By Dr. Jeff Masters 31 December 2012 The 2012 U.S. fire season was the 3rd worst in U.S. history, with 9.2 million acres burned – an area larger than the state of Maryland. Since the National Interagency Fire Center began keeping records in 1960, only two years have seen more area burned – 2006, when […]
By Andrew Freedman, Michael Lemonick, and Dan Yawitz27 December 2012 (Climate Central) – From unprecedented heat waves that shattered “Dust Bowl” era records from the 1930s, to Hurricane Sandy, which devastated coastal New Jersey and New York, 2012 was the year Mother Nature had it out for the U.S. No country on Earth rivaled the […]
State, nation also note low rainfall totals for 2012By Jeff Montgomery and Molly Murray 29 December 2012 (The News Journal) – When the New Year rings in at midnight Monday, scientists will book 2012 as the hottest and one of the driest on record for the nation and the Northeast – including Delaware and New […]
By Hector Becerra28 December 2012 (Los Angeles Times) – A Lake Tahoe-area resort ski patrol member for nearly 30 years, Bill Foster would have understood the dangers of avalanches better than most. But even knowing the exact date and time of a planned avalanche didn’t save the 53-year-old’s life. Moments after another member of the […]
NEW YORK, 24 December 2012 (UPI) – A projected drop in the Colorado River’s flow could disrupt longtime water-sharing agreements between farms and cities in the U.S. Southwest, researchers say. Climate modelers at Columbia University report a predicted 10 percent drop in the river’s flow in the next few decades may signal water shortages for […]
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE24 December 2012 LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico (The New York Times) — Everywhere, trees are dying. The boreal forests of Canada and Russia are being devoured by beetles. Drought-tolerant pines are disappearing in Greece. In North Africa, Atlas cedars are shriveling. Wet and dry tropical forests in Asia are collapsing. Australian eucalyptus […]
By Ugo Bardi13 December 2012 In 2003, I attended my first conference on peak oil, in Paris. Everything was new for me: the subject, the people, the ideas. It was there that I could meet for the first time those larger than life figures of ASPO, the association for the study of peak oil. I […]
TARAWA, 22 December 2012 (Pina/Rnzi) – The Commonwealth Secretary-General has appealed to governments of developed countries to travel to Kiribati to witness the country’s vulnerability to climate change impacts. Kamalesh Sharma most recently visited Kiribati last month when he says he saw the devastation caused by the rising tide on an archipelago that largely stands […]
By Philip Bump 21 December 2012 As our friends at 350.org like to remind us, climate change really comes down to math. Put x amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, see y degrees of warming. Our goal — meaning, our goal as an evolved, aware species that would rather not be plagued by droughts […]
By Jim Salter23 December 2012 ST. LOUIS (AP) – From sunken steamboats to a millennium-old map engraved in rock, the drought-drained rivers of the nation’s midsection are offering a rare and fleeting glimpse into years gone by. Lack of rain has left many rivers at low levels unseen for decades, creating problems for river commerce […]
