If global warming empties India – ‘The rapid evacuation of the tropics would cause migrants to concentrate in tropical margins and the subtropics, where population densities would increase by 300 percent or more’

By Gayathri Vaidyanathan9 June 2016 (ClimateWire) – In an armchair experiment where humans are thought of as no wiser than animals, scientists have found that climate change could empty some nations by 2100. A warming of 2 degrees Celsius would cause 34 percent of the world’s population to migrate more than 300 miles, to places […]

Alaska just had its warmest spring on record – ‘The temperature difference is huge’

By Suzanna Caldwell9 June 2016 (ADN) – Here’s something Alaskans already know: It’s been really warm this year. But how warm? Record-breaking warm. According to the National Center for Environmental Information, the spring average temperature for the entire state was 32 degrees this year. The normal average for the state is a brisk 24 degrees. […]

At 1,066 feet above rainforest, a view of the changing Amazon

By Daniel Grossman6 June 2016 (Yale e360) – We set off before dawn with my guide, Elton Mendes, steering a battered pickup through the Amazon jungle. He reached a hand out of the window and tugged on a stick tied to the wipers, squeegeeing drizzle off the windshield. After a short drive, he parked by […]

Arctic sea ice decline breaks May record by wide margin

By Bobby Magill7 June 2016 (Climate Central) – Arctic sea ice shrank to its lowest level in 38 years last month, setting a record low for the month of May and setting up conditions for what could become the smallest Arctic ice extent in history, according to National Snow and Ice Data Center data released […]

Greenland witnessed its highest June temperature ever recorded on Thursday – ‘We had to check that our models were still working properly’

By Jason Samenow and Angela Fritz 10 June 2016 (Washington Post) – Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, soared to 75 degrees (24 Celsius) Thursday, marking the warmest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic country during June. Nuuk sits on Greenland’s southwest coast, where the country’s warmest weather typically occurs. It was warmer in Nuuk than it was […]

U.S. Congress aims to cut climate science – Proposed cuts to NOAA and NASA target climate change research in particular

By Gayathri Vaidyanathan2 June 2016 (ClimateWire) – Congress is considering spending bills that would significantly cut funding for key climate change research by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2017. Among the losers: the oldest carbon dioxide observatories on the planet, the ability to track fossil fuel emissions in the United States […]

Video: Diving in the stench of millions of rotting animals at the bleached Great Barrier Reef

7 June 2016 (Guardian) – Richard Vevers from the Ocean Agency had never experienced anything like the devastation he witnessed in May diving around the dead and dying coral reefs off Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef. When his team emerged from the water, he says, ‘We realised we just stank – we stank […]

Greenpeace: More than 3.5 million hectares of forest burning in eastern Russia

By Khalimat Tekeeva3 June 2016 (Greenpeace) – According to analysis of recent satellite data, forest fires in eastern Russia currently cover more than 3.5 million hectares of forested land. An area larger than Belgium! And the fire season in Russia isn’t over yet. This year’s forest fires are close to becoming one of the most […]

Meteorologists are seeing the effects of global warming – ‘Whatever happened to normal weather?’

By Paul Douglas27 May 2016 (Guardian) – Whatever happened to normal weather? Earth has always experienced epic storms, debilitating drought, and biblical floods. But lately it seems the treadmill of disruptive weather has been set to fast-forward. God’s grand Symphony of the Seasons, the natural ebb and flow of the atmosphere, is playing out of […]

White House warned of growing methane danger from fracking – ‘Total greenhouse gas emissions have been rising since at their most rapid rate ever, due to shale gas development and large methane emissions’

[cf. Our leaders thought fracking would save our climate – ‘Methane emissions are substantially higher than we’ve understood’] By Blaine Friedlander2 June 2016 (Cornell Chronicle) – As methane intensifies greenhouse gas in the atmosphere – propelling average global temperatures higher toward the brink of no return – Cornell’s Robert Howarth briefed the White House’s Office […]

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