RSS Feed
Author Archive
Damage from tropical cyclones ‘set to soar’
Posted by SciDev.Net: María Elena Hurtado on February 9th, 2012
SciDev.Net: Tropical cyclone damage costs will increase four-fold to US$109 billion a year across the world by 2100, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change last week (1 February).
Predicted increases in population and economic activity by 2100 will increase cyclone damage costs to US$56 billion a year -- more than double the current figure of US$26 billion.
And more frequent and stronger cyclones as a result of climate change are expected to add a further US$53 billion a year to the bill,...
Posted in 
Cholera outbreaks ‘not caused’ by warmer seas
Posted by SciDev.Net: María Elena Hurtado on August 9th, 2011
SciDev.Net: The conclusion that cholera outbreaks are linked to global warming has been challenged by a study that has found that warmer sea temperatures that correlate with the outbreaks do not cause them.
Outbreaks follow the blooming of phytoplankton which is associated with warmer seas in the Bay of Bengal -- but these blooms are driven by river discharges rather than warmer seas, say authors of the study, published last week (3 August) in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
Previous...
Haiti’s cholera epidemic caused by weather, say scientists
Posted by SciDev.Net: María Elena Hurtado on November 19th, 2010
SciDev.Net: Weather conditions -- not UN soldiers -- may have triggered Haiti's cholera epidemic, which has killed more than 1,000 people in less than a month, three leading researchers have told SciDev.Net.
A coincidence of several catastrophic events -- from climatic changes caused by the ocean-atmosphere phenomenon La Niña, to the plunge in water and sanitation quality following Haiti's disastrous January earthquake -- provide the most likely explanation for the outbreak, which has hospitalised 17,000...