A Year After Flooding, Commerce on Mississippi Imperiled
It was only a year ago that there was record flooding along the Mississippi River and many of its tributaries. Heavy rainfall combined with spring snowmelt to cause the mighty Mississippi to overflow its banks, damaging towns and farmland that line the waterway.… Read More
November Is Globe’s 333rd Straight Month of Warm Temps
November was the 333rd month in a row with a global average surface temperature that was above the 20th century average, a clear sign of the warming trend that scientific evidence shows is very likely due in large part to manmade emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide.… Read More
Mississippi Faces Shipping Closure as Water Levels Drop
The Mississippi as seen from Ed Drager's tug boat is a river in retreat: a giant beached barge is stranded where the water dropped, with sand bars springing into view. The floating barge office where the tug boat captain reports for duty is tilted like a funhouse. One side now rests on the exposed shore. "I've never seen the river this low," Drager… Read More
Warmer Winters Threaten Northeast’s Smaller Ski Areas
The scene is something no ski resort operator wants to see early in the season: Sunlight glaring off the sloppy snow pooling like dirty mashed potatoes at the base of the high-speed six-person chairlift. The thermometer at Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort in western Massachusetts reads 59 degrees Fahrenheit on this mid-November day, and Brian Fairbank,… Read More
China & U.S. Hold the Key to New Global Climate Deal
China and the U.S. are to be the clear focus of the next year of climate change negotiations, following a hard-fought climate conference that ended in Doha on Saturday night. The world's two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases hold the key to forging a new global agreement on climate change, that for the first time would bind both developed and d… Read More
Area Burned By U.S. Wildfires Expected to Double by 2050
Warmer and drier conditions in coming decades will likely cause the burned area from wildfires in the U.S. to double in size by 2050, according to new research based on satellite observations and computer modeling experiments. The research, which was first presented at the annual meeting of the whttp://www.agu.org in San Francisco on Dec. 4, provid… Read More
Resilient Drought Holds on Through Dry Autumn
Another week of below-average precipitation across the lower 48 states has brought little relief to drought-stricken areas, making it increasingly unlikely that long-suffering areas will see the dry spell subside by the end of the year. As of December 11, 61.87 percent of the land area in the continental U.S. was still under some degree of drought… Read More
Book It: 2012, The Hottest U.S. Year on Record
Global warming is directly linked to only a few weather events and climate trends. One of them, however, is warming itself, which could make 2012 a watershed climate change year in the U.S. More than superstorms, wildfires, and devastating drought, this year’s record-smashing spring and summer heat waves, with their melted airport runways and … Read More
