state broadcaster CCTV said

Taller Mountains Blamed on Global Warming, Too

The mountains in Europe are growing taller and melting glaciers are partly responsible, scientists say.

Heavy glaciers cause the Earth's crust to flex inward slightly. When glaciers disappear, the crust springs back and the overlaying mountains are thrust skyward, albeit slowly.

The European Alps have been growing since the end of the last little Ice Age in 1850 when glaciers began shrinking as temperatures warmed, but the rate of uplift has accelerated in recent decades because global warming has sped up the rate of glacier melt, the researchers say.

Warm ocean waters fuel hurricanes, and there was plenty of warm water for Katrina to build up strength once she crossed over Florida and moved into the Gulf of Mexico. This image depicts a 3-day average of actual sea surface temperatures (SSTs) for the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, from August 25-27, 2005. Every area in yellow, orange or red represents 82 degrees Fahrenheit or above. A hurricane needs SSTs at 82 degrees or warmer to strengthen. The data came from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite. The GOES satellite provided the cloud data for this image. Image Credit: NASA/SVS.

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Summer nights heating up, scientists say

WASHINGTON - America in recent years has been sweltering through three times more than its normal share of extra-hot summer nights, government weather records show. And that is a particularly dangerous trend.

During heat waves, like the one that now has a grip on much of the East, one of the major causes of heat deaths is the lack of night cooling that would normally allow a stressed body to recover, scientists say.

Some scientists say the trend is a sign of manmade global warming.

A top federal research meteorologist said he "almost fell out of my chair" when he looked over U.S. night minimum temperature records over the past 96 years and saw the skyrocketing trend of hot summer nights.

From 2001 to 2005, on average nearly 30 percent of the nation had "much above normal" average summertime minimum temperatures, according to the National Climatic Data in Asheville, N.C.

By definition, "much above normal" means low temperatures that are in the highest 10 percent on record. On any given year about 10 percent of the country should have "much above normal" summer-night lows.

Yet in both 2005 and 2003, 36 percent of the nation had much above normal summer minimums. In 2002 it was 37 percent. While the highest-ever figure was in the middle of America's brutal Dust Bowl, when 41 percent of the nation had much above normal summer-night temperatures, the rolling five-year average of 2001-05 is a record - by far.

Heat, humidity combine to torture East

WASHINGTON - Record-breaking heat and oppressive humidity made people across the eastern half of the country miserable Wednesday and sent tourists in the nation's capital scrambling for relief in the cool marble halls of Capitol Hill.

Others forced to work outdoors guzzled icy drinks to cope with the heat wave that has sent temperatures soaring over 100 across the East and parts of the Midwest.

"This is unbelievable," said Bob Garner, a tourist from Atlanta who retreated with his family into the air-conditioned comfort of the Capitol. "They get the hottest days of the year while we're here."

By late afternoon, the temperature at

Ronald Reagan

Washington National Airport had risen to 99, with a heat index of 106. It was even hotter on the steaming pavement downtown. In New York, the temperature rose to 101 at LaGuardia Airport and 96 in Central Park. Philadelphia and Baltimore climbed into the upper 90s.

Heat wave hits eastern half of nation

NEW YORK - Blistering heat settled over the eastern half of the nation Tuesday, sending man and beast in desperate search of relief: An air-conditioned subway car in New York City. A plunge into the Atlantic Ocean in New Jersey. And cold showers for suffering livestock in Ohio.

The same heat wave that was blamed for as many as 164 deaths in California brought a fifth straight day of oppressive weather to Chicago and promised at least three days of brow-mopping temperatures in the New York metropolitan area.

Residents on Chicago's South Side were evacuated from buildings by the hundreds, one day after the power went out to 20,000 customers. Illinois officials blamed three deaths on the heat. The blistering temperatures also scorched Conyers, Ga., where a high school football player died one day after collapsing at practice.