Arctic sea ice shrinks to smallest extent ever recorded

By John Vidal and Adam Vaughan, www.guardian.co.uk14 September 2012 Sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk to its smallest extent ever recorded, smashing the previous record minimum and prompting warnings of accelerated climate change. Satellite images show that the rapid summer melt has reduced the area of frozen sea to less than 3.5 million square […]

Graph of the Day: Union Membership in the U.S. and Canada, 1920-2009

Contact: Alan Barber (202) 293-5380 x11528 August 2012 Washington, D.C. (CEPR) – Unionization in the United States has been on the decline since the 1960s. While many reasons have been offered to explain this drop in the rate of unionization, a new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research highlights the roles that […]

Ozone layer recovery to take 40 years: World Meteorological Organization

Contact: Clare Nullis, Press Officer, WMO, Tel +41 (0)22 730 8478 Michael Williams, Chief, Communications and Public Affairs. Tel: +41 (0)22 730 8315 GENEVA, 14 September 2012 (WMO) – An international agreement to phase out chemicals which attack the Earth’s vital ozone shield celebrates its 25th anniversary as a showcase for successful global environmental cooperation, […]

Georgia governor declines to declare drought

By Neela Banerjee16 September 2012 FAYETTEVILLE, Georgia (Los Angeles Times) – In this southern suburb of Atlanta, the lawns skirting the million-dollar homes are lush, and the swimming pools full. But farther south, the Flint River has thinned into mud flats at a time of year when surges of white water would normally be crashing […]

Graph of the Day: Change in Vegetation Cover by Biome across Latin America, 2001-2010

By Rhett A. Butler, www.mongabay.com20 August 2012 Latin America lost nearly 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 square miles) of forest — an area larger than the state of Oregon — between 2001 and 2010, finds a new study [pdf] that is the first to assess both net forest loss and regrowth across the Caribbean, Central and […]

West Nile virus outbreak worst ever in U.S. – Outbreaks may get worse as climate gets hotter, experts say

By Jon Bardin10 September 2012 (Los Angeles Times) – West Nile virus has caused symptoms in at least 1,993 Americans and killed 87 so far this year. And it’s unlikely that this virus, which humans contract from infected mosquitoes, will be getting any less dangerous in the near future. Though the CDC believes that this […]

Arctic has lost enough sea ice to cover Canada and Alaska

By Michael D. Lemonick 11 September 2012 The official end of the Arctic Ocean melt season could come any time now, but the sea ice that covers the North Polar region has already smashed the previous record low for end-of-summer ice area set in 2007. Back then, a combination of warm temperatures and ice-dispersing winds […]

Republican meteorologist to Mitt Romney: My top ten reasons for Republicans to accept reality of climate change

By Paul Douglas10 September 2012 During the Republican National Convention in Tampa, climate change became a punch line. “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet,” Mitt Romney said. (Pause for polite laughter) “My promise is to help you and your family.” All well and good. But […]

Graph of the Day: Increase in Total Annual Precipitation in the U.S. versus Storm Size, 1948-2011

This figure shows that the very largest storms are getting bigger, faster, than other storms. All storm categories are defined relative to the local climate at each weather station used in this analysis. For example, the far right column represents the change over time in the amount of total precipitation produced by the largest 0.1 […]

Coastline erosion due to sea level rise greater than previously thought: new study

4 September 2012 (PhysOrg) – A new model allows researchers at UNESCO-IHE, Delft University of Technology and Deltares to much more accurately predict coastline erosion due to rising sea levels. It would appear that the effects of coastline erosion as a result of rising sea-level rise in the vicinity of inlets, such as river estuaries, […]

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