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Archive for December 11th, 2015
Brazil’s Amazon River Ports Give Rise to Dreams and Nightmares
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 11th, 2015
Inter Press Service: River port terminals in the northern Brazilian city of Santarém are considered strategic by the government. But what some see as an opportunity for development is for others an irreversible change in what was previously a well-preserved part of the Amazon rainforest.
In the evening light on the Tapajós River, whose green-blue waters mix with the darker muddy water of the Amazon River in Santarém, it's not easy to ignore the silos that overshadow what used to be a public beach, where passenger...
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Finding Refuge for Salmon, Cold Water Preferred
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 11th, 2015
New York Times: When Lewis and Clark first encountered the Columbia River in 1805, they wrote about nearby streams so thick with salmon that you could all but walk across on their backs. Last summer, those streams looked very different. As a torrid heat wave settled over the Pacific Northwest, the salmon heading up the Columbia River from the ocean in their ancient reproduction ritual started dying en masse, cooked in place by freakishly hot water that killed them or made them vulnerable to predators. Sockeye died...
Paris Climate Negotiators Continue Into Overtime
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 11th, 2015
National Public Radio: The U.N. climate conference in Paris was supposed to end Friday, but negotiators have extended it for at least another day. NPR has the latest from Paris.
The need to name all forms of life: 60 new species of dragonflies described from Africa
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 11th, 2015
ScienceDaily: As dragonflies are good indicators of water quality, knowledge of these insects is important. The discoveries were published by three odonatologists (dragonfly experts) led by guest researcher KD Dijkstra of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in a 230-page issue of the journal Odonatologica on December 1st 2015.
All dragonflies are bound to freshwater, which occupies less than 1% of the planet's surface. Nonetheless, it harbours 10% of all animal species. As water is used so intensively, life is...
United Kingdom: Flood-hit Cumbria communities prepare more wet weather
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 11th, 2015
Press Association: Cumbrian communities hit by floods during Storm Desmond are gearing up for a second weekend of wet weather.
The Environment Agency said it was checking the condition of flood defences and the position of pumps and temporary flood barriers before a predicted 6.5cm of rain on Saturday.
River levels in the county remain high days after water deluged homes and businesses. The agency said residents could expect further flooding on ground that was already sodden.
Chris Wilding, the Environment...
United Kingdom: For flood-hit areas the problems don’t stop after the waters have receded
Posted by Guardian: Harriet Meyer on December 11th, 2015
Guardian: Government pledges to spend billions of pounds on flood defences won’t necessarily shield householders against rising insurance costs in flood-hit areas of the country, despite the protection they offer. Around £23m of defences were completed in June in the Northumberland town of Morpeth after major floods in 2008 and 2012 wrought devastation. Yet some householders near the river Wansbeck still face massive and sometimes rising insurance premiums. Labour MP for Morpeth, Ian Lavery, has raised the...
Virginia Islanders US First Climate Change Refugees
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 11th, 2015
Scientific American: For Tangier Island, Va., lifelong resident Claudia Parks, climate change is a direct threat to her golf cart.
As flooding and erosion have worsened on the Chesapeake Bay island in recent decades, the tour director with a broad smile avoids certain saturated roads at least 15 times in the spring and fall during tidal events on her regular work route. That involves getting visitors past the local ice cream shops, white picket fences and marshy hills that dot this car-free fishing community.
When...
Veteran climate scientists hopeful a historic Paris deal hours away
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 11th, 2015
Guardian: There’s a cafe next door to the thronging media centre at the UN global climate talks in Paris where the constant clang of the door to the chill air outside can barely be heard above the buzz.
Veteran climate scientist and biologist Professor Lesley Hughes has taken a seat with me close by and is struggling to hear herself think.
But the chaos and noise of the global climate talks are not enough to drown out her feeling that a historic moment could be only hours away.
Minutes earlier, scientists...
Researchers to probe links between human activities, water quality
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 11th, 2015
ScienceDaily: Understanding human interactions with the natural environment can enhance the protection of surface water quality in lakes and streams. A multidisciplinary team of researchers will examine the linkages between humans and freshwater quality using a $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation's Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems Program. Kelly Cobourn, assistant professor of natural resource economics in Virginia Tech's College of Natural Resources and Environment, is principal...
Extreme UK rains more likely with warming
Posted by Climate Central: Andrea Thompson on December 11th, 2015
Climate Central: Over this past weekend, a major storm swept across the U.K. and dumped torrential amounts of rain in some spots -- the more than 13 inches that fell in one location in northwest England even set a national 24-hour rainfall record.
Just days later, a real-time analysis by scientists working with Climate Central's World Weather Attribution program has found that global warming has boosted the odds of such an extreme rainfall event in the region by about 40 percent -- a small, but clear, effect,...