Siberia permafrost thaw warning sparked by cave data – ‘Significant thawing could affect vast areas and release billions of tonnes of carbon’

22 February 2013 (BBC) – Evidence from Siberian caves suggests that a global temperature rise of 1.5C could see permafrost thaw over a large area of Siberia. A study shows that more than a trillion tonnes of the greenhouse gases CO2 and methane could be released into the atmosphere as a result. Evidence from Siberian […]

Hotter, wetter climate slashes labor capacity by 10 percent – ‘We project that heat stress-related labor capacity losses will double globally by 2050 with a warming climate’

By Environment Correspondent Deborah Zabarenko 24 February 2013 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Earth’s increasingly hot, wet climate has cut the amount of work people can do in the worst heat by about 10 percent in the past six decades, and that loss in labor capacity could double by mid-century, U.S. government scientists reported on Sunday. Because […]

Boston grapples with the threat of storms and rising water – ‘This is something that we’re worried about’

By Christopher Joyce 22 February 2013 (NPR) – Since the drubbing that Superstorm Sandy gave the Northeast in November, there’s a new sense of urgency in U.S. coastal cities. Even though scientists can’t predict the next big hurricane, they’re confident that a warmer climate is likely to make Atlantic storms bigger and cause more flooding. […]

‘Canary in the coal mine’: Living beyond the levees in Louisiana – ‘Leeville is washing away’ as sea level rises

By Rick Jervis 23 February 2013 LEEVILLE, Louisiana (USA Today) – At the 85th Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday, an independent Louisiana-shot film, Beasts of the Southern Wild, will be up for four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, for its fictional account of a desolate band of folks living beyond the levees. Nearly […]

Graph of the Day: Trends in average U.S. winter temperatures, 1970-2012

21 February 2013 (Climate Central) – While the U.S. as a whole has seen a warming trend that has raised annual average temperatures by 1.3°F over the past 100 years, warming varies seasonally, and it’s winter that has seen the fastest warming. An analysis of data from the U.S. Historical Climatology Network of weather stations […]

Climate change lowering Great Lakes levels, retired Army Corps expert tells Bay City crowd – ‘The last time the water was this low for this long was the Dust Bowl’

By Justin Engel 22 February 2013 BAY CITY, MICHIGAN (The Bay City Times) – Climate change is real, a retired U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expert says: And it’s causing parts of the Great Lakes water levels to descend. Roger Gauthier, a retired hydrologist with the Corps, closed out the Saginaw Bay Watershed Initiative Network/Saginaw […]

Thin snowpack in U.S. West signals summer of fire and drought – ‘We’re running out of time’

By JACK HEALY22 February 2013       DENVER (The New York Times) – After enduring last summer’s destructive drought, farmers, ranchers and officials across the parched Western states had hoped that plentiful winter snows would replenish the ground and refill their rivers, breaking the grip of one of the worst dry spells in American history. No […]

NASA satellites find alarming freshwater losses in Middle East, totaling 144 cubic kilometers in 7 years – ‘If it’s not replenished, eventually it will be gone’

Pasadena, California, 15 February 2013 (JPL) –  A new study using data from a pair of gravity-measuring NASA satellites finds that large parts of the arid Middle East region lost freshwater reserves rapidly during the past decade. Scientists at the University of California, Irvine; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; and the National […]

Keystone XL pipeline will have no ‘impact on climate change’, TransCanada boss says

20 February 2013 (AP) – The company that wants to build a controversial oil pipeline from western Canada to Texas said on Tuesday said that shutting down the oil sands at its source would have no measurable effect on global warming. “You could shut down oil sands production tomorrow and it would have absolutely no […]

Biofuel rush wiping out America’s grasslands at fastest pace since the 1930s Dust Bowl – Rates of grassland loss are ‘comparable to deforestation rates in Brazil, Malaysia, and Indonesia’

By Brad Plumer 20 February 2013 (Washington Post) – America’s prairies are shrinking. Spurred on by the rush for biofuels, farmers are digging up grasslands in the northern Plains to plant crops at the quickest pace since the 1930s. While that’s been a boon for farmers, the upheaval could create unexpected problems. A new study […]

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