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Archive for February, 2016
TMT would relocate if permit not secured soon
Posted by Tribune Herald: TOM CALLIS on February 13th, 2016
Tribune Herald: The TMT International Observatory’s decision to consider locations other than Mauna Kea for its next-generation telescope didn’t come as much of a surprise to supporters of the project, given the hurdles it still faces.
But the announcement is nonetheless increasing anxiety that Hawaii Island could lose out on the jobs and funding for education that comes with the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope.
“I think we put it in a precarious situation,” said Bill Walter, Hawaii Island Chamber of Commerce...
Climate change is awfully hard on native plants
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 13th, 2016
Climate Central: Willis Linn Jepson encountered a squat shrub while he was collecting botanical specimens on California’s Mount Tamalpais in the fall of 1936. He trimmed off a few branches and jotted down the location along the ridge trail where the manzanita grew, 2,255 feet above sea level.
The desiccated specimen is now part of an herbarium here that’s named for the famed botanist. It was among hundreds of thousands of specimens of thousands of different species that were used recently to track the movement...
Climate: Land areas storing more water, slowing sea level rise
Posted by Summit County: Bob Berwyn on February 13th, 2016
Summit County: As crucial as it is for the future of humanity, calculating the rate of sea level rise has never been easy, and new measurements by NASA satellites have added a new twist to the equation. Careful study of the data from NASA`s twin NASA`s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites helped show how climate-driven increases of liquid water storage on land have affected the rate of sea level rise.
In the past decade, Earth`s land masses have soaked up an extra 3.2 trillion tons of water...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Climate: Land areas storing more water, slowing sea level riseWhat’s going on with polar ice sheets?
Posted by Christian Science Monitor: Ben Thompson on February 12th, 2016
Christian Science Monitor: Recent measurements show that the Arctic’s sea ice extent in January was the lowest ever in the satellite record, while the Antarctic also saw lower than average ice coverage last month and a major ice sheet there could be verging on instability.
The reports come at a time when climate and polar researchers are investigating the potential for heavy melting of ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctic, and the effects the loss of the ice could have on global sea levels.
According to the National...
Parched Earth soaks up water, slowing sea level rise
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 12th, 2016
Agence France-Presse: As glaciers melt due to climate change, the increasingly hot and parched Earth is absorbing some of that water inland, slowing sea level rise, NASA experts said Thursday. Satellite measurements over the past decade show for the first time that the Earth's continents have soaked up and stored an extra 3.2 trillion tons of water in soils, lakes and underground aquifers, the experts said in a study in the journal Science. This has temporarily slowed the rate of sea level rise by about 20 percent,...
Increasing water on land slowing down rising seas
Posted by Indo Asian News Service: None Given on February 12th, 2016
Indo Asian News Service: While ice sheets and glaciers continue to melt, climate change over the past decade has caused Earth's continents to soak up and store an extra 3.2 trillion tons of water in soils, lakes and underground aquifers -- temporarily slowing the rate of sea level rise by about 20 percent, scientists have revealed. New measurements from a NASA satellite have allowed researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California and University of California-Irvine, to identify and quantify,...
El Niño brings fears of dengue fever outbreaks
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 9th, 2016
ScienceDaily: The dengue virus affects 390 million people globally every year, and fears are that early 2016 will see an epidemic, particularly in South-East Asia, due to the predicted extreme intensity of El Niño. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has revealed the significant role that this monster climatic phenomenon plays in the outbreak of haemorrhagic fevers. Reviewing health reports from eight South-East Asian countries, spanning a period of 18 years, the research...
Connection Between Drug Abuse and Environment
Posted by Blue and Green: None Given on February 9th, 2016
Blue and Green: While the abuse of drugs may seem like a very personal issue, it actually has a far-reaching impact on the surrounding society and environment. Furthermore, it’s believed that an individual’s surrounding environment may impact their inclination to abuse drugs. This two-way street between drug abuse and the environment is something researchers have long been intrigued by.
Cannabis Cultivation and the Environment
According to research, outdoor cannabis cultivation, specifically on public lands,...
Family Planning in India is Still Deeply Sexist
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 9th, 2016
Inter Press Service: The tragic death of 12 women after a state-run mass sterilisation campaign in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh went horribly wrong in 2014 made global headlines. The episode saw about 80 women "herded like cattle" into makeshift camps without being properly examined before the laparoscopic tubectomies that snuffed out their lives. In another incident in 2013, police in the eastern Indian state of Bihar arrested three men after they performed a botched sterilisation surgery without anaesthesia...
EU Installs Record Wind Power as Technology Leapfrogs Hydro
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 9th, 2016
Bloomberg: The European Union installed record wind-power capacity in 2015 as the technology leapfrogged hydropower to become the third-biggest source of electricity in the 28-nation bloc.
Germany’s market led the growth, installing 47 percent of the 12.8-gigawatts of new wind power capacity across the region, the European Wind Energy Association said Tuesday in an e-mailed report. Record offshore installations canceled out a dip in new onshore machines. That pushed the total for 2015 above the 12.1 gigawatts...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on EU Installs Record Wind Power as Technology Leapfrogs Hydro