Climate Variability and Climate Change: The New Climate Dice
Two new posts from Dr James Hansen; below is the text of his email notification for the them.
Was this year’s Texas anomaly a product of human-made global warming?
Lowered Evapotranspiration Causing Drying and Heating of Southern Hemisphere
Huge areas of the Southern Hemisphere are now drying out. This could lead to increased drought stress on vegetation and less overall productivity, and as a result less carbon absorbed, less cooling through evapotranspiration, and more frequent or extreme heat waves
As Global Temperature Rises, So Do Food Prices
As concerns mount over extreme weather hitting global food systems this year, governments are no closer to forging a pact to fight climate change. The effects of extreme weather on crops are only beginning to be understood.
For decades scientists studied the effect of global warming on crops by simply raising temperatures and carbon dioxide levels in greenhouses. They did not take into account the effects of floods and droughts, or reduced yields that result from higher temperatures.
Future High Temperature Rise Could Cause Up to 6.7 Million Mexicans To Migrate
Note from Dorothy: Many have long been aware of what the heating of our planet will mean for Mexico as it gets hotter and dryer. The study below, however, shows the direct linkages between crop failure and degrees Celsius of warming. The people of Mexico, who have done the least to cause dangerous climate change, [...]
Pentagon Will Factor Global Warming into Long Term Strategic Planning
he Pentagon will for the first time rank global warming as a destabilizing force, adding fuel to conflict and putting US troops at risk around the world, in a major strategy review to be presented to Congress tomorrow. The Quadrennial Defense Review, prepared by the Pentagon to update Congress on its security vision, will direct military planners to keep track of the latest climate science, and to factor global warming into their long term strategic planning.
“While climate change alone does not cause conflict, it may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden on civilian institutions and militaries around the world,” said a draft of the review seen by the Guardian.
“Hot Cities” from BBC World News – Entire Eight-Part Series
We highly recommend these powerful and informative videos of the documentary, Hot Cities, aired this fall on BBC World News TV. This is an excellent eight-part series about the present effects of global warming in cities around the world. If you haven’t caught these segments on television, you can watch them on your computer. Each runs about 45 minutes.
The effects of dangerous climate change are already happening, and people everywhere are finding ways of dealing with the changes this is causing in their lives. Witness the courage, tenacity and ingenuity of people suffering from disease, heat and lack of water, as well as high winds. You are certain to be amazed and inspired.
Lack of Water a Present and Future Crisis for Mexican People
Inspired by Oxfam report “Suffering the Science: Climate change, poverty and people,” Canadian writes open letter to Mexican mother about need for climate change mitigation.
Don’t It Make My Green World Brown
Video on the damaging effect of excessive carbon dioxide on plant life
A New Global Warming Prediction: two articles on more extreme global climate change to come
Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Chicago, Professor Chris Field said greenhouse gases increased far more rapidly than expected between 2000 and 2007; “We are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we’ve considered seriously in climate policy.”
Prof Field said his 2007 report, which predicted temperature rises between 1.98F (1.1C) and 11.52F (6.4C) over the next century, seriously underestimated the scale of the problem.
Lest we forget Australia on fire…
“Given that this was the hottest day on record on top of the driest start to a year on record on top of the longest driest drought on record on top of the hottest drought on record the implications are clear…
It is clear to me that climate change is now becoming such a strong contributor to these hitherto unimaginable events that the language starts to change from one of “climate change increased the chances of an event” to “without climate change this event could not have occurred.” The Australian Bureau of Meteorology
