RSS Feed
Archive for October 28th, 2015
Global Warming Could Be Limited to 3 Degrees C Under Current Climate Pledges
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 28th, 2015
Yale Environment 360: National climate pledges submitted so far by 155 countries — responsible for around 90 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions — could limit the planet's long-term temperature increase to around 3 degrees Celsius, according to an assessment by the European Commission Joint Research Center (JRC). The climate pledges, submitted to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change ahead of December's climate negotiations in Paris, are officially known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions,...
Posted in 
Amazonian natives had little impact on land, new research finds
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 28th, 2015
ScienceDaily: New research led by Florida Institute of Technology shows that the impacts of indigenous people prior to European contact impacted riverside forests, but that such impacts were largely limited to an area within a day's walk from a river. The findings by the international team of archaeobotanists, paleoecologists and ecologists will be published online in the paper "Anthropogenic influence on Amazonian forests in prehistory: An ecological perspective" on Oct. 28 in the Journal of Biogeography. The...
El Niño Could Push CO2 Permanently Above Milestone
Posted by Climate Central: Andrea Thompson on October 28th, 2015
Climate Central: El Niño has its fingers in a lot of pies this year: Not only is it helping to boost 2015 toward the warmest year on record, but it is also a major factor in blockbuster hurricane activity in the Pacific and is contributing to a major worldwide coral die-off.
By this time next year we'll probably be able to add another effect to that list: This El Niño is likely to tip us over into a world with carbon dioxide concentrations permanently above 400 parts per million.
"Will daily values at Mauna...
Alarming Uptick of Earthquakes in Kansas Linked to Fracking With 52 in Just Last Two Weeks
Posted by EcoWatch: Lorraine Chow on October 28th, 2015
EcoWatch: Just like in Oklahoma, Kansas is seeing a shocking uptick in earthquakes connected to the underground disposal of wastewater from the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, process.
The Washington Post reports that Kansas has recorded more earthquakes in the past two weeks alone than there have been in the years between 1990 and 2013. According to the Kansas Geological Survey, between Oct. 15-26, there were 52 quakes, most with a magnitude between 2.0 or 3.0. That`s a huge increase from the 19 earthquakes...
Charleston’s floods illustrate the world’s watery future
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 28th, 2015
Climate Central: But sea level rise and warm waters from El Niño are making king tides and other nuisance tidal flooding worse. Sea levels have risen by 8 inches around the globe since the start of the 20th century due to ocean warming and the melting of the world's land ice. The rate of rise is expected to increase and by the end of the 21st century, sea levels could be up to 39 inches higher if greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trajectory.
Despite the seemingly small rise to-date, the impacts...
European lizards may ‘disappear’ in warming world: Study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 28th, 2015
Agence France-Presse: Lizards may disappear from parts of Europe over the next century, as global warming disrupts their life cycle and breeding habits, researchers said Monday.
While all lizards are not expected to vanish, as many as 30 percent of the current population could be lost, particularly in the southern ranges of their territory, said the study in the journal PLOS Biology.
"Although these results might seem dramatic, we do not predict extinction of common lizards at the scale of the species, but we suggest...
Global warming unlocking carbon stores long-locked in permafrost
Posted by Christian Science Monitor: Eva Botkin-Kowacki on October 28th, 2015
Christian Science Monitor: For thousands of years, a large percentage of the world’s carbon stores have been safely locked in permafrost, the frozen layer of soil and organic matter that covers much of the planet’s northernmost latitudes. But as temperatures rise and some permafrost melts, that carbon is being released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide at an alarming rate.
For some ancient permafrost, about half its carbon could decompose in just one week after a thaw, according to a new study by the US Geological Survey,...
As Greenland Melts, Scientists Seek Answers on Sea Level Rise
Posted by New York Times: Coral Davenport, Josh Haner, Larry Buchanan and Derek Watkins on October 28th, 2015
New York Times: On the Greenland Ice Sheet - The midnight sun still gleamed at 1 a.m. across the brilliant expanse of the Greenland ice sheet. Brandon Overstreet, a doctoral candidate in hydrology at the University of Wyoming, picked his way across the frozen landscape, clipped his climbing harness to an anchor in the ice and crept toward the edge of a river that rushed downstream toward an enormous sinkhole.
If he fell in, "the death rate is 100 percent," said Mr. Overstreet's friend and fellow researcher, Lincoln...
Storm-Related Research and Scientific Learning Soars in Hurricane Sandy’s Wake
Posted by Wall Street Journal: Heather Haddon on October 28th, 2015
Wall Street Journal: As someone who came to New Jersey specifically to study sea-level rise and catastrophic storms, Ben Horton felt superstorm Sandy had presented him with a gift, albeit a grim one.
“There was so much interest in science explaining why Sandy caused so much damage late in the hurricane season,” said Mr. Horton, a British native who is a professor of sea-level research at Rutgers University. “It provided a focus for us.”
Three years since Sandy caused historic damage to the region, scientific learning...
Earthquakes Spike in Southern Kansas. Is Drilling-Related Wastewater to Blame?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 28th, 2015
Washington Post: A sudden spike of earthquakes in southern Kansas is raising eyebrows in the region, where there have been more earthquakes in the past two weeks than there were in the years between 1990 and 2013.
As of Oct. 26, there have been 52 earthquakes in Kansas since Oct. 15, most of a magnitude around 2.0 or 3.0. According to the Kansas Geological Survey, there were just 19 earthquakes in the state between 1990 and 2010. There were no recorded earthquakes in 2011 or 2012. The number of earthquakes in...