Archive for August 1st, 2013

Wildfires top Californians’ climate-change fears, survey shows

Press-Enterprise: California residents’ No. 1 fear about climate change is that it will cause more severe wildfires, according to a survey released Wednesday, July 31. A majority of residents also say state government should act right away to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, rather than wait until the economy improves, found the report by the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan research group based in San Francisco. The survey of 2,103 adults was conducted statewide from July 9-23, a period...

Climate Changing 10 Times Faster than in Past 65 Million Years

Nature World: Stanford University climate researchers warn that the likely rate of climate change over the next century will be 10 times faster than the rate of any climate shift in the past 65 million years, meaning the planet will undergo one of the largest changes in climate since the dinosaurs went extinct. Noah Diffenbaugh, an associate professor of environmental Earth system science, and Chris Field, a professor of biology and of environmental Earth system science at the Stanford Woods Institute for the...

Two Climate Analysts Fault Gas Leaks, but Not as a Big Warming Threat

New York Times: Two prominent analysts of human-driven global warming have offered fresh criticisms of the way Anthony Ingraffea, a Cornell University engineering professor, has been portraying the contribution of natural gas leaks to climate change. The researchers are Raymond Pierrehumbert, a climate scientist at the University of Chicago, and Richard A. Muller, a physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley who is best known of late for his research corroborating the extent of recent climate warming....

New Poll Shows Californians Strongly Oppose Fracking

EcoWatch: A majority of Californians oppose expanded fracking in the Golden State, according to a new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan research foundation. As oil companies gear up to frack massive petroleum deposits in the Monterey Shale, the poll also found that 65 percent of Californians say the state should act immediately to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The poll--the second this summer to find strong California opposition to fracking--puts new pressure on state lawmakers...

Alaska’s heat wave breaking records, killing salmon

Grist: Something smells fishy about a record-breaking heat wave in Alaska. It might be the piles of dead salmon. The Land of the Midnight Sun has been sweating, relatively speaking, through a hot and sun-soaked summer. From the AP: Anchorage has set a record for the most consecutive days over 70 degrees during this unusually warm summer, while Fairbanks is closing in on its own seasonal heat record. The National Weather Service said Alaska’s largest city topped out at 70 degrees at 4 p.m. Tuesday,...

Aerial Pictures Reveal Climate Change

ScienceDaily: As a result of climate change, certain undesirable aquatic plants are starting to invade German water bodies. Even popular recreation areas like Lake Starnberg have been affected, leading to a growing need to monitor the spread of these plants. Up to now, regular monitoring has proven to be a costly process. But in a new approach, researchers at Technische Universität München (TUM) have developed a quicker and less expensive method. Taking a dip in a freshwater lake can quickly lose its appeal...

TransCanada ramps up East Coast pipeline as Keystone stalls

Reuters: TransCanada Corp announced plans on Thursday for Canada's largest pipeline, a 2,700-mile, $12 billion line to ship crude from the oil sands of Western Canada to the Atlantic, as its U.S.-bound Keystone XL project stalls in Washington. Canada's No. 2 pipeline company said "strong market support" convinced it to build the 1.1-million-barrel-per-day Energy East Pipeline, which will bring crude from Alberta to refineries in Eastern Canada and to a new deepwater oil terminal on the Atlantic for export...

Santa’s workshop not flooded – but lots of melting in the Arctic

Space Daily: Santa's workshop at the North Pole is not under water, despite recent reports. A dramatic image captured by a University of Washington monitoring buoy reportedly shows a lake at the North Pole. But Santa doesn't yet need to buy a snorkel. "Every summer when the sun melts the surface the water has to go someplace, so it accumulates in these ponds," said Jamie Morison, a polar scientist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory and principal investigator since 2000 of the North Pole Environmental Observatory....

Researchers Explain Arctic Lake Disappearance

Nature World News: The Arctic lake has disappeared, leaving behind ice and clouds in the region. The pool of water drained through cracks in the underlying ice July, 29. Researchers at UW Applied Physics Laboratory said that ice melts at the Arctic every summer. "Every summer when the sun melts the surface the water has to go someplace, so it accumulates in these ponds. This doesn't look particularly extreme," said Jamie Morison, a polar scientist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory and principal investigator since...

As Keystone stalls, TransCanada OKs bigger East Coast line

Reuters: TransCanada Corp on Thursday said it would move ahead with a $12 billion oil pipeline to ship Western Canada's oil sands crude to refiners on its east coast and beyond, scaling up the project as its U.S.-bound Keystone XL line stalls in Washington. TransCanada, Canada's No. 2 pipeline company, said it would push ahead with a 1.1-million-barrel-per-day Energy East Pipeline after "strong market support." That is more than the 850,000 bpd capacity TransCanada mentioned in April, when it first began...