Plan to dump sandbags on Australia beaches to protect homes from rising seas

 By MATTHEW MOORE, URBAN AFFAIRS EDITORApril 2, 2010 OWNERS of houses at risk of being washed into the sea will have the right to dump protective sandbags, weighing up to one tonne each, on public beaches for 12 months without seeking council approval, under new draft laws. And home owners will also be able to […]

NASA's TRMM satellite maps Cyclone Paul's extreme rainfall totals in Australia

By Rob Gutro, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite has been called a “flying rain gauge in space” because it measures rainfall from its orbit around the earth. This week, ex-tropical storm Paul gave TRMM a workout measuring heavy rainfall the storm left behind in areas of northern […]

Desperate Australia farmers volunteer to sell water entitlements

By DEBRA JOPSONMarch 30, 2010 SIXTY drought-affected farmers living on more than 100 kilometres of an irrigation channel in the state’s south-west, who have volunteered to stop growing rice and thirsty cereals, expect an offer this week from the federal government for their water entitlements. In a desperate move, which for many will end their […]

Countries blame China, not nature, for water shortage

By THOMAS FULLERPublished: April 1, 2010 BANGKOK — In southern China, the worst drought in at least 50 years has dried up farmers’ fields and left tens of millions of people short of water. But the drought has also created a major public relations problem for the Chinese government in neighboring countries, where in recent […]

Southern California beach erosion is worst in a decade

Powerful winter storms sweep away a spectacular amount of sand, leaving a rugged landscape of rock and cliff-side staircases that drop off into the air. By Tony Barboza April 2, 2010 Jeremy and Fernando Gutierrez descended a staircase to a cove in Laguna Beach for a nighttime lobster dive and almost fell into the ocean. […]

Ken Salazar: Water a ‘ticking time bomb’ for California

The U.S. Interior secretary discusses water infrastructure and climate change legislation with Times editors and reporters. March 22, 2010 Below are excerpts from a conversation Monday morning between U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Times reporters and editorial board members. Dan Turner, L.A. Times: I know that you’ve been involved in the climate bill talks. […]

Despite the rain, California drought lingers — ‘Agriculture will have another year of record acres unfarmed’

California needs much more to beat effect of three dry years By Mark Grossi, mgrossi@fresnobee.comand John Holland, jholland@modbee.com The Sierra Nevada snowpack has improved. Waterfalls are starting to thunder in Yosemite Valley. A spring storm adds to the bounty. It’s time to celebrate the end of the state’s three-year drought. Right? Wrong. The El Niño-powered […]

Graph of the Day: Global Average Temperature, 1850-2009

HadCRUT3 Diagnostics: global average (NH+SH)/2 Calculating the global mean as the mean of the northern and southern hemisphere averages helps prevent the value becoming dominated by the Northern hemisphere, where there are more observations. Technorati Tags: global warming,climate change

Image of the Day: Dried Riverbed in Kenya

A young boy from the Turkana tribe stands on a dried up riverbed on November 9, 2009 near Lodwar, Kenya. (Christopher Furlong / Getty Images) Scenes from Kenya Technorati Tags: drought,freshwater depletion,Africa,Kenya,desertification,global warming,climate change

Desert spreading like ‘cancer,’ Egypt conference told

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AFP) – The desert is making a comeback in the Middle East, with fertile lands turning into barren wastes that could further destabilise the region, experts said at a water conference on Thursday. “Desertification spreads like cancer, it can’t be noticed immediately,” said Wadid Erian, a soil expert with the Arab League, at […]

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