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Obama Administration Announces Climate Hubs To Aid Farmers
Posted by redOrbit: Brett Smith on February 5th, 2014
RedOrbit: On Wednesday, the Obama administration announced the creation of seven “climate hubs” located throughout the United States to help farmers and rural communities react to the threats of climate change. White House officials said the move is among multiple executive decisions that President Obama will take on climate change that do not require action from Congress.
Overseen by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the hubs will be tasked with investigating fires, intrusive pests, flooding and...
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Climate Change Not At Fault For Record US Drought In 2012
Posted by redOrbit: Brett Smith on April 12th, 2013
RedOrbit: In pushing for his green agenda, President Barack Obama has repeatedly cited last year’s massive drought, which cost the US $35 billion, as evidence of climate change.
However, a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that a bizarre confluence of natural variations was responsible for the precipitous drop in rainfall levels across the United States last summer.
"This is one of those events that comes along once every couple hundreds of years," lead...
Loss Of Arctic Ice May Be Cause Of This Chilly Spring
Posted by redOrbit: Brett Smith on March 27th, 2013
RedOrbit: Have you been experiencing the coldest spring weather in recent memory? It’s probably because of global warming.
According to climate scientists, warmer than average temperatures have thrown a monkey wrench into global weather patterns by melting Arctic sea ice at record rates during the summer months.
"Ironically ... as the ice pack retreats and the Arctic heats up, there`s a counteracting tendency in middle latitudes for colder winters, as well as hotter summers," said Stephen Vavrus, senior...
Switzerland: From Carbon Sink To Carbon Source, Bogs Lose Effectiveness Dues To Increasing Shrub Cover
Posted by redOrbit: Brett Smith on December 26th, 2012
RedOrbit: Bogs and mires are important ecosystems that also play an important role the storage of global atmospheric carbon emissions.
According to a study in Nature Climate Change, the peat mosses, which are found in boglands and drive the production of peat, are being outcompeted by vascular plants, resulting in bog degradation.
In the study, researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) closely observed four Swiss bog sites at different altitudes, from...
Victorian-Era Map Helps Researchers Redraw Distribution Of Biodiversity
Posted by redOrbit: Brett Smith on December 21st, 2012
RedOrbit: Ecologists have collected massive amounts of data over the past 130 years and a research team led by University of Copenhagen scientists has used that wealth of information to redraw a Victorian map used to illustrate the geographic distribution of animals.
The original map by the renowned English naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, with assistance from Charles Darwin, has been in use since it was drawn up in 1874, when it established the foundation for global biodiversity.
Based on evolutionary...
Future Severe Weather Systems A Concern For California
Posted by redOrbit: Brett Smith on November 2nd, 2012
redOrbit: In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, climatologists from the University of California at Merced are warning that the West Coast could be in line for a superstorm of its own.
“We can see very big storms, and there are a couple of issues related to climate change to think about,” said Roger Bales, director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at UC Merced. “Most of our biggest storms are snow storms, which builds up snowpack in the mountains. The snowpack is a reservoir, storing water that will be...
Climate Change Mitigation And Adaptation Equally Critical For Global Food Security
Posted by redOrbit: Brett Smith on October 31st, 2012
redOrbit: Two new reports on climate change and the food supply indicate, among other things, that over 18,000 megatons of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere annually by agriculture and food production.
Previous studies have examined the connection between agriculture and emissions, but the new report from the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) performs that analysis on the entire food production infrastructure that accounts for up to 29 percent...
Sea Rise Will Be Irreversible Over Next Several Thousand Years Due To Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Posted by redOrbit: Brett Smith on October 2nd, 2012
redOrbit: A groundbreaking study by a team of European researchers warns that greenhouse gas emissions will cause an irreversible rise in sea level over the next several thousand years.
The study, published in the latest edition of the journal Environmental Research Letters, expanded the scope of typical climate change studies to include thousands of years in its projections and also took into consideration all of the Earth’s land ice, something which had never been done before.
Using thermomechanical...
Clam Shells Record Climate Events Over Past Thousand Years
Posted by redOrbit: Brett Smith on October 2nd, 2012
redOrbit: Modern climatologists have access to a wide array of technological tools, but an international team looking to study climate events from the past thousand years has decided to utilize something a little more old school.
Researchers led by Alan Wanamaker from Iowa State University have been collecting clam shells from the waters of the North Atlantic because the mollusks act as tiny recorders, storing information about their environment in the growth bans that runs along their shells. As these...
UCSD Nobel Laureate Cites Potential Evidence Linking Extreme Weather And Global Warming
Posted by redOrbit: Brett Smith on August 21st, 2012
redOrbit: In the keynote address at the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia, Nobel Laureate Mario J. Molina stressed that the latest scientific evidence has only strengthened the link between human activity and extreme weather events and global warming.
Molina has some experience in working with human-atmospheric interactions on a global scale. The University of California, San Diego professor won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his key role in...