By Rebecca Morelle, Science reporter6 March 2014 (BBC World Service) – Warmer temperatures are causing malaria to spread to higher altitudes, a study suggests. Researchers have found that people living in the highlands of Africa and South America are at an increased risk of catching the mosquito-borne disease during hotter years. They believe that temperature […]
By Sarah Zielinski3 March 2014 (smithsonianmag.com) – In 1974, just a couple years after the launch of the first Landsat satellite, scientists noticed something odd in the Weddell Sea near Antarctica. There was a large ice-free area, called a polynya, in the middle of the ice pack. The polynya, which covered an area as large […]
By Jeremy Hance28 February 2014 (mongabay.com) – Since the first of the year, South Africa has lost 146 rhinos to poachers or approximately 2.5 rhinos every day. This is a slight dip from last year’s poaching rate, which hit 1,004 for the whole year or 2.75 a day. South Africa is home to more rhinos […]
By Joe Taschler3 March 2014 (Journal Sentinel) – Next time you bite into a big, juicy hamburger, don’t be surprised if it bites back — at your bank account. Unrelenting drought across large swaths of the Great Plains, Texas, and California has led to the smallest U.S. cattle herd since 1951, shrinking the supply of […]
By Ryan Koronowski 4 March 2014 (Climate Progress) – The Iditarod, the annual sled-dog race across 975 miles of Alaska, started in earnest on Sunday. While much of the local buzz is on whether the usual strong slate of Alaskan mushers can hold off the Norwegians, much of the attention has turned to how the […]
By Holli Riebeek28 Feb 2014 (NASA) – Dense smoke cloaks central Sumatra, Indonesia, in these images taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. The smoke is coming from fires in Riau province, where palm oil and pulpwood plantations are abundant. Though illegal for all but small landowners, fire […]
By Helen Davidson 3 March 2014 (theguardian.com) – Doctors have warned of serious health risks to people living around the Morwell coalmine fire, due to a carcinogenic air pollutant reaching levels up to 20 times the average level. The Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA) group, which spoke to a rally of Morwell residents on […]
By MELISSA EDDY18 February 2014 ATTERWASCH, Germany (The New York Times) – A grove of apple saplings grows on the lee side of Ulrich Schulz’s barn. He did not plant them for the fruit, he said, but as an act of rebellion against a nearby mining company that wants to raze his farm, which his […]
By Sonia I. Seneviratne, Markus G. Donat, Brigitte Mueller, and Lisa V. Alexander 26 February 2014 (Nature Climate Change) – Observational data show a continued increase of hot extremes over land during the so-called global warming hiatus. This tendency is greater for the most extreme events and thus more relevant for impacts than changes in […]
By Nina Chestney; Editing by Tom Heneghan2 March 2014 LONDON (Reuters) – Extreme floods like those swamping parts of Britain in recent months could become more frequent in Europe by 2050, more than quadrupling financial losses, if climate change worsens and more people live in vulnerable areas, research showed on Sunday. The study said instances […]
