Satellite images from March 2012 (L) and March 2013 (R) show significant browning across the North Island. Photo / NASA
West Coast first South Island region to be hit by drought (click here)
By Laura Mills of The Greymouth Star
4:16 PM Friday Mar 15, 2013
The normally wet West Coast was today the first region in the South Island to apply for an official drought declaration.
About 30 people from across the farming spectrum gathered at the West Coast Regional Council offices to see if the hard data amassed over the long, dry summer supported a bid for drought assistance.
"The (meeting) decided we should apply to have a medium scale adverse event declared urgently," Federated Farmers West Coast president Katie Milne said.
The meeting heard that official soil moisture data showed the West Coast was as dry as Waikato.
Ms Milne, who is also Federated Farmers' national spokeswoman on adverse effects, said time was running out to grow grass, with the equinox on March 20, and every spare container heading north was being filled with feed for the North Island.
"Feed is going to the North Island by the boat load," she said....
Call me crazy, but, one would expect when glaciers retreat it speaks to the fact there is less and less water vapor in the climate. No?
Just one of those inconvenient truths. One might ask how glaciers can disappear like this when it is so close to Earth's southern ice cap. Hum? Are the glaciers in Antarctica retreating? Yeah. That might explain it.
Just one of those inconvenient truths. One might ask how glaciers can disappear like this when it is so close to Earth's southern ice cap. Hum? Are the glaciers in Antarctica retreating? Yeah. That might explain it.
In November 2007, (click here) New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) announced that ice volume in the country’s Southern Alps had shrunk nearly 11 percent over the previous 30 years. NIWA scientists attributed the glacial retreat primarily to global warming and stated that, in the absence of substantial climate cooling, 12 of the largest glaciers would not recover to their previous sizes.
Three of these twelve large glaciers appear in this pair of images. Tasman Glacier, on New Zealand’s South Island, is the nation’s longest glacier.
One might notice there is NO deep blue except for a shore region at the shoreline of the Ross Sea and the coastline mountains of Victorialand and Oatesland. So, the land mass is melting ice and the RUN OFF from the mountains makes it's way to the sea adding to coldness in the water circulation.
The map (click here) is based on thermal infrared (heat) observations made by a series of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite sensors. Because the satellite is observing energy radiated from the Earth’s surface, the image shows trends in skin temperatures—temperatures from roughly the top millimeter of the land, sea ice, or sea surface—not air temperatures.
One might notice there is NO deep blue except for a shore region at the shoreline of the Ross Sea and the coastline mountains of Victorialand and Oatesland. So, the land mass is melting ice and the RUN OFF from the mountains makes it's way to the sea adding to coldness in the water circulation.
The map (click here) is based on thermal infrared (heat) observations made by a series of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite sensors. Because the satellite is observing energy radiated from the Earth’s surface, the image shows trends in skin temperatures—temperatures from roughly the top millimeter of the land, sea ice, or sea surface—not air temperatures.
