Mountain birds climb with increasing temperatures – ‘We call it an escalator to extinction, as the birds are going up until they run out of room’

By ANNA JOHNSON5 March 2014 (Cornell Daily Sun) – Recent research has found that as tropical temperatures climb as a result of climate change, mountain-dwelling tropical birds are doing the same. While climate change is not a new concept, the study conducted in Papua New Guinea aimed to examine the virtually unexplored question of climate […]

Massachusetts houses wrecked repeatedly by sea rebuilt with taxes – ‘We always knew it was unsustainable there’

By Beth Daley9 March 2014 SCITUATE (Boston Globe) – Over and over again, the Atlantic has taken aim at 48 Oceanside Drive. Almost four decades ago, it slammed the seafront house clear off its foundation. Thirteen years later, ocean water poured through the roof during a nor’easter. So often has the sea catapulted grapefruit-sized rocks […]

It’s been exactly 29 years since Earth had a colder-than-average month

By Andrew Freedman20 March 2014 (Mashable) – It’s been exactly 29 years — or 348 consecutive months — since the last cooler-than-average month on this planet, according to new data released on Wednesday morning. The data, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), reflects the warming trend seen around the world during the past […]

A remarkably accurate global warming prediction, made in 1972

By Dana Nuccitelli    19 March 2014 (Guardian) – John Stanley (J.S.) Sawyer was a British meteorologist born in 1916. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1962, and was also a Fellow of the Meteorological Society and the organization’s president from 1963 to 1965. A paper [pdf] authored by Sawyer and published […]

Global warming speeds up methane emissions from freshwater

By Tim Radford20 March 2014 (Climate News Network) – Methane or natural gas is a greenhouse gas. Weight for weight, it is more than 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a century, and researchers have repeatedly examined the contribution of natural gas emitted by ruminant cattle to global warming. But Gabriel Yvon-Durocher […]

Coal burning brightly as demand returns with economic upswing – ‘The EIA projects that 40 percent of America’s electricity in the future, in 2030, is going to come from coal’

By Scott Cohn and Brad Quick21 March 2014 (NBC News) – The first thing you notice at the Spring Creek mine in Decker, Montana, is the size. It’s a sprawling, 9,000-acre site in Big Sky Country near the Wyoming line. Giant coal hauling trucks the size of two-story buildings zip around the complex with surprising […]

Australia Senate votes against PM Tony Abbott’s abolition of carbon tax

20 March 2014 (AAP) – The Abbott government has failed in its first bid to scrap the carbon tax, with the Senate refusing to pass a package of bills to repeal the Gillard-era climate change policy.  After three months of debate, the package of nine bills was finally put to a vote in the upper […]

Climate change set to displace hundreds of millions of people by end of century

WASHINGTON, 18 March 2014 (ANI) – A new UN report suggests that climate change will displace hundreds of millions of people by the end of this century, increasing the risk of violent conflict and wiping trillions of dollars off the global economy. The second of three publications by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, […]

Record heat wave continues in Sydney – Drought declared in record 80 per cent of Queensland

By Peter Hannam, Environment Editor21 March 2014 (Sydney Morning Herald) – Sydney faces the chance of more thunderstorms on Friday and over the weekend as the city’s run of record warm weather heads towards a third week. Parts of the western suburbs and the Blue Mountains are likely to see thunderstorm activity from late morning […]

The end of spring in a warming world – ‘It would be very surprising if everything turns out perfectly fine’

By Bryan Walsh 20 March 2014 (TIME) – The first day of spring is finally here, even if it doesn’t feel that way in much of the still frigid East. Of course, the official beginning of spring has less to do with the weather than it does with Earth’s orbit around the sun—the vernal equinox […]

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