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Archive for May, 2014
Smoke plumes from San Diego fires visible from space
Posted by LiveScience: Megan Gannon on May 16th, 2014
LiveScience: Smoke from wildfires raging in Southern California can be seen from space. In this satellite image, captured by NASA's Earth-watching Aqua spacecraft on Wednesday, May 14, sandy-colored plumes stretch out over the Pacific Ocean from San Diego County, where firefighters are battling intense blazes. The fire started Wednesday just north of San Diego, fueled by dry conditions, gusty winds and temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius). The blaze split into several separate fires...
Are California Wildfires Sign of Climate Change?
Posted by Union of Concerned Scientists: None Given on May 16th, 2014
Union of Concerned Scientists: The exceptional heat in Southern California and the dangerous wildfires occurring since May 13 may be a sign of climate change given their severity and timing. As of Friday, May 16, over 10,000 acres have burned throughout Southern California and several locations have surpassed previous temperature records.
The role of the Santa Ana winds
One factor key to both the heat and wildfires ravaging Southern California is the role of the Santa Ana winds. The Santa Ana is defined as strong, extremely...
El Niño threatens food crop yields – but scientists can predict ‘bad years’
Posted by Blue and Green: Ilaria Bertini on May 16th, 2014
Blue and Green: Warming and cooling trends caused by the climatic phenomena El Niño and La Niña could significantly reduce maize, rice and wheat yields by up to 4%, according to a new study.
El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a climate variation pattern that periodically occurs in South America. It triggers a stream of warm waters that cause extreme weather events, such as extreme rainfall and droughts. La Niña is its cooling equivalent.
A team of researchers has investigated the way in which these patterns...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on El Niño threatens food crop yields – but scientists can predict ‘bad years’Parched: A New Dust Bowl Forms in Heartland
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 16th, 2014
National Geographic: In Boise City, Oklahoma, over the catfish special at the Rockin' A Café, the old-timers in this tiny prairie town grouse about billowing dust clouds so thick they forced traffic off the highways and laid down a suffocating layer of topsoil over fields once green with young wheat.
They talk not of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, but of the duster that rolled through here on April 27, clocked at 62.3 miles per hour.
It was the tenth time this year that Boise City, at the western end of the Oklahoma...
An illustrated guide to our collapsing Antarctic glaciers
Posted by Quartz: Gwynn Guilford on May 16th, 2014
Quartz: Structurally critical glaciers from the West Antarctic ice sheet are disappearing way faster than we realized, two teams of scientists recently reported.
Their papers--one from NASA and the University of California, Irvine, the other from the University of Washington--both say there`s nothing we can do to stop it.
Here`s how the glaciers in question will collapse.
Topography
The West Antarctic ice sheet is located about 1,000 km (600 miles) southeast of Argentina`s southern tip. The bulk...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on An illustrated guide to our collapsing Antarctic glaciersReport: Climate change affecting corporate bottom lines
Posted by Al Jazeera: Dexter Mullins on May 16th, 2014
Al Jazeera: Climate change isn’t just causing the ice caps to melt, it’s costing corporations big bucks and forcing some to factor its likely impact into their long-term plans.
A new report from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) released Friday says 63 of America’s S&P 500 companies are already paying to counter the effects of climate change. The past few years of extreme drought, stronger hurricanes and severe flooding have caused immense damage to some businesses’ core assets, requiring millions of dollars...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Report: Climate change affecting corporate bottom linesUK fossil fuels ‘gone in five years’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 16th, 2014
BBC: In just over five years Britain will have run out of oil, coal and gas, researchers have warned.
A report by the Global Sustainability Institute said shortages would increase dependency on Norway, Qatar and Russia.
There should be a "Europe-wide drive" towards wind, tidal, solar and other sources of renewable power, the institute's Prof Victor Anderson said.
The government says complete energy independence is unnecessary, says BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin.
The report says Russia...
‘Catastrophe’ Claim Adds Fuel Methane Debate
Posted by Climate Central: Bobby Magill on May 16th, 2014
Climate Central: A Cornell University scientist's claims that oil and gas development is so harmful to the climate that methane emissions and oil and gas production in general need to be cut back immediately to avoid a "global catastrophe" are adding more fuel to the scientific debate over the climate implications of shale oil and gas production.
Fossil fuels production is the largest methane pollution source in the U.S., and ignoring those emissions will lead to a climate change "tipping point' from which there...
Control methane now, greenhouse gas expert warns
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 15th, 2014
ScienceDaily: As the shale gas boom continues, the atmosphere receives more methane, adding to Earth`s greenhouse gas problem. Robert Howarth, greenhouse gas expert and ecology and environmental biology professor, fears that we may not be many years away from an environmental tipping point -- and disaster.
"We have to control methane immediately, and natural gas is the largest methane pollution source in the United States," said Howarth, who explains in an upcoming journal article that Earth may reach the point...
Rising CO2 levels to cut key nutrients in global crops
Posted by Boulder Weekly: Bob Berwyn on May 15th, 2014
Boulder Weekly: New research studying 41 strains of six different crops on three continents that was published May 7 in the scientific journal, Nature, shows that as concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide increase, the nutritional content of key food crops will drop, exacerbating hunger woes for millions of people worldwide. In some crops, concentrations of nutrients could drop by as much as 10 percent when CO2 levels rise to 500 parts per million by mid-century.
Harvard University public health researcher...