Areas that will experience more than a 5% reduction in length of growing period (LGP). LGP is defined by the average number of growing days per year, in which a growing day is one in which the average air temperature is greater than 6°C and the ratio of actual to potential evapo-transpiration exceeds 0.35 (Jones […]
29 February 2012 (USAgNet) – Global reserves of soybeans are shrinking the most in 16 years as demand for food, feed, and fuel rises, creating the biggest-ever exports for U.S. farmers. Inventories at the start of the next season on October 1 will be 20 percent lower than a year earlier, Jefferies Bache LLC predicts. […]
By MORT ROSENBLUM and MAR CABRA25 January 2012 TALCAHUANO, Chile – Eric Pineda, a dock agent in this old port south of Santiago, peered deep into the Achernar’s hold at a measly 10 tons of jack mackerel — the catch after four days in waters once so rich they filled the 17-meter fishing boat in […]
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO24 January 2012 SÃO PAULO, Brazil – Brazil has made great strides in recent years in slowing Amazon deforestation and showing the world it was serious about protecting the mammoth rain forest. The rate of deforestation fell by 80 percent over the past six years, as the government carved out about 150 million […]
Contact: Alan Buis, 818-354-0474, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov 18 January 2012 La Niña, “the diva of drought,” is peaking, increasing the odds that the Pacific Northwest will have more stormy weather this winter and spring, while the southwestern and southern United States will be dry. Sea surface height data from NASA’s Jason-1 and […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com19 January 2012 Damming of the Xingu River has begun in Brazil to make way for the eventual construction of the hugely controversial, Belo Monte dam. The Norte Energia (NESA) consortium has begun building coffer dams across the Xingu, which will dry out parts of the river before permanent damming, reports the […]
By SIMON ROMERO14 January 2012 RIO BRANCO, Brazil – Edmar Araújo still remembers the awe. As he cleared trees on his family’s land decades ago near Rio Branco, an outpost in the far western reaches of the Brazilian Amazon, a series of deep earthen avenues carved into the soil came into focus. “These lines were […]
By Nina Chestney, editing by Rosalind Russell15 January 2012 LONDON (Reuters) – A rise in the atmosphere of aerosols – miniscule particles which include soot, dust and sulphates – has led to more rainfall in certain parts of the world and could provide vital clues for future climate predictions, a scientific study shows. A deeper […]
By Stephen Leahy27 December 2011 UXBRIDGE, Canada (Tierramérica) – The water supplied by the glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, vital to a huge region of northwest Peru, is decreasing 20 years sooner than expected, according to a new study. Water flows from the region’s melting glaciers have already peaked and are in decline, Michel Baraer, […]
In this world of 7 billion people, the global rural-urban balance of populations has tipped irreversibly in favour of cities. But what, exactly, is a “city” in 2011? Hania Zlotnik, the director of the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs cautions against assuming too easy a definition because governments […]
