Climate Change News

How warm or cold is it on Earth as compared to earlier times? Of course, going back far enough and one can find all sorts of extremes. How about the last ten thousand years? Using data from 73 sites around the world, scientists have been able to reconstruct Earth’s temperature history back to the end of the last Ice Age, revealing that the planet today is warmer than it has been during 70 to 80 percent of the time over the last 11,300 years. Of even more concern are projections of global temperature for the year 2100, when virtually every climate model evaluated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that temperatures will exceed the warmest temperatures during that 11,300-year period known as the Holocene – under all plausible greenhouse gas emission scenarios.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/qRimM703ftI" height="1" width="1"/

As the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties continues, the USA and Russia have come together in an attempt to ban export trade in polar bear products. In a bid to provide polar bears with the highest level of protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the American-Russian proposal calls for a ban on any international commercial trade of skin, fur, fangs and other products made from polar bears.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/xAEpBdvlS34" height="1" width="1"/

Widespread adoption of electric vehicles will reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly. Some are worried that the electric grid will be stressed leading to a decrease in its reliability. In related news today, Battelle and AeroVironment have a technology that will address this concern, and help EV's charge when the grid is most able to support charging. This technology is the subject of a commercial license agreement between Battelle and AeroVironment, Inc., of Monrovia, Calif. The technology may also ultimately result in lower costs for plug-in electric vehicle owners. Battelle operates the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash. AeroVironment will use a portion of the licensed technology in a new prototype version of its Level II charging systems.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/l89OL_G5Fds" height="1" width="1"/

There's little evidence that the Earth is nearing a global ecological tipping point, according to a new Trends in Ecology and Evolution paper that is bound to be controversial. The authors argue that despite numerous warnings that the Earth is headed toward an ecological tipping point due to environmental stressors, such as habitat loss or climate change, it's unlikely this will occur anytime soon—at least not on land. The paper comes with a number of caveats, including that a global tipping point could occur in marine ecosystems due to ocean acidification from burning fossil fuels. In addition, regional tipping points, such as the Arctic ice melt or the Amazon rainforest drying out, are still of great concern.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/F9t7J16mgTw" height="1" width="1"/

It is evident that drought can create massive problems for ecosystems, especially for trees and plants but no research has been done to determine which drought characteristics actually cause trees to die-off. It has been difficult for scientists to understand how seasonal differences, severity, and duration of droughts have affected tree mortality and even more difficult to predict how climate change can affect different ecosystems.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/ih-PiKTRt5U" height="1" width="1"/

Who said the effects of global warming are all negative? According to new research conducted by UCLA, melting sea ice during the late summer will make Arctic shipping channels much more accessible. The economy of the world depends on shipping as nearly all of a country’s imports and exports are transported across the global by these large ships. Canals like the Suez and Panama have helped reduce the length of certain shipping routes, but nothing has been done in the Arctic region because of the unreliable weather and treacherous ice.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/pwz6km8Wcqg" height="1" width="1"/

Pakistan's newly launched national climate change policy (NCCP) aims at natural resource conservation at home, but it also sees regional and bilateral agreements as key to ensuring water, food and energy security. The policy will be implemented by its provincial governments. At its launch last month (26 February), Pakistan's minister for climate change Rana Mohammad Farooq Saeed Khan said efforts would be made to strengthen provincial environment departments to enable them to carry out relevant functions devolved to them.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/ZLC4f9mVbSg" height="1" width="1"/

Planet Earth did not warm as much in response to increases in green house gas emissions as expected. There appear to be other factors that influence global temperatures than green house gasses. A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder looking for clues about why Earth did not warm as much as scientists expected between 2000 and 2010 now thinks the culprits are hiding in plain sight -- dozens of volcanoes spewing sulfur dioxide. The study results essentially exonerate Asia, including India and China, two countries that are estimated to have increased their industrial sulfur dioxide emissions by about 60 percent from 2000 to 2010 through coal burning, said lead study author Ryan Neely, who led the research as part of his CU-Boulder doctoral thesis. Small amounts of sulfur dioxide emissions from Earth’s surface eventually rise 12 to 20 miles into the stratospheric aerosol layer of the atmosphere, where chemical reactions create sulfuric acid and water particles that reflect sunlight back to space, cooling the planet.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/hk5ar6V-MJw" height="1" width="1"/

Rapid cropland expansion is the main cause of biodiversity loss in tropical countries, a study by UNEP's (the UN Environment Programme) World Conservation Monitoring Centre and the Cambridge Conservation Initiative has found. The study, published in PLOS ONE last month (9 January), highlights maize and soybean as the most expansive crops and as the main drivers of biodiversity loss in tropical regions. Other crops that pose a major threat to habitats and wildlife are beans, cassava, cowpea, groundnut, millet, oil palm, rice, sorghum, sugarcane and wheat, the study says.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/zREQDLtWLKw" height="1" width="1"/

The common name snail is also applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have a coiled shell that is large enough for the animal to retract completely into. When the word snail is used in this most general sense, it includes not just land snails but also thousands of species of sea snails and freshwater snails. They do not have a great reputation but the story goes that if a snail climbs a plant or post, rain is coming, research led by the University of York goes one better: it shows snails can provide a wealth of information about the prevailing weather conditions thousands of years ago. The researchers, including scientists from the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Center (SUERC), analyzed the chemistry of snail shells dating back 9,000 to 2,500 years recovered from Mediterranean caves, looking at humidity at different times in the past.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/EUb1V0eYKfU" height="1" width="1"/

Royal Dutch Shell announced yesterday that it was setting "pause" on its exploratory drilling activities in the Arctic for 2013. Shell's operations are currently under review by the federal government after the oil company suffered numerous setbacks during last year's opening attempt to drill exploratory wells in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, including running its drilling rig aground on Sitkalidak Island in southern Alaska in late December.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/pWH_qYh7P_s" height="1" width="1"/

Oh the things your smartphone can do! For the first time, data on current conditions on thousands of rivers and streams across the country, can be accessed from your smartphone, using USGS' latest system WaterNow. WaterNow makes the water conditions monitored by more than 16,000 stream gages and other sites across the country available via text or email. Stream gages refer to sites along a stream where information for streamflow, groundwater levels, springs, water quality, and lake levels are measured. They are used by hydrologists and scientists for monitoring purposes, although this data can be accessible to anyone who is interested.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/wyBcHXJISps" height="1" width="1"/

By combining aquaculture with wet paddy farming in its coastal areas Bangladesh can meet food security and climate change issues, says a new report. The approach promises more nutritious food, without causing environmental damage, and has the potential for a 'blue-green revolution' on Bangladesh’s existing crop areas extending to about 10.14 million hectares and an additional 2.83 million hectares that remain waterlogged for about 4–6 months.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/Uz66qQ0A-R8" height="1" width="1"/

A new smart material called a MOF (metal organic framework) has the ability to adsorb carbon dioxide and release it when exposed to sunlight thus creating a new breakthrough in a way to recycle CO2 emissions using renewable energy. The process is known as dynamic photo-switching which refers to the reversible light-induced switching of floor or intensity. This capture-and-release method is extremely energy efficient and only requires UV light to trigger the release of CO2 after it has been captured from the mixture of exhaust gases.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/6ag0MDJCVw8" height="1" width="1"/

More snow in the Arctic is good. Less snow elsewhere may be a problem. A new cli­mate model pre­dicts an increase in snow­fall for the Earth’s polar regions and high­est alti­tudes, but an over­all drop in snow­fall for the globe, as car­bon diox­ide lev­els rise over the next century. The decline in snow­fall could spell trou­ble for regions such as the west­ern United States that rely on snow melt as a source of fresh water.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/w4rIJOr4fOk" height="1" width="1"/

One of the greatest concerns of global warming is the effects temperature will have on snow and icecaps. With Arctic ice melt, many scientists predict sea levels rise, affecting coastlines and populations around the world. Not only will warmer temperatures affect ice caps, but according to a new study the thawing of permafrost in colder regions could eventually lead to the release of 1,000 giga-tonnes of greenhouse gases into the air which has the potential to further accelerate global warming.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/hg14OrlioDg" height="1" width="1"/

Element Hotels are made to order for travelers who are conscious of the environment and who appreciate good design and lots of light. Their design ethic includes guest rooms and public spaces with as much natural light as possible. Stylish and sustainable throughout, Element offers comfort with a conscience and signature amenities from its complimentary, healthy RISE breakfast and RELAX evening reception to saline swimming pools, spacious fitness centers, bikes to borrow and electric vehicle charging stations. Element made history in 2008 as the only major hotel brand to pursue LEED certification for high-performance buildings brand-wide. To date, there are Element hotels in 10 U.S. markets, with new domestic and international hotels in development. My wife and I stayed at the Element hotel in New York City recently, guests of the chain. We drove to the hotel in our Chevrolet Volt and charged it at the EV charging station in the parking facility the hotel uses. This was the first time in over two years of Volt ownership that I was actually able to charge the car at a hotel. I am planning on purchasing an all electric in a year or so, being able to charge at a hotel becomes extremely important. Kudos to Element for being kind to EV owners! Note, this was not free at the New York hotel where a parking facility across the street is used for parking, but I was told that at other Element Hotels free charging stations are available.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/wBv9P_9nbg8" height="1" width="1"/

Element Hotels are made to order for travelers who are conscious of the environment and who appreciate good design and lots of light. Their design ethic includes guest rooms and public spaces with as much natural light as possible. Stylish and sustainable throughout, Element offers comfort with a conscience and signature amenities from its complimentary, healthy RISE breakfast and RELAX evening reception to saline swimming pools, spacious fitness centers, bikes to borrow and electric vehicle charging stations. Element made history in 2008 as the only major hotel brand to pursue LEED certification for high-performance buildings brand-wide. To date, there are Element hotels in 10 U.S. markets, with new domestic and international hotels in development. My wife and I stayed at the Element hotel in New York City recently, guests of the chain. We drove to the hotel in our Chevrolet Volt and charged it at the EV charging station in the parking facility the hotel uses. This was the first time in over two years of Volt ownership that I was actually able to charge the car at a hotel. I am planning on purchasing an all electric in a year or so, being able to charge at a hotel becomes extremely important. Kudos to Element for being kind to EV owners! Note, this was not free at the New York hotel where a parking facility across the street is used for parking, but I was told that at other Element Hotels free charging stations are available.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/MSWryOVaAoE" height="1" width="1"/

Organic tomatoes are sweeter (more sugar) and more nutritious (more vitamin C and anti-oxidants) than tomatoes grown with pesticides and chemical fertilizers, according to a new study published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. The scientists theorize that stress may be why organic farming produces a more nutritious and tastier tomato.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/qk11a8ZDSwk" height="1" width="1"/

Mobile-phone masts in Africa could be used for other development initiatives, such as filling gaps in rainfall data and providing electricity to refrigerate vaccines, experts say. For example, masts could be used to measure rainfall in areas without rain gauges, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) this month (4 February).img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateChangeNews-Enn/~4/76K42bcbN6k" height="1" width="1"/