RSS Feed
Author Archive
Australia Has its Hottest September as Fire Threat Grows
Posted by Climate Central: Brian Kahn on October 3rd, 2013
Climate Central: Winter may just be ending in Australia, but temperatures are already summerlike. September was one for the record books, with hot temperatures that baked the country from the outback to the coasts and made this the hottest September in the country's 104 years of record-keeping. The warm start to Australia's spring keeps the country on a path to having its warmest year on record. Following a wet winter, warmer-than-average conditions have also put parts of the country on watch for yet another intense...
Posted in 
West Nile Virus Season to Last Longer as Climate Changes
Posted by Climate Central: Brian Kahn on September 10th, 2013
Climate Central: Warm weather brings ice cream, beach days, and other joys of summer but it also brings the incessant buzz of mosquitoes. While a number of mosquitoes will bite and leave little more than a red welt, others, especially in the southern half of the U.S., can transmit West Nile virus, which can cause potentially lethal West Nile fever, encephalitis and meningitis. New research provides doses of good and bad news about how a changing climate will affect the southern house mosquito, which is the main mosquito...
Newly discovered Greenland “mega canyon” sends water to the sea
Posted by Climate Central: Brian Kahn on August 30th, 2013
Climate Central: Researchers have found a "mega canyon" in Greenland tucked under a mile and a half of ice that could rival the size and depth of Arizona's Grand Canyon. While the discovery won't become a major tourist attraction, it does provide insight into how meltwater courses its way underneath the world's second-largest ice sheet, and how that might affect ice shelves and glaciers at its periphery. Melting ice from Greenland and Antarctica is now the dominant contributor to global sea level rise, which is expected...
Floods May Cost Coastal Cities $60 Billion a Year by 2050
Posted by Climate Central: Brian Kahn on August 19th, 2013
Climate Central: A little bit of sea level rise could go a long way to increasing flood risk for the globe's coastal cities. New research finds it's possible to reduce that risk, but not make it disappear completely. It also finds that cities not typically thought of as hot spots for sea level rise and flooding will actually be some of the biggest losers in a soggier future.
Global sea levels have risen 8 inches over the past century. Some areas have experienced even greater amounts due to land subsiding due to...
Sunburned in Siberia: Heat Wave Leads to Wildfires
Posted by Climate Central: Brian Kahn on August 2nd, 2013
Climate Central: An intense heat wave in Siberia has contributed to an unusual flare up of wildfires across the fragile and carbon-rich landscape. Smoke from the fires is lofting high into the atmosphere, and is drifting toward the Arctic, where soot can hasten the melting of snow and sea ice. The Siberian city of Norilsk, the most northerly city in the world with a population greater than 100,000, recorded temperatures above 83°F over eight consecutive days starting on July 18, according to blogger Chris Burt of...
Monsoon Rains Bring Some Drought Relief to Southwest
Posted by Climate Central: Brian Kahn on July 25th, 2013
Climate Central: Dwindling reservoirs, dusty rangeland and desiccated crops have left the Southwest in dire need of rain. Luckily, July marks the typical start of the annual monsoon season, and it has arrived in earnest this summer, bringing daily thunderstorms from New Mexico to southern California. A "drunken' weather pattern, with weather systems moving in the opposite of their typical direction, also contributed rain to parts of the Southern Plains earlier this month. Though this has provided some relief to the...