By Michael Hiltzik20 January 2014 (Los Angeles Times) – Aaron Carroll today offers a graphic depiction of the toll of the anti-vaccination movement. (H/t: Kevin Drum.) It comes from a Council on Foreign Relations interactive map of “vaccine-preventable outbreaks” worldwide 2008-2014. A couple of manifestations stand out. One is the prevalence of measles in Europe […]
25 January 2014 (The Economist) – Since climate change was identified as a serious threat to the planet, Europe has been in the vanguard of the effort to mitigate it. The policies it has adopted are designed with two aims in mind: to cut European emissions drastically and to push other big emitters into adopting […]
By John R. Platt 8 January 2014 (Scientific American) – Physically and emotionally demanding. That’s how Philipp Henschel, Lion Program Survey Coordinator for the big-cat conservation organization Panthera, describes the six years he and other researchers spent combing the wilds of 17 nations looking for the elusive and rarely studied West African lion. The results […]
By Jason Samenow 14 January 2014 (Washington Post) – A controversy is simmering Down Under over blistering temperatures and the safety of tennis players at the Australian Open, played in Melbourne. “The Canadian Frank Dancevic slammed Australian Open organisers for forcing players to compete in “inhumane” conditions after he collapsed on court as temperatures rose […]
Off The Charts: 2013 Australia’s Hottest Year. Technorati Tags: Australia,heat wave,global warming,climate change
By Holli Riebeek8 January 2014 (NASA) – A deadly heatwave left its signature on the land in Argentina. This image is a compilation of land surface temperatures observed by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite between December 19 -26, 2013, compared to average temperatures for the same period in 2000-2012. Nearly […]
By PATRICK COUNIHAN4 January 2014 (IrishCentral) – The latest storms to hit Ireland will cost the economy almost half a billion dollars – with more on the way over the weekend. Record tides and devastating flood and gales lashed the country on Friday with Ireland’s weather forecast service warning of a repeat on Sunday. Experts […]
3 January 2014 (ABC) – Australia has just sweltered through its hottest year on record, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. Average temperatures were 1.20 degrees Celsius above the long-term average of 21.8C, breaking the previous record set in 2005 by 0.17C, the bureau said in its Annual Climate Statement. All states and territories recorded […]
18 November 2013 (World Bank) – Since the 1980s, there has been an upward trend in disaster losses. During the 1980–2012 period, estimated total reported losses due to disasters amounted to US$3.8 trillion. Weather-related or hydro-meteorological disasters accounted for 74% (US$2.6 tril- lion) of total reported losses, 87% (18,200) of total disasters, and 61% (1.4 […]
By Michael E. Mann and Gavin Schmidt2 January 2014 (RealClimate.org) – This time last year we gave an overview of what different methods of assessing climate sensitivity were giving in the most recent analyses. We discussed the three general methods that can be used: The first is to focus on a time in the past […]
