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Archive for September 19th, 2012
Arctic sea ice is ‘toast’ as old record shattered
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 19th, 2012
Mongabay: Some twenty days after breaking the record for the lowest sea ice extent, the Arctic sea ice has hit a new rock bottom and finally begun its seasonal recovery. In the end, the Arctic sea ice extent fell to just 3.4 million square kilometers (1.32 million square miles) when only a few months ago scientists were wondering if it would break the 4 million square kilometers. The speed of the sea ice decline due to climate change has outpaced all the computer models, overrun all expert predictions, and...
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Arctic sea ice reaches new low, shattering record set just 3 weeks ago
Posted by NBC: Miguel Llanos on September 19th, 2012
NBC: New sea ice is finally starting to form again in the Arctic, scientists reported Wednesday, but not before reaching another record low last Sunday.
"We are now in uncharted territory," Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said in a statement announcing the record low of 1.32 million square miles -- nearly half the average extent from 1979 to 2010. The extent has been tracked by satellite since 1979.
"While we've long known that as the planet warms up, changes would...
Q&A: A New Era of Citizen Action Is Dawning
Posted by Inter Press Service: Lindsey Walker on September 19th, 2012
Inter Press Service: The Global Civil Society Network CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation has a new secretary general -- Dhananjayan (Danny) Sriskandarajah, who was appointed Monday by the board of directors following the CIVICUS World Assembly in Montreal.
CIVICUS is a global alliance of organisations and individuals that strives to strengthen citizen action and civil society, particularly in regions of the world where freedom of association is limited or threatened.
Danny Sriskandarajah, previously...
United States: Climate change to fuel northern spread of avian malaria
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 19th, 2012
PhysOrg: Malaria has been found in birds in parts of Alaska, and global climate change will drive it even farther north, according to a new study published today in the journal PLOS ONE.
The spread could prove devastating to arctic bird species that have never encountered the disease and thus have no resistance to it, said San Francisco State University Associate Professor of Biology Ravinder Sehgal, one of the study's co-authors. It may also help scientists understand the effects of climate change on...
Carbon dioxide from water pollution, as well as air pollution, may adversely impact oceans
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 19th, 2012
ScienceDaily: Carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the oceans as a result of water pollution by nutrients -- a major source of this greenhouse gas that gets little public attention -- is enhancing the unwanted changes in ocean acidity due to atmospheric increases in CO2. The changes may already be impacting commercial fish and shellfish populations, according to new data and model predictions published September 19 in ACS's journal, Environmental Science & Technology.
William G. Sunda and Wei-Jun Cai point...
Climate change could remake Australia
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 19th, 2012
United Press International: Climate change will have a major impact on Australia's plants, animals and ecosystems and present challenges to the conservation of biodiversity, a study found. Australia's species and ecosystems to sensitive climate change and the country must find news ways of considering conservation, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization reported Wednesday. "Climate change is likely to start to transform some of Australia's natural landscapes by 2030," lead researcher Michael Dunlop...
Arctic sea ice melts to lowest level on record
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 19th, 2012
Reuters: Arctic sea ice, a key indicator of climate change, melted to its lowest level on record this year before beginning its autumnal freeze, researchers at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said on Wednesday.
The extent of ice probably hit its low point on Sept. 16, when it covered 1.32 million square miles (3.42 million square km) of the Arctic Ocean, the smallest amount since satellite records began 33 years ago.
Changing weather conditions could further shrink the extent, the center...
Antarctic Ice Facing Changes By Fast-Flowing Glaciers
Posted by redOrbit: Lee Rannals on September 19th, 2012
redOrbit: A new study found that fast-flowing and narrow glaciers could trigger massive changes in the Antarctic ice sheet, inevitably adding sea-level rise and ice-sheet decay.
The team tested high-resolution model simulations against reconstructions of the Antarctic ice sheet from 20,000 years ago.
Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), they said they used a new model during their study, capable of resolving responses to ice-streams and other fine-scale dynamic...
Fiji: First village relocated due to climate change
Posted by AlterNet: Brook Meakins on September 19th, 2012
AlterNet: For the most part, many people still experience climate change on an academic rather than a personal level. But for the villagers of Vunidogoloa on Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second largest island, climate change has become a daily intrusion on every day life. The villagers of Vunidogoloa are currently relocating to drier and higher land because of sea level rise, erosion, and intensifying floods. I had the opportunity to visit the village midway through this process – one of the very first village relocation...
A Closer Look at Arctic Sea Ice Melt and Extreme Weather
Posted by Climate Central: Andrew Freedman on September 19th, 2012
Climate Central: With Arctic sea ice reaching its lowest level in the satellite record after an astonishingly rapid summer melt, the question of whether disappearing sea ice might lead to more extreme winters in Europe and North America needs more scrutiny.
In an article on September 12, I reported on a 2012 paper by Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University and Stephen Vavrus of the University of Wisconsin, which showed that the loss of Arctic summer sea ice cover is adding enough heat to the ocean and atmosphere...