climate change – Page 101 – Desdemona Despair

Aerial view of cargo ships stranded on the Lena river in Siberia, 27 August 2019. In the regional capital of Yakutsk, the Lena river water level dropped so suddenly that hundreds of cargo ships and smaller boats were left stranded in the sand. It was this summer’s unusual heat that caused the record drought. Photo: Ruslan Ochirov

August 27, 2019

World’s largest permafrost river dries to a record low – “The abnormal heat recorded in Eastern Siberia in July and August, combined with lack of precipitation caused extremely shallow waters”

27 August 2019 (The Siberian Times) – Lena River fleet cannot sail after abnormal heat causes 2.5 metre water level drop. The current water level means critical delays in the summer ritual delivering vital supplies to Arctic settlements in Yakutia, Russia’s biggest region. Most of its remote corners are only accessible via water, with the […]

Aerial view of a wildfire burning in the Amazon rainforest near Porto Velho, Brazil, 26 August 2019. The Brazilian state of Rondonia has 6,436 fires burning so far this year in it, according to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE). Photo: Natalie Gallón / CNN

August 26, 2019

Flying above the Amazon fires, “all you can see is death”

By Nick Paton Walsh and Natalie Gallón 26 August 2019 Porto Velho, Brazil (CNN) – The smoke is so thick, at times the Cessna airplane had to climb to stay out of it. At times your eyes burn and you close the air vents to keep the cabin habitable. Sometimes it is so bad, it […]

Timelapse satellite view of deforestation since 2015 of a plot of Amazon rainforest in Brazil, from 21 October 2015 to 21 August 2019. Photo: Pierre Markuse / ESA / Copernicus

August 26, 2019

Here’s how the Amazon wildfires and deforestation look from space

By Andrew Freedman 22 August 2019 (The Washington Post) – The wildfires burning in the Amazon have the potential to release vast quantities of long-stored carbon — thereby accelerating climate change and cause permanent harm to the planet’s most biodiverse ecosystems. A fleet of public and private-sector satellites are keeping tabs on deforestation rates in […]

Donald Trump’s empty chair at the G7 talks on the climate emergency on Monday, 26 August 2019. Photo: POOL / Reuters

August 26, 2019

Trump skips G7 talks on climate crisis and Amazon wildfires – Trump team calls global warming a “niche issue”

By Angelique Chrisafis 26 August 2019 BIARRITZ, France (The Guardian) – Donald Trump did not attend Monday’s crucial discussion on climate and biodiversity at the G7 meeting of international leaders in Biarritz, missing talks on how to deal with the Amazon rainforest fires as well as new ways to cut carbon emissions. Reporters noticed at […]

Drivers of wildfire trends in burned areas. (a) Annual trend in burnt area as a percentage of mean burnt area for the period 2000–2014. (b) Absolute change in controls as a percentage of the maximum possible change. Stippled areas in a and b are where the sampled posterior parameter s.d. falls within 50 percent (light) and 10 percent (heavy) of the mean change. c–f, Areas with a shift in fire regime equivalent to >50% in at least one control driver are coloured either grey or as follows: cyan for increased fuel and moisture or red for decreased fuel and moisture (c); yellow for decrease in fuel moisture or blue for increase in moisture (d); lime green for increased continuity and decreased moisture or violet for decreased fuel and increased moisture (e); green for increased fuel continuity or purple for decrease in fuel (f). Increased/decreased ignitions are represented by darker/lighter colours and increased/decreased suppression is represented by upward/downward arrows, respectively. Percentages in the legend indicate the land area of significant regime shift covered by each fuel and moisture driver combination, and the highlighted numbers give the breakdown for increase, no change or decrease in ignitions. Graphic: Kelley, et al., 2019 / Nature Climate Change

August 24, 2019

How contemporary bioclimatic and human controls change global fire regimes

By Douglas I. Kelley, Ioannis Bistinas, Rhys Whitley, Chantelle Burton, Toby R. Marthews, and Ning Dong 19 August 2019 (Nature Climate Change) – Anthropogenically driven declines in tropical savannah burnt area1,2 have recently received attention due to their effect on trends in global burnt area3,4. Large-scale trends in ecosystems where vegetation has adapted to infrequent fire, […]

A Rio Branco fireman fights a wildfire in Rio Branco, Amazonian State of Acre, Brazil, on 17 August 2019. Photo: Rio Branco Firemen handout / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock

August 24, 2019

Hundreds of new fires in Brazil as world outrage grows over Amazon destruction – Bolsonaro reverses course and mobilizes armed forces – Brazil agricultural industry fears global boycott – “Today, because of Bolsonaro, all our work is turning into ashes”

24 August 2019 (AFP) – Hundreds of new fires are raging in the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil, official data showed Saturday, amid growing international pressure on President Jair Bolsonaro to control the worst blazes in years. Multiple fires were seen across a vast area of the northwestern state of Rondonia on Friday when AFP […]

Projected share of production from new oil and gas fields, 2020-2029. The majority of the world’s new oil and gas set to come from the U.S. Graphic: Global Witness

August 24, 2019

U.S. set to drown the world in oil – “The sheer scale of this new production dwarfs that of every other country in the world”

20 August 2019 (Global Witness) – A staggering 61 percent of the world’s new oil and gas production over the next decade is set to come from one country alone: the United States. The sheer scale of this new production dwarfs that of every other country in the world and would spell disaster for the […]

Women fetch water from an opening made at a dried-up lake in Chennai, India, on 11 June 2019. Photo: P. Ravikumar / Reuters

August 24, 2019

India is running out of water – “If nothing changes, and fast, things will get much worse, with severe water scarcity on the horizon for hundreds of millions”

By Bill Spindle and Gareth Phillips 19 August 2019 LEH, India (The Wall Street Journal) – The Ladakh region of northern India is one of the world’s highest, driest inhabited places. For centuries, meltwater from winter snows in the Himalayan mountains sustained the tiny villages dotting this remote land. Now, like many other places in […]

A male cycad. On 22 August 2019, Chris Kidd, the curator of Ventnor Botanic Gardens, said, “For the first time in 60 million years in the UK we’ve got a male cone and a female cone at the same time. It is a strong indicator of climate change being shown, not from empirical evidence from the scientists but by plants.” Photo: Ventnor Botanic Garden

August 23, 2019

Ancient plants set to reproduce in UK after 60 million years – “It is a strong indicator of climate change being shown, not from empirical evidence from the scientists but by plants”

By Patrick Barkham 22 August 2019 (The Guardian) – An exotic plant has produced male and female cones outdoors in Britain for what is believed to be the first time in 60 million years. Botanists say the event is a sign of global heating. Two cycads (Cycas revoluta), a type of primitive tree that dominated […]

Weather projection on 21 August 2019 showing extreme low pressure headed for the northern Canada, causing an “Arctic ice smasher” storm that is arriving about two months early for the Arctic. Graphic: The Weather Network

August 23, 2019

Extreme ice smasher storm headed for the Arctic, two months early

By Tyler Hamilton 21 August 2019 (The Weather Network) – This storm is about two months early for the Arctic. Later this week a rare system will make its way into the Arctic Ocean. This system’s pressure centre is expected to dip to an unusually low value for the month of August. Just how low? […]