Munich Re: Series of hurricanes makes 2017 year of highest insured losses ever – “Our experts expect such extreme weather to occur more often in future”

4 January 2018 (Munich Re) – The hurricane trio of Harvey, Irma, and Maria will cost the insurance industry a record amount in 2017: the final insurance bill for those and other natural catastrophes, including a severe earthquake in Mexico, is expected to come to US$ 135bn – higher than ever before. And overall losses […]

U.S. winter more than one month shorter than a century ago – 2016 was “way off the charts” nationwide

By Seth Borenstein 27 October 2017 WASHINGTON (AP) – Winter is coming … later. And it’s leaving ever earlier. Across the United States, the year’s first freeze has been arriving further and further into the calendar, according to more than a century of measurements from weather stations nationwide. Scientists say it is yet another sign […]

Temporal distribution of insect biomass at selected locations in nature protection areas in Germany, 1989-2016. (A) Daily biomass (mean ±1 se) across 26 locations sampled in multiple years (see S4 Fig for seasonal distributions). (B) Distribution of mean annual rate of decline as estimated based on plot specific log-linear models (annual trend coefficient = −0.053, sd = 0.002, i.e. 5.2% annual decline). Graphic: Hallmann, et al., 2017 / PLOS ONE

Three-quarters of the total insect population lost in protected nature reserves – “Whatever the causal factors responsible for the decline, they have a far more devastating effect on total insect biomass than has been appreciated previously”

18 October 2017 (IWWR) – Since 1989, in 63 nature reserves in Germany the total biomass of flying insects has decreased by more than 75 percent. This decrease has long been suspected but has turned out to be more severe than previously thought. Ecologists from Radboud University together with German and English colleagues published these […]

Global warming: the risk of frost worsens at altitude – “The risk of frost exposure has increased at the vast majority of stations located at elevations higher than 800 meters”

28 September 2017 (Université de Neuchâtel) – [Translation by Google.] Trees growing above 800 m are increasingly exposed to spring frost, the Neuchâtel University, the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL and SLF), and Agroscope Conthey reveal in a joint study a paradoxical consequence of global warming, which increases the vulnerability […]

How global warming canceled the grizzly salmon run – “Species that never lived together can now interact because we’re removing the barrier of time”

By Ed Yong 21 August 2017 (The Atlantic) – In the summer of 2014, William Deacy and Jonathan Armstrong returned to Kodiak Island, Alaska—a place where the world’s biggest grizzly bears gather to gorge themselves. Every year, hordes of sockeye salmon swim up from the ocean and fill the island’s streams in a spawning frenzy. […]

Snow-free season is lengthening on Alaska’s North Slope – “It’s remarkable how rapidly things are changing in the Arctic”

3 August 2017 (CIRES) – On the North Slope of Alaska, snow is melting earlier in the spring and the snow-in date is happening later in the fall, according to a new study by CIRES and NOAA researchers. Atmospheric dynamics and sea ice conditions are behind this lengthening of the snow-free season, the scientists found, […]

Hungry, exhausted, only half their normal weight: Tragedy for black bears in eastern Russia

27 March 2017 (The Siberian Times) – The Asiatic black bear is facing catastrophe in areas of eastern Russia, a leading scientist has warned. A short video highlights a bear, also known as Himalayan, climbing a tree in a snowy November. What’s unusual about that? By now, this bear should have been hibernating for several […]

Disastrous 2016 shows butterflies are “failing to cope with our changing climate and how we manage the environment”

By Ian Johnston Environment11 April 2017 (The Independent) – Butterflies are “failing to cope” with climate change and the pollution of the British countryside, experts have warned after a disastrous year saw population declines in 40 out of 57 species. The UK Butterfly Monitoring Survey found it had been the fourth-worst year overall with six […]

Chicago has no snow in January and February for the first time in 146 years of recordkeeping

By Lorraine Chow1 March 2017 CHICAGO (EcoWatch) – a city well known for its windy and snowy winters—is experiencing some unusually warm weather. For the first time in 146 years, there was no documented snow on the ground in January and February, according to the local National Weather Service. January and February are usually the […]

Birds migrating earlier as global temperatures rise

29 December 2016 (BBC News) – Migrating birds are arriving at their breeding grounds earlier as global temperatures rise, a study has found. Birds have reached their summer breeding grounds on average about one day earlier per degree of increasing global temperatures, according to the research by Edinburgh University. The study looked at hundreds of […]

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