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Archive for August 16th, 2012
Greenland suffers record melt
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 16th, 2012
Mongabay: Four weeks before Greenland's melting season usually ends, it has already blown past all previous records. By August 8th, nearly a month before cooler weather usually sets in around the world's largest island, the island toppled the past record set in 2010.
"With more yet to come in August, this year's overall melting will fall way above the old records. That's a goliath year-the greatest melt since satellite recording began in 1979," said Earth and atmospheric scientist Marco Tedesco in a press...
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When This Oil Spills, It’s ‘A Whole New Monster’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 16th, 2012
National Public Radio: Sometime in the next few months, David Daniel probably will have to stand by and watch as bulldozers knock down his thick forest and dig up the streams he loves.
His East Texas property is one of more than 1,000 in the path of a new pipeline, the southern stretch of what is known as the Keystone XL system.
For years, Daniel has tried to avoid this fate - or at least figure out what risks will come with it. But it has been difficult for him to get straight answers about the tar sands oil the...
Drought May Ease in Coming Weeks; Too Late for Crops
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 16th, 2012
Climate Central: The epic drought that has gripped large parts of the U.S. for much of the summer, and which now ranks as the nation's fifth worst on record, should ease some in parts of the country in the coming weeks, according to an outlook on Thursday from the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) of the National Weather Service. The dryness has been so intense in the nation's heartland, however, that for a broad swath of the country -- covering all or part from Missouri west to California and from Texas north to Montana...
Experts warn of long-term climate change impacts on food
Posted by The Hill: Zack Colman on August 16th, 2012
The Hill: Experts working on a food security report for the United Nations warn climate change will cause disruptions to global food supplies beyond the U.S. drought this year, according to Reuters.
The researchers note in a forthcoming chapter for the U.N.’s 2014 report on global warming that heat waves and massive downpours will become more common if nations fail to address climate change. That will make food supplies more unpredictable, which could cause volatile prices.
"It has not been properly...
Large Utah Tar Sands Mine a Threat to Region’s Water Supplies, Groups Say
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 16th, 2012
Yale Environment 360: Two environmental organizations are fighting a Canadian company’s plan to mine a massive reserve of oil sands in eastern Utah, saying the project would tax water supplies in what is already the U.S.’s second-driest state. In what would be the U.S.'s first large-scale oil sands mining operation, Calgary-based U.S. Oil Sands Inc. has already excavated a two-acre test mine at site called PR Spring and ultimately hopes to establish a sprawling, 6,000-acre mine as early as 2014. According to the Utah...
Texas plans insecticide canvass as West Nile Virus deaths reach 16
Posted by Guardian: Tom Dart on August 16th, 2012
Guardian: Aerial spraying of insecticide is set to begin over Dallas on Thursday night as the city battles the worst outbreak of the West Nile virus in the US this year.
Mayor Mike Rawlings has declared a state of emergency and announced the first aerial spraying in the city and its suburbs since 1966 in response to the growing number of victims of the virus, which spreads to humans via mosquito bites and is reaching epidemic proportions in north Texas.
"Right now, Texas has half the West Nile cases...
In Fuel Cells, Some Hope for Urban Sanitation
Posted by New York Times: SOPHIA LI on August 16th, 2012
New York Times: As more and more people around the world flock to cities, urban areas in developing nations are struggling to keep up with the human influx and the waste that people produce. In 2010 roughly 2.5 billion people lacked basic sanitation, according to the World Health Organization.
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012Microbes on the anodes (shown in green) break down the organic material in wastewater, producing carbon dioxide, protons and electrons.
A team of engineers has developed a tool that may prove...
Midwest farmland values rise just one percent due to drought
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 16th, 2012
Reuters: The price of prime farmland in the drought-hit U.S. Midwest grain belt rose 1 percent in the second quarter, the smallest quarterly increase in two years, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago said on Thursday.
But while the district's worst drought in nearly a quarter century will dramatically shrink soybean and corn output, land values this quarter were not expected to fall, the Fed said in its quarterly survey of 205 bankers in the district.
The Chicago Fed district includes the heart of the...
Light rains give some relief to drought-stricken U.S. corn, soy
Posted by Reuters: Sam Nelson on August 16th, 2012
Reuters: After weeks of relentless heat stress from the worst U.S. drought in more than half a century, deteriorating corn and soybean crops were getting some relief by light rains this week, an agricultural meteorologist said Thursday.
But the shift in weather came too late to help much of the corn crop which had been planted early and bore the brunt of high heat and drought this summer. Some late-planted soybeans may benefit from the turn to cooler and damper weather.
"A cool front is moving through...
Experts mull global system to monitor water resources
Posted by AlertNet: Julie Mollins on August 16th, 2012
AlertNet: A global system to monitor management of water resources would help governments secure food and water supplies for the future, a U.N. expert due to attend the World Water Week conference later this month has told AlertNet.
"There's demand for a global reporting mechanism that will help us see what is the status of water security and how water is used around the world as a resource, whether in agriculture, industrial production or any other way," said Joakim Harlin, senior water resources advisor...