RSS Feed
Archive for September, 2011
Arctic sea ice shrinks to second lowest level
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 15th, 2011
Associated Press: Arctic sea ice melted this summer to the second lowest level since record-keeping began more than 50 years ago, scientists reported Thursday, mostly blaming global warming.
"This is not a random event," said oceanographer James Overland of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "It's a long-term change in Arctic climate."
The new measurements were taken by the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. It reported that the amount of ice covering the Arctic hit its...
Extremely Hot Summers Will Soon Be the Norm, Scientists Say
Posted by Climate Central: Alyson Kenward on September 15th, 2011
Climate Central: Anyone who's been paying the slightest attention knows that extreme weather and climate have wreaked havoc in Texas and many other states this year. The worst one-year drought in Texas history and its hottest summer on record -- which was the hottest summer ever recorded in any U.S. state -- have left Texas short on water, coping with billions of dollars in crop damage, and fighting off record wildfires. The total area burned in Texas so far this year would cover the entire state of Connecticut,...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Extremely Hot Summers Will Soon Be the Norm, Scientists SayEvaporated Water Cools Global Climate
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 15th, 2011
redOrbit: Scientists have long debated about the impact on global climate of water evaporated from vegetation. New research from Carnegie’s Global Ecology department concludes that evaporated water helps cool the earth as a whole, not just the local area of evaporation, demonstrating that evaporation of water from trees and lakes could have a cooling effect on the entire atmosphere. These findings, published September 14 in Environmental Research Letters, have major implications for land-use decision making....
Balloon goes up for geo-engineering
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 15th, 2011
BBC: I'm not too keen on raising the same kind of point in successive articles, but the news that UK scientists are to trial an innovative piece of geo-engineering kit within a couple of months begs some of the same questions that came up in Monday's piece on carbon capture and storage (CCS).
The most basic one is simple - money.
One end of the hose will be attached to a balloon floating a kilometre up in the air.
The other will be tethered to the ground, with a pump pushing water up the pipe...
Evaporation from Trees Helps Cool the Global Climate, Study Says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 15th, 2011
Yale Environment 360: Water that evaporates from trees and forests not only has a significant local cooling effect, but also plays a role in cooling the global climate, according to a new study by scientists at the Carnegie Global Ecology department. Reporting in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the scientists found that evaporation from trees cooled the global climate by causing clouds to form low in the atmosphere, which reflects the sun’s rays back into space. Scientists have long known that evaporation...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Evaporation from Trees Helps Cool the Global Climate, Study SaysSlow 2010 flood-recovery stokes new crisis in Pakistan
Posted by AlertNet: Rebekah Curtis on September 15th, 2011
AlertNet: Slow repairs to Pakistan’s river embankments after last year’s mass floods have increased people’s vulnerability to this year’s inundations in Sindh province, Oxfam said on Wednesday, adding some 5.3 million people are now affected by the current crisis. The floods have destroyed or damaged 1.2 million houses and flooded 4.5 million acres (1.8 million hectares) since late last month, officials and Western aid groups say. Oxfam warned the situation is likely to worsen in coming days. Embankments...
Climate extremes hike costs for Ugandan tea growers
Posted by AlertNet: Patrick Luganda on September 15th, 2011
AlertNet: Three sisters are bent over beneath a blackening sky, plucking tea leaves as fast as they can before the rain sets in. As they work, they lament the rising cost of producing tea in Uganda's increasingly harsh climate.
On the eight-acre tea farm in Banda Bugenderadala village in Mukono district, inside the Lake Victoria Crescent, droughts and floods have caused havoc in recent years, disrupting the traditional rhythm of production. Meanwhile, operating costs are increasing as the tea-leaf harvest...
Record Arctic Ice Melt Threatens Global Security
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 15th, 2011
Inter Press Service: All the analysis and commentary about safety and security on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 ignored by far the biggest ongoing threat to global security: climate change.
Just days before Sunday's commemoration of the attacks, German scientists pointed to yet another smoking gun of climate change: the Arctic sea ice reached a new historic minimum ice extent.
The rapidity with which the planet is losing its northern ice cap continues to astonish experts. The defrosting northern pole is one of...
New atlas shows extent of climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 15th, 2011
Guardian: If you have never heard of Uunartoq Qeqertaq, it's possibly because it's one of the world's newest islands, appearing in 2006 off the east coast of Greenland, 340 miles north of the Arctic circle when the ice retreated because of global warming. This Thursday the new land – translated from Inuit as Warming Island – was deemed permanent enough by map-makers to be included in a new edition of the most comprehensive atlas in the world.
Uunartoq Qeqertaq joins Southern Sudan and nearly 7,000 other...
Al Gore’s climate ‘reality’ campaign kicks off
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 15th, 2011
Agence France-Presse: An Internet campaign spearheaded by former US vice president Al Gore to raise awareness about climate change began airing its day-long broadcast around the world on Thursday.
The project, called "24 Hours of Reality," features a multimedia presentation viewable online that showcases how extreme weather events like floods, fires and storms are linked to climate change.
By 1300 GMT, the live-streamed broadcasts delivered in 13 languages, viewable at climaterealityproject.org, had drawn more than...