Archive for August 13th, 2010

Ancient Hawaiian Glaciers Hold Clues to Past Climate Change

LiveScience.com: Boulders deposited by an ancient glacier that once covered the summit of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii are providing clues to past climate changes on Earth. A new study has found geochemical clues near the summit of volcanic Mauna Kea that tell a story of ancient glacier formation, the influence of the most recent ice age, more frequent major storms in Hawaii, and the impact of a distant climatic event that changed much of the world. Mauna Kea, at 13,803 feet (4,207 meters) ...

Lake Superior reaches record temp

MPR: On another muggy August afternoon in Duluth, the Park Point city beach is again packed. Clara Goellner is one of the three life guards trying to keep an eye on the mob of teens and children splashing away in water that's typically bone-chilling. But this year, the normally uncomfortably cool surface waters of Lake Superior aren't so cold, as summer heat is showing up in one of the Minnesota's colder places. Experts say the lake's surface temperatures set a new record high this ...

Lake Mead’s water level plunges as 11-year drought lingers

Greenwire: Lake Mead, the enormous reservoir of Colorado River water that hydrates Arizona, Nevada, California and northern Mexico, is receding to a level not seen since it was first being filled in the 1930s, stoking existential fears about water supply in the parched Southwest. Heightening those concerns are recent signs that the region's record-breaking, 11-year drought could wear on for another year or longer. July not only saw the lake drop to 1956 levels but also brought cooling ...

Past human errors to blame for Russia’s peat fires

New York Times: For two weeks, soldiers with chain saws felled every tree in sight. Firefighters laid down a pipe to a nearby lake and pumped 100 gallons of water every minute, around the clock, until the surface of what is known as Fire No. 3 was a muddy expanse of charred stumps. And still the fire burned on. Under the surface, fire crept through a virtually impenetrable peat bog, spewing the smoke that – until the wind shifted on Thursday, providing what meteorologists said was ...

United States: The Miracle That Wasn’t: Everglades Restoration

NYT: The aging environmentalist with the Abe Lincoln beard ambled to the podium on Thursday to tell water managers that he could no longer support their plan to buy land for the Everglades from United States Sugar. He sounded sad. He said that because the acquisition had been scaled back to 26,790 acres from what was initially a purchase of 187,000 acres, it no longer held the promise of true restoration. Two disconnected parcels didn't cut it, he said; he wanted a flow-way, a ...

How greed begets hunger

Guardian: The heatwave, forest fires and drought in Russia and central Asia may be unprecedented in recent times. But there is something familiar about the ensuing food crisis, as the price of wheat remains 50% higher than just six weeks ago. It is just two years since the last such crisis. A spike in the price of agricultural commodities in 2007-08 caused panic from Italy to Haiti, drawing sharp attention to a deeper malfunctioning in the world's food markets. This malfunctioning is ...

Borehole network confirms, permafrost is thawing worldwide

Arctic Sounder: An expanded network of boreholes across the northern hemisphere has confirmed that permafrost throughout polar and sub-polar regions is thawing, say scientists who studied the topic during International Polar Year. "You look at a whole hemisphere and see the patterns everywhere," said Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor with the snow, ice and permafrost group at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, and lead author of a paper documenting the ...

Pakistan’s floods: Is the worst still to come?

Nature: It is over two weeks since the floods began in Pakistan, and the rains are still falling. Already termed the worst flooding to hit Pakistan for 80 years, this deluge has affected millions of people, and so far over 1,600 have died. With the impacts of the flooding likely to continue well after the flood waters have retreated, Nature examines the escalating humanitarian disaster. What is the main cause of the intense rainfall? It is weather, not climate, that is to blame, ...

Russia’s damaged wheat: A glimpse of the future?

Voice of America: As Russian wheat withers under a record-breaking heat wave, driving up grain prices on global commodity markets, a new study shows rice production, too, has suffered in recent decades from rising temperatures. Experts say it may be the latest warning of how climate change in some key farming regions could threaten world food supplies. In the new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers examined six years of data from 227 farms in six major ...

Tanzania’s Serengeti Highway plan could destroy major carbon sink

Ecologist: Environmentalists are dismayed at plans by the Tanzanian government to build a major commercial highway through Serengeti National Park The Tanzanian President has vowed to go ahead with controversial plans to construct a major road through the Serengeti, despite fierce opposition from environmentalists and the tourism industry. The 480-kilometre road will link the Lake Victoria area with eastern Tanzania and, according to the Tanzanian government, bring essential economic ...