If the Great Salt Lake, which has already shrunk by two-thirds, continues to dry up, here’s what’s in store:
The lake’s flies and brine shrimp would die off — scientists warn it could start as soon as this summer — threatening the 10 million migratory birds that stop at the lake annually to feed on the tiny creatures. Ski conditions at the resorts above Salt Lake City, a vital source of revenue, would deteriorate. The lucrative extraction of magnesium and other minerals from the lake could stop.
Most alarming, the air surrounding Salt Lake City would occasionally turn poisonous. The lake bed contains high levels of arsenic and as more of it becomes exposed, windstorms carry that arsenic into the lungs of nearby residents, who make up three-quarters of Utah’s population.
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Cold snap leaves one dead, over 4 million without power in Texas
Two dead from carbon monoxide poisoning after using car for heat in Texas storm
Wind turbines are freezing in Texas amid ‘unprecedented’ storm
Northwest storm leaves at least 200,000 without power
Tornado Watch is issued for New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia after twisters touched down in the Midwest, killing one, while every county in Oklahoma is under a state of emergency
While a rising Arkansas River threatens more homes in Fort Smith, many farmers have already seen water inundate their fields, disrupting harvesting and planting schedules and washing away crops already planted.
Trump moves to de-fang global warming science with 'climate review panel' led by Princeton physicist, William Happer, who believes 'The 'demonization of carbon dioxide' is like 'the poor Jews under Hitler'
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PAINE (AFP) - The cows and horses would have come for the last blades of grass. Now their bones are scattered on the cracked earth, victims of drought that wiped Santiago's weekend playground Lake Aculeo from the map.
Lake Aculeo's demise is so sudden and complete it seems as if someone had pulled a giant plug and let all the water out.
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Nor'easter will drench Washington D.C., New York and Boston in rain and snow this weekend as the Midwest still reels from the bomb cyclone's deadly flooding and braces for more showers
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A global warming deniers solution to global warming.
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Pat Robertson Casts 'Shield Of Protection' Ahead Of Hurricane Florence
Hurricane Florence
Meanwhile...
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Tropical Storm Lane retreats from Hawaii, leaves over 45 inches of rain behind
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Up to 85 million people are in the path of a storm that's expected to rock much of the East Coast of the United States.
Jonah Blizzard JAN2016
A giant storm is swirling eastward across the Atlantic Ocean, sending repeated bands of rain towards the British Isles
Flood warnings are now in place in Essex and East Anglia and alerts in South East after rivers burst banks yesterday
The massive system, along with two hurricanes named Gonzala and Fay, is creating extreme weather in the ocean
Despite around 16mm of rain an hour expected to fall on some areas of Britain, temperatures will rise to around 20C
This satellite image from NASA shows the eye of Super Typhoon Vongfong in the Philippine Sea. At one point the typhoon rivalled last year's devastating typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 6,000 people
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Ice melting: In this aerial photo taken on September and provided by NOAA, some 35,000 walrus gather on shore near Point Lay, Alaska looking for places to rest in the absence of sea ice
Polar Vortex; -62 F
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The House Science, Space and Technology Committee announced early Wednesday that it's postponing its environmental subcommittee's scheduled 10 a.m. hearing on the state of the science behind climate change. As a reason, it cited "weather."
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Officials for the International Organization for Global Warming announced yesterday that their scheduled conference in Oslo, Norway has been cancelled due to an unexpected blizzard, which swept in from the North Atlantic and paralyzed much of the Scandinavian coast.
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Poland Touts Coal as It Hosts the UN Global Warming Conference
Is this a Polish Joke?
Biggest storm in history: Millions flee super Typhoon Haiyan as 235mph winds smash into Philippines en route to mainland Asia
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Researchers have found evidence to suggest that climate change, rather than humans, was the main factor that drove the woolly mammoth to extinction.
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Dust from the Saharan Desert has traveled thousands of miles across the Atlantic and covered the state of Texas in a cloud of haze.
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Scientists feared water which trickles down through ice could speed up the movement of glaciers as it acts as lubricant between the ice and the ground However, they discovered this process will probably only have a minor role in sea level rises compared to iceberg carving and surface melt Lubrication will add less than five per cent of the total projected contribution to sea level rises from the Greenland ice sheet
Now a study in Nature reports that the world could face damage of $60 trillion if methane, a super greenhouse gas, escapes the bonds that hold it in place in the Siberian permafrost bordering the warming Arctic. This "permanent frost" may no longer be permanent. While this scenario is a low-probability risk, the consequences of a sudden methane escape would be overwhelming. And this is just one of many potential climate tipping points.
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On a calm winter's day in Norway two years ago, the sea suddenly started to boil and rise, sending freak waves rolling onto nearby shores and mystifying residents. Turns out, the massive magnitude-9.0 earthquake that shook Japan in 2011 also triggered these surprise seiche waves, a new study shows.
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In 2010 to 2011, three atmospheric patterns came together over the Indian and Pacific oceans. These patterns drove vast amounts of rain over Australia, drenching the continent. In fact, so much rain fell that the world's ocean levels dropped measurably. Unlike other locations, the soil and topography of Australia prevent almost all of its precipitation from running into the ocean. This means that any rain that falls is kept on the continent rather than contributing to sea level rise.
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Marine life is on the move. A groundbreaking study reveals that over the last several decades, warming ocean temperatures have caused many marine species to shift closer and closer to the poles. Some types of fish and plankton are moving at a rate of 45 miles per decade, 12 times faster than terrestrial animals. As the base of the marine food web moves, people will have to follow or risk losing a resource.
"That's like moving the dinner plate to a totally different place in the ocean," said paper co-author Benjamin Halpern, a research biologist with the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara
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Nearly 70 percent of the groundwater stored in parts of the United States' High Plains Aquifer — a vast underground reservoir that stretches through eight states, from South Dakota to Texas, and supplies 30 percent of the nation's irrigated groundwater — could be used up within 50 years, unless current water use is reduced, a new study finds.
