Baked Alaska Has Whole New Meaning

Last Month Was the Hottest May on Record in Alaska

The United States' snowiest wilderness just keeps getting warmer.

Temperatures in Alaska averaged 44.9 degrees Fahrenheit this May, making it the warmest May in the 91-year temperature record of the state, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data released today. 

And that's a remarkable 7.1 degrees higher than the 20th-century average.

"Really since June of 2013, it's been very persistently warm with lots of records," Rick Thoman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Alaska, told VICE News. "So this is kind of just another one in this two-year streak."

The last record-breaking May was in 2005, when the average temperature climbed to 43.7 degrees. Read More.

Bullwinkle Reports Warm Weather Ticks Attack Moose Population

Warming climate and winter ticks decimating moose populations

BROWNVILLE, Maine — Chris Read is the owner of the Gunsmoke Lodge in Brownville, Maine, and, along with many of his patrons, is a lifelong hunter of Maine’s wildlife, including moose.

But these days, he is worried. Though the state’s last official count of its moose population, in 2012, put the number of moose roaming Maine’s forests and mountains at about 76,000, he no longer believes that is accurate.

“I think the state’s numbers of deer moose are way off,” Read said. “I’m guessing it’s more like 50,000 to 55,000. It’s just my theory, based on sightings. I think the moose population is definitely in decline.”

He is not alone in his fears. Hunters, academics and environmentalists fear that moose numbers across Maine and in other parts of the U.S. are experiencing a worrying decline in numbers in the face of deadly ticks that are decimating populations. And at the root of the parasite problem could be something much harder to control: climate change. Read More.

Not Just A Cartoon

California - Why So Dry?

California Drought Caused By Climate Change

Human released greenhouse gas pollution changes the climatic system through a variety of mechanisms. Trade winds and jet streams change their patterns of movement, and the distribution of moisture in the air changes, with precipitation either lacking more than usual or being more abundant than usual. The patterns of movement of major air masses and the increased bifurcation of air masses into more wet than usual and more dry than usual can result in long periods where region experiences excess precipitation or a lack of precipitation. When the latter happens, there can be a drought.

Increasingly, the California drought is being seen as an effect of climate change. Air masses that should have contributed precipitation in the form of mountain snow, which in turn feed the western ground water system, have been kept away. Increased temperature has increased evaporation. Other factors related to climate change have contributed. The result is an historic drought over California that shows at present no sign of stopping any time soon. There was hope that last winter there would be additional precipitation, and there was some, but not enough. Read More

Hellish Red Pacific Sunsets From Siberia Wildfires

Smoke from Siberian wildfires turns Northwestern sunsets a fiery red

The scenes have almost felt like they're out of Hollywood imagination -- brilliant red sunrises and sunsets the last couple of days around Western Washington. 

Why so red? It's a byproduct of the massive wildfires that recently burned a large area in Siberia. 

The atmospheric winds are aligned this week to carry the smoke across the Pacific Ocean and into the Pacific Northwest. 

First up, to get an idea of just how much smoke is in the atmosphere, look at this visible satellite image taken on April 14 of the southeastern Siberia area where the wildfires got out of control: Read More

Ironically Coined 

"The GATES of Hell "

Dr. Kinesa's - Global Edge


Anybody remember the last line in that book by Milton, Paradise Lost? I think it had something to do with heaven and hell in our minds. 

Oh well... 

International Offices
April 30,2015

#Greenland Permafrost Melting Faster Than Snowball In Hell

Why This New Study On Arctic Permafrost Is So Scary

Scientists might have to change their projected timelines for when Greenland’s permafrost will completely melt due to man-made climate change, now that new research from Denmark has shown it could be thawing faster than expected.

Published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, the researchshows that tiny microbes trapped in Greenland’s permafrost are becoming active as the climate warms and the permafrost begins to thaw. As those microbes become active, they are feeding on previously-frozen organic matter, producing heat, and threatening to thaw the permafrost even further. Read More  

Melting Faster Than A Snowball In Hell

Dr. Kinesa's - Global Edge

Think of it this way, as the ice melts so does the air conditioning capacity of the planet. There is a point of no return when this process can not be reversed making the fate of all matters assured. 

Metrics on ice can therefore provide  a fairly accurate measure of life capacity and can be modelled to determine timelines. Timelines remember that will articulate exponential speed near the end. 

No further words required.

International Offices
April 29, 2015

#Ocean Acidification Spells Extinction Backwards

Acidic Oceans

Implicated in Earth's Worst Mass 

EXTINCTION

WASHINGTON | BY WILL DUNHAM

(Reuters) - It is one of science's enduring mysteries: what caused the worst mass extinction in Earth's history. And, no, it is not the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Scientists said on Thursday that huge amounts of carbon dioxide spewed from colossal volcanic eruptions in Siberia may have turned the world's oceans dangerously acidic 252 million years ago, helping to drive a global environmental calamity that killed most land and sea creatures.

The researchers studied rocks in the United Arab Emirates that were on the seafloor at the time and contained a detailed record of the changing ocean conditions at the end of the Permian Period. Read More.

Earth's Mass Extinctions 

"NOT "

Extraordinary Events! 

#McKinsey & Co Implies Mother Nature Asks #Humanity To Reschedule Global Debt

McKinsey & Co - Debt And (Not Much) Deleveraging 

Seven years after the bursting of a global credit bubble resulted in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, debt continues to grow. In fact, rather than reducing indebtedness, or deleveraging, all major economies today have higher levels of borrowing relative to GDP than they did in 2007. Global debt in these years has grown by $57 trillion, raising the ratio of debt to GDP by 17 percentage points (Exhibit 1). That poses new risks to financial stability and may undermine global economic growth.

A new McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) report, Debt and (not much) deleveraging, examines the evolution of debt across 47 countries—22 advanced and 25 developing—and assesses the implications of higher leverage in the global economy and in specific sectors and countries. The analysis, which follows our July 2011 report Debt and deleveraging: The global credit bubble and its economic consequences and our January 2012 report Debt and deleveraging: Uneven progress on the path to growth, focuses on the debt of the “real economy”: governments, nonfinancial corporations, and households. It finds that debt-to-GDP ratios have risen in all 22 advanced economies in the sample, by more than 50 percentage points in many case. Read More.

Why Is Mother Nature Crying About Global Debt Expansion?

#Kiribati - Sea Waters Sinking Whole Islands

Kiribati: life on a tiny island threatened by the rising sea – in pictures








29 May 2014 (theguardian.com) – Photographer Mike Bowers spent several weeks on Kiribati documenting life in the central Pacific island nation.





It's a nation with an average height above sea level of just two metres and a population density to rival London. Its future is under threat due to rising sea levels, increasingly saline arable land and contamination of the delicate freshwater lenses under the narrow atolls.


 His exhibition 'Kiribati: a line in the sand' opens on 30 May 2014 at X88 gallery in Sydney. All proceeds from the sale of this work will be donated to Tungaru Central Hospital, Tarawa.



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