US Antarctic expert Eric Rignot on climate science in the age of Trump – “There’s a lot at stake here”

By Veronika Meduna 14 February 2017 (The Spinoff) – US-based glaciologist Eric Rignot is in New Zealand this week to talk about polar ice sheets and their potential to add to predicted sea level rise. He tells Veronika Meduna that it’s more important than ever to discuss climate science and what it’s like to be […]

Insurance industry grapples with potential losses from climate change

By Michael Lee19 February 2017 (Crain’s Detroit Business) – Climate change presents a knotty problem — and big risks — for insurers. Severe weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes and droughts are expected to occur with more frequency as the climate warms up, experts say. That presents the risk of greater losses for insurers to […]

Trump energizes the anti-vaccine movement in Texas

By Lena H. Sun 20 February 2017 AUSTIN (The Washington Post) – The group of 40 people gathered at a popular burger and fish taco restaurant in San Antonio listened eagerly to the latest news about the anti-vaccine fight taking place in the Texas legislature. Some mothers in the group had stopped immunizing their young […]

Global warming saps the Colorado River – Flow could fall 55 percent by 2100

By John Fleck19 February 2017 (inkstain) –  A warming climate is already reducing the flow in the Colorado River, and the future risk is large, with a worst case of the river’s flow being cut in half by the end of the century, according to a new study from a pair of the region’s leading […]

New research shows how rapid growth in resource use, land use, emissions, and pollution makes humans the dominant driver of changes in Earth’s natural systems

COLLEGE PARK, Maryland, 9 February 2017 (University of Maryland) – A new scientific paper by a University of Maryland-led international team of distinguished scientists, including five members of the National Academies, argues that there are critical two-way feedbacks missing from current climate models that are used to inform environmental, climate, and economic policies. The most […]

Canada glaciers now major contributor to sea level rise – Nine times more ice is melting annually due to warmer temperatures

Irvine, California, 14 February 2017 (University of California, Irvine) – Ice loss from Canada’s Arctic glaciers has transformed them into a major contributor to sea level change, new research by University of California, Irvine glaciologists has found. From 2005 to 2015, surface melt off ice caps and glaciers of the Queen Elizabeth Islands grew by […]

Global ocean de-oxygenation quantified – “The oxygen losses in the ocean can have far-reaching consequences”

KIEL, 15 February 2017 (Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel) – The ongoing global change causes rising ocean temperatures and changes the ocean circulation. Therefore less oxygen is dissolved in surface waters and less oxygen is transported into the deep sea. This reduction of oceanic oxygen supply has major consequences for the organisms in the […]

Damage mounts after Australia wildfires and record heat – “To put it simply, conditions are off the old scale. It is without precedent in NSW.”

SYDNEY, 12 February 2017 (AFP) – Australia was counting the cost to property and livestock Monday after firefighters battled weekend blazes in some of the hottest conditions on record. At least 19 homes were destroyed in eastern Australia as emergency teams were sent out to assess the damage after a “catastrophic” weekend saw over 100 […]

Oklahoma temperatures hit nearly 100°F in the dead of winter, because global warming is real

By Jeremy Deaton14 February 2017 (ThinkProgress) – Two years ago this month, in a well-publicized and much lampooned political stunt, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) brought a snowball to the Senate floor to highlight the “unseasonable” cold and cast doubt on climate change. The Republican lawmaker would have been hard-pressed to find a snowball anywhere in […]

Global hydropower boom will add to global warming – “Reservoirs are major emitters of methane, a particularly aggressive greenhouse gas”

By Claire Salisbury14 February 2017 (Mongabay) – From the Amazon Basin to boreal forests, and from the Mekong to the Himalayan foothills, rivers worldwide are being targeted for major new dams in a global hydropower boom that also aims to supply drinking water to exploding human populations and to facilitate navigation on the planet’s rivers; […]

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