8 January 2019 (The Economist) – Democracy stopped declining in 2018, according to the latest edition of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index. The index rates 167 countries by 60 indicators across five broad categories: electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture and civil liberties. It is stricter than […]
By Hayley Dunning 30 January 2019 (Imperial College London) – Extreme rainfall – defined as the top five percent of rainy days – often forms a pattern at the local level, for example tracking across Europe. But new research, published today in Nature, reveals that there are also larger-scale global patterns to extreme rainfall events.These […]
By Carol Rasmussen 30 January 2019(Jet Propulsion Laboratory) – A gigantic cavity – two-thirds the area of Manhattan and almost 1,000 feet (300 meters) tall – growing at the bottom of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is one of several disturbing discoveries reported in a new NASA-led study of the disintegrating glacier. The findings highlight […]
By Rod McGuirk 31 January 2019 CANBERRA, Australia (AP) – Australia sweltered through its hottest month on record in January and the summer of extremes continued with wildfires razing the drought-parched south and flooding in expanses of the tropical north. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology confirmed the January record on Friday as parts of the northern […]
By Jonathan Amos 31 January 2019 (BBC News) – Colonisation of the Americas at the end of the 15th Century killed so many people, it disturbed Earth’s climate. That’s the conclusion of scientists from University College London, UK. The team says the disruption that followed European settlement led to a huge swathe of abandoned agricultural […]
By Jim Salinger and James Renwick 29 January 2019 (The Conversation) – As the Australian heatwave is spilling across the Tasman and pushing up temperatures in New Zealand, we take a look at the conditions that caused a similar event last year and the impacts it had. Last summer‘s heatwave gave New Zealand its warmest […]
25 January 2019 (Uppsala University) – New, unexpected consequences of climate change keep presenting themselves. A new study from Uppsala University and SLU shows that a decreased snow cover on frozen lakes in boreal forests may inhibit the activity of methane degrading bacteria beneath the ice, thereby causing an increased net production of methane, a […]
By Holly Evarts 23 January 2019 New York, NY (Columbia University) – Global carbon emissions reached a record high in 2018, rising by an estimated 3.4 percent in the U.S. alone. This trend is making scientists, government officials, and industry leaders more anxious than ever about the future of our planet. As United Nations Secretary General […]
By Dr. Jeff Masters23 January 2019 (Weather Underground) – Earth was besieged by 39 billion-dollar weather disasters in 2018, the fourth-highest inflation-adjusted number of billion-dollar weather events on record, said insurance broker Aon (formerly called Aon Benfield) in their annual report issued 22 January 2019. Only 2011, with 44 billion-dollar weather disasters, and 2010 and […]
By Rodrigo de Oliveira Andrade24 January 2019 SÃO PAULO (SciDev.Net) – Brazil’s new government, led by President Jair Bolsonaro, has quickly taken steps to loosen environmental law enforcement. Now a review paper shows that the deforestation that could result may have terrible consequences for the Amazon rainforest, including dramatic biodiversity loss, intensified dry seasons, droughts, […]
