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Indonesia hustles to preempt new round of haze-causing fires
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on March 18th, 2016
Mongabay: Local governments, environmental agencies, emergency services and the military are working across Indonesia’s fire-prone areas as President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo tries to minimize this year’s haze in what could be the largest challenge of his presidency. In Singapore, politicians and NGOs have called for more preemptive action as the prospect of more fires in the coming weeks appears increasingly likely. “You need to do that because with three, four months of haze now in Singapore, it actually seems...
Water flow in Mediterranean rivers will fall 34 percent by the end of the century
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 18th, 2016
PhysOrg: The rising global average temperature induced by climate change will cause regions such as the Mediterranean Basin to become drier and more arid, in turn directly affecting the availability of water. A study has revealed that river flows in this zone will decrease in headwaters, on average, by as much as 34 percent by the year 2100-a figure that will reach 50 percent during the autumn months.
2015 was the warmest year on record: The global...
How much are trees feeling heat of climate change?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 17th, 2016
Christian Science Monitor: Rising temperatures might not stress trees as much as previously thought. And that means they may continue to be efficient at scrubbing carbon from the atmosphere, even as the planet warms.
As a result, some equations in our climate models will likely have to be tweaked.
Forests are known for being massive carbon warehouses, drawing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Most of that carbon remains locked in trees' roots, trunks, branches, and leaves but a bit of it is...
Now it’s possible to link a heat wave or drought to climate change, in real time
Posted by Fast Coexist: None Given on March 17th, 2016
Fast Coexist: Four days and four hours after a powerful storm battered parts of the U.K. last December—breaking national records and leaving 5,000 homes flooded—researchers made a statement: The unusually heavy rain was linked to climate change. Last July, when temperatures topped 104 degrees in several European countries, breaking more records, scientists also quickly analyzed the data as the heat wave happened. They concluded that the extreme temperatures were much more likely now than in the past because of...
So … was that climate change?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 17th, 2016
CNN: Like any good detective, Park Williams asks good questions. As a third-grader, for instance, the now-34-year-old's family took him on a road trip across the Rocky Mountains. He had to know: Why did the trees stop growing at a certain elevation? Why were there plants on one side of a mountain and desert on the other? In fifth grade, he heard a radio broadcast. A weatherman predicted that a drought in Northern California, where he grew up, would last for five more years. How did he know that? What...
February shatters global heat records
Posted by CNN: Brandon Miller on March 17th, 2016
CNN: The month of February broke another heat record for the planet -- the latest in a string of broken monthly records that bring the Earth closer to the symbolic 2 degree Celsius temperature hike predicted to spark catastrophic consequences.
February smashed the previous record for the warmest February and even became the warmest month ever compared to average, according to NOAA, which released the data Thursday.
February temperatures over land and ocean averaged a scorching 2.18 F/1.21 C above...
China to push Myanmar’s new government on stalled dam
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 17th, 2016
Reuters: China signaled on Thursday that it will push Myanmar's new government to resume a controversial stalled dam project in the Southeast Asian country, saying the contract was still valid.
Outgoing Myanmar President Thein Sein angered Beijing in 2011 by suspending the $3.6 billion, Chinese-invested Myitsone dam project, some 90 percent of whose power would have gone to China.
Other Chinese projects in the former Burma have proved controversial too, including the Letpadaung copper mine, against...
Gag order climate change can’t stop water from rising to our doorstep
Posted by Press Herald: Leonard Pitts on March 17th, 2016
Press Herald: Dear Florida Gov. Rick Scott: So it turns out the experts were mistaken. It turns out the impact of climate change on Florida – and much of the coastal United States – is not going to be anywhere near as bad as had been predicted. Apparently, it’s going to be much worse. That’s the sobering finding of a study published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change. Previous scenarios, grim as they were, failed to take into account projected population growth. Factor that in, say the researchers,...
An Entire American Community Being Relocated Because Sea Level Rise
Posted by Gizmodo: None Given on March 16th, 2016
Gizmodo: Climate change is often seen as a problem for generations to come, but as our freakish winter weather has shown, we're already living the future we created. Need more proof? An entire Native American community is now going to be resettled, before it gets swallowed by the rising seas.
The Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians have called the Isle of Jean Charles-a tiny slip of land some 100 miles south of New Orleans-home for nearly 200 years. Tragically, they're now watching it disappear into the...
‘Hottest month’ records don’t always matter – but February 2016 does
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 16th, 2016
Christian Science Monitor: Not only was it the hottest February on record, but it showed the biggest spike in temperature since scientists starting keeping track more than a century ago, according to NASA data.
On Saturday, the Administration's Goddard Institute for Space Studies released a report showing February 2016 to be not just the hottest February on record, but the hottest seasonally-adjusted month since 1880.
In other words, NASA tracks not only monthly temperatures, but how they compare to that month's long-term...