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Archive for November 27th, 2012
Climate Change Threatens to Create a Second Dust Bowl
Posted by Scientific American: Melissa Gaskill on November 27th, 2012
Scientific American: A cool October broke a 16-month streak of above average temperatures across the Lower 48, but temperatures are projected to remain above normal across most of the western half of the country in the coming months. In addition, the latest climate change projections put future temperature gains on the high side of various models.
As of November 6, 59.5 percent of the contiguous U.S. was experiencing persistent drought conditions that are most severe in the Great Plains—North and South Dakota, Nebraska,...
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Melting permafrost a new peril in global warming: U.N
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 27th, 2012
Reuters: Permafrost lands across Siberia and Alaska that contain vast stores of carbon are beginning to thaw, bringing with it the threat of a big increase in global warming by 2100, a U.N. report said on Tuesday.
A thaw of the vast areas of permanently frozen ground in Russia, Canada, China and the United States also threatens local homes, roads, railways and oil pipelines, the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) said in the report which was released at the U.N. climate talks being held this week and next...
Continuing to Protect India’s Asian Elephant Habitat Together
Posted by Water Conservation Blog on November 27th, 2012
EI "Back to Our Roots" Fund-Raising Update: $9,318 raised from 56 donors, 23% to goal
Ecological Internet is making great progress in raising our operating funds for next year. We should reach our goal if we can continue apace with many small donors and occasional larger gifts. In one minor setback, our new donation page has been attacked, by repeated fraudulent donations of 1 cent to check if credit card information is correct, and/or to disrupt our fund-raising. Thus, we are back for now to PayPal, Google, and mailing checks as the long-tested, secure, and dependable means to donate to EI. Please make a tax-deductible donation of what you can afford now.
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Continuing to Protect India's Asian Elephant Habitat Together
Ecological Internet needs your help to continue protecting Asian elephants and to define cutting-edge science on protecting ecosystems and sustaining humanity's one shared biosphere. Please donate now: http://www.rainforestportal.com/shared/donate/ .
November 26, 2006
Dear colleagues,
Because of our success together protecting South India's Asian elephant habitat [search], I have been granted the honor of being the academic convener of a major ecological sustainability conference in Kerala, India, in mid-December. There I will be presenting a paper on the need to protect 50% of terrestrial ecosystems for the ...
Doha deal must include permafrost action, says UN
Posted by BusinessGreen: Will Nichols on November 27th, 2012
BusinessGreen: Melting permafrost could account for almost 40 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions in the future and must feature in any global deal to tackle climate change agreed at the Doha Summit, UN scientists have warned.
Permafrost covers almost a quarter of the northern hemisphere, extending to depths of 700 metres in parts of Canada and Siberia, and is thought to store 1,700 gigatonnes of carbon, twice the amount currently in the atmosphere, according to a report published today by the UN...
The storm gathering over Britain’s flood defences
Posted by Telegraph: Michael Hanlon on November 27th, 2012
Telegraph: In his classic doomsday novel The Drowned World, JG Ballard imagined Britain in the 22nd century slowly disintegrating under the onslaught of flood and damp: cities claimed by mould and mildew, lagoons of languid, standing water inundating the nation, ancient buildings dissolving into the mire.
The residents of Wales, the West Country, parts of the Midlands and, by the time you read this, northern England and Scotland as well, could be forgiven for thinking Ballard's dystopian vision has arrived...
Melting permafrost ‘may speed global warming’
Posted by Agence France-Presse: Faisal Baatout on November 27th, 2012
Agence France-Presse: Climate talks got down to the nitty-gritty in Doha on Tuesday as developing countries and the European Union (EU) staked out rival positions on the fate of the Kyoto Protocol.
Separately, the UN's Environment Programme (UNEP) urged negotiators to heed the risk from melting permafrost, which could spew billions of tonnes of greenhouses gases into the air and accelerate global warming at a stroke.
Pressing on the key issue at the 12-day annual parlay which began on Monday, poorer countries called...
Climate Change: Natural disasters made history in 2011
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 27th, 2012
IRIN: Many of the worst natural disasters of 2011 were also the most severe the affected countries had ever experienced, revealed the Global Climate Risk Index (CRI) 2013, which was released in Doha on 27 November.
Brazil, Cambodia, El Salvador,Laos and Thailand appear in the CRI's 10 most-affected countries; all recorded their severest natural hazards-related catastrophes in 2011.
Floods and landslides claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people and caused almost US$5 billion in direct losses in...
Chasing Ice: glacial melting in the Arctic – in pictures
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 27th, 2012
Guardian: Chasing Ice, a documentary by the producers of Academy award-winning The Cove, tells the story of James Balog's mission to capture visual evidence of the effect of climate change on our planet. Since an initial trip to Norway in 2005, Balog has used time-lapse cameras in brutal Arctic conditions to conduct an Extreme Ice Survey to provide proof – in breathtaking footage – that these colossal glaciers are melting before our eyes
Where even the earth is melting
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 27th, 2012
Sydney Morning Herald: THE world is on the cusp of a "tipping point" into dangerous climate change, according to new data gathered by scientists measuring methane leaking from the Arctic permafrost and a report presented to the United Nations on Tuesday. "The permafrost carbon feedback is irreversible on human time scales," says the report, Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost. "Overall, these observations indicate that large-scale thawing of permafrost may already have started." While countries the size of Australia...
Grappling With the Permafrost Problem
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 27th, 2012
New York Times: The greatest single uncertainty about climate change is how much the warming of the planet will feed on itself.
As the temperature increases because of human emissions, feedbacks could cause new pools of carbon to be released into the atmosphere, magnifying the trend. Other types of feedbacks could potentially slow the warming. Over all, climate scientists have only best guesses about how these conflicting tendencies will balance out, though most of them think the net result is likely to be a...