Contact: Gisela Speidel, gspeidel@hawaii.edu, 808-956-9252, University of Hawaii ‑ SOEST21 September 2012 The tropical cyclones in the Arabian Sea during the pre-monsoon season (May – June) have intensified since 1997 compared to 1979 – 1997. This has been attributed to decreased vertical wind shear due to the dimming effects of increased anthropogenic black carbon and […]
Satellite view of Benue River, Nigeria in 2009 Satellite view of Benue River, Nigeria in 2012 KANO, Nigeria, 10 September 2012 (AFP) – The death toll from flooding in eastern Nigeria after heavy rain and the release of water from a dam in Cameroon has risen to 30, with some 120,000 people displaced, an […]
By Glenn Ashton28 August 2012 Food prices are rapidly heading toward new record territory, with far more at play than a simple drought in the US Midwest. There are serious implications, especially for nations with high rates of inequality and poverty. We will almost certainly face a potentially catastrophic, global scale famine in the next […]
By Larry Elliott, www.guardian.co.uk30 August 2012 The World Bank issued a global hunger warning last night after severe droughts in the US and eastern Europe sent food prices to a record high. Damage to crop harvests from exceptionally dry weather this year raised sharply the Bank’s food price index taking it above its peak in […]
27 July 2012 (Famine Early Warning System Network) – There are about 16 million people facing Stressed (IPC Phase 2) to Emergency (IPC Phase 4) levels of food insecurity in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, and Uganda. The main drivers of food insecurity in these countries are poor rains, conflict, high food prices, and […]
By Chris Wickham; Editing by Mark Heinrich10 August 2012 LONDON (Reuters) – The world is depleting underground water reserves faster than they can be replenished due to over-exploitation, according to scientists in Canada and the Netherlands. The researchers, from McGill University in Montreal and Utrecht University in the Netherlands, combined groundwater usage data from around […]
By Mamta Badkar3 July 2012 There’s been a lot written about ghost cities in China. Just outside Angola’s capital city of Luanda is Nova Cidade de Kilamba a residential development of 750 eight-story apartment buildings, a dozen schools, and more than 100 retail units, reports the BBC’s Louise Redvers. The $3.5 billion development covers 12,355 […]
22 July 2012 (Daily Nation) – A diplomatic row is simmering after Tanzanians living around the Serengeti Game Reserve allegedly set the area on fire to block the wildebeest migration. The infernos that have lasted for two weeks have delayed hundreds of wildebeest from Serengeti plains gathered on the Mara River ready to cross into […]
By Bobby Bascombe, www.guardian.co.uk 12 July 2012 Senegal’s capitol city Dakar sticks out into the Atlantic Ocean on a peninsula. It’s at least a thousand miles to the Sahara desert yet the air today is so thick with sand that the tops of buildings disappear in a sandy haze. It’s the worst sand storm in […]
By Nick Harding 14 July 2012 In times of national crisis people naturally turn to authority figures for solutions, which is why recently Sir David Attenborough is being asked about the weather. He’s being asked about it a lot. “This preoccupation with the weather is an English disease,” he says. “We are always talking about […]
