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GREENHOUSE
WARMING
NEWS
from 1-1-04 to 1-1-05
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See the last file,) covering up *to the above date.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas: it traps nearly 20 times as much heat as carbon dioxide. Cows and termites emit lots of it, helped out by over-population of cattle, &
our clear-cut of forests. Worldwide, 12% of methane emissions come from cattle.
. . The manufacture of Portland cement is responsible
for an estimated 4% of greenhouse gasses. Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are higher today than they have been for more than 400,000 years!
One debate in the global warming issue involves past discrepancies in data. Satellite readings of the troposphere --the atmospheric layer closest to Earth-- showed a warming trend of less than 0.1 degree Celsius per decade, far smaller than surface temperatures suggested. Evidently, the satellite data were off because the stratosphere above the troposphere disguised warming trends.
. . But this was used by the coal-company anti-warming websites to "prove" there's no warming --& left on those sites long after it was found untrue --perhaps it's *still there.
.
Dec 30, 04: The European Union is set this week to launch the world's first-ever market to trade quotas of green house gases, a policy aimed at encouraging firms to cut dangerous climate-damaging emissions. The European carbon market is one of three incentives under the Kyoto Protocol aimed at easing companies' costs of reducing CO2 pollution. Under the new emissions market, a company that works hard to keep emissions low can sell their unused quotas on the carbon market to a firm requiring additional limits to avoid financial penalties for overshooting set targets.
. . Some 2.3 million tons exchanged hands in October on the informal CO2 futures market, as much as the first nine months of the year. Currently on the unofficial carbon market, one ton of CO2 trades for an average price of 8.5 euros (11 dollars). "The lowest is 5.0 euros and it's been as high as 13.4".
. . Analysts forecast a market worth 50 billion euros during the 2005-07 contract period, with 5.0 billion tons of CO2 being traded at an average price of 10 euros a ton.
Dec 30, 04: Snow has fallen over the United Arab Emirates for the first time ever, leaving a white blanket over the mountains of Ras al-Khaimah as the desert country experienced a cold spell and above-average rainfall. At 1,737 metres above sea level, it "had heavy night-time snowfall for the past two days as a result of temperatures dropping to as low as minus five Celsius (23 Fahrenheit)" and stunning the emirate's residents.
Dec 28, 04: In parts of Fairbanks, Alaska, houses and buildings lean at odd angles. Some slump as if sliding downhill. Windows and doors inch closer and closer to the ground. It is an architectural landscape that is becoming more familiar as the world's ice-rich permafrost gives way to thaw. The permafrost melt is accelerating throughout the world's cold regions. Natural features are also affected.
. . Scientists reported an increased frequency in landslides in the soil-based permafrost of Canada, and an increased instability and slope failures in mountainous regions, such as the Alps, where ice is locked in bedrock. The amount of temperature increase is not so important as the rate of increase, Dr Lewkowicz found. Meltwater from ice that warms slowly drains away. When ice warms quickly, water pools, creating a frictionless surface between the active layer and the permafrost. Like a stroll across a sloping icy sidewalk, a fall is almost certain.
. . But not all outcomes of permafrost thaw have precedent, or an immediate solution. One considerable variable is the possible release into the air of organic carbon stored in the permafrost. In the drier areas, most of the emissions would be in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2). But in the wetter areas, it would be methane, a more effective greenhouse gas.
Dec 28, 04: A creeping rise in sea levels tied to global warming, pollution and damage to coral reefs may make coastlines even more vulnerable to disasters like tsunamis or storms in future, experts said. Global warming, poorly planned coastal development and other threats over which humans have some control are weakening natural defenses ranging from mangrove swamps to coral reefs that help keep the oceans at bay.
. . World sea levels rose on average by 10-20 cm (4 to 8 inches) during the 20th century and an additional rise of 9-88 cm is expected by the year 2100, according to a report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001.
. . Island nations like the Maldives, swamped by the tsunami, could literally disappear beneath the waves if seas rise. And in Bangladesh, 17 million people live less than one meter above sea level, as do many in Florida. "One of the first risks for small islands is not that they will be submerged (by rising sea levels) but there will be no fresh water."
. . Damage to coral reefs was also making coasts more vulnerable to battering by the sea. An international report early this month showed that about 70 percent of the world's coral reefs had been ruined or were under threat from human activities. Corals form a storm barrier and if they die, many islands will be more vulnerable to cyclones.
Dec 23, 04: Germany's woodlands have never been in such bad shape. One in four trees is damaged, and the number of those worst hit has increased by eight percent over the last year, the report said. The development is particularly disturbing in the Black Forest, which is considered to be 40 percent "damaged", the worst attrition rate since 1983. Off-road motorcyles and quad bikes abound and their ever-compacting tracks means that rain water runs off rather than seeps into the ground, lowering the water table. This decline in ground water is considered "without doubt the biggest challenge at the moment."
Dec 23, 04: China is likely to experience a "catastrophic" drought next year, threatening water supplies and grain production, a leading water official warned. He urged water supply authorities to prepare for the possible disaster to mitigate losses. This year, the lack of water damaged 23 million tons of grain.
. . A lingering dry spell in the north of the country has lowered water levels in most majors reservoirs. China's south, meanwhile, has been ravaged this year by its worst drought since 1951, with water supplies to millions of people threatened. Only 40 percent of water taken from local reservoirs this year had been replenished.
Dec 23, 04: Populations of the hamster-like American pika continue to decline in the West and global warming is partly to blame, a new study says. Local populations have gone extinct at more than one-third of sites surveyed since the mid-1990s, according to a study by a researcher for the U.S. Geological Survey. They are unable to survive in warm climates. They've been shown to be unable to survive just six hours in temperatures as warm as 77 degrees.
. . Pikas, a relative of the rabbit with small, round ears, are known for their high-pitched whistle.
. . "Population by population, we're witnessing some of the first contemporary examples of global warming apparently contributing to the local extinction of an American mammal at sites across an entire eco-region."
Dec 22, 04: Some 24 percent of land area in the Northern Hemisphere is underlain by perennially frozen ground. Scientists call this permafrost. Another 57 percent --extending down into much of the United States and Europe-- freezes seasonally. But these numbers are changing rapidly, scientists reported here at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
. . Seasonally frozen areas in the Northern Hemisphere decreased by 15 to 20 percent during the 20th Century. Some 80 percent of U.S. soil freezes every winter.
. . An earthquake broke off a weakening glacier in the Yukon. About 500,000 tons of ice raced down a mountain. "By the time it reached the bottom it would have been going about 140 mph."
. . During 2003, the warmest summer on record in the Alps, the slushy active layer of the permafrost moved down from its long-term average depth of 4.5 meters to 9 meters.
Dec 20, 04: U.N. talks on climate change ended Saturday with few steps forward as the United States, oil producers and developing giants slammed the brakes on the European Union's drive for deeper emissions cuts to stop global warming. Although negotiators brokered an 11th-hour agreement on two items, the EU made it clear that the deal fell short of its goal to get talks rolling for after 2012, when the Kyoto protocol to cut greenhouse gases runs out.
. . While the United States remained intransigent on future talks, the oil-producing nations and Saudi Arabia in particular also thwarted the EU agenda.
. . The next big moves on climate change may come from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has made the issue a cornerstone of his country's G8 presidency in 2005. He will be looking to soften up President Bush on climate and also engage the big developing economies.
. . Environmental groups said they were frustrated by the results.
Dec 20, 04: New climate-related risks may be emerging, such as Hurricane Catarina, which hit southern Brazil earlier this year. It developed in the south Atlantic, where the sea temperatures are normally too low for tropical cyclones to form.
Dec 18, 04: Long nights of backroom wrangling and a last-minute tangle produced a deal Saturday that opens a small door to international talks about what comes "beyond Kyoto". Bush administration envoys to a U.N. conference, allied with some developing countries, including oil producers, blocked any more ambitious effort to cap fossil-fuel emissions *after reductions mandated by the Kyoto Protocol.
. . What the annual climate conference approved was a "seminar" next May, as proposed by the European Union, but one at which governments can only informally raise a range of issues, including next steps on control of carbon-dioxide and other emissions blamed for warming.
. . Computer models show such unprecedentedly swift temperature rises would shift climate zones, produce more extreme weather events, and raise sea levels via the melting of land ice and thermal expansion of oceans. Impacts are already seen in the Arctic and elsewhere, scientists report.
. . The Kyoto cutbacks are modest compared to the problem. In a report issued here last week, climatologists from the British government's Hadley Center projected that global temperatures would most likely rise by 6 degrees F by the late 21st century or earlier, if carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are allowed to double -a realistic scenario.
. . For their part, the Americans avoided any commitment. New language was inserted on the floor saying the seminar "does not open any negotiation leading to new commitments".
. . On a per-capita basis, Europeans produce only half the amount of greenhouse gases Americans do.
Dec 16, 04: BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Two sets of Americans have come here to talk global warming: the United States, opposed to controls on carbon emissions, and a bloc of united states, from Maine to Delaware, that plan to impose them. "It's not an in-your-face thing", Kenneth Colburn, leading the nine-state effort, said of the seeming defiance of the Bush administration. "They're doing what they think needs to be done." That may even include linking up with the Europeans in a backdoor trading scheme on emissions -although a key Republican says that would meet a "lot of skepticism" in Congress.
. . The American by-play is taking place at the annual U.N. conference on climate change, where delegates from scores of nations are filling in last-minute details on the Kyoto Protocol.
. . More than two dozen U.S. states have taken action individually to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, by ordering cuts in power-plant emissions, for example, and limiting state government purchases of fuel-inefficient sport utility vehicles. Washington, Oregon and California, jointly developing plans to control carbon dioxide, are studying the possibility of carbon trading.
. . Most significantly, California regulators last September ordered the auto industry to trim exhaust levels on cars and light trucks in the state by 25 percent before 2016. Other states may follow if California's move survives a court challenge.
. . In the U.S. Northeast, New York Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, in April 2003 invited other states to develop a regional plan for "cap and trade" on power-plant emissions of carbon dioxide -a system whereby plants that don't use up their reduced quotas of emissions can sell "offsets", or credits, to other companies that overshoot their allowances.
Dec 15, 04: Volcanic landslides that generate huge and devastating tsunamis tend to occur during historically warmer times on Earth, a new study suggests. Scientists don't know exactly why, but since the global climate is warming as you read this, the apparent connection was tossed in this week as a reason for scientists to be concerned about the threat now. [especially from the Canary Island.]
. . Tsunamis are waves that race across the ocean without much fanfare but grow to frightening proportions when they reach land. The waves are deep, and while they may appear just a few inches or feet tall on the open ocean, they can soar to the height of a multi-story building as they are forced upward near the shore.
. . A tsunami can be generated by the sudden uplift of the seafloor in an earthquake, or by the paddle-like effect of a landslide crashing into the sea from, say, an island volcano.
Dec 15, 04: Global warming is set to continue, and bring with it an increase in extreme weather such as hurricanes and droughts, scientists from the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization warned today.
. . The year 2004 is set to finish as the fourth-warmest since record-keeping began in 1861, fitting a pattern that has placed nine of the past 10 years among the warmest on record, including the warmest October ever recorded.
At the peak of a global warming event about 10,000 years ago, reindeer bones become absent from the record. "There will be a direct impact of increases in summer temperature on reindeer well-being if global warming is allowed to proceed," says University of Washington archaeologist Donald Grayson. "The number of southern reindeer will diminish dramatically as their range will move far to the north, and the number of reindeer in the north also will fall greatly." He contends reindeer can't tolerate high summer temperatures.
Dec 9, 04: The largest glacier in Greenland doubled its forward progress toward the sea between 1997 and 2003, a new study found. The alarming acceleration coincides with a rapid thinning of the colossal structure, adding water to a rising sea at a faster pace than scientific models have been predicting. It's is not the only glacier that's slipping away. Scientists say a warming climate is causing ancient glaciers to retreat suddenly on both the top and the bottom of the world.
. . The glacier moved forward at about 5700 meters (3.54 miles) each year between 1992 and 1997. At one point in 2003, its pace was 12,600 meters (7.83 miles) per year. Suddenly, it nearly doubled the amount of ice it discharges into the sea, researchers say. The glacier has thinned rapidly of late, too, losing roughly 15 meters (49') of its vertical thickness every year since 1997. It's Greenland's largest outlet glacier, draining 6.5 percent of that continent's ice sheet area.
. . A pair of separate studies, released in September, showed one mechanism by which melting can accelerate rapidly. The breakup of an Antarctic ice shelf had a snowball effect on the depletion of glaciers it once abutted. In that work, scientists monitored the Larsen B ice shelf, which broke free of the Antarctic Peninsula in 2002.
. . After the breakup, scientists watched nearby glaciers flow into the sea several times faster than before. They say the ice shelf, now gone, served as a dam, and they attributed the whole situation to a warming climate.
About 10 percent of Earth's land is covered with glaciers.
. . During the last Ice Age, glaciers covered 32 percent of land.
. . Glaciers store about 75 percent of the world's fresh water.
. . Antarctic ice is more than 2.6 miles (4,200 meters) thick in some areas.
. . If all land ice melted, sea level would rise approximately 70 meters (230') worldwide.
Dec 15, 04: The year 2004, punctuated by four powerful hurricanes in the Caribbean and deadly typhoons lashing Asia, was the fourth-hottest on record, extending a trend since 1990 that has registered the 10 warmest years, a U.N. weather agency said. '04 was also the most expensive for the insurance industry in coping worldwide with hurricanes, typhoons and other weather-related natural disasters.
. . The Caribbean had four hurricanes that reached Category 4 or 5 status -those capable of causing extreme and catastrophic damage. It was only the fourth time in recent history that so many were recorded. The hurricanes of 2004 caused more than $43 billion in damages in the Caribbean and the United States.
. . The worst damage was on Haiti, where as many as 1,900 people died from flooding and mudslides caused by Tropical Storm Jeanne in September.
. . Japan and the Philippines also saw increased extreme tropical weather, with deadly typhoons lashing both islands. Japan registered a record number of typhoons making landfall this year with 10, while back-to-back storms in the Philippines killed at least 740 people in the wettest year for the globe since 2000.
. . Citing recent studies by European climatologists, Jarraud said heat waves in Europe "could over the next 50 years become four or five times as frequent as they are now."
Dec 14, 04: Scientists warned today that a long-term increase in global temperature of 3.5 degrees F could threaten Latin American water supplies, reduce food yields in Asia and result in a rise in extreme weather conditions in the Caribbean.
. . Carlo Jaeger, a scientist at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said if the long-term temperature increase was 3.5 degrees above from a century ago, it could collapse the Amazon rain forest ecosystem and hasten the melting of the Greenland ice cap, raising sea levels worldwide. American scientists reported last April that global temperatures rose an average of 1 degree in the past century.
. . In Peru, where almost 70% of power comes from hydroelectric plants, water supply for the Peruvian capital could be threatened if warming continues.
. . Also tuesday, government and private groups said they are rushing a new generation of more sophisticated satellites into space to monitor greenhouse gas emissions and track changing sea levels, thinning polar ice and as well as rising temperatures on the planet.
Dec 15, 04: Experts in Buenos Aires readied a report, saying 2004 will be one of the warmest years on record. The 10 warmest years globally, since records were first kept in the 19th century, have all occurred since 1990, the top three since 1998. Specialists here this week will issue a report saying 2004 ranks as the fourth- or fifth-warmest year recorded.
. . "The science says you've got to reduce emissions", Rajendra K. Pachauri said, midway through a two-week international climate conference. As chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Indian scientist oversees the work of hundreds of specialists who regularly assess the latest research on climate change and its likely effects.
. . "The science says you've got to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The science says you've got to stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere", he said. "What may be subject to uncertainty and subject to debate is who is to reduce how much."
. . Pachauri said the evidence of change is everywhere -in the doubling of extreme weather events recorded by the World Meteorological Organization, in the melting of glaciers worldwide, and in the one-degree global temperature rise of the past century. "The evidence is so strong, the observations so strong, it's very difficult to close your eyes to it", he said.
Residents of the conference host city Buenos Aires are quick to tell how climate change has affected them: It hasn't snowed in the Argentine capital since the 1940s, and old-timers tell how they used to wear scarves and mittens all winter.
. . In the Netherlands, the start of the pollen season advanced up to 22 days between 1969 and 2000. Some species have shown a dramatic increase in range area, like the Mountain Pine Beetle, which has spread over millions of hectares in North America. Butterflies that migrate to the Netherlands from Southern Europe used to arrive in May, but the recent warm years have produced first sightings in January.
. . In the last 100 years, northern Europe has become 10 to 40 percent wetter and southern Europe up to 20 percent drier.
Dec 15, 04: Tony Blair is unlikely to sway George W. Bush on global warming when he leads the G8 nations in 2005 but the British premier could help his own re-election bid by appearing to stand up to Washington, analysts say. They say Blair could shed a "poodle" image acquired for his staunch support of Bush on Iraq --and might even convince Washington to accept the basic science of climate change.
. . Blair has pledged to put green issues at the top of his agenda for the 12 months starting in January that Britain has the helm of the Group of Eight rich nations club. But his high-profile commitment to the environment contrasts sharply with the Bush administration, which has refused to sign up to the benchmark Kyoto treaty
. . "At the moment, it looks like Blair is all mouth and no trousers on climate change."
Dec 15, 04: Nature's calendar is changing due to an increase in greenhouse gases. In one of the most comprehensive studies that plants in the Northeast are responding to the global warming trend, Cornell scientists and their colleagues at the University of Wisconsin found lilacs are blooming about four days earlier than they did in 1965.
. . Botanists at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. found the city's Japanese cherry trees are blooming about a week earlier than they were 30 years ago. Apples and grapes at four sites in New York were blooming six to eight days earlier than in 1965.
. . According to the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell, the average annual temperature in the Northeast has increased by 1.8 degrees F since 1900, which is slightly higher than the global average of 1.1 degrees F. The greatest rate of warming, though, has occurred during the winter months (Dec to Feb) with an average increase of almost 3 degrees F over the past 100 years -a rate that has accelerated over the past 30 years to 4.4 degrees F.
. . The warming trend has many implications -and not all good. It could, for example, favor some invasive species and alter important interactions between plants and pollinators, insect pests, diseases and weeds. "If the interdependence and synchrony between animals and plants are disrupted, the very survival of some species could be threatened." Climate change could affect plant and bird migration patterns, animals' hibernation patterns, reproductive cycles, woodland composition, plant pathogens and the availability of plant food for insects and animals.
. . The warming trend is extending the growing season in the Northeast by several days -although hotter summers can negatively affect some crops, such as apples and grapes.
Some estimate that the rise in sea level at the top end of the IPCC forecast will leave at least a fifth of Bangladesh under water. After sea levels rise, salt in the ground water will become a major problem, with fields up to 40km from the new coastline rendered useless for growing crops.
Dec 14, 04: Our current interglacial has lasted 11,500 years and could potentially end at any time. In the past, it was thought all interglacial periods lasted for around 11,000 years, in line with Earth's natural orbital cycle around the Sun, but new findings show events on the planet's surface may also influence the timing of ice advances and retreats.
. . "It's possible that our pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere could somehow lubricate the flipping from one state to another."
Dec 14, 04: A remnant of the largest iceberg ever recorded is blocking Antarctica's McMurdo Sound, threatening tens of thousands of penguin chicks with starvation and cutting off a supply route for three science stations, a New Zealand official said today. The iceberg, known as B15A, measures about 1,200 square miles. He called it "the largest floating thing on the planet right now." U.S. researchers estimate it contains enough water to supply Egypt's Nile River complex for 80 years. It is so big it has blocked wind and water currents that break up ice floes in McMurdo Sound during the Antarctic summer, which begins later this month.
. . The iceberg is in the path of four ships due to arrive in Antarctica in a month with fuel and food for the three stations. The concern is it will stick on the Ross Ice Shelf, which forms part of the sound and stay there, causing still more problems.
. . Tens of thousands of newborn Adele penguins could starve in coming weeks because the ice build-up in the sound has cut off their parents' access to waters where they catch their fish. 3,000 breeding pairs of Adele penguins now face a 112-mile round trip to bring food to chicks at their nesting grounds. The parents cannot survive such a long journey without eating much of the food they have gathered for their young --most chicks will die.
. . The iceberg is a remnant of one that broke off the Ross Shelf in 2000. It measured about 4,400 square miles, the size of the Caribbean island of Jamaica, and was the largest iceberg ever recorded.
Dec 14, 04: Climate change could cut China's food production 10 percent by 2050, said an official report at a major UN conference in Buenos Aires. Given current conditions, the damage would hit China between 2030 and 2050.
. . While the number of cold snaps is likely to decrease, heat waves "are likely to increase, and the drought and flooding are likely to be enhanced." There has been "a continuous drought in the north China plain since the 1980s, while flooding disasters have happened frequently in southern China. This impact has been especially enhanced since the 1990s."
. . The ocean is currently rising at a rate of 1.4 to 2.6 millimeters (0.05 to 0.1 inches) a year, and the current projections are for a rise of between 31 to 65 centimeters (12 to 25.5 inches) by 2100, aggravating coastal erosion and increasing the amount of ocean water entering river, thus degrading the fresh water quality.
Dec 8, 04: Burning of the Amazon and other forests accounts for three quarters of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions and has made the country one of the world's leading polluters, a long-delayed government report showed today.
. . Environmentalists said the findings in the report would probably make Brazil the world's sixth largest polluter. The report, or inventory greenhouse gas emissions, showed Brazil produced 1.03 billion tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent in 1994, up from 979 million tons in 1990. "That figure represents about three percent of total global emissions. It is now clear that Brazil's quickest way to reduce its contribution to global warming is fundamentally to change the process of occupation and land use in the Amazon", Greenpeace said.
. . In Brazil, pollution from industry is relatively low because of the country's wide-scale use of clean hydro-electric power. In some parts of the Amazon during the burning season, however, thick smoke hangs on the horizon.
Dec 7, 04: The United States, facing international criticism for its rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, argued today that it spends billions of dollars seeking new technologies to cut emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. At the last major conference on global climate change before the Kyoto accord takes effect in February, the United States showed no signs of budging from its opposition to the treaty, which requires initial cuts in "greenhouse" gases by 2012.
Dec 5, 04: Snow is more important than ice in protecting the delicate tundra from disturbances, a finding that holds promise for a longer oil-exploration season in Alaska's rapidly warming Arctic --state officials said the finding supports a policy change that will help open the region to exploration earlier in the winter. The new standard will be in effect this winter.
. . The study, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, was prompted by a warming trend that has drastically shortened the time available for exploration, from more than 200 days a year in the 1970s, to about half that now.
. . Kelly Scanlon Hill, Arctic coordinator for the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, said the conclusions were premature because the study was too short in duration and lacked peer review. "Impacts on the tundra might take up to two to three years to be noticed because of the ecology", she said.
Dec 5, 04: Hurricane forecasters are calling for an above-average Atlantic hurricane season again for '05, after one of the most destructive seasons on record. "We believe that 2005 will continue the trend of enhanced major hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin that we have seen over the past 10 years", Colorado State University forecaster William Gray said.
. . Gray's forecast team predicts there will be 11 named storms, with six reaching hurricane status. Of the six, three likely will develop into major hurricanes with sustained winds of 111 mph or greater. There is a 69 percent chance of at least one of the major hurricanes striking the U.S. mainland.
. . The long-term year average for storms is 9.6 per season, with six becoming hurricanes and 2.3 becoming intense hurricanes.
Dec 5, 04: A decade after the world pledged to prevent "dangerous" global warming, 194 nations meet next week in Buenos Aires to review whether rare heatwaves and a fast Arctic thaw may signal that the planet is nearing the brink.
. . The Dec. 6-17 U.N. talks will also seek ways to persuade the United States to rejoin a U.N.-led fight against climate change and also try to involve developing nations like China, India or Brazil.
. . Bush is not the only one failing under Kyoto. Carbon dioxide emissions by rich nations involved in Kyoto are running 8.4 percent over 1990 levels, environmental group WWF said.
. . The U.N. Environment Program says that Kyoto will not be enough, merely braking rising temperatures by 0.1C over the course of the 21st century against a forecast rise of 1.4 - 5.8 C.
Dec 4, 04: Global warming could lead to a big chill in the North Atlantic, at least if history is anything to go by, researchers reported. They published evidence to support a popular theory that rising temperatures caused a big melt of polar ice 8,200 years ago, causing a freshwater flood into the salty North Atlantic. This would have changed the flow of the balmy Gulf Stream and in just a few years, average temperatures plummeted, ushering in a deep freeze that lasted a century or more.
. . "Few would argue it's the most dramatic climate change in the last 10,000 years", Tornqvist said in a statement. "We're now able to show the first sea-level record that corresponds to that event."
. . Tornqvist and some graduate students found the evidence along the Gulf of Mexico off the southern U.S. coast. They found peat deposits that would have been formed under rising sea levels. Working with researchers in the Netherlands, they dated the material to 8,200 years ago. Their composition suggested they were made when a saltwater marsh was abruptly flooded and turned into a lagoon.
. . "Climatologists urgently need this type of information to run their climate models in order to understand the conditions that can produce such an abrupt climate change."
Dec 2, 04: A study of a 2003 heatwave in Europe may give Pacific islanders and environmentalists new ammunition for legal cases blaming the United States for global warming. Low-lying Pacific island states including Tuvalu, at risk of disappearing if sea levels rise, are considering suing the United States, the world's top source of greenhouse gases, to force it to do more to curb global warming. Washington has taken the brunt of legal actions since President Bush pulled out of the U.N.'s 128-nation Kyoto protocol in 2001.
. . Among other cases, eight U.S. states and New York City filed suit against five U.S. power companies in July, accusing them of stoking climate change. And away from the courts, Inuit hunters argue that melting Arctic ice threatens their livelihood and plan to petition a commission of the Organization of American States to brand climate change a human rights abuse by the United States.
Dec 1, 04: The temperatures that held most of Europe in a molten grip in summer 2003 will be considered typical seasonal weather by the middle of the 21st century --and, a hundred years from now, will be seen as cool. Human activity has raised the risk of more heatwaves like last year's, which gave Europe probably its hottest summer since 1500, scientists said. Human activity, particularly greenhouse gas emissions, at least doubled the risk of the unusual event.
. . "If we carry on as usual with emissions, our predictions indicate that every other year will be as hot as 2003 by the middle of the century." They suspect human influence probably started altering the climate as far back as the 18th century. "But it has only been in the last 50 years that the temperature has really started to accelerate as a result of greenhouse gas emissions."
. . Delving into climate records, the British team say 2003 was the hottest summer in southern, western and central Europe in at least five centuries. From the eastern Atlantic to the Black Sea, the mercury was 2.3 C (4.14 F) above the norm. The event was such a statistical freak that, if carbon pollution in Earth's atmosphere remained at recent levels, it would take place only once every 250 years.
. . The world's six billion humans are disgorging so much greenhouse gas from fossil fuels that a red-hot summer will soon become commonplace in Europe, If such estimates become true, Europe faces wrenching challenges to adapt --and an astronomical price tag if it fails.
Dec 1, 04: In a giant landfill at Nova Gerar in Rio de Janeiro state, methane from rotting garbage will be burned to generate electricity. That will stop the fumes from adding to global warming, dampen dangers of explosions and bring new income.
. . It was the first registered under the U.N.'s "Clean Development Mechanism" last month. Dutch investors in the scheme will be able to claim the prevented methane emissions, equivalent to 670,000 tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide a year, as credits back home. In a fledgling European Union market, carbon-dioxide allowances are worth about $10.98 per ton.
. . Elsewhere around the globe, Telnes said about 200-300 clean energy projects were nearing certification in developing nations with perhaps another 1,200-1,300 on the drawing board. The clean energy projects can save from a few thousand to millions of tons of carbon dioxide a year, averaging 200,000-300,000 tons, he said. By contrast, the United States, the world's top polluter, emitted 5.79 billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2002.
. . "We've seen quite a surge in projects after Russia ratified", Telnes said. In other projects, solar, wind or hydro energy could replace dirtier fossil fuel plants. In coal mines, flammable methane could be trapped to help avert blasts and protect the climate.
Dec 1, 04: It's been 10 years since farmers saw water in the wells in western India. Experts say things aren't going to get any better millions of farmers there who have grappled with crippling droughts in some areas and devastating floods in others for some years now.
. . The reason? Global warming caused by increasing greenhouse gas emissions from burning of fossil fuels. According to U.N. estimates, about 2.3 billion people in about 50 nations will be saddled with severe water shortages by 2020 because of global warming.
. . The growing water crisis will only be aggravated by the melting of mountain glaciers across the world, which experts say can account for as much as 95 percent of water in river networks. According to some estimates, the Himalayan glaciers --which are the lifeblood of fresh water for many South Asian rivers such as the Ganga and Brahmaputra on which millions depend-- have already receded considerably in the past decade.
. . "Another important consequence of global warming is on glacier lakes. The glacier lakes may burst their banks due to climate change and cause floods downstream." According to a report by the United Nations Environment Program, global warming would cause more than 40 Himalayan glacial lakes to burst in the next few years, causing floods and killing thousands of people.
. . Add to this growing populations and greater demand from agriculture, cities and industry, and the result is a rapid fall in water availability. The per capita availability of water in India has fallen to 66,000 cubic feet from 141,000 cubic feet two decades ago. Experts say it could dip to below 35,000 cubic feet in 20 years.
. . During the summer, thousands of people in India's villages trek for miles in search of water and even in cities water is a precious commodity, sometimes leading to street fights.
Nov 29, 04: The ice is melting and the heat is on for international delegates assembling in Buenos Aires next week to find new ways to confront global warming under the 194-nation treaty on climate change. The treaty's Kyoto Protocol, requiring initial cuts in "greenhouse gas" emissions by 2012, finally comes into force in February, seven years after it was negotiated. Next, European governments want the annual treaty conference -Dec. 6-17 in the Argentine capital- to get down to talks on steps beyond 2012 to limit heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.
Nov 29, 04: The weather predictions for Asia in 2050 read like a script from a doomsday movie. Except many climatologists and green groups fear they will come true unless there is a concerted global effort to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. In the decades to come, Asia --home to more than half the world's 6.3 billion people-- will lurch from one climate extreme to another, with impoverished farmers battling droughts, floods, disease, food shortages and rising sea levels. Already, changes are being felt in Asia but worse is likely to come, Sawyer and top climate bodies say, and could lead to mass migration and widespread humanitarian crises.
. . According to predictions, glaciers will melt faster, some Pacific and Indian Ocean islands will have to evacuate or build sea defenses, storms will become more intense and insect and water-borne diseases will move into new areas as the world warms. All this comes on top of rising populations and spiraling demand for food, water and other resources. Experts say environmental degradation such as deforestation and pollution will likely magnify the impacts of climate change.
. . In what could be a foretaste of the future, Japan was hit by a record 10 typhoons and tropical storms this year, while two-thirds of Bangladesh, parts of Nepal and large areas of northeastern India were flooded, affecting 50 million people, destroying livelihoods and making tens of thousands ill. The year before, a winter cold snap and a summer heat wave killed more than 2,000 people in India.
. . Rising sea levels will also bring misery to millions in Asia, he said, causing sea water to inundate fertile rice-growing areas and fresh-water aquifers, making some areas uninhabitable.
. . Sawyer said India and Bangladesh will have to draw up permanent relocation plans for millions of people. "I'm afraid that's almost inevitable."
. . According to the U.N.'s World Food Program, the Gobi Desert in China expanded by 20,230 square miles between 1994 and 1999, creeping closer to the capital Beijing.
. . Anwar Ali, a leading climatologist in Bangladesh, says about 15 percent of the country would be under water if sea levels rose by a yard in the next century.
. . Perhaps the biggest threat to Asia in the future will be the shortage of clean water. The WFP says Asia accounts for 60 percent of the world's population but has only 36 percent of the globe's fresh water.
. . According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), rapid melting of glaciers poses a major threat to the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia and parts of China. Seven major rivers, including the Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra and the Mekong, begin in the Himalayas and the glacial meltwater during summer months is crucial to the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people downstream. But many of these glaciers are melting quickly and will be unable to act as reservoirs that moderate river flows. This means less water in the dry season and the chance for more extreme floods during the wet season.
. . Few places are more exposed to climate change than the low-lying Maldives islands, to the west of Sri Lanka, where the highest natural point is under 8 feet.
. . Fears of mass migration have already prompted the Pentagon and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, among others, to study the risk from climate-induced mass migration. The Pentagon, in its 2003 report, looked at what might happen if the climate changed abruptly. The result was near anarchy. "As global and local carrying capacities are reduced, tensions could mount around the world", it said. This could lead some wealthier nations becoming virtual fortresses to preserve their resources. "Less fortunate nations, especially those with ancient enmities with their neighbors, may initiate struggles for access to food, clean water, or energy", the report said.
In the last 30 years, there's been a loss of 100,000 square km (386,100 square miles) of Arctic sea ice.
Nov 24, 04: Arctic peoples aim to team up with tropical islanders in a campaign against global warming, arguing that polar bears and palm-fringed beaches stand to suffer most. The proposed alliance between some of the hottest and coldest parts of the globe would lobby industrial nations like the United States, which had refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases. "We are two of the world's most vulnerable areas." ...low-lying islands --at risk from rising sea levels-- and the Arctic --where the ice is melting.
Nov 19: The conversion of Florida swamps to citrus crops over the decades appears to exacerbate freezes that threaten your OJ supply. The logic is simple: Water retains heat better at night than land, so where once there were wetlands, now there's morning frost.
Nov 19, 04: More severe tropical cyclones, heatwaves and a dramatic shift in rainfall patterns could batter Asia by the end of the century as its factories boom, a leading climate expert told Asian chief executives. The average temperature of major Asian cities could rise by 3 to 10 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, while longer droughts and flooding threaten rural areas, said David Griggs, director of the UK Met Office's Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research.
. . "We expect that sea levels will rise between 9 cm and 88 cm (3.5 to 34.6 inches), that we will very likely see more intense precipitation events, more floods, more droughts." Griggs said if sea levels exceeded the top end of predictions for the year 2100 by rising a meter, flood-prone Bangladesh would lose 17 percent of its land.
. . "China is proposing to build as many new power stations a year as there are now in the UK", said Griggs. "There is a huge difference if they build highly fuel efficient power plants --compared to low technology, highly polluting power plants."
Nov 18, 04: What are the words used by indigenous peoples in the Arctic for "hornet", "robin", "elk", "barn owl" or "salmon?" Many indigenous languages have no words for legions of new animals, insects and plants advancing north as global warming thaws the polar ice and lets forests creep over tundra. In Arctic Europe, birch trees are gaining ground and Saami reindeer herders are seeing roe deer or even elk, a forest-dwelling cousin of moose, on former lichen pastures. "When I was a child, it was like a mythical creature."
Nov 18, 04: One of the main arguments used by people skeptical of climate change has been undermined by a new scientific study from the UK Meteorological Office.
. . The argument is that measurements of temperature are inherently unreliable because of where weather instruments are situated. Most are in or near cities, which produce their own heat; so the warming they have measured over the last century or so could be down to increasing urbanisation rather than global warming.
. . But a new analysis by Dr David Parker from the Met Office in Exeter shows this 'urban heat island' hypothesis is wrong.
Nov 18, 04: Environmentalists forecast a grim future for planet Earth today, predicting that droughts, heatwaves and hurricanes will become increasingly common and more severe if global warming is allowed to continue unchecked. A coalition of eight of the world's largest conservation organizations said Russia's recent ratification of the Kyoto protocol on carbon dioxide emissions had given fresh impetus to the drive to cut global output of greenhouse gases. "We collectively feel that if we were to go beyond the two degrees warming... we are bound for complete chaos and disaster on this planet", WWF director-general Claude Martin told a news conference at the IUCN World Conservation Congress.
. . "Everything must be undertaken to ensure that we do not pass beyond the two degree threshold of global warming because the results will be absolutely devastating, not just for nature but the whole of humanity."
. . The United States is by far the largest emitter of carbon dioxide, while Australia, which generates most of its electricity from coal power stations, is also a major polluter.
Nov 17, 04: Seeking to bolster its credentials on global warming, the United States signed an agreement yoday with 13 other nations that calls for investing up to $53 million in companies that will profitably control emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas. Emissions of methane, mainly from landfills, are ranked second behind carbon dioxide emissions among industrial gases scientists blame for warming the earth's climate.
. . Earlier today, Sen. John McCain called on President Bush to do more to fight global warming. "Some of us believe that the accumulation of knowledge argues that we act, rather than continue to accumulate knowledge." McCain said the study "clearly demonstrates that climate change is real and has far-reaching implications for society."
Nov 17, 04: Grape harvest records have enabled French scientists to track variations in summer temperatures in France since the 14th century. Records of the harvest dates, which are closely related to temperature and have been registered in local archives for hundreds of years, show that last year's sweltering summer days were probably the hottest in more than 600 years.
Nov 15, 04: Switzerland's glaciers are melting faster than expected, shrinking by as much as one-fifth of their size over the 1985-2000 period alone, scientists at Zurich University said. Hot summers in the 1990s in particular, prompted a glacier melt-down which has outpaced previous forecasts. It could impact tourism and cause more environmental hazards such as flash floods.
. . While Swiss glaciers shrank a meager one percent in the 12 years to 1985, they lost some 18 percent of their area in the 1985-2000 period, the research showed. This suggests they are melting faster than earlier estimates which put the loss at 30% between 1980 and 2025.
. . Temperature increases over the 1990s have stripped away swathes of ice which are needed to retain water, and in turn support plant and animal life in the mountains. "When glaciers are in the retreating phase, they normally lose about 30 centimeters of snow and ice a year. In the 1990s, they lost about 70 centimeters a year; in 2003, they lost 3 meters."
. . The heavy summer thunderstorms symptomatic of climate change will fall on craggy mountainsides rather than insulating layers of snow and ice, likely causing more flash floods. The changes could also impact tourism, a crucial pillar of the Swiss economy, as the country's scenic glacial valleys become barren and rocky. Authorities last year shut the Matterhorn peak during the key summer tourist season after a layer of permafrost --permanent ice-- that holds the rock together had melted, causing a huge rock slide.
Nov 15, 04: Australia could expect more frequent droughts, heatwaves, rainstorms and strong winds because of greenhouse gas-induced climate change, the country's main science research body warned. The report, by the federal body the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, forecast a doubling of the number of hot days above 35 degrees C.
. . "Global warming is an imminent, serious threat --one that can have significant costs for New South Wales. It will mean more frequent droughts, especially in winter, and more intense heavy rainstorms."
. . The 16-member group, brought together by think tanks, the London-based Institute for Public Policy Research, the Washington-based Center for American Progress and the Australia Institute in Canberra, is meeting to produce recommendations by early next year on ways to reduce greenhouse warming. A key aim is to gain the cooperation of Australia and the United States, which both refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol.
. . Under a worst-case scenario, the frequency of drought could increase by 70 percent in New South Wales by 2030. The most heavily populated of Australia's states, it has the biggest city of Sydney as its capital and is one of the nation's most important agricultural areas.
. . The worst-case scenario also predicts most of the state, where many country centers now have roughly an average 20 days a year above 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit), may have up to double that amount by 2030. The number of days above 40 degrees Celsius (104F) for Walgett would rise from nine at present to 23 by 2030 and to 83 by 2070.
[in a related note] A group in Australia has unveiled plans to open the world's largest golf course alongside a desert highway, in a scheme which will convert the Outback's Nullarbor Plain into a 1,400 kilometer sandtrap.
Nov 12, 04: Inuit hunters threatened by an accelerating thaw of the Arctic want to amend a U.N. convention to put pressure on Washington to do more to slow global warming, an Inuit leader said. New proof the Arctic was warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet meant the region should be included in the U.N. climate convention as an area vulnerable to global warming, said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. "We're trying to get the Arctic listed in the convention as a vulnerable area." The convention already lists small island states, arid zones and mountain areas as especially at risk.
Nov 12, 04: Environmentalists are warning that the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas could spell disaster for millions of people living in the region. Swelling glacial lakes would increase the risk of catastrophic flooding. There are 3,300 glaciers in the Nepalese Himalayas and 2,300 of them contain glacial lakes. These lakes are quietly growing because of rising temperatures, but a sufficiently close eye is not being kept on them. Nobody knows how many are close to bursting, and no steps have been taken to establish early warning systems for the villages downstream.
. . In the long term, the glaciers could disappear altogether, causing several rivers to shrink and threatening the survival of those who depend on them. Nearly 70% of the discharge to the Ganges is from Nepalese rivers, which means that if Himalayan glaciers dry up so will the Ganges downstream in India. "In some rivers, the flow may go down by as much as 90%."
Nov 10, 04: A faster-than-expected thaw of the Arctic is likely to open legendary short-cut routes between the Pacific and the Atlantic but experts say icebergs and high costs will prevent any trans-polar shipping boom. "There will be opportunities for shipping, but even in summer vessels would need thick hulls and icebreaker support," said Arne Instanes, a Norwegian scientist who wrote on transport in a eight-nation survey of global warming's Arctic impact.
Nov 10, 04: The decline of migratory birds due to an accelerating Arctic thaw may also disrupt the delicate ecosystems of their far-flung winter homes from Africa to South America, experts said.
. . The warming "will have implications for biodiversity around the world because migratory species depend on breeding and feeding grounds in the Arctic." Several hundred million birds migrate every year thousands of km to the Arctic to breed, largely because the chill region is almost free of egg-eating predators. They spend the Arctic winter in places from Patagonia to Mauritania.
. . Global warming is likely to let forests grow further north in the Arctic, squeezing the tundra breeding grounds of shorebirds --like curlews, sandpipers or red knots-- into a narrowing belt bounded by the Arctic Ocean.
. . A warmer Arctic may help some bird species by making food, such as insects for chicks, more available. One survey showed 12 percent of Arctic shorebird species were growing in numbers, 42 were stable and the rest falling. Few parasites live in the chill Arctic or in the salty tidal flats they favor during winter. Higher temperatures might spread parasites.
Nov 9, 04: Global warming is heating the Arctic almost twice as fast as the rest of the planet in a thaw that threatens millions of livelihoods and could wipe out polar bears by 2100. Sea ice around the North Pole, for instance, could almost disappear in summer by the end of the century. The extent of the ice has already shrunk by 15-20 percent in the past 30 years.
. . "Polar bears are unlikely to survive as a species if there is an almost complete loss of summer sea-ice cover." On land, creatures like lemmings, caribou, reindeer and snowy owls are being squeezed north into a narrower range. Buildings from Russia to Canada have collapsed because of subsidence linked to thawing permafrost that also destabilizes oil pipelines, roads and airports.
. . Norwegian Environment Minister Knut Hareide, a strong backer of Kyoto, said the protocol is only a first step. "The clear message from this report is that Kyoto is not enough. We must reduce emissions much more in coming decades."
Nov 9, 04: Global warming is melting the Arctic ice faster than expected, and the world's oceans could rise by almost a meter (3 feet) by 2100, swamping homes from Bangladesh to Florida, the head of a study said today. It says Arctic temperatures are rising by twice the global average and are set to rise by a further 4-7 Celsius (7-13 Fahrenheit) by 2100.
. . Robert Corell, chairman of the eight-nation Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), also told a news conference there were some hints of greater willingness by the United States, the world's top polluter, to take firmer action to slow climate change.
. . He said some U.N. forecasts assumed melting Greenland ice would cause just 4 mm of the rise. The ACIA report says that Greenland's melt alone could add 10 cms to global sea levels by 2100. Melting of other Arctic glaciers would also contribute. The thicker Antarctic ice is expected to stay more stable.
. . About 17 million people in Bangladesh live less than one meter above sea level. Pacific islands like Tuvalu could be swamped and much of Florida south of Miami would be inundated by a one meter rise.
. . The ACIA report was funded by Arctic nations the United States, Canada, Russia, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland and is the biggest survey to date of the Arctic climate, by 250 scientists. The eight Arctic governments are due to meet in Iceland on Nov. 24 to decide what to do. Diplomats say they are deadlocked, with Washington the most strongly opposed to the necessary action.
Nov 8, 04: North American wildlife species ranging from butterflies to red fox are scrambling to adapt to Earth's rising temperatures and may not survive, according to a new study. Heat-trapping greenhouse gases emitted by vehicles, factories and other human activities have boosted Earth's temperatures by 1 degree F over the past century, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change said.
. . To adapt, North American species like the Edith's Checkerspot butterfly, red fox and Mexican jay are moving to colder northern climates that suit their habits, the Pew Center said, citing 40 separate scientific studies.
. . With global temperatures expected to rise another 2.5 degrees to 10.4 degrees F by 2100, "future global warming is likely to exceed the ability of many species to migrate or adjust. ... These responses may alter competition and predator-prey relationships and have other unforeseen consequences."
. . Alaska's tundra now emits more carbon dioxide than it absorbs because temperatures have risen by 4 degrees to 7 degrees F over the last 50 years.
Nov 8, 04: Scientists say changes in the earth's climate from human influences are occurring particularly intensely in the Arctic region, evidenced by widespread melting of glaciers, thinning sea ice and rising permafrost temperatures.
. . A new study said the annual average amount of sea ice in the Arctic has decreased by about 8 percent in the past 30 years, resulting in the loss of 386,100 square miles of sea ice -an area bigger than Texas and Arizona combined. The Arctic's surfaces of ice, ocean water, vegetation and soil are important in reflecting the sun's heat.
. . Pointing to the report as a clear signal that global warming is real, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said Monday the "dire consequences" of warming in the Arctic underscore the need for their proposal to require U.S. cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases. President Bush has rejected that approach.
. . In the past half-century, average yearly temperatures in Alaska and Siberia rose by about 3.6 degrees to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit and winters in Alaska and western Canada warmed by an average of 5 degrees to 7 degrees F.
. . The process is only likely to accelerate in the Arctic, a region that provides important resources such as oil, gas and fish, the study finds. That would wreak havoc on polar bears, ice-dependent seals, caribou and reindeer herds -and local people such as Inuit whose main food source comes from hunting those animals. Some endangered migratory birds are projected to lose more than half their breeding areas.
. . The study projects that in the next 100 years, the yearly average temperatures will increase by 7 to 13 degrees Fahrenheit over land and 13 to 18 degrees over the ocean, mainly because the water absorbs more heat.
. . Sea levels globally already are expected to rise between another four inches to three feet or more this century. Longer term, sea levels would rise alarmingly if temperatures continue to rise unabated, in the range of 5 degrees to 11 degrees Fahrenheit over the next several centuries. In that scenario, the study projects "a virtually complete melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet", which would contribute as much as 23 feet to the world's sea level rise.
. . The report, which is the most detailed study ever done on the subject, does not make any specific recommendations but it implicitly calls for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Nov 6, 04: A key food source for Antarctic seals, whales and penguins has declined about 80 percent since the 1970s in ocean waters near the Antarctic Peninsula, researchers report. The overall effect of the decline in stocks of krill, a shrimp-like crustacean, isn't clear. Statistical analysis suggested the most likely explanation is declines in the amount of winter sea ice in the area of the peninsula. Krill feed on algae found on sea ice. The area around the peninsula has shown an unusually strong warming trend over the past 50 years.
Nov 6, 04: Prime Minister Tony Blair has made tackling global warming and reducing carbon emissions one of two priorities for Britain's year-long presidency of the Group of Eight (G8) richest nations starting in January.
. . The United States refused to sign up to the Kyoto treaty on climate change in 2001 and it was held in limbo until Russia's parliament ratified the treaty last month.
Nov 6, 04: President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill confirming Russia's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, the Kremlin said, clearing the way for the global climate pact to come into force early next year.
. . The United States alone accounted for 36 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in 1990, while Russia accounted for 17 percent.
The next round of international climate talks is scheduled for next month in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and negotiations on curbing emissions after 2012 are due to start next year.
Nov 1, 04: The width of tree rings over the past 1,200 years show that temperatures were unusually high during "mega-droughts" between 900 A.D. and 1300 A.D., according to the study. It said the era may be an indication of what's to come for the Western United States as the planet keeps getting hotter.
Oct 27, 04: The Bush administration is trying to stifle scientific evidence of the dangers of global warming in an effort to keep the public uninformed, a NASA scientist said. Hansen said the administration wants to hear only scientific results that "fit predetermined, inflexible positions."
. . He also said reports that outline potential dangers of global warming are edited to make the problem appear less serious. "This process is in direct opposition to the most fundamental precepts of science."
Oct 23, 04: The European Union executive welcomed the Russian parliament's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on global climate change -- and immediately called on the United States to follow suit.
. . But Washington poured cold water on the EU demands, saying the United States remained opposed to the climate change treaty and had no plans to sign it.
. . Brandishing a bottle of champagne, EU environment chief Margot Wallstroem stressed Europe's leading role in backing Kyoto, while outgoing European Commission chief Romano Prodi said the news was good for generations to come.
Oct 22, 04: Russia's lower house of parliament ratified the Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites) on Friday, clearing the way for the long-delayed climate change pact to come into force worldwide. The U.N. accord aimed at battling global warming is already backed by 126 countries, but it needed Russia's support to make it internationally binding after the United States, the world's biggest polluter, pulled out in 2001.
. . The 1997 Kyoto Protocol obliges rich nations to cut overall emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 by curbing use of coal, oil and natural gas and shifting to cleaner energies like solar or wind power.
. . "The entry into force of Kyoto is the biggest step forward in environmental politics and law we have ever seen", said Jennifer Morgan, director of the WWF conservation group's climate change program.
. . But EU Commission President Romano Prodi said Russia's backing would put additional pressure on the United States to reconsider its position. "The Kyoto Protocol may not be perfect but it is the only effective tool that is available to the international community."
. . The upper house will consider Kyoto on Oct 27. After that, it will go to President Vladimir Putin who will have up to two weeks to sign it. These steps are seen as formalities after Friday's vote in the Duma, which is controlled by pro-Kremlin parties.
Oct 21, 04: Recent storms, droughts and heat waves are probably being caused by global warming, which means the effects of climate change are coming faster than anyone had feared, climate experts said today.
. . The four hurricanes that bashed Florida and the Caribbean within a five-week period over the summer, intense storms over the western Pacific, heat waves that killed tens of thousands of Europeans last year and a continued drought across the U.S. southwest are only the beginning, the experts said. Ice is melting faster than anyone predicted in the Antarctic and Greenland, ocean currents are changing and the seas are warming. "It was the first time since 1886 that we had four hurricanes affecting a single state in the same season. It is becoming a signal of how the system is behaving and it is not stable."
. . Experts have long said that people are affecting the world's climate, and this is no longer in any real dispute. Not even the most anxious scientists had predicted that some of the changes that have occurred would come so soon, he said. For example, several high-profile reports have described the unexpected rapid loss of ice in the Antarctic and Greenland. "They are really important components of the interactive climate system", McCarthy said. "They really should serve as a wake-up call. Global sea level has risen about an inch and a quarter in the past 10 years," he added. "Most of this rise in sea level is due to the expansion of the ocean as it warms", he added, saying that 25 percent to 30 percent was from melting ice.
Oct 21, 04: European birdwatchers are scratching their heads over why a particular species of bird, the booted eagle, is migrating north this winter instead of the balmier south. The bizarre phenomenon has never been seen before.
. . Speculation that the birds, which have a wingspan of up to 1.3 metres (4.3 feet), might have been affected by global warming has butted up against the fact that no other species appears to be having the same navigation trouble. The eagles, which mate for life, are listed as an endangered species.
Oct 15, 04: A large Humboldt squid caught offshore from Sitka is among numerous sightings of a species seen for the first time in waters of the Far North, and the first of the species recovered from British Columbia waters. "It's unprecedented", he said. "It speaks of a fundamental change in the ocean along the coast."
Oct 14, 04: The European Union's battle against global warming will force companies to change automobile air conditioning systems and restrict the sale of air-cushioned sports shoes, European Union ministers said. The draft laws will also limit the leakage of environmentally-harmful fluorinated gases from items like refrigerators. Sports shoes with air pockets filled with so-called F-gases will be banned from sale within the 25-nation bloc under the proposed legislation.
. . "F-gases have huge global warming potential --in some cases almost 24,000 times that of carbon dioxide," EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom said.
. . From 2011, new vehicle models will be prohibited from using hydrofluorcarbon (HFC) 134a, the refrigerant used globally in car air conditioners. From 2017 the gas will be banned from all new vehicles sold in the EU. Before the complete phase out, air conditioners will not be allowed to leak more than 40 grams of HFC-134a annually. HFC-134a is 1,300 times more harmful to the environment than CO2.
. . The rules will apply to all cars sold in the EU, whether manufactured in Europe or imported from abroad, a Commission official said. He said alternatives to the gas could be used instead, including carbon dioxide (CO2), which is also considered harmful to the environment but less so than the fluorinated gas currently standard in car air conditioners.
Oct 13, 04: Australia's largest city sweltered through its hottest October day on record as authorities battled early spring bushfires and stockpiled pesticides to fight a heat-induced locust plague. The mercury in Sydney hit 38.2 degrees Celsius (100.76 degrees Fahrenheit), which the New South Wales meteorology bureau said was highest temperature in the city since it began keeping records about 150 years ago, even though the southern summer does not officially begin for another six weeks.
Oct 12, 04: The world faces a surge in extreme weather events because of global warming and governments must act immediately to avert disaster, Britain's chief scientist said. "Already we are witnessing increased storms at sea and floods in our cities," David King said. "Global warming will increase the level and frequency at which we experience heightened weather patterns. Action is affordable. Inaction is not."
. . The Kyoto treaty on cutting CO2 emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 is expected to come into force within months with crucial Russian backing after the United States refusal.
. . But scientists are divided on the treaty's efficacy and environmentalists say it is far too little, too late. "Kyoto is not enough. Kyoto is a beginning and it is a good process. Then we will have to start ratcheting it up ... and bring Australia and the United States on board."
. . It was not just cars and the boom in air travel that were the culprits. Power stations and factories are pumping out greenhouse gases, and coal and wood remain the main sources of heat and light across large parts of the globe.
Oct 11, 04: A new, unexplained jump in greenhouse gases since 2002 might herald a catastrophic acceleration of global warming if it becomes a trend, scientists said. But they said the two-year leap *might be an anomaly linked, for instance, to forest fires in Siberia or a freak hot summer in Europe in 2003 rather than a portent of runaway climate change linked to human disruption of the climate system.
. . Carbon dioxide levels, the main gas blamed for blanketing the planet and pushing up temperatures since the Industrial Revolution, have risen by more than two parts per million (ppm) in the past two years against a recent rate of about 1.5 ppm.
. . A background fear is that extra human emissions, by cars, factories and power plants, may be blunting the planet's ability to absorb CO2. In the worst case, that could lead to a runaway warming. "These results are deeply worrying, and indicate that the battle against global climate change could be even more pressing than was previously thought", echoed Cathrine Pearce, Friends of the Earth.
. . U.N. scientists project that average temperatures will rise by 1.4 to 5.8 C (3 to 11 F) by 2100 because of human impact on the climate. Temperatures have already risen by 0.8C since the Industrial Revolution in tandem with a 30 percent rise in CO2 levels.
Sept 30, 04: The Russian government approved the Kyoto Protocol, giving decisive support to the long-delayed climate change treaty that should allow it to come into force worldwide. The European Union hailed Moscow's decision and seized the moment to urge Washington, whose rejection of the pact in 2001 left it dependent on Russia's approval, to rethink its position.
. . Russia, which accounts for 17 percent of world emissions, has held the key to Kyoto's success or failure since the United States pulled out. The pact becomes binding once it has been ratified by 55 percent of the signatories which must, among them, account for 55 percent of developed countries' carbon dioxide emissions. Kyoto has surpassed the first requirement as 122 nations have ratified it. But without Russia they account for only 44 percent of total emissions.
. . "Now he (Putin) can go down in history as the savior (of Kyoto)," said Benito Mueller, an expert on the issue for British-based think-tank the Royal Institute for International Affairs.
. . Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, who was absent from the cabinet meeting, predicted a tough battle in the State Duma, the lower house.
Sept 28, 04: A group of Japanese researchers has found that carbon dioxide levels over the Antarctica rose by over 2.6 percent from six years ago -the first such detection of an increase in a "greenhouse" gas above the southern continent.
. . To date, researchers in countries including Japan and the United States had confirmed that the density of carbon dioxide near Antactica's ground had increased but hadn't proved the same for the atmosphere. The team sent a balloon with a monitoring device 9 to 19 miles into the air above Japan's research base in Antarctica in January to collect data. It showed the atmosphere had an average 367.9 parts per million of carbon dioxide, up 9.4 ppm, or 2.6 percent, from levels in a similar survey conducted in 1998.
Sept 23, 04: Some of Antarctica's glaciers are melting faster than snow can replace them, enough to raise sea levels measurably, scientists reported.
Measurements of glaciers flowing into the Amundsen Sea, on the Pacific Ocean side of Antarctica, show they are melting much faster than in recent years and could break up. And they contain more ice than was previously estimated, meaning they could raise sea level by more than predicted. "The ... Amundsen Sea glaciers contain enough ice to raise sea level by 1.3 meters And as the surrounding ice shelves melt --which they are doing-- this process will speed up, the researchers said. "The ice shelves act like a cork and slow down the flow of the glacier."
. . Theirs is the second report this week to warn of rapidly melting glaciers in Antarctica.
. . The measurements also show the glaciers are thicker than once believed. This means more melting and more rapid melting, Thomas said. "Our measurements show an increase in glacier thinning rates that affects not only the mouth of the glacier, but also 60 miles to 190 miles inland."
. . Experts say that overall sea levels around the world are going up by about 1.8 mm a year. About half of this comes from melting ice in glaciers. The melting into the Amundsen sea is now more than the previous amount from all of Antarctica and more than the estimated contribution from Greenland, the researchers said.
Sept 22, 04: Anticipated global warming by mid-century may be less severe in the central U.S. than elsewhere in the country, researchers said. The so-called "hole" in global warming will stretch for hundreds of miles and include Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and Oklahoma.
. . "The modeling showed that warming in the United States will be stronger in winter than summer and stronger at night than during the day."
. . Expect more rainfall and wetter soil in the future. As a result, more of the sun's energy will go into evaporating water than heating the air, he said. "Rainfall in the northern Great Plains already has increased by about 10 percent over the past few decades, which is consistent with our predictions."
Sept 21, 04: India's monsoon is expected to be 12 to 14 percent below normal in the June-September season, mainly because of an El Nino-like weather condition, said a senior Indian weather official. Nearly 60 percent of India's billion-plus population depend on the farm sector to earn a living and bad rains wipe out their incomes, crucial for industrial growth. Agriculture accounts for 22 percent of the country's gross domestic product.
. . If the El Nino patterns continued, they might also affect the southwest Indian monsoon in 2005, Rajeevan said.
. . An El Nino weather pattern, caused by warming of Pacific waters off South America, usually brings stronger or more frequent westerly winds in summer, leading to drought in east coast areas and more rains in the west.
Sept 17, 04: Mussels have been found growing on the seabed just 800 miles from the North Pole in a likely sign of global warming, scientists said. The blue mussels, which normally favor warmer waters like off France or the eastern United States, were discovered last month off Norway's Svalbard archipelago in waters that are covered with ice most of the year.
. . U.N. scientists say the Arctic is now warming faster than any other region because of human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released from burning fossil fuels in cars, factories and power plants.
. . The scientists monitoring Svalbard also said, at one point this summer, they had found seas free of ice further north than for 250 years. As the white ice and snow melts, it exposes darker ground or water that soaks up heat and so accelerates warming compared to regions further south. By comparison, ice in Antarctica is thicker and acts as a deep freeze resisting global warming.
. . Inuit peoples in Canada, for instance, have seen robins for the first time and hunters fall through previously solid sea ice. In Scandinavia, birch trees have moved northwards into previously icy areas used for reindeer herding.
Sept 15, 04: As Hurricane Ivan and its powerful winds churned through the Gulf of Mexico, scientists told Congress that global warming could produce stronger and more destructive hurricanes in the future. Global warming has increased the temperature of ocean water that fuels hurricanes, leading to stronger winds, heavier rains and larger storm surges.
. . However, the increase in ocean temperatures is unlikely to boost the average number of Atlantic hurricanes that form each year, they said. "An increase of even a degree or so in the right environment would cause intensities to increase."
At times during its passage through the Caribbean, Ivan's winds measured 165 mph and forecasters said it was the sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane on record.
Sept 14, 04: Britain's Tony Blair pledged to force international action on global warming, despite the reluctance of big powers like the United States. Blair promised to make the issue a centerpiece of Britain's presidency of the G8 industrialized countries in 2005 and laid out a three-point international strategy to tackle a phenomenon he said could become "irreversible in its destructive power."
. . Blair pointed to violent weather conditions across the globe this year and said the richest countries created most of the problem while the poorest bore the brunt.
. . Bush dismayed many allies in 2001 by pulling the United States out of the U.N.'s Kyoto protocol, the main international pact meant to cap emissions of greenhouse gases.
. . Blair spelled out three aims for 2005:
-- to reach agreement among the G8 on what causes climate change and the threat it poses.
-- to agree on scientific and technological measures to tackle it.
-- to persuade countries beyond the G8, notably China and India, to act to cut greenhouse gases.
. . "If there were even a 50 percent chance that the scientific evidence is right, the bias in favor of action would be clear", Blair said. "But of course it is far more than 50 percent."
. . At home, Blair's Labor government has committed Britain to green technology and more efficient use of energy to achieve a 60 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2050.
. . "Global warming dwarfs all other threats to the security of humankind. The prime minister has sounded the alarm," said Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth. "There is still time to make the changes necessary to avert the worst catastrophes that could accompany rapid climate change, but there is no room for delay."
Sept 7, 04: Millions of people across the globe are set to die early due to extreme weather events such as floods and heat waves caused by climate change, a British scientist said. Professor Mike Pilling cited the heatwave in Europe last year that killed thousands of people from a combination of heat exhaustion and an increase in atmospheric pollution.
. . "We will experience an increase in extreme weather events", he told reporters at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. "There are predictions of a 10-fold increase in heat waves.
. . "The biggest issue is climate change. We have got to control it", he said.
. . The problem was not just factories, planes, power stations and cars pumping out dirt and noxious chemicals, but also the burning of wood and fossil fuels --whether for heat and light or in forest and subterranean fires.
Sept 2, 04: The world's fast-growing thirst for water can only be met by purifying sea water as rivers and reservoirs become unable to meet demand, Spain said on Thursday unveiling a major program to fight its own chronic shortages.
. . Spain's Socialist government, elected in March, has ditched plans to reroute the country's longest river to irrigate its parched southeast, saying it would harm fragile wetlands in the north, cost too much and not provide enough water anyway.
Sept 3, 04: [a longer clip than usual. Sorry, Reuters] Global warming is set to accelerate in the Arctic and bring drastic change for people and wildlife in coming decades, according to a draft report that has opened cracks among nations in the region about how to slow the thaw.
. . "(The) Arctic climate is warming rapidly now and much larger changes are projected", according to the conclusions of the international study, compiled by 600 experts and due for release at a conference in Iceland in November.
. . Rising temperatures will disrupt life for people, bringing more storms and destabilizing everything from homes to oil pipelines. Melting glaciers could raise global sea levels and spoil habitats for creatures like polar bears, it says.
. . The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the world partly because sea water and dark ground, once exposed, trap far more heat than ice and snow which reflect the sun's rays.
. . The report's draft summary says the rise in temperatures is being stoked by human emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels in cars, factories and power plants.
. . Arctic temperatures could surge by 4-7 Celsius (8-14 F) --or roughly double the rate predicted by UN studies for the planet as a whole by 2100, it says.
. . But nations in the Arctic region --the United States, Russia, Canada and Nordic countries-- are sharply divided about how to act on the scientists' conclusions, with Washington opposed to any major initiatives. Among conclusions, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) says the warming in the Arctic will "have worldwide implications."
. . Run-off from melting glaciers and the Greenland icecap could raise global sea levels and disrupt ocean circulation, it says. And biodiversity elsewhere could be affected because some migratory species breed in the Arctic.
. . The report also says "Arctic vegetation zones are projected to shift, bringing wide-ranging impacts" and that "Animal species' diversity, ranges and distributions will change, some dramatically."
. . Many coastal communities and facilities face increasing exposure to storms. And indigenous peoples would face major economic and cultural impacts, it says. Ultraviolet radiation --known to cause skin cancer and immune system disorders in humans-- would also rise sharply.
. . The report also concludes that "reduced sea ice is very likely to increase marine transport and access to resources." The thaw could open short-cut shipping routes between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
. . But on land, buildings, oil pipelines, industrial facilities, roads and airports could need substantial rebuilding if permafrost thaws, it says.
Aug 27, 04: Thousands of underfed children could face starvation if rains do not bring relief to drought-ravaged regions of Guatemala soon, government officials and aid agencies said. Low rainfall in July and August has destroyed corn in at least four departments of the poor Central American country, putting at least 4,000 families at risk of severe food shortages, aid agencies say. Guatemala has enough food supplies to help the affected areas for the moment but will struggle if the drought continues.
Aug 27, 04: Warmer temperatures in North America since 1950 were likely caused in part by human activities, the Bush administration said in a report that seems to contradict the White House position there was no clear scientific proof on the causes of global warming. "North American temperature changes from 1950 to 1999 were unlikely to be due only to natural climate variations", the report said.
Other recent government-sponsored studies listed in the administration's report found:
* 5.6 million hectares (13.8 million acres) of U.S. farmland set aside from production across a 13-state region soak up 5.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.
* Emissions from the oil and natural gas industries in the Southwestern United States raised quantities of ethane, propane and butane in the near-surface atmosphere of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas in autumn and spring that were comparable to urban smog.
* The portion of the Arctic Ocean covered by perennial sea ice has declined by about 9 percent per decade since 1978.
Aug 26, 04: Frost will become less and less common across much of the world as global warming accelerates, U.S. researchers reported from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.
. . "In general, there is a gradient from west to east across the continent, with greater decreases in frost days in the western regions." The model predicts that in northwestern North America, low-level winds will blow more often from the Pacific, carrying mild air during the winter. Eastern North America will get more cold Canadian air, however.
. . But the researchers do not find that the change in frost patterns will affect agriculture.
Aug 24, 04: Climate experts at NASA believe they have found a way of forecasting droughts and floods months in advance, the New Scientist magazine reported. Until now, forecasting more than a week ahead had proved impossible because the atmosphere is so unpredictable.
. . NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland had located a series of "hotspots" in the middle of continents where changes in the moisture content in soils may signal droughts or floods to come. The theory runs that water evaporating from soil is a major source of vapor that creates cloud and rain, so the drier the earth, the greater the chance of drought --and vice-versa. The Sahel, on the southern fringes of the Sahara desert, northern India and the Great Plains of North America were particularly good regions to observe.
. . Similar signals from oceans are already well known, the magazine said. For instance, El Nino, the weather anomaly that distorts wind and rainfall patterns around the world, is generally flagged up by changes in sea temperatures in the eastern Pacific months beforehand.
Aug 20, 04: Great Lakes water levels have rebounded from near record lows thanks to months of heavy rain. Rising a foot from 45-year lows last year, the five Great Lakes have reversed a six-year, 3-foot drop that exposed broad stretches of beaches, left marinas high and dry, and bent propellers.
. . With 18 percent of the world's fresh water, the lakes slake the thirst of 45 million North Americans and sustain more commercial shipping than the Panama and Suez canals combined, but the low levels hampered ship traffic.
. . Water levels rose following heavy rains last fall and a once-in-a-century deluge in May. During colder winters, ice covers the lakes and slows evaporation but this is now rare. "In the long term, no one's quite sure what the implications for global climate change are for the Great Lakes", said Joel Brammeier of the Lake Michigan Federation, an environmental group.
Aug 18, 04: Europeans must learn how to live with a changing climate as well as seeking to limit its effects by cutting emissions, the European Environment Agency says. The report, Impacts of Europe's Changing Climate, says climate change under way now probably exceeds all natural climate variation for a thousand years. It says the 2003 heatwave caused melting which reduced the mass of the Alpine glaciers by 10%, and harvests in many southern countries were down by as much as 30%. Torrential rain will be more common in parts of Europe.
. . The European Union says the world should act to try to prevent temperatures rising more than 2C above their 1990 level, an increase which it regards as the highest sustainable level.
. . The EEA's executive director, Professor Jacqueline McGlade, said: "This report pulls together a wealth of evidence that climate change is already happening and having widespread impacts, many of them with substantial economic costs, on people and ecosystems across Europe.
. . "Europe has to continue to lead worldwide efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but this report also underlines that strategies are needed, at European, regional, national and local level, to adapt to climate change."
. . "Even if society substantially reduces its emissions of greenhouse gases over the coming decades, the climate system would continue to change over the coming centuries."
Aug 18, 04: The UK's Royal Society has launched an investigation into the rising acidity of the world's oceans due to pollution from the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. They will probe the potential impact of this rising ocean acidity on marine life --which at present is largely unknown, & could have catastrophic consequences.
. . Oceans mop up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, lowering the water's pH value --it's absorbed by seawater, where it reacts to form carbonic acid. The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission reports that some 20-25 million tons of carbon dioxide are being added to the oceans each day.
. . Researchers believe such dramatic changes in the carbon dioxide system in surface waters have not been observed for more than 20 million years of Earth history. Experts currently predict that if this trend continues, ocean pH could fall by as much as 0.4 units by the year 2100.
. . "The thing about acidification is that it is happening at the same time that the oceans are warming, so organisms are going to have to deal with two major changes."
. . Scientists fear this increasing acidification could have a particularly detrimental effect on corals and sea creatures with hard shells. Increasing acidity reduces the availability of calcium carbonate from the water --which the creatures rely on to produce their hard skeletons. Juvenile organisms could be most susceptible to these changes.
. . Acidification may also directly affect the growth and reproduction rates of fish, as well as affecting the plankton populations which they rely on for food, with potentially disastrous consequences for marine food webs.
. . In addition, nutrient concentrations in surface waters of high-latitude regions are likely to fall, subsurface waters become less oxygenated, and phytoplankton will experience increased exposure to sunlight.
. . NOAA: the ocean has taken up approximately 120 billion metric tons of carbon generated by human activities since 1800.
Aug 18, 04: Europe is warming up more quickly than the rest of the world, and cold winters could disappear almost entirely by 2080 as a result of global warming, researchers predicted. Heat waves and floods are likely to become more frequent, threatening the elderly and infirm, and three quarters of the Swiss Alps' glaciers might melt down by 2050.
. . Regions already prone to heat, such as the U.S. Midwest and Europe's Mediterranean area, could suffer even more.
. . The concentration of carbon dioxide, one of the heat-trapping greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, in the lower atmosphere is now at its highest level for at least 420,000 years and stands 34 percent above its level before the Industrial Revolution, the EEA report said.
. . According to the agency's study, temperatures in Europe have risen by an average of 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 100 years, and are projected to climb by a further 3.6 to 11.3 degrees this century.
. . They forecast that sea levels in Europe would rise at a pace more than two-to-four times faster than the rise seen in the last century --a threat to low-lying countries such as the Netherlands, where half the population lives below sea level.
Aug 17, 04: California will become hotter and drier by the end of the century, menacing the valuable wine and dairy industries, even if dramatic steps are taken to curb global warming, researchers said. The first study to specifically forecast the impact of global warming on a U.S. state also shows the snowpack melting in the Sierra Nevada mountains, more frequent heat waves hitting Los Angles and disruptions to crop irrigation.
. . Researchers from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and elsewhere ran scenarios through new computer models of global warming.
. . All predicted California's weather would be hotter and drier, but this would be worse if only weak action is taken to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases contributing to warming the planet.
. . Under the highest-emissions forecast, carbon emissions by the end of the century will be 28 billion tons of carbon per year --about four times the current rate of 6 billion to 7 billion tons a year. The low-emission scenario forecasts the emissions would stay at the current level.
. . "By the end of the century, under the (best!) scenario, heat waves and extreme heat in Los Angeles quadruple in frequency while heat-related mortality increases two to three times; alpine/subalpine forests are reduced by 50 percent to 75 percent and Sierra snowpack is reduced 30 percent to 70 percent."
. . Under the worst scenario, heat waves in Los Angeles are six to eight times more frequent, with up to seven times as many heat-related deaths as now. The Sierra snowpack falls by 90 percent. This could "fundamentally disrupt California's water rights system."
. . Periods of extreme heat would quadruple in Los Angeles by the end of the century, killing two to three times more people than in heat waves today. The most pessimistic model projects five to seven times as many heat-related deaths in Los Angeles, with six to eight times as many heat waves.
Aug 11, 04: The prospect that a tropical storm and a hurricane -or possibly two hurricanes- could strike Florida on the same day is something meteorologists say they have never seen.
. . Disaster officials are keeping an eye on Tropical Storm Bonnie as it spins toward the Florida Panhandle, bringing heavy rains that could cause flooding. The other eye is trained on Hurricane Charley, aimed at the Florida Keys at the opposite end of the state.
Aug 11, 04: Heat waves like those that have hit Paris and Chicago in recent years are likely to get worse, roasting more and more cities with ever-higher temperatures, climate researchers predicted. The forecast means misery for many, and hotter weather can affect crops, drive up fuel prices and can kill the old and weak. The heat wave that hit France a year ago killed an estimated 15,000 people. A similar heat wave that hit the U.S. Midwest last year damaged the corn and soy crops, and 739 people died in a head wave that broiled Chicago in 1995.
. . Using a new computer model that takes into account increasing levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. They said they tried to see if other pollutants such as sulfur dioxide might reflect sunlight away from the planet and perhaps offset some of the heat-trapping properties of carbon dioxide. But their model shows no such effects.
. . Regions already prone to heat waves, such as the U.S. Midwest and Southeast and Europe's Mediterranean areas, will suffer even more, and longer, the model predicts. The average Paris heat wave lasting eight to 13 days, they predict, will last 11 to 17 days. In Chicago, heat waves will last on average a day longer, from eight days to nine days, and there will be two a year by 2080 instead of about one.
. . "But other areas (e.g. northwest United States, France, Germany and the Balkans) could see increases of heat wave intensity that could have more serious impacts because these areas are not currently as well adapted to heat waves."
Another team of scientists said that governments can turn this pattern around right now, if they choose to.
. . Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow of Princeton University identified 15 technologies, from wind, solar and nuclear energy to conservation techniques, that could each help reduce global warming.
. . Their report, also published in Science, counters the common argument that a major new technology needs to be developed before greenhouse gases can be controlled
Each of the options could on its own prevent 1 billion tons a year worth of carbon emissions by 2054, they said.
Aug 11, 04: Researchers are hunting for very low levels of oxygen in the Pacific, a sign of what scientists call the Dead Zone. Researchers think the appearance of such an area that cannot sustain life may be a sign of a fundamental change.
. . Two years ago, when local fishermen started hauling up pots filled with dead crabs, scientists figured out that a huge mass of sub-Arctic water with very low levels of oxygen and high levels of nutrients had welled up from the ocean's depths and settled in for the summer on the Continental Shelf off central Oregon. The Dead Zone dissipated that fall, and based on 40 years of ocean monitoring and local fishing lore, many thought they would never see it again. This summer, the Dead Zone came back.
. . There are more than 30 man-caused dead zones -scientists call them hypoxic or low-oxygen events- around the world in enclosed waters, including Hood Canal in Puget Sound, the Mississippi River delta and Chesapeake Bay. There, excess fertilizer from farm fields washing down rivers fuels a surge in microscopic plants called phytoplankton. When they die, bacteria decompose them, using up the oxygen in the water and leaving fish, crabs and other sea life to suffocate.
. . Naturally caused dead zones in open water, like the one off Oregon, are rare and less well understood. Others have been found off the coasts of Peru and South Africa.
Aug 02, 04: EARTHSHINE, the reflection of the earth on the unlit part of the moon, is one way to determine how much sunlight makes it to the surface of the earth. Brighter earthshine would suggest increasing cloudiness, which reflects sunlight away.
. . Much to their surprise, scientists have found that less sunlight has been reaching the earth's surface in recent decades. The sun isn't going dark; rather clouds, air pollution and aerosols are getting in the way. Researchers are learning that the phenomenon can interact with global warming in ways that had not been appreciated.
. . They pegged the solar reduction at 2.7 percent per decade over the period from 1958 to 1992. Put another way, the radiation reduction amounts to 0.5 watt per square meter per year, or about one third (in magnitude) of the warming that takes place because of carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere.
. . A separate analysis by climatologist Beate Liepert of Columbia University and her colleagues has found a 1.3 percent per decade decrease in solar radiation over the period from 1961 to 1990, with especially strong declines in North America. That's a total decline of up to 18 watts per square meter, out of the 200 watts per square meter or so that reaches the earth's surface.
. . A key culprit appears to be aerosols-micron-size particles (or smaller) consisting of sulfates, black and organic carbon, dust, and even sea salt. Aerosols have already been implicated in cooling tendencies, such as the slight decrease in global temperatures seen from about 1945 to 1975. Besides keeping temperatures from rising even higher than they already have, the aerosols complicate the modeling of global warming. The particulates act as the nuclei points for cloud condensation. They can lead to more cloudiness --a phenomenon called the indirect aerosol effect-- which reflects sunlight away.
. . Solar dimming has consequences for the hydrological cycle as well. By the conventional wisdom, higher global temperatures mean that more water evaporates from the seas and falls as rain on land. But on a planet dimmed by aerosols and clouds, water vapor and rain stay in the atmosphere about half a day longer than they would in a nonaerosol world, according to Liepert's simulations. All this debate on global warming is always discussed in ... temperature", Liepert remarks. I think we really have to discuss it more in ... energy balance and water balance."
. . Cohen notes that the dimming effect could have consequences on farming-as a rule of thumb, agricultural productivity of light-loving plants such as peppers and tomatoes declines by 1 percent for each 1 percent decline in sunlight. Some plants, though, do better in more limited, diffuse light.
July 29, 04: Many estimates of the amount of greenhouse gas given off by burning and deforestation in the Amazon are far too low because they fail to take account of gas released by rotting vegetation, a deforestation conference was told.
Scientists from Brazil's National Institute of Amazon Research said about 400 million tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent were emitted in 2003 --60% more than one estimate by other scientists at the conference. "It's emitting much more than it is absorbing."
. . Fearnside said that hydroelectric dams in the Amazon, for instance, should be included because rotting trees in flooded areas release methane gas. The Amazon's four dams produced more emissions between them than Brazil's largest city, Sao Paulo, he said.
July 29, 04: Its famously tepid and wet weather has been the butt of jokes for generations, yet even Britain is now taking global warming seriously, with the publication of emergency plans to deal with heatwaves. Britain's summers have grown decidedly hotter in recent years, notably in the south of the country, which last summer saw temperatures climb above the 100-degree Fahrenheit mark (37.8 Celsius) for the first time in recorded history.
July 27, 04: Burning of the Amazon jungle is changing weather patterns by raising temperatures and reducing rainfall, accelerating the rate at which the forest is disappearing and turning into grassland, scientists said.
. . Wide-scale burning by loggers and farmers of the Amazon has risen sharply over the past two decades, changing the region's cloud cover and reducing the amount of rain in some deforested areas that are turning into grassland or savanna. The effects will spread internationally, the experts said.
. . The worst-case scenario for the Amazon, a continuous tropical forest larger than the continental United States, is that at current burning and deforestation rates, 60 percent of the jungle will turn into savanna in the next 50 to 100 years. The most likely outlook is that 20 to 30 percent will turn into savanna. An area of 5.9 million acres, bigger than the state of New Jersey, was destroyed as loggers and farmers hacked and burned the forest in 2003. About 85 percent of the Amazon is still standing.
July 25, 04: Changes in the Dutch climate because of global warming have meant dozens of plant types normally found in warmer areas are now growing wild in the country. A catalog of plants growing wild found 50 varieties introduced here over the last seven years --some from as far away as Africa.
. . Global warming and the accompanying rising oceans is a particularly significant issue to the Netherlands as half of the country lies below sea level. The tiny but wealthy Netherlands with its population of 16 million is criss-crossed with canals and rivers, and has battled for centuries to claw back land from the sea and protect itself by building sea walls known as dykes.
July 19, 04: Floodwaters engulfed an eastern Indian town as a brimming river burst its banks, while waterborne diseases broke out in the northeast where some 10 million people are marooned.
July 15, 04: An international team of scientists found that oceans have taken in about 118 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from human activities between 1800 and 1994, accounting for nearly a third of their long-term carrying capacity.
. . These findings could pose a long-term risk for marine organisms, such as corals, which have greater difficulty in forming their outer shells as carbon dioxide levels increase. "The oceans have a capacity to continue to take in CO2 for thousands of years with the slow mixing time." The greatest threat to increasing levels of carbon dioxide is to species that live in the upper 10 percent of the ocean.
July 14, 04: There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than in the past 55 million years, enough to melt all the ice on the planet and submerge cities like London, New York and New Orleans, Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser has warned.
. . The prime minister's "unofficial envoy" to persuade the Russians to ratify the Kyoto protocol to fight climate change, Sir David said the most recent science bore out the worst predictions.
. . An ice core 3km deep from the Antarctic had a record of the climate for 800,000 years and showed the direct relationship between the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and warm and cold periods for the planet.
. . Critical in climate records is the quantity of ice at the poles and in glaciers. Records show that at the peak of the ice age 12,000 years ago, the sea was 150 meters below where it is now.
. . "You might think it is not wise, since we are currently melting ice so fast, to have built our big cities on the edge of the sea where it is now obvious they cannot remain. On current trends, cities like London, New York and New Orleans will be among the first to go. Ice melting is a relatively slow process but is speeding up. When the Greenland ice cap goes, the sea level will rise six to seven meters, when Antarctica melts it will be another 110 meters. I am sure that climate change is the biggest problem that civilisation has had to face in 5,000 years. ... We are moving from a warm period into the first hot period that man has ever experienced since he walked on the planet."
. . He warned of the slow response of the climate system and said we were already doomed to 30 or 40 years of climate heating because of the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere.
Typical headlines, nowadays: July 12, 04: Europe plagued by snow and heatwaves, Romanian death toll climbs.
Flights canceled, houses collapse as massive rainstorm hits Beijing.
Bangladesh floods worsen as 1.5 million people are marooned.
July 7, 04: The European Union head office said today only five EU states are ready to implement a 1997 UN accord next year limiting carbon-dioxide emissions and chided other members for dragging their heels. EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom said she has given 5,000 factories in eight EU states approval to start a complex plan of trading national CO-2 emission levels to reverse global warming.
. . Wallstrom said she had received 13 emission plans. Five -from Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Slovenia- were approved while Germany, Austria and Britain were given three months to make minor changes in theirs. Wallstrom said she will take legal action in the EU high court against Italy and Greece for failing to submit national plans.
. . The EU nations agreed in 2003 to abide by the Kyoto agreement. The United States withdrew from the agreement saying it was too costly and harmed the U.S. economy.
July 6, 04: Like a desert bursting into flower after a rare rainstorm, seemingly barren stretches of the ocean bloom with plankton after hurricanes pass by. The bursts of life were measured by satellite studies following 13 hurricanes from 1998 to 2001.
. . "Some parts of the ocean are like deserts, because there isn't enough food for many plants to grow. A hurricane's high winds stir up the ocean waters and help bring nutrients and phytoplankton to the surface, where they get more sunlight, allowing the plants to bloom." These tiny plants grow in great numbers when they bloom, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. When they die they sink to the bottom, trapping the excess carbon for thousands of years.
. . Whether the amount of carbon dioxide removed by plankton blooms after a hurricane is significant, remains to be determined, Babin said. And, he added, there is a competing effect, because when the storms toss the sea around, the water can release dissolved carbon dioxide, somewhat like a shaken can of soda loses its fizz. It's not known whether the two effects balance out or if the plankton helps reduce gasses in the air, Babin said.
. . Such studies help improve understanding of the global carbon cycle, Babin said, "the more we understand, the easier it will be to try to live with the changes we can't control" or figure out how to control what we can. Scientists concerned about global warming have debated whether such plankton growth could be encouraged as a way of reducing the carbon dioxide. That has even led to experiments in which seemingly empty areas of the ocean were seeded with nutrients such as iron in hopes of encouraging such growth.
June 28, 04: European experts are putting together a "Noah's Ark" list of famous and historic buildings that could be at risk from climate change, one of the scheme's organizers announced. Hadrian's Wall, which was built by the Romans to keep marauding Scots out of northern England, Trafalgar Square in London and Prague's Charles Bridge are among the structures that could be at threat.
. . Researchers from 10 countries will set up a number of test sites to assess the risk of climate change on cultural heritage, & will then draw up a "Vulnerability Atlas" to indicate the areas which could be at threat.
June 28, 04: Global warming could mean bad news for one of the world's most important crops, rice. Increased nighttime temperatures were associated with significant declines in crop yield at the International Rice Research Institute Farm in the Philippines. Indeed, an average daily temperature increase of 1 degree Celsius resulted in a 10 percent reduction in the rice crop.
. . "Many models have assumed that increases in (carbon dioxide) with global climate change will compensate for higher temperatures, but field data like this is valuable in pointing out that even at higher CO2 levels, warmer temperatures still have a negative effect."
June 24, 04: France and Britain made a joint appeal for action against global warming. The two countries called on the world community, led by industrial nations, to hold down emissions of fossil-fuel gases blamed for the rising temperatures.
. . "The (European) heatwave of summer 2003, repeated floods, the advance of desertification, the melting of the icesheets and glaciers are an illustration of the first effects of climate upheaval", four of their ministers said in a joint commentary. "Our two governments are firmly committed, with their European partners, to meeting this crucial challenge."
. . The four warned that climate change would have an "uncalculable" cost on health, the environment and national economies and would hit future generations grievously. The tab "will clearly be higher than the economic cost of measures to tackle the phenomenon."
. . Kyoto, signed in 1997, remains in limbo. The United States, the biggest carbon polluter, has walked away from it and Russia is making contradictary noises about ratifying the accord, a move that would push the deal over a legal threshold and make it an international treaty.
June 21, 04: Scientists have developed a serum to reduce methane gas in burping sheep, cows and other ruminants to combat global warming, a German magazine reported. The vaccine reduces the methane emissions of sheep by eight percent.
. . Sheep produce 20 grams of methane (CH4) each day, or seven kg per year. Cows produce about 114 kg per year. Methane is 21 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.
June 18, 04: The March through May period was the third
warmest spring on record for the United States, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. It
was 2.9 degrees warmer than average for those three months in records going back to 1895. Second warmest was 2000. Michigan had its wettest spring on record.
. . A preliminary estimate of tornado numbers from
the NOAA Storm Prediction Center indicates about 500
occurred during the month. The record of 543 was recorded in May 2003.
June 17, 04: The drought gripping the West could be the
biggest in 500 years, with effects in the Colorado River
basin considerably worse than during the Dust Bowl years,
scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey said. "That we can
now say with confidence", said Robert Webb, lead author of
the new fact sheet. "Now I'm completely convinced."
. . The Colorado River has been in a drought for the
entire decade. The drought has produced the lowest flow in
the Colorado River on record, with an adjusted annual
average flow of only 5.4 million acre-feet at Lees Ferry,
Ariz., during the period 2001-2003. By comparison, during the Dust Bowl years, between 1930 and 1937, the annual flow averaged about 10.2 million acre-feet.
June 18, 04: The discovery of breeding colonies of
stinkbugs in London is clear proof that global warming is a
fact of life, a scientist said. The small insect --Nezara
viridula or southern green stinkbug-- is native to far
warmer climes in North America, South America and Africa and has never before been known to breed in chilly Britain. It's is a plant killer that can ravage food crops.
June 18, 04: The Aral Sea, once one of the world's largest
inland bodies of water, could dry up unless neighboring
countries work to increase its water supply, the United
Nations warned. Shared between the Central Asian nations of
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea has shrunk to
13,125 square miles, about half its original size. Drought and excessive use of its main feeder rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, are mostly to blame.
June 16, 04: A doubling of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the
atmosphere could triple the intensity of the heat island
effect, according to a new study. Sweaty summer nights in
the city are going to get even sweatier in the future
thanks to climate change. A prolonged heatwave in Europe
last August caused at least 20,000 deaths, especially among elderly people.
. . CO2 concentrations stand at 379 parts per million
(ppm), according to measurements taken in March at a US
observatory on Hawaii, which put the year-on-year increase
at three ppm. This compares with the yardstick of 280 ppm of pre-industrial times.
June 16, 04: The world is turning to dust, with lands the
size of Rhode Island becoming desert wasteland every year
and the problem threatening to send millions of people
fleeing to greener countries, the United Nations says.
. . One-third of the Earth's surface is at risk,
driving people into cities and destroying agriculture in
vast swaths of Africa. Thirty-one percent of Spain is
threatened, while China has lost 36,000 square miles to
desert -an area the size of Indiana- since the 1950s.
. . Slash-and-burn agriculture, sloppy conservation,
overtaxed water supplies and soaring populations are mostly
to blame. Global warming is taking a toll, too.
. . The United Nations says:
- _ From the mid-1990s to 2000, 1,374 square miles have
turned into deserts each year an area about the size of
Rhode Island. That's up from 840 square miles in the 1980s,
and 624 square miles during the 1970s.
- _ By 2025, two-thirds of arable land in Africa will
disappear, along with one-third of Asia's and one-fifth of South America's.
- _ Some 135 million people equivalent to the
populations of France and Germany combined are at risk of being displaced.
. . Now, the Southwest drought has become so severe
that even the sagebrush is dying.
. . "The lack of water and the overuse of water, that
is going to be a threat to the United States", Thomas said.
"In other parts of the world, the problem is poverty that
causes people to overuse the land. Most of these ecological
systems have tipping points, and once you go past them, things go downhill."
June 15, 04: Climate change experts said today they are
frustrated the U.S. government and the public are not
taking the risk of global warming seriously. They said even
as sea levels rise and crop yields fall, officials argue over whether climate change is real and Americans continue to drive fuel-guzzling SUVs.
. . "There is going to be large change", said
atmospheric scientist David Battisti of the University of
Washington in Seattle. "The risks are very large." "Some
people get it --some people are driving hybrids. But there
is a problem with the American public."
. . Climate experts around the world agree one first
step to battling the buildup of polluting gases that is
warming the Earth is an agreement called the Kyoto
Protocol, a 1997 pact aimed at reducing greenhouse
emissions. More than 120 nations have ratified the pact or
acceded to it. President Bush pulled out in 2001, arguing
Kyoto was too expensive and unfairly excluded developing
nations. The United States is the world's biggest polluter,
producing 36 percent of warming emissions.
. . Oppenheimer said sea levels have risen 9 cm
already over the past century and could rise between 9 to
88 cm (4 and 40 inches) more in the next century. Both the
Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheets are "highly
vulnerable" to global warming, Oppenheimer said. If
completely melted, the Greenland ice sheet would add 25
feet to overall sea level and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
would raise it by 16 feet. This would be enough to swamp
most of Florida, Bangladesh and Manhattan, he said. "The
sea level rise over the past century appears greater
than what the model says it should be."
. . Schrag said the current concentration of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere is 380 parts per million --
higher than it has been for at least the past 430,000 years.
. . "In the next 100 years, unless immediate action
is taken, carbon dioxide levels will rise to between 800
and 1,000 parts per million. The last time carbon dioxide
was that high was during the Eocene, 55 to 36 million years
ago", Schrag added. At that time, he said, "palm trees
lived in Wyoming, crocodiles lived in the Arctic, Antarctica was a pine forest and sea level was at least 300 feet higher than today."
June 13, 04: The number of people vulnerable to floods is
expected to double to 2 billion worldwide by 2050 due to
global warming, deforestation, rising sea levels and
population growth in flood-prone areas, U.N. researchers
warned. One billion people, roughly a sixth of the world's
population, now live in the potential path of a worst-case
flood, and most of these are among the planet's poorest.
. . The world will be warmer and wetter by mid-
century, and the northern part of the Northern Hemisphere
will likely see more storms. Sea levels could rise, fed by
melting glaciers and ice caps, and extreme high-water
levels could become more common, menacing small islands and
coastal lowlands, he said. Floods already kill as many as
25,000 people a year and -- along with other weather-
related disasters -- cost the world economy up to $60
billion a year, much of it in developing nations ill-
equipped to cope with such huge costs, the experts said.
. . The U.N. University was established by the 191-
nation General Assembly in 1973 to foster an international
community of scientists looking into global problems.
June 10, 04: Scientists have drilled three km into the
Antarctic ice to produce the oldest-ever continuous climate
record, from an ice core dating back 740,000 years.
It shows eight ice ages, or glacials, followed by shorter
interglacial periods and changing concentrations of gases
and particles in the atmosphere.
. . The period that corresponds most to the present
interglacial period, which started 12,000 years ago, was
about 400,000 years ago and lasted roughly 28,000 years.
"Our data say we won't go into another ice age. We have
15,000 years before that is coming." Weather for about the
next 15,000 years should be warm and stable -- barring
human interference. But concentrations of greenhouse
gases such as methane and carbon dioxide (CO2) today are
the highest seen in the last 440,000 years. "We have
no experience of (this) in the past", said Wolff.
. . The scientists now plan to extract air from tiny
bubbles in the ice to determine how the atmosphere's
composition has varied. They plan to drill 100 meters
further into the ice in one of the most hostile places on
the planet to reach ice that is 900,000 to one million years old.
June 10, 04: The impact of global warming on some of the
world's most isolated people has been revealed in a
groundbreaking study of the looming environmental problem.
went to the atolls of Tamana, Abemama, Butaritari and
Kiritimati and asked what changes people there had been in the last 30 years.
. . Some of those changes seemed harmless enough.
Once used to going barefoot, now almost everyone was
wearing flip-fops or sandals because the roads and foot
paths had become too hot. Coconut meat took a shorter time
to dry before it could be pried from the shell, and coconut
oil, once rubbed into the skin and hair, had been abandoned
because it now melts off. The cycles of storm and drought
"have taken on new form, so much so that the traditional
coping patterns seem to not work any more."
. . But increased coastal erosion, thought to be
caused by rising ocean waters, was found to be the biggest
fear among people on the atolls, which sit no more than
five meters above sea level. Besides destroying causeways
and seawalls, rising waters have also begun to topple
coconut palms grown along the shoreline that are crucial to survival.
June 8, 04: In an area of the Mariana Trench, researchers
found bubbles of *liquid carbon dioxide being released into the sea [how could they
*see it?], enlarging up to a thousand times and turning to gas as they drifted
upward. The liquid form of carbon dioxide is due to the great pressure at that depth.
At 1,600 meters, the pressure is 160 times more than the air pressure at sea level.
May, 04: The Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season will be busier than average with 14 named storms, eight of which will become hurricanes, a well-known cyclone researcher said in a revised forecast. Of the eight anticipated hurricanes, three will become intense, with winds over 111 mph, Colorado State University storm researcher William Gray predicted. The long-term average for the Atlantic-Caribbean season is 9.6 named storms, with 5.9 of those reaching hurricane strength and 2.3 of those becoming intense. Gray's team put the chance that at least one intense hurricane would hit land in the United States at 71 percent this year, considerably higher than the long-term average of 52 percent.
. . "We expect tropical cyclone activity to be well above average with about 145 percent of the average seasonal activity. But the United States has entered an era of increased hurricane activity. It is inevitable that we will see hurricane-spawned destruction in coming years on a scale many times greater than what we have seen in the past."
May, 04: Scientists studying earthshine -the amount of light reflected by the Earth- say the planet appeared to dim from 1984 to 2001 and then reversed its trend and brightened from 2001 to 2003.
. . The shift appears to have resulted from changes in the amount of clouds covering the planet. More clouds reflect more light back into space, potentially cooling the planet, while a dimmer planet with fewer clouds would be warmed by the arriving sunlight. That means the changes in brightness could signal climate change. Continuing observations ... will be necessary to learn their implications for climate.
. . The records include measurements of cloud cover taken by satellites and an analysis of earthshine, which was determined by studying how much it illuminates the dark portion of the moon.
May, 04: Using biomass, a type of fuel made of materials such as wood and manure, instead of coal to generate electricity, could lower the world's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and create jobs, a report said. The World Wide Fund for Nature, with the European Biomass Industry Association: "The report indicated that this could reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main global warming gas, by about 1,000 million tons each year -- a figure equivalent to the combined annual emissions of Canada and Italy."
. . Biomass currently provides one percent of industrialized countries' power needs but could provide 15 percent by 2020, according to the report. A renewable energy source, biomass is made from agricultural and forest products such as animal waste, straw or sugar cane.
. . The European Union is pushing for renewable energy sources such as biomass, wind power and solar energy to be used more widely across Europe. The bloc has set a target for the 15 countries that comprised it before its enlargement on May 1 to use renewable energy for 12 percent of their overall energy needs by 2010. Twenty-two percent of their electricity consumption is to come from renewable sources by that date.
. . The European Commission said it expected to miss that goal, with renewable energy forms predicted to make up only 10 percent of overall energy consumption and 18 to 19 percent of electricity consumption by that date.
May 13, 04: Inuit say that rising temperatures are
undermining traditional lifestyles based around hunting for
animals like seal, whale, walrus and polar bear. More
thawing permafrost --the normally perpetually frozen layer
of earth-- heavier snowfalls and seas with longer ice-free
seasons are some visible effects of climate change in the
area, she said. In addition, the region now hosts new
species such as barnyard owls, and hunters are drowning by falling through thinning ice. U.N. studies say the Arctic Ocean may be largely ice-free in summer by 2100.
. . Watt-Cloutier said the report predicts the
depletion of summer sea ice will push some marine mammals,
including polar bears and walrus, into extinction by the
middle or end of this century. "So you can well imagine if
the polar bear is extinct in 50, 60, 70 years, where we
will be as Inuit", she said. "This assessment projects the
end of the Inuit as a hunting culture."
. . Because they are small in numbers, Watt-Cloutier
said the Inuit need to partner with other regions
threatened by global warming, such as the low-lying Pacific
Island nations, to put themselves on the political map.
June 4, 04: The secretary of the UN's paramount
environment accord warned that climate-altering pollution
emitted by burning oil, gas and coal was now growing at "an
alarmingly rapid" rate. "Recent news about a disintegrating
Arctic ice cap and the increased frequency of extreme
weather events and associated damage have added to the
sense of urgency" about climate change, Ms Waller-Hunter,
executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC), said.
. . "Also worrying are the latest measures of the
alarmingly rapid growth in atmospheric CO2 (carbon dioxide)
concentrations." At Mauna Loa, Hawaii, CO2 was recorded
there in March at 379 parts per million (ppm), "well above
the 280 ppm of pre-industrial times and with a three ppm
increase from the year before." That three-ppm year-on-year
increase compares with an average annual growth of 1.8 ppm
over the past decade. On average, about 2.3 tons of CO2 are
released per ton of oil [or equivalent] burned.
. . Waller-Hunter made the remarks at the final day
of a four-day international conference on solar, wind and
other renewable energies in Bonn. She said renewables could
play a "central role" in combatting climate change.
June 2, 04: A vast belch of gas from beneath the North
Atlantic 55 million years ago may have warmed the planet
and hold clues to threats from an even faster modern surge
in greenhouse gases, scientists said. The apparent release
of hydrocarbons from subsea rocks in the Eocene epoch might
also bolster theories that spasms of volcanic activity
could have triggered extinctions. Norwegian researchers
said they had found traces of thousands of hydrothermal
vents in lava off Norway that could have been the source of
a rise in greenhouse gases 55 million years ago. Some of
the craters were 10 km across.
. . Until now, scientists have been at a loss to
explain the trigger for a 5-10 Celsius global warming over
about 10,000 years in the Eocene -- a blink in geological
time. "We think that magma heated sediments containing
organic material and led to an explosive release of gases."
Some plants and animals, especially in the seas, were wiped
out by the Eocene temperature spike. "But it's not one of
the major global extinction events."
. . The scientists said the annual rate of modern
human emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere in
the 1990s --from fossil fuels burned in cars, factories and
power plants-- was 35-360 times as fast as the pace of the
Eocene gas buildup. Scientists say that gases linked to
human activity could bring disaster with more storms,
floods and higher sea levels.
. . Much of the gas released was apparently methane,
a major component of natural gas and the second-biggest
contributor to global warming behind carbon dioxide. The
U.N.'s stalled 1997 Kyoto protocol seeks to limit emissions despite a U.S. pullout.
June 1, 04: Everybody's doing something about global
warming, but is anybody talking about it? There are plans
to control our planet's radiation balance by limiting the
amount of incoming radiation from the Sun. This could be
done by increasing the reflectivity of the Earth --its
albedo. Calculations show that an increase in planetary
albedo of just 0.5 percent is adequate to halve the effect
of a carbon dioxide doubling.
. . Several schemes suggested involved tossing
additional dust --or possibly soot-- into the stratosphere
or very low stratosphere to screen out sunlight. Such dust
might be delivered to the stratosphere by various means,
including being fired with large rifles or rockets.
. . Another scheme envisioned placing thousands of
large mirrors in Earth orbit to reflect incoming sunlight.
Alternatively, billions of aluminized, hydrogen-filled
balloons would be lofted into the stratosphere to provide a reflective screen.
June 1, 04: A recent report from the National Academies'
National Research Council (NRC) says greenhouse warming and
other human alterations of the climate system may increase
the possibility of large, rapid, and unwelcome regional or
global climatic events. A special NRC committee on abrupt
climate change looked into the implications for science and public policy. Last year, they issued their report: Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises.
May 20, 04: Will climate change trigger mass extinctions
or will new life bloom in its wake? Some of the scientific
scenarios are apocalyptic and see a warmer world leading to
the most profound changes since the demise of the dinosaurs.
. . "The biodiversity and nature impacts (of global
warming) are well-documented...all the signals are there:
birds migrating earlier, flowers blooming earlier, seasons
changing", said Jennifer Morgan, director of the Climate
Change Program for the conservation group WWF International.
. . Global warming could wipe out a quarter of all
species of plants and animals by 2050, according to one
international study. Others see a wetter and hence greener
world as a result. The debate intensifies when scientists
attempt to forecast how fast and how far global
temperatures will rise as a result.
. . One dramatic thesis asserts that humanity has
been altering the Earth's climate for the past 8,000 years
because of large-scale forest clearance for agriculture,
which released huge amounts of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.
. . In a paper published last year in the journal "Climatic
Change", William Ruddiman of the University of Virginia in
Charlottesville argued that on the eve of Industrial
Revolution two centuries ago, people had already raised the
global temperature by an average of 0.8 degrees C.
. . Ruddiman maintains that this pre-industrial
warming trend was at times reversed by reforestation in the
northern hemisphere --a process set in motion by mass human
deaths caused by pandemics of bubonic plague and other diseases.
. . His argument: the plague led to widespread
abandonment of farms during the Roman empire and most
spectacularly in the mid-14th century, when at least one
third of Europe's inhabitants perished in its wake between
1347 and 1350. Cultivated land also fell into disuse in the
Americas because of smallpox, which was used to devastate Native American populations.
. . The result: forests grew back and absorbed big
enough quantities of greenhouse gases while they were at it
to affect global climate patterns. This, he maintains, may
have been a factor behind the "Little Ice Age" between 1300 and 1900.
. . Ruddiman has since changed his emphasis. "Since I
wrote the paper, I have come to the conclusion that a
bigger impact was the fact that the...plagues stopped the
process of deforestation (by killing off people who would
have contributed to the process)", he said.
May 19, 04: A thawing of vast ice-like deposits of gas
under oceans and in permafrost could sharply accelerate
global warming in the 21st century, British-based
scientists said. Rising temperatures could break down
buried mixtures of water, methane and other gases --called
gas hydrates -- and release them into the atmosphere where
they would trap the sun's heat, they said.
. . A big release of methane could speed up global
warming far beyond the levels already forecast in
current models, upping the risk of floods, droughts and
wildfires, the report said. "The big problem is that a
warmer world is a less predictable world."
. . Methane is 21 times more powerful as a greenhouse
gas than carbon dioxide Hydrate thawing in permafrost regions such as Alaska could
also lead to a range of local difficulties. "Alaska is
already finding problems with subsidence of buildings and destabilization."
. . U.N. scientists had predicted a rise in
temperatures of between 2.5 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.
May 12, 04: Australian scientists have found the Earth may
be more resilient to global warming than first thought, and
they say a warmer world means a wetter planet, encouraging
more plants to grow and soak up greenhouse gases. A wetter
and cloudier world would see more plants and more
photosynthesis to counter greenhouse gases and also mean
less evaporation as less solar radiation reaches the Earth.
. . An increase in trees and shrubs in the world's
grasslands in recent decades was a major counter to
greenhouse gases, they said. "Forests, farms and grasslands
across the world absorb significant volumes of greenhouse
gases. They have the potential to absorb more, ameliorating climate change."
May 10, 04: The Indian Ocean could lose most of its coral
islands in the next 50 years if sea temperatures continue
to rise and reefs badly damaged by global warming do not
recover, a marine scientist said. Many coral reef organisms
can only tolerate a narrow range of environmental
conditions. Global warming triggered the death of between
50 and 98 percent of coral reefs in a region stretching
from northern Mozambique to Eritrea to Indonesia in 1998.
. . Coral reefs are among the most diverse and
productive communities on earth. Found in warm, clear,
shallow waters of tropical oceans worldwide, reefs have
functions ranging from providing food and shelter to fish
and invertebrates to protecting the shore from erosion.
May 9, 04: More than 70 years after the Dust Bowl days, a
NASA scientist studying moisture and air patterns in the
atmosphere believes he may have stumbled upon why the
drought occurred in the first place. The study reports that
slight changes in the surface temperatures of two oceans
created atmospheric conditions that caused the Dust Bowl from 1931 to 1939.
. . In the 1930s, tropical Pacific Ocean temperatures
were cooler than normal and tropical Atlantic Ocean
temperatures were warmer than normal, producing a weakened
low level jet stream that sent it farther south, Schubert said. The variation in sea surface temperatures were only a few tenths of a degree celcius.
. . The jet stream normally moves westward over the
Gulf of Mexico before turning northward, bringing moisture
and rain to the Great Plains. The weakened jet stream in
the 1930s also carried less moisture, and farmland on the Great Plains dried up.
May 6, 04: The Indian army launched an operation to rescue
20,000 nomads trapped in the Himalayan reaches of Kashmir
after a freak summer snow storm. Eleven people, including
three children, and 5,000 cattle have been killed in the
past week by avalanches. Experts have warned that climate
change is the biggest single threat mankind has ever faced,
with predictions of rapidly rising temperatures producing
rising sea levels and devastating floods and droughts.
. . "If there was a huge asteroid heading for Earth
on a path that looked like being a direct hit, we would all
mobilize to do something to divert it. Climate change is
that asteroid, and the way we are going now, it will be a direct hit."
. . The Climate Group, publicly launched last week in
London with the blessing of the British government and
funded by the U.S.-based Rockefeller Brothers Fund, aims to persuade governments, companies and even individuals to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
El Nino, the periodic warming in the equatorial Pacific
that can change weather worldwide, is more predictable than
previously thought, researchers report. While some
forecasting methods had limited success predicting the 1997
El Nino a few months in advance, the Columbia University
researchers say their method can predict large El Nino
events up to two years in advance. That would be a boon for
governments, farmers and others seeking to plan for the
droughts and heavy rainfall El Nino can produce.
Mar 27, 04: The first hurricane ever reported in the south
Atlantic is off the coast of Brazil. The storm is a
Category 1 hurricane --is the least powerful on
forecasters' five-level scale-- with winds somewhere
between 74 and 95 miles per hour. "This one's broken all the rules."
Mar 20, 04: Carbon dioxide, the gas largely blamed for
global warming, has reached record-high levels in the
atmosphere after growing at an accelerated pace in the past
year, say scientists monitoring the sky from this 3Km-high
station atop a Hawaiian volcano. Before the industrial age
and extensive use of fossil fuels, the concentration of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stood at about 280 parts per million.
. . Average readings at the 11,141-foot Mauna Loa
Observatory, where carbon dioxide density peaks each
northern winter, now hovers around 379 parts per million,
compared with about 376 a year ago. That year-to-year
increase of about 3 parts per million is considerably
higher than the average annual increase of 1.8 parts per
million over the past decade, and markedly more accelerated
than the 1-part-per-million annual increase recorded a half-
century ago, when observations were first made here.
. . Asked to explain the stepped-up rate,
climatologists were cautious, saying data needed to be
further evaluated. But Asia immediately sprang to mind.
"China is taking off economically and burning a lot of fuel. India, too."
. . The warming itself releases carbon dioxide from
the ocean and soil. By raising the gas's level in the
atmosphere, that in turn could increase warming, in a
"positive feedback", said Keeling, of San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
. . The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
projects that, if unchecked, atmospheric carbon dioxide
concentrations by 2100 will range from 650 to 970 parts per
million. As a result, the panel estimates, average global
temperature would probably rise by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees
Celsius (2.7 and 10.4 degrees F) between 1990 and 2100.
. . The 1997 Kyoto Protocol would oblige ratifying
countries to reduce carbon dioxide emissions according to
set schedules. The United States, the world's biggest
carbon dioxide emitter, signed the agreement but did not
ratify it, and the Bush administration has since withdrawn
U.S. support, calling instead for voluntary emission
reductions by U.S. industry and more scientific research into climate change.
Mar 18, 04: Drought conditions blanketing much of the
Western United States are not expected to improve this
spring, leading to more potential for "large, destructive"
fires in some areas, U.S. government weather forecasters said.
Mar 10, 04: Strange things are happening in lush Amazonian
rainforests and scientists said Wednesday rising levels of
carbon dioxide could be the cause. Even in pristine
rainforests unaffected by human activities such as logging
or burning, researchers have noticed dramatic differences
in the growth patterns of trees over the past 20 years.
That could distort the forest's fragile balance, affecting
rare plant and animal species.
. . William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical
Research Institute in Panama. "It's a little scary to
realize seemingly pristine forests can change so quickly
and dramatically." He noticed that the growth of large
trees in the Amazonian rainforests have accelerated over
the past two decades while the growth of smaller ones has slowed.
. . Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) have risen by 30
percent in the past 200 years because of emissions from
automobiles and industry and rapid forest burning,
particularly in the tropics. Much of the increase in CO2,
which plants use from the air for photosynthesis, has
occurred since 1960. The scientists suspect the rising CO2
levels are fertilizing the rainforests and increasing
competition for light, water and nutrients in the soil.
Mar 4, 04: Last year's deadly summer in Europe probably
was the hottest on the continent in at least five
centuries, according to researchers who analyzed ancient
temperature records. More than 19,000 people died.
. . Researchers at the University of Bern,
Switzerland, collected and analyzed temperature data from
all over Europe, including such climate measures as tree
rings from 1500. "When you consider Europe as a whole, it
was by far the hottest." The study showed that European
winters are also warmer now. The average winter and annual
temperatures during the three decades from 1973 to 2002
were the warmest of the half millennium, he said.
. . Stephen Schneider, a climate expert at Stanford
University and a prominent advocate for human-caused global
warming, said the Luterbacher paper is consistent with what
climate modelers have been predicting for 20 years.
. . "The data are starting to line up, showing that
those projections were correct," Schneider said. "We warned
the world that this was likely to happen because we
believed the theory, but couldn't actually prove it was
happening. Now the data is coming in."
. . Starting in 1977, the record shows "an
exceptionally strong, unprecedented warming," the
researchers report, with average temperatures rising at the
rate of about 0.36 degrees per decade.
. . Then came last summer. Record temperatures were
recorded in most of the major cities of Europe. The intense
heat also wilted crops, caused wildfires and continued a
centurylong trend of melting the continent's glaciers. Some
mountain glaciers have shrunk by 50 percent in the past
century in Europe, and some ice fields lost 10 percent of
their mass last summer alone. In addition, he said, the
long trend of warming temperatures is now melting the high
altitude permafrost -the soil that usually remains frozen
year-round- and that some buildings, bridges and roadways
are now threatened with unstable foundations. And it may
get worse, said Luterbacher. He said some studies forecast
that if the warming trend continues, Europe may have
summers like 2003 every other year, starting late in this century.
Feb 22, 04: A secret report prepared by the Pentagon
warns that climate change may lead to global catastrophe
costing millions of lives and is a far greater threat than
terrorism. The report was ordered by an influential US
Pentagon advisor but was covered up by "US defense chiefs"
for four months, until it was "obtained" by the British weekly The Observer.
. . The leak promises to draw angry attention to US
environmental and military policies, following Washington's
rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and
President George W. Bush's skepticism about global warning -
-a stance that has stunned scientists worrldwide.
. . The Pentagon report, commissioned by Andrew
Marshall, predicts that "abrupt climate change could bring
the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a
nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water
and energy supplies", The Observer reported. "Disruption
and conflict will be endemic features of life.... Once
again, warfare would define human life." Its authors said
climate change should be considered "immediately" as a top
political and military issue. It "should be elevated beyond
a scientific debate to a US national security concern",
they were quoted as saying.
Some examples given of probable scenarios in the
dramatic report include:
. . -- Britain will have winters similar to those in
current-day Siberia as European temperatures drop off radically by 2020.
. . -- by 2007 violent storms will make large parts
of the Netherlands uninhabitable and lead to a breach in
the acqueduct system in California that supplies all water
to densely populated southern California.
. . -- Europe and the United States become "virtual
fortresses" trying to keep out millions of migrants whose
homelands have been wiped out by rising sea levels or made unfarmable by drought.
. . -- "catastrophic" shortages of potable water and
energy will lead to widespread war by 2020.
Randall, one of the authors, called his findings
"depressing stuff" and warned that it might even be too
late to prevent future disasters. "We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years."
. . Experts familiar with the report told the
newspaper that the threat to global stability "vastly eclipses that of terrorism".
. . Taking environmental pollution and climate change
into account in political and military strategy is a new,
complicated and necessary challenge for leaders, Randall
said. "It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat."
. . Coming from the Pentagon, normally a bastion of
conservative politics, the report is expected to bring
environmental issues to the fore in the US presidential race.
. . Last week, the Union of Concerned Scientists, an
influential and non-partisan group that includes 20 Nobel
laureates, accused the Bush administration of having
deliberately distorted scientific fact to serve its policy
agenda and having "misled the public".
. . Its 38-page report, which it said took over a
year to prepare and was not time to coincide with the
campaign season, details how Washington "systematically"
skewed government scientific studies, suppressed others,
stacked panels with political and unqualified appointees
and often refused to seek independent expertise on issues.
The person behind the leaked Pentagon report, Andrew
Marsall, cannot be accused of the same partisan
politicking. Marsall, 82, has been an advisor for the
defense department for decades, and was described by The
Observer as the author of Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld's plans for a major transformation of the US military.
Feb 22, 04: Australia's Great Barrier Reef will lose most
of its coral cover by 2050 and, at worst, the world's
largest coral system could collapse by 2100 because of
global warming, a study said. The Great Barrier Reef is the
world's largest living reef formation stretching 2,000 km
north to south along Australia's northeast coast.
. . The study by Queensland University's Center for
Marine Studies, commissioned by the Worldwide Fund for
Nature, said that the destruction of coral on the Great
Barrier Reef was inevitable due to global warming,
regardless of what actions were taken now. "Under the worst-
case scenario, coral populations will collapse by 2100 and
the re-establishment of coral reefs will be highly unlikely
over the following 200-500 years", said the report. "Only
if global average temperature change is kept to below two
degrees Celsius can the Reef have any chance of recovering
from the predicted damage."
. . Coral has a narrow comfort zone and is highly
stressed by a temperature rise of less than one degree
Celsius. Scientists project water temperatures to rise this
century by between two and six degrees Celsius.
. . Water temperature rises of less than one degree
coincided with the world's worst recorded coral bleaching
episode in 1988. With bleaching, the warmer water forces
out the algae that give coral its color and, if all are
lost, the coral dies and the reef will crumble. In 1998, 16
percent of the world's coral died, with 46 percent of the
Indian Ocean coral destroyed.
. . It estimated that destruction of the Reef's coral
could end up costing the Australian economy $6.2 billion-US
and more than 12,000 jobs by 2020. The Great Barrier Reef
supports huge fishing and tourism industries.
Feb 18, 04: The Pacific atoll nation of Tuvalu will
disappear under the waves, giving weight to dark
predictions that it will become the first victim of rising
global sea levels. High or "king" tides will sweep onto
Tuvalu, just 26 square kilometers of land scattered over
nine atolls, none of which rises more than 4.5 meters above
sea level. "We are not quite sure what will happen, but we
expect most of the areas will be flooded by the sea for an
hour or so." Successive high tides have spoiled the fresh
water reserves under the atoll.
. . Then prime minister Bikenibeu Paeniu warned "the
world's first victims of climate change" would be the
11,500 Tuvaluans. Tuvalu tried unsuccessfully to convince
Australia and New Zealand to provide a special immigration
quota "should the high tides eventually make our home
uninhabitable." Current Prime Minister Saufatu Sopo'aga
says his government is thinking of suing Australia and the
United States for their carbon emissions.
. . Thursday the tide will peak at 3.07 meters above
mean sea level and on Friday will reach 3.1 meters.
Saturday will also see much higher tides. However, she said
local people were not afraid because they know the tide will go out again.
Jan 22, 04: Those wispy cirrus clouds, drifting 9 miles
above the ground, may be thinning out due to nitric acid
pollution, a change that scientists say could affect climate.
. . The impact still must be assessed. Airborne
measurements of the high clouds taken in the summer of 2002
showed increased humidity in the clouds and found nitric
oxide, which is a pollutant that comes from jet exhaust,
combustion on the ground and other sources. The clouds will
be thinner, he said. That could mean more sunlight is
allowed in, warming the Earth. It also could mean more
infrared radiation from the ground escapes into space, resulting in a cooling.
. . The nitric acid appears to act a bit like
antifreeze, preventing the ice crystals that it coats from
growing to their full size by absorbing water vapor from
the air. That results in smaller ice crystals in the clouds and higher humidity.
Jan 11, 04: Extreme summers and scorching heat waves
similar to the one that killed an estimated 20,000 people
across Europe last summer could become more frequent in the
future, climate scientists said. Last summer's record-
breaking temperatures were very unusual but global warming
and an increase in climate variability means more heat
waves are likely in years to come. "Our simulations show
that, roughly speaking, every second European summer is
likely to be as warm, if not warmer, than the summer of 2003."
Jan 7, 04: Cyclone Heta has caused the worst damage seen
on the tiny Pacific nation of Niue in living memory, locals
said after the storm with winds of up to 300 kilometres
(190 miles) an hour slammed into the tiny South Pacific
island. The devastation was massive. They fear some of
Niue's citizens will leave rather than rebuild.
. . Niue, an island of 260 square kilometers, is one
of the world's smallest nations.
Jan 1, 04: A senior aide of President Gloria Arroyo blamed
global warming for the series of landslides and floods that
wrought death and destruction in the Philippines last
month. The disasters killed more than 200 people on the islands.
. . "Now were talking about relocation." Bunye also
said the government would engage in "massive reforestation"
in these areas, using high-school and college students to
plant trees as a matter of course prior to graduation.
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