Earth, Environment & Endangered Species 02 (Apr 11 - Sep 15)

[winston]

Clouds remind you of the recycling process of nature.
~ Dr. Pillai

[winston]

Cold Storage says "no" to shark fin

SINGAPORE - Singapore-based supermarket chain Cold Storage will stop selling all sharks fin and shark products in its 42 outlets across the country - the first supermarket in Singapore to implement a "no shark fins policy".

http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/ED ... -shark-fin

[winston]

Austrian glaciers shrink dramatically

Austria's glaciers shrank dramatically this summer, the most since a record hot period in 2003, principally because of low amounts of snow the preceding winter, scientists said.

The Goldbergkees glacier in the Alps, for instance, is on average two metres (6.5 feet) thinner than in 2010, losing around seven percent of its mass, the ZAMG national meteorological institute said.

Glaciers generally shrink in the summer months and grow again in the winter, and in recent years more has generally melted than has been replaced. This year however the loss has been particularly marked, the ZAMG said.

"Although 2011's summer wasn't particularly hot, the losses are as extreme as during the 2003 summer of the century," climatologist Berhard Hynek said.

http://www.newsmeat.com/news/meat.php?a ... &buid=3281

[winston]

Scientists worried as Arctic has record ozone loss

An ozone hole five times the size of California opened over the Arctic this spring, matching ozone loss over Antarctica for the first time on record, scientists said on Sunday.

Formed by a deep chill over the North Pole, the unprecedented hole at one point shifted over eastern Europe, Russia and Mongolia, exposing populations to higher, but unsustained, levels of ultra-violet light.

Ozone, a molecule of oxygen, forms in the stratosphere, filtering out ultraviolet rays that damage vegetation and can cause skin cancer and cataracts.

The shield comes under seasonal attack in both polar regions in the local winter-spring.

Part of the source comes from man-made chlorine-based compounds, once widely used in refrigerants and consumer aerosols, that are being phased out under the UN's Montreal Protocol.

But the loss itself is driven by deep cold, which causes water vapour and molecules of nitric acid to condense into clouds in the lower stratosphere.

http://www.newsmeat.com/news/meat.php?a ... &buid=3281

[kennynah]

nothing lives forever... not even planet earth...

the depletion of our ozone layer is prove of our natural destructive tendencies

[winston]

Comet surprise: Did the sea come from the sky?

Much of Earth's oceans may have been created by comets, which whacked into the infant planet billions of years ago, bringing precious loads of ice, a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature suggests.

The evidence to support this comes from a signature of the ratio of heavy hydrogen, or deuterium, in water.

Ice on a comet called 103P/Hartley 2, analysed by an infrared instrument aboard Europe's Herschel space telescope as it swung by Earth in October and November 2010, has the same deuterium ratio as water on Earth.

Primal leftovers from the building of the Solar System, comets are mixtures of ice and dust that have been dubbed "dirty snowballs."

http://www.newsmeat.com/news/meat.php?a ... &buid=3281

[behappyalways]

Rivers of ice: Vanishing glaciers
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-15216875

[winston]

Climate change means smaller animals UPI.com

SINGAPORE, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- The size of polar bears is diminishing because of the myriad effects brought on by global climate change, researchers from Singapore determined.

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy ... 318851595/

[winston]

Flying Over the Earth

Beautiful time-lapse film taken from the front of the International Space Station as it orbits our planet at night.

This movie begins over the Pacific Ocean and continues over North and South America before entering daylight near Antarctica.

http://www.mindbendingvideos.com/flying-over-the-earth/

[winston]

Spectacular Cinematography of the Beauty of Life

After spending decades of filming the infinite beauty that effortlessly surrounds us, award-winning cinematographer Louie Schwartzberg presents his visually stunning project “Happiness Revealed.”

“Beauty and seduction are nature’s tools for survival because we protect what we fall in love with.”

http://www.mindbendingvideos.com/specta ... y-of-life/