Record 2012 Greenland Melt Challenges Climate Models
A weather pattern that may have become more common in recent years was largely responsible for causing last summer’s record melt in Greenland, according to a new study. The research, published this week in the International Journal of Climatology, found that a giant protective dome of high pressure established itself above Greenland throughout the … Read More
U.S. Airports Face Increasing Threat From Rising Seas
This was not the first time that LaGuardia suffered major flooding during a storm, nor will it be the last. Due to climate change-related sea level rise, LaGuardia and other coastal hubs throughout the U.S. face a growing risk of coastal flooding during even modest storms.… Read More
Look Out Below: Antarctic Melting From Underneath
Ice experts have long known that Antarctica is losing ice at the margins of its vast ice sheets, where the frozen continent meets the sea — presumably, they thought, from icebergs breaking off and floating away. According to a report published in Science, however, more than half the ice loss is coming from warming ocean waters, which are melting th… Read More
Catastrophic Oil Spill Threat to Canadian River Basin
The Mackenzie River Basin, a vast globally important area in Canada, is at great risk from climate change and a catastrophic oil spill from the tailing ponds of tar sands mining, according to a panel of nine Canadian, American and British scientists. The warning came just days after the Canadian Oil Producers Association says it expects oil produc… Read More
Rich Chinese Are Exporting Pollution to Poorer Regions
Just as rich nations have passed the responsibility for carbon dioxide emissions to the developing nations, so the rich provinces of China have exported the problem to the poorest regions, according to new research. The world’s biggest single emitter of the greenhouse gas – 10 billion tons in 2011 – has undertaken to reduce the “carbon intensity” … Read More
New York Launches $19.5 Billion Climate Resiliency Plan
Underlying the portfolio of measures, which amount to the largest climate resilience program of any city worldwide, Bloomberg said, are a recognition that climate change is increasing the risks of damaging storm surge events in New York by increasing sea levels, and that climate change is also likely to worsen heat waves, heavy precipitation events… Read More
IEA: World Can’t Afford to Wait for a New Climate Treaty
The world cannot afford to wait for a new global climate change agreement to come into force in 2020, because doing so will mean an end to hopes of limiting global warming to moderate levels, one of the world's foremost authorities on energy has warned. Carbon dioxide emissions from energy rose by 1.4 percent in 2012 to a record high of more than … Read More
Study Finds Plant Growth Surges as CO2 Levels Rise
Australian scientists have solved one piece of the climate puzzle. They have confirmed the long-debated fertilization effect. Plants build their tissues by using photosynthesis to take carbon from the air around them. So more carbon dioxide should mean more vigorous plant growth – though until now this has been very difficult to prove. Randall Don… Read More
