NASA finds 2011 ninth-warmest year on record

Text issued as NASA Headquarters release No. 12-020Steve Cole, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., 202-358-0918stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov Leslie McCarthy, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, N.Y., 212-678-5507leslie.m.mccarthy@nasa.gov 19 January 2012 The global average surface temperature in 2011 was the ninth warmest since 1880, according to NASA scientists. The finding continues a trend in which nine of […]

Brazil begins preliminary damming of Xingu River as protests continue

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com19 January 2012 Damming of the Xingu River has begun in Brazil to make way for the eventual construction of the hugely controversial, Belo Monte dam. The Norte Energia (NESA) consortium has begun building coffer dams across the Xingu, which will dry out parts of the river before permanent damming, reports the […]

U.S. releases draft strategy for responding to climate change impacts

Contact: David T. Eisenhauer (FWS), 703-358-2284      John Ewald (NOAA), 202-482-3978      Laura MacLean (AFWA), 202-624-7744      19 January 2012 WASHINGTON – In partnership with state, tribal, and federal agency partners, the Obama Administration today released the first draft national strategy to help decision makers and resource managers prepare for and help reduce the impacts of climate change […]

Michael Mann: The climate scientist targeted by the fossil fuel industry – ‘Scientists have to recognise that they’re in a street fight’

  By Steve Connor16 January 2012 He is one of the most vilified men in the highly vilified field of climate science, yet Professor Michael Mann is surprisingly jolly. Despite being the focus of a brutal campaign orchestrated by the fossil-fuel industry and senior politicians within the US Republican Party, Mann’s cheery stoicism is positively […]

How will global warming negatively affect water supplies in the U.S.?

By Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss 15 January 2012 Q: How is it that global warming could negatively impact water supplies in the U.S.? Climate change promises to have a very big impact on water supplies in the United States as well as around the world. A recent study commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense […]

The Limits to Growth at forty: Is collapse now inevitable?

By Mícheál O’Callaghan18 January 2012 Forty years ago, a group of Scientists investigated what the world would look like if we continued on our path of exponential economic growth, with a continued growth in population, pollution and industry. The study resulted in the publishing of the eye opening book, The Limits to Growth, which would […]

Graph of the Day: Area Covered by Temperature Anomalies, 1900-2010

By J. Hansen, M. Sato, and R. Ruedy10 November 2011 Abstract: The “climate dice” describing the chance of an unusually warm or cool season, relative to the climatology of 1951-1980, have progressively become more “loaded” during the past 30 years, coincident with increased global warming. The most dramatic and important change of the climate dice […]

Sea level rise from global warming poses big threat to Washington, D.C.

By Andrew Freedman17 January 2012 Global warming-related sea level rise constitutes a major threat to the nation’s capital, with the potential to inundate national monuments, museums, military bases, and parts of the Metro Rail system during the next several decades and beyond, according to a recent study published in the journal Risk Analysis. The study […]

China report spells out ‘extremely grim’ climate change risks

By Chris Buckley; Editing by David Fogarty17 January 2012 BEIJING (Reuters) – Global warming threatens China’s march to prosperity by cutting crops, shrinking rivers and unleashing more droughts and floods, says the government’s latest assessment of climate change, projecting big shifts in how the nation feeds itself. The warnings are carried in the government’s “Second […]

Risk of extreme climate events is largely underestimated: statisticians

By Nicolas Guérin, Mediacom18 January 2012 EPFL mathematicians have shown that the risk of extreme climate events is largely underestimated. They are developing a model for better understanding the impact of climate change. Remember the 2003 heat wave? According to the standard weather models, it was impossible. Mathematicians from EPFL’s Chair of Statistics, however, say […]

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