Spotlight on green news & views: House votes to stick with Paris Accord; Greenland going, going

This is the 597th edition of the Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue). Here is the April 27 edition. Inclusion of a story in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.

OUTSTANDING GREEN STORIES

FishOutofWater writes—Heat Dome over Greenland Causing Unprecedented Early Melting: “Greenland’s Snow and Ice started melting in early April this year, weeks earlier than normal. Unprecedented early surface melting is well underway on the southeastern coastline now. [...] Greenland’s ice cap, which hangs above the northern hemisphere like Damocles’ sword, started melting early this April, weeks earlier than the previous record date, and now another even stronger melt event is underway. Storms in the middle north Atlantic have driven up heat domes over Scandinavia and Greenland by winds that pull heat out of the warm ocean, warming the air above it. The previous extreme years for Greenland melting, 2010 and 2012 began early and were associated with similar domes of warm air that extended from the surface to tens of thousands of feet (greater than 5000 meters) above Greenland. It’s a weather feature called blocking and Greenland is one of the places in the world where blocking can be persistent. There’s a strong chance that this spring’s April blocking and warmth will continue through the summer months.”

6412093 writes—The Daily Bucket--Take-out Orders from the Frog Mitigation Area: “The heron doesn’t scare off as easy from my backyard as in past years. It visits 3 times a day or more.  Yesterday it landed on the fence while I was outside, 20 feet away. The flapping whoosh of its 6 foot wingspan and burst of platinum and blue colors seemed to throw open the curtain to another reality, as it settled on the fence. I sat stone-still 20 feet away as it preened, ate a large bug, and eyed me, and then watched the small pond below.That pond was set aside for frogs to breed, and for tadpoles to grow. At that moment it was teeming with tadpoles. The heron watched the tadpoles for several minutes, glaring at me now and then. But the parent chorus frogs never appeared, and the tadpoles apparently weren’t worth the trouble of spearing. The heron flew a few feet to the fish pond, and promptly caught two fish in two minutes, belly-flopping for the second one. The heron rose from the pond, dripping water. The water emboldened the heron’s breast colors. The heron’s inner wing feathers flashed a garish red from under where its wing and body met. I’d never seen a heron from this angle, head-on, from slightly below, the heron with wings outspread. The mosaic of colors might be a seldom-seen mating display. Alas, the camera was 90 feet away.”

from Daily Kos http://bit.ly/2DNSh2U