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Show The Salt Lake Tribune Al4 WORLD EARTHWEEK: A DIARY OF THE PLANET Sunday, November10, 2002 By Steve Newman Earthquakes 0 adults shelters were set up l sands left homeless * Thousand: Northwest Passage May Become Nautical Reality BY ROBERTS. BOYD KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE oY WASHINGTON A centuries-old dream of merchants and sailors, the fabled Northwest Passage across the ice-covered top of the world, may become open for commercial shipping as soon as five +A magnitude Aceh summers from now Climate records show that the Arctic zone is warming much faster than mid-latitude inflicting minor dam. age to the rans-Alasku pipeline The shaking Inggered other tremors in El a Floods ” Wyoming, sloshed water in the pools Ongoing 1 Nio-related and bayous of Louisiana and muddied downpours across part well water as far aw asylvania. Uganda have swept away the + Earth movements were also felt in LopSoil and banana plantations, accord: western Mexico, western Greece, cen ing @ report in the NewVision newspa tral fran, central Tancania, northernand idents of Kabingo in Isingiro southern the Nebraska-South said to have been le! Dakota border region sand groaning after thelatest downpour. “The entire village is in may hem. This means that famineis immi Eruptions Ecuador's capital of Quito nent because we dependon bananas as was brought to 4 near sland our staple food, and for money,” said still by showers of ash from area resident Fred Bamwine. Others said that the severe floods were mainly nearby erupting El Reventador Vol cano. The city was blanketedby | inch causedby the clearing of trees andveg of volcanic debris, which shroudedthe tationfromthe surroundinghills segionina dark haze asit fell Descend ing ash also disrupted electricity trans Tropical Cyclones polluted reservoirs and Shipping lanes inthe North highways in Leuador's Andean Pacific were threatenedby for mountains and Amazon region mer typhoon Huko, which * Following anextended period of weakenedto below tropical stormforce relative calm, Mexico's Popocatepetl as it passedto the northof Midway + Tropical cyclone Atang waspre Volcano produced an explosion that ‘ent ashsoaring 2.5 miles into the sky dicted to pass to the north of Madagas. car late in the week southeast of Mexico City and tropical regions of our planet, causing the ice to melt at an accelerating rate. Some experts say the polar ice cap 2.@ 2 at the hee cMine mber8, Vostok, 4 Antarctica < record keeping began more than 40 years ago. “Carbon dioxideis knownto be responsible for the global warming tralia ha a recordas the of the atmosphere. Recurrent fires have. mostsevere seven-month dry therefore, the potential of making a very period since record keeping beganin significant contributionto this warm 1900. The April to October periodof this ing,” Page added ranked first in terms of boththe lack ainfall and area involved. The« Magnet ing parched conditions have severely Mosquito Hong Kong’s wealthy elite affected agriculture, livestock produc andtrendy outdooreateries are tion, public water supplies and wildlife attempting to combat the across a broad stretchof the country threat of mosquito-bornedisease with a Record Drought An ongoing drought in Aus 2@ recent invention from the United States—a “mosquito magnet” that simulates the human production of heat and carbondioxide. Several restaurantsthat have placed the device on their patios report a sharp increase in business. The device is said to lure the insects into a trap with a flow of carbon dioxide and Wildfire Warming Carbonfromongoing and sea sonal wildfires in Indonesia is likely to be fueling global warming, according to a seport inthe journal Nature. Dr. Susan Page of the University of Leicester reported that fires in Indonesia five years ago released heat comparable to what humans natu2.6 billion tons of carbonintothe atmo- rally produce and what mosquitoes use sphere—a figure equivalent to 40 per- totarget their next meals. cent of the total global emissions from Distributed by: Tribune Media Services burning fossil fuels thal year. It also repail: mail@ earthweek.com resentedthe greatest annual increase in Earth Environment Service ‘atmospheric carbon dioxidelevels since ealtt UNDETECTABLE HEARINGAID... COIN OPERATED ARCADE GAME BRae LUE could disappear during the peak months of summer well before the end ofthis century. The ice reportedly shrank more dramatically this year than at any timesince detailed records have been kept. In addition, there is a Northeast Passage along the upper rim of Siberia that is even more likely to open up than the Northwest Passage above Canada, according to a report released this year by the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, a federal agency. In one of the few advantageous side effects of climate warming, a Northwest Passage threading 900 miles through a tangle of islands about 500 miles northof the Arctic Circle could be open to shipping for oneor two monthsa year five to 10 years fromnow. The northwestern path through the ice would cut the travel distance between Eu rope and Asia by 6,800 miles, compared with the standard route through the Panama Ca- nal. For supertankers, which now must sail the way around Cape Horn atthe tip of South America, the trip would be shortened by 11,800 miles. Space satellites have been measuring the shrinkage of polar ice since 1979. During that time, the area covered by ice in summer has shrunk about 10 percent. Theextent of the ice apparently reached a record minimum for the month of August in August2002, accordingto the latest data collected by the National Snow and Ice Data Center. A further reduction was expected for September, when the coverage of arctic ice usually is atits smallest. According to Walsh, one cli- mate modelpredicts the Arctic ice cap will vanish entirely during the summers by 2050. Four other models, however, say some ice will remain. JUNE F - Tax Deduction"=" WeDo Prporvach- BunningotMot’ Utah Council of the Blind has helpedthe blind Vehicles,Real more productive in the workplace since 1972. Estate, Lots, Boats, RV's, and more! Something so tiny, but so Audible! 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