MILWAUKEE - Residents across the Midwest and the Plains who made it home for Christmas were digging out yesterday after a fierce snowstorm, while those who spent the night in airports and shelters tried to resume their journeys. Meteorologists warned that roads across the region remained dangerous.
The national Weather Service said blizzards would hit parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin through today. The storm already had dumped significant snow across the region, including a records 14" in Oklahoma City and 11" in Duluth, Minn., on Thursday. Poor visibility due to blowing snow shut Interstate 29, a major highway that stretches from Iowa through South and North Dakota up to the Canadian border, according to the North Dakota Department of Transportation Web site.
Slippery roards have been blamed for at least 21 deaths this week as the storm lumbered across the country from the Southwest. Ice storm warnings and winter weather advisories were issued for parts of the East Coast yesterday, but the region was largely spared. .... Interstates were closed in Nebraska and Wyoming. Meteorologists warned that massive snow drifts and blustery winds could cause whiteouts across the northern Plains. Officials urged travelers to stay home and pack emergency kits if they had to set out. In Texas, volunteer firefighters and sheriff's deputies rescued hundreds of people stranded along Interstate 44 and Texas State Highway 287 near Wichita Falls. The area recorded up to 13" of snow, said Doug Speheger, a National Weather Service meteorologist.
Even residents in the Dallas-Forth Worth area briefly experienced a white Christmas, their first in more than 80 years. Not since Dec. 25, 1926 - when 6" fell on Dallas and Collin counties - had the area had a true postcard-looking Christmas. By late afternoon, the 3" of snow measured on Christmas Eve was all but melted.
Winds were gusting from 45mph to 60mph across the Dakotas and Nebraska yesterday. Crews were working to restore power to thousands of customers in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois and Iowa. The storm also grounded flights at South Dakota's biggest airports. About 200 people were stuck overnight at Oklahoma's largest airport, which closed Thursday afternoon after several inches of snow clogged runways, said Mark Kranenburg, director of the Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City. The airport reopened yesterday with one runway.
(Dinesh Ramde, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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New satellite observations reveal that since October 2003, the aquifers of California's Central Valley (the state's primary agricultural region) and the Sierra Nevadas (the state's major mountain water source) have lost nearly enough water combined to fill Lake Mead, America's largest reservoir.
According to researchers from the University of California Irvine and NASA, the Sacramento and San Joaquin drainage basins have shed more than 30 cubic kilometers of water since late 2003, when the current drought began. A cubic kilometer is about 264.2 billion gallons, enough to fill 400,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The bulk of the loss occurred in the Central Valley which depends heavily on irrigation from both groundwater and diverted surface water.
(Scott Lafee, SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE)
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COCKERMOUTH, England - Raging floods engulfed northern England's picturesque Lake District yesterday after the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in Britain, killing a police officer and trapping dozens in their swamped homes. Military helicopters rescued dozens of people and emergency workers in bright-orange, inflatable boats rescued scores more.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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SAN FRANCISCO - Hundreds of gallons of fuel spilled from an oil tanker yesterday, creating a
slick on the San Francisco Bay but not making it to shore, the mayor said ...
it remained unclear how much oil escaped into the bay ...
The U.S. Coast Guard responded quickly after a fuel line ruptured during a fuel transfer on the
Panamanian-flagged Dubai Star, about 2.5 miles southeast of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
The Coast Guard said an initial investigation revealed the failure was mechanical.
More than 1,100 feet of boom have been deployed around the ship to contain the oil, which created a
slick about 2 miles long. Additional barriers were laid out to keep the oil from drifting toward Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island.
Coast Guard and the state Department of Fish and Game worked to contain the fuel, and a nonprofit
specializing in oil-spill cleanup was helping. There were no reports of oiled wildlife.
Newsom [the mayor of San Francisco] said officials learned from the 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill, which leaked 50,000 gallons of fuel into the bay, killed about 2,400 birds and cost $70 million to clean up.
Staff from the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board were monitoring the spill's
potential impact on the environment, and trying to ensure that any damage is mitigated, executive
officer Bruce Wolfe said in a statement. San Francisco officials were advising people to avoid contact with water in the bay and refrain from fishing.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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DENVER - A powerful autumn snowstorm slowly worked its way out of Colorado and into Nebraska and Kansas yesterday, causing blizzard conditions on the eastern plains and leaving in its wake treacherous roads and hundreds of canceled flights.
The storm dropped more than 3 feet of snow in the foothills west of Denver and closed hundreds of schools and businesses. Roads across the region remained snowpacked and icy, and the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in western South Dakota was shut down.
"Big storms like these, they seem to come around every 10 to 12 years," said Kyle Fredin, a National Weather Service meteorologist.
Denver-based Frontier Airlines said it canceled 19 flights in and out of Denver.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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WASHINGTON - The Obama administration yesterday warned that the United States could slip further behind China and other countries in clean-energy development if Congress fails to pass climate legislation, as early signs of a rift emerged among Democrats over the bill's costs.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a Senate panel that the United States has stumbled in the clean-energy race, and to catch up, Congress must enact comprehensive energy legislation that puts the first-ever limits on the gases blamed for global warming ...
While the legislation is likely to clear the environment panel, more than a dozen Democrats have voiced concerns about the potential economic fallout from shifting away from fossil fuels to reduce carbon-dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Finance Committee, told the hearing yesterday that he had "serious reservations" with the aggressive effort to cut emissions over the next decade. The bill calls for greenhouse gases to be cut by 20 percent by 2020, a target that was scaled back to 17 percent in the House after opposition from coal-state Democrats.
"We cannot afford a first step that takes us further away from an achievable consensus on common-sense climate-change legislation," Baucus said. "Montana can't afford the unmitigated impacts of climate change, but we also cannot afford the unmitigated effects of climate-change legislation."
The chief author of the Senate bill, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., acknowledged that the bill would raise energy prices, but he said the savings from reducing energy and the money to be made in new technologies were far greater. Kerry got some much-needed backup from President Barack Obama, who made a stop yesterday at a solar-energy site in Florida. The president warned that opponents, whom he did not identify, would work against the climate bill. ...
An Environmental Protection Agency analysis released late Friday said the average household would pay an additional $80 to $111 a year to power its home and fuel its cars if the bill becomes law and businesses pass on the cost of reducing pollution to consumers.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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LOS ANGELES - Gusts up to 70 mph toppled trees and downed power lines yesterday, causing scattered outages in the Los Angeles region.
"Late Late Show" host Craig Ferguson had to finish taping his program by flashlight last night after the winds knocked out power at CBS Television City in central Los Angeles.
Gusty winds affected some flights at Los Angeles International Airport, and one flight was diverted to another airport, federal aviation authorities said. Pilots of two other flights had to make a second attempt to land successfully.
About 12,000 households in the region lost power last night because of downed lines and blown transformers, officials said. No injuries were reported in the city or county, but there were scattered reports of property damage.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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WASHINGTON - Have you heard that the world is now cooling instead of warming? You may have seen some news reports on the Internet or heard about it from a provocative new book. Only one problem: It's not true, according to an analysis of the numbers done by several independent statisticians for The Associated Press [AP]. The case that the Earth might be cooling partly stems from recent weather. Last year was cooler than previous years. It's been awhile since the super-hot years of 1998 and 2005. So is this a longer climate trend or just weather's normal ups and downs?
In a blind test, the AP gave temperature data to four independent statisticians and asked them to look for trends, without telling them what the numbers represented. The experts found no true temperature declines over time. "If you look at the data and sort of cherry-pick a micro-trend within a bigger trend, that technique is particularly suspect," said John Grego, a professor of statistics at the University of South Carolina.
Yet the idea that things are cooling has been repeated in opinion columns, a BBC news story posted on the Drudge Report and in a new book by the authors of the best-seller "Freakonomics." Last week, a poll by the Pew Research Center found that only 57 percent of Americans now believe there is strong scientific evidence for global warming, down from 77 percent in 2006. Global warming skeptics base their claims on an unusually hot year in 1998. Since then, they say, temperatures have dropped - thus, a cooling trend. But it's not that simple.
Since 1998, temperatures have dipped, soared, fallen again and are now rising once more. Records kept by the British meteorological office and satellite data used by climate skeptics still show 1998 as the hottest year. However, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA show 2005 has topped 1998. Published peer-reviewed scientific research generally cites temperatures measured by ground sensors, which are from NOAA, NASA and the British, more than the satellite data.
The recent Internet chatter about cooling led NOAA's climate data center to re-examine its temperature data. It found no cooling trend. "The last 10 years are the warmest 10-year period of the modern record," said NOAA climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt. "Even if you analyze the trend during that 10 years, the trend is actually positive, which means warming." The AP sent expert statisticians NOAA's year-to-year ground temperature changes over 130 years. Statisticians who analyzed the data found a distinct decades-long upward trend in the numbers. .. [the original AP article continues as can be found here]
(Seth Borenstein, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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MANILA, Philippines - The U.S. military trucked in supplies and marshaled helicopters and Navy ships yesterday as the Philippines struggled with the aftermath of back-to-back storms that have left more than 600 dead. After pulling six people from landslides early Friday, Filipino rescuers said they remained hopeful of locating more survivors in the stricken north of the country, but retrieved only bodies yesterday. With roads blocked and bridges washed away, the Philippine government's resources have been stretched thin. Officials have asked U.S. troops in the country for an annual military exercise to extend relief operations. ...
... Manila experienced the worst flooding in more than four decades after Tropical Storm Ketsana dumped record rains Sept. 26. That disaster displaced about 1 million people and killed 337 in the capital and surrounding provinces. More than 287,000 remain in evacuation centers.
Then Typhoon Parma struck Oct. 3 and has lingered as a tropical depression for about a week, also over the main northern Philippine island of Luzon. It has dumped more heavy rains, triggering floods and landslides that have killed at least 276 people, most of them in the past two days. It has displaced about 170,000 people.
Regional civil defense officials said 152 bodies have been recovered in Benguet province, 125 miles north of Manila; 23 in Mountain province; and 50 in Baguio city. Some 51 deaths have been recorded earlier in eight other provinces ...
... troops have trucked tons of U.N. food aid from Manila to a Philippine military camp in northern Tarlac province for distribution today to victims of Typhoon Parma. Marine CH-46 helicopters have flown over the flooded region to assess the damage and find locations for a medical mission and food distribution. Heavy equipment also will be brought in to help clear roads littered with debris ...
Also, about 200 U.S. Marines and sailors are on standby to help in the relief mission. They're aboard two Navy dock landing ships, the Harpers Ferry and Tortuga, off Pangasinan province, and at a Philippine military camp south of the Cordillera mountains on Luzon.
(Oliver Teves, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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PAGO PAGO, American Samoa - A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of up to 8.3 struck in the South Pacific between Samoa and American Samoa around dawn Tuesday, sending terrified residents fleeing for higher ground as a tsunami swept ashore, flattening at least one village. There were no immediate reports of fatalities.
The quake hit at 6:48 a.m. Tuesday (1748 GMT) midway between the two island groups. In Apia, families reported shaking that lasted for up to three minutes. The U.S. Geological Service[sic], which estimated the magnitude at 8.0, said the quake struck 20 miles (35 kilometers) below the ocean floor, 120 miles (190 kilometers) from American Samoa and 125 miles (200 kilometers) from Samoa, with a 5.6-magnitude aftershock 20 minutes later.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center put the quake's magnitude at 8.3 and issued a general alert for the South Pacific region, from American Samoa to New Zealand. It said there were indications a tsunami wave could be "destructive" along some coastlines. Several hours away from the epicenter, Hawaii was put under a tsunami watch, with five emergency centers opened as a precaution.
New Zealander Graeme Ansell said the beach village of Sau Sau Beach Fale was leveled. "It was very quick. The whole village has been wiped out," Ansell told National Radio from a hill near Samoa's capital, Apia. "There's not a building standing. We've all clambered up hills, and one of our party has a broken leg. There will be people in a great lot of need 'round here."
A five-foot tsunami wave swept into Pago Pago, capital of American Samoa, shortly after the earthquake, sending sea water surging inland about 100 yards (meters) before receding, leaving some cars and debris stuck in mud. Electricity outages were reported, and telephone lines were jammed. The staff of the port ran to higher ground, and police soon came by, telling residents to get inland. Several students were seen ransacking a gas station/convenience store. ...
Local media said they had reports of some landslides in the Solosolo region of the main Samoan island of Upolu and damage to plantations in the countryside outside Apia. There were no immediate reports of injury or serious damage from local emergency services, but people reported cracks in some homes and items tossed from shelves.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu issued a tsunami warning for numerous islands in the Pacific, including the Samoas, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand, French Polynesia and Palmyra Island. The center posted a tsunami watch for Hawaii, Vanuatu, the Marshall Islands, Solomon Island, Johnston Island, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Wake Island, Midway Island and Pitcairn. In New Zealand, a tsunami alert was issued by national Civil Defense, and the nation's national emergency center was activated.
A tsunami advisory was issued for the U.S. West Coast, with amplitudes predicted to be 20 to 65 cm. Even if the tsunami height is small, strong currents from it could overwhelm swimmers. The tsunami is predicted to arrive at the La Jolla beach around 21:30 PDT.
(Fili Sagapolutele, Keni Lesi, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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MANILA, Philippines - Rescuers pulled more bodies from swollen rivers and debris-strewn streets to bring the death toll in massive flooding in the northern Philippines to 240 today as residents dug out their homes from under carpets of mud. The National Disaster Coordinating Council said today that the homes of nearly 1.9 million people in the capital and surrounding areas were inundated, with nearly 380,000 people brought to schools, churches and other evacuation centers.
Tropical Storm Ketsana, which scythed across the northern Philippines on Saturday, dumped more than a month's worth of rain in just 12 hours, fueling the worst flooding to hit the country in more than 40 years. The extent of flooding devastation became clearer yesterday as TV networks broadcast images of mud-covered communities, cars upended on city streets and reported huge numbers of villagers without drinking water, food and power. ... In Manila's suburban Marikina city, a sofa hung from electric wires. Resident Jeff Aquino said floodwaters rose to his home's third floor at the height of the storm.
Since the storm struck, the government has declared a "state of calamity" in metropolitan Manila and 25 storm-hit provinces, allowing officials to use emergency funds for relief and rescue. Overwhelmed officials have called for international help, warning they may not have sufficient resources to withstand another storm that forecasters say is brewing east of the island nation and could hit as early as Friday. Troops, police and volunteers have already rescued more than 12,359 people, but unconfirmed reports of more deaths abound, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said ... The United States has donated $100,000 and deployed a military helicopter and five rubber boats manned by about 20 U.S. soldiers from the country's south, where they have been providing counterterrorism training. The Philippine military said today that a U.S. soldier was killed and another soldier was wounded in a land mine explosion in the country's south.
(Teresa Cerojano, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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MOORPARK - A 27-square-mile Southern California wildfire was 75 percent contained yesterday as the withering Santa Ana winds that had fanned it faded away. Firefighters hoped to have the 17,500-acre blaze in Ventura County between the cities of Moorpark and Fillmore fully surrounded sometime today. No homes had been lost. The fire began Tuesday and burned through rugged land interspersed with orchards, farms and ranches.
Weather remained a concern because air over the region remained hot, with temperatures in the 100s and high 90s except right along the coast, and humidity levels remained very low. Forecasters said "red flag" warnings of fire danger would be in effect until 9 tonight and a cooling trend was expected tomorrow.
Elsewhere, a new fire broke out yesterday afternoon in the Antelope Valley near Elizabeth Lake west of the desert city of Lancaster in Los Angeles County. The blaze was estimated at 20 acres and growing in medium brush in the foothills, said Los Angeles County fire Captain Mike Brown. The fire was burning within a mile of homes, but firefighters got out ahead of the flames with a quick air attack, Brown said.
San Bernardino County prosecutors, meanwhile, filed unspecified charges yesterday against a 16-year-old boy suspected in more than a dozen arson wildfires. The charges weren't released because of confidentiality laws surrounding juvenile justice.
The teen was arrested near a fire Wednesday in Yucaipa, 65 miles east of Los Angeles, and he was booked for investigation of arson. Officials said Thursday he may be involved in 12 to 14 fires dating to 2006. ...
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Space set aside for protecting sea life on the Southern California coast would more than
double under a trio of proposals for marine sanctuaries released to the public this week.
The three strategies would provide from 380 to 413 square miles of near-shore
waters as safety zones for species - more than twice the current amount of 182
squares miles. Managers of the state-sponsored project posted maps,
comments and related documents on the state Department of Fish and Game's Web
site late Thursday ...
The strategies differ dramatically in the specific areas where they would reduce or eliminate harvest, a
point that will be central as the selection process winds toward conclusion next year.
Major local battlegrounds include the La Jolla coast, a rich fishing area that conservationists want to
partly close. There also are major discrepancies in suggested rules for North County lagoon off Del Mar and Encinitas, the mouth of the Tijuana River and the Ocean Beach coast.
The blueprints are part of the Marine Life Protection Act, a 1999 state law to bolster marine
conservation along California's 1,100-mile coastline. It calls for redesigning offshore protected zones to rebuild stocks of fish and other sea life. It's been contentious from the start because various groups have stakes in virtually every square foot of Southern California's coastal waters.
The latest documents don't include a detailed economic analysis of potential effects on commercial and
recreational fishermen. That is supposed to be completed by Oct. 6, when a group of scientific experts
meets in Los Angeles to assess the three proposals. Science team members will push the strategies to a statewide task force charged with helping select the best option. That panel gathers in Long Beach on Oct. 20-22 and will take public comments.
The preferred options will go to the California Fish and Game Commission, which is expected to adopt
a final version next year.
The proposals are the result of roughly a year of research and negotiations by a "stakeholder group" that
includes commercial fishermen, ecologists, government officials, recreational fishermen and others. In
the latest round of map-making, they divided into three groups Ñ one that tilted toward fishermen, one
that favored conservationists and a third dubbed the "middle ground." ... In general, fishing groups support the fewest limits and conservationists want more restrictions.
The subcommittees outlined 40 to 52 marine protected areas, which include "no-take" reserves and areas
that allow some forms of harvest. There are currently 42 reserves that cover about 7.7 percent of the near-shore waters of Southern California.
Online: For more details about the
proposed marine proected areas, go to http://dfg.ca.gov/mlpa
(Mike Lee, S.D. Union-Tribune)
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MOORPARK - A fleet of helicopters made water drops as bulldozers carved firebreaks yesterday to try to stop a 25-square-mile wildfire burning through an agricultural region of Ventura County.... The fire erupted Tuesday north of the city of Moorpark and has spread through hills, mountains and agricultural lands, including avocado orchards. Two outbuildings have been destroyed and 75 homes, along with oil production sites and electrical transmission lines, remained threatened. ... The fire began near an agricultural mulch pile, but the cause remained under investigation, authorities said. ...In San Bernardino County, authorities said a 16-year-old boy may have been involved in starting up to 14 wildfires in the inland region east of Los Angeles since 2006.
High heat and very low humidity kept fire danger high even though meteorologists said the dry Santa Ana winds that spread the flames in the rural area were weakening. Winds were ranging up to 12 mph, about half the speed of the previous day.... But triple-digit temperatures persisted along with relative humidity levels in single digits.
The 16,400-acre blaze northwest of Los Angeles was 40 percent surrounded, and the effort to increase containment involved 21 helicopters, 21 bulldozers, 214 fire engines and 1,800 firefighters. Eight air tankers also were available. ... Firefighting costs topped $3 million....
... Northeast of Los Angeles, the smoldering remnants of a month-old, 251-square-mile forest fire in the San Gabriel Mountains was listed as 98 percent contained. Officials said the fire won't be declared fully contained until the first rain of the season.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
NB: this fire, as well as two in the Tijuana-area and several elsewhere, broke out during a Santa Ana weather condition.
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AUSTELL, GA - Neighborhoods, schools and even roller coasters at Six Flags over Georgia
remained awash in several feet of murky, brown water yesterday, even as an emerging sun shed light on
the widespread flood damage.
So far, at least nine deaths in Georgia and Alabama were blamed on the torrential downpours in the
Southeast. The storms relented and relief was in sight with a slight chance of rain overnight, but the
onslaught left many parts of the region in stagnant water.
In Tennessee, a man remained missing after jumping into the fast-moving water as part of a bet. Boats
and trucks evacuated 120 residents from a retirement center as nearby creeks rose, and several hundred
others were ferried from low-lying neighborhoods and motels to dry land.
Several hundred people in Georgia were at shelters, and officials worked to clean and repair washed-out
roads and bridges. Georgia officials estimated $250 million in damages.
The storm left nine people dead in its wake, including a toddler swept from his father's arms. Yesterday,
rescuers found the body of a 14[-year old boy], who was swimming in the Chattooga River, along with
woman who was swept from her car in Douglas County, west of Atlanta.
Authorities also released a 15-minute 911 call of another storm victim's last moments. [The 39-year old woman] screamed to a dispatcher as water rose to her neck. The dispatcher advised her to try to break a
window, but she couldn't.
... After several days of steady rain, the ground was saturated from Alabama through Georgia into eastern
Tennessee and western North Carolina. The floods came months after an epic two-year drought in the
region ended with winter rains.
Georgia emergency officials warned residents not to return home too soon because the lingering water
was dangerous. Some ignored officials and had to be rescued.
The devastation surrounding Atlanta was widespread. In Austell, about 17 miles west of downtown
Atlanta, Sweetwater Creek overflowed its banks, sending muddy water rushingmobile-home park where several trailers were almost completely submerged.
(Kate Brumback, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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UNITED NATIONS - China's ambition to grow quickly but more cleanly soon may vault it to
"front-runner" status in taking on global warming, the U.N. climate chief said yesterday.
China could steal the show by unveiling new plans at today's U.N. climate summit of 100 world leaders,
including President Barack Obama. India also has signaled that it wants to be an "active player" on
climate change. Despite the new plans, which are likely to include using more renewable energy, China and India are
still refusing to cap their greenhouse gas emissions... a move they say would hobble economic growth needed to lift more of their citizens out of
poverty.
... "The big question mark is the U.S." U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said yesterday.
The United States, under former President George W. Bush's administration, long cited inaction by
China and India as the reason for rejecting mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases.
Today's meeting is intended to rally momentum for crafting a new global climate pact in Copenhagen,
Denmark, in December. The United States did not ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol for cutting global emissions of warming gases
based on its impact on the U.S. economy and exclusion of major developing nations such as China and
India, both major polluters.
Experts say Chinese President Hu Jintao may announce targets for reducing the "intensity" of its carbon
pollution. This would mean that overall Chinese emissions would continue to grow, while reducing the
carbon dioxide emitted per unit of economic growth.
China already is the world leader in greenhouse gas emissions and plans to continue its heavy use of
coal, a major polluter.
... Todd Stern, the top U.S. climate envoy, said the Obama administration also is moving "full speed
ahead" toward helping craft a deal. But with Congress moving slowly on a measure to curb emissions, the United States could find itself in a poor bargaining position when 120 countries convene in Copenhagen.
China and the United States together account for about 40 percent of all the world's emissions of carbon
dioxide, methane and other industrial warming gases.
...
For the past four years, China has been cutting energy intensity and could include a new carbon
intensity goal in a five-year plan for development until 2015. China has said it is seeking to use 15
percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.
A key point of dispute remains whether developing countries would agree to be legally bound to a
Copenhagen accord. The House passed a climate bill this summer that would set the first mandatory
limits on greenhouse gases and impose trade penalties on countries that don't cap their emissions.
Factories, power plants and other sources would be required to cut emissions by about 80 percent by
2050.
...
Today's U.N. summit and the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh at the end of the week are intended to
add pressure on the United States and other rich nations to commit to cuts and spend billions of dollars
to help developing nations install new technologies and take other actions to adapt to climate change.
Obama has announced a target of returning to 1990 levels of greenhouse emissions by 2020.
The European Union is urging other rich countries to match its pledge to cut emissions by 20 percent
from 1990 levels by 2020, and has said it would cut up to 30 percent if other rich countries follow suit.
...
(John Heilprin, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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... The second prolonged hot spell in less than a month is taking hold across the county
starting this weekend. Ninety-degree readings should be common in the inland
valleys, and next week should turn even toastier. Temperatures could touch triple digits from
Tuesday through Thursday, while the beaches could nudge 90, just as they did in late August and early this month.
... September and October are no strangers to sizzle. There's little chance that San Diego will set daily heat records next week, because historical marks for this time of year are very high. Four of the city's 10 hottest days ever occurred between Sept. 21 and 27.
Temperature records for San Diego date to 1872. Since then, the mercury has hit 100 or higher 24 times,
and all but three of those occasions were in September or October. Locally, days at the start of summer get roughly 14 hours of sunlight while those around this time of year get about 12. Yet the hottest weather often arrives now.
Ed Clark, a forecaster at the National Weather Service's Rancho Bernardo office, said there's a lag in the
atmosphere. The hottest days come after the peak of sunlight in June, and the coldest days usually are in
January - after the minimum of sunlight in late December.
Other atmospheric forces tend to raise temperatures this time of year.
In early summer, the predominant flow in San Diego is onshore, with cool air over the ocean moving
inland. That keeps temperatures down. But the flow often reverses in September, with air moving from
warm inland areas toward the coast.
The shift starts when weak, low-pressure systems begin moving down the West Coast. These usually
turn east before they can bring any rain to Southern California. Once those lows depart the Nevada-Utah
region, they leave behind an area of high pressure where the air is compressed and heated.
Air moves from higher pressure toward lower pressure, so the heated air often makes its way to
Southern California, where the pressure is generally lower at this time of year. The air continues to sink
and heat up as it approaches the region, and if conditions are right and the flow is strong enough, Santa
Ana winds will blow.
Fortunately, weather forecasters don't see strong Santa Ana winds developing with this heat wave,
Clark said. But because both the air and plants in the backcountry are extremely dry, the fire danger will
be high next week. The lone plus could be that low humidity levels should make things feel slightly cooler, Clark said.
...
(Robert Krier, S.D. Union-Tribune)
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LOS ANGELES - The unpredictable flames burning in the Angeles National Forest are staying one step ahead of firefighters, as a flare up on the northeast corner delayed efforts to burn out brush above the foothill cities of the San Gabriel Valley.
Incident Commander Mike Dietrich said 30-40 mph winds and 10 percent humidity Monday forced firefighters to cancel their plan to burn a line on the southern flank to protect communities from Azusa to Pasadena.
Dietrich says fighting the Station fire has cost $57.6 million to date. ... The fire claimed two firefighters' lives last week.
(Rachel Maria Dillon, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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WASHINGTON - Astronomers have found the coldest spot in our solar system. It's on our moon.
NASA's new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is making the first complete temperature map of the moon. It found that at the moon's south pole, it's colder than far away Pluto. The area is inside craters that are permanently shadowed so they never see sun. ....
Temperatures there were measured at 397 degrees [F] below zero. Pluto is at least a degree [F] warmer, even though it is about 40 times farther away from the sun. ...
Link to NewScientist
(Seth Borenstein, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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LOS ANGELES - The unpredictable flames burning in the Angeles National Forest are staying one step ahead of firefighters, as a flare up on the northeast corner delayed efforts to burn out brush above the foothill cities of the San Gabriel Valley.
Incident Commander Mike Dietrich said 30-40 mph winds and 10 percent humidity Monday forced firefighters to cancel their plan to burn a line on the southern flank to protect communities from Azusa to Pasadena.
Dietrich says fighting the Station fire has cost $57.6 million to date. ... The fire claimed two firefighters' lives last week.
(Rachel Maria Dillon, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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LOS ANGELES - A massive fire in the Angeles National Forest nearly doubled in size overnight, threatening 12,000 homes Monday in a 20-mile-long swath of flame and smoke and surging toward a mountaintop broadcasting complex and historic observatory.
The fire was the largest of at least eight burning up and down California after days of triple-digit temperatures and low humidity. The Los Angeles-area blaze had burned at least 21 homes and was moving north, south and east through the rugged foothills northeast of the city. Despite a lack of wind, the fire surged without letup by running through steep granite canyons and feeding on brush that had not burned for 40 years, fire officials said ....
The fire had burned 134 square miles of brush and trees by early Monday and was just 5 percent contained.
About 12,000 homes, as well as communications and astronomy centers atop Mount Wilson, were threatened by fire. At least 6,600 homes were under mandatory evacuation orders and more than 2,500 firefighters were battling the flames. But the lack of wind kept the fires burning mainly in canyonlands rather than racing downhill and roaring explosively through the dense suburbs that cluster at the base of the foothills.
On the blaze's northwestern front, two firefighters were killed Sunday when their truck drove off the side of a road on Mount Gleason near the city of Acton.
More than 20 helicopters and air tankers were preparing to dump water and retardant over the flames. Two Canadian Super Scoopers, giant craft that can pull thousands of gallons of water from lakes and reservoirs, were expected to join the fight later in the day. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday issued emergency declarations for the counties of Placer, Monterey, Los Angeles and Mariposa....
With flames about a half-mile away from the communications and astronomy centers on Mount Wilson, crews planned to set more backfires and planes dropped fire retardant around the mountaintop complex, which hold transmitters for more than 20 television stations, many radio stations and cell phone providers.
Television stations said if the antennas burn, broadcast signals would be affected but satellite and cable transmissions would not be. Two giant telescopes and several multimillion-dollar university programs are housed in the century-old Mount Wilson Observatory. The complex of buildings is both a historic landmark and a thriving modern center for astronomy. ...
Mandatory evacuations were in effect for neighborhoods in Glendale, Pasadena and other smoke-choked cities and towns north of Los Angeles....
An animal sanctuary called the Roar Foundation Shambala Preserve, six miles east of Acton, was in the mandatory evacuation zone, but fire officials decided removing the animals would be "a logistical nightmare," said Chris Gallucci, vice president of operations. "We have 64 big cats, leopards, lions, tigers, cougars. ... The animals are just walking around, not being affected by this at all," Gallucci said. "But if we panic, they panic. But we are not in panic mode yet." The preserve had a 22,000-gallon water tank, a lake and firefighting pumps, he said....
A 1.4-square-mile wildfire that began Sunday afternoon tripled in size overnight and was burning out of control in oak and conifer woodlands, said Norma Bailey, a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman. ...Some of the brush and trees had not burned for a century.... The blaze was in rolling terrain and steeper foothills. "The fire makes its own path," Peters [(a California Department of Forestry and /Fire Protection spokesman)] said. "It just flows with the terrain. It'll run very quickly uphill and because of the dynamics and the decadent vegetation being so dry, it will drive itself downhill, where normally you need a wind to do that."
Meanwhile, a 3.8-square-mile blaze that began Thursday near the San Bernardino County town of Hemet was 95 percent contained and was expected to be fully surrounded Monday evening ...
Northeast of Sacramento, a fire destroyed 60 structures, many of them homes in the town of Auburn. The fire had wiped out an entire cul-de-sac, leaving only smoldering ruins, a handful of chimneys and burnt cars ...The fire began Sunday and had blackened 275 acres amid high winds and was 50 percent contained Sunday night....
In Mariposa County, a nearly 7-square-mile fire burned in Yosemite National Park and forced the evacuation of about 50 homes. The blaze was 50 percent contained Sunday, said park spokeswoman Vickie Mates. Two people suffered minor injuries, she said.
Hot, dry and windy conditions also helped fan a monthlong wildfire in rural Utah, where residents in the town of New Harmony were told to leave their homes as the blaze flared up over the weekend. The lightning-sparked fire has already destroyed three houses and blackened more than 12 square miles in the Pine Valley Wilderness area.
(John Antczak, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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SINFA, Taiwan Ñ Barefoot and helmeted, the frightened survivors of deadly Typhoon Morakot
dangled high over jagged rocks and a raging river yesterday as soldiers hauled them to safety one by
one along a 100-foot cable. On the far side, a few dozen waited near a hand-painted sign on the craggy foundation of a destroyed bridge: "32 people died here SOS."
The perilous rescue was part of a massive military effort to save hundreds of stranded villagers after the
worst flooding to hit Taiwan in 50 years. About 14,000 villagers have been rescued since the typhoon
struck Saturday; hundreds more are feared missing or dead.
As criticism mounted yesterday over Taiwan's response to the disaster, the government dispatched
4,000 more troops to work with the 14,000 already deployed. Many of them are working in Kaohsiung
County, a mountainous farming region in southern Taiwan.
The rugged terrain and widespread devastation played havoc with rescue efforts after the storm, which
dumped 80 inches of rain on the island over the weekend.
Soldiers wearing heavy gloves resorted to using a makeshift zip line to haul survivors from the village
of Sinkai over the Ba Si Lan River, where the bridge was wiped out. They eventually rescued everyone
from a young boy in shorts to an elderly woman who brought along a couple of shopping bags worth of
belongings. ...
(Peter Enav, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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TAIPEI, Taiwan - Seabed movements believed caused by Typhoon Morakat damaged seven undersea
cables linking Asian nations, disrupting Internet and telephone services, a Taiwanese telephone
company said Friday.
Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom, which jointly operates four cables in the Bashi Channel between Taiwan
and the Philippines, said service has been slow since the typhoon pummeled Taiwan last weekend.
Voice calls and Internet data traffic will be fully restored later Friday, it said.
Meanwhile, two of the Philippines' largest telecommunications providers said their international call and
broadband services have suffered partial disruptions since Wednesday because of damaged undersea
cables connecting China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and the
Philippines.
... Most international Internet data and telephone calls are transmitted as pulses of light via undersea
fiber-optic cables that crisscross the globe. Many cables have "redundancy" Ð a technical term that
means having a backup cable that takes over if the main cable is damaged or completely fails.
An earthquake off the coast of southern Taiwan in December 2006 damaged seven undersea cables and
disrupted services for several days but this time there were no reports of seismic activity.
Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. and Globe Telecom Inc. said they rerouted Internet traffic and
some international business circuits to two other cable networks. PLDT said it expects to "normalize
services to its business customers" by Friday. Singapore Telecommunications Ltd., Southeast Asia's largest telephone company, said it had restored 95 percent of its Internet capacity by using other cable systems.
(The Associated Press)
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Scientists have found evidence that another object has bombarded Jupiter, exactly 15 years after the first impacts by the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. Following up on a tip by an amateur astronomer, Anthony Wesley of Australia, that a new dark "scar" had suddenly appeared on Jupiter, this morning between 3 and 9 a.m. PDT (6 a.m. and noon EDT) scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., using NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility at the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, gathered evidence indicating an impact.
New infrared images show the likely impact point was near the south polar region, with a visibly dark "scar" and bright upwelling particles in the upper atmosphere detected in near-infrared wavelengths, and a warming of the upper troposphere with possible extra emission from ammonia gas detected at mid-infrared wavelengths. ...
JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Go to
NASA news release.
(Carolina Martinez, JPL/NASA press release)
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