Cyclone Pam roars over Vanuatu – U.N. aid agency calls it ‘the worst-case scenario for the country and for the people’ – ‘Port Vila looks like an absolute bomb has hit it’

By Ben Brumfield and Laura Smith-Spark14 March 2015 (CNN) – A tropical cyclone killed at least six people in Vanuatu, UNICEF said Saturday, confirming first casualties from one of the most powerful storms ever to make landfall. Hardly a tree stood straight after Tropical Cyclone Pam bellowed across the Pacific island nation. Aid workers fear […]

‘Unbelievable destruction’ reported in Cyclone Pam’s wake – UNICEF tweets ‘Initial reports of devastation’

13 March 2015 (CNN) – Relief workers reported “unbelievable destruction” after Tropical Cyclone Pam smashed the capital of Vanuatu, the Australian Red Cross said Saturday. The Australian Red Cross said via Twitter that “humanitarian needs will be enormous. Many people have lost their homes. Shelter, food and water (are) urgent priorities” in Port Vila. Meteorologists […]

Category 5 Cyclone Pam slams Vanuatu capital – ‘Strength of winds is incredible’ in ‘Vanuatu Monster’

By Brandon Miller, Madison Park, and Laura Smith-Spark13 March 2015 (CNN) – Tropical Cyclone Pam, one of the strongest storms seen in the South Pacific in years, has made a direct hit on the capital of Vanuatu, Port Vila. Satellite imagery shows the eye of the massive Category 5 storm making landfall on a small […]

Graph of the Day: Observed surface radiative forcing by CO2, 2000-2010

25 February 2015 (Nature) – a, Time series of observed spectrally integrated (520–1,800 cm−1) CO2 surface radiative forcing at SGP (in red) with overlaid CT2011 estimate of CO2 concentration from the surface to an altitude of 2 km (grey), and a least-squares trend of the forcing and its uncertainty (blue). b, Power spectral density of […]

Bjørn Lomborg is wrong about Bangladesh and sea level rise

[And he’s wrong about everything else. Desdemona had an encounter with him several years ago. When asked about overfishing on the high seas, his answer was, “The oceans are fine.” –Des] By Greg Laden 12 March 2015 (ScienceBlogs) – Human caused greenhouse gas pollution is heating the Earth and causing the planet’s polar ice caps […]

It’s supposed to be the rainy season in Brazil, so where has all the water gone?

By Tom Di Liberto6 March 2015 (NOAA) – It’s amazing to think, but in Brazil, a country that boasts both the Amazon Rain Forest and River, parts of the country are in danger of seeing their water supplies dry up after back-to-back rainy seasons failed to live up to their name. Southeastern Brazil—the country’s most […]

Epic drought spurs California to build largest desalination plant in Western Hemisphere

By Cole Mellino10 March 2015 (EcoWatch) – “The U.S. Drought Monitor shows nearly 40 percent of the state of California remains in exceptional drought, the highest level of drought and many communities are working to come up with long-term solutions as reservoirs and rivers continue to diminish,” says Jeremy Hobson of NPR’s Here and Now. […]

Water rationing alone won’t save São Paulo

By Marussia Whately and Rebeca Lerer11 February 2015 São Paulo (The Guardian) – It should be the rainy season. Instead São Paulo state is experiencing a third consecutive year with soaring temperatures and rainfall patterns well below historic records. The main water reservoirs are operating at their lowest capacity. The Cantareira reservoir system, which serves […]

World record? 100 inches of snow clobbered Italy in 18 hours, review pending

By Angela Fritz 11 March 2015 (Washington Post) – The Italian weather Web site MeteoWeb reports that Capracotta, Italy, saw 100.8 inches of snow in just 18 hours on March 5 — a total that, if verified, would set a new world record for snowfall in a 24-hour period. However, the reports from Capracotta at […]

Amazon drought caused doubling of tree mortality, reduced carbon sink by 1.4 billion tons of CO2

By Gerard Wynn5 March 2015 (RTCC) – Severe drought five years ago caused an observed doubling in the rate of tree mortality in the Amazon rainforest, according to a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, 4 March 2015. In addition, the drought caused the forest to take up about 1.4 billion tonnes less […]

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