Poisonous smog returns to Moscow

  15 August 2010 MOSCOW (AP) — The poisonous smog that contributed to a higher death rate in Moscow last week returned to Russia’s capital Sunday, officials said. The concentration of carbon monoxide in Moscow air early Sunday was more than five times what is considered normal, said Alexey Popikov of weather monitors Mosecomonitoring. In […]

NASA satellites register 368 wildfires in Russia

MOSCOW, August 14 (RIA Novosti) Two NASA satellites registered a total of 368 hotspots from fires across Russia on Saturday, with the central part of the country being the worst affected, a spokeswoman for the ScanEx company said. “Wildfires raging on vast areas and smoke blankets can be clearly seen even on satellite photos of […]

WMO: Unprecedented sequence of extreme weather events is consistent with climate change

Last updated: 11 August 2010 Several regions of the world are currently coping with severe weather-related events: flash floods and widespread flooding in large parts of Asia and parts of Central Europe while other regions are also affected: by heatwave and drought in Russian Federation, mudslides in China and severe droughts in sub-Saharan Africa. While […]

Russia’s peatland fires seen burning for months

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent Wed Aug 11, 2010 12:04pm EDT OSLO (Reuters) – Some of Russia’s smog-causing peatland fires are likely to burn for months, part of a global problem of drained marshes that emit climate-warming greenhouse gases, experts said on Wednesday. Novel carbon markets could offer a long-term fix for peat bogs, from […]

Russia reports 25 percent grain losses from drought, fires

By VOA News and wire services12 August 2010 Russian President Dmitri Medvedev says a full one-quarter of Russia’s grain crops have been destroyed by weeks of drought and wildfires, leaving many Russian farmers close to bankruptcy. Mr. Medvedev spoke Thursday to farmers and grain traders in southern Russia, calling the situation “difficult” and even “extreme.” […]

Record droughts, floods, and fires strain food markets’ resilience

By NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD of ClimateWireAugust 12, 2010 UNITED NATIONS — A string of devastating natural disasters many are attributing to climate change has sent food prices on a roller coaster ride, leading to fears of a wave of climate-induced food price shocks of the sort that sparked rioting in the developing world two years ago. […]

Desperate villagers fight advancing flames near Moscow

By Staff WritersAug 11, 2010 Zdorovie, Russia (AFP) — Armed with just spades and sand from a nearby river, villagers in Zdorovie near Moscow joined firefighters to save their homes from flames engulfing an adjoining forest. Zdorovie, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of Moscow, had been spared from wildfires that enveloped western Russia for […]

Graph of the Day: Temperature Anomalies for the Russian Federation, 20-27 July 2010

Caption by Michon ScottAugust 9, 2010 In the summer of 2010, the Russian Federation had to contend with multiple natural hazards: drought in the southern part of the country, and raging fires in western Russia and eastern Siberia. The events all occurred against the backdrop of unusual warmth. Bloomberg reported that temperatures in parts of […]

Officials point to Russia drought and Asia deluge as consistent with climate change

  By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com August 08, 2010 Government officials are pointing to the drought and wildfires in Russia, and the floods across Central and East Asia as consistent with climate change predictions. While climatologists say that a single weather event cannot be linked directly to a warming planet, patterns of worsening storms, severer droughts, […]

Death rate doubles in Moscow’s smoke, heat crisis

By Nastassia Astrasheuskaya and Alexei Anishchuk; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Paul TaylorMon Aug 9, 2010 9:36am EDT (Reuters) – Scorching heat and acrid smoke have nearly doubled death rates in Moscow, a city official said Monday, as a shroud of smog from raging forest and peat fires beset Russia’s capital for a third week. […]

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