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Archive for March, 2014
Japan sees higher chance of El Nino this summer
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 10th, 2014
Reuters: There is a greater possibility of an El Nino weather pattern emerging this summer, Japan's weather bureau said on Monday, after previously forecasting a 50 percent chance of the phenomenon that is often linked to heavy rainfall and droughts.
El Nino - a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific - can trigger drought in Southeast Asia and Australia and floods in South America, hitting production of key foods such as rice, wheat and sugar.
The potential disruption to supply would come...
Funding drought curbs Australia’s “food bowl to Asia” ambitions
Posted by Reuters: Jane Wardell on March 10th, 2014
Reuters: Australia's lofty ambitions to become a "food bowl" for a rapidly growing middle-class in Asia are in danger of falling at the farm gate due to the country's harsh, drought-prone climate and a lack of investment in agricultural innovation.
The federal government has touted the food bowl plan as one way of diversifying the economy as a decade-long mining boom that brought the country riches wanes.
But the industry says it has been left between a rock and a hard place - with state grants denied...
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Posted by Guardian: Oliver Milman on March 10th, 2014
Guardian: More than 150 temperature records were broken in Australia during “another angry summer” that highlighted the need for deep reductions in greenhouse gases, a new report has said.
The analysis, by the Climate Council, found that Sydney experienced its driest summer in 27 years, while Melbourne sweltered through its hottest ever 24-hour period, averaging 35.5C. The Victorian capital also had four days in a row above 41C.
Elsewhere, Adelaide had a record of 11 days at 42C or hotter during the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Australia: Climate action call as ‘another angry summer’ breaks 156 heat recordsSterilise farmed salmon to save wild species, critics say
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 9th, 2014
Independent: Farmed salmon escaping into rivers and the sea are posing such a threat to declining wild populations that sterilisation should be compulsory, researchers have concluded.
Millions of farmed salmon are able to escape globally each year and there is increasing evidence they are destroying genetic traits evolved by the wild populations.
More than 95 per cent of the world’s Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar, are farmed, and a new study assessing their breeding capacity has found that the farmed stocks...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Sterilise farmed salmon to save wild species, critics sayHow Azle in Texas decided enough was enough with fracking
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 9th, 2014
Independent: The point of the 13 January town hall meeting was to organise the locals. And since the locale was a smallish town in Texas – Azle, population roughly 11,000, just far enough from Fort Worth that it doesn’t quite feel like a suburb – that meant the first task, for the handful of fracking critics who led the meeting, was to gently address any reservations that attendees may have had about the purpose of the gathering.
“We were never activists,” says Sharon Wilson, a North Texas resident and organiser...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on How Azle in Texas decided enough was enough with frackingFrequency of Flooding Across Europe May Double by 2050
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on March 9th, 2014
Climate News Network: The catastrophic floods that soaked Europe last summer and the United Kingdom this winter are part of the pattern of things to come. According to a new study of flood risk in Nature Climate Change annual average losses from extreme floods in Europe could increase fivefold by 2050. And the frequency of destructive floods could almost double in that period.
About two thirds of the losses to come could be explained by socio-economic growth, according to a team led by Brenden Jongman of the University...
Robbins: Climate change & state’s drought
Posted by Daily Democrat: Elisabeth Robbins on March 9th, 2014
Daily Democrat: The east shore of Lake Berryessa is seen during a flight over the proposed Berryessa Snow Mountain Conservation Area. (Bill Husa/MediaNews Group file photograph)My friends in Iowa are digging cars and mailboxes out from under yet another snowstorm, so I don't get much sympathy when I report yet another dry day of sunshine and high 60s.
But President Obama, recognizing the relationship of California's agricultural health to the nation's food prices, brought some welcome attention as well as financial...
Drought hastens end of a region’s hydropower era
Posted by New York Times: Jim Malewitz on March 9th, 2014
New York Times: The yearslong drought in Central Texas could eventually snuff out a renewable power source that fueled the region’s early growth: hydropower. Faced with dwindling water supplies, the Lower Colorado River Authority, which supplies water and energy to much of Central Texas, is limiting downstream water releases for activities like rice farming. Aside from stirring controversy among water users, the changes have shrunk the amount of electricity the agency generates from its six Colorado River dams....
Fracking foes make a racket as Brown addresses California Democrats
Posted by LA Times: Seema Mehta and Michael Finnegan on March 9th, 2014
LA Times: Anti-fracking advocates repeatedly interrupted Gov. Jerry Brown’s speech at the California Democratic Convention in Los Angeles on Saturday, chanting and waving signs as he gave his first major speech since declaring his intention to run for reelection. Chanting “No fracking!” and waving signs that said “Another Democrat Against Fracking,” scores of protesters repeatedly drowned out Brown as he tried to deliver a speech arguing that California has prospered while politicians in Washington, D.C.,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Fracking foes make a racket as Brown addresses California DemocratsHow much water a community gulps varies across the Sacramento region
Posted by Sacramento Bee: Phillip Reese on March 9th, 2014
Sacramento Bee: The ongoing drought has cities across the Sacramento region urgently trying to cut water use.
Some have a lot further to go than others.
Though they share the same climate, Granite Bay residents use almost twice as much water per person as Sacramento residents, state data show. Woodland residents consume more per person than nearby Davis residents. Citrus Heights residents use less water than their neighbors in Orangevale.
The patterns were taken from water use management plans recently...
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