Ferocious Wildfires Threaten Lake Baikal, Siberia

World’s biggest freshwater lake facing potential ecological catastrophe

Lake Baikal contains 20% of the unfrozen freshwater on the planet

Dozens of raging wildfires threaten Lake Baikal in Siberia, the world’s largest freshwater lake, as they burn uncontrollably along its shores, according to local media.

Major wildfires have been destroying forests surrounding “the world’s oldest and deepest lake” since July, said a report.

“Fires near the lake’s shores actually kill the water arteries, thus damaging the water balance in the lake,” said the deputy head of the Russian parliament’s committee on natural resources and ecology.

At least 36 major blazes, fueled by drought and abnormally high temperatures, have scorched about 77,000 hectares of the surrounding pristine forests.

“It feels like doomsday,” the report quoted an eyewitness as saying.

On August 15, Siberian Times reported:

“More than 100 fires are burning on an area of almost 150,000 hectares in Siberia, according to official figures, which critics say often underestimate the problem.”

Images are posted here.

Lake Baikal is a rift lake located in southern Siberia, between Irkutsk Oblast (northwest) and the Buryat Republic (southeast), Russia.

The largest (volume: 23,615 km³) freshwater lake in the world, Lake Baikal contains about 20% of the planet’s unfrozen surface fresh water. Baikal is also the world’s

• Deepest lake at 1,642m, and is one of the planet’s clearest lakes.
• Oldest lake, with an estimated age of 25 million years.
• The seventh-largest lake by surface area (31,722 km²).
• It contains more water than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

Out of the sinking pan, into the fire!

Global Warming Tolls the Death Knell for Tuvalu

Massive tides, high winds and rising sea levels are causing erosion to the four reef islands and five true atolls that comprise the tiny country of Tuvalu.

Map of Tuvalu

Formerly known as the Ellice Islands, the low-lying Polynesian islands are located in the Pacific Ocean midway between Hawaii and Australia. The nine-island cluster contains 600 sq km of ocean, but only a total of 25 sq km of land.

Tuvaluans reaching end of the road. (AP Yonhap). Image may be subject to copyright!

“The residents of Tepuka Savilivili, an island 10 kilometers away from Funafuti, also sense the crisis. One day in 1997, an uninhabited island simply vanished. The residents explained that gale winds blew and covered the island during the night. The next day, the coconut trees had vanished.” Wrote Nam Jong-yeong.

Drinking water is mixing with salty ocean water; the coconut trees are vanishing; during high tides seawater covers most parts of the islands.

Thousands of Tuvaluans have already left the shrinking islands, most of them arriving in what they believe to be a safe destination: New Zealand.

Their new home, however, could breakup and sink in the south-western Pacific Ocean as a result of massive earthquakes. It’s rather like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire!

Related Links:

• Will one or both of New Zealand islands break up and sink …

Deluge Across the World

Water, Water Everywhere!

“A Conspiracy Against the Public”: For reasons unknown to Moderators, Google has blocked this post.

In the past week dozens of world’s cities and regions have been flooded:

Romania: Areas north of Bucharest
Ukraine: Western Ivano-Frankivsk region
India: Western city of Ahmedabad, the plains of Asam, eastern city of Patna

People make their way along a flooded park in Xiangfan, Hubei province, China, July 23, 2008. REUTERS/Stringer. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair use Notice!

Bangladesh: Northeastern regions
New Zealand: Various areas throughout the islands
South Korea: Seoul and the country’s central regions
UK: Shropshire, West Midlands
Mexico: City of Matamoros and nearby regions
United States: Southern Texas, New Mexico, central Alabama, northeast Missouri,
China: Provinces of Jiangsu, Hubei, Sichuan and Hualien

Related Links:

• Photo Album
• Floods in Eastern Europe Kill 26

Image of the Day: Southern Spain

Desertification of Southern Spain

The land of southern Spain has dried, leading to rationing and disputes over water. Photo: Monica Gumm for The International Herald Tribune. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

The average surface temperature in Spain has risen 2.7 degrees compared with about 1.4 degrees globally since 1880, records show. (Source)

Related Links

• Drought (Index Page)
• In Spain, Water Is a New Battleground
• California ‘Mojavefied’ by 2011?

Bleak Future Awaits the “Lucky” Survivors

Myanmar: Nearly 2 million struggling to survive Nargis aftermath

Thousands of the survivors of Cyclone Nargis face a bleak future, starvation and death, as they abandon what was once their villages in Myanmar’s Irrawaddy delta in search of water, food and medicine.

According to the U.N. humanitarian agency between 1.2 million and 1.9 million are struggling to survive eight days after the storm struck their impoverished country.

Villagers display a sign saying ‘Help Us’ on a road near Kundangon May 11, 2008. Even if they manage to find food and shelter, the 1.5 million destitute survivors of Myanmar’s Cyclone Nargis still face a major risk from infected wounds, chronic diarrhoea and malaria or dengue. (REUTERS/Stringer. Caption: Reuters) Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice.

The death toll could range from 63,290 to 101,682, with 220,000 people reported as missing, the report said, while “acute environmental issues” threaten the health and lives of the survivors. (Source)

Related Links:

• Update #3 – Nargis: Asia’s 2nd most devastating cyclone

• Tropical Cyclones
• Update #2- Myanmar cyclone death toll 22,500
  
• Update #1- Myanmar Cyclone Death Nearly 4,000
• Powerful tropical cyclone Nargis hits Myanmar

Tipping Point: Here and Now!

Our thanks to Lisa G. for forwarding the link to the following (Source)

We are at the tipping point because the climate state includes large, ready positive feedbacks provided by the Arctic sea ice, the West Antarctic ice sheet, and much of Greenland’s ice. — James Hansen

Tipping Point: PERSPECTIVE OF A CLIMATOLOGIST [PDF]
by JAMES HANSEN

An Excerpt from Hansen’s report:
Our home planet is dangerously near a tipping point at which human-made greenhouse gases reach a level where major climate changes can proceed mostly under their own momentum. Warming will shift climatic zones by intensifying the hydrologic cycle, affecting freshwater availability and human health.

[James Hansen is director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Institute for Space Studies and an Adjunct Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University’s Earth Institute.]

The ice in the Arctic is much younger than normal, with vast regions now covered by first-year ice and much less area covered by multiyear ice. Left: February distribution of ice by its age during normal Arctic conditions (1985-2000 average). Right: February 2008 Arctic ice age distribution. Credit: NSIDC [Caption: NASA]

Related Links:

• Arctic sea ice forecast:another record low in 2008
• Arctic Melting FAST!
• Greenland Ice Melt Faster Than IPCC Estimates
• Only Zero Emissions Would Avert Dangerous Warming
• Stern Report: “a great toxic dump of doublespeak in truly Orwellian fashion”

• Burning Earth
• Human Impact
• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Giga Trends
• Nuking Earth for Lifestyle

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