Recent burning of boreal forests exceeds fire regime limits of the past 10,000 years – ‘This suggests a transition to a unique regime of unprecedented fire activity’

ABSTRACT: Wildfire activity in boreal forests is anticipated to increase dramatically, with far-reaching ecological and socioeconomic consequences. Paleorecords are indispensible for elucidating boreal fire regime dynamics under changing climate, because fire return intervals and successional cycles in these ecosystems occur over decadal to centennial timescales. We present charcoal records from 14 lakes in the Yukon […]

Pentagon signals security risks of global warming – ‘Droughts and crop failures can leave millions of people without any lifeline, and trigger waves of mass migration’

By Coral Davenport13 October 2014 WASHINGTON (The New York Times) – The Pentagon on Monday released a report asserting decisively that climate change poses an immediate threat to national security, with increased risks from terrorism, infectious disease, global poverty, and food shortages. It also predicted rising demand for military disaster responses as extreme weather creates […]

Sea level rise over past century unmatched in 6,000 years – ‘What we’ve seen is unusual, certainly unprecedented for these interglacial periods’

By Oliver Milman    13 October 2014 (theguardian.com) – The rise in sea levels seen over the past century is unmatched by any period in the past 6,000 years, according to a lengthy analysis of historical sea level trends. The reconstruction of 35,000 years of sea level fluctuations finds that there is no evidence that levels […]

Graph of the Day: Distribution of temperature anomalies in Australia and the western tropical Pacific, 1881-2013

September 2014 (BAMS) – Seasonal and annual temperature anomalies around the globe were highly skewed toward positive (warm) extremes in 2013, as in the recent few decades. Although global warming has been described as “pausing” since 2000, global temperatures remain at anomalously high levels, and warm annual and seasonal temperature extremes continue to far outpace […]

Ocean algae can evolve fast to tackle climate change – ‘Evolutionary processes need to be considered when predicting the effects of a warming and acidifying ocean on phytoplankton’

  By Alister Doyle; Editing by Rosalind Russell14 September 2014 OSLO (Reuters) – Tiny marine algae can evolve fast enough to cope with climate change in a sign that some ocean life may be more resilient than thought to rising temperatures and acidification, a study showed. Evolution is usually omitted in scientific projections of how […]

Graph of the Day: Forest area burned and number of forest fires in Canada, 2003-2013

(Natural Resources Canada) – In 2013, a total of 6,246 forest fires burned about 4.2 million hectares. The number of fires was about 10% lower than the 10-year average, yet the area burned was almost double the 10-year average. […] Quebec had an extremely active fire season, with about 1.8 million hectares burned – over […]

Video: Super Typhoon Vongfong seen from International Space Station

10 October 2014 (NASA) – The cameras on the International Space Station captured this video of Super Typhoon Vongfong on 9 October 2014. Super Typhoon Vongfong Seen From ISS Technorati Tags: hurricane,Japan,Asia,global warming,climate change,NASA

With dry taps and toilets, California drought turns desperate – ‘You don’t think of water as privilege until you don’t have it anymore’

By Jennifer Medina2 October 2014 PORTERVILLE, California (The New York Times) – After a nine-hour day working at a citrus packing plant, her body covered in a sheen of fruit wax and dust, there is nothing Angelica Gallegos wants more than a hot shower, with steam to help clear her throat and lungs. “I can […]

Greenland Ice Sheet more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought – ‘Extreme meteorological events, such as heavy rainfall and heat waves, can have a large effect on the rate of ice loss’

Contact: Sarah Collinssarah.collins@admin.cam.ac.uk44-012-233-32300University of Cambridge@Cambridge_Uni29 September 2014 (University of Cambridge) – A new model developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge has shown that despite its apparent stability, the massive ice sheet covering most of Greenland is more sensitive to climate change than earlier estimates have suggested, which would accelerate the rising sea levels […]

Image of the Day: Super Typhoon Vongfong viewed from the International Space Station – “I’ve seen many from here, but none like this”

9 October 2014 (NBC News) – NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted an image of Super Typhoon Vongfong in the western Pacific Ocean from the International Space Station on Thursday commenting, “I’ve seen many from here, but none like this.” The most powerful storm of 2014 continues to swirl towards Japan with maximum winds of 165 […]

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