Global Warming News August 2012
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An expert discussion dedicated to this month climate change topics can be found at RealClimate.
An expert discussion dedicated to this month climate change topics can be found at RealClimate.
- Tags: 2012, August, Global Warming News
Comments (18)
Sandy
prokaryotes
Human-influenced climate change may have contributed to society's collapse http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-08/teia-frb082112.php
Sandy
Russia's ongoing oil spill crisis
For decades, Russia's oil giants have been polluting parts of the country's once thriving landscape, often in secret, spilling oil onto the land and into the Arctic Ocean, poisoning the water and destroying the livelihood of local communities and Indigenous Peoples.
Greenpeace has investigated and documented the ongoing disaster, revealing how the oil seeps into rivers and farmland. This leaked oil spreads and becomes a thick, heavy mire, suffocating plants and animals, and forcing people to abandon the area. The oil contaminates food and water supplies, and people live with the knowledge that their once clean rivers, forests and air now pose serious health risks.
When BP spilt 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, the whole world took notice. The Russian oil industry spills more than 30 million barrels on land each year — seven times the amount that escaped during the Deepwater Horizon disaster — often under a veil of secrecy and corruption. And every 18 months, more than four million barrels spews into the Arctic Ocean, where it becomes everyone's problem. http://www.greenpeace.org/new-zealand/en/campaigns/climate-change/arctic-impacts/The-dangers-of-Arctic-oil/Black-ice---Russian-oil-spill-disaster/
Sandy
prokaryotes
Reactor shutdown in Connecticut is latest sign that nuclear energy would face challenges from climate change.
Will 2012 go down as the year that left the idea of nuclear energy expansion in the hot, dry dust? http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120815/nuclear-power-plants-energy-nrc-drought-weather-heat-water
prokaryotes
A drought unparalleled in recent Syrian history lasted from 2006 to 2010 and led to an unprecedented mass migration of 1.5 million people from farms to urban centers.
Because the Assad regime's economic policies had largely ignored water issues and sustainable agriculture, the drought destroyed many farming communities and placed great strain on urban populations.
Although not the leading cause of the Syrian rebellion, the drought-induced migration from farm to city clearly contributed to the uprising and serves as a warning of the potential impact of climate change on political stability.
http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/climate-change-and-the-syrian-uprising
prokaryotes
prokaryotes
Extreme metrics / Discussion on Sigma events and temperature records in regards to representing observations on a bell curve: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/08/extreme-metrics/ and here as well http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/20/714741/climate-extremes-reexamined-can-we-quantify-the-straw-that-breaks-the-camels-back/
prokaryotes
Arctic sea ice loss has created negative NAO-like conditions to atmospheric circulation. http://climateprogress.net/pure-climate-science/item/the-atmospheric-response-to-three-decades-of-observed-arctic-sea-ice-loss.html
prokaryotes
prokaryotes
Global loss of life from landslides is poorly quantified. A global data set of fatalities from nonseismically triggered landslides that resulted in loss of life between A.D. 2004 and 2010 permits for the first time proper quantification of impacts and spatial distributions. In total, 2620 fatal landslides were recorded worldwide during the 7 yr period of the study, causing a total of 32,322 recorded fatalities. These total numbers of landslides and victims are an order of magnitude greater than other data sets have indicated, but analysis of the data suggests that it may still slightly underestimate the true human costs.
http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/content/early/2012/07/31/G33217.1.abstract?sid=99408e9b-772d-47ac-b961-cb50bfd8146a
Erdlawinen-Atlas Wo die Welt ins Rutschen kommt - Erderwärmung könnte Städte planieren
Mehr als 30.000 Tote in sieben Jahren - die Gefahr von Erdlawinen ist mehr als viermal größer als in bisherigen Statistiken angenommen. Eine neue Weltkarte zeigt, wo der Boden ins Rutschen gerät. Forscher warnen: Der Berg ruft nicht mehr, er kommt.
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/weltkarte-zeigt-toedliche-bergstuerze-und-erdlawinen-a-850366.html
prokaryotes
Threat Multiplier: An Interview With Climate Conflict Expert Ian Shields http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/16/692161/threat-multiplier-an-interview-with-climate-conflict-expert-ian-shields/
Video: The Crisis of Civilization http://climateprogress.net/welcome-climate-progress-network-science-blog/videos/item/video-the-crisis-of-civilization.html?category_id=6
prokaryotes
25% of dust in Earth's atmosphere is from human actions - Global-scale attribution of anthropogenic and natural dust sources and their emission rates based on MODIS Deep Blue aerosol products http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012RG000388.shtml
Ice surface melt area might cover whole Greenland ice sheet within decade (open access) - Greenland ice sheet albedo feedback: thermodynamics and atmospheric drivers http://www.the-cryosphere.net/6/821/2012/tc-6-821-2012.html
prokaryotes
Mississippi River Reaches Historic Lows: ‘We Have 50-Year Guys Who’ve Never Seen Anything Like This Before’
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/16/698461/mississippi-river-reaches-historic-lows-we-have-50-year-guys-whove-never-seen-anything-like-this-before/
Melting of Greenland Ice Sheet Breaks 30-Year Record
http://www.livescience.com/22387-greenland-melting-breaks-record.html
prokaryotes
Satellite microwave remote sensing for environmental modeling of mosquito population dynamics - Using satellite measurements in mosquito population dynamics studies
http://hol.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/08/14/0959683612450196.abstract
prokaryotes
prokaryotes
prokaryotes
The great U.S. drought of 2012 remained about the same size and intensity over the past week, said NOAA in their weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report issued Thursday, August 16. The area of the contiguous U.S. covered by drought remained constant at 62%, and the area covered by severe or greater drought also remained constant at 46%. However, the area covered by the highest level of drought--exceptional--increased by 50%, from 4% to 6%. Large expansions of exceptional drought occurred over the heart of America's grain producing areas, in Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Missouri. The new NOAA State of the Climate Drought report for July 2012 shows that the 2012 drought is 5th greatest in U.S. history, and the worst in 56 years. The top five years for area of the contiguous U.S. covered by moderate or greater drought:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2188