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Archive for August 20th, 2013
How Extreme Australian Rains Made Global Sea Levels Drop
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 20th, 2013
National Public Radio: Global sea level has been rising as a result of global warming, but in 2010 and 2011, sea level actually fell by about a quarter of an inch.
Scientists now say they know why: It has to do with extreme weather in Australia.
The sea level drop coincided with some of the worst flooding in that continent's history. Dozens of people died and torrents washed away houses and cars, forcing thousands from their homes.
Some of those floodwaters simply ran back into the ocean, so they didn't affect...
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Japan: Wrecked Fukushima plant springs highly radioactive water leak
Posted by Reuters: Yoko Kubota and Yuka Obayashi on August 20th, 2013
Reuters: Contaminated water with dangerously high levels of radiation is leaking from a storage tank at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the most serious setback to the clean up of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
The storage tank breach of about 300 tons of water is separate from contaminated water leaks reported in recent weeks, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said on Tuesday.
The latest leak, which is continuing, is so contaminated that a person standing 50 centimeters...
Monsoon rains swamp half of Philippine capital, killing seven
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 20th, 2013
Reuters: Monsoon rains reinforced by a tropical storm flooded half the Philippine capital in just 24 hours, triggering landslides and killing at least seven people, officials said on Tuesday.
At least 40,000 people sought shelter in government evacuation centers across the main island of Luzon and more than double that number moved to relatives' or friends' homes for safety as schools and government offices shut for a second day.
Financial markets suspended trading and most banks and private firms were...
Leaked report: 80cm sea rise warning
Posted by Sydney Morning Herald: Ben Cubby, Peter Hannam on August 20th, 2013
Sydney Morning Herald: The world is on track to become up to five degrees hotter, and sea levels could rise more than 80 centimetres this century, according to a leaked draft of a landmark climate change report prepared for the UN.
There is now a 95 per cent likelihood human greenhouse gas emissions are driving changes being observed globally, which in recent weeks have included extraordinary heatwaves in Asia and Alaska.
That degree of certainty has been revised up from 90 per cent in the last report in 2007, 66...
Philippines swamped after days of torrential rain
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 20th, 2013
Associated Press: Some of the Philippines' heaviest rains on record fell for a second day on Tuesday, turning the capital's roads into rivers and trapping tens of thousands of people in homes and shelters. The government suspended all work except rescues and disaster response.
Officials reported at least seven people dead, 11 injured and four missing. The dead included a five-year-old boy whose house was hit by a concrete wall that collapsed.
Throughout the sprawling, low-lying capital region of 12 million people,...
Scientists Turn to Melted Ice to Make Climate-Change Case
Posted by Bloomberg: Jim Efstathiou Jr on August 20th, 2013
Bloomberg: A report from an international team of scientists due next month will probably focus on a range of evidence that the earth is warming rather than just changes in air temperature, according to a climate scientist who has seen drafts of parts of the study.
The rate of polar ice melting, warming of oceans and the steady rise of sea levels all point to a planet heating up, said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist in the climate analysis section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and...