Muscovites fled the Russian capital in record numbers as extreme heat combined with thick, acrid smoke from wildfires to double the death rate.

More than 104,400 people flew out of Moscow yesterday, topping the previous 2010 record of 101,000, according to the Federal Air Transportation Agency. On Aug. 7, 95,000 left the city by plane, 20 percent more than the year-earlier date, agency spokesman Sergei Izvolsky said by telephone today.

The heat wave that has plagued central Russia since June is the worst in the country’s history, said Alexander Frolov, head of Rosgidromet, the federal weather service. “In 1,000 years, neither we nor our ancestors have observed or recorded anything like this sort of heat,” he said in televised comments. [ BLOOMBERG ]

Russia's devastating summer heatwave has cost almost 5,000 lives, according to officials who conceded yesterday that the state was struggling to gain control over the worst wildfires in decades.

By 2100 only 18% to 45% of the plants and animals making up ecosystems in global, humid tropical forests may remain as we know them today, according to a new study led by Greg Asner at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology. The research combined new deforestation and selective logging data with climate-change projections. It is the first study to consider these combined effects for all humid tropical forest ecosystems and can help conservationists pinpoint where their efforts will be most effective. The study is published in the August 5, 2010, issue of Conservation Letters.

"This is the first global compilation of projected ecosystem impacts for humid tropical forests affected by these combined forces," remarked Asner. "For those areas of the globe projected to suffer most from climate change, land managers could focus their efforts on reducing the pressure from deforestation, thereby helping species adjust to climate change, or enhancing their ability to move in time to keep pace with it. On the flip side, regions of the world where deforestation is projected to have fewer effects from climate change could be targeted for restoration."

Tropical forests hold more then half of all the plants and animal species on Earth. But the combined effect of climate change, forest clear cutting, and logging may force them to adapt, move, or die. [ SCIENCE DAILY ]

An ice island four times the size of Manhattan broke off from one of Greenland's two main glaciers, scientists said Friday, in the biggest such event in the Arctic in nearly 50 years.

The new ice island, which broke off on Thursday, will enter a remote place called the Nares Strait, about 620 miles south of the North Pole between Greenland and Canada.

The ice island has an area of 100 square miles and a thickness up to half the height of the Empire State Building, said Andreas Muenchow, professor of ocean science and engineering at the University of Delaware.

Muenchow said he had expected an ice chunk to break off from the Petermann Glacier, one of the two largest remaining ones in Greenland, because it had been growing in size for seven or eight years. But he did not expect it to be so large.[ MSNBC ]

The environmental damage caused by BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill may have been grossly exaggerated, a growing body of experts is suggesting.

In a bold move, scientists have dismissed the torrent of grim predictions from President Obama and environmentalists as ‘hype’ with no data to back it up.

Instead, those working on the ground say the oil is breaking up far more quickly than expected and the number of birds being killed is low.

Just days after the Deepwater Horizon leak was capped two weeks ago, coastal grass began to grow back, as did trees which serve as breeding grounds for fish and other wildlife.[ DAILYMAIL UK ]

More than 800,000 gallons of oil made its way into the river on Monday, the result of a leak from a pipeline belonging to Enbridge Energy Partners that runs crude oil between Canada and the United States.

Enbridge President Patrick Daniel said Tuesday that the company has already placed booms along the banks of the rivers and as far away as 16 miles downstream from the spill to try to contain the oil.

Florida researchers said Friday that they had for the first time conclusively linked vast plumes of microscopic oil droplets drifting in the Gulf of Mexico to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The scientists, from the University of South Florida, matched samples taken from the plumes with oil from the leaking well provided by BP. The findings were the first direct confirmation that the plumes were linked to the spill, although federal scientists had said there was overwhelming circumstantial evidence tying them to BP’s well.

The discovery of the plumes several weeks into the oil leak alarmed scientists, who feared that clouds of oil particles could wreak havoc on marine life far below the surface. Plumes have been detected as far as 50 miles from the wellhead, although oil concentrations at those distances are extremely low, about 750 parts per billion.This is well below the level considered acutely toxic for fish and marine organisms, but could still affect eggs and larvae, the scientists fear.

An official warned the spill posed a "severe threat" to sea life and water quality as China's latest environmental crisis spread off the shores of Dalian, once named China's most livable city. One cleanup worker has drowned, his body coated in crude.

"I've been to a few bays today and discovered they were almost entirely covered with dark oil," said Zhong Yu with environmental group Greenpeace China, who spent the day on a boat inspecting the spill.

"The oil is half-solid and half liquid and is as sticky as asphalt," she told The Associated Press by telephone.

The oil had spread over 165 square miles (430 square kilometers) of water five days since a pipeline at the busy northeastern port exploded, hurting oil shipments from part of China's strategic oil reserves to the rest of the country. Shipments remained reduced Wednesday. [ YAHOO NEWS ]

A well-developed tropical wave currently bringing strong winds and rough seas north of Puerto Rico could develop into a tropical system by the weekend.

According to AccuWeather.com hurricane meteorologist Dan Kottlowski, there is high potential for this tropical wave to evolve into a tropical depression later on this week.

Wind shear is currently hindering any tropical storm organization of this system. However, as the wave moves swiftly west, this shear will diminish over the next few days.

If the wave were to develop into a tropical storm, models predict the system moving into the eastern Gulf of Mexico by the weekend.

With some 400 species estimated to be at risk -- from the tiniest oil-eating bacteria to shrimp and crabs, endangered sea turtles, brown pelicans and sperm whales -- experts say the impact of oil and chemical dispersants on the food chain has already begun, and could grow exponentially.

"A major environmental experiment is underway," Ron Kendall, director of the Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Texas Tech University, told AFP.

"We are already impacting the base of the food chain," he said, including plankton, which provide crucial food for fish, and juvenile shrimp in intertidal marshes along the Gulf Coast.

[ YAHOO NEWS ]

[ Seep found near BP's blown out oil well ]

On the rocky beaches of Alaska, scientists plunged shovels and picks into the ground and dug 6,775 holes, repeatedly striking oil — still pungent and dangerous a dozen years after the Exxon Valdez infamously spilled its cargo.

More than an ocean away, on the Breton coast of France, scientists surveying the damage after another huge oil spill found that disturbances in the food chain persisted for more than a decade.

And on the southern gulf coast in Mexico, an American researcher peering into a mangrove swamp spotted lingering damage 30 years after that shore was struck by an enormous spill.

These far-flung shorelines hit by oil in the past offer clues to what people living along the Gulf Coast can expect now that the great oil calamity of 2010 may be nearing an end. [ NYTIMES.com ]

Hot town, summer in the city? No kidding.

The high temperatures blanketing the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions of the country are making many people miserable, but those in New York City, Philadelphia and other dense, built-up areas are getting hit with the heat in a way their counterparts in suburbs and rural areas aren't.

Cities absorb more solar energy during the day and are slower to release it after the sun sets, making for uncomfortable nights and no real relief from the heat. And because they haven't cooled down as much overnight, mornings are warmer and the thermometer goes right back up when the sun starts beating down the next day.

Scientists have known for years about so-called heat islands, urban areas that are hotter than the less-developed areas around them. Cities are just "not well designed to release that summertime heat," said William Solecki, geography professor at Hunter College and director of the City University of New York's Institute for Sustainable Cities. [ ASSOCIATED PRESS ]

The region will see one last day of extreme heat with high temperatures in the 95 to 105 degree range from southeastern New York south through Virginia. For many of these same areas this will be the fourth consecutive day with high temperatures 95 degrees or higher. Over two dozen high temperature records were broken Tuesday and more are expected to fall.

The remainder of the Northeast will also be hot with high temperatures in the 80s and lower 90s. Coastal New England should have the coolest readings due to an increasing easterly wind blowing off the cooler ocean during the afternoon. [ WEATHER.com ]

The possible spread of the oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon rig over the course of one year was studied in a series of computer simulations by a team of researchers from the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The simulations suggest that the coastlines near the Carolinas, Georgia, and Northern Florida could see the effects of the oil spill as early as October 2010, while the main branch of the subtropical gyre is likely to transport the oil film towards Europe, although strongly diluted.

Eight million buoyant particles were released continuously from April 20 to September 17, 2010, at the location of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. The release occurred in ocean flow data from simulations conducted with the high-resolution Ocean General Circulation Model for the Earth Simulator (OFES).  [ SCIENCE DAILY ] - [ Storms aggravate damage from Gulf oil spill ]

"A nuclear explosion over the leak," he says nonchalantly puffing a cigarette as he sits in a conference room at the Institute of Strategic Stability, where he is a director. "I don't know what BP is waiting for, they are wasting their time. Only about 10 kilotons of nuclear explosion capacity and the problem is solved."

A nuclear fix to the leaking well has been touted online and in the occasional newspaper op-ed for weeks now. Washington has repeatedly dismissed the idea and BP execs say they are not considering an explosion -- nuclear or otherwise. But as a series of efforts to plug the 60,000 barrels of oil a day gushing from the sea floor have failed, talk of an extreme solution refuses to die. [ YAHOO NEWS ]

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is in its third month with no end in sight. Here's where things stand now in the Gulf of Mexico.

How much oil is still gushing?

No one knows exactly how much oil is escaping BP's oil collection system (series of pipes drawing oil from leak to surface ships) and entering Gulf waters. Government estimates peg the leak at 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day, which translates to between 1.5 million and 2.5 million gallons.

Of that, BP is now collecting upward of 20,000 barrels per day. On June 29, the company recovered 25,220 barrels, bringing the total collected since the beginning of the spill to 508,700 barrels.  [ LIVE SCIENCE ]

The cap is meant to capture oil gushing from the well into the Gulf of Mexico. It was bouncing in the water Friday, moving more freely than it has in the past.

The implication is that less oil is being captured, said Steven Wereley, a member of the Flow Rate Technical Group, which is meant to provide scientifically sound information about how much oil is spilling into the Gulf of Mexico.

Officials have noted a slight drop-off in how much oil has been collected in recent days. [ Feds taking the weekend off in oil fight? ] - [ Why Is the Gulf Cleanup So Slow? ]

At midday, the oil was present about two-thirds of the way up the beach from the shoreline. A worker at the nearby Hangout restaurant said that this was the farthest oil has intruded onto the beach since the crisis began.

The oil was driven ashore by high winds and rough seas fueled by faraway Hurricane Alex. By this afternoon, the sprawling remains of the storm had drenched much of northern Mexico.

[ MORE PICTURES HERE ]

A deep-sea robot bumped into the cap collecting oil from the well, forcing a temporary halt Wednesday to the company's best effort yet to contain the leak. The cap was back in place Thursday, but frustration and skepticism were running high along the Gulf Coast.

BP's pronouncements have "absolutely no credibility," Jefferson Parish Councilman John Young said. The latest problem shows "they really are not up to the task and we have more bad news than we have good news."

New data has been released showing that the massive BP oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico is already contaminating one major protected North American Marine Ecoregion, containing more than 60-percent of America's tidal marshes, and is threatening at least two more.

The site of the initial explosion that resulted in the BP oil disaster is within the boundaries of the Northern Gulf of Mexico Ecoregion which as described by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation as a marine protected area that:

"... contains over 60 percent of the tidal marshes of the United States, freshwater inputs from thirty-seven major rivers, numerous nursery habitats for fish and the Flower Gardens Banks." [ HuffPost ]

The setback, yet another in the nine-week effort to stop the gusher, came as thick pools of oil washed up on Pensacola Beach in Florida and the Obama administration tried to figure out how to resurrect a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling.

When the robot bumped the system just before 10 a.m. Wednesday, gas rose through the vent that carries warm water down to prevent ice-like crystals from forming, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said.

Crews were checking to see if crystals had formed before putting it back on. BP spokesman Bill Salvin could not say how long that might take. [ ASSOCIATED PRESS ]

In an article published June 18 in Science magazine, scientists reveal the growing atmospheric concentrations of man-made greenhouse gases are driving irreversible and dramatic changes to the way the ocean functions, with potentially dire impacts for hundreds of millions of people across the planet.

The findings of the report emerged from a synthesis of recent research on the world's oceans, carried out by two of the world's leading marine scientists, one from The University of Queensland in Australia, and one from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in the USA.

Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, lead author of the report and Director of The University of Queensland's Global Change Institute, says the findings have enormous implications for mankind, particularly if the trend continues. [ SCIENCE DAILY ]

A government panel of scientists said that the ruptured well is leaking between 1.47 million and 2.52 million gallons of oil daily. The figures move the government's worst-case estimates more in line with what an independent team had previously thought was the maximum size of the spill.

"This estimate brings together several scientific methodologies and the latest information from the sea floor, and represents a significant step forward in our effort to put a number on the oil that is escaping from BP's well," Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement.

The latest numbers reflect an increase in the flow that scientists believe happened after undersea robots earlier this month cut off a kinked pipe near the sea floor that was believed to be restricting the flow of oil, just as a bend in a garden hose reduces water flow. BP officials has estimated that cutting the kinked pipe likely increased the flow by up 20 percent. [ YAHOO NEWS ]

The comment by BP engineer Brian Morel came in an e-mail April 14, six days before the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that killed 11 people and has sent tens of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf in the nation's worst environmental disaster.

The e-mail was among dozens of internal documents released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating the explosion and its aftermath. [ YAHOO NEWS ]