tagged w/ climate extremes
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Severe droughts in Texas and the Great Plains. Hurricane Irene sweeping the Eastern Seaboard. Tornadoes in the Midwest, and floods in Mississippi. Record-breaking temperatures across the U.S. With such widespread madness, it's no surprise that the majority of Americans say they have personally experienced an extreme weather event or natural disaster in the past year.
According to NOAA scientists at the National Climatic Data Center (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/), record and near-record breaking temperatures dominated the eastern two-thirds of the nation and contributed to the warmest March on record for the contiguous United States, a record that dates back to 1895. This animation shows the locations of each of the 7,755 daytime and 7,517 nighttime records (or tied records) in sequence over the 31 days in March. That's according to a new nationally representative survey that also found a majority of Americans say U.S. weather is getting worse. Furthermore, a large majority of Americans think global warming made several high-profile weather events even worse.
The results, which are part of a long-term project at Yale, suggest global warming is becoming less of a "down the road" and "out of sight" issue and more of a "here and now" problem in the minds of Americans.
The researchers found early on in this project, a decade ago, that for many Americans climate change was a problem distant in time and space, "a problem about polar bears and Bangladesh, but not in my state, not in my community, not for the people and places I care about," said study researcher Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, referring to the public.
"What's interesting about these results is that it suggests Americans are beginning to internalize climate change, to bring it into the here and now," Leiserowitz told LiveScience. "The past two years have been filled with a seemingly endless succession of extreme weather events." [10 Surprising Results of Global Warming]
More at the linkSevere droughts in Texas and the Great Plains. Hurricane Irene sweeping the Eastern... more
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Stronger or more frequent weather extremes will likely occur under climate change, such as more intense downpours and stronger hurricane winds.
Improved weather prediction, therefore, will be vital to giving communities more time to prepare for dangerous storms, saving lives and minimizing damage to infrastructure.
New radar technology will allow forecasters to better “see” extreme weather, as will potential improvements to satellite technology, as well as computer models that run on more powerful supercomputers.
Longer warning time is only effective when paired with better understanding of how to get people to respond to the warnings, all part of an effort to build a “weather-ready nation.”
More at the linkStronger or more frequent weather extremes will likely occur under climate change,... more
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Tornado season is only just beginning, but already this year has seen dozens of destructive twisters from Illinois to Texas, where up to 18 might have touched town on Tuesday alone in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
"We're at just the beginning of a very unusual" tornado season, NBC weather anchor Al Roker said on TODAY.
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The numbers show just how unusual: March saw 223 twisters, up from an average of 80 from 1991-2010, according to the National Weather Service. February saw 63, compared to an average of 29; and January saw 97, compared to an average of 35.
So what's behind the outbreak?
"We've had record heat," weather.com meteorologist Greg Forbes told TODAY, and "that warmth is a big ingredient that provides the instability for the storms."
Last year started off slowly but then saw a record 758 tornadoes in April 2011, noted Roker. "Hopefully we're not on track for that this year."
More at the linkTornado season is only just beginning, but already this year has seen dozens of... more
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"Presidential" candidates of the two party system we have in place are perpetuating a climate catastrophe by not addressing it in their campaigns. As Americans we need to be demanding more openness, truth and transparency regarding this crisis that scientists have been warning us about for over thirty years, the effects of which we are now seeing globally particularly in the Arctic. Our voices must hold them accountable regardless of the letter after their names. We all have to share this planet. This is not about Democrats and Republicans, this is about humanity."Presidential" candidates of the two party system we have in place are... more
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Acknowledging Climate Change Doesn’t Make You A Liberal
by Paul Douglas, via neorenaissance
I’m going to tell you something that my Republican friends are loath to admit out loud: climate change is real.
I am a moderate Republican, fiscally conservative; a fan of small government, accountability, self-empowerment, and sound science. I am not a climate scientist. I’m a meteorologist, and the weather maps I’m staring at are making me uncomfortable. No, you’re not imagining it: we’ve clicked into a new and almost foreign weather pattern. To complicate matters, I’m in a small, frustrated and endangered minority: a Republican deeply concerned about the environmental sacrifices some are asking us to make to keep our economy powered-up, long-term. It’s ironic.
The root of the word conservative is “conserve.” A staunch Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, set aside vast swaths of America for our National Parks System, the envy of the world. Another Republican, Richard Nixon, launched the EPA. Now some in my party believe the EPA and all those silly “global warming alarmists” are going to get in the way of drilling and mining our way to prosperity. Well, we have good reason to be alarmed.
Weather 2.0. “It’s A New Atmosphere Floating Overhead.”
These are the Dog Days of March. Ham Weather reports 6,895 records in the last week – some towns 30 to 45 degrees warmer than average; off-the-scale, freakishly warm. 13,393 daily records for heat since March 1 – 16 times more warm records than cold records. The scope, intensity and duration of this early heat wave are historic and unprecedented.
And yes, climate change is probably spiking our weather.
“Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.” 129,404 weather records in one year? You can’t point to any one weather extreme and say “that’s climate change”. But a warmer atmosphere loads the dice, increasing the potential for historic spikes in temperature and more frequent and bizarre weather extremes. You can’t prove that any one of Barry Bond’s 762 home runs was sparked by (alleged) steroid use. But it did increase his “base state,” raising the overall odds of hitting a home run. A warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, more fuel for floods, while increased evaporation pushes other regions into drought.
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Acknowledging Climate Science Doesn’t Make You A Liberal
My climate epiphany wasn’t overnight, and it had nothing to do with Al Gore. In the mid-90s I noticed gradual changes in the weather patterns floating over Minnesota. Curious, I began investigating climate science, and, over time, began to see the thumbprint of climate change, along with 97% of published, peer-reviewed PhD’s, who link a 40% spike in greenhouse gases with a warmer, stormier atmosphere.
Bill O’Reilly, whom I respect, talks of a “no-spin zone.” Yet today there’s a very concerted, well-funded effort to spin climate science. Some companies, institutes and think tanks are cherry-picking data, planting dubious seeds of doubt, arming professional deniers, scientists-for-hire and skeptical bloggers with the ammunition necessary to keep climate confusion alive. It’s the “you can’t prove smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer!” argument, times 100, with many of the same players. Amazing.
Schopenhauer said “All truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally it is accepted as self-evident.” We are now well into Stage 2. It’s getting bloody out there. Climate scientists are receiving death threats and many Americans don’t know what to believe. Some turn to talk radio or denial-blogs for their climate information. No wonder they’re confused.
“Actions Have Consequences.”
Trust your gut – and real experts. We should listen to peer-reviewed climate scientists, who are very competitive by nature. This is not about “insuring more fat government research grants.” I have yet to find a climate scientist in the “1 Percent”, driving a midlife-crisis-red Ferrari into the lab. I truly hope these scientists turn out to be wrong, but I see no sound, scientific evidence to support that position today. What I keep coming back to is this: all those dire (alarmist!) warnings from climate scientists 30 years ago? They’re coming true, one after another – and faster than supercomputer models predicted. Data shows 37 years/row of above-average temperatures, worldwide. My state has warmed by at least 3 degrees F. Climate change is either “The Mother of All Coincidences” – or the trends are real.
My father, a devout Republican, who escaped a communist regime in East Germany, always taught me to never take my freedom for granted, and “actions have consequences.” Carbon that took billions of years to form has been released in a geological blink of an eye. Human emissions have grown significantly over the past 200 years, and now exceed 27 billion tons of carbon dioxide, annually. To pretend this isn’t having any effect on the 12-mile thin atmosphere overhead is to throw all logic and common sense out the window. It is to believe in scientific superstitions and political fairy tales, about a world where actions have no consequences – where colorless, odorless gases, the effluence of success and growth, can be waved away with a nod and a smirk. No harm, no foul. Keep drilling.
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Biblical Scripture: “We Are Here to Manage God’s Property”
I’m a Christian, and I can’t understand how people who profess to love and follow God roll their eyes when the subject of climate change comes up. Actions have consequences. Were we really put here to plunder the Earth, no questions asked? Isn’t that the definition of greed? In the Bible, Luke 16:2 says, “Man has been appointed as a steward for the management of God’s property, and ultimately he will give account for his stewardship.” Future generations will hold us responsible for today’s decisions.
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The climate is warming. The weather is morphing. It’s not your grandfather’s weather anymore. The trends are undeniable. If you don’t want to believe thousands of climate scientists – at least believe your own eyes: winters are warmer & shorter, summers more humid, more extreme weather events, with a 1-in-500 year flood every 2-3 years. For evidence of climate change don’t look at your back yard thermometer. That’s weather. Take another, longer look at your yard. Look at the new flowers, trees, birds, insects and pests showing up outside your kitchen window that weren’t there a generation ago.
This is a moral issue. Because the countries least responsible will bear the brunt of rising seas, spreading drought and climate refugees. Because someday your grandkids will ask what did you know…when…and what did you do to help? We’ve been binging on carbon for 200 years, and now the inevitable hangover is setting in. Curing our addiction to carbon won’t happen overnight. But creative capitalism can deal with climate change. I’m no fan of big government or over-regulation. Set the bar high. Then stand back and let the markets work. Let Americans do what they do best: innovate.
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We don’t have much time. Earth Day is April 22, but every day is Earth Day. Native Americans remind us of the sacred responsibility we have for all those who come next:
“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors…we borrow it from our children.”
More at the linkAcknowledging Climate Change Doesn’t Make You A Liberal
by Paul Douglas, via... more
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The disappearance of Arctic sea ice has crossed a "tipping point" that could soon make ice-free summers a regular feature across most of the Arctic Ocean, says a British climate scientist who is setting up an early warning system for dangerous climate tipping points.
Tim Lenton at the University of Exeter has carried out a day-by-day assessment of Arctic ice-cover data collected since satellite observation began in 1979. He presented his hotly anticipated findings for the first time at the Planet Under Pressure conference in London on Monday.
Up until 2007, sea ice systematically fluctuated between extensive cover in winter and lower cover in summer. But since then, says Lenton, the difference between winter and summer ice cover has been a million square kilometres greater than it was before, as a result of unprecedented summer melting. These observations are in contrast to what models predict should have happened.
Permanent alteration
Despite fears of runaway sea-ice loss after summer cover hit an all-time low in 2007 – opening the Northwest Passage for the first time in living memory – modelling studies based on our best understanding of ice dynamics indicated the ice cover should fully recover each winter. "They suggest that even if the ice declined a large amount in one year, it should bounce back," says Walt Meier of the US National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
Instead, Lenton's research shows a permanent alteration. According to data from the past five years, the Arctic sea ice has not recovered from the 2007 extreme low. "The system has passed a tipping point," he says.
What caused the change is still unclear. Lenton speculates that the exceptional low in 2007 (pictured, above right) might have allowed the ocean to absorb so much heat that a lot of the thicker multiyear ice, which used to persist through the summer, was melted. Alternatively, the loss of ice may have changed air circulation patterns above the Arctic in ways that have similarly "locked in" the change.
More at the linkThe disappearance of Arctic sea ice has crossed a "tipping point" that could... more
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* Fossils seen supplying 85 pct of energy demand in 2050
* Financial, human and biodiversity costs all huge
* CO2 cut, global CO2 mkt delays make 2 degree limit harder
By Nina Chestney
LONDON, March 15 (Reuters) - Global greenhouse gas emissions could rise 50 percent by 2050 without more ambitious climate policies, as fossil fuels continue to dominate the energy mix, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said on Thursday.
"Unless the global energy mix changes, fossil fuels will supply about 85 percent of energy demand in 2050, implying a 50 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions and worsening urban air pollution," the OECD said in its environment outlook to 2050.
The global economy in 2050 will be four times larger than today and the world will use around 80 percent more energy.
But the global energy mix is not predicted to be very different from that of today, the report said.
Fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas will make up 85 percent of energy sources. Renewables, including biofuels, are forecast to make up 10 percent and nuclear the rest.
Due to such dependence on fossils, carbon dioxide emissions from energy use are expected to grow by 70 percent, the OECD said, which will help drive up the global average temperature by 3 to 6 degrees Celsius by 2100 - exceeding the internationally agreed warming limit of within 2 degrees.
Global carbon dioxide emissions from energy reached an all-time high of 30.6 gigatonnes in 2010, despite the economic downturn which reduced industrial production.
COST OF INACTION
The financial cost of taking no further climate action could result in up to a 14 percent loss in world per capita consumption by 2050, according to some estimates.
Human costs would also be high as premature deaths from pollution exposure could double to 3.6 million a year, the OECD said.
Demand for water could rise by 55 percent, increasing competition for supplies and resulting in 40 percent of the global population living in water-stressed areas, while plant and animal species could decline by a further 10 percent.
To prevent the worst effects of global warming, international climate action should start in 2013, a global carbon market be set up, the energy sector transformed to low carbon and all low-cost advanced technologies should be explored such as biomass energy and carbon capture.
However, a new international climate deal might not come into force until 2020 and carbon markets not linked until then, making it harder to achieve the 2 degree limit and requiring very rapid rates of emissions cuts after 2020 to catch up.
Current international emissions cut pledges fall short of what is required to limit temperature rises to safe levels so decisive action at the national level is needed, the OECD said.
More at the link* Fossils seen supplying 85 pct of energy demand in 2050
* Financial, human and... more
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Expect records for high temps to be broken all week across the Northeast and Midwest, a rare event given that we're still in winter.
"We may be seeing about a week where we are going to be possibly breaking or at least coming close to temperature records," said National Weather Service meteorologist Byron Paulson.
It is not unusual to see record high temperatures for a day or two in March, but a week is rare, he said.
"The jet stream, which would normally be cutting across the middle of the country, is way up north into Canada" and keeping the cold weather there, said NBC TODAY show weather anchor Al Roker, leading to warm weather in the U.S.
Forecasts called for records or near-record highs on Wednesday and Thursday in the mid to upper 70s in Chicago. The warmth also brought the threat of thunderstorms to the Chicago area.
In North Dakota and South Dakota, warm and windy conditions prompted widespread warnings that wildfire conditions were ripe for explosive growth if blazes are ignited.
National Climatic Data Service
Yesterday, temperatures soared to record highs in the Northeast.
In Boston, temperatures reached a record 71 degrees Monday afternoon -- eclipsing the former high of 69 degrees for a March 12 set 110 years ago.
The unseasonably warm weather was expected to continue in Boston throughout the week, but likely not with record-setting temperatures, said Bill Simpson, a weather service meteorologist based in Taunton, Mass.
Temperatures also soared Monday afternoon in New York City to 71 degrees in Central Park, tying the record that dates back to 1890, weather.com reported.
Among the 102 high-temp records broken on Monday were those in Albany, N.Y., Bridgeport, Conn., Buffalo, N.Y., Burlington, Vt., and Newark, N.J.
St Louis, Mo., tied its record at 84 degrees, while Saline and Russell, both in Kansas, posted record 83 degrees.
Moe at the linkExpect records for high temps to be broken all week across the Northeast and Midwest,... more
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In “At Any Cost” we expose the lies used by fossil fuel industry lackeys to push back against climate change legislation and public understanding. Just when it seemed as though we were getting somewhere on this issue, lobbyists, economists and others posing as climate change “experts” amped up their arguments on media shows hosted by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and others. You don’t tune them in? Unfortunately, millions do, and they believe what they hear.
Finally, the court of public opinion has its chance to hear from the very people who have been attacked by these oil and coal industry lackeys. Climate scientists Ben Santer, Michael Mann, Michael Oppenheimer, Ray Bradley and others speak out about the real dangers of unabated fossil fuel use, and about the attacks they’ve been subjected to by “experts” like Fred Singer, Steve Milloy, Senator James Inhofe, and others.
More at the link
Documentary was released in 2011. This was the description from the site.In “At Any Cost” we expose the lies used by fossil fuel industry lackeys... more
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As has been the case in other parts of the country in recent years, the parched region from eastern Texas to northern Louisiana and Arkansas is swinging sharply from experiencing severe drought to facing the risk of potential flooding in a span of just a few short months. Or as climate blogger Joe Romm might colorfully put it, Texas and nearby states may be swinging from “hell to high water.”
Just a few months ago this region was still mired in one of the worst droughts on record. Last year was Texas’ driest on record, and the vast majority of the state was classified as being in severe to exceptional drought. The scorching summer of 2011 only exacerbated the drought by drying out soils and reservoirs more quickly. Oklahoma and Texas both set records for the warmest summers of any state since records began in the U.S. in the late 19th Century.
As I detailed in late February, a wetter pattern has returned to eastern Texas and neighboring states, and drought conditions have eased. A slow-moving storm system is expected to drop several inches of rain in eastern Texas, northern Louisiana and much of Arkansas during the next three days. According to the National Weather Service, parts of northeast Texas and much of southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana may receive up to 4 inches of rain Thursday night, with more to come on Friday. The Weather Service is not yet warning of the risk of major flooding, but some flash flooding is certainly possible where slow-moving thunderstorms hit.
The feast-or-famine nature of rainfall in Texas and the Lower Mississippi River Valley lately is in line with broad-scale climate change projections and observational studies, which show that the hydrological cycle is already starting to intensify, bringing more frequent and severe heavy precipitation events and droughts.
More at the linkAs has been the case in other parts of the country in recent years, the parched region... more
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February is barely past but already Spanish farmers are on drought alert as reservoirs shrink, crops wilt and brush fires crackle after the country's driest winter in 70 years.
Spain is used to fires in the summer, but this year they have come early, ravaging woodland, while the general dryness stunts crops and leaves farm animals without grass for grazing.
Brush fires have already swept across 400 hectares in the wooded northwestern region of Galicia.
Near the Galician village of Brocos, the Portodemouros reservoir has visibly shrunk and egg-shell cracks have appeared in the mud.
"We have a very hard drought, spectacularly intense in some territories," said agriculture minister Miguel Aras Canete.
"The water reserves are not at alarming levels, but we are beginning to have a lot of forest fires."
Spaniards emerged from their usual choking summer last year gasping for rain, but over the past three winter months Spain has had average precipitation of just 55 litres per square metre, far below the average of 200 litres.
"We have experienced three winter months with minimal levels of rain in all of Spain -- December, January and February have been the driest since at least the 1940s," state weather service spokesman Angel Rivera told AFP.
"Previously the driest winter had been in 1980-81," Rivera said. "Then it rained 30 litres more per square metre than it is now."
The latest official drought report on February 22 said Spain's reservoirs were only two-thirds full, meaning less water for the fields where crops grow and animals graze.
"Leafy plants, vegetables and cereals are suffering the most," said Gregorio Juarez, a spokesman for the young farmer's association ASAJA, warning that olives, vines and almonds may be next.
"There is a large part of southern Andalucia and Aragon where there is land that has already been lost, where there is now no solution whether it rains or not," he added.
"The fields in Granada could lose 35 percent of olive production and are counting on the loss of 50 percent of plant crops."
In the southern province of Malaga farmers are calculating their losses at 14 million euros, he added.
The little water that has fallen "has not soaked through to the earth," said Alejandro Garcia of the farmers' association COAG.
"In the coming month this lack of moisture is going to make plants sprout less strongly and affect the fruit they bear," he added.
He and other officials warn the drought is also threatening livestock, which cannot graze and must eat expensive feed instead.
More at the linkFebruary is barely past but already Spanish farmers are on drought alert as reservoirs... more
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Jeff Rann had ample warning that terrible weather was approaching before dawn. A frantic call to his wife from his mother-in-law alerted them to reports that a tornado was barreling down, and Rann heard the deafening wail of storm sirens.
population 9,000, Rann's parents were not as fortunate.
Caught in the relatively uncommon night-time twister, the Ranns were among six people killed Wednesday when blocks of homes in Harrisburg were flattened by overnight storms that raked the nation's midsection, killing at least 12 people in three states.
In Harrisburg, which has a rich coal-mining history, Mayor Eric Gregg called the tornado strike "heartbreaking." The National Weather Service preliminarily listed the tornado as an EF4, the second-highest rating given to twisters based on damage. Scientists said the tornado was 200 yards wide with winds up to 170 mph.
Adding to the danger, it hit as many slept — a timing research meteorologist Harold Brooks called unusual but "not completely uncommon."
Brooks, with the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla., said perhaps 10 percent of tornadoes happen between midnight and 6 a.m., a time when the danger level rises because the storms are harder to spot and it's harder to get the word out.
"If you're asleep, you're less likely going to hear anything, any warning message on the danger," Brooks said.
Ryan Jewell, a meteorologist with the Storm Prediction Center, said the next system is forecast to take a similar path as Wednesday's storms and has the potential for even more damage.
On Friday, he said, both the Midwest and South will be "right in the bull's eye."
Elsewhere on Wednesday, one person was killed in a Buffalo, Missouri, trailer park while two more fatalities were reported in the Cassville and Puxico areas. A tornado hopscotched through the main thoroughfare of Missouri country music mecca Branson, damaging some of the city's famous theaters just days before the start of the town's crucial tourist season.
Three people were reported killed in eastern Tennessee — two in Cumberland County and another in DeKalb County.
And in Kansas, much of tiny Harveyville was in shambles from what state officials said was an EF2 tornado packing wind speeds of 120 to 130 mph.
At least 16 tornados were reported from Nebraska and Kansas across southern Missouri to Illinois and Kentucky, according to the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., an arm of the National Weather Service.
More at the linkJeff Rann had ample warning that terrible weather was approaching before dawn. A... more
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The worst drought on record in various parts of Mexico has destroyed millions of acres of cropland and left millions of livestock without food, leading to fears about potential food shortages at a time when U.S. states like Texas are also suffering unusually dry weather.
More than half of the national territory has fallen prey to the drought, with dried-up streams in northern states like Coahuila turning into cattle graves and some towns lying abandoned as people flee the drought. More than 3.7 million acres of agriculture have been lost, an area larger than Connecticut.
"I've never seen a drought so intense," said Sergio Ruiz, a livestock producer in Coahuila who has spent most of the year dragging his cattle's carcasses into graves. He has lost 70 head of cattle and is considering moving to nearby Saltillo.
Throughout Mexico's northern state of Coahuila, thousands of livestock have been starving to death as a result of the area's worst drought on record. WSJ's Jean Guerrero reports.
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The dry weather is expected to intensify in coming months. A majority of Mexican states are expected to get between half of the usual rainfall and none at all in February and March, according to Mexico's Agriculture Ministry.
Citing the drought, the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday cut its forecast for Mexican corn production for the 2011-12 crop year to 18.4 million tons from 20.5 million tons.
Coahuila, which borders Texas, has been especially hard hit. Even cacti in the state have withered. Thousands of corn fields and pasture lie desolate. The state, which is the country's largest producer of sorghum feed, has had to import the product from other states for the first time.
"The intensity of this drought surpasses the ability of government resources to address it," said Coahuila's deputy minister of rural development, Reginaldo de Luna Villarreal.
So far, officials say no people have died in the state from the drought, but some towns are running out of drinking water.
Some small towns near this ranching hub, including one called Buñuelos and another called India, have turned into ghost towns, their schools and houses padlocked and their windows boarded up. Starving cattle roam near the highway munching on bags of chips and other trash thrown from cars.
"If there were grass, they would never eat that stuff," said Jesús Parra, a livestock producer who said his costs of production have nearly doubled due to the rising price of feed. "Cattle need to consume at least 3% of their weight daily," he said. Tearing some yellow stubble from the earth, Mr. Parra added, "There's no way a cow is going to get 3% of its weight out of this."
So far, 60,000 head of livestock have been reported dead, though many producers don't register their losses. Mr. Villarreal, the state official, lost between 20 and 25 cows, but didn't report it. "I am sure that in Coahuila, [the losses] are much greater than what we're reporting," he said.
Mexico is the main supplier of cattle to the U.S., which imported more than 1.23 million head of cattle from Mexico last year, according to the USDA, as well as a record 142 million pounds of beef and veal in the first 11 months of the year.
In the past year, prices for sorghum used as feed have doubled. Increased grain costs are exacerbating the problem for livestock producers who can no longer afford feed and are rushing to slaughter their animals before they die. The resulting glut of meat has slightly depressed prices, though they are still higher than a year earlier because of the livestock losses.
Even though the drought is expected to continue, Mexican officials say the drought's worst effects on agriculture are expected to have peaked thanks to rising corn output in the southern part of Mexico.
"I don't think the drought's continuation will cause agricultural production to plummet," said Mexico's Agriculture Minister Francisco Mayorga.
President Felipe Calderón has authorized the use of some $2.5 billion to mitigate the drought's effects with measures like improved water infrastructure and the delivery of drinking water.
Coahuila and other states received their first rainfall in months this week, but producers say it wasn't enough. "All it was good for was getting rid of some of the dust," said Marsial Garcia Rangel, a goat producer who lost 60 animals to the drought.
More at the linkThe worst drought on record in various parts of Mexico has destroyed millions of acres... more
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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.
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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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Snow fell in Rome today for the first time in 26 years as freezing temperatures took the death toll across Europe to more than 150.
The Italian capital is usually blessed by a moderate climate but the snowfall prompted authorities stop visitors from entering the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill, the former home of Rome's ancient emperors.
The last substantial snowfalls in Rome were in 1985 and 1986, though there have been other cases of lighter snow since then, including in 2010. The director of the Colosseum, Rossella Rea, said the sites were closed out of fears that visitors could slip on ice..
Snow began falling in the late morning Friday, leaving a light dusting on trees and cars and forming slush on the roads. It wasn't clear if there would be any significant accumulation on the ground.
The European Union is bracing for another potential energy crisis in the dead of winter as Russian gas supplies to some of its member states suddenly have dwindled by up to 30 percent.
The European Commission put its gas coordination committee on alert today, but insisted the situation had not yet reached an emergency level since coordination between nations to help each other had improved and storage facilities had been upgraded.
Commission spokeswoman Marlene Holzner said Russia was going through an extremely cold spell and needed more gas to keep its citizens warm.
She said that Russia's gas contracts 'allow for certain flexibility in case they also need the gas. And that is the situation that Russia is facing at the moment.' The severe winter in Russia has seen temperatures drop to minus 35 C (minus 30 F).
The north of the country has also been gripped by snow and ice that is disrupting train travel.Temperatures plunged as low as minus 22 Celsius (minus 7 Fahrenheit), in Trepalle, a village in the Italian Alps.
Snow in Rome came as the death toll across Europe reached 150. Temperatures have plummeted as low as -36c in parts of Ukraine and Siberia.
In Serbia, at least 11,000 villagers are stranded in their homes by heavy snow and blizzards which have hit remote areas that cannot be reached due to icy, snow-clogged roads.
The worst weather is near Serbia's southwestern town of Sijenica, where it has been freezing cold or snowing for 26 days, and diesel fuel supplies used by snowploughs are running low.Thirty-eight more people have died overnight as freezing weather grips Ukraine, authorities say. The death toll there from the past week is now 101.
The Emergency Situations Ministry in Ukraine said more than 1,200 other people have been treated in hospital for hypothermia and frostbite as temperatures in some parts of the country sank to -32C (-26F).
Authorities have closed schools and colleges and set up nearly 3,000 heating and food shelters across the country. Health officials instructed hospitals not to discharge homeless patients, even after treatment is finished, to save them from the cold.Experts said the high death toll reflects the country's inability to deal with the homeless. There have been dozens of death elsewhere in Eastern Europe with thousands of villagers trapped by heavy snow and blizzards in Serbia.
Snow fell across large parts of the UK, with two inches covering Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk in white, while in the Pennines, fences and phone masts resembled ice sculptures.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095509/Eastern-European-death-toll-hits-150-big-freeze-continues-continent.html#ixzz1lLAK4MWv
More at the link
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/02/03/article-2095509-11937090000005DC-753_964x632.jpgSnow fell in Rome today for the first time in 26 years as freezing temperatures took... 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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Fierce winter storms battered Britain on Tuesday, leaving two men dead and causing widespread chaos for air, sea and rail travellers.
Winds of more than 100 miles per hour (160 kilometres per hour) swept in, closing the English Channel port of Dover for several hours and causing major disruption to train services across Britain and flights at Scottish airports.
A van driver in his 50s died after his stationary vehicle was crushed by a falling oak tree in Tunbridge Wells, a town southeast of London, police said.
A second man died after a chemical tanker was hit by a large wave in the Channel amid stormy conditions, coastguards said. A Navy helicopter evacuated the man, who was unconscious, from the vessel, but he died later in hospital.
The renowned Epsom racecourse, home of the English Derby in southeast England, was evacuated after part of the grandstand roof blew off, although there were no spectators there at the time.
Some of the worst weather was in Scotland, where at least 35 flights were cancelled at Glasgow airport and 40 at Edinburgh airport.
In Dunoon in western Scotland, five people were injured when high winds overturned caravans, while 15 people were rescued from a boat that was blown away as it was being repaired in a west coast shipyard.
Many train services that normally take passengers from England to Scotland were forced to halt their journeys in northern England due to the high winds, while bridges across Scotland were forced to close.
In Northern Ireland, 10,000 properties were left without electricity after fallen trees and severe winds damaged power lines.Fierce winter storms battered Britain on Tuesday, leaving two men dead and causing... more
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A WARNING has been issued to New Zealand’s coastal centres, including Gisborne, that life in these places is going to be more troublesome because of a confirmed increase in extreme weather events, and other climate change impacts.
The warning comes from Dr David Wratt, the director of the Niwa’s National Climate Change Centre, who was one of a number of New Zealand scientists involved in a special report released by the world climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Other New Zealanders on the report team were Professor Glenn McGregor of Auckland University and Associate Professor John Camobell of Waikato University.
Dr Wratt, who is also chief scientist at the Niwa’s Climate Centre, says the IPCC report concludes that climate change is leading to an increase in the frequency, intensity and duration of extreme weather and climate events.
He says the IPCC report used observations gathered since the 1950s, and concludes there has been a decrease in the number of cold days and nights globally and an overall increase in the number of warm days and nights.
The report says trends for this century indicate more warm, and fewer cold daily temperature extremes around the globe.
Dr Wratt says there is 90-100 percent confidence that there will be an increase in the frequency of heavy precipitation events throughout the 21st century over many areas of the globe, and mean wind speeds in tropical cyclones will increase.
“We have high confidence that extreme events will have greater impacts on sectors directly reliant on weather and climate,” says Dr Wratt.
“New Zealand’s agriculture, horticulture and energy sectors clearly fall into that category.
“The high likelihood of increasingly severe extreme sea levels events is also significant, given that 12 of New Zealand’s 15 largest towns and cities are located on the coast.”
Dr Wratt says the challenge for policymakers is to develop strategies to reduce the vulnerability and exposure of people and assets to climate change extremes.
“That way, extreme weather and climate events won’t necessarily become disasters.”
The IPCC report and Dr Wratt’s remarks are backed by a study by Princeton University, just published in the Journal of Climate.
The Princeton researchers have undertaken the first major study to concentrate on variations in daily weather conditions rather than monthly or yearly averages.
The study found that day-to-day weather has grown increasingly erratic and extreme, with significant fluctations in sunshine and rainfall affecting more than a third of the planet.
The team found that extremely sunny or cloudy days have become more common than in the 1980s and that swings from thunderstorms to dry conditions have also risen considerably.
Regions such as equatorial Africa and Asia have experienced the greatest increase in the frequency of extreme conditions, with erratic shifts in the weather throughout the year.
More at the linkA WARNING has been issued to New Zealand’s coastal centres, including Gisborne,... 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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http://bcove.me/sxi31pzq (For video)
—The medical chart Abdisalam Osman’s mother uses to flick away flies says her youngest son suffers from acute malnutrition and the measles. A chest X-ray will soon reveal he also has tuberculosis.
When he arrived at Mogadishu's Benadir Hospital, 3-year-old Abdisalam weighed only 14 pounds. Each laborious breath made his tiny rib cage stick out even farther.
He lies beside his mother, unable to cry; all his energy reserved for his weak gasps.
“A 50-50 chance,” says Dr. Shafie Mohamed Jimale, gently touching the little boy’s emaciated arm. The 30-year-old Somali pediatrician, trained in Sudan, became a father two months earlier; his son was born at the height of the famine that is mainly killing children.
Many of his patients have died. About 50-50.
When Somalia’s famine was declared in July there were emergency calls for help and shocking statistics: 29,000 children had died in the worst drought in 60 years.
A global relief effort has helped save some. Last Friday, the United Nations Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit downgraded famine declarations for three southern regions, thanks to the rains that have finally come and emergency food aid.
But the UN warns that 250,000 are at risk as cholera, malaria and other diseases spread through crowded hospitals and camps. Tens of thousands of others still face starvation.
This famine should not have come as a shock. And if its roots are not understood and the world looks away again, Somalia’s cycle of despair — corruption, starvation, war, death — will continue, dragging children like Abdisalam into its abyss.
So what caused the famine?
Back-to-back droughts killed the livestock and destroyed the farms throughout the Horn of Africa, like the one Abdisalam’s family tended.
The southern region of the country is also warring with Al Shabab, the militant Islamic group that has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, and starved its own people by blocking outside foreign aid.
These are the easy answers.
These are the hard ones: Somalia’s rampant and criminal government-corruption; a war on terror at the expense of aid; and a lucrative crisis industry that spends millions that Somalis will never see.
This is why this country has topped Foreign Policy’s index of failed states for the last three years and why a drought that affected the entire Horn of Africa became a famine only in Somalia.
The scope of the tragedy is overwhelming. Last Friday’s UN announcement on easing famine conditions did not include Mogadishu. The city remains a famine zone.
Tents made of sticks and cloth, pitched between dilapidated buildings, house the starving and desperate. The sea of people in the camps ripples endlessly. It is difficult to get an accurate estimate, but it is believed that more than 100,000 have arrived since July.
Water is still scarce and largely contaminated. Mounds of human feces dot walkways between the shelters. Security is a problem. Rapes and abuses have been reported. Few foreign aid groups have come, with the exception of the Turks, who have taken over a large region of the city now called “Little Istanbul.”
Across the street from Tarabunka, a sprawling camp of more than 16,000, the graveyard is already near capacity. Ali Kafi, one of the farmers-turned-gravediggers, says he hunts untouched patches of red earth to find burial plots. Before 10 on one October morning, three babies and a young woman, nine-months pregnant, were buried. It was a typical day.
The good news for Mogadishu is that there are few visible remnants of the Shabab, which has waged war against the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) for nearly three years.
Weakened themselves by the famine and claiming to withdraw for “tactical” purposes, hundreds of Shabab fighters abruptly left the capital this summer.
This is why Abdisalam’s family trekked here from the south, believing there would be help in Mogadishu from the TFG, the UN-backed parliament of 550, propped up by a 9,000-member African Union peacekeeping force of Burundian and Ugandan soldiers.
The TFG had an opportunity to repair its badly damaged reputation and make the famine a priority. That didn’t happen.
As people began to starve earlier this year, the country’s president and its parliamentary speaker — President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Speaker Hassan Sharif, who are known as the “Two Sharifs” — were locked in a dispute, trying to shore up political support as they debated at conferences in Djibouti, Kenya or Uganda.
“They say the fish starts rotting from the head,” says Abdi Rashid, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. “At the height of the famine, there was a president who was busy holding meetings with clan elders, not talking about the famine, but about the struggle with the speaker of parliament.”
But the “Two Sharifs” are not the only members of the TFG accused of political gamesmanship or corruption.
One senior TFG official says he is disgusted with his government’s continued focus on politics and power.
“What are we doing?” he asks. “People are dying and we’re focusing on passing a road map?”
snip
Still, there is confusion, says Joe Belliveau, operations manager in Somalia for Médecins Sans Frontières. “The bottom line is that it certainly does not encourage humanitarian action,” Belliveau says. “It’s fine to say that these conditions are lifted and maybe that will help in the short term, but the fact that those laws are on the books remains a major deterrent.”
Abdisalam is defying the odds that have conspired against him — the war against the Shabab, corruption, ineffective aid groups and a famine that the world failed to stop but is now trying to ease.
The nutrition supplements provided by the hospital have made him stronger and TB medication has calmed his breathing.
“He’s a fighter,” said Jimale, the doctor who has volunteered at the city-run Benadir Hospital for the last two years.
Abdisalam was discharged from the hospital three weeks ago and Jimale said the little boy’s odds of survival had increased to more than 80 per cent.
But Abdisalam and his family haven’t returned home. The rains may have come and eased the drought, but a Kenyan-led offensive to fight the Shabab has left the region war torn again.
Abdisalam now lives in one of the camps, just one of thousands getting by, waiting for help.http://bcove.me/sxi31pzq (For video)
—The medical chart Abdisalam... more
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