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Archive for March 17th, 2016
How much are trees feeling heat of climate change?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 17th, 2016
Christian Science Monitor: Rising temperatures might not stress trees as much as previously thought. And that means they may continue to be efficient at scrubbing carbon from the atmosphere, even as the planet warms.
As a result, some equations in our climate models will likely have to be tweaked.
Forests are known for being massive carbon warehouses, drawing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Most of that carbon remains locked in trees' roots, trunks, branches, and leaves but a bit of it is...
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Now it’s possible to link a heat wave or drought to climate change, in real time
Posted by Fast Coexist: None Given on March 17th, 2016
Fast Coexist: Four days and four hours after a powerful storm battered parts of the U.K. last December—breaking national records and leaving 5,000 homes flooded—researchers made a statement: The unusually heavy rain was linked to climate change. Last July, when temperatures topped 104 degrees in several European countries, breaking more records, scientists also quickly analyzed the data as the heat wave happened. They concluded that the extreme temperatures were much more likely now than in the past because of...
So … was that climate change?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 17th, 2016
CNN: Like any good detective, Park Williams asks good questions. As a third-grader, for instance, the now-34-year-old's family took him on a road trip across the Rocky Mountains. He had to know: Why did the trees stop growing at a certain elevation? Why were there plants on one side of a mountain and desert on the other? In fifth grade, he heard a radio broadcast. A weatherman predicted that a drought in Northern California, where he grew up, would last for five more years. How did he know that? What...
February shatters global heat records
Posted by CNN: Brandon Miller on March 17th, 2016
CNN: The month of February broke another heat record for the planet -- the latest in a string of broken monthly records that bring the Earth closer to the symbolic 2 degree Celsius temperature hike predicted to spark catastrophic consequences.
February smashed the previous record for the warmest February and even became the warmest month ever compared to average, according to NOAA, which released the data Thursday.
February temperatures over land and ocean averaged a scorching 2.18 F/1.21 C above...
China to push Myanmar’s new government on stalled dam
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 17th, 2016
Reuters: China signaled on Thursday that it will push Myanmar's new government to resume a controversial stalled dam project in the Southeast Asian country, saying the contract was still valid.
Outgoing Myanmar President Thein Sein angered Beijing in 2011 by suspending the $3.6 billion, Chinese-invested Myitsone dam project, some 90 percent of whose power would have gone to China.
Other Chinese projects in the former Burma have proved controversial too, including the Letpadaung copper mine, against...
Gag order climate change can’t stop water from rising to our doorstep
Posted by Press Herald: Leonard Pitts on March 17th, 2016
Press Herald: Dear Florida Gov. Rick Scott: So it turns out the experts were mistaken. It turns out the impact of climate change on Florida – and much of the coastal United States – is not going to be anywhere near as bad as had been predicted. Apparently, it’s going to be much worse. That’s the sobering finding of a study published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change. Previous scenarios, grim as they were, failed to take into account projected population growth. Factor that in, say the researchers,...