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Archive for September, 2013
Climate change will turn Greenland green
Posted by Salon: Rachel Nuwer on September 8th, 2013
Salon: History teachers often point out the humor in Greenland’s name. That northerly land, after all, is anything but green. According to the Icelandic Sagas, Eric the Red–exiled from Iceland for the crime of murder–stumbled upon Greenland’s glacial shores in the late 10th century. Though “Coldland” or “Snowyland” would have been more apt, he dubbed the place “Grnland” in the hopes of luring settlers to the remote outpost with the promise of bountiful forests and fields.
Eric the Red’s false advertising,...
NASA scientists link climate change with increase in wildfires
Posted by Al Jazeera: None Given on September 8th, 2013
Al Jazeera: The devastating wildfire in Southern California that destroyed 26 homes and threatened hundreds of others in the San Jacinto Mountains before it was mostly contained on Sunday has prompted some scientists to examine whether climate change has impacted on the onset and severity of wildfire season.
The so-called Silver Fire is expected to be fully contained by Monday, according to California officials. But on Friday, as the fire moved toward Palm Springs and threatened some 500 homes, NASA hosted...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on NASA scientists link climate change with increase in wildfiresU.S. Forest Service set to decide on fracking in George Washington National Forest
Posted by Washington Post: Darryl Fears on September 7th, 2013
Washington Post: George Washington National Forest is more than just one of the largest expanses of pristine land in the East. It's the leafy cradle of the Shenandoah, James and Potomac rivers, a source of drinking water for millions of people in greater Washington.
The forest -- nearly 2 million acres of natural splendor straddling Virginia and West Virginia -- might also hold another treasure: natural gas trapped under a deep layer of rock called the Marcellus Shale.
By the end of the month, the U.S. Forest...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on U.S. Forest Service set to decide on fracking in George Washington National ForestNewfangled ‘Icepod’ Tracks Greenland’s Melting Ice Sheets
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2013
Guardian: The LC-130 Hercules flew low over the ice sheet in a tight grid pattern, Teflon-coated landing skis barely 300 meters above the soft upper layer of snow. At the rear of the plane, scientists clustered round a monitor displaying a regular pattern of dark red waves generated by a radar signal.
Somewhere in the vast, white emptiness below were two tiny cracks -- barely 4 inches across -- imperceptible to the naked eye from this altitude, especially beneath fresh snow.
But the cracks ran across...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Newfangled ‘Icepod’ Tracks Greenland’s Melting Ice SheetsFresno, Calif.’s Groundwater is Dangerously Low
Posted by Associated Press: Gosia Wozniacka on September 7th, 2013
Associated Press: For decades, this city in California's agricultural heartland relied exclusively on cheap, plentiful groundwater and pumped increasingly larger amounts from an aquifer as its population grew.
But eventually, the water table dropped by more than 100 feet, causing some of Fresno's wells to cave in and others to slow to a trickle. The cost of replacing those wells and extracting groundwater ballooned by 400 percent.
"We became the largest energy demand in the region - $11 million a year for electricity...
House GOP demands Harvard study data
Posted by Boston Globe: Christopher Rowland on September 7th, 2013
Boston Globe: House Republicans scouring for evidence of overreaching environmental regulations are taking aim at a two-decade-old, taxpayer-funded scientific study by Harvard researchers that linked air pollution to disease and death.
Even though the landmark study has held up under intense scientific scrutiny since its publication in 1993, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology took the rare step of issuing subpoenas last month demanding access to the study's raw data about thousands of individual...
Seas may be rising faster than predicted: scientists
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2013
Bloomberg: The melting of Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets is accelerating and may trigger faster sea level rise than predicted, according to leaked details of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.
Greenland's ice added six times more to sea levels in the decade through 2011 than in the prior 10 years, according to details of a draft 2200-page study by the UN agency, obtained by Bloomberg.
The Antarctic experienced a five-fold increase, prompting the UN to raise its forecast...
Harper offers Obama climate plan to win Keystone approval
Posted by CBC: Chris Hall on September 7th, 2013
CBC: Prime Minister Stephen Harper has sent a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama formally proposing "joint action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas sector," if that is what's needed to gain approval of the Keystone XL pipeline through America's heartland, CBC News has learned.
Sources told CBC News the prime minister is willing to accept targets proposed by the United States for reducing the climate-changing emissions and is prepared to work in concert with Obama to provide whatever...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Harper offers Obama climate plan to win Keystone approvalClimate change played a role in half of 2012’s extreme weather events – study
Posted by ClimateWire: Stephanie Paige Ogburn on September 7th, 2013
ClimateWire: New research released yesterday links human-caused climate change to six of 12 extreme weather events from 2012, including summer heat waves in the United States and storm surges from Superstorm Sandy.
Teams of scientists from around the world examined the causes behind extreme weather events on five continents and in the Arctic. Their results were published as a special report in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
One of the stronger linkages between global warming and severe...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate change played a role in half of 2012’s extreme weather events – studyWeather forecast: worse and worse
Posted by Daily Courier: None Given on September 7th, 2013
Daily Courier: Global warming has a wet side with more intense and destructive rainstorms likely around the world unless greenhouse gas emissions are curbed, delegates to an Okanagan water conference heard Friday. Widespread flooding that devastates communities and imperils agriculture are often the result of a meandering jet stream, guest speaker Bob Sandford told people attending the annual general meeting of the Okanagan Basin Water Board. The jet stream's movements are less predictable than ever, Sandford said,...