New UN report cites ‘unprecedented high-impact climate extremes’ over past decade

3 July 2013 (UN) – The world experienced “unprecedented high-impact climate extremes” between 2001 and 2010 and more national temperature records were broken during that period than in any other decade, according to a United Nations report launched today. The report, The Global Climate 2001-2010, A Decade of Extremes, says the first decade of the […]

Experts see new normal as a hotter, drier U.S. West faces more huge fires – ‘The fire season has lengthened substantially, by two months, over the last 30 years’

By FELICITY BARRINGER and KENNETH CHANG, with additional reporting by Fernanda Santos and John Dougherty from Prescott, Arizona, and Jonathan Weisman from Washington1 July 2013 (The New York Times) – One of the deadliest wildfires in a generation vastly expanded Monday to cover more than 8,000 acres, sweeping up sharp slopes through dry scrub and […]

19 firefighters killed in Arizona blaze – ‘Our entire crew was lost’

‘ By Holly Yan1 July 2013 (CNN) – They were part of an elite squad who confronted wildfires up close, setting up barriers to stop their destructive spread. But the inferno blazing across central Arizona proved too much. The 19 firefighters were killed Sunday while fighting the Yarnell Hill fire, northwest of Phoenix. It was […]

Western United States swelters amid deadly heat – 72 percent of West now in drought

By Tim Gaynor, with additional reporting by Jane Sutton in Miami, Brad Poole in Tucson, Timothy Pratt in Las Vegas, and Marty Graham in San Diego; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Stacey Joyce30 June 2013 PHOENIX (Reuters) – A dangerous, record-breaking heat wave in the western United States contributed to the death of a Nevada […]

Lake Urmia water level decreases by 28 cm in one year

By Trend T.Jafarov29 June 2013 Azerbaijan, Baku (Trend) – Lake Urmia’s water level has dropped by another 28 centimeters compared to the same period last year, the head of the department of water and water resources of Iran’s Ministry of Energy, Alireza Daimi said, the İRNA agency reported on Saturday. According to Daimi, the increased […]

Humans play role in Australia’s ‘angry’ hot summer – ‘Due to greenhouse gas emissions, these types of extreme summers will become even more frequent and more severe in the future’

27 June 2013 (University of Melbourne) – Human influences through global warming are likely to have played a role in Australia’s recent “angry” hot summer, the hottest in Australia’s observational record, new research has found. The research led by the University of Melbourne, has shown that global warming increased the chances of Australians experiencing record […]

Global food security weakening ‘on a scale we haven’t seen yet’ – ‘Of all the resources we have, time is the scarcest’

By Laurie Goering28 June 2013 LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Population growth, rising affluence, water shortages, and climate change are combining to create unprecedented pressure on the world’s food supply – pressure that is likely to play out both as slow rises in hunger and as famines linked to extreme weather events, a leading agriculture […]

Transcript of President Obama’s climate change speech – ‘I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that’s beyond fixing’

By Tom Randall 25 June 2013 (Bloomberg) – Transcript of President Barack Obama’s speech at Georgetown University announcing his new climate-change policy: On Christmas Eve, 1968, the astronauts of Apollo 8 did a live broadcast from lunar orbit. So Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, William Anders — the first humans to orbit the moon — described […]

Image of the Day: Satellite view of Black Forest fire burn scar, 21 June 2013

By Adam Voiland21 June 2013 (NASA) – The first 911 call for the Black Forest fire came in on 11 June 2013. Nine days later, firefighters had fully contained the blaze, but not before it had devastated Black Forest, a wooded suburb of Colorado Springs, Colorado. In all, the fire charred more than 14,000 acres […]

Beetles to blame for Colorado fires? Blame climate change instead

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor25 June 2013 (NBC News) – Tiny, winged bark beetles have been the ecological bad guys of the West for more than a decade, and rightfully so. They’ve killed off millions of acres’ worth of trees in Colorado. Now all those dead trees are feeding the flames across tens of thousands […]

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