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Archive for May 16th, 2013
Smaller Glaciers Boost Sea Level as Much as the Giants
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 16th, 2013
Climate Central: As the planet warms under the influence of rising greenhouse gases, and melting ice drives sea level higher, scientists have focused mostly on changes in the vast ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica. If either one melts substantially or slides into the ocean, the results would be catastrophic.
But there's another ice reserve to worry about: the many thousands of smaller glaciers unconnected to continental-scale ice sheets. They're melting, too, and a new report in Science shows that...
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Interior Department offers new rules for ‘fracking’
Posted by LA Times: Neela Banerjee and Wes Venteicher on May 16th, 2013
LA Times: The Interior Department proposed new rules to regulate hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas on federal land Thursday, drawing criticism from environmentalists that it had weakened an earlier draft to placate industry.
Industry officials were not mollified, however, reiterating their objections to federal standards. Last year, they criticized the department's earlier draft rules as inflexible and onerous.
"We are proposing some common-sense updates that increase safety while also providing flexibility...
Everest Ice Shrinking Fast, Scientists and Climbers Say
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 16th, 2013
National Geographic: Everest isn't the same mountain it was when Jim Whittaker became the first U.S. climber to summit the peak in 1963. The world's highest peak has been shedding snow and ice for the past 50 years, possibly due in part to global warming, new research says. (Take an Everest quiz.)
New analyses show Mount Everest has lost significant snow and ice cover over the past half century. In nearby Sagarmatha National Park, glaciers have shrunk by 13 percent. Weather data reveal the larger Everest region has...
Research Into Carbon Storage in Arctic Tundra
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 16th, 2013
ScienceDaily: When UC Santa Barbara doctoral student Seeta Sistla and her adviser, environmental studies professor Josh Schimel, went north not long ago to study how long-term warming in the Arctic affects carbon storage, they had made certain assumptions.
"We expected that because of the long-term warming, we would have lost carbon stored in the soil to the atmosphere," said Schimel. The gradual warming, he explained, would accelerate decomposition on the upper layers of what would have previously been frozen...
Is Your State Home to One of the 20 Worst Water Polluters?
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on May 16th, 2013
EcoWatch: The Ohio Valley Electric Corporation, Ferro Corporation, American Electric Power, U.S. Department of Defense and Southern Company top the list of the most hazardous polluters of U.S. surface water, according to a report released today by the national consumer advocacy organization Food & Water Watch and the Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts Amherst (PERI).
A Toxic Flood: The United States Needs Stronger Regulations to Protect Public Health From Industrial...
Technology is key to conquering climate change in long run, Harper says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 16th, 2013
Canadian Press: Technological change will prove to be the key to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told a blue-chip audience on Thursday.
Simply imposing emissions targets or trying to cap economic growth to reduce emissions isn't going to work, Harper said during a question-and-answer session at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
"I am convinced that, over time, we are not going to effectively tackle emissions unless we develop the lower-emissions technology in energy...
World’s biggest ice sheets likely more stable than previously believed
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 16th, 2013
ScienceDaily: For decades, scientists have used ancient shorelines to predict the stability of today's largest ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Markings of a high shoreline from three million years ago, for example -- when Earth was going through a warm period -- were thought to be evidence of a high sea level due to ice sheet collapse at that time. This assumption has led many scientists to think that if the world's largest ice sheets collapsed in the past, then they may do just the same in our modern,...
World’s melting glaciers making large contribution to sea rise
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 16th, 2013
ScienceDaily: While 99 percent of Earth's land ice is locked up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the remaining ice in the world's glaciers contributed just as much to sea rise as the two ice sheets combined from 2003 to 2009, says a new study led by Clark University and involving the University Colorado Boulder.
The new research found that all glacial regions lost mass from 2003 to 2009, with the biggest ice losses occurring in Arctic Canada, Alaska, coastal Greenland, the southern Andes and the Himalayas....
Interior Department Bows to Pressure from Oil and Gas Industry, Weakens Fracking Rules
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on May 16th, 2013
EcoWatch: The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposed an updated set of rules governing hydraulic fracturing, on public lands today. The controversial oil and gas development technique--in which drillers blast millions of gallons of chemically treated water into the earth to force oil and gas from underground deposits--has been linked to air and water pollution and public health problems.
“Comparing today’s rule governing fracking on public lands with the one proposed...
U.S. Interior issues new draft fracking rules for federal lands
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 16th, 2013
Reuters: The Obama administration on Thursday unveiled a new proposal for regulating hydraulic fracturing on federal lands, rolling back some measures from its original, abandoned draft as it sought to ease concerns the rules would be too burdensome for producers.
The U.S. Interior Department scrapped a proposal from 2012 after drawing heat from green groups and the drilling industry over rules aimed at updating decades-old fracking regulations.
"Our thorough review of all the comments convinced us...