Erratic rains threaten southern Africa food output as climate changes – ‘The rain patterns are just mixed up’

By Olivia Kumwenda24 November 2011 JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Rainfall patterns in southern Africa are becoming erratic as climate change takes its toll, threatening long-term production of staple and cash crops in the region. Countries like South Africa, Zambia, and Malawi have enjoyed bumper harvests of their staple maize crop in recent years, ensuring food security […]

Bleak future for San Francisco Bay area tidal marshes

San Francisco, CA, November 24 (SPX) – A new study, led by PRBO Conservation Science (PRBO), projects a bleak future for San Francisco Bay’s tidal marshes under high-end sea-level rise scenarios that are increasingly likely. PRBO and colleagues found that in the worst case scenario 93% of San Francisco Bay’s tidal marsh could be lost […]

Arctic sea ice melt ‘unprecedented’ in past 1,450 years

November 24 (mongabay.com) – Recent arctic sea ice loss is ‘unprecedented’ over the past 1,450 years, concludes a reconstruction of ice records published in the journal Nature. The study, which was led by Christophe Kinnard of Chile’s Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Zonas Aridas, used terrestrial proxies including ice cores, lake sediments, tree ring data, […]

Winter brings more misery to millions of Pakistan flood victims

[It’s amazing that for all the bloviating on Pakistan during the parade of belligerent ignorance at this week’s Republican national security “debate”,  the catastrophic flooding of 2010 and 2011 wasn’t mentioned once.] ISLAMABAD – More than two months after the August floods hit the southern Pakistan, millions of affected people are still at great risk […]

Graph of the Day: Temporal Change of Krill and Salps in the Southern Ocean, 1926-2003

a, Krill density in the SW Atlantic sector (4,948 stations in years with >50 stations). Temporal trends include b, post-1976 krill data from scientific trawls; c, 1926–2003 circumpolar salp data south of the SB. Regressions of log10(mean no. m-2) on year were calculated for cells with ≥3 years of data, weighted by number of stations […]

Amphibians face ‘terrifying’ rate of extinction

By Camila Ruz, www.guardian.co.uk 16 November 2011 If the current rapid extermination of animals, plants and other species really is the “sixth mass extinction”, then it is the amphibian branch of the tree of life that is undergoing the most drastic pruning. In research described as “terrifying” by an independent expert, scientists predict the future […]

Climate change episode of Frozen Planet won’t be shown in the U.S. as viewers don’t believe in global warming

November 15 (Daily Mail) – An episode of the BBC’s Frozen Planet documentary series that looks at climate change has been scrapped in the U.S., where many are hostile to the idea of global warming. British viewers will see all seven episodes of the multi-million-pound nature series throughout the Autumn. But U.S. audiences will not […]

‘Deadly synergy between beetles, blister rust, and climate change’ may doom rugged pine

By Craig Welch, The Seattle Times14 November 2011 SAWTOOTH RIDGE, Wash. — The bug lady scoots through stick-straight lodgepole and ponderosa, and marches uphill toward the gnarled trunk of a troubled species: the whitebark pine. The ghostly conifers found on chilly, wind-swept peaks like this may well be among the earliest victims of a warming […]

Is denial of climate change an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon? New study shows denialists more prominent in U.K. and U.S. media

By Leo Hickman 11 November 2011 During a trip to Italy earlier this year, I asked a local journalist whether climate sceptical views get much of an airing in the Italian media. My query was greeted with an air of slight bemusement, which was followed by a request for me to explain what I meant […]

Against expectations, U.S. West Coast birds are increasing in size as climate changes

By RACHEL NUWER3 November 2011 As we noted here in a recent post, a substantial body of research indicates that species tend to become smaller as a result of global warming and other climate change patterns. So researchers in California were surprised to find that West Coast birds, on the contrary, have been growing larger […]

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