Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Graph of the Day: Projected Sea-Level Rise, 1990-2100

Projection of sea-level rise from 1990 to 2100, based on IPCC temperature projections for three different emission scenarios (labeled on right, see Projections of Future Sea Level for explanation of uncertainty ranges). The sea-level range projected in the IPCC AR4 (2) for these scenarios is shown for comparison in the bars on the bottom right. […]

Portraits from a Parched Land: The photography of Nick Brandt

Nick Brandt has been photographing the wild animals of East Africa for the past ten years; these images are from his new collection, A Shadow Falls, out now from Abrams. “My images are unashamedly idyllic and romantic, a kind of enchanted Africa,” Brandt has written. “They’re my elegy to a world that is steadily, tragically […]

The Peak Oil crisis: China’s latest drought

By Tom Whipple     Wednesday, April 14 2010 11:56  We all need to pause for a minute and consider the possible implications of the droughts that are engulfing China. One of these is in the north — Inner Mongolia, and the second more serious one covers most of southwestern China. If the weather patterns revert to […]

Wildlife still exposed to Exxon Valdez oil 20 years after disaster

Scientists in Alaska have discovered that lingering oil from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill is still being ingested by some wildlife more than 20 years after the disaster. The research, published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, uses biomarkers to reveal long-term exposure to oil in harlequin ducks and demonstrates how consequences of oil spills are […]

Studies agree: 1 meter sea-level rise by 2100

New research from several international research groups, including the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen provides independent consensus that IPCC predictions of less than a half a meter rise in sea levels is around 3 times too low. The new estimates show that the sea will rise approximately 1 meter in the next […]

Kenya tribe’s houses torched in Mau Forest eviction

8 April 2010 Thugs and plain-clothed police officers are destroying the homes of Ogiek tribe members in Kenya’s Mau Forest, leaving families destitute. Some houses were burned to the ground, while others were hacked apart with chainsaws and machetes. The attacks, in Ngongori area of the Mau Forest complex, began last week when most of […]

World marine debris totals 10 million pieces in 1-day cleanup

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent, Editing by Will DunhamWASHINGTONTue Apr 13, 2010 2:11pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than 10 million pieces of trash were plucked from the world’s waterways in a single day last year. But for Philippe Cousteau, the beach sandals that washed up in the Norwegian arctic symbolized the global nature of […]

Massive Arctic ice cap is shrinking — Rate accelerating since 1985

Warmer summers are accelerating the rate at which the Devon Island ice cap is losing mass, according to new research. The study’s authors say that although the extent and depth of the cap have been declining since measurements began in 1961, the trend has increased since 1985. A paper published in the March edition of […]

Rivers cause rising tension between Pakistan and India as climate changes

By Manipadma Jena 12 Apr 2010 15:58:00 GMT ISLAMABAD (AlertNet) – A 1960 trans-boundary water sharing agreement between India and Pakistan has stood the test of two wars and various periods of unease. Climate change, however, may prove the toughest test of the Indus River deal, observers say. … Pakistan’s meteorological department has already recorded […]

Graph of the Day: Arctic Sea Ice Change, 1981-2010

These images show the change in ice age from fall 2009 to spring 2010. The negative Arctic Oscillation this winter slowed the export of older ice out of the Arctic. As a result, the percentage of ice older than two years was greater at the end of March 2010 than over the past few years. […]

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