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Archive for October, 2015
Federal Officials Approve Oil Drilling in Alaskan Reserve
Posted by Hill: Timothy Cama on October 26th, 2015
Hill: Federal officials have approved the first permit to drill for oil and natural gas in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
The Greater Moose’s Tooth Unit 1 project by ConocoPhillips Co. will be the first time in the reserve’s 40-year history that it has had drilling, according to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which manages the area.
“Today the BLM achieved an important milestone for realizing the promise of the NPR-A Integrated Activity Plan,” BLM Director Neil Kornze said in a statement....
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Federal Officials Approve Oil Drilling in Alaskan ReserveHarmful algal blooms and climate change: Preparing to forecast future
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 26th, 2015
PhysOrg: Marine scientists attending an international workshop warned that the future may bring more harmful algal blooms (HABs) that threaten wildlife and the economy, and called for changes in research priorities to better forecast these long-term trends.
The findings of the international workshop on HABs and climate Change were published Friday in the journal Harmful Algae. The workshop was organized under the auspices of the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) and the Global Ecology and...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Harmful algal blooms and climate change: Preparing to forecast futureClimate Change Is Already Costing Us Billions of Dollars Every Year
Posted by Motherboard: None Given on October 25th, 2015
Motherboard: Climate change has already begun to cost us, and it’s only going to get worse. Hurricanes, intensified in size and frequency by climate change, are taking a massive financial toll already, according to a new paper. The study, published in Nature Geoscience this week, found that an increase in property dollar amounts lost over the past several decades in a case study was due to hurricanes intensified by global warming. Conducted by researchers from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma in Mexico and...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate Change Is Already Costing Us Billions of Dollars Every YearIs freshwater supply more dependent on good governance than geography?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 25th, 2015
ScienceDaily: Scientists have analysed 19 different characteristics critical to water supply management in 119 low per capita income countries and found that vulnerability is pervasive and commonly arises from relatively weak institutional controls. The study, conducted by researchers based at Washington State University (WSU), USA, and Stanford University, USA, sought to identify freshwater supply vulnerabilities using four broad categories; endowment (availability of source water), demand, infrastructure and...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Is freshwater supply more dependent on good governance than geography?Scientists urge policymakers plant trees save Britain rivers from climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 25th, 2015
ScienceDaily: New research has prompted scientists to call on policymakers to plant more trees alongside upland rivers and streams, in an effort to save their habitats from the future harm of climate change.
Published in the international journal Global Change Biology, experts from Cardiff University describe having discovered a previously unknown benefit of trees to the resilience of river ecosystems.
Britain's 242,334 miles of running waters are among the most sensitive of all habitats to climate change,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Scientists urge policymakers plant trees save Britain rivers from climate changeHouston braces for floods as Texas deluged by rain in Patricia’s wake
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 25th, 2015
Reuters: Heavy rains fueled by the meeting of two storm systems, one the remnants of Hurricane Patricia, pounded southeastern Texas, triggering flash floods and derailing a freight train as the heavy weather descended upon Houston early on Sunday. The National Weather Service predicted 6 to 12 inches (15 to 30 cm) of rain for coastal areas, including southwest Louisiana, by Monday morning, exacerbated by tides up to five feet (1.5 meter) and wind gusts up to 35 mph. The rain systems were intensified by...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Houston braces for floods as Texas deluged by rain in Patricia’s wakeMayday: Gulf of Maine in Destress
Posted by Portland Press Herald: Colin Woodard on October 25th, 2015
Portland Press Herald: Sandwiched on a narrow sandbar between Yarmouth’s harbor and the open Gulf of Maine, the fishermen of Yarmouth Bar have long struggled to keep the sea at bay.
Nineteenth-century storms threatened to sweep the whole place away, leaving Yarmouth proper’s harbor more open to the elements, prompting the province to build a granite cribwork across the quarter-mile bar, behind which the hamlet’s fishing fleet docks. Global warming has brought rising seas, a two-story-high rock wall to fight them and...
My Dark California Dream
Posted by New York Times: Daniel Duane on October 24th, 2015
New York Times: CALIFORNIA’S over, everything I love about this place is going to hell. Stories from Our Advertisers I knew there was something familiar about this thought from the moment it occurred to me in Yosemite National Park. My sister and I started going to those mountains 40 years ago with our parents, who taught us to see the Sierra Nevada as a never-changing sanctuary in a California increasingly overrun by suburban sprawl. Once we had our own families, we indoctrinated our kids in the same joys: suffering...
Why monster hurricanes like Patricia are expected on a warmer planet
Posted by Washington Post: Chris Mooney on October 24th, 2015
Washington Post: First there was Supertyphoon Haiyan - which peaked out at 170-knot or 315 km/h mile-per-hour winds in 2013 as it slammed the Philippines. And now there is Patricia, forecast to soon hit Mexico, with currently estimated maximum sustained wind speeds of 175 knots or more than 324 km/h. It is officially the strongest hurricane ever measured by the U.S. National Hurricane Center, based on both its wind speed (175 knots) and its minimum central pressure (880 millibars). The wind measurement "makes Patricia...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Why monster hurricanes like Patricia are expected on a warmer planetHurricane Patricia made worse by climate change
Posted by Slate: Eric Holthaus on October 24th, 2015
Slate: Hurricane Patricia--now the strongest hurricane ever measured--is expected to make landfall in Mexico late Friday. According to the latest official forecast from the National Hurricane Center, Manzanillo, a city of 100,000 people, appears to be in Patricia's direct path.
After seeing the incredible data gathered by hurricane hunter aircraft overnight, a few meteorologists have argued that Patricia could be thought of as a Category 7 hurricane--though the official Saffir-Simpson scale only goes...