Authorities have evacuated hundreds of people after a volcano erupted beside a glacier in southern Iceland, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The eruption occurred around 11.30pm yesterday, beside the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, the fifth largest in Iceland.

Authorities initially said the eruption was below the glacier, triggering fears that it could lead to flooding from ice melting, but scientists conducting an aerial survey today located the eruption and said it did not occur below the ice level.

"The eruption is a small one," said Agust Gunnar Gylfason, a risk analyst at the civil protection department. "An eruption in and close to this glacier can be dangerous due to possible flooding if the fissure forms under the glacier. That is why we initiated our disaster response plan."

Scientists can see lava flows in the half-mile long fissure, and are watching for further activity.

Science News Share   Blog   Cite Print   Email   Bookmark Earlier Butterfly Emergence Linked to Climate Change

ScienceDaily (Mar. 19, 2010) -- Butterflies are emerging in spring over 10 days earlier than they did 65 years ago, a shift that has been linked to regional human-induced climate change in a University of Melbourne- led study. The work reveals, for the first time, a causal link between increasing greenhouse gases, regional warming and the change in timing of a natural event.

The study found that over a 65 year period, the mean emergence date for adults of the Common Brown butterfly (Heteronympha merope) has shifted 1.6 days earlier per decade in Melbourne, Australia. The findings are unique because the early emergence is causally linked with a simultaneous increase in air temperatures around Melbourne of approximately 0.14°C per decade, and this warming is shown to be human-induced (anthropogenic).

Lead author of the study Dr Michael Kearney from the Department of Zoology, University of Melbourne says the findings could help our ability to forecast future impacts of climate change on biodiversity.

"Shifts in these seasonal life cycle events represent a challenge to species, altering the food and competition present at the time of hatching. Studies such as ours will allow better forecasting of these shifts and help us understand more about their consequences," says Dr Kearney.

By Barnaby Phillips in Alexandria

Deep inside the waterways of the Nile Delta, it is hard to believe that this region is in an environmental crisis. It is an idyllic setting as the canoes of fishermen drift through the swamps; kingfishers and egrets fly overhead, and reeds glisten in the early morning sunshine.

But the fishermen are not happy. They say their catches are down, and that the water is more and more polluted from nearby factories.

There is certainly enormous pressure on the Delta's resources; most of Egypt's 80 million people are crammed into this fertile, green landscape, where the Nile ends its epic journey half the length of Africa, and fans out into a series of tributaries and lakes, before flowing into the Mediterranean.

[...]

We leave the fishermen, and drive north, closer to the Mediterranean coastline. Our engaging guide is Mamdouh Hamza, a prominent Egyptian engineer and head of a company that specialises in underwater construction.

[...]

As the sea on Egypt's coastline rises, (Hamza says by 20cm during the last century, a statistic that leading Egyptian government scientists concur with) salt-water infiltrates the Delta's soil from below, and destroys the farming land.

The consequences of this are very serious for Egypt, which relies on the Delta for food production.

Water is scarce in arid Saudi Arabia. Now the king has hired a team of German scientists to search for groundwater trapped in aquifers beneath the massive kingdom's sands. Their pioneering work could provide solutions for other desert countries.

German geologist Randolf Rausch, 59, is showing his visitors the desert. He walks nimbly across the narrow crest of a sand dune, pointing his toes outward like a ballet dancer. The wind blows away his tracks immediately and tugs at his green Tyrolean hat.

[...]

Rausch has been working for GTZ International Services, part of Germany's federal GTZ development agency, in Riyadh for the last six years. The Saudi king has hired him and his visitors, who are from the Technical University of Darmstadt, to search for water in the desert. By drilling holes up to 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) deep, conducting pumping tests, and applying complex measuring techniques and computer models, they are trying to find out how much fossil groundwater remains stored between layers of rock beneath the Arabian Peninsula.

The Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) in the eastern German city of Leipzig is also involved in the large-scale project. "Using the supercomputers at the UFZ," says Rausch, "we can simulate groundwater currents from the last ice age until today."