tagged w/ Floods
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The toll from Europe's killer cold snap hit at least 360 on Monday with nine new victims found in Poland, most of them homeless, and five drowned when a Bulgarian dam burst after torrential rain.
The rain and snowstorms lashing southern Bulgaria collapsed the dam early Monday, submerging the small village of Biser under 2.5 metres (eight feet) of water, emergency services said.
Biser mayor Zlatka Valkova told state news agency BTA three elderly men had drowned in their homes and a massive rescue effort was under way in the village of about 800 people. National radio reported two other people were killed when their car was swept off a bridge.
"People are in panic," regional mayor Mihail Liskov said on national radio. "Ninety percent of the village is under water."
Two larger dams in southern Bulgaria risked spilling over and residents were told to prepare to evacuate. Heavy rains also triggered a landslide that derailed a train near the Turkish border. No injuries were reported.
Meanwhile, temperatures in Poland plunged to as low as minus 24 degrees Celsius (minus 11 Fahrenheit), bringing another deadly night for the homeless.
As has been the case throughout the 10-day-old cold snap, transients have borne the brunt of the suffering, with frozen victims found in abandoned and unheated homes, fire escapes or makeshift shelters on Europe's streets.
snip
Overall, 107 people have died of hypothermia in Poland since winter hit in November. The current cold snap began at the end of January and across the continent, authorities have reported at least 360 weather-related deaths.
In neighbouring Lithuania, where the mercury has dipped to minus 31 Celsius (minus 24 Fahrenheit), the deaths of 12 more people over the weekend brought the cold snap's toll to 23.
Hungarian authorities have reported at least 12 dead since the onset of the cold.
Italian authorities continued to clear up after a rare snow storm blanketed Rome over the weekend and crews struggled to restore power to about 60,000 homes across the country, especially in the Tuscan cities of Siena and Arezzo.
Italian energy giant ENI warned earned it may have to cut gas supplied to customers after shortfalls in gas imports from Russia.
Elsewhere across Europe, authorities struggled to clear clogged roads and runways that left tens of thousands of travellers stranded over the weekend.
After cancelling half its flights Sunday, operators of London's Heathrow Airport, the world's busiest passenger hub, said its schedule was almost back to normal Monday.
While parts of Britain were beginning to warm above freezing, other European nations remained in an icy grip.
In the Czech town of Kvilda, near the Czech-German border, the temperature hit minus 39.4 Celsius (minus 38.92 Fahrenheit), the lowest recorded in the country this winter.
Switzerland also recorded year lows, dropping to minus 35.1 Celsius (minus 31 Fahrenheit) in the eastern Graubuenden canton on Sunday night.
The bitter cold has engulfed most of Europe and even crossed the Mediterranean into north Africa, where as many as 16 people were killed on Algeria's snow-slicked roads or in other weather-related accidents.
Rare snow also fell in southern Tunisia for the first timme in some 40 years, media reported, with temperatures well below freezing in some areas of the country and villages cut off.
In France, 39 of the country's 101 regions were on alert for deep cold or snow, down from more than half the regions at the weekend, as a new record for electricity consumption was predicted later Monday.
Five people have died in weather-related incidents since the cold snap hit France, the latest a 56-year-old homeless man who is believed to have succumbed to hypothermia in a suburb of Paris.
More at the linkThe toll from Europe's killer cold snap hit at least 360 on Monday with nine new... more
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Floods continue to threaten Queensland in eastern Australia, with the town of St George expected to be worst hit.
Thousands have been evacuated from the area, which is seeing its third major flood in less than two years.
The Balonne River in St George reached 13.48 metres on Monday and was expected to keep rising to a peak of 14-15 metres by late Tuesday.
Despite a mandatory order to leave, about 400 residents remained in town, Australian media reported.
''The danger area now is St George,'' Queensland Premier Anna Bligh told ABC News.
The evacuation, which she said was the largest ever for a town in the state, was orderly.
About 1,700 people left in their own vehicles, and another 500 were transported by bus and planes.
On Monday morning, a major highway was closed due to flooding and the town of about 3,000 was accessible only by air.
St George, Queensland, Australia
More planes will be sent to take the remaining 400 residents out, said Ms Bligh.
The highway is expected to be under water for five to seven days, she added.
''When people do return to town they are going to find I think a lot of devastation, a lot of heartache,'' she said.
continued at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16901378Floods continue to threaten Queensland in eastern Australia, with the town of St... more
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Emergency Management Queensland (EMQ) says torrential rain that has caused chaos around the state's south-east on Tuesday is only going to get heavier.
Hundreds of millimetres of rain has been dumped across the Gold and Sunshine coasts and Brisbane, bringing flash flooding, landslips and hundreds of road closures.
Evacuation centres have been opened at Narangba and Deception Bay, north of Brisbane, with about a dozen homes evacuated in Burpengary.
The Bureau of Meteorology says flooding could worsen in some areas with more rain expected across the region overnight and wet weather forecast for the rest of the week.
Police have reported dozens of traffic incidents since the big wet began and officials are warning people to stay out of floodwaters.
EMQ director of operations Warren Bridson says the situation is deteriorating.
"The rain is going to get heavier particularly between Maroochydore and Brisbane city in the next couple of hours, which means our State Emergency Service personnel are escalating their response," he said.
"We've had about 500 calls for assistance up until now and of course that is increasing all the time."
Mr Bridson says emergency crews will work through the night.
"The predictions are... more rain tonight and again tomorrow. I would expect the disaster management systems will escalate tomorrow if that transpires therefore there will be more activities around the local disaster management groups," he said.
He says it will be a long night for residents throughout the south-east.
"We're asking the community to really be aware tonight about what's predicted," he said.
"To take care on the roads and to be patient if they make calls to the State Emergency Service because it's going to be a long, hard night for the SES people in the south-east."
Weather bureau spokeswoman Michelle Berry says the wet conditions are likely to continue until next Tuesday.
"This is certainly quite a severe event that's occurring throughout south-eastern Queensland at the moment," she said.
"We can get these very moist air streams through the summer months.
"It doesn't have the same depth of moisture as what we were seeing through January of last year but it's certainly a very severe event ands that's why we are warning for it continuing into tomorrow also."
More at the linkEmergency Management Queensland (EMQ) says torrential rain that has caused chaos... more
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Remarkably, more than half of the country (58%) experienced either a top-ten driest or top-ten wettest year, a new record.
Percentage of the contiguous U.S. either in severe or greater drought (top 10% dryness) or extremely wet (top 10% wetness) during 2011, as computed using NOAA’s Climate Extremes Index. Image credit: NOAA/NCDC.
by Jeff Masters, cross-posted from the WunderBlog.
Rains unprecedented in 117 years of record keeping set new yearly precipitation totals in seven states during 2011, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center revealed in its preliminary year-end report for 2011.
Precipitation rankings for U.S. states in 2011. Seven states had their wettest year on record, and an additional ten states had a top-ten wettest year. Texas had its driest year on record, and four other states had a top-ten driest year. Image credit: NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.
An extraordinary twenty major U.S. cities had their wettest year on record during 2011. This smashes the previous record of ten cities with a wettest year, set in 1996, according to a comprehensive data base of 303 U.S. cities that have 90% of the U.S. population, maintained by Wunderground’s weather historian Christopher C. Burt. Despite the remarkable number of new wettest year records set, precipitation averaged across the contiguous U.S. during 2011 was near-average, ranking as the 45th driest year in the 117-year record. This occurred because of unprecedented dry conditions across much of the South, where Texas had its driest year on record.
Wettest, driest, and warmest year records set during 2011 for major U.S. cities. No major cities had their coldest year on record during 2011.
2011 sets a new U.S. record for combined wet and dry extremes [see top graph]
If you weren’t washing away in a flood during 2011, you were probably baking in a drought. The fraction of the contiguous U.S. covered by extremely wet conditions (top 10% historically) was 33% during 2011, ranking as the 2nd highest such coverage in the past 100 years. At the same time, extremely dry conditions (top 10% historically) covered 25% of the nation, ranking 6th highest in the past 100 years. The combined fraction of the country experiencing either severe drought or extremely wet conditions was 58%–the highest in a century of record keeping. Climate change science predicts that if the Earth continues to warm as expected, wet areas will tend to get wetter, and dry areas will tend to get drier–so 2011′s side-by-side extremes of very wet and very dry conditions should grow increasingly common in the coming decades.
23rd warmest year on record, and 2nd hottest summer for the U.S.
The year 2011 ranked as the 23rd warmest in U.S. history, with sixteen states recording a top-ten warmest year on record. Delaware had its warmest year on record, and Texas its second warmest. However, these statistics don’t convey the extremity of the summer of 2011–the hottest U.S. summer in 75 years. The only hotter summer–and by only 0.1°–was the Dust Bowl summer of 1936, when poor farming practices had turned much of the Midwest into a parking lot for generating extreme heat. The June – August 2011 average temperatures in Texas and Oklahoma were a remarkable 1.6°F and 1.3°F warmer than the previous hottest summer for a U.S. state–the summer of 1934 in Oklahoma. The U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI), which is sensitive to climate extremes in temperature, rainfall, dry streaks, and drought, indicated that an area nearly four times the average value was affected by extreme climate conditions during summer 2011. This is the third largest summer value of record, and came on the heels a spring season that was the most extreme on record. When averaged over the entire year, 2011 ranked as the 8th most extreme in U.S. history, since the fall weather was near-average for extremes. The CEI goes back to 1910.
More at the linkRemarkably, more than half of the country (58%) experienced either a top-ten driest or... more
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From site: "Since we have such an active community of armchair oceanographers and spreadsheet Glaciologists here, I thought it would be useful to speak to the real thing, the people who actually spend time on the ocean, on the ice sheets, do the measurements, and come back to share that knowledge with us. I had just that opportunity at the American Geophysical conference in December.
I spoke to Josh Willis, Oceanographer with NASA at the Jet Propulsion Lab – Josh is one of best known young ocean scientists on the planet. He pointed me to the recent Kemp et al study of tidal marshes on the US East coast, which has produced a long record of sea level over the last 2000 years, complete with a very Hockey-stickish uptick during the last 200 or so.
Jason Box of the Byrd Polar Center at Ohio State was there, presenting evidence of acceleration in Greenland ice loss over the last 200 years. His bottom line – “If we talk 10 years from now, my expectation is that Greenland will be losing roughly double what it is now.”
I round out the video with takes from old pros lead NASA scientist Jim Hansen and Admiral David Titley, the US Navy’s Chief Oceanographer.
More at the link
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And you can time it to the second how long it will take for the usual suspects who follow me to appear...They actually think they are converting people to believing their denier "religion" over actual scientists who are measuring the oceans and glaciers and what is right in front of our eyes. Laughable.From site: "Since we have such an active community of armchair oceanographers and... more
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Disclaimer: The events depicted in this video and the previous two parts are of global climate extremes for 2011 that were unusual or extreme in scope and fit the trend that suggests the strongest link between anthropogenic global warming and weather events through extreme precipitation events, floods and droughts. Nothing was inferred by this video and any such inferment placed on this by the viewer is based on their own preconceptions and biases. All photos depict the events and all information was gleaned from public sources for educational purposes as noted at the conclusion of the video.
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Previously I had posted two parts of this video series that I put together of climate extremes for 2011. Seeing just this one year in totality is an eye opener. With all three parts put together there is close to a half hour of information and pictures depicting the world we are making for our children and it is not a good report on the human species.
There is no mistaking anymore that we are affecting the cycles of this planet that provide the two most basic needs for our survival: food and water. The willful damage we are inflicting on our lifeline is irresponsible, arrogant and immoral regardless of what you think is the cause. This year requires REAL action. So please, pass this on and thanks for watching.
This was for me a labor of love and my heart goes out to all in this world who lost loved ones and who stilll deal with the effects of this crisis daily. May we collectively find the moral courage we need now to make this right as much as possibly can be done at this point.
CLIMATE CHANGE KILLS.
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I thought this fit here based on the events covered in this recap video:
"Brenda Ekwurzel, a UCS climate scientist, emphasized the varying levels of scientific certainty when it comes to links between extreme weather and climate change. “In some cases, the links between extreme weather and climate change are crystal clear,” she said. “In other cases, the picture is murkier.”
Ekwurzel said scientists see the strongest links to extreme heat and shifts in precipitation away from lighter and toward heavier events, meaning longer periods of drought punctuated by heavy flooding. "
Link to enitre article is in the thread.Disclaimer: The events depicted in this video and the previous two parts are of global... more
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From Chile to Colombia to Mexico, Latin America has been battered recently by wildfires, floods and droughts.
For many witnessing the extreme weather in the region and around the world, the question that comes up again and again is whether climate change is playing a role. The response from experts: Probably.
While leading climate scientists are unable to pin any single flood or heat wave solely on climate change, experts say the number of extreme weather events is increasing worldwide and the evidence suggests global warming is having an impact.
Wildfires are raging in Chile during an atypical heat wave, and northern Mexico is suffering from its worst drought in 70 years of record-keeping. A second straight season of heavy rains in Colombia killed at least 182 people, destroyed more than 1,200 homes and caused an estimated $2 billion in damage in the past four months.
Researchers predict more wild, unusual weather in the coming years, and they say Latin America is especially vulnerable because deforestation and sprawling construction have made the region more susceptible to flooding and landslides.
At a rose farm in the Colombian town of Chia, workers say floodwaters covered fields of roses last month for the second time in less than a year, leaving damaged greenhouses and a wasteland of shriveled flowers.
"Never in the history of this farm — and it's a business with 30 years in the market — have we ever had any such problem," said Javier Castellanos, the farm's manager, who estimates the damage at more than $6 million after floods in April and December.
He suspects climate change has been intensifying the rainstorms.
While experts say the cyclical cooling of the Pacific Ocean known as La Nina is a big factor in the weather, some also say climate change is likely making some of the severe weather more pronounced than it otherwise would be.
"We're seeing an increase in extremes of high temperatures, an increase in extremes of heavy precipitation, an increase in the length and severity of droughts," said Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University.
more at the linkFrom Chile to Colombia to Mexico, Latin America has been battered recently by... more
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This is part two of my recap of climate extremes globally for 2011. The first video dealt with the global effects in other countries for almost the first half of 2011. This part deals with the U.S. Part 3 coming up will deal with the global effects from the second half of 2011 with some other information added. I hope this is at least informative and puts the totality and urgency of what we now face into perspective. I can say that making this even though I already understand these effects has been a sad and sobering experience.
My heart goes out to those who lost loved ones, homes, wildlife and farms.
2012 must be the year we collectively wake up.This is part two of my recap of climate extremes globally for 2011. The first video... more
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The death toll from months of flooding in Thailand has risen above 800, although the waters have receded in many parts of the country, the government said Saturday.
Late reporting of deaths from the inundations in central and northern provinces, along with heavy November monsoon rains in the south of the kingdom have seen fatality numbers continue to rise, the interior ministry said.
A total of 823 flood-related deaths have now been recorded, including 10 in the south, since the crisis began in July. Three people are still missing.
At their height Thailand's worst floods in half a century affected 65 of 77 provinces in the low-lying nation, deluged hundreds of thousands of homes and forced the closure of large industrial parks, disrupting global supply chains.
The waters have since receded significantly, but more than two million people in five provinces continue to be affected and many areas still face a major clean-up operation.The death toll from months of flooding in Thailand has risen above 800, although the... more
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I previously stated that I was going to recap 2011 regarding the extreme climate events we saw that have been the trend. I will say this is a much more daunting task than I had envisioned because without dispute, 2011 was the year climate change by our hand became indisputable. And even so, this was one of the underreported stories in 2011.
This is part 1 and covers not even barely the first three months nor all of the places where we saw these events occur. I will be continuing this in part 2 and perhaps even a part 3, with other different features to present the information.
I believe it is imperative that we understand the connection between our actions and the effects they are now having on the world we live in, our only home and the world community we share it with.
Thanks to those who supported the Climate Extremes Group in 2011. We will be here to continue providing information on this in the coming year with the hope that we will see the consciousness and perspective necessary to address this in the time we have left to do so.
This is about the survival of humanity! Our agriculture especially is being hard hit by this and food prices reflect that.
Part 2 coming soon.I previously stated that I was going to recap 2011 regarding the extreme climate... more
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Charity Water has been doing wonderful things to bring potable water to those who need it most. Over four thousand projects this year alone. In the coming years with climate change and pollution having a greater effect in a world with a growing population, potable water and sanitation will be even more essential to life.
There is no better gift to give than water. To see the smile on the face of a child as they put clean water from a tap to their lips for the first time to drink is unlike any other.
2011 was a year in which we saw more water sources compromised by scarcity, pollution and the effects of climate change (such as drought, evaporation, floods.) This coming year will be no less of a challenge. However, when we work together for a common cause we can do wonders.
Let us make 2012 the year we begin to heal this planet and bring this living liquid to all in our world who need it.
Water Is Life.
As 2012 starts I will be featuring other water organizations also working to provide potable water to those who need it most.Charity Water has been doing wonderful things to bring potable water to those who need... more
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The water supplied by the glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, vital to a huge region of northwest Peru, is decreasing 20 years sooner than expected, according to a new study.
Water flows from the region's melting glaciers have already peaked and are in decline, Michel Baraer, a glaciologist at Canada's McGill University, told Tierramérica. This is happening 20 to 30 years earlier than forecasted.
"Our study reveals that the glaciers feeding the Río Santa watershed are now too small to maintain past water flows. There will be less water, as much as 30 percent less during the dry season," said Baraer, lead author of the study "Glacier Recession and Water Resources in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca", published Dec. 22 in the Journal of Glaciology.
When glaciers begin to shrink in size, they generate "a transitory increase in runoff as they lose mass," the study notes.
However, Baraer explained, the water flowing from a glacier eventually hits a plateau and from this point onwards there is a decrease in the discharge of melt water. "The decline is permanent. There is no going back."
Part of the South American Andes Mountain chain, the Cordillera Blanca is a series of snow-covered peaks running north to south, parallel to the Cordillera Negra, located further west. Between the two ranges lies the Callejón de Huaylas, through which the Río Santa runs, eventually emptying into the Pacific Ocean.
The tropical glaciers of the Andes Mountains are in rapid decline, losing 30 to 50 percent of their ice in the last 30 years, according to French Institute for Research and Development (IRD).
Most of the decline has been since 1976, IRD reported, due to rising temperatures in the region as a result of climate change. In Bolivia, the Chacaltaya glacier disappeared in 2009.
Even in the colder regions of the Andes glaciers are in full retreat. Chile's Center for Scientific Studies reported this month that the Jorge Montt Glacier in the vast Patagonian Ice Fields receded one entire km in just one year. Historically glacial retreat is extremely slow: one or two km per 100 years.
Melting glaciers around the world present some of the strongest evidence that global climate change is underway, said Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University, the world's foremost glaciologist.
Thompson warns that without sharp reductions in the use of fossil fuels, the impacts of climate change could come faster and beyond what humanity can adapt to.
Warmer temperatures not only melt ice but also have major effects on snowfall.
As cool seasons become warmer and snow turns to rain, the amount and duration of snow packs decrease and the permanent snow line moves upslope, according to the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), an intergovernmental science organization based in São José dos Campos, Brazil.
These changes have significant effects on the seasonality of stream flows, increasing winter flow rates while the availability of water during the summer declines when water in streams and rivers comes mainly from snow and ice melt.
In many High Andean tropical and subtropical valleys, spring and summer snow and glacier melt are critical for crops, livestock and human consumption. Several major Andean cities rely heavily on glacier and snow melt for their water supply, such as La Paz and Lima, with demand increasingly outstripping the supply, according to a 2010 IAI communiqué.
The Cordillera Blanca has the most glaciers of any tropical mountain range in the world. In the 1930s glaciers covered up to 850 sq km of the region and now they cover less than 600 sq km, reports Baraer and the eight other study authors from McGill University, Ohio State University, the University of California, the IRD and the glaciology unit of the Peruvian National Water Authority.
Most of the melt water from these glaciers drains into the Río Santa watershed. The researchers compared detailed water flow measurements from the 1950s to water flows in recent years, and determined that of the nine sub-watersheds of the Río Santa, seven have passed their peak water flow and are in decline, and almost all of the decline is during the dry summer months.
Changes in precipitation and the effects of La Niña and El Niño were also assessed and were not responsible for the declines, Baraer said.
Until now it was widely believed that such declines would take place 20 to 30 years from now, allowing time to adapt to a future with less water. "Those years don't exist," said Baraer.
More at the linkThe water supplied by the glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, vital to a huge region of... more
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Instead of having an oil pipeline running down the middle of our country, why not make it a rain water pipeline, catching excess rain water from the north or states that have lots of rain and flood problems, delivering the water to drought states like Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, ect. The water would travel through the pipe and get filtered somewhere down the line. It would help American farmers in drought states to water crops without using the states only water source. It may also help relive floods that occur in Northern States. What do you think?Instead of having an oil pipeline running down the middle of our country, why not make... more
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The death toll from Tropical Storm Washi, which struck the southern island of Mindanao in the Philippines over the weekend, has reached at least 900 and climbing. The storm may soon become the deadliest storm of 2011, beating out flash floods in Brazil in January.
Although the Philippines overall is a country that is no stranger to tropical cyclones, these storms typically bypass the southernmost areas, which means that Washi struck a relatively unprepared population.
NASA satellite view of Tropical Storm Washi as the storm approached the island of Mindanao in the Philippines on Saturday.
Washi made landfall on Saturday night as a minimal tropical storm with 45 mph winds, but it was embedded within a massive plume of tropical moisture that contributed to heavy rainfall on the island that lasted for as long as 100 hours. The flash flooding that resulted swept people from their homes, leaving destroyed communities in their wake. As the New York Times reports:
In neighborhoods throughout the cities of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines, similar stories could be heard: Flash floods caused by Tropical Storm Washi surged into the homes of sleeping families, and hundreds were drowned or dragged to their deaths by the currents.
The storm hit an area in the Philippines that is not accustomed to tropical storms and typhoons, since such storms typically form and make landfall to the north of the island of Mindanao. This unfamiliarity with such storms heightened the risks of a mass casualty event.
Over at Weather Underground, Jeff Masters notes the presence of unusually warm sea surface temperatures offshore, which contributed to the heavy rainfall.
More at the linkThe death toll from Tropical Storm Washi, which struck the southern island of Mindanao... more
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Thailand may start trading of water derivatives, giving investors a means of hedging against disasters after the nation’s worst floods in almost 70 years, the Securities & Exchange Commission said.
The regulator is studying the possibility of introducing contracts whose value would be linked to rainfall, or the level of water in the nation’s major dams, said Vorapol Socatiyanurak, who started as secretary-general of the SEC in October. He declined to say when trading might begin.
The total face value of global weather-related derivatives grew by 20 percent between 2010 and 2011 to $11.8 billion, according to a May 20 report by the Washington DC-based Weather Risk Management Association. Demand growth was seen in contracts related to rainfall, snow, hurricanes and wind from industries such as agriculture, construction and transport, it said.
The majority of weather contracts are traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. (CME) CME snow contracts, for example, are based on the exchange’s Snowfall Index, a measure of average monthly snowfall in certain U.S. cities. Traders “determine what amount of snowfall would be detrimental to their businesses and take futures or options positions based on that,” the exchange said on its website.
The risk for Thai water derivatives “would be a lack of trading liquidity,” said Joe Vongkitbuncha, head of equity and structured derivatives at Asia Plus Securities Pcl, the nation’s third-biggest stock brokerage by market value. Still, the contracts may be useful to big conglomerates, whose supply chains and manufacturing “rely heavily” on business continuity, and to agricultural businesses, he said.
more at link...
This is all part of Al Gore's Global Climate Scam. These eco-fascists are trading CO2, they're trading H20...they're even trading snow and it has nothing to do with saving the environment or helping people. Its about controlling, taxing and trading every resource on Earth, consolidating power and installing their New World Order/One World Government.Thailand may start trading of water derivatives, giving investors a means of hedging... more
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Thousands of demonstrators have marched through the South African city of Durban demanding faster action on climate change.
The annual UN climate summit is being held at the city's convention centre.
Protesters were particularly angered by the stance of rich countries such as the US and Canada.
In London. former UK Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott said the approach of these nations was "appalling".
Halfway through this summit, some progress has been made, but a few countries including the US, Canada and Saudi Arabia are holding out on important issues such as the future of the Kyoto Protocol.
Fourteen years ago, Lord Prescott played a leading role in the UN summit in Kyoto that brought the protocol into existence.
Speaking to the BBC, he was scathing about nations trying to delay progress now.
"Let's have a reassessment of it by 2015." he said. "But if you don't finish in time for the ending of Kyoto Two, which is next year, 2012, then, you know, it will actually wither on the vine and that's what Canada and America wants - and one or two other rich countries.
"It's a conspiracy against the poor. It's appalling. I'm ashamed of such countries not recognising their responsibilities."
The European Union wants talks on a new global agreement covering all nations to start as soon as possible.
It is backed by most of the world's poorest countries and small island states vulnerable to rising sea levels.
But even if resistance from the US and others can be overcome, it is hard to envisage anything being agreed that can start to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions before 2020.
And that is the timeframe science suggests is necessary if the most dangerous climate impacts are to be avoided.Thousands of demonstrators have marched through the South African city of Durban... more
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Take note US law enforcement: no pepper spray, no raids, no beatings.
This is it. This is the crux of the global economic and environmental crises we face and this was the place to take it. It is always the 1% that is heard even at these conferences above the voices of the poor, the indigenous peoples and those in this world who are being disproportionately affected most by climate change. It is our time now. Failure here is a failure of and for humanity, our water, our land, other species and our economies. The science is indisputable. The effects to water, agriculture and social structure are now a reality and becoming more severe. It is time to put humanity first.
Occupy climate justice.Take note US law enforcement: no pepper spray, no raids, no beatings.
This is it.... more
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For 17 years, the Hendra virus smoldered in its host bat population, only rarely crossing to humans. Then it exploded, likely triggered by heavy rains and floods in Australia earlier this year. And that has public health doctors nervous about climate change.
"The interesting change was the big floods in January," said a disease ecologist at Pennsylvania State University. "Floods are expected more frequently with climate change – so, if they are linked, climate change may increase disease."
More at the linkFor 17 years, the Hendra virus smoldered in its host bat population, only rarely... more
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Diplomats from some developing countries may "occupy" the UN climate negotiations that begin on Monday in Durban by staging sit-ins and boycotts over the lack of urgency in the talks.
The move follows a call by the former president of Costa Rica for vulnerable countries to refuse to leave the talks until "substantial" progress has been made.
"I have called on all vulnerable countries to 'occupy' Durban. We need an expression of solidarity by the delegations of those countries that are most affected by climate change, who go from one meeting to the next without getting responses on the issues that need to be dealt with," said José María Figueres.
"We went to Copenhagen [in 2009] with the illusion we could reach an equitable agreement. We went to Cancún [in 2009] where we saw slight but not sufficient progress. Frustration is now deep and building. Now we hear that we will need more conferences. Sometime we have to get serious. We should be going to Durban with the firm conviction that we do not come back until we have made substantial advances."
Spokespeople for developing country negotiating blocs declined to comment on the call for a revolt, but one ambassador said from Durban: "The Occupy Wall Street movement and the Occupy the Climate Change negotiations movement confront the same problem. We need this if we want to have any positive result. Otherwise it will be worse than Cancún."
But he warned: "In the corridors [here] there is talk of occupying the meeting rooms, but there could be sanctions. So it needs to be big inside in order to have impact and nobody is punished. We are at the beginning."
Seyni Nafo, spokesman for the important 53-country Africa group said: "We understand the [financial] situation in Europe and Japan but it seems climate change is now not on the global agenda. Action that might make it visible must be considered. We are exploring a lot of avenues and options. You have to take that seriously."
Frustrations mounted last month when, after months of tense negotiations, developing countries appeared to have succeeded in their demand for access to a multi-billion dollar Green Fund to help them adapt to climate change. But at the last minute the US and Saudi Arabia withdrew their support.
Resentment was further stoked this week when the Guardian revealed that rich countries had decided to shelve plans for a global agreement on climate change within the next few years, instead pushing for an agreement by the end of 2015 or 2016, and not coming into effect until 2020 despite scientists saying that this risked catastrophic climate change.
A possible postponement of a deal was condemned on Tuesday by the UN environment chief, Achim Steiner, who said it would be a "political choice" rather than one based on science.
Jorge Argüello, chair of the powerful G77 and China coalition of 131 countries, said: "[We] trust to see in Durban a fair and equal treatment of all issues that are important to all parties. A serious imbalance in the progress of issues can clearly not be conducive to a successful, comprehensive and balanced outcome."
"The climate change process is too crucial to the survival of humanity and the dignity of each of us, it is sad to see some parties using it just as a toy in a promotional agenda. The African leaders have expressed in different fora that Durban can not become the grave of the Kyoto Protocol, and we are completely supportive of that ambition."
Sheik Hasina, the prime minister of Bangladesh, said: "Climate change caused over 300,000 additional deaths last year. We the vulnerable countries suffer the most for our limited coping capacities. Bangladesh and other vulnerable countries cannot wait for international response to climate causes ... we are implementing 134 climate change adaptation and mitigation action plans."
More at the linkDiplomats from some developing countries may "occupy" the UN climate... more
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Fortunately, the public already understands that global warming makes extreme weather more severe, as new polling reveals:
September polling by ecoAmerica found that 57% of Americans already understand “If we don’t do something about climate change now, we can end up having our farmland turned to desert.” Duh:
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is coming out Friday with its umpteenth watered down report on climate science, in this case on extreme weather. The thing to remember about IPCC reports is that pretty much everyone involved has to sign off on every word, so it is inevitably a least common denominator document.
The actual scientific literature from 2011 is far more useful than this report — see “Study Finds 80% Chance Russia’s 2010 July Heat Record Would Not Have Occurred Without Climate Warming” and “NOAA Study Finds Human-Caused Climate Change Already a Major Factor in More Frequent Mediterranean Droughts.” I will provide the links to as many recent studies as possible in this post.
Indeed we already know from a major 2011 study that “human-induced increases in greenhouse gases have contributed to the observed intensification of heavy precipitation events found over approximately two-thirds of data-covered parts of Northern Hemisphere land areas.” As predicted, the warming has put more water vapor in the air, making deluges more intense. Climatologist Kevin Trenberth explains:
There is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago. It’s about a 4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms,
Obviously, since it’s getting hotter, we’re worsening extreme heat waves — both in intensity and duration and scale (the area the heat wave covers). For the same reason, we know humans are making droughts worse — in intensity, duration, and scale. The earlier snow melts also makes summer droughts worse.
Actual observations reveal that since 1950, the global percentage of dry areas has increased by about 1.74% of global land area per decade (see here). Heck, our best scientists are already using global warming to help them predict dangerous extreme weather (see “USGS Expert Explains How Global Warming Likely Contributes to East Africa’s Brutal Drought“).
The reinsurance industry understands all this (see Munich Re: “The only plausible explanation for the rise in weather-related catastrophes is climate change”).
Again, much if not most of the public appear to have a better sense of what’s happening right now than you’ll find in the summaries of a typical IPCC report, to go by Yale’s 2011 polling and the September poll from ecoAmerica quoted at the top, which also found:
69% of Americans Know “Weather Conditions (Such as Heat Waves and Droughts) Are Made Worse by Climate Change”
The American public can’t miss the extreme weather because it is everywhere now and increasingly off the charts (see “A New Record: 14 U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters in 2011“) and links below.
Of course, what’s to come is the real issue, since we still have control over that. We’re facing 5 to 10 times the warming this century that we’ve seen in the past half century.
Unfortunately, the IPCC continues to conflate uncertainty in future emissions of greenhouse gases with uncertainty in the climate’s sensitivity to those emissions. This means they present a very large range of possible overall impacts — and that allows the deniers to trumpet the low range with their powerful fossil-fuel-funded megaphone and induces the media to provide “balance” in their stories between the mid-range and the low range.
The reality is we are on the highest emissions trends (see “Biggest Jump Ever in Global Warming Pollution in 2010 means “levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago”). And the latest science and observation points towards the high end of the climate’s sensitivity (see Journal of Climate: New cloud feedback results “provide support for the high end of current estimates of global climate sensitivity”).
Most climate scientists know what is coming if we don’t act quickly– and more and more are shedding their reticence to speak out, even if that is not yet reflected in bland, least-common-denominator IPCC reports (see Lonnie Thompson on why climatologists are speaking out: “Virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization”).
And as long as the deniers, inactivists and climate ignorati rule the debate, inaction is assured, which means that we are risking extreme weather beyond imagination, extreme events on top of an average warming this century that could hit 13-18°F over most of U.S. and 25°F in the Arctic:
More at the linkFortunately, the public already understands that global warming makes extreme weather... more
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