Frack the USA: New map shows 1 million oil, gas wells

By Bobby Magill27 March 2014 (Climate Central) – If you’re wondering where oil and gas production and hydraulic fracturing are happening near you, FracTracker has a new mapping tool that will help you find out. Researchers at FracTracker, an independent oil and gas research group that started as a mapping project at the University of […]

New index reveals that recent UK floods could signal climate change – ‘To experience four of the six most severe episodes in the last 30 years is disconcerting’

21 March 2014 (PhysOrg) – A new investigation of long-term weather records suggests that recent flooding in the south of England could signal the onset of climate change. The research, from UWE Bristol, Loughborough University and the University of East Anglia has produced a new index of flooding trends called the Fluvial Flood Indices. This […]

It’s been exactly 29 years since Earth had a colder-than-average month

By Andrew Freedman20 March 2014 (Mashable) – It’s been exactly 29 years — or 348 consecutive months — since the last cooler-than-average month on this planet, according to new data released on Wednesday morning. The data, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), reflects the warming trend seen around the world during the past […]

A remarkably accurate global warming prediction, made in 1972

By Dana Nuccitelli    19 March 2014 (Guardian) – John Stanley (J.S.) Sawyer was a British meteorologist born in 1916. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1962, and was also a Fellow of the Meteorological Society and the organization’s president from 1963 to 1965. A paper [pdf] authored by Sawyer and published […]

Global warming speeds up methane emissions from freshwater

By Tim Radford20 March 2014 (Climate News Network) – Methane or natural gas is a greenhouse gas. Weight for weight, it is more than 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a century, and researchers have repeatedly examined the contribution of natural gas emitted by ruminant cattle to global warming. But Gabriel Yvon-Durocher […]

Climate change will reduce crop yields much earlier than we thought – ‘Climate change means a less predictable harvest, with different countries winning and losing in different years’

16 March 2014 (PhysOrg) – A study led by the University of Leeds has shown that global warming of only 2°C will be detrimental to crops in temperate and tropical regions, with reduced yields from the 2030s onwards. Professor Andy Challinor, from the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds and lead […]

Climate change felt in deep waters of Antarctica – A surge in freshwater at the surface may have shut down mixing of water layers in the Weddell Sea

By  Sarah Zielinski3 March 2014 (smithsonianmag.com) – In 1974, just a couple years after the launch of the first Landsat satellite, scientists noticed something odd in the Weddell Sea near Antarctica. There was a large ice-free area, called a polynya, in the middle of the ice pack. The polynya, which covered an area as large […]

Drought sends beef prices soaring, with no relief in sight – U.S. cattle herd the smallest since 1951

By Joe Taschler3 March 2014 (Journal Sentinel) – Next time you bite into a big, juicy hamburger, don’t be surprised if it bites back — at your bank account. Unrelenting drought across large swaths of the Great Plains, Texas, and California has led to the smallest U.S. cattle herd since 1951, shrinking the supply of […]

Global warming: No pause in the increase of hot temperature extremes

By Sonia I. Seneviratne, Markus G. Donat, Brigitte Mueller, and Lisa V. Alexander    26 February 2014 (Nature Climate Change) – Observational data show a continued increase of hot extremes over land during the so-called global warming hiatus. This tendency is greater for the most extreme events and thus more relevant for impacts than changes in […]

Europe flood losses to soar by 2050 – ‘Due to climate change and GDP growth, by 2050 a one-in-50-years-flood might be one in 30 years, so the frequency of such losses increases dramatically – almost doubling’

By Nina Chestney; Editing by Tom Heneghan2 March 2014 LONDON (Reuters) – Extreme floods like those swamping parts of Britain in recent months could become more frequent in Europe by 2050, more than quadrupling financial losses, if climate change worsens and more people live in vulnerable areas, research showed on Sunday. The study said instances […]

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial