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Archive for August, 2011
A high, icy lab for learning the past and future impacts of climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2011
ClimateWire: At first glance, this research station on the highest point of Greenland's vast ice sheet doesn't look like much. A scattering of trailers perch on stilts high above the snow, with a neat grid of small yellow tents off to one side. There's a tall metal tower, a few outhouses. A pile of fuel bladders stands in stark contrast next to the carefully groomed ice runway. But this nondescript outpost is a magnet for scientists trying to answer some very big questions. Do clouds and tiny aerosol particles...
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Drought damages Texas infrastructure
Posted by Texas Tribune: Ari Auber on August 5th, 2011
Texas Tribune: When a wildfire chewed through power lines at a field of water wells in late June, Lubbock lost 9 million gallons of water a day during the nearly two weeks it took to finish repairs.
In cities like Houston and Fort Worth, clay soil is drying up because of the blistering summer heat, bursting water pipelines, buckling house foundations and splitting asphalt roads.
Across Texas, the cause of these spiraling problems is the same: a nine-month drought that shows no signs of relenting.
In West...
CO2 helps cancel drying out of grasslands
Posted by Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Anna Salleh on August 5th, 2011
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Balancing act As the climate changes, warmer temperatures will dry out grasslands but raised CO2 levels will offset this by making plants more efficient at using water, say researchers.
Biogeochemist, Dr Feike Dijkstra, from the University of Sydney, and colleagues report their findings today in the journal Nature.
"We found that when you have elevated CO2 combined with warming, that elevated CO2 completely offsets the drying effect of warming," says Dijkstra.
Rising temperatures are known...
Friends of Earth accuse Canada of misleading EU on oilsands
Posted by Postmedia News: Peter O'Neil on August 5th, 2011
Postmedia News: Canada is acting like the tobacco industry in its "secret" and "unprecedented" bid to undermine the European Union's effort to pass legislation targeting oilsands imports, according to a new report.
The Canadian and Alberta governments, working with energy industry giants in North America and Europe, have orchestrated 110 lobbying events in less than two years -- roughly one a week -- in hopes of derailing the EU initiative, according to a report Thursday from Friends of the Earth Europe.
"This...
U.S. agency approves Shell Arctic oil drilling plan
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2011
Reuters: Royal Dutch Shell's long-stymied Arctic drilling program inched ahead on Thursday, as the U.S. offshore drilling regulator approved the company's oil exploration plan for Alaska's Beaufort Sea.
Shell's plan would allow the company to drill up to four shallow water exploratory wells off Alaska's northern coast beginning in July 2012.
The approval comes more than a year after BP's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico upended Obama administration plans to expand offshore drilling and underscores...
Drought worsens in Midwest; parched Plains in bad shape
Posted by Reuters: Michael Hirtzer on August 5th, 2011
Reuters: Drought worsened in the Midwest during the last week as record-high temperatures stressed the developing corn and soybean crops, while cotton and pastures eroded amid a historic drought in the southern Plains.
Nearly 38 percent of the Midwest was "abnormally dry" as of August 2, the climatologists said in a weekly report, the most since December 2008.
Temperatures in the past week hit record highs from the Plains to the East Coast, in some cases rising above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees...
UK lakes and canals hit by toxic algae scum
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2011
Guardian: A bald coot swims through blue-green algae. A combination of mild weather and high levels of phosphate nutrients from agriculture and homes are to blame for the green, porridge-like toxic algae blooms that have blighted British canals and lakes this summer, the Environment Agency has said.
There have been 83 algal incidents so far this year – a month into the three-month algae season – a higher than usual amount, according to the agency. In 2010, the number of incidents reached 225, while the...
Floods, drought hit south central China
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2011
Reuters: Flood waters from a river in China's southwestern province of Sichuan forced thousands to evacuate Friday, while residents in nearby Hunan province face severe shortages of water for drinking and crops, Chinese state media said.
At least 2,381 homes collapsed after heavy rain caused the Zhouhe river near Dazhou city in Sichuan to overflow, forcing more than 13,000 people to evacuate, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Xinhua said injuries were limited but that roads and power had been...
Cleaner, not cooler
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2011
Economist: THE juxtaposition of “gas” and “boom” conjures misfortune: mining disasters, Zeppelins in flame and the like. But the gas boom that the world is currently experiencing is a conflagration to be celebrated. The development of previously unexploitable shale gas as a resource in America and other countries, and the growth in the liquefied-natural-gas (LNG) market, between them promise a future in which more gas is traded more freely, to the benefit of the world at large.
Shale gas, as well as gas...
Crops with deeper roots capture more carbon, fight drought:study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2011
Reuters: Creating crops with deeper roots could soak up much more carbon dioxide from the air, help mankind fight global warming and lead to more drought-tolerant varieties, a British scientist says in a study.
Douglas Kell of the University of Manchester says crops can play a crucial role in tackling climate change by absorbing more of mankind's rising greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.
Doubling root depth to two meters would also make crops more drought resistant, improve soil structure...