Record-Low Twister Count Is Drought's Silver Lining

There is at least one upside to the massive drought that covers more than half of the lower 48 states: a near-record low number of tornadoes. In contrast to last year, when swarms of tornadoes killed hundreds during the spring and early summer, this year has seen a flatlining of tornado numbers since June. Through July 23, there had been just 12 tornadoes recorded in the U.S. this month, and unless a severe weather outbreak in the Northeast on Thursday results in a large number of twisters, it’s likely that the U.S. will break its record for the fewest tornadoes in the month of July.

In fact, the U.S. may even break its record for the least tornadoes in any summer month.

Tornado counts after adjusting for the effects of inflation due to changes in tornado observation methods.

According to Harold Brooks, a tornado expert at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla., the key ingredients for forming tornadoes just have not come together very often this summer, and the weather pattern that has spawned the devastating drought is a key reason why.

The weather has been characterized by a sprawling area of High Pressure over the Central U.S., which has brought stifling heat and much below-average rainfall to a broad swath of the country. St. Louis, Mo., for example, has reached or exceeded 105°F a record 11 times so far this year, which is more than occurred during the Dust Bowl in 1934. During July this year, 3,908 daily high temperature records have been broken or tied in the U.S., and 169 of those records have been all-time high temperature records.

One might think that all of this heat would provide ample fuel for severe thunderstorms. After all, a warm air mass is a main ingredient in severe weather. However, for tornadoes to form, there also needs to be high humidity, strong jet stream winds, and wind shear, which is winds that change direction or speed with height. In July, those ingredients have not come together in the right amounts, at the right time.

The heat dome discourages storms by causing the air to sink, warming as it does so, and choking off any storms. The dry ground also discourages storms by releasing less moisture into the air, cutting down on the instability available for storms to form. The jet stream has been shunted well to the north, across the U.S.-Canadian border, depriving thunderstorms of the wind shear needed to form large hail and tornadoes.

Severe weather events in June and July have mainly been straight-line wind producers, like this "derecho" storm complex on June 29, as seen in this radar time series.

At the outer edges of the heat dome, thunderstorms have been repeatedly set off by cold fronts and strong upper level winds, but they have mainly produced strong straight-line damage, not tornadoes. “Hail and, particularly, tornadoes, depend upon large values of wind shear,” Brooks said in an email conversation. “With the ridge, the wind shear has been very weak and, as a result, non-tornadic winds have dominated.”

The least amount of tornadoes in any year since reliable records began in 1950 occurred in 1988, which was also a severe drought year, Brooks said. He does not expect this year to break that record, “but we could be second-lowest without much trouble.”

According to an article by meteorologist Robert Henson of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, the next-most quiet July after 2012 is 1960, which saw 42 tornadoes. When using data that has been adjusted to account for an artificial increase in tornado counts with time, due to population growth and better storm-detection technology, the least active July is 2007, when there were 73 tornadoes.

Brooks said June and July of last year were also not very active months in terms of the number of tornadoes, after a historically active and deadly spring. However, Brooks said, “June/July 2012 have been so non-tornadic they’ve made 2011 look big, even though they were well below long-term normals.”

Huffington Post Green 

We may have been lucky this year with fewer tornadoes but this video demonstrates the extreme destructive forces of a tornado.  

Please view in full screen for best resolution!

Scientists Warn it’s the ‘New Norm’ After Worst Drought in 800 years

Pinyon pine forests near Los Alamos, N.M., had already begun to turn brown from drought stress in the image at left, in 2002, and another photo taken in 2004 from the same vantage point, at right, show them largely grey and dead. (Photo by Craig Allen, U.S. Geological Survey)

The signs of drought were everywhere, from shrivelled rivers and lakes in the American West to brittle brown lawns and parched farm crops in the Canadian Prairies.

Even the hardy, drought-tolerant pinyon pine forests of New Mexico turned grey as they withered and died, starved of water for far too long

Anyone who weathered the stubborn dry spell that enveloped western North America from 2000 to 2004 knows it was harsh, but now a group of researchers has concluded it was the most severe drought in 800 years – bone-dry conditions that the scientists believe could become the “new norm” in this vital agricultural region.

“Projections indicate that drought events of this length and severity will be commonplace through the end of the 21st century,” the group of 10 scientists from several American universities and the University of British Columbia wrote in a study published Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

“Even worse, projections suggest that this drought will become the wet end of a drier hydroclimate period.”

If so, a “megadrought” that severely cuts crop production could be on the horizon, the scientists warn. Many farmers now in the throes of an extreme drought in the U.S. Midwest that is devastating corn and soybean crops and threatening to send food prices soaring might concur, although it’s not yet clear whether this dry spell is part of the broader trend, noted Beverly Law, a professor of global change biology at Oregon State University and a co-author of the study.

For their research, the scientists examined historical drought-severity data based on tree-ring analysis. While there have been many bouts of hot, dry weather in the West, they found the drought that accompanied the start of this century was unlike any since 1146 to 1151.

The 2000-04 drought severely affected soil moisture, river levels, crops, forests and grasslands. Runoff in the upper Colorado River basin was cut in half and crop productivity in 2,383 counties in the western United States declined 5 per cent. The drought also reduced the land’s ability to sequester carbon dioxide, by 51 per cent on average in the western U.S., Canada and Mexico, the scientists found. As trees, plants and crops withered, more carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere.

Although the drought was not as long or as severe in Canada, it still caused widespread economic damage.

An analysis by the Drought Research Initiative, a temporary program that pulled together Canadian university and government scientists, found that agricultural production dropped an estimated $3.6-billion in 2001 and 2002, while net farm income was zero in Alberta and negative in Saskatchewan in 2002. Facing widespread scarcity of feed and water, many livestock producers had to sell off some or all of their herd. And in parts of the Prairies, the soil was so dry it swirled up into a storm of dust, obscuring the sky and even contributing to some traffic crashes.

Long-time Saskatchewan farmer Don Connick counts himself lucky during that drought. He has a small herd of Hereford cattle and grows a variety of crops, including wheat, barley and alfalfa, on 1,600 acres in the Cypress Hills, near the boundary with Alberta.

His hay and barley crop yields were poor those years and farming was a struggle, but he had more water than others. The Cypress Hills sit at a higher elevation and generally get more precipitation and cooler temperatures than the surrounding area.

“We’re in a micro-climate, I guess you can say,” Mr. Connick said.

But he is worried about what lies ahead if droughts become more common and more widespread. He has his eye on the parched conditions ravaging the U.S. Midwest.

“The concern I have is that drought seems to be heading north,” he said. “We’ve had some pretty significantly wet years in these last five or six years but we’re not immune to drought here.”

You don’t have to remind Saskatchewan farmer Paul Heglund of that.

Mr. Heglund farms on 3,600 acres near Consul, southwest of the Cypress Hills. It’s the same land his grandfather homesteaded 100 years ago and the region has always been drought-prone, so much so the blistering dry spell a decade ago doesn’t even stick out in his mind.

Food producers here long ago adapted to farming with scant water, a reality more might soon have to confront. Mr. Heglund only seeds half his land each year to allow moisture to build in the soil.

“It’s kind of second nature,” he said of coping with drought conditions. “We don’t even notice it as something particular.”

By Renata D’Aliesio@The Globe and Mail

Scarce Drinking Water -- and Who's Guzzling Around the Globe

Thursday is World Water Day. The event, a brainchild of the United Nations, was first celebrated nearly two decades ago and is meant to focus attention on the need for fresh water around the globe.

Safe water isn't available everywhere: This World Health Organization map shows the percentage of people in each country with access to an improved source of drinking water, such as a household connection or protected well, as of 2010. In some parts of Africa, less than half of people have access to safe drinking water.

Booming populations and shifting diets mean that water is expected to be in growing demand. More meat, for instance, means more water will be needed to support animals raised for slaughter. The United Nations predicts that 1.8 billion people will be living in areas where water is scarce by 2025.

Shortfalls have been especially severe in the Horn of Africa. In Somalia, less than a third of people have access to an improved source of drinking water, according to the most recent World Bank data.

Some countries use more water than others, partly because of differing diets: Each person in the United States consumed an average of 2,842 cubic meters of water annually between 1996 and 2005, more than five times as much as someone in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to a recent UNESCO report.

Other countries with high water usage per person include Niger, Portugal, Spain, Serbia and Bolivia. You might be surprised to see developing countries such as Niger and Bolivia alongside wealthy countries such as Spain and the United States: The report explained that water consumption is high in those two countries because much more water is used to produce meat in Bolivia and cereals in Niger compared with elsewhere.

Want to figure out how much water you use? The nonprofit Water Footprint Network provides an online calculator to estimate your usage, based on how often you shower, what you eat and other choices.

Los Angeles Times: World Now 

This short 2d animation movie is dedicated to all those people living allover the world who are deprived of Adequate drinking water.Since the people living in urban areas fail to utilize water properly, a number of people living in the rural areas suffer.Suffer to such an extend that it's worse than what most people realize,we only begin to realize the magnitude of it when we face it....

India’s Climate: Monsoon

     A farmer walks through a dry, cracked paddy-field on the outskirts of Jammu. The monsoon, which usually starts to arrive in June, has barely come at all this year

A looming drought is manageable. Long-term changes to the monsoon might be catastrophic

The dizzying midday heat of India’s northern plains cracks the earth. Farmers slump on the charpoys on which they sleep outdoors. It should be raining, yet the sky is clear. Prithi Singh, lean and wrinkled, says his entire rice crop has withered, along with fields sown for fodder.

After two summers of erratic and delayed monsoons, this year the rains simply failed. Mr Singh cannot afford to pay for a borehole, generator and diesel to reach ever-diminishing groundwater. Farmers always grumble. But Mr Singh has lost half of his annual income of 50,000 rupees ($890) and now depends upon his crop of winter wheat. Another farmer nearby fears he must sell his land to pay accumulated debts to moneylenders.

The monsoon months, June to September, bring three-quarters of India’s annual rainfall. 

Official studies show it to be erratic in four out of every ten years. Yet farmers rarely get any useful warning of shortfalls. As recently as late June, India’s meteorologists were predicting a normal monsoon. Punjab and Haryana, two north-western agricultural states, now say rains are about 70% below average. Six western states have issued drought warnings. The government in Delhi says it may soon offer emergency help.

The country remains predominantly rural: over 600m out of 1.24 billion Indians rely directly on farming. Nearly two-thirds of Indian fields are fed only by rain. A one-off drought is tolerable. Rural job-creation schemes have lifted incomes for the poorest. Food prices have only started to creep up. Granaries are overflowing, thanks to recent bumper crops.

What is disturbing, though, are tentative signs of long-term change to the summer rains. A less stable monsoon pattern would be harder to predict. It would arrive late more often, yield less water, become more sporadic, or dump rain in shorter, more destructive bursts (which happened two years ago in Pakistan, where the Indus basin disastrously flooded). The concerns of experts about the monsoon long predate today’s dry spell.

Too little is known about summer weather systems on the subcontinent. India is short of observation stations, weather planes, satellites, climate scientists and modellers. The government and foreign donors are scrambling to make amends. But even with better data, monsoons are ill-understood once they leave the sea or low-lying land. At altitude, notably, for instance, approaching the Himalayas, it is far trickier to grasp just how factors such as wind direction, air pressure, latent heating and moisture levels interact to deliver monsoon rains.

One trend looks clear: India has grown warmer over the past six decades. Glaciers are melting in the Himalayas, and orchards in the range’s valleys are being planted on ever-higher slopes in search of a temperate climate. Crops in the northern grain belt, notably wheat, are near their maximum tolerance to heat, and so are vulnerable to short-term blasts of higher temperatures. North India’s cities are also growing hotter.

How more warmth affects the monsoon is not straightforward. A land mass heating faster than the oceans will, in theory, draw in more moisture to produce heavier monsoons. Yet the reverse appears to be happening. Specialists who met in February in Pune, in Maharashtra state, reported a 4.5% decline in monsoon rain in the three decades to 2009.

India’s leading climate modeller, R. Krishnan, of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune, points to a study showing a “steady decline” in rainfall on the Western Ghats, which run down the west coast. A Japanese model that he has applied to southern India predicts that a still more rapid decline in rainfall is likely.

Such a fall may matter little for states such as Kerala in the south, which gets a monthly drenching of 50 centimetres (20 inches) during the wet season. But Mr Krishnan notes other changes, notably evidence that far fewer depressions have formed in the Bay of Bengal, off India’s east coast, in recent summers. Since these help drive rain to India’s arid northern plains, he concludes that “there is every reason to be concerned about the monsoon.”

Explanations exist for some of this. One theory is that a growing mass of particulates, such as coal dust and biomass (from the widespread use of cow dung as fuel, for instance) in the air above India, now hinders rainfall. Timothy Lenton, a climate scientist at the University of 

Exeter, argues that such pollution could trigger wider instability in the monsoon.

Yet a decline in average rainfall may not be the main worry. Experts who met in Delhi in May to discuss climate-induced “extreme events” in India suggest that likelier threats include more short and devastating downpours and storms, more frequent floods and droughts, longer consecutive dry days within monsoons, more rapid drying of the soil as the land heats, and a greater likelihood that plant and animal diseases might spread.

It does not bode well for farmers, or for crammed cities with poor sewerage and other rotten infrastructure. Slums and coastal cities look especially vulnerable. Mumbai was overwhelmed in 2005 when nearly a metre of rain was dumped on the city in 24 hours.

Such events will happen more often, the highest official in the country’s environment ministry warns. He wants urgently to bring about a big increase in insurance schemes that spread weather-related risks. Rajendra Pachauri, who leads the United Nations’ 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, worries that India is not yet even seriously debating the new threats. He says it is ill-prepared for floods and droughts “that are now considered once-in-every-20-years events, but will be happening once in two years”.

The data harvest

The most pressing need is to gather and analyse data. This month Indian scientists and foreign partners launched a five-year “monsoon mission” to develop climate models for the region. India’s government is beginning to act, by setting up new Doppler radar stations to track weather systems over mountains. It is launching a new plane to fly into cyclones to study their behaviour. Better still, India and its neighbours could start sharing weather data, comparing ground and satellite observations, for example.

More can be done elsewhere, too. Most obviously, even the poorest farmers could work together better to store rainwater, for instance in ponds and tanks, rather than praying for the skies to open. The share of India’s farmland that is irrigated could roughly double, officials say. Huge scope exists to reduce losses through evaporation and leakage from shoddy irrigation systems.

More sophisticated farmers are getting better informed. One Indian firm, Weather Risk, sells forecasts to some 75,000 subscribers, mostly farmers across 15 states. Each pays just 30 rupees a month for the information the firm supplies. It looks worthwhile. Sonu Agrawal of Weather Risk notes growing demand for detail on highly localised conditions and short-term rain and hail forecasts. Demand for crop insurance is also rising.

Mr Agrawal and others remain sanguine about today’s dry patch, calling it typical of the sort of droughts that often show up in historic data stored by insurance firms. But given great gaps in knowledge about the monsoon, and uncertainties over climate change, the need for more accurate and complete data seems pressing. Studying the late rains this year will not help Prithi Singh and his parched plot today. But clarifying which, if any, trend poses the greatest threats to farmers like him could turn out to be one of India’s most important tasks.

The Economist 

Monsoon rains pick up afresh in central India 

Monsoon rains have picked up in strength over the hilly regions (not plains) of northwest India and parts of central India.

An India Meteorological Department (IMD) update said that rains were reported from Orissa, west Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh during the 24 hours ending Monday morning.

 

HEAVY RAIN

A weather warning valid for the next two days said that heavy rainfall may occur at one or two places over Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa. The alert is valid for a single day (Tuesday) for East Rajasthan, Vidarbha and Madhya Pradesh.

An extended outlook valid until Friday said that thundershowers would lash many places over the western Himalayan region, Uttar Pradesh, the west coast, east and north-east India. The rains are expected to be subdued over south interior peninsular India. Meanwhile, the cumulative rain deficit for the country as a whole stayed at 21 per cent as on Saturday.

 

DEFICIT AT 21%

North-west India (-39 per cent) and the peninsula (-22 per cent) continued to be the worst hit. East and north-east India too has fallen back to double-digit figures (-10 per cent). Central India, which has come under a few of the latest surges of rain, has brought down the deficit to 20 per cent.

More rains have been forecast for the region over the next few days, to the near-total exclusion of both north-west India and interior peninsula.

The west coast, as usual, could be the sole exception. Scattered showers are also likely for the state of Gujarat, says an outlook by the US National Centres for Environmental Prediction. 

The Hindu Business Line 

Beijing Flood Victims Fume at Official Response

Four days after the biggest rainstorm in six decades hit the Chinese capital, Zhang Huishen remains furious over what she perceives as government indifference to her family's plight.

"Our family of five lives off one income," said the 46-year-old farmer Wednesday. "Nobody cares about us because there's no official in this household."

Zhang lives along what once was a paved road in the small village of Louzishui in Beijing's southwestern Fangshan district, the area hit hardest by the storm last weekend.

A flashflood has reduced the road to a muddy path littered with furniture, clothes and even a tin shed -- all objects washed away by powerful waters.

Water marks some two meters high stay visible on the exterior walls of a dozen houses by the road, while mud piles stand outside doorways with flies circling around garbage nearby.

Zhang says she largely relies on her husband's monthly wage of $300 to take care of her family that includes the couple, their two children and her sick father-in-law.

"Everything was floating in water -- refrigerator, television, everything," she said while showing a CNN crew her just-dried kitchen and living room. "I borrowed money to renovate the house and lost more than 100,000 yuan ($15,000)."

Zhang and her neighbors alike remember a fearful night spent in dark attics or higher ground after carrying the elderly and children out of fast-rising water -- all the while unable to reach anyone at the city's flood control hotline.

One neighbor, Gao Liying, added that she feels even more shaken by the village officials' response when she told them the flood has ruined almost all her worldly possessions.

"They actually said: 'If your house didn't collapse and nobody died, then you're not a victim,'" she said, raising her voice. "I asked: are you still human?"

Villagers like Zhang and Gao blame local officials for their decision to cover a former waterway with concrete -- thus turning it to a road and diminishing drainage capacity -- and their failure to warn residents before the storm.

"It was more than a natural disaster," Gao said. "The officials are responsible too."

Fangshan authorities have acknowledged shortcomings in the local drainage system, telling reporters they have learned their lessons and will address people's concerns. They also insist the need to prioritize their effort in a district where the storm has affected 800,000 residents, cost at least $1 billion in economic losses, and the death toll is expected to rise significantly.

For some villagers of Louzishui, however, such words hardly resonate. As loudspeakers mounted throughout the village began to broadcast propaganda messages touting rapid government aid to victims, Liu Wenzhi scoffed.

"Why bother howling now? Where were they when we needed help?" the 60-year-old resident asked. "This is a place led by the Communist Party. Where is our equality?"

Not long after the loudspeakers turned quiet, local officials showed up in two white vans to deliver bottled water, instant noodles and blankets to residents affected by the flood.

A shouting match soon broke out between a village Party official and a resident living by the water-ripped road whose home was totally flooded.

"I have to take the overall situation into consideration -- there are many others who are much worse off than you," the official shouted at a fuming Zhang Chunrong.

"I don't want your damn stuff," Zhang yelled back.

"My husband is a Party member so I was asked to keep quiet," she later explained, wiping tears off. "But I can't bear it anymore -- how dare he come to my home to insult me by saying my loss is nothing?"


By Steven Jiang@CNN

More Damage Expected after Floods in North Korea Kill Dozens

Heavy rain hit the capital Pyongyang, as well as North and South Phyongan provinces Sunday. The country faced similar extreme weather in 2010 (as pictured here in the Pyongyang province)

Heavy rain across large swathes of North Korea has caused widespread flooding and killed dozens of people, state media reported, with warnings of more damage still to come.

The downpours have been rolling over the impoverished country for more than a week, sweeping away crops and destroying buildings, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in reports over the weekend.

As of Saturday, 88 people had died and 134 had been injured, KCNA said. It reported that more than 5,000 houses had been destroyed or damaged and 12,030 homes inundated, leaving almost 63,000 people homeless.

And the torrential rain persisted into Monday, causing further chaos.

"Most areas of the DPRK are expected to suffer big damage from continuous downpour accompanied by thunder and storm," KCNA reported Monday, using the abbreviation of the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

But the agency hasn't provided an update of damage and deaths resulting from it since Saturday.

The destruction of farmland is of particular concern in a country that struggles to feed itself.

About 4,800 hectares (11,900 acres) of cropland had been washed away by Saturday, KCNA said, and more than 25,700 hectares submerged.

Employees from humanitarian groups that operate inside North Korea describe severe malnourishment on a large scale. A deal earlier this year for the United States to ship food aid to the country fell apart after the regime went ahead with a controversial rocket launch.

The highest numbers of deaths so far from the flooding were reported in areas of South Phyongan province, northeast of the capital, Pyongyang.

The heavy rains Sunday hit Pyongyang, as well as North and South Phyongan provinces. 

The capital is the richest and most developed part of the country, used as a showcase by the secretive, nuclear-armed regime. The provinces tend to be poorer and have weaker infrastructure.

By Saturday, a total of 91,809 square meters (51,700 square feet) of road surface had been destroyed by the rain, KCNA reported.

Other areas of East Asia have been hit by severe weather in recent weeks.

A violent rainstorm in Beijing more than a week ago caused the worst flooding in the Chinese capital in decades, killing at least 77 people and provoking criticism from residents about the city's infrastructure and response to the disaster.

Heavy rain elsewhere in China has left dozens more people dead, filled rivers and lakes to dangerous levels and forced the authorities to step up emergency preparations.

Early last week, a powerful storm that hit the southern Chinese coast prompted Hong Kong to raise its strongest typhoon warning for the first time in 13 years, shuttering much of the city.


By Jethro Mullen@CNN

Flow: For Love of Water

How did a handful of corporations steal our water?

Water is the very essence of life, sustaining every being on the planet. 'Flow' confronts the disturbing reality that our crucial resource is dwindling and greed just may be the cause.

Everyone is entitled to water as they are air. Water is fundamental to life. Farmers need water to grow their crops and animals. An economy needs water to grow.

Top 10 Water Trailblazers

Who are the people and pioneers behind grassroots movements, groundbreaking research and government policy that are improving access to drinking water and helping bring cleaner water to more people across the world?

AlertNet put this question to dozens of experts and researchers from leading non-governmental organisations and research institutes involved in water issues.  

Many spoke of the need for better treatment of wastewater and water management, along with the importance of rainwater harvesting as a key way to ensure local communities have enough water to cook, wash and grow food crops.

Based on their responses, in no particular order, here's our "Top 10 water trailblazers", many of whom AlertNet interviewed. 

1. Manoranjan Mondal 

2. Gemma Bulos

3. Anupam Mishra

4. Professor Asit Biswas

5. Ma Tsepo Khumbane

6. Rajendra Singh

7. Margaret Nakato 

8. Andrew Benedek 

9. Diana Iskreva

10. Ned Breslin

By Anastasia Moloney@AlertNet

Hydration and Exercise

• 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. It is probable that similar percentages apply to 90% of the world population.
• For each 1% loss of water, there is a 10% loss in exercise performance.
• Lack of water is the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.
• Recommended water intake a day is half your body weight in ounces. For all you 200lb guys out there; Are you taking down 100 ounces of water a day?

As evidence by these stats, hydration is vital. Not only to performance, but for everyday life. Water is the essence of life. It is the most important nutrient in our bodies making up roughly 70 percent of our muscle and brain tissue. Only oxygen is craved by the body more than water. Replacing bodily fluids lost be everyday activity, and more specificly exercise, is crucial to helping your body recover and maintain a healthy functioning system.

A little Science to help you understand Hydration and Exercise.

Staying hydrated is essential for everyone, but for athletes and fitness enthusiasts, proper hydration is even more important. Sweat loss rates (how much water you lose during exercise) during hard exercise may be as high as 2-3 Liters per hour. (Sweat rates commonly range between one to four pounds per hour, depending on your sport and environmental conditions) Replacing the sodium, chloride, magnesium, and potassium (Electrolytes) lost during exercise can be done by using water or a variety of  other products. If not done properly, you may experience dehydration which can lead to muscle cramps, headaches, and fatigue in the mildest of circumstances.

 

A table of what is lost in a liter of sweat

Electrolyte-	Average amount/ 2 lbs (1 liter,~1 quart) sweat	Food reference
Sodium-	800 mg (range 200-1,600)	32 ounces( 2 standard gatorades) = 440 mg Sodium
Potassium-	200 mg (range 120-600)	1 med banana = 450 mg Potassium
Calcium-	20 mg (range 6-40)	8 oz yogurt = 300 mg Calcium
Magnesium-	10 mg (range 2-18)	2 Tbsp peanut butter = 50 mg Mg

 

Measuring if you are hydrated can be done by

1. Monitoring urine volume output and color. A large amount of light colored, diluted urine probably means you are hydrated; dark colored, concentrated urine probably means you are dehydrated. (Unless you have vitamin B in your system which is common in multivitamins.)

2. Weighing yourself before and after exercise. Any weight lost is likely from fluid, so try to drink enough to replenish those losses. Any weight gain could mean you are drinking more than you need.

Fluid Replacement Guidelines

Before Exercise

•  Drink 17-20 oz. of water or a sports drink (If you feel like your electrolyte levels are low) 2-3 hours before exercise.
• No need to overhydrate. Your kidneys can only process so much liquid and hydrating 2-3 hours before exercise allows time for your kidneys to process and eliminate the excess.
• Drink an additional 7-10 oz. of water or sports drink 10-20 minutes before exercise.
• If you take caffeine, take it 30-60 minutes before you exercise.(see my previous blog for more on this)

During Exercise

• Begin drinking early during the sporting event . Even minimal dehydration compromises performance. (Small sips on a regular basis are the best way to go)
• In general, drink at least 7-10 oz. of water or a sports drink every 10-20 minutes.
• Remember to drink beyond your thirst to maintain hydration. Optimally, drink fluids based on the amount of sweat and urine loss. (Again try not to gulp 10 ounces at once.)
• If exercising longer than 60 minutes, drink 8-10 fl oz of a sports drink  every 15 - 30 minutes. (These carbs help maintain normal blood glucose levels so you are able to enjoy sustained energy)

After Exercise

•  Within two hours, drink enough to replace weight loss from exercise. If your workout was longer than 60 minutes, your electrolyte levels need to be replenished with something containing sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium.
• Drink 20-24 fl oz water or liquid for every 1 lb lost.
• Consume a 3:1 ration of carbohydrates to protein drink or meal within the 2 hours after exercise to replenish glycogen stores. 

• Kevin Deeth@sportsideo.com/

‘This Is Not Cool’ Focus on 2012 Weather Extremes

                            Drought-stressed and wilting corn fields symbolic of widespread conditions across much of the U.S. ‘Grain Belt.’

A basketball metaphor illustrating changing stats pairs with analyses from a range of experts and independent commentaries in a Yale Forum video capturing the stresses of the summer’s weather anomalies across the U.S.

“Oh the weather outside is frightful.”

You can forget about the next line … chances of snow are nil for most of the United States for the next several months.

It’s the first line of the second verse that might be a bit more relevant, though not very comforting: “It doesn’t show signs of stopping.”

Holiday carolers and those behind the “Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow” lyrics could not have had the nation’s 2012 spring and summer in mind when they penned those words.

But the wildfires plaguing much of the nation’s west … the wilting and widespread droughts across much of the country’s “Grain Belt”… the blistering high temperatures across wide swaths of the country — all those play out in The Yale Forum‘s new video, “2012 Drought Update.”

The eight-and-one-half minute video couples historical footage with contemporary clips and news segments. In one of the latter, for instance, NBC anchor Brian Williams opens the network’s flagship news program with the words: “It’s now official. We are living in one of the worst droughts of the past 100 years.”

This month’s “This Is Not Cool” video shows NASA scientist James Hansen early and later cautioning about risks of “extreme droughts” in the nation’s breadbasket, such as those now commanding headlines. It captures Illinois Governor Pat Quinn warning of “the driest time” and “the hottest weather” in his state’s history. West Lafayette, Indiana, newscasters express concerns about the growing percentage of the nation officially designated as being in a “drought condition.”

NOAA climate scientist Tom Karl tells a national television audience that scientists increasingly “can actually say with some confidence that these events would not have been as strong or as intense if it were not for the greenhouse gases I the atmosphere.”

And a Michigan State University crop and soil scientist, Phil Robertson, cautions that “it’s certainly not looking good for corn.” Robertson advises that genetics and new planting strategies might help the agricultural community cope with chronic changes in weather. But it’s the variability of longer heat waves and hard-to-predict seasonal droughts — more difficult to predict and having more critical effects on crops — that Robertson says might pose particular challenges.

The video — which points to a 118 degrees F day in June in Norton Dam, Kansas — uses a basketball metaphor to illustrate how a warmer atmosphere has “raised the floor …. all plays are starting from a higher level.” Making for more slam dunks and illustrating how “the stats have begun to change.”

But they’re not of the crowd-pleasing variety. And no one is rooting for more of the kinds of slam dunks Midwest farmers are trying to defend against in the summer of 2012.

By Peter Sinclair@Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media

The Drought of 2012 rivals the Great Dust Bowl years of the 30s and is coming at a time of melting arctic ice, shrinking ice sheets, and extreme events across the planet, matching the projections of Climate models for global warming.

Infographic: The Water Rich Versus The Water Poor

Infographic by Seametrics, a manufacturer of water flow meter technology that measures and conserves water.

40,000 Evacuated from Homes as Floods Peak

More than 40,000 people in central China's Yellow River area have been evacuated from their homes to safer areas as flood waters peak in Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces.

The water flow at Wubu Hydro Station in Wubu County in Yulin City, in Shaanxi, reached 10,600 cubic meters per second on Friday, the highest level since 1989, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said.

Recent torrential rain has seen water levels rise on the main artery and tributaries of the Yellow River's middle reaches, said the flood control authority.

Famous tourism sites along the river, such as the Hukou area in Shanxi, have been closed to tourists until the alerts are lifted, said the authorities.

Downstream, Longmen Hydro Station recorded a water flow of 7,620 cubic meters per second at 7am yesterday, the highest level since 1996, it said.

Flood water has inundated low-lying areas and some water control and diversion projects, said officials.

The headquarters said residents in areas threatened by flooding have been relocated and that the two affected provinces have dispatched emergency personnel to strengthen checks on dams and increase flood control materials.

Rainstorms in Beijing last weekend killed 77 people, triggering public anger, with questions asked about emergency planning and the poor drainage system in big cities like the capital.

In the aftermath of the Beijing deaths, as the flood peak hit parts of central China, the authorities had demanded the quick evacuation of affected areas.

Meanwhile, train services on parts of the Southern Xinjiang Railway in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region were suspended yesterday due to flooding, said the railway operator.

Flood water has covered sections of the track, halting services on the Turpan-Korla stretch of the railway line, said railway officials.

Hundreds of rescuers are working at the site and trapped passengers have been transferred from the area, said officials.

"Luckily, the train stopped in a small station where supplies were available," said a train passenger, surnamed Li, who yesterday had been trapped for hours on a train in Xinjiang.

But other passengers were unable to stock up on provisions. One female passenger stranded on a train complained yesterday that she had eaten nothing since embarking on her journey.

By Zha Minjie@ShanghaiDaily.com 

Massive Grand Canyon Found Beneath Antarctica

                 A topographic and bathymetric map of Antarctica without its ice sheets, assuming constant sea levels and no post-glacial rebound.

British researchers say they've discovered a massive rift valley beneath the Antarctic ice sheet that rivals the Grand Canyon in depth and is contributing to ice loss on the continent.

“If you stripped away all of the ice here today, you’d see a feature every bit as dramatic as the huge rift valleys you see in Africa and in size as significant as the Grand Canyon," the lead researcher, Robert Bingham, a glaciologist at the University of Aberdeen, said in a press release.

Fausto Ferraccioli, Bingham's co-author and geophysicist from British Antarctic Survey, said the valley allows warmer ocean waters to contact glacial ice, contributing to the melting seen on the continent.

“What this study shows is that this ancient rift basin, and the others discovered under the ice that connect to the warming ocean, can influence contemporary ice flow and may exacerbate ice losses by steering coastal changes further inland,” Ferraccioli said.

The work of the researchers was reported this week in the journal Nature.

The valley is in West Antarctica, which is losing ice faster than other parts of the continent, the researchers say.

“Thinning ice in West Antarctica is currently contributing nearly 10% of global sea level rise. It’s important to understand this hot spot of change so we can make more accurate predictions for future sea level rise,” David Vaughan, of the British Antarctic Survey's Ice2sea program, said.

The researchers came across the valley, which lies below the Ferrigno Ice Stream, in 2010 during three months of fieldwork on Antarctic ice loss. The area had not been explored in five decades.

“For some of the glaciers, including Ferrigno Ice Stream, the losses are especially pronounced, and, to understand why, we needed to acquire data about conditions beneath the ice surface,” Bingham said in the University of Aberdeen release.

The team used ice-penetrating radar over a 1,500-mile flat stretch of ice sheet, an effort that revealed the massive valley.

“What we found is that lying beneath the ice there is a large valley, parts of which are approximately a mile deeper than the surrounding landscape," Bingham said.

In comparison, the Grand Canyon falls off 7,000 feet, or 2,100 meters, at its south rim in Arizona, according to the National Park Service.


CNN Light Years Blogs 

Censors Block Eyewitness Accounts of Beijing Flood

          Flooding leaves many vehicles submerged in water in a residential community in Beijing on July 21. Censors withheld an in-depth story on the Beijing floods

Censors withheld an in-depth story on the Beijing floods produced by Southern Weekly, a Chinese newspaper based in Guangzhou known for bold reporting.

Southern Weekly reporter Zhang Yuqun blogged on Sina Weibo that seven of his colleagues traveled over 1,243 miles to interview relatives of 24 Beijing flood victims. According to Zhang, they did an eight-page story, but government censors cut it. Zhang’s blog post was later removed.

A Southern Weekly blog post on Weibo said:  “Sinking under water and trapped by swirling currents, he used his hands and head to hit against the car window. In the end his wife held a useless hammer and watched him drown. He is Ding Zhijian, one of the Beijing flood victims. His story is in the unpublished reports.”

A staff member of Southern Weekly at its Guangzhou headquarters confirmed the censorship to New Tang Dynasty (NTD) Television, saying, “Right! Because they modified the version.”

A Southern Weekly editor said the names of 24 victims were marked with a big red cross, and replaced with the names of five officials who died on duty, Radio France Internationale (RFI) reported on July 26.

RFI also reported that former chief editor of Business Weekly Magazine Gao Yu said, “The lives lost on that stormy night and the bitter weeping of their families were struck out, along with the missions and beliefs of Chinese journalists and intellectuals.” 

Gong Xiaoyue, executive chief editor of Xiaoxiang Morning Herald, posted on Weibo: “The Beijing big shots and those in the south who suck up to them, why are you so shameless? Why are we pushed around by authorities so easily?”

RFI reported that the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department ordered that the critical reports and comments on the Beijing flood be reduced, and focus instead be given to positive reports.”

The first report from Beijing authorities said the flood death toll was 37. Then, on July 26, the authorities raised the official death toll to 77. However, Beijing residents have been saying online that the death toll exceeds 1,000. Bloggers have uploaded videos and photos as proof. Regime authorities kept deleting the online messages. 

According to Sound of Hope (SOH) Radio Network, a reporter named Tan Weishan who works for Southern Metropolis Daily, an affiliate of Southern Weekly, uploaded a video of an interview conducted by his colleagues to Sina Weibo. In the video, a resident from Shidu Township, which suffered significant flood damage, said he was on duty in the Zijinguan Reservoir on the night of July 21, and saw the reservoir release flood waters. The video was soon removed from Sina Weibo.

SOH’s report commented that Southern Weekly’s eight-page flood reports were censored because the authorities want to cover up the death toll, as well as the discharge of water from the reservoir. 

U.S.-based China commentator Chen Pokong told SOH that the flood has exposed corrupt construction practices in Beijing. He said torrential rain paralyzed the city on July 10, 2004, yet eight years later Beijing’s underground sewage system remains unimproved. The city authorities spent tens of billions on building Olympic projects, airports, and subways. However, corruption has plagued numerous construction projects, in particular underground ones, Chen said.

He said that the torrential rain showed that despite great investments in infrastructure, the capital of China was still unprepared for the recent weather. He says Beijing has too many “tofu-dreg” buildings—a term of derision for building projects which use substandard materials, often caused by corruption, that degrade easily during natural disasters.

“The entire modernized China is made of tofu-dreg buildings,” Chen said. “The arrogant, nouveau riche regime is also like a tofu-dreg building,” he added.

By Xiong Bin & Ding Ning@The Epoch Times