Earth likely to warm more than 2°C this century – “The most optimistic projections are unlikely to happen”

By Hannah Hickey 31 July 2017(UW News) – Warming of the planet by 2 degrees Celsius is often seen as a “tipping point” that people should try to avoid by limiting greenhouse gas emissions.But the Earth is very likely to exceed that change, according to new University of Washington research. A study using statistical tools […]

“Dodgy” greenhouse gas data threatens Paris accord – “We see methane going up. The warming impact from that methane is enough to derail Paris”

By Matt McGrath 7 August 2017 (BBC News) – Potent, climate warming gases are being emitted into the atmosphere but are not being recorded in official inventories, a BBC investigation has found. Air monitors in Switzerland have detected large quantities of one gas coming from a location in Italy. However, the Italian submission to the […]

Asia under water: How 137 million people’s lives are being put at risk – “In the next 30 years, it is projected that heavy rainfall events will be increasing by about 20 percent for sure”

By Ben Westcott and Steve George 25 July 2017(CNN) – Khorsheeda Khatun had been left with nothing – then that too was washed away.The 28-year-old fled her home country of Myanmar in January with her two daughters, escaping the latest outbreak of violence, and was living in the Kutupalang Makeshift Settlement in Bangladesh when cyclone […]

Officials resort to artificial rain to tackle raging wildfires in Siberia

24 July 2017 (The Siberian Times) – Fires have wreaked havoc this summer, with Yakutia and the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous the latest to be hard hit. Clouds are being spiked with a special compound over remote areas of Yakutia to force rain in forest infernos. The skies are cannoned from An-26 planes with silver iodide or […]

Histograms of daily maximum wet-bulb temperature, TWmax (°C), and maps of the ensemble averaged 30-year TWmax. (A) The histograms are generated for the most populous cities in the selected regions for each scenario: HIST (blue), RCP4.5 (green), and RCP8.5 (red). Values within each panel correspond to the 2- and 25-year return period of the bias-corrected annual maxima of TWmax, and the x and y axes indicate TWmax (°C) and the number of occurrences on a logarithmic scale, respectively. The background image was obtained from NASA Visible Earth. (B to D) The spatial distributions of bias-corrected ensemble averaged 30-year TWmax for each GHG scenario: HIST (1976–2005) (B), RCP4.5 (2071–2100) (C), and RCP8.5 (2071–2100) (D). Graphic: Im, et al., 2017 / Science Advances

Climate change to cause humid heatwaves that will kill even healthy people

By Damian Carrington 2 August 2017 (The Guardian) – Extreme heatwaves that kill even healthy people within hours will strike parts of the Indian subcontinent unless global carbon emissions are cut sharply and soon, according to new research. Even outside of these hotspots, three-quarters of the 1.7 billion population – particularly those farming in the Ganges […]

Global tree cover loss remains high – In 2015, the world lost nearly 20 million hectares of tree cover, an area the size of Uganda

By Mikaela Weisse, Elizabeth Dow Goldman, Nancy Harris, Matt Hansen, Peter Potapov, and Svetlana Turubanova 17 July 2017 (World Resources Institute) – Global Forest Watch released new satellite-based data showing how forests around the world changed in the year 2015. The data, produced through the analysis of roughly a million satellite images by the University […]

Gas pipelines supplying Europe “in real danger from exploding tundra” warns scientist

10 July 2017 (The Siberian Times) – New analysis by satellite and helicopter shows  gas pipelines run right over swelling tundra which is deeply unstable due to the release of underground methane that had been frozen in permafrost – now thawing – for thousands of years, revealed Russia’s leading expert on the new phenomenon, Professor […]

Image of the Day: Satellite view of forest fires near Lake Baikal in June 2017

By Mike Carlowicz 25 June 2017 (NASA) – Wildfires spread across southern Siberia in late June 2017. According to Russian state media, at least 27,000 hectares (100 square miles) were burning in the Irkutsk Oblast region. Another 27,000 hectares burned in neighboring states and regions. More than 200 firefighters were sent to control the blazes. […]

Coal on the rise in China, U.S., India after major 2016 drop – “Coal consumption will continue to increase, mainly driven by Asian countries”

By Matthew Brown And Katy Daigle 26 June 2017 BEIJING (AP) – The world’s biggest coal users – China, the United States, and India – have boosted coal mining in 2017, in an abrupt departure from last year’s record global decline for the heavily polluting fuel and a setback to efforts to rein in climate […]

Global narcotics market “thriving” – range of available drugs diversifying at alarming pace – UN

22 June 2017 (United Nations) – Of the quarter of a billion people who used drugs in 2015, about 29.5 million – or 0.6 per cent of the global adult population – were engaged in “problematic use” and suffered from drug use disorders, including dependence, according to report out today from the United Nations drugs […]

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