Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Graph of the Day: Change in Northern Hemisphere Cryospheric Climate Forcing, 1979-2008

Caption by Holli Riebeek24 February 2011 How could melting ice thousands of miles away possibly affect you? A recent study published in Nature Geoscience provides one answer to that question. Mark Flanner at the University of Michigan and his collaborators used satellite data to measure how much changes in snow and ice in the Northern […]

Toxic water threatens Johannesburg

24 February 2011 (BBC) – Rapidly rising acidic water in the abandoned gold mines under Johannesburg in South Africa could leak out early next year, the water ministry warns. Its report recommends building pumps and monitoring stations immediately. The toxic liquid has been building up in mine shafts which were dug more than a century […]

Video: Greenland’s glaciers double in speed

February 21, 2011 (PhysOrg) – The contribution of Greenland to global sea level change and the mapping of previously unknown basins and mountains beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet are highlighted in a new film released by Cambridge University this morning. The work of glaciologist Professor Julian Dowdeswell, Director of Cambridge University’s Scott Polar Research Institute, […]

Emergency airlift from Antarctica bases as Ross Ice Shelf breaks up

By MICHAEL FIELD26 February 2011 (Stuff) – An Antarctic ice shelf used as a runway is breaking away, forcing an emergency airlift to close summer operations on the continent. The situation is being complicated by the Christchurch quake which is limiting operations at Christchurch Airport. Staff at New Zealand’s Scott Base and the US’s McMurdo […]

Pakistan flood victims living an uncertain life

By Jan KhaskheliSunday, February 27, 2011 Karachi (thenews.com.pk) – Residents of 16 small villages located near Hyderabad city and comprising a population of 20,000, are living an uncertain life after the recent flood wrought havoc, depriving them of their livelihood and basic facilities of life. In the absence of government assistance to rehabilitate the flood-affected […]

Russia bush fires, Australia floods impact Persian Gulf food imports

Enough supply, but price is a question: Al Ghurair By VM SathishFebruary 27, 2011 Food supply and food stocks in the region will remain tight for the rest of 2011 as the unexpected bush fire in Russia, flood in Australia, and climatic problems in other producing countries have caused a shortage in the supply of […]

BP reneges on deal to rebuild oyster beds, repair wetlands, Louisiana officials say

By Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune February 21, 2011 BP has reneged on promises made in November to negotiate early payments to Louisiana to help rebuild oyster beds, repair damaged wetlands and build a fish hatchery to allow the state to respond immediately to the collapse of commercial fisheries in the wake of the BP Gulf […]

Turtles in trouble: New report identifies the 25 most endangered turtle species

By John PlattFeb 25, 2011 Asian appetites are rapidly driving the world’s tortoises and freshwater turtles toward extinction, and some species might only be savable through costly and labor-intensive conservation efforts, according to both a new report and speakers at a workshop about conserving Asian turtles. “It’s going to take some intense management, both to […]

Scientists prepare for mass rat cull on remote UK island

Eradication programme aims to save millions of seabirds from invasive rats on South Georgia By Lewis Smith, guardian.co.uk24 February 2011 14.57 GMT Testing for the biggest rat eradication programme in history is beginning on a remote UK island in the south Atlantic. Scientists are preparing to drop poison in a limited area of South Georgia […]

Graph of the Day: Deforestation in Riau Province, Sumatra, 2001-2008

Temporal disaggregation of the moderate spatial resolution forest cover loss map for Riau province, Sumatra. Landsat band 5 is displayed in grayscale with dark tones representing forest cover. Colors mark the year of MODIS-detected forest cover loss. Image and caption courtesy of Broich 2011 Kalimantan and Sumatra lost 5.4 million hectares, or 9.2 percent, of […]

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