How tequila could be key in our battle against climate change

Now scientists are hoping to harness this reverse molecular clock to engineer new drought-resistant crops that will be able to adapt to our future changing climate.

Publishing their findings in this month's Nature Plants, the team from Newcastle University, UK, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, reveal for the first time how the stomata -- or 'breathing' pores -- on the Agave's leaves are kept shut during the day to minimise water loss.

The process is opposite to that of most plants which keep their stomata open during the day so they can take in Carbon Dioxide and use the sunlight for photosynthesis. However, this also means they lose water rapidly through evaporation.

Newcastle University's Professor Anne Borland, one of the authors of the study, explains:

"Photosynthesis needs three key ingredients -- CO2, water and sunlight -- so it follows that most plants keep their stomata open in the day when it is sunny and shut at night when it is dark.

"But for a plant living in hot, arid conditions such as the Agave, this would be disastrous. They need to conserve every drop of water they can and leaving their stomata open during the day would result in such rapid water loss they would simply die.

"What we have shown in this study is that in so-called CAM plants -- Crassulacean Acid Metabolism plants like the Agave -- several of the genes controlling stomatal opening have had their abundance re-scheduled or 'flipped' from being more abundant during the day to more abundant at night.

"Storing the carbon from the CO2 taken up overnight, the plants photosynthesise in the day like other plants but are able to carry out the process without opening their stomata.

"If we can harness these genes and engineer new drought-resistant plants then the potential is huge in terms of developing crops and biofuels that are able to withstand the challenges we face from a changing climate."

CAM plants

Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) was first discovered by scientists at Newcastle University in the 1950s and is a photosynthetic adaptation found in approximately 7% of plant species.

Producing high quantities of starch and sugars in areas where water is limiting, it has long been recognised that if we can harness the properties of CAM plants they could pave the way to new biofuel crops for the production of bioethanol.

Agave is native to the hot and arid regions of Mexico and the Southwestern United States. Well-known as the base ingredient for tequila, Agave nectar is now widely marketed as an alternative to sugar.

Sequencing thousands of genes and proteins to understand the underlying metabolic processes, the team compared the Agave -- or CAM -- plant with Arabidopsis, a type of cress and a typical C3 plant.

They found that although both plants have the same complement of genes and proteins, over a 24 hour period certain genes were 'switched on' at different times.

"The plants have effectively re-programmed themselves to suit their environment," explains Professor Borland, based in the School of Biology at Newcastle University.

"Because both plant types have a similar genetic makeup, we are hopeful that it will be possible to turn C3 plants into CAM plants simply by finding the right triggers.

"This is a really exciting discovery and a major breakthrough in our quest to create new plants that can cope in our future environment."

The study is part of a $14m research programme funded by the Department of Energy Office of Science Genomic Science Programme. The team are currently four years into the five year project.

Climate change affects Swedish reindeer herding and increases tularemia infection

Warmer winters affect reindeer herding

In some places in the north of Sweden, the snow season has been shortened by more than two months between 1978 and 2008, which has dire consequences on life in the North. Data from ten weather stations in reindeer herding areas, from Frösön in mid-Swedish Jämtland to the very north of Sweden, shows that the coldest days have dwindled the most during the period and that long periods of really cold weather are today much less common than previously.

"Our research shows that climate change in northern Sweden is more extensive than anticipated and that reindeer herding is very vulnerable," says Maria Furberg, doctoral student at the Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine and the Department of Clinical Microbiology.

Climate change in northern Sweden, indicated by shorter periods of snow for instance, has had negative effects on reindeer herders' livelihood. Reindeer herders' ability to handle the consequences is weakened further by other circumstances that also affect reindeer herding, such as for instance increased competition from other businesses, continuously shrinking grazing lands, predator policies and poor financial conditions.

Tenfold increase in incidence of tularemia

In her dissertation, Maria Furberg shows that the Swedish national incidence of tularemia, also known as rabbit fever (read more below), has increased significantly both geographically and in number between 1984 and 2012. The cases also seem to be related to watercourses and lakes. A survey of 1,500 randomly selected inhabitants in the two northernmost counties of Sweden, Norrbotten and Västerbotten, completed in 2014, showed that just under three per cent showed signs of having had a tularemia infection. That corresponds to a 16 time increase in comparison to reported cases.

"The massive increase in numbers of reported tularemia cases is startling and the disease seems to be much more common than previously anticipated. This means that our health care needs to improve tularemia diagnostics so that all patients receive the correct treatment. Also, the reasons behind the increase in tularemia needs to be investigated further with continuous research," says Maria Furberg.

Tularemia is a zoonotic disease, which means that it is transmitted from animals to humans. In Sweden, the disease is often mosquito-borne. The symptoms of the disease are high temperature, ulceration, swelling of lymph nodes and sometimes even severe pneumonia.

6,000 years ago the Sahara Desert was tropical, so what happened?

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The Sahara desert was once a tropical jungle.

Credit: © taka / Fotolia

As little as 6,000 years ago, the vast Sahara Desert was covered in grassland that received plenty of rainfall, but shifts in the world's weather patterns abruptly transformed the vegetated region into some of the driest land on Earth. A Texas A&M university researcher is trying to uncover the clues responsible for this enormous climate transformation -- and the findings could lead to better rainfall predictions worldwide.

Robert Korty, associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, along with colleague William Boos of Yale University, have had their work published in the current issue of Nature Geoscience.

The two researchers have looked into precipitation patterns of the Holocene era nd compared them with present-day movements of the intertropical convergence zone, a large region of intense tropical rainfall. Using computer models and other data, the researchers found links to rainfall patterns thousands of years ago.

"The framework we developed helps us understand why the heaviest tropical rain belts set up where they do," Korty explains.

"Tropical rain belts are tied to what happens elsewhere in the world through the Hadley circulation, but it won't predict changes elsewhere directly, as the chain of events is very complex. But it is a step toward that goal."

The Hadley circulation is a tropical atmospheric circulation that rises near the equator. It is linked to the subtropical trade winds, tropical rainbelts, and affects the position of severe storms, hurricanes, and the jet stream. Where it descends in the subtropics, it can create desert-like conditions. The majority of Earth's arid regions are located in areas beneath the descending parts of the Hadley circulation.

"We know that 6,000 years ago, what is now the Sahara Desert was a rainy place," Korty adds.

"It has been something of a mystery to understand how the tropical rain belt moved so far north of the equator. Our findings show that that large migrations in rainfall can occur in one part of the globe even while the belt doesn't move much elsewhere.

"This framework may also be useful in predicting the details of how tropical rain bands tend to shift during modern-day El Niño and La Niña events (the cooling or warming of waters in the central Pacific Ocean which tend to influence weather patterns around the world)."

The findings could lead to better ways to predict future rainfall patterns in parts of the world, Korty believes.

"One of the implications of this is that we can deduce how the position of the rainfall will change in response to individual forces," he says. "We were able to conclude that the variations in Earth's orbit that shifted rainfall north in Africa 6,000 years ago were by themselves insufficient to sustain the amount of rain that geologic evidence shows fell over what is now the Sahara Desert. Feedbacks between the shifts in rain and the vegetation that could exist with it are needed to get heavy rains into the Sahara.

Warming up to weird weather As Chicago finally heats up, some experts point to altered jet stream and effects of climate change

Chicago started the year in the midst of a record stretch of 335 days without an inch or more of snow. Then we had the wettest April on record. Cold and wet weather in spring and early summer flooded homes, postponed baseball games and disrupted concerts and barbecues. July brought warm and dry weather, with exceptions — particularly one day late in the month when we exchanged T-shirts for sweatshirts. Then August started cooler than normal, with a hint last week of autumn.
"Worst. Summer. Ever," Shtulman wrote early this month in an email.
And maybe the weirdest too? What's going on here?
Weather experts say a warming planet has led to changed atmospheric circulation patterns in the jet stream, the fast-moving river of air that separates cold air from warm air and dictates weather patterns across the globe. They say the features within the jet stream that bring clouds and precipitation or dryness and extreme temperatures — low-pressure troughs and high-pressure ridges — are changing their movement and duration, creating unusual weather patterns that lock in place and cause major floods, cold spells and heat waves.
Consider McGrath, Alaska.
The town in May set 10 temperature records — six for daily lows around the middle of the month and four for daily highs near the end of the month, reported Anchorage television station KTVA.
Then, on June 17, McGrath hit an all-time record of 94 degrees.
Now consider Chicago.

Isolated Severe Storms Possible in the South Tuesday (FORECAST)

Strong to severe thunderstorms may rumble through parts of the Southeast during the first half of Tuesday.
Warm, unstable air will not be abundant for a widespread threat of severe storms, so we do not expect an outbreak. But, we could still see some damaging wind gusts and possibly a tornado on Tuesday. The thunderstorms are developing ahead of a surface low-pressure system that is tracking northeastward through the South to start this week.

Severe Weather Forecast
Tuesday

• Forecast: Thunderstorms will be ongoing during the morning in parts of the Southeast. The greatest chance of a few severe storms through the first half of the day will be from northern Florida to southern Georgia and coastal South Carolina. The potential for severe storms may taper off during the second half of the day.
• Threats: Damaging winds are the main threat, though a tornado is also possible.

 

A Tropical Storm North of the Equator

In January, the lion's share of Earth's tropical cyclones are south of the equator, in the summer hemisphere, with the exception of the western North Pacific basin, where typhoons can occur year-round.
You don't see many January tracks north of the equator east of the international date line in the Pacific Ocean.

Tracks of all known January global tropical cyclones in the historical record. (NOAA/CSC)

Until January 2016, that is.
Pali became the earliest Central Pacific tropical storm of record on January 7, well southwest of Hawaii.
This was thanks to a burst of abnormal westerly low-level winds near or just south of the equator, coupled with the typical northeasterly trade winds of the subtropics north of the equator, providing a broad area of spin in which, once thunderstorms consolidated, a tropical storm formed.
Pali is only the third January tropical storm of record in central Pacific records dating to 1949.
https://weather.com/news/news/5-weird-things-happening-now-january-2016

Mississippi Valley Flooding

A home is completely submerged on December 30, 2015 in Fenton, Missouri. The St. Louis area and surrounding region experiencing record flood crests of the Mississippi, Missouri and Meremac Rivers after days of record rainfall. (Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images



What's so unusual about this? Don't the "Mighty Mississippi" and its tributaries swell at least once every year?
Well... yes, but rarely in winter.
Of 133 prior Mississippi River crests above flood stage in St. Louis, only three had occurred from December through February.
A succession of events late in the year, culminating in a torrential post-Christmas rain event, triggered this weird winter flood, setting record crests in several locations.
This prompted officials to announce the opening of the Bonnet Carré Spillway on January 10, designed to drain excess Mississippi River water into Lake Pontchartrain and protect the city of New Orleans.
Never before since the spillway had been completed in 1931 had it been opened this early in the year.





https://weather.com/news/news/5-weird-things-happening-now-january-2016

A Volcano Stopped an Earthquake?

Mount Aso, one of the most active volcanoes in Japan, recently helped to stop a powerful earthquake before it subsided on its own, researchers discovered.

When a 7.1-magnitude quake struck Kumamoto, Japan, on April 16, 2016, it opened surface ruptures in a zone extending 25 miles (40 kilometers) in length. But scientists found evidence suggesting that the powerful earthquake was halted by a magma chamber under the Aso volcanic cluster, located 19 miles (30 km) from where the quake originated.

This finding provided scientists with a rare glimpse of how two geological phenomena — volcanoes and earthquakes — may interact. This topic is of particular interest in Japan, which is particularly vulnerable to both volcanoes and earthquakes. [The 11 Biggest Volcanic Eruptions in History (Photos)]

An earthquake is a sudden release of pent-up energy in Earth's crust that has accumulated over time, generated by shifting tectonic plates. When two sides of a fault, or crack along a plate boundary, move apart or slide suddenly past each other, energy gets released. The waves of energy radiate outward from that jolt, often producing shaking on Earth's surface, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Japan is especially prone to earthquakes, as it lies in the Pacific Ring of Fire, a U-shaped area in the Pacific Ocean where several tectonic plates meet, and where many earthquakes are generated.

A number of volcanoes are also found in this Ring of Fire. And it was the particular interaction of the April 2016 earthquake with the Mount Aso volcano that triggered the researchers' interest in how seismic activity could be affected by the structure of volcanic clusters.
http://kidsahead.com/subjects/8-earthquakes/articles/1594

Experts: More Significant Quakes Expected After Massive 6.6 Magnitude Tremblor Strikes Italy

After central Italy was rocked by a 6.6 magnitude earthquake Sunday morning, experts say they can't exclude the possibility that there will be more, possibly stronger aftershocks in the area near Norcia .

British Geological Survey seismologist Margarita Segou told the Associated Press that the important thing to realize is that, while the number of temblors will decline over time, "we cannot  exclude the possibility of larger magnitude aftershocks. 

Carlo Doglioni,  president of Italy's National Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology, Carlo Doglioni, told The Associated Press that the intense activity along a series of faults in the region wasn't anomalous and ​that more significant quakes can be expected.

He said there was a similar sequence of three seismic events within a period of months in 1703, adding "it is normal for the Apennines," where there are a series of interdependent faults.

Doglioni said that natural law dictates that after such an event that there will be more quakes, "which means we can expect some 5 magnitude quakes and many of magnitude 4."

The USGS says the quake was centered about 4 miles north of Norica, Italy, and hit at 7:40 a.m. local time. Last Wednesday's 6.1 and 5.5 magnitude earthquakes were also centered in this same general area, along with many aftershocks in the following days.

There were no immediate reports of deaths, but about 20 people had suffered injuries as numerous buildings that had resisted the previous temblors collapsed. 

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said the nation's "soul is disturbed" by the series of quakes that began with the deadly Aug. 24 quake that killed almost 300 people. 

He has vowed that the country will rebuild the homes, churches and other structures destroyed by the temblor, which is the latest to strike the region since Wednesday.

https://www.wunderground.com/news/italy-earthquake-sunday

Rubble of a collapsed building in L'Aquila, central Italy, after an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 struck central Italy, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2016. A powerful earthquake rocked the same area of central and southern Italy hit by quake in August and a pair of aftershocks last week, sending already quake-damaged buildings crumbling after a week of temblors that have left thousands homeless. (Alberto Orsini/ANSA via AP)

Halloween Surprise: Rare Tropical Storm Forms in Mediterranean Sea

A tropical storm formed Halloween weekend, not in the typical Atlantic or Pacific, but in the Mediterranean Sea.

This rather strange sequence of events began as an area of low-pressure dropped southward from southern Europe and became temporarily left behind by the jet stream over the central Mediterranean Sea south of the Italian coast.

(MORE: The 35 Strangest Weather Events I've Seen in My Lifetime)

By Saturday, Oct. 29, a non-tropical low pressure center formed east of Malta, a group of islands between Sicily and the coast of Libya over the weekend. 

RGB composite satellite image of the Mediterranean storm as it was making the transition to a subtropical storm on October 30, 2016, at 12:00 UTC.
(NERC Satellite Receiving Station, University of Dundee)

The next day, thunderstorms became more clustered near the low-pressure center to warm the mid levels of the atmosphere sufficiently to morph the system into a subtropical storm. 

A subtropical storm displays features of both tropical and non-tropical systems, including a broad wind field, no cold or warm fronts, and generally low-topped thunderstorms displaced from the center of the system. 

https://www.wunderground.com/news/medicane-tropical-storm-mediterranean-sea-31oct2016

Fall Heat Wave Will Smash Records From Halloween Into the First Days of November

Record warmth will continue to give a summer feel into the first days of November this week, with hundreds of daily record highs and warm lows likely to be set and also some monthly record highs expected in parts of the heat-weary South and Plains states.

Current Temperatures

Some southern cities could set a new daily record high each day through much of this week.

This continues what has been a much warmer-than-average month for the vast majority of Americans east of the Rockies, including a mid-October warm spell that shattered records.

Below are details on the forecast temperatures through Wednesday, along with perspective on how warm it has been so far this month.

(MORE: U.S. Warm Records Trouncing Cold Records)

Tuesday's Forecast

Forecast Highs Compared to Average Tuesday

• Highs 10 to 25 degrees above average will surge back into the Great Lakes, Ohio Valley and Appalachians, while continuing to encompass much of the Plains and South.
• 70s are possible as far north as Lower Michigan and western Pennsylvania.
• 80s will once again rule the Ohio Valley, central and southern Plains and South.
• A few 90s are possible in the Deep South.
• Record highs will again likely be numerous from the Southeast to the Ohio Valley and in parts of the Plains, threatening some all-time November record highs in some areas.
• Potential all-time November record highs (record to beat is shown): Amarillo, Texas (87 degrees); Cincinnati, Ohio (81 degrees); Louisville, Kentucky (84 degrees); Nashville, Tennessee (85 degrees)

https://www.wunderground.com/news/record-warmth-west-central-south-late-october

Haboob-nado"

A tornado and gust front in Jilin Province, China on May 31, 2015. (Newsflare) (Newsflare)

• WATCH VIDEO

You may have heard of, or experienced, a dust storm known as a haboob, which are common in the Middle East and U.S. Desert Southwest.
What appeared at first to be a haboob in China's Jilin Province on May 31 had something extra. It was rotating.
"It certainly had some significant rotation," said severe weather expert, Dr. Greg Forbes in an internal email. "I suspect it was a tornado with a big gust front; probably not a violent tornado."
"Haboobnado? Whatever it was, it was wild!" said senior meteorologist Stu Ostro.
The storm blew vehicles over and damaged buildings in Tongyu County

weather.com

Winter Storm + Tropical Landfall on Mother's Day

19 inches of snow piled up in Crawford, Nebraska, while Tropical Storm Ana soaked Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina on May 10, 2015. (Lisa Aschwege via KNEB-TV, left; Greg Agee, right)

Mother's Day 2015 was a strange one, meteorologically.
First, Tropical Storm Ana became the record earliest tropical or subtropical storm to make landfall on the U.S. Atlantic seaboard (neglecting a weird Groundhog Day 1952 Florida tropical storm), according to Stu Ostro, senior meteorologist at The Weather Channel.
Since it was still only early May, High Plains snowstorms were still within the realm of climatological possibility, and 2015 delivered with Winter Storm Venus dumping up to 2 feet of snow.
A landfalling tropical storm and a major winter storm simultaneously hitting on one early May weekend. Amazingly, this wasn't the first time this has happened -- but it's still rare enough to make our list

weather.com

Icy Imprint

This icy imprint was left standing even after a Jeep pulled away from this parking lot in Greenville, North Carolina on February 17, 2015. (Facebook/Trista Stiles)

We mentioned February was brutally cold in most of the East. Other than New England's giant snow piles, an icy photo from North Carolina may have been most emblematic of that month's misery.
Following a period of sleet and freezing rain, a Jeep didn't take its ice accumulation with it when pulling out of a Greenville, North Carolina, parking lot. It left it there.

Extreme Rainfall Causes Tragic Flooding in the Appalachians

Flooding completely submerges the I-79 Clendenin exit in Kanawha County, West Virginia, on June 24, 2016. (Facebook/West Virginia Department of Transportation)

Thunderstorms dumped extreme rainfall in southeast West Virginia and neighboring Virginia on June 23, resulting in devastating flooding for several towns in the area.
The floods have led to the deaths of at least 23 people as of this writing.
(MORE: Deadly Flooding in West Virginia)
Rainfall totals of 8-10 inches (possibly higher in localized areas) fell in about 12 hours across parts of Greenbrier County, West Virginia, and Alleghany County, Virginia, the National Weather Service (NWS) said. The NWS added that this was nearly a one in a thousand year rainfall event for that area.

weather.com

Record Early Arrival For "C" and "D" Storms in the Atlantic

The Atlantic basin had already seen four named storms in the 2016 hurricane season as of June 20.
Among those are Tropical Storms Colin and Danielle, which set a record for the earliest third and fourth tropical storms on record in the Atlantic basin.
Tropical Storm Colin was named on June 5, beating out the previous record for the earliest third tropical storm set by Chris on June 18, 2012.
The formation of Tropical Storm Danielle on June 20 beat out the previous record for the earliest fourth tropical storm previously held by Debby on June 23, 2012

weather.com

Another Deadly Flood Year in Texas

Kyle Lester paddles past a submerged SUV as he looks for residents to help in the Timber Lakes Timber Ridge subdivision near Houston in April 2016. (Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via AP)

No state was hit harder by deadly flooding in the first half of 2016 than Texas.
At least 29 people have been killed due to floodwaters in the state this year. This follows on the heels of a deadly 2015 where 48 people lost their lives in the state due to flooding.
The north and west sides of the Houston metro area were swamped with 10-20 inches of rain late April 17 into April 18, resulting in disastrous flooding that left eight people dead. Later that month, six people were killed by a separate flood event in Palestine.
Six more deaths occurred in the last few days of May 2016 from flooding in central and southeast Texas, according to the Associated Press. This was followed by the deaths of nine Fort Hood soldiers that were killed when their truck was washed away on June 2, 2016.

weather.com

Softball Size Hail, Wind Destroys Home's Windows

Nearly all of the windows in this Wylie, Texas, home were knocked out by the April 11 hailstorm. (Twitter/@WylieBear1)

Damaging hailstorms were plentiful this spring, impacting metro areas such as Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio (twice), Washington, D.C., Indianapolis, and Lincoln, Nebraska.
Of all the photos from those events, the one above from Wylie, Texas, stands out due to the incredible damage to the home's windows. A combination strong winds and hail to the size of softballs from a lone supercell thunderstorm caused the damage.
(MORE: 10 Craziest Photos of the North Texas Hailstorm)
A day later, the San Antonio metro area was hit hard by what would be the first of two major hailstorms to hit the city in April.
The combined insured losses from the hailstorms April 10-15 in Texas was $2.5 billion, according to meteorologist Steve Bowen. This includes both the April 11 north Texas hailstorm and the April 12 San Antonio storm.

weather.com

March Miracle" in the Sierra: 10+ Feet in 10 Days

Sierra Nevada snow on March 13, 2016. (Mirko Buholzer/Instagram)

After an optimistically wet start to the rainy season in California, including the highest Sierra Nevada snowpack measured in five years in late January, February trended much drier. The state overall recorded its 14th driest February on record, making some wonder if any additional drought relief would arrive.
Thankfully, the Sierra made big snowpack gains during a 10-day period in early March thanks to a strong jet stream that funneled copious amounts of Pacific moisture into the mountain range.
With the jet stream tapping into a so-called "atmospheric river" at times, snowfall totals were measured in feet across the highest elevations.
Sugar Bowl Ski Resort saw an estimated 10+ feet of snow at its summit (elevation 8,383 feet) March 5 into early March 14. A total of 59 inches was estimated to have fallen March 5-7. This was then followed by an estimate of an additional 66 inches from a second round of heavy snow. That brought the estimated total there over a span of about 10 days to 125 inches.

weather.com

Go South For Snow, Waaaay South

Snow cover viewed from satellite in Mexico's mountains on March 9, 2016. (NASA)

An area of low pressure that formed in northern Mexico during early March was unusually strong and cold for that area, not only for March, but anytime of year.
"Such a large, strong upper low appears to be an unprecedented event in modern weather observations for Mexico," said Bob Henson in a wunderground.com blog.
As the above satellite image illustrates, snow fell throughout Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains. However, some high-valley locations even saw snowfall from this storm system.
Mexico's second-most populated city, Guadalajara, even saw a coating of snow in some areas. Guadalajara is at a latitude lower than Miami and even Havana, Cuba. However, its elevation of about 5,200 feet in combination with the cold nature of the low pressure system allowed snow to fall there. This is reportedly the first snow in Guadalajara since December 1997, another strong El Nino year.