Study Projects Steep Increase in NYC Heat-Related Deaths
With global average temperatures increasing in response to manmade emissions of greenhouse gases, the world has already been seeing an uptick in the frequency and severity of deadly extreme heat events, and a decrease in cold weather extremes. A new study looks at how these trends are likely to play out in one iconic city in particular: New York. I… Read More
Weather Service to Add Major Might to Computing Power
The NWS plans to use $25 million of the $48 million provided to it in the Sandy supplemental bill, along with funds that are called for in President Obama’s fiscal year 2014 budget proposal, to bring about "unprecedented" computing upgrades — going from an operational computing capacity of 213 peak teraflops at the end of the current fiscal year, t… Read More
The U.S.: A Nation Divided By Drought
What was once a coast-to-coast drought now divides the U.S. into two distinct pieces, pitting the water haves, in the Midwest, versus the have-nots, in the West. One of those regions is in for a long, hot, dry, and potentially smoky summer. (Hint: It's not the Midwest.)… Read More
Smaller Glaciers Boost Sea Level as Much as the Giants
As the planet warms under the influence of rising greenhouse gases, and melting ice drives sea level higher, scientists have focused mostly on changes in the vast ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica. If either one melts substantially or slides into the ocean, the results would be catastrophic. But there’s another ice reserve to worry … Read More
As Oceans Warm, Fish Are Finding New ZIP Codes
The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, employs a novel index that creates a fish thermometer of sorts, teasing out evidence of population shifts from fishery catch records during the past four decades. The study is the first to detect climate change-related shifts in the range of fish species on a global scale. In doing so, it provid… Read More
Warming Could Slash Species’ Habitat Ranges in Half
Vast numbers of plant and animal species could see their ranges slashed in half later this century as a result of climate change, according to a study in Nature Climate Change. The result, say the authors, could be serious ecosystem disruptions along with the loss of so-called “ecosystem services,” such as the purification of air and water; erosion… Read More
Amazon May Lose 65 Percent of Land Biomass by 2060
There will be no winners if agriculture made possible by widespread felling in the Amazon continues to expand, say researchers from Brazil and the U.S. They calculate that the large-scale expansion of agriculture at the expense of the forest could entail the loss of almost two-thirds of the Amazon’s terrestrial biomass by later this century … Read More
Carbon Dioxide Passes 400 PPM Milestone, NOAA Finds
Climate scientists recognize this 400 ppm mark as a symbolic milestone, illustrating the rapid increase of human-caused CO2 emissions over the past century. Numerous other climate data, gleaned from ice cores, ocean sediment, and other sources show that this is the highest CO2 concentration in the air in all of modern human history, possibly as far… Read More
