RSS Feed
Archive for July 11th, 2012
Extreme Weather Linked to Man-Made Global Warming: Now What?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 11th, 2012
Yahoo!: Climate change boosted the odds of the egregious weather that ran roughshodover the planet in 2011, according to a report released this week.
The National Climactic Data Center’s State of the Climate report, which was compiled by 48 scientists in 400 countries,found that the last 12 months in the mainland U.S. were the hottest since record keeping began in 1895. The kind of blistering heat we used to experience once every 20 years, will now occur every two. A heat wave in Texas is now 20 times...
Posted in 
Climate change increased the probability of Texas drought, African famine, and other extreme weather
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 11th, 2012
Mongabay: Climate change is here and its increasing the chances for crazy weather, according to scientists. A prestigious group of climatologists have released a landmark report that makes the dramatic point that climate change is impacting our weather systems-and in turn our food crops, our economies, and even our lives-here-and-now. The new report in the American Meteorological Society is first of what is intended to be an annual offering that will attempt to tease out the connections between climate change...
US drought threatens price of food as hot weather fries corn
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 11th, 2012
Guardian: The worst drought to hit the United States in nearly 25 years is threatening to drive up food prices around the world.
The price of corn, the staple crop of much of the midwest and the prairies, has risen by a third in the past month and rose again on Wednesday after a US government report said farmers would not yield as much from their parched fields as expected. Higher prices are likely to be passed on in the cost of hamburgers and steak and also affect a range of other foods such as corn flakes...
Researchers design ‘smart’ waterpumps for rural Africa
Posted by SciDev.Net: Mercy Adhiambo on July 11th, 2012
SciDev.Net: Researchers hope to harness mobile phone technology to improve water supplies in rural parts of Africa.
A team from the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom, proposes installing handpumps containing devices that automatically send text messages to local water engineers whenever pumps break down or dry up.
The device, known as a waterpoint data transmitter, is fitted into handpump handles, and automatically monitors the number of strokes made when a pump is operated.
This data, which...
The Satellite Dish as Triple Threat
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 11th, 2012
New York Times: On the Fourth of July, roof decks across Boston teemed with people hoping to catch a glimpse of the fireworks over the Charles River. Marring the view, however, was a phenomenon known as dish blight.
“They look terrible,” said Salvatore LaMattina, a city councilor and a lifelong resident of East Boston, where satellite dishes have sprouted atop countless vinyl-sided triple-deckers. A city ordinance written by Mr. LaMattina and approved in June requires satellite companies to install dishes away...
Extreme Weather Tied To Global Warming
Posted by redOrbit: Lawrence LeBlond on July 11th, 2012
redOrbit: Global warming could be leading to extreme weather events in several areas around the world, but in some areas scientists have not been able to find any link between the two at all, according to new analyses released Tuesday.
Record heat waves in the UK, extreme flooding in Russia, and record drought in Texas, may have been the result of climate change, yet researchers are stopping short of blaming any single event on global warming.
The analyses come from the latest State of the Climate report,...
Why Canada’s scientists need our support
Posted by Guardian: Alice Bell on July 11th, 2012
Guardian: The scientists of Canada are revolting. They marched through Ottawa in their thousands on Tuesday, a sea of white coats making its way up Parliament Hill, carrying tombstones and a coffin to symbolise the "death of evidence", chanting "What do we want? SCIENCE! When do we want it? After peer review!"
Scientists seem to be forever complaining they're marginalised so, it might be tempting to roll your eyes. When a group from the UK drove a coffin down Westminster last May they were described as...
Climate scientists and communities can find common ground
Posted by SciDev.Net: Arame Tall on July 11th, 2012
SciDev.Net: Fruitful dialogue in Africa shows the gap between climate scientists and decision makers can be bridged, says adaptation specialist Arame Tall.
African countries face a growing threat of hydro-meteorological disasters such as droughts, floods, pest infestations, water-related epidemics, storms and cyclones. Whether correlated with anthropogenic climate change, a result of increased human vulnerability or merely the outcome of better disaster reporting, the number of reported hydro-meteorological...
Extreme weather: Get ready to see more of it, US scientists say
Posted by CNN: Moni Basu on July 11th, 2012
CNN: A map of significant climate events for the United States in June looks almost apocalyptic: hellish heat, ferocious fires and severe storms leaving people injured, homeless and even dead. Why to expect more weather disasters That followed a warm winter and early season droughts. News came Monday that the mainland United States experienced its warmest 12 months since the dawn of record-keeping in 1895. And on Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a report...
Putting a price on water becomes ‘sensitive’ issue in India
Posted by ClimateWire: Saqib Rahim on July 11th, 2012
ClimateWire: In India's state of Punjab, where the country's "Green Revolution" began 40 years ago, another revolution may be in store.
For four decades, India has encouraged food production through subsidies and other price supports to farmers there. Electricity is cheap, and water is free to whoever pumps it out of the ground. As a result, Punjab grows a fifth of India's wheat and 12 percent of its rice, while covering 1.5 percent of the country's land, according to the Columbia Water Center at Columbia...