NewsRack: demo/Climate-Change/Impacts/Floods-n-Droughts

No evidence global warming caused it - CNN: Top Stories

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Yes, climate change is happening. But it's hard to say that the tornado that ripped through Moore, Oklahoma -- or any given tornado, for that matter -- was influenced by climate change.

Climate 'spurred human innovation' - BBC News - Science & Environment

Tue, 21 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Abrupt climate change in Africa helped trigger technological and cultural advances in early modern humans, according to new research.

Dot Earth Blog: Terrible Tornadoes in a Changing Climate - NYT > Environment

By ANDREW C. REVKIN — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Dot Earth Blog: Terrible Tornadoes in a Changing Climate

World on course to run out of water, warns Ban Ki-moon - The Guardian -- World Latest

Tue, 21 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Freshwater supply and water quality under pressure, warns UN secretary general on International Day of Biological Diversity Ban Ki-moon has warned the world is on course to run out of freshwater unless greater efforts are made to improve water security. Speaking on the UN's International Day of Biological Diversity , Ban said there was a "mutually reinforcing" relationship between biodiversity and water that should be harnessed. "We live in an increasingly water insecure world where demand often outstrips supply and where water quality often fails to meet minimum standards. Under current trends, future demands for water will not be met," Ban said. Water , food , energy and climate are all linked. Most forms of energy generation require water, variable weather is making agriculture harder while extreme weather events are hindering natural water storage. Ban believes there is an opportunity to address these challenges as the Millennium Development Goals are replaced with a new set ...

Number of 'excellent' quality UK beaches plummets - Guardian: Environment

Fiona Harvey — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Wet weather, which caused more discharges of raw sewage from the waste water system, is the most likely cause The proportion of UK beaches classed as "excellent" for the quality of their bathing water has fallen to its lowest level since 2000, new figures show. The number plummeted from 82.8% in 2011 to 58.2% in 2012, according to data released by the European Environment Agency on Tuesday. Wet weather, which caused more discharges of raw sewage from the waste water system, is the most likely cause. However, storms and severe rain downpours are likely to become more common in the future as climate change takes hold, so the poor results show up the problems with the UK sewerage system. In many cases, outfalls are designed to simply overflow into rivers, beaches and water courses when the sewers are overwhelmed by sudden severe rainfall. The EEA's bathing quality water surveys encompass both beaches and inland waterways used for bathing, such as rivers, streams and lakes. For 2012, the ...

Power of Moore tornado dwarfs Hiroshima bomb - Boston Globe: Latest

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Power of Moore tornado dwarfs Hiroshima bomb

Power of Moore tornado dwarfs Hiroshima bomb - AP Top News

By SETH BORENSTEIN — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Wind, humidity and rainfall combined precisely to create the massive killer tornado in Moore, Okla. And when they did, the awesome amount of energy released over that city dwarfed the power of the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima....

Dot Earth Blog: A Survival Plan for America's Tornado Danger Zone - NY Times: Science

By ANDREW C. REVKIN — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Dot Earth Blog: A Survival Plan for America's Tornado Danger Zone

Matt Ridley has joined the real climate debate - Guardian: Environment

Myles Allen — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

The climate sceptic's interpretation of my study as final endorsement of his position means we can move on It isn't often, as a climate scientist, that you find your research being enthusiastically endorsed by climate sceptic Matt Ridley in the Times . We published a paper in the journal Nature Geoscience on Sunday giving a new best estimate of 1.3C for the warming expected due to increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the time when carbon dioxide levels reach double what they were before the industrial revolution (known as Transient Climate Response, or TCR ). Ridley is excited about this, because he feels it means that until his teenage children reach retirement age, they won't have to worry about global warming. And he is worried that government policies are misguided because they place their faith in climate models, like one of the Met Office models that puts the warming instead at 2.5C, almost twice our estimate. But no one places their faith in any single climate model, and ...

Sea level change influenced tropical climate during last ice age - New Kerala: World News

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Washington, May 20 : A new study looks to the past to learn about the future of tropical climate change, and our ability to simulate it with numerical models.

Climate disasters displace millions of people worldwide - The Guardian -- World Latest

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

More than 32 million people fled their homes last year because of disasters such as floods, storms and earthquakes

Climate change meltdown unlikely but human disaster looms, claims new research - Guardian: Environment

Fiona Harvey — Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

But forecast global temperature rise of 4C heralds disaster for large swaths of planet with oceans absorbing most global warming Some of the most extreme predictions of global warming are unlikely to materialise, new scientific research has suggested, but the world is still likely to be in for a temperature rise of double that regarded as safe. The researchers said that warming was most likely to reach about 4C above pre-industrial levels if the past decade's readings were taken into account. That would still lead to catastrophe across large swaths of the Earth, causing droughts, storms, floods and heatwaves and with drastic effects on agricultural productivity leading to secondary effects such as mass migration. Some climate change sceptics have suggested that because the highest global average temperature yet recorded was in 1998, climate change has stalled. The new study, which is published in the journal Nature Geoscience , shows a much longer "pause" would be needed to suggest ...

Editorial: Climate Warnings, Growing Louder - NY Times: Editorials

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Editorial: Climate Warnings, Growing Louder

Impossible Choice Faces America's First 'Climate Refugees' - NPR News

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the tiny town of Newtok, Alaska, could be completely underwater by 2017. Its 350 residents must relocate or stay to face the floods, but a move is easier said than done.

State Of the Beaches: Rebuilding the Coastline, but at What Cost? - NYT > Environment

By JENNY ANDERSON — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

State Of the Beaches: Rebuilding the Coastline, but at What Cost?

Hot and getting hotter - Salt Lake Tribune

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

by Mark Reynolds Published May 18, 2013 01:01AM MDT In the rarefied air of Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, 11,141 feet above sea level, scientists have charted the passing of a milestone that, if ignored, heralds a future for civilization both tragic and chaotic. I’m referring to the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which Charles David Keeling began monitoring in 1958. At that time, CO2 concentration was 313 parts per million. We are now at 400 ppm and that is not good news. Why is this number so important? For hundreds of thou... ...

UK's climate change adaptation team cut from 38 officials to just six - Guardian: Environment

Fiona Harvey — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Former senior official John Ashton attacks government for 'spooking potential investors' in energy infrastructure The number of people employed by the government to work on the UK's response to the effects of climate change has been cut from 38 officials to just six, triggering accusations that David Cameron's promise to be the greenest government has been abandoned. The UK is facing a multi-billion pound bill over the next few years for the costs of adapting to the effects of climate change – including flooding , much fiercer storms, droughts, heatwaves and more extreme weather. The government's advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, have warned that the measures needed to prepare the UK's infrastructure will include defences for power stations, transport and communication networks, changes to how buildings are constructed, and new ways of trying to prevent flooding, such as an upgrade to the Thames Barrier. But the number of officials charged with dealing with the issue within the ...

Flooding threatens one in four London properties, warns Environment Agency - Guardian: Environment

Damian Carrington — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Almost £250bn worth of housing in capital at risk as flood defence budget cuts threaten homes and insurance policies across UK One in four London properties – collectively worth around £250bn – are at risk of flooding, according to official assessments of the flood dangers now facing homes in England and Wales. Ten of the top 25 most at-risk local authority areas across England and Wales are now London boroughs. The Environment Agency's 2013 National Flood Risk Assessment, unpublished but seen by the Guardian, shows that London boroughs now dominate the local authorities with most properties in jeopardy from river and tidal flooding, with only the city of Hull and the surrounding East Riding region with comparable numbers. THammersmith and Fulham, Southwark and Wandsworth are among the most threatened. Meanwhile, there was a 26% year-on-year drop in investment in flood defences between 2010 and 2011, with disproportionately high cuts in the capital. Separate figures compiled by the ...

Obama's Arctic strategy sets off a climate time bomb | Nafeez Ahmed - Guardian: Science

Nafeez Ahmed — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

US National Strategy for the Arctic Region prioritises corporate 'economic opportunities' at the expense of everyone else One week ago, the Obama administration launched its National Strategy for the Arctic Region , outlining the government's strategic priorities over the next 10 years. The release of the strategy came about a week after the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President at the White House Complex hosted a briefing with international Arctic scientists . Despite giving lip service to the values of environmental conservation, the new document focuses on how the US can manage the exploitation of the region's vast untapped oil, gas and mineral resources in cooperation with other Arctic powers. US hinges success of Arctic strategy on diminishing sea ice At the heart of the White House's new Arctic strategy is an elementary but devastating contradiction between what President Obama, in the document's preamble, describes as seeking "to ...

Tipton high on Keystone Pipeline - Durango Herald

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Witnesses at a House hearing Thursday on the Keystone XL Pipeline emphasized the pipelinex2019s safety compared with other methods of transporting fossil fuels.U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, led the House Committee on Small Business hearing, asking Congress to support the pipelinex2019s construction before other countries step...

Letter: Mold After the Hurricane - NY Times: Editorials

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Letter: Mold After the Hurricane

Meet the Alaskans poised to become 'America's first climate refugees' - MinnPost

Ron Meador — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

If we think of them at all, Americans still tend to think of "climate refugees" as remote —far away and off in the future somewhere, driven by rising sea levels to flee Pacific islands or the plains of south Asia, places of which we know next to nothing. The 100,000 people of Kiribati, say, who are imploring Australia and New Zealand ( so far without success ) to accept them as displaced persons before the ocean erases the 10 feet now separating their homes from sea level. A crisis much closer to home, in both time and territory, is documented in a remarkable series published this week in Britain's Guardian: Climate-driven havoc in nearly 200 native villages across Alaska, whose residents are positioned to become, probably within the decade, "America's First Climate Refugees." Richly illustrated and highly interactive, the project portrays the communities' approaching doom with an intimacy that may border on unbearable for some. But it's a story we need to know. Suzanne Goldenberg, ...

Food supply under assault as climate heats up - MSNBC

Bill Briggs — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Food supply under assault as climate heats up

Alaska's erosion accelerated by climate change - Guardian: Environment

Tue, 14 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Warmer temperatures, heavy rain, flooding, sea-level rise and retreating sea ice are stealing the ground from beneath Alaskans' feet

Guardian US interactive team

Move to safer ground is going too slowly - Guardian: Environment

Tue, 14 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Tensions are running high in an Alaskan village immediately threatened by climate change

Guardian US interactive team