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Published on 18 February 2014 Global
That number may sound small, but this visualization shows just how dramatically temperatures around the globe have changed: “Long-term trends in surface temperatures are unusual and 2013 adds to the evidence for ongoing climate change,” GISS climatologist Gavin Schmidt said in a press release. “While one year or one season can be affected by random weather events, this analysis shows the necessity for continued, long-term…
Published on 18 February 2014 Global
“This study changes the way we think about climate change vulnerability of plants and animals,” says study co-author Mary O’Connor, an assistant professor in the University of British Columbia’s Dept. of Zoology. “Until recently, we believed that tropical species were more at risk of extinction because generally they cannot tolerate increasing temperatures. We also thought that many plants and animals in colder climates like in…
Published on 18 February 2014 Global
So what exactly is geoengineering then, a concept given some unexpected attention and increasing legitimacy by its mention in the most recent IPCC report? It refers to methods that “aim to deliberately alter the climate system to counter climate change.” The rather controversial area of engineering Earth’s climate seems to now be firmly planted on the scientific agenda. Some climate models suggest that geoengineering may…
Published on 29 January 2014 Global
She said climate change was the most significant social issue the world was going to face and every student should have access to a sound, evidence-based material on the underlying science. ”Many teachers are already teaching climate change to younger students. But the rationale about getting it more explicitly in the curriculum is so that every teacher teaches it,” she said. Research and interviews carried…
Published on 29 January 2014 Global
Extreme weather from China’s coldest winter in at least half a century in 2010 to a July hailstorm in Reutlingen, Germany, already started to affect food prices. In the past three years, orange juice, corn, wheat, soybean meal and sugar were five of the top eight most volatile commodities, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Natural gas was first. “Significant damage and destruction is already…
Published on 28 January 2014 Global
The most powerful El Niños – such as the ones that developed in 1982-83 and 1997-98 – are forecast to occur once every 10 years throughout the rest of this century, according to study lead author Wenju Cai of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia’s national science agency. Over the past 100 years or so, however these “extreme” El Niños occurred only once…
Published on 28 January 2014 Global
The study, published online January 15, 2014, in the journal Ecology Letters, examined competitive dynamics among crustose coralline algae, a group of species living in the waters around Tatoosh Island, Washington. These species of algae grow skeletons made of calcium carbonate, much like other shelled organisms such as mussels and oysters. As the ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the water becomes more…
Published on 28 January 2014 Philippines
"In fact, partial data show that in 2013, 74 percent of estimated damages of natural disasters in the country were in the agriculture sector," Balisacan said in his welcome remarks for the launch of an agriculture-related project on Monday in Metro Manila, the Philippines' capital region. Under the project, the Philippine government is partnering with international agencies CGIAR and the International Food Policy Research Institute…
Published on 28 January 2014 Myanmar
Dr. Lynn Thiesmeyer, vice-president of the Environmental and Economic Research Institute of Myanmar, says the sheer number of livelihoods left in tatters made a rebound difficult. “A major natural disaster on the scale of Cyclone Nargis could pose a threat to government legitimacy and reverse progress made toward democratisation.” Delta residents who lost farms to salinisation or lost a season’s crop with no money to…
Published on 28 January 2014 Global
The scientists report in Nature Climate Change that they worked their way through more than 1.2 million distribution records of 25 species of British butterfly at intervals over the past 40 years. Britain has a long history of systematic bird and butterfly observation and much information had been recorded by enthusiastic amateur natural historians, and the partners in the study were agencies such as Butterfly…
Published on 28 January 2014 Feature
1. Disaster response, rehabilitation and mitigation in the Philippines Post-typhoon recovery efforts in the Philippines will continue to concern aid groups in 2014 given the scale of the devastation and the assistance needed. The relief operations, dubbed the largest in the country since World War II, remain in its infancy and will need considerable time. Haiyan has steered global attention to the importance of disaster…
Published on 9 January 2014 Indonesia
The extended forest moratorium and the REDD+ Agency in particular are crucial to help realize the governments commitment to the reduction of CO2 emissions in Indonesia by 26 percent by 2020, and by 40 percent with international support. The commitment was announced by President Yudhoyono in October 2009 and received a positive response from the Government of Norway which later agreed to sign a Letter…
Published on 9 January 2014 Global
The team has also said that creatures living in the remotest regions of the ocean will also be affected by changes in the environment. Decrease in the number of marine organisms will directly hit fisheries, researchers added. For the study, the team used latest climate models to understand the changes in food supply in the future. They then looked at the relationship between food supply…
Published on 9 January 2014 Indonesia
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, known as REDD+, is a UN-designed program to ensure that it becomes more profitable for developing countries to leave their rainforests intact, rather than chopping down forests and selling the wood. As part of the program, rich countries are expected to pay forested nations to preserve their trees. The new REDD+ Agency seeks emissions reductions by preventing deforestation…
Published on 9 January 2014 Indonesia
The two ministries involved in the utilization of renewable energy in the transportation sector are the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources. "The initiative to utilize biodiesel for aircraft and renewable energy use is part of the government efforts to carry out its commitment to maintain the environment," Transportation Minister Evert Erenst Mangindaan said on Friday. The government, through Presidential…
Published on 9 January 2014 Philippines
When Philippine President Benigno Aquino III announced last week the staggering cost of rebuilding from the storm, the price tag – 8.17 billion dollars – and a pair of emergency loans to help meet that goal distressed debt reduction campaigners in the country who have for many years called for a cancellation of illegal debts. “Every dollar of funding assistance will be used in as…
Published on 9 January 2014 Philippines
Paje, whose appointment by President Aquino as secretary of the DENR has been questioned and bypassed for the third time by the powerful Commission on Appointments (CA) early this month, explains the reason for the deferment, which also sums up the three-year performance of the agency, whose main task is to manage the country’s natural wealth. “The true challenge in this position is actually striking…
Published on 9 January 2014 Global
Many of the world’s great cities are on low-lying coastal plains, or on river estuaries, and are therefore anyway at risk as sea levels rise because of global warming. But human action too – by damming rivers, by extracting ground water and by building massive structures on sedimentary soils – has accelerated coastal subsidence. Add to this the possibility of more intense tropical cyclones as…
Published on 9 January 2014 Global
And if the world reacts, stops burning fossil fuel, and invests in green energy, then your chances of being killed by a wind turbine become just so much higher. Holger Goerlitz, of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany, and colleagues report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society Interface that they looked at the challenge faced by bats that hunt with ultrasound…
Published on 9 January 2014 Global
The team's work, which has been supported through funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), is published by leading international journal Global Change Biology today (Friday, October 18), in a paper entitled 'Multi-decadal range changes versus thermal adaptation for north east Atlantic oceanic copepods in the face of climate change'. The paper's lead author Stephanie Hinder, a PhD student in Swansea University's Department of…
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