By Matt Pearce11 February 2014 (Los Angeles Times) – President Obama declared a state of emergency in Georgia on Tuesday as the southern state awaited what the National Weather Service called a potentially “crippling” ice and snow storm “of historical proportions.” The roads in Atlanta, usually clogged with traffic, were unusually quiet at midday Tuesday […]
1 February 2014 (World Bulletin) – Even by Brazilian standards – man, it’s hot. January was the hottest month on record in parts of Brazil including its biggest city, São Paulo. The heat, plus a severe drought, has kindled fears of water shortages, crop damage and higher electricity bills that could drag down the economy […]
By Thomas Moore, Science Correspondent 11 February 2014 (Sky News ) – Scientists have told Sky News that groundwater levels are now so high that parts of Britain face a serious risk of flooding for weeks or even months to come. Andy McKenzie, a groundwater scientist at the British Geological Survey, told Sky News that […]
By Suzanne Goldenberg 8 February 2014 (The Observer) – On 17 January 2014, scientists downloaded fresh data from a pair of NASA satellites and distributed the findings among the small group of researchers who track the world’s water reserves. At the University of California, Irvine, hydrologist James Famiglietti looked over the data from the gravity-sensing […]
10 February 2014 (BBC News) – Flooded homes along the River Thames are being evacuated and thousands more are at risk, with water levels expected to keep rising for the next 24 hours. Residents in one Berkshire village say the scenes are from a “horror movie”. Fourteen severe flood warnings are in place in Berkshire […]
By Loren Bell, Mongabay-Indonesia contributor 10 February 2014 (mongabay.com) – Protecting large, isolated areas of no-take zones for over 10 years with strong enforcement is the key to effective Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), according to a letter published this week in Nature. However, 59% of all MPAs meet less than three of the five criteria, […]
10 February 2014 (mongabay.com) – 365-988 million birds are killed in the U.S. each year in collisions with buildings, estimates a review published last month in the journal The Condor: Ornithological Applications. The research, based on some 92,869 records across 23 studies, finds that low-rise buildings (56 percent) and residences (44 percent) rather than skyscrapers […]
9 February 2014 (theguardian.com) – Forecasters have warned of another week of storms as the prime minister prepares to lead the latest emergency meeting about the flooding crisis. Heavy rain and winds of more than 60mph are predicted to die down throughout Sunday but the brief respite will be broken by another storm arriving Monday […]
8 February 2014 (Sky News) – Southern Britain is on alert as hurricane-force winds and heavy rain combine with high tides to threaten more flooding misery. South Wales and the South West were the first areas to be hit by the storm which is set to move over the rest of southern England throughout the […]
Contact: Karolin Eichler (WMO/OBS/WIS/DMA) Features of the decade – temperature The decade 2001-2010 was characterized by a record in global temperature increase since sufficiently comprehensive global surface temperature measurement began in 1850 For global land-surface air temperatures as well as for ocean-surface temperatures this decade was the warmest on record This trend is confirmed at […]
