'Global Warming' Strikes Again: Southern Hemisphere in for cold winter

[SwordoftheVistula]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100722/ap_on_sc/lt_brazil_dead_penguins;_ylt=Ap9vlgVNlh1N6i.2MBJEY L1zfNdF

Hundreds of penguins that apparently starved to death are washing up on the beaches of Brazil, worrying scientists who are still investigating what's causing them to die.

About 500 of the black-and-white birds have been found just in the last 10 days on Peruibe, Praia Grande and Itanhaem beaches in Sao Paulo state, said Thiago do Nascimento, a biologist at the Peruibe Aquarium.

Most were Magellan penguins migrating north from Argentina, Chile and the Falkland Islands in search of food in warmer waters.

Many are not finding it: Autopsies done on several birds revealed their stomachs were entirely empty — indicating they likely starved to death, Nascimento said.

Scientists are investigating whether strong currents and colder-than-normal waters have hurt populations of the species that make up the penguins' diet, or whether human activity may be playing a role.

"Overfishing may have made the fish and squid scarcer," Nascimento said.

Nascimento said it's common for penguins to swim north this time of year. Inevitably, some get lost along the way or die from hunger or exhaustion, and end up on the Brazilian coast far from home.

But not in such numbers — Nascimento said about 100 to 150 live penguins show up on the beach in an average year, and only 10 or so are dead.

"What worries us this year," he said, "is the absurdly high number of penguins that have appeared dead in a short period of time."

[SwordoftheVistula]

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=361111&CategoryId=14095

LIMA – The Peruvian government declared a state of emergency because of the cold wave gripping a number of districts in the nation’s 16 regions, according to an urgent decree published Saturday in the official gazette.

The decree covers all districts of the country more than 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) above sea level, as well as three regions in the Peruvian jungle that have registered strangely low temperatures in the last few weeks.

According to official figures, so far this year at least 409 people have died of pneumonia and ailments related to the cold weather, most of them younger than 5 years old (200 deaths) and over 60 years (158 deaths).

The emergency declaration, which has a duration of 60 days, covers districts in the regions of Ancash, Apurimac, Arequipa, Ayacucho, Cusco, Huancavelica, Huanuco, Junin, Lima, Moquegua, Pasco, Puno and Tacna, which in recent days reached a temperature of -24 C (-11 F).

A state of emergency was also declared in the jungle regions of Madre de Dios, Ucayali and Loreto.

The decree published Saturday also includes a series of measures that will allow regional and local governments to supply the affected populations with food and vaccines.

The armed forces were also called upon by Defense Minister Rafael Rey to carry out civic actions to help those populations most vulnerable to the cold.

[Bloodeagle]

I wonder how this coming winter will be for us northern folks?:)

[SwordoftheVistula]

http://www.boliviabella.com/1-million-fish-dead-in-bolivian-ecological-disaster.html

(3 Aug. 2010 - Update: The number of dead fish and other water-dependent wildlife has increased to about 6 million.)

----------

Over 1 million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles, dolphins and other river wildlife are floating dead in numerous Bolivian rivers in the three eastern/southern departments of Santa Cruz, Beni and Tarija. The extreme cold front that hit Bolivia in mid-July caused water temperatures to dip below the minimum temperatures river life can tolerate. As a consequence, rivers, lakes, lagoons and fisheries are brimming with decomposing fish and other creatures.

Unprecedented: Nothing like this has ever been seen in this magnitude in Bolivia. Inhabitants of riverside communities report the smell is nauseating and can be detected as far as a kilometer away from river banks. River communities, whose livelihoods depend on fishing, fear they'll run out of food and will have nothing to sell. Authorities are concerned there will be a shortage of fish in markets and are more concerned by possible threats to public health, especially in communities that also use river water for bathing and drinking, but also fear contaminated or decaying fish may end up in market stalls. They've begun a campaign to ensure market vendors and the public know how to tell the difference between fresh and unhealthy fish.

In university fish ponds and commercial fisheries the losses are also catastrophic.

[Loki]

Every Russian knows well about global warming the past few weeks. Moscow was over 40 celsius, for days on end. They're dying - unprecedented.

[SwordoftheVistula]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-03/argentina-colder-than-antarctica-spurs-record-power-imports-shuts-plants.html

Argentina is importing record amounts of energy as the coldest winter in 40 years drives up demand and causes natural-gas shortages, prompting Dow Chemical Co. and steelmaker Siderar SAIC to scale back production.

Electricity supplied from Brazil and Paraguay rose to a daily combined record of about 1,000 megawatts on July 12, while consumption peaked at 20,396 megawatts three days later, according to Buenos Aires-based energy broker Cammesa. Shipments of liquefied natural gas are set to double this year.

Dow, Siderar and aluminum maker Aluar Aluminio Argentino SAIC are among companies closing plants, cutting output or seeking alternative energy sources after temperatures in parts of Argentina fell below those of Antarctica on July 15. Rising demand is exacerbating a shortage that began six years ago as economic growth accelerated and energy investment fell. The shortage is boosting costs as companies spend more to guarantee supplies.

“The situation is getting worse, because the shortage period is growing every year,” Gerardo Rabinovich, a director at the General Mosconi Energy Institute in Buenos Aires and an adviser to the opposition Radical Party, said in a telephone interview. “When this started in 2004, it lasted for about a week, then it was two weeks and now it’s more than a month.”

In July, temperatures in Buenos Aires were, on average, 1 degree Celsius below the usual low and high of 8 and 14 degrees (46 and 57 degrees Farenheit), with temperatures plummeting to about 2 degrees Celsius on July 15.

Renewed Cold

Also on July 15, temperatures in Mendoza, the wine- producing region in western Argentina, fell as low as -8.9 degrees Celsius below the temperature registered that day in the Argentine-controlled area of the South Pole, according to a national weather institute report.

Argentina is bracing for a renewed polar front this month. On Aug. 1, almost half of the country’s 23 provinces registered temperatures below zero, while the northern city of La Quiaca on the border with Bolivia fell to minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit.) The average low predicated through Aug. 5 is 1 degree, according to the National Weather service.

Dow closed a polyethylene plant in July and reduced operations at another facility to minimum capacity after gas supplies were rationed by the government, said Soledad Echague, a spokeswoman for the Midland, Michigan-based company in Buenos Aires. The cuts were more severe than the company had expected, she said.

Power Purchases

“The situation should be under control, as long as the weather improves,” Horacio Mizrahi, a spokesman at Argentina’s Planning Ministry, which oversees the country’s energy policy, said in a July 27 telephone interview from Buenos Aires.

Aluar needs a constant supply of electricity at its 410,000 ton-per-year aluminum smelter in Argentina’s southern Chubut province. The company is buying power to keep the plant running during peak gas consumption hours this winter, a spokesman for the Buenos Aires-based company, who declined to be named under company policy, said in a July 26 telephone interview.

Siderar reduced production to a minimum during peak gas consumption hours in July, according to a company spokesman, who declined to be named, citing company policy.

Argentina has doubled purchases of LNG shipments to 14 this year to address the shortages. Each shipment equals 3 million British thermal units of the fuel. Seven ships were bought last year, according to government data compiled by the Argentine Oil and Gas Institute, an industry research group.

Reduced Supplies

About 300 hundred industrial users have faced reduced power supplies since yesterday, according to reports in local media, including newspaper Clarin, Argentina’s biggest newspaper, and television channel C5N. The cuts started after residential gas consumption rose 42 percent yesterday to 85 million cubic meters (3 billion cubic feet) from 60 million, Clarin reported today.

July and August are Argentina’s coldest months. The winter months have put stress on energy supplies since 2004, when economic growth of an average of 8.5 percent a year stoked demand and price caps on gas, oil and utility prices curtailed investments in the country’s fields and pipelines.

The energy shortages led to restrictions of exports to Chile, which obtained about 80 percent of its natural gas supplies from Argentina until 2009, when it opened the first of two LNG plants. A gas pipeline that links the two countries across the Andes mountains is now practically unused after Argentina curtailed exports to its Latin American neighbor.

Spot Cargo Purchases

Aside from the 14 ships bought through a bidding round earlier this year, Argentine state-owned energy company Enarsa bought at least one spot cargo of LNG this year from Ras Laffan Liquified Natural Gas Co., according to the Qatari company. Enarsa’s head of communications Carlos Davidson did not respond to emails to his office and a phone call seeking comment.

Argentina needs an extra 40 million cubic meters of natural gas to cover the shortages, according to the Mosconi Institute’s Rabinovich. The country uses about 120 million in winter, he said.

Argentina’s Energy Secretary this year hired YPF, a unit of Spain’s Repsol YPF SA, to install a second regasification ship, which will be located on the Parana river off the city of Escobar, in central Buenos Aires province.

The new ship will be located within a radius of less than 200 kilometers from steel plants operated by the Techint Group and Arcelor Mittal’s Argentine unit Acindar. Argentine grain and bean producers and exporters, such as Bunge Ltd. and Cargill Inc., the country’s two biggest exporters in 2009, also have operations in the region.