By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer8 January 2013 WASHINGTON (AP) – America set an off-the-charts heat record in 2012. A brutal combination of a widespread drought and a mostly absent winter pushed the average annual U.S. temperature last year up to 55.32 degrees Fahrenheit, the government announced Tuesday. That’s a full degree warmer than the […]
By Jeremy Hance2 January 2013 (mongabay.com) – In the western U.S., few trees generally grow in higher altitudes than the whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis). Providing shelter and food for bears, squirrels and birds, the whitebark pine ecosystems also help regulate water flow from snowmelt. But, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the […]
By Peter Hannam, Carbon economy editor8 January 2013 Australia’s “exceptional” heatwave has produced record-breaking temperatures, with at least six of the first seven days of 2013 among the top 20 hottest days in the past century. The extreme January heat has prompted the Bureau of Meteorology to issue a special climate statement, with further updates […]
Contact: Media Relations Munich, Michael Able, Tel.: +49 (89) 3891-2934Media contact in Asia, Nikola Kemper, Tel.: +852 2536 6936 Media Relations USA, Beate Monastiridis-Dörr, Tel.: +1 (609) 243-4622 3 January 2013 Munich (Munich Re) – The USA accounted for a higher proportion of global natural catastrophe losses than usual in 2012, due to a series […]
By Caroline Stauffer, with additional reporting by Jeb Blount; Editing by Brian Winter and Vicki Allen4 January 2013 SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazil’s Northeast is suffering its worst drought in decades, threatening hydro-power supplies in an area prone to blackouts and potentially slowing economic growth in one of the country’s emerging agricultural frontiers. Lack of […]
By Kevin Murphy, with additional reporting by Greg McCune and Christine Stebbins; Editing by Claudia Parsons31 December 2012 LIBERAL, Kansas (Reuters) – Real estate agent Mark Faulkner recalls a day in early November when he was putting up a sign near Ulysses, Kansas, in 60-miles-per-hour winds that blew up blinding dust clouds. “There were places […]
6 January 2012 (BBC) – Australian police are searching fire-ravaged towns in southern Tasmania looking for 100 unaccounted people. Tasmania’s police commissioner said he feared lives may have been lost in the wildfires which swept through parts of the island in recent days. Almost 3,000 people have been evacuated from their homes, many stranded in […]
By John Roach, NBC News 6 January 2013 Melting glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland may push up global sea levels more than 3 feet by the end of this century, according to a scientific poll of experts that brings a degree of clarity to a murky and controversial slice of climate science. Such a rise […]
By Stephanie Gardiner7 January 2013 THE heatwave Sydney has managed to avoid is due to hit on Tuesday, as firefighters prepare for the most dangerous bushfire conditions in years in the city and around the state. […] Some of the hottest areas in the state at the weekend were in the far west and the […]
By Marie Doezema1 January 2013 PARIS, France (Global Post) – From rising shorelines to devastating hurricanes, the visible effects scientists say climate change is wreaking on daily life no longer surprise many people around the world. The French have their own take on just how radically life may change. “In 20 years, the English will […]
