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New daily high temperature records were set in many cities, with June 2010 ranking as the hottest June on record for Delaware, New Jersey, and North Carolina.

The unusual warmth in the highly populated South and Southeast resulted in the second highest June REDTI value in the 116-year record. For the first half of 2010, large footprints of extreme wetness (more than three times the average footprint), warm minimum temperatures ("warm overnight lows"), and areas experiencing heavy 1-day precipitation events resulted in a Climate Extremes Index (CEI) that was about 6 percent higher than the historical average.

The nationally-averaged temperature for June was much warmer than normal. A deep layer of high pressure dominated much of the eastern United States

Polar bears threatening geese as diet ravaged by climate shift Premium Article ! Your account has been frozen. For your available options click the below button. Options Premium Article ! To read this article in full you must have registered and have a Premium Content Subscription with the The Scotsman site. Subscribe Registered Article ! To read this article in full you must be registered with the site. Sign In Register « Previous « Previous Next » Next » View Gallery Published Date: 18 June 2010 By Emily Beament A CONSERVATION success which has seen barnacle geese numbers bounce back from the brink could be under threat from hungry polar bears struggling to cope with cl

A CONSERVATION success which has seen barnacle geese numbers bounce back from the brink could be under threat from hungry polar bears struggling to cope with climate change, experts said yesterday. The number of Svalbard barnacle goslings that overwintered in the Solway Firth this year was just half that expected, according to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT).

on eggs in the nests

Severe and persistent drought held southern Russia in its grip in June and July 2010. Low rainfall and hot temperatures damaged 32 percent of the country’s grain crops, said Russian Agriculture Minister, Yelena Skrynnik on July 23. This satellite vegetation index image, made from data collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite, shows the damage done to plants throughout southern Russia. A previously published image of land surface temperatures shows extreme heat in the drought region at the same time. The vegetation index is a reflection of photosynthesis. The index is high in areas where plants are dense, with plenty of photosynthesizing leaves. The index is low when plants are thin or not present. This image is a vegetation index anomaly image that compares photosynthesis between June 26 and July 11, 2010, to average conditions observed in late June and early July between 2000 and 2009. Below-average plant growth is shown in brown, while average growth is cream-colored. If there had been above-average growth in the region, it would have been represented in green. The land around the Volga River is brown in this image. Plants throughout the region were stressed, producing fewer leaves and photosynthesizing less between June 26 and July 11, 2010. The image is speckled brown. In the large image, which covers a broader region in more detail than the web image, the dots are clearly fields of crops. Here, the dots blend together to reveal a broad region of drought-affected crops. The Volga region is one of Russia’s primary spring wheat-growing areas. The vegetation index values shown here were the lowest late-June values seen in Russia’s spring wheat zone since the MODIS sensor began taking measurements in 2000, said an analyst from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service. Largely as a result of the drought, the USDA expected Russia’s overall wheat crop to be 14 percent smaller than in 2009. The drought affects more than Russian farmers. Russia is the world’s fourth largest wheat exporter. If Russia isn’t able to supply as much wheat, the world’s overall wheat supply will drop. With less wheat on the market, wheat prices will go up. As of July 23, wheat futures (the current price for wheat that will be harvested and delivered in September) had risen for four consecutive weeks because of the expected drop in supply of Russian wheat, reported Bloomberg.

Science News

Warming temperatures could help explain why migration isn’t such a hot idea anymore for some elk living in and around Yellowstone National Park.

Migration supposedly lets animals follow the best food of the season, Middleton said. But the migratory elk are dwindling in number, while the stay-behind part of the herd grows.

The first heavy downpour of the morning had carried debris and vegetation into the 2.7m by 2.7m culvert, starting a chain of events that led eventually to the flash flood.It was choked where it drained into the side of Delfi Orchard, so water was directed only into the side along Forum the Shopping Mall.When a second intense rainstorm the same morning added more water to the drains within a short period of time, the canal overflowed and water gushed up to the surface of Orchard Road, causing the worst floods there in 26 years.

Although national water agency PUB alerted the traffic police when the sensors at the start of each Stamford Canal channel indicated water levels were at 75 per cent, the water level rose too abruptly to get the alert out to shopkeepers.At a press conference yesterday, the PUB said the heavy rains were responsible for sweeping the debris into the drain.

What was unusual about Wednesday's storm was its intensity and its two peaks, he said. The first peak could have brought a certain amount of debris, and there was no way for PUB officers to safely check and clean it out. The next peak soon after might have brought even more debris.

The Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier, one of the largest glaciers in Greenland, swiftly lost a 2.7-square mile chunk of ice between July 6 and 7, NASA announced late last week. The ice loss pushed the point where the glacier meets the ocean, known as the "calving front," nearly one mile farther inland in a single day. According to the space agency, the new calving front location is the farthest inland on record.

The Jakobshavn Isbrae is what is known as an outlet glacier, which the National Snow and Ice Data Center defines as "a valley glacier which drains an inland ice sheet or ice cap and flows through a gap in peripheral mountains." In other words, it serves as a drainage pipe from the land ice into the ocean. According to NASA, the Jakobshavn Isbrae, which is located in western Greenland at about 69 degrees north latitude, is the largest outlet glacier in Greenland, draining 6.5 percent of Greenland's ice sheet area.

NASA reports that "as much as 10 percent of all ice lost from Greenland is coming through Jakobshavn, which is also believed to be the single largest contributor to sea level rise in the northern hemisphere."