Caption by Holli Riebeek22 April 2011 So far in 2011, more than 1.4 million acres have burned in Texas. Some 800 fires have occurred throughout the state, burning 401 structures and costing two firefighters their lives. Why is fire activity so extreme in Texas this year? This image, made with data collected by the Moderate […]
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News21 April 2011 The Antarctic ozone hole is about one-third to blame for Australia’s recent series of droughts, scientists say. Writing in the journal Science, they conclude that the hole has shifted wind and rainfall patterns right across the Southern Hemisphere, even the tropics. Their climate models suggest the […]
NAIROBI, 20 April 2011 (IRIN) – Officials and aid workers in Somalia’s Middle Shabelle region have raised the alarm over the plight of drought-stricken villagers urgently needing food and water. “We are experiencing the worst drought we have seen in decades; since the beginning of March, we have buried 54 people who died from the […]
By Ben Blanchard; Editing by Chris Lewis and Robert Birsel20 April 2011 BEIJING (Reuters) – Gradually rising sea levels caused by global warming over the past 30 years have contributed to a growing number of disasters along China’s coast, state news agency Xinhua said on Wednesday. Sea levels along China’s coastline had risen 2.6 mm […]
By Jim Forsyth; Editing by Jerry Norton18 April 2011 SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) – Texas Governor Rick Perry has requested a Major Disaster Declaration for the entire state, as brush fires which have burned more than 1.5 million acres continued on Monday. The fires have been whipped by 60-mile-an-hour wind gusts and fueled by brush dried out […]
By Wynne Parry, LiveScience Senior Writer17 April 2011 In the high latitudes, climate change projections must take a new factor into account: Ice. In the Arctic, the loss of sea ice is likely to have dramatic repercussions, including greater erosion, which can present problems for the people and economic activity in this region, according to […]
Dallas, April 18 (CNN) — Texas authorities have made an arrest in connection with one of hundreds of blazes scorching the state in what a Forest Service official called the “perfect storm for wildfires.” … Firefighters are battling some of the driest conditions Texas has seen in nearly a century. April Saginor, a spokeswoman with […]
April 16 (NPR) — National Parks Week kicks off Saturday, but the celebration comes at a rough time for National Parks. Harried by federal funding cuts and urban development, the nation’s park system is also facing the rising threat of climate change. Those effects are becoming most visible in Yellowstone, one of the best known […]
By Rob Hotakainen, McClatchy Newspapers14 April 2011 WASHINGTON — In Canada’s Fraser River, a mysterious illness has killed millions of Pacific salmon, and scientists have a new hypothesis about why: The wild salmon are suffering from viral infections similar to those linked to some forms of leukemia and lymphoma. For 60 years before the early […]
By Richard Black 14 April 2011 Just how …….d are the world’s oceans? I’ve put the dots in that sentence so you can insert the word of your choice. According to a high-level seminar of experts in Oxford earlier this week, there’s one word starting with the letter S that would fit quite well, a […]
