climate change – Page 77 – Desdemona Despair

Flood water surrounds tomb stones at a graveyard in Tenbury Wells, after the River Teme burst its banks in western England, 16 February 2020. Photo: Oli Scarff

February 17, 2020

Storm Dennis, 2nd-strongest bomb cyclone on record in North Atlantic, wreaks havoc across UK, parts of France – Record 594 flood warnings and alerts issued in UK

17 February 2020 (AFP) – Britain on Monday began to clear up after Storm Dennis battered the country over the weekend, leading the government’s weather agency to issue a rare “danger to life” warning amid widespread flooding and high winds. Hundreds of flood warnings remained in place, including five “severe” warnings around the River Teme […]

A swarm of locusts descends on Enziu, Kenya, on 24 January 2020. Video: Agencia EFE / TIME

February 16, 2020

Hundreds of billions of locusts, fueled by conflict and climate change, are swarming East Africa – 400-fold increase in their numbers by June 2020 projected

By Madeleine Stone 14 February 2020 (National Geographic) – East Africa is in the midst of a crisis that sounds like something out of the Book of Exodus: A plague of locusts is spreading across the region, threatening the food supply of tens of millions. City-sized swarms of the dreaded pests are wreaking havoc as […]

Residents look on as flames burn through bush in Lake Tabourie, Australia, on 4 January 2020. Photo: Brett Hemmings / Getty Images

February 16, 2020

15 years after the Kyoto Protocol went into force, the climate crisis is worse than ever – “If the U.S. had been in from the start, it would have been a different trajectory altogether”

By Rosie McCall 16 February 2020 (Newsweek) – The Kyoto Protocol went to force a full 15 years ago today—and yet, the climate crisis is more urgent than ever. On Sunday, 15 years will have passed since the Kyoto Protocol was ratified on February 16, 2005, which was eight years after it was negotiated back […]

Surface air temperature anomaly for January 2020 relative to the January average for the period 1981-2010. Data: ERA5. Graphic: Copernicus Climate Change Service / ECMWF

February 12, 2020

January 2020 warmest on record in Europe – Earth matched its warmest January on record – “The lack of snow and the warmth is really unheard of. Monthly records were not just broken, they were shattered with large margins.”

By Matthew Cappucci 4 February 2020 (The Washington Post) – Europe just concluded its warmest January on record, coming on the heels of a toasty December and making the 2019-2020 winter season a contender for the warmest Europe has observed. Although the calendar has flipped to a new decade, there has been no slowing in […]

Polygrapha suprema (Schaus, 1920), a rare and endangered butterfly exclusive to the high mountains of Atlantic Forest (Brazil), is threatened by habitat loss. Photo: Augusto Rosa

February 11, 2020

Half-a-million insect species face extinction – Scientists warn humanity about worldwide insect decline – “The current insect extinction crisis is deeply worrying. Yet, what we know is only the tip of the iceberg.”

By Marlowe Hood 10 February 2020 (PhysOrg) – Half of the one million animal and plant species on Earth facing extinction are insects, and their disappearance could be catastrophic for humankind, scientists have said in a “warning to humanity”. “The current insect extinction crisis is deeply worrying,” said Pedro Cardoso, a biologist at the Finnish […]

Swimmers observe beach erosion is seen at Collaroy on the Northern Beaches as a high tide and large waves impact the coast on 10 February 2020 in Sydney, Australia. The Sydney area experienced its wettest weekend in more than 20 years, with strong winds and torrential rain causing flash flooding across the city. Photo: Brook Mitchell / Getty Images

February 11, 2020

Heaviest rain in decades brings Australia drought, fire relief – Scientists rush to predict mudflows from denuded hillsides

By Ainslie Chandler 10 February 2020 (Bloomberg) – Torrential rains along Australia’s east coast caused widespread power outages and property damage at the weekend, and while the downpour has doused many wildfires there are now concerns that drinking water supplies will be contaminated by the flooding. Sydney experienced its wettest 24 hours since 1992, with […]

Average U.S. temperature for December and January combined, from December-January 1895-96 to 2019-20. Graphic: NOAA / NCEI

February 10, 2020

January 2020 sees warmest winter in U.S. history so far

By Bob Henson 6 February 2020 (Weather Underground) – The first two months of meteorological winter (December 2019 – January 2020) were the warmest on record for the contiguous U.S. in data going back to 1895. NOAA provided the January data and images on Thursday ahead of its monthly U.S. climate report. The average national temperature […]

Laurence Cowie on his property looking at the spreading bushfire in Canberra on 1 February 2020. Photo: Brook Mitchell / Getty Images

February 6, 2020

Plants safely store toxic mercury. Bushfires and climate change bring it back into our environment.

By Larissa Schneider, Colin Cooke, Nathan D Stansell, and Simon Haberle 29 January 2020 (The Conversation) – Climate change and bushfire may exacerbate recent mercury pollution and increase exposure to the poisonous neurotoxin, according to our study published in the Journal of Paleolimnology. Mercury stored in plants is released during bushfires, suggesting Australia is particularly at […]

Aerial view of a sinkhole caused by rapid permafrost thawing. Abrupt thawing is “fast and dramatic” and it “affects landscapes in unprecedented ways” says Dr. Merritt Turetsky. Photo: Dr. Merritt Turetsky

February 5, 2020

“Fast and dramatic” permafrost thaw will double previous estimates of potential carbon emissions – “Forests can become lakes in the course of a month”

By Natacha Larnaud 4 February 2020 (CBS News) – Rapidly thawing permafrost in the Arctic has scientists worried. According to a new study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, the ice that holds the soil together is melting, causing hillsides to collapse and massive sinkholes to open up as a result. And that dramatic disruption to […]

Art by Breathe a Blue Ocean. Filmed and edited by Adam Stan Photography. Video: Adam Stan

February 4, 2020

Sand art for Australia wildlife: “Banksy of Barwon Heads” explains reason behind koala etched in sand on Victoria beach

By Sarah Jane Bell 21 January 2020 (ABC Ballarat) – An image of a koala clinging to a tree branch that has been etched in the sands of a Victorian beach has garnered international attention. A photograph of the 120-metre-long artwork near Barwon Heads, south of Geelong, shows a sunset obscured by bushfire smoke and has touched […]