One-third of Florida's parks put on governor's potential closing list

Ana M. Valdes in the Orlando Sentinel: Fifty-three state parks, including three in Martin and St. Lucie counties, could be closed in response to Gov. Rick Scott's call for budget cuts. The Department of Environmental Protection's list of proposed closings includes St. Lucie Inlet Preserve State Park in Stuart, Savannas Preserve State Park in Jensen Beach and the smaller Atlantic Ridge Preserve State Park in Stuart.

To help the state deal with a potential $3.2 billion shortfall, Scott asked all departments to come up with proposals to reduce their budgets by 15 percent. Closing these parks, about a third of Florida's total of 160, would save the state about $6.5 million a year, officials say. "The 53 parks were chosen based on their visitation numbers during fiscal year 2009-2010," DEP spokeswoman Kristin Lock said. "They reflect the parks with the lowest visitation that do not offer camping or other overnight accommodations."

Lock emphasized that until the legislature approves the governor's budget, these are merely proposals. State environmental groups quickly spoke out against the closings. "The people who are making these statements are not representing the views of many in Florida," said Tom Larson, a member of the Sierra Club Florida steering committee. "They are just looking at dollars and swinging an ax left and right."…

Asia faces climate-induced migration 'crisis'

Martin Abbugao in AFP: Asia must prepare for millions of people to flee their homes to safer havens within countries and across borders as weather patterns become more extreme, the Asian Development Bank warns. A draft of an ADB report obtained by AFP over the weekend and confirmed by bank officials cautioned that failure to make preparations now for vast movements of people could lead to "humanitarian crises" in the coming decades.

Governments are currently focused on mitigating climate change blamed for the weather changes, but the report said they should start laying down policies and mechanisms to deal with the projected population shifts. "What is clear is that Asia and the Pacific will be amongst the global regions most affected by the impacts of climate change," said the report entitled "Climate Change and Migration in Asia and the Pacific".

"Such impacts include significant temperature increases, changing rainfall patterns, greater monsoon variability, sea-level rise, floods and more intense tropical cyclones," it said. The report, expected to be released in the next few weeks, comes as flooding overwhelms parts of Asia-Pacific, most recently in Australia, where a powerful cyclone worsened the impact of weeks of record inundations.

"Asia and the Pacific is particularly vulnerable because of its high degree of exposure to environmental risks and high population density. As a result, it could experience population displacements of unprecedented scale in the next decades," said the report, primarily targeted at regional policymakers….

A refugee in Sri Lanka, from 2008, shot by trokilinochchi, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Hurricanes, floods, fires ... no worries?

Kathy Marks in Herald Scotland: As the final splutter of Cyclone Yasi triggered thunderstorms and flash floods in Melbourne this weekend, Australians were wondering what nature will throw at them next. A monster category-five storm, Yasi smashed into north Queensland just weeks after the state endured the worst floods in its history.

…While Australia – the world’s driest inhabited continent – may have had more than its share of natural disasters lately, climate scientists point out that it has always been a country of extremes. However, they also say that those extremes are, in all likelihood, being exacerbated by global warming, and they warn that the havoc wreaked here recently represents a snapshot of the future, not just in Australia but around the world.

…“A lot of people are putting their head in the sand and saying these are all one-offs,” said Edward Blakely, professor of urban policy at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre. “How many one- offs does it take to make a trend?”

…“The temperatures in the Pacific are anomalously warm, and the only explanation we have is in part a global warming signal,” said Professor Andy Pitman, of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. He adds: “The scale of the flooding, the intensity and size of this cyclone, and all the other events going on around the world with increasing frequency – there’s good evidence to suggest they are real-world examples of what the climate scientists have been predicting for some decades.”

…In Australia, while there is, understandably, much hand-wringing about recent events, there is next to no debate about the role of climate change. Visiting north Queensland last week, the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, declared: “We will rebuild from the floods, we will rebuild from the cyclone, we will rebuild from anything nature throws at us.”

It was a response that dismayed professor Pitman. “There’s an assumption that we can engineer our environment to be safe from whatever nature throws at us,” he said. “I think these are flawed assumptions.”

Cyclone Yasi on February 2, 2011

Arctic fisheries catches 75 times higher than previous reports

University of British Columbia Public Affairs: University of British Columbia researchers estimate that fisheries catches in the Arctic totaled 950,000 tonnes from 1950 to 2006, almost 75 times the amount reported to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) during this period.

Led by Prof. Daniel Pauly, the research team from UBC’s Fisheries Centre and Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences reconstructed fisheries catch data from various sources – including limited governmental reports and anthropological records of indigenous population activities – for FAO’s Fisheries Statistical Area 18, which covers arctic coastal areas in northern Siberia (Russia), Arctic Alaska (the U.S.) and the Canadian Arctic.

The Arctic is one of the last and most extensive ocean wilderness areas in the world. The extent of the sea ice in the region has declined in recent years due to climate change, raising concerns over loss of biodiversity as well as the expansion of industrial fisheries into this area. The details are published this week in the journal Polar Biology.

“Ineffective reporting, due to governance issues and a lack of credible data on small-scale fisheries, has given us a false sense of comfort that the Arctic is still a pristine frontier when it comes to fisheries,” says lead author Dirk Zeller, a senior research fellow at UBC’s Fisheries Centre. “We now offer a more accurate baseline against which we can monitor changes in fish catches and to inform policy and conservation efforts.”

Official FAO data on fish catches in Area 18 from 1950 to 2006 were based solely on statistics supplied by Russia and amounted to 12,700 tonnes. The UBC team performed a detailed analysis and found that it’s only the tip of iceberg. The team shows that while the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service’s Alaska branch currently reports zero catches to FAO for the Arctic area, the state agency, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has collected commercial data and undertaken studies on 15 coastal communities in the Alaskan Arctic that rely on fisheries for subsistence. The estimated fish catch during this period in Alaska alone totaled 89,000 tonnes.

While no catches were reported to FAO by Canada, the research team shows commercial and small-scale fisheries actually amounted to 94,000 tonnes in catches in the same time span. Meanwhile, Russia’s total catch was actually a staggering 770,000 tonnes from 1950 to 2006, or nearly 12,000 tonnes per year.

“Our work shows a lack of care by the Canadian, U.S. and Russian governments in trying to understand the food needs and fish catches of northern communities,” says Pauly, who leads the Sea Around Us Project at UBC….

Sitka Alaska Tribal seal, rendered by Nathan Soliz, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Pakistan unable to provide cash compensation to flood victims before March 2011

Sify News: Pakistan's Finance Ministry has expressed its inability to provide cash compensation to last year's flood victims before March 2011, according to official sources. The sources said the Pakistan government has so far received 170 million dollars from the World Bank and 190 million dollars from the United States to compensate the flood affectees, but it will not be able to collect further aid before March 2011.

Federal Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh presided over a meeting of the provincial chief secretaries to discuss the flood response and cash transfers to the flood affectees. The meeting deliberated in details the mechanism of the disbursement of the compensation money and related issues like preparation of an outline for the operational manual and implementation process.

The chief secretaries briefed the meeting on the first phase of the payment of 20,000 rupees per affected family, while the payment of another 80,000 rupees per family was discussed in the light of the available financial resources….

'Rivers to ridges' restoration sought in Northern California national park

John Driscoll in the Times-Standard (California): The Six Rivers National Forest wants to pick up the pace of restoration efforts on the land as part of a larger push to address climate change, population growth and wildfires across the nation.

Just what that effort will look like is the subject of an upcoming public meeting on Feb. 16. Six Rivers Supervisor Tyrone Kelley said that the event is meant to air plans for hardwood stand restoration, sediment reduction, road work, plantation thinning, the use of prescribed fire and recreation, as well as economic opportunities that may exist.

The stepped-up restoration program, called “Rivers to Ridges Ecological Restoration” is part of a landscape-level approach. One of the largest parts of the proposed efforts would be restoring hardwood and oak woodlands on some 120,000 acres of Six Rivers, and on 145,000 acres of plantations and other logged lands. ”Those stands are overcrowded and they need to be thinned,” Kelley said.

That should help make those areas more resilient to wildfires, tree diseases like sudden oak death and to encroachment of human habitation, Kelley said. The pace of the work is currently not fast enough to deal with the growing effects of wildfires on the land, he said.

Map of the Six Rivers National Forest, from the US Forest Service

Houston paralyzed by ice storm

John Pape in Disaster News Network: The storm system that has been wreaking havoc with much of the nation all week on Friday all but shut down Houston, paralyzing the nation’s fourth-largest city under a coat of ice. The ice essentially shut down the Houston metropolitan area, forcing the closure of the freeway system in the metropolitan area of 5 million people. Schools and businesses closed for the day as local officials urged people to stay home and off the street.

Houston, which rarely sees snow or freezing weather, was expecting snow Thursday night; however, temperatures initially stayed warmer than expected and the anticipated precipitation instead fell as rain. Then, as the city dropped below the freezing mark, the coating of moisture quickly turned into a sheet of ice.

County Judge Ed Emmett, who is the chief elected officer in Harris County, called that scenario “the worst of all possible situations.” He said the icy conditions even kept sand trucks and emergency vehicles from doing their jobs.

Emmett said the county had staged sand trucks at spots throughout the county, ready to respond to problem areas. When the entire freeway system became coated with ice, there was little that could be done, he said….

A generic shot of some iced over leaves -- not from the Houston storm. By Robert Lawton, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license

Canada not immune to water issues

Will Chabun in the Star Phoenix via the Regina Leader-Post (Canada): When Howard Wheater and his wife were moving last September to Saskatoon, where he would take up a high-profile position as the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan, he picked up a copy of the New York Times in an airport.

If ever there was evidence of the importance of water to our planet, there it was in one issue: Stories on Russia's heat wave, Pakistan's epic floods (which displaced 20 million people and were described as the worst natural disaster in that country's history) and the climatological link between the two.

…In a wide-ranging speech Friday to a regional meeting of the Canadian Water Resources Association in Regina, Wheater said Canadians should not think they are immune to water issues, as shown by problems with water quality in rural areas and First Nations -and mounting unease about floods this spring.

Wheater said "we can't say" with certainty climate change was directly responsible for heavy rain and flooding on the Prairies last summer, but it is clear extreme weather is something we "are likely to see more -and then less."

Looking at water on the Canadian Prairies, he noted the heavy demands on the South Saskatchewan River system for irrigation in Alberta, human consumption in Saskatchewan and power generation in Manitoba.

Complicating things is the dependence of this river basin on runoff from glaciers in the mountains of Alberta, which clearly are shrinking. "It would take a multiyear drought to bring that to the top of the political and public agenda," said Wheater, who added another complicating factor is that models for forecasting climate and water use are based on existing data and past trends, while the future is unpredictable…

The North Saskatchewan River, shot by Marcel Schoenhardt, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Helping feed the world without polluting its waters

McGill University Newsroom: A growing global population has lead to increasing demands for food. Farmers around the world rely, at least in part on phosphorus-based fertilizers in order to sustain and improve crop yields. But the overuse of phosphorus can lead to freshwater pollution and the development of a host of problems, such as the spread of blue-green algae in lakes and the growth of coastal ‘dead zones’.

A further issue is that phosphorus comes from phosphate rock, a non-renewable resource of which there are limited supplies in such geopolitically charged areas as Western Sahara and China.

Now, for the first time ever, a detailed global map has been produced showing imbalances in the way that phosphorus, an essential plant nutrient, is being used around the world. “Typically, people either worry about what happens when an excess of phosphorus finds its way into the water, or they focus on what happens when we run out of phosphorus,” says Graham MacDonald, a PhD student in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University, who led the study. “This is the first study that illuminates the issue on a global scale and suggests that these are not separate problems … that the issue is one of distributing the phosphorus we’ve got.”

The study used detailed agronomic information about how much phosphorus is applied to soils in fertilizers and manures for more than 100 different food, feed, and fibre crops produced around the world in 2000. The results point to large imbalances in phosphorus use, with both the overuse of phosphorus in some parts of the world and phosphorus deficits in others. There were some surprising findings. While it is typically assumed that phosphorus deficits exist in only the poorer countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and phosphorus surpluses dominate in the wealthy nations of Europe and North America, in fact phosphorus levels vary widely within most nations – with surpluses and deficits commonly occurring side-by-side in a single region. Furthermore, countries such as Ukraine, long-known as the Russian empire’s ‘bread basket’, is one area that now suffers from phosphorus deficits, while eastern China and southern Brazil have been identified as phosphorus ‘hotspots’, where surplus phosphorus from the intensive use of fertilizers pose a danger of being lost from farmlands in runoff where it may pollute freshwater supplies.

“Until you can quantify how phosphorus is actually currently being used,” MacDonald says, “it’s difficult for policy-makers to go ahead and make informed decisions at a national or global scale.” Now they will have a tool to help them do so.

The symbol for phosphorous, rendered by Jerome Walker, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Cyclone Yasi likely to have ravaged Great Barrier Reef

James Woodford in the Guardian (UK): On its way to ravaging cities and towns in north Queensland, severe tropical cyclone Yasi will almost certainly have left a swath of destruction on the Great Barrier Reef off Townsville. Early last month, as floods struck southern Queensland, I accompanied a team of divers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science on an expedition to a 300-mile part of the reef – a fifth of the 1,400-mile-long World Heritage Area.

The researchers dived 13 reefs – from Myrmidon, which is 75 miles out to sea, to areas around the inshore Palm Island group, just off the mainland. Much of what we saw was spectacular and showed the reef recovering from a decade of devastation caused by coral bleaching and crown-of-thorns starfish, both of which have been responsible for large areas of coral mortality.

It may be weeks or months before scientists can fully survey and assess the damage from cyclone Yasi but, based on the effect of previous large cyclones, they will not be optimistic. Tropical cyclones generate huge waves, which pulverise coral reefs into rubble….

The Great Barrier Reef, shot by Cookaa, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Catastrophic drought in the Amazon

Steve Connor in the Independent (UK): A widespread drought in the Amazon rainforest last year caused the "lungs of the world" to produce more carbon dioxide than they absorbed, potentially leading to a dangerous acceleration of global warming. Scientists have calculated that the 2010 drought was more intense than the "one-in-100-year" drought of 2005.

They are predicting it will result in some eight billion tonnes of carbon dioxide being expelled from the Amazon rainforest, which is more than the total annual carbon emissions of the United States. For the second time in less than a decade, the earth's greatest rainforest released more carbon dioxide than it absorbed because many of its trees dried out and died.

Scientists believe that the highly unusual nature of the two droughts, which occurred in the space of just five years, may be the result of higher sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic, which could also be influenced by global warming caused by the release of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The Anglo-Brazilian team of researchers has emphasised that there is as yet no proof that the two highly unusual droughts in the Amazon are the direct result of rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, but the scientists have warned that the world is gambling with its future if it fails to curb fossil fuel emissions.

Simon Lewis of Leeds University, the lead author of the study, said: "If greenhouse gas emissions contribute to Amazon droughts that in turn cause forests to release carbon, this feedback loop would be extremely concerning. Put more starkly, current emissions pathways risk playing Russian roulette with the world's largest rainforest…

NASA image of the Amazon River near Manaus

Drought crisis in Somalia and Kenya

UN News Centre: Wrapping up a visit to Somalia and Kenya, the United Nations humanitarian chief today called attention to the crises in the two countries, where recurring droughts have deprived millions of already vulnerable people of their livelihoods, leaving them in need of assistance.

“In the past three days, I have had an opportunity to see for myself the devastation and impact of conflict and climate-related disasters on people in Kenya and Somalia,” the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos, said in Nairobi, at the end of her visit.

She pointed out that dramatic and more recent crises – such as the floods in Pakistan last year and the 2009 earthquake in Haiti – frequently overshadow chronic crises like those in east Africa. “The world needs to continue to pay attention to what is happening in this part of the world,” Ms. Amos said. “We must always make sure that people understand the human impact of these crises. Behind every statistic, there is a human face.”

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, recurrent droughts and inadequate rainfall in Kenya and Somalia have eroded livelihoods, especially for pastoral communities which have become food insecure.

An estimated 1.6 million Kenyans, mostly inhabitants of the arid and semi-arid areas in the northern and eastern regions of the country, are experiencing drought-related hardship. In neighbouring Somalia, a combination of long-term insecurity and drought has driven up the number of people in need to 2.4 million, with the situation expected to worsen before the onset of the next rainy season in April….

Mountains west of Mogadishu, midway toward Luuq. Shot by Hiram A. Ruiz, who has released the images into the public domain

Sri Lanka 'poorly equipped to forecast floods'

Tharaka Gamage in SciDev.net: Poor flood forecasting facilities contributed to the damage caused by recent extensive floods in Sri Lanka, the worst in nine decades, scientists said. Between 1 December 2010 and 12 January 2011, Sri Lanka's northern and eastern districts received rainfall that almost equalled the area’s total monsoon rains from December to February each year, according to the Colombo-based Disaster Management Centre of Sri Lanka (DMCSL).

The unusually heavy rainfall caused the sudden floods that affected over 200,000 families, and damaged an estimated 6,000 houses, according to preliminary estimates. "As a result of this heavy rain, more than 60 small tanks have been damaged, causing rapid spread of flood. We have to rebuild and repair the small-tank system of the country to manage the rainwater effectively," U.W.L Chandradasa, director of DMCSL, told SciDev.net.

"Sri Lanka does not have a proper [flood] forecasting system. This is an area to look into, probably, as part of preparedness," Herath Manthrithilake, head of the Colombo-based International Water Management Institute's Sri Lanka programme, said.

DMCSL is preparing a risk reduction plan, and installing a facility to download real-time satellite pictures during emergencies like the recent floods. So far, the country has had to take the help of neighbouring countries that downloaded satellite images and relayed them to Sri Lanka. This is time-consuming and less effective for immediate decision-making, Chandradasa said….

New publication on forest management

The Rights and Resources Initiative has announced “The Extent and Scope of Community and Smallholder Forest Management Enterprises,” by Augusta Molnar, Marina France, Lopaka Purdy, and Jonathan Karver: CBFEs are truly local institutions; this is one of the reasons for the diversity of models on which they are based. It is also a reason why, as a development strategy, they bypass many of the costs and hurdles other development initiatives face in implementation. Created on the ground by local actors, they are well adapted to local social, cultural, and economic conditions and landscapes. Unlike large export- and commodity-driven business models, CBFEs are intrinsically tied to the communities in which they operate.

They therefore provide local communities with many vital opportunities: local employment and revenue, sustainable production and trade of required goods and services, and wealth that stays within the community. To maximize the potential of community-based forest management and CBFEs, concerted action is needed on the part of governments to create a level playing field for communities and smallholders in fiscal policy and regulations, access to technical and financial services, and the marketplace. In many developing countries, CBFEs and other SMFEs are often relegated by statutory law and regulation to an informal economy and a ‘shadow’ marketplace in which they are unable to realize their natural competitiveness.

Pakistan floods could have been predicted, minimised, says study

Megan Rowling Reuters AlertNet: Scientists say the rainfall that brought devastating floods to Pakistan in the middle of last year was predicted several days in advance by a European forecasting centre, and the information could have helped minimise the disaster had it been passed on and used in the right way locally.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta examined raw data from computer models at a European meteorological centre which indicated the monsoon downpours were imminent. They conclude in a paper, due to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), that "the heavy rainfall pulses throughout July and early August were predictable with a high probability six to eight days in advance".

The study says the floods could have been predicted if the data, which originated from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), had been processed and fed into a hydrological model, which takes terrain into account. … Yet, according to a statement from the AGU, the rainfall warnings did not reach Pakistan because the ECMWF, a UK-based organisation supported by 33 countries, mainly European, does not have a cooperating agreement with the South Asian nation.

…Peter Webster, a professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology and lead author of the study, said if he and colleagues had been working with Pakistan, they would have known the floods were coming 8 to 10 days in advance. "This disaster could have been minimised and even the flooding could have been minimised," he said in the AGU statement….

Ice cores yield rich history of climate change

Terra Daily: On Friday, Jan. 28 in Antarctica, a research team investigating the last 100,000 years of Earth's climate history reached an important milestone completing the main ice core to a depth of 3,331 meters (10,928 feet) at West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WAIS). The project will be completed over the next two years with some additional coring and borehole logging to obtain additional information and samples of the ice for the study of the climate record contained in the core.

As part of the project, begun six years ago, the team, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), has been drilling deep into the ice at the WAIS Divide site and recovering and analyzing ice cores for clues about how changes in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have influenced the Earth's climate over time.

Friday's milestone was reached at a depth of 3,331 meters--about two miles deep--creating the deepest ice core ever drilled by the U.S. and the second deepest ice core ever drilled by any group, second only to the ice core drilled at Russia's Vostok Station as part of a joint French/U.S./Russian collaboration in the 1990s.

"By improving our understanding of how natural changes in greenhouse gas influenced climate in the past, the science community will be able to do a better job of predicting future climate changes caused by the emissions of greenhouse gases by human activity," said Kendrick Taylor, chief scientist for the WAIS Divide Ice Core Project.

…The ice at this depth fell as snow about 100,000 years ago. The high annual snowfall at the site enables individual annual layers of snowfall to be identified and counted (much like counting tree rings) back to about 40,000 years....

From February 2002, preparing the ice corer for deployment, EPICA project, Kohnen Station, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica (Operators: Prof. Dr. Frank Wilhelms and Lorenz Karsten). Shot by Hannes Grobe, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license

Oklahoma declared a federal disaster

John Pape in Disaster News Network: As Oklahoma struggled to dig out from under as much as 20 inches of snow dumped on the state by what many are calling the “Groundhog Day Storm,” President Barrack Obama approved Gov. Mary Fallin’s request to declare all of the state’s 77 counties as a federal disaster.

Although the declaration did not specify reimbursement to state and local governments of the response costs, the declaration is expected to be amended to include them.. Those expenses could include such things as personnel overtime costs as well as costs associated with operating shelters and clearing snow and ice covered roads.

Even recovery operations began, the state remained under a statewide declaration of emergency issued by Fallin on Monday.

Fallin spent most of the day in the State Emergency Operations Center, which was activated as the storm approached. Among the agencies working in the EOC were the Salvation Army, Oklahoma Military Department, Oklahoma State Department of Health, American Red Cross, Oklahoma Department of Human Services, Oklahoma Highway Patrol, Oklahoma Corporation Commission and Oklahoma Department of Transportation….

Australian science advisor suggests there's much worse to come

Sid Maher in the Australian: The government's climate change adviser Ross Garnaut has warned that the severity of the cyclones and floods which have devastated Queensland in the past month could be the result of climate change and that the science predicts "you ain't seen nothing yet".

As Queensland counted the cost of Cyclone Yasi yesterday, Professor Garnaut said climate-change science warned that as global temperatures rose the number of extreme events would intensify. "There's never been a strong assertion in the climate science that you'll get more frequent cyclonic events. There is a strong element in the climate science that you will get more frequent extreme cyclonic events," he said.

Professor Garnaut also warned that the latest scientific trends suggested increases in temperatures and sea-level rises were worse than predicted by the Inter- Governmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007. "I think the general tendency is to confirm the IPCC under-estimated the impacts," Professor Garnaut said….

Crystal ball shot by Eva K. / Eva K., Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons2.5 GenericAttribution-Share Alike

The complex business of measuring climate change

Nick Engelfried in Cleantechies via JustMeans: Have you ever wondered exactly how scientists track climate change and the warming of the world at a global level? Estimating the overall surface temperature of the Earth isn’t easy when you have to account for seasonal variations across six continents and four oceans. It requires compiling data from satellites positioned high up in the atmosphere and from hundreds of meteorological stations scattered across the globe. However being able to compare average global temperatures from year to year is incredibly important, and allows scientists to track the progress of climate change.

Fortunately leading scientific institutions make it their business to record as accurate a picture of global temperatures as possible, using sophisticated techniques that have grown more and more accurate over the years. This month what are probably the three most respected climate research centers in the world released their findings on how global temperatures from 2010 compared to other years. All three bodies—the US-based National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the UK-based Met Office—concluded 2010 was one of the top two warmest years since record-keeping began in 1880.

According to NASA, 2010 tied with 2005 for the title of warmest year ever. Before coming to this conclusion NASA scientists gathered information from over a thousand temperature data sites and looked at satellite records of ocean surface temperatures. This is the kind of comprehensive process needed to sort out merely local weather events from true global trends. The findings confirm climate change is still going on. Since the end of the 1970s, global temperatures have increased steadily at a rate of 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.

NOAA findings largely agree with those of NASA, and rank 2010 and 2005 as the two warmest years on record. The Met Office, using similar comprehensive data-gathering methods, has come to slightly different conclusions and ranks 2010 as the second warmest year behind 1998 (NASA awards 1998 a close second place behind 2010 and 2005). Considering the complexities involved in estimating the Earth’s temperature, some small discrepancies between the three leading research bodies are to be expected.

However NASA, NOAA, and the Met Office all agree on the most important thing: 2010 was one of the warmest years in recorded history, and recent decades have seen a steady warming trend caused by human activity. Climate change will continue unless quick action is taken to reduce carbon emissions. Meanwhile the amount of warming we’ve seen already has almost certainly contributed to an increase in weather-related disasters around the world. 2010 saw record floods, fires, and heat waves in many countries, and 2011 is already shaping up to be much the same….

Graphical representation of global monthly temperatures anomalies (globe - land - ocean) from Dec 1978 to Dec 2009 based on UAH troposphere data available at: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt, created by Asterix451, Wikimedia Commons, in the public domain

Floods in Brazil are a result of short-term planning

Natalia Viana in the PovertyMatters blog in the Guardian (UK): As I write, more than two weeks after the floods began in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro state, many communities remain isolated due to landslides on the main access roads.

More than 800 people died and thousands of people have been displaced in the state, according to official figures. One of the worst affected towns is Santa Rita. Dozens of families still depend on helicopters to deliver food, water, and emergency healthcare. In the town of Teresópolis, people are starting to clear debris in the streets by hand, with shovels and brushes. And in Nova Friburgo, families watch, and cry, as their homes are demolished.

…Urban planning has never been part of the political agenda. Governments react, rather than plan and prevent. The ministry in charge of monitoring urban planning, the Ministry of Cities, was only created in 2003. The Supreme Court is still deciding if all cities will have to set out and follow an urban plan as defined in 1988 in new federal constitution.

But nothing has changed. Just after the floods, the government said it would set up a national system to prevent disasters – which won't be fully working for four years. The Plano de Aceleração do Crescimento (PAC) – the national "plan of growth acceleration" – released two years ago as the major project for infrastructure works, provides about £4.4bn for disaster containment. Most will be used for drainage, but containment caps for hills will also be built.

"These are emergency works purely to reduce the repetition of tragedies," says Celso Carvalho, the national secretary of urban programmes. "Our cities are very insecure because of the failure to apply urban planning."…

Rescue work after the floods in Brazil, shot by Vladimir Platonow/ABr, Wikimedia Commons via Agência Brasil, a public Brazilian news agency, under the Creative Commons License Attribution 2.5 Brazil

East Antarctic Ice Sheet may not be as stable as previously thought

Macquarie University: The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) holds enough ice to raise global sea level by about 60 metres. But because surface temperatures across East Antarctica are well below freezing point, this ice has long been thought to be relatively stable, and thus unlikely to contribute significantly to sea level rise during the next few centuries.

However, new field-based studies of ice sheet response to climate warming and sea level increase after the last ice age about 20,000 years ago suggest that parts of the ice sheet may respond more rapidly to global climate change than previously assumed. Most of the contribution to sea level from melted ice occurs along the coastal perimeter of East Antarctica, where the slow moving ice sheet meets the ocean. An alternative mechanism of ice sheet melt to sea level is via large outlet glaciers which stream through deep and extensive basins that act like drainage channels. Little is known about the relative amounts of these two mechanisms.

The research, by Dr Duanne White and Associate Professor Damian Gore of Macquarie University and Dr David Fink of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), is published in the most recent edition of the prestigious journal Geology.

In this publication, the authors describe their study of large ice streams that drain a large proportion of the snow that falls on the Antarctic Ice Sheet to the sea.

“These outlet glaciers can quickly move ice from the ice sheet to the coast through these basins and are thus a strong linkage between the ice sheet and the ocean, providing a means of more rapidly transferring changes in oceanic and atmospheric conditions to changes in the size of the ice sheet than would otherwise be expected,” explains White. “However, the large area, remoteness and complexity of the ice streams means they have been difficult to study before now.”

…The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicates that total sea level rise by the end of this century from all sources may range between 0.2 to 0.6 metres. However these IPCC climate change models do not include the accelerated discharge from dynamic ice sheet outlet glaciers documented in White’s Geology publication. The results of White and co-authors provide further urgency for the inclusion of ice streaming into future global earth system models.

Two massive icebergs drifted along the coast of East Antarctica in early March 2010. In mid-February 2010, the Rhode Island-sized Iceberg B-09B collided with the protruding Mertz Glacier Tongue along the George V Coast. The Mertz Glacier was already in the process of calving an iceberg when the arrival of the B-09B accelerated the process, leaving two icebergs the size of small states off this part of Antarctica’s coast. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image of Iceberg B-09B and the newly created iceberg off the Mertz Glacier. Between each iceberg and the coast floats a mélange of smaller pieces of ice. Farther out to sea, delicate white swirls indicate a relatively thin layer of sea ice. Occasional clouds floating overhead cast shadows on the ice surfaces below.

NASA satellite captures US big chill

NASA/JPL: The current winter storm system blasting much of the United States is depicted in this new NASA satellite image from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite.

The image, a composite of AIRS data swaths taken on Feb. 1, 2011, highlights the preponderance of cold air blanketing Canada and the northern U.S. The coldest air is depicted in purples, blues and greens.

AIRS was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The AIRS data create an accurate 3-D map of atmospheric temperature, water vapor and clouds, data that are useful to forecasters. The image shows the temperature of the storm's cloud tops or the surface of Earth in cloud-free regions. The coldest cloud-top temperatures appear in purple, indicating towering cold clouds and heavy precipitation. The infrared signal of AIRS does not penetrate through clouds. Where there are no clouds, AIRS reads the infrared signal from the surface of the ocean waters, revealing warmer temperatures in orange and red.

AIRS observes and records the global daily distribution of temperature, water vapor, clouds and several atmospheric gases including ozone, methane and carbon monoxide. For more on AIRS, see http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/....

Monster Cyclone Yasi eyes Australia in NASA image

NASA/JPL: Mass evacuations are underway in the northeastern Australian state of Queensland in anticipation of what forecasters expect will be the largest cyclone ever to hit the continent. Yasi has intensified rapidly and currently has winds gusting up to 295 kilometers per hour (183 mph). It is expected to maintain that intensity-equivalent to a Category Five hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale--until landfall in northeastern Queensland between Cairns and Innisfail during the late evening local time on Feb. 2 (early morning Feb. 2 in the United States).

Shown here is the latest infrared image of Yasi from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite, built and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. It was taken on Feb. 1, 2011, at 7:17 a.m. PST (10:17 a.m. EST). A distinct eye is visible, and the outer bands of the storm can be seen nearing the Australian coast.

The AIRS data create an accurate 3-D map of atmospheric temperature, water vapor and clouds, data that are useful to forecasters. The image shows the temperature of Yasi's cloud tops or the surface of Earth in cloud-free regions. The coldest cloud-top temperatures appear in purple, indicating towering cold clouds and heavy precipitation. The infrared signal of AIRS does not penetrate through clouds. Where there are no clouds, AIRS reads the infrared signal from the surface of the ocean waters, revealing warmer temperatures in orange and red....

Thousands flee Cyclone Yasi

Greg Ansley and Amelia Wade in the New Zealand Herald: Tens of thousands of Queenslanders and holidaymakers were last night fleeing their homes or battening down to face what authorities fear will become the biggest storm in the state's recorded history. Cyclone Yasi was moving rapidly across the Pacific from Vanuatu and was forecast to directly strike Cairns and the far north coast shortly after midnight tonight (NZT), although conditions are likely to become potentially lethal from this morning.

With Queensland still reeling from flooding, Premier Anna Bligh warned: "This storm is huge and it is life-threatening." But as extra flights raced to evacuate residents, hospitals and tourists from mainland towns and Whitsunday resort islands before airports closed, Ms Bligh said the state was "not battle-weary - we're battle hardened".

Yasi is expected to hit the coast as a category four cyclone, larger and more intense than Cyclone Larry, which hammered far north Australia in March 2006, taking no lives but causing damage estimated at A$1.5 billion ($1.8 billion).

Winds at their worst could slam into coastal communities at up to 280km/h, weakening towards the cyclone's outer rim - but still dangerous and destructive between Cooktown and Townsville - and possibly affecting towns as far inland as Mt Isa, 900km from the coast….

The track of Tropical Cyclone Yasi. Created by Keith Edkins and Iune using Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Tracks. The background image is from NASA. Tracking data is from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version

China's big hydro wins permission for 21.3GW dam in world heritage site

Jonathan Watts in the Guardian (UK): China's dam builders will press ahead with controversial plans to build a cascade of hydropower plants in one of the country's most spectacular canyons, it was reported today, in an apparent reversal for prime minister Wen Jiabao. The move to harness the power of the pristine Nu river - better known outside of China as the Salween - overturns a suspension ordered by the premier in 2004 on environmental grounds and reconfirmed in 2009.

Back then, conservation groups hailed the reprieve as a rare victory against Big Hydro in an area of southwest Yunnan province that is of global importance for biodiversity. But Huadian - one of the country's five biggest utilities - and the provincial government have argued that more low-carbon energy is needed to meet the climate commitments of the fast-growing economy.

Their lobbying appears to have been successful, according to reports in the state media. "We believe the Nu River can be developed and we hope that progress can be made during the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015)," Shi Lishan, the deputy director of new energy at the National Energy Administration, told Chinese national radio. The plan envisages the construction of 13 dams on the middle and lower reaches of the river, with a total generating capacity of 21.3GW that is similar to that of the Three Gorges Dam….

The Salawin river (a.k.a. the Nujiang river in China) at the border village of Mae Sam Laep. Myanmar is on the left bank. Shot by Takeaway (talk), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

In Central America, tragedies suffered, lessons learned?

Danilo Valladares in IPS: The disasters caused by torrential rains in South America have set off alarm bells in Central America, whose extreme vulnerability was made all too clear over the last few years when it was slammed by hurricanes Mitch and Stan and tropical storm Agatha. "We need a real effort to prevent tragedies, and a more in-depth response to the housing problem," Roly Escobar with CONAPAMG, a Guatemalan movement of slum dwellers fighting for the right to decent housing, told IPS.

The group reports that in this Central American country of 14 million people, 800,000 families life in 578 slums, 145 of which are in areas at risk of flooding and landslides, like hillsides, ravines or riverbanks. "For example, in the Santa Faz and Chinautla slums on the outskirts of Guatemala City, the soil is very sandy, which means the rain loosens it and causes mudslides," Escobar said.

Something similar happened on Jan. 11 in Rio de Janeiro, where heavy rains caused huge landslides that destroyed entire "favelas" or shantytowns. The catastrophe triggered a debate over the lack of zoning laws and emergency plans in Brazil.

More than 800 people have died and over 30,000 were left homeless by the flooding and mudslides in Brazil. Severe rainfall also caused landslides and heavy damages in Colombia and Venezuela in late 2010, claiming 174 lives in the former and 35 in the latter, and leaving more than 2.5 million people homeless in both countries.

Central America is familiar with such tragedies. Hurricanes Mitch in 1998 and Stan in 2005, and tropical storm Agatha in 2010, as well as a lengthy drought in 2009 left thousands dead and caused billions of dollars in damages to infrastructure and agriculture, mainly in Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala….

A river that overflowed its banks in Guatemala following heavy rains produced by Tropical Storm Agatha in July, 2010

Four Himalayan nations working on climate change adaptation plans

Planetsave via WWF: Governments of four Eastern Himalayan states announced plans today that will lead to the development of a unified climate change adaptation plan for the mountainous region. Delegates from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal met in Thimphu on January 27 and 28 to start planning 10-year national and regional adaptation frameworks that will be tabled later this year.

“Climate change is a shared problem and regions bound by common issues and geographical boundaries should coordinate efforts to deal with its impacts on the Himalayan biodiversity. Actions must be expedited at local, national and regional levels,” said the Honorable Minister for Agriculture and Forests Bhutan, Dr. Pema Gyamtsho.

Key concerns to be addressed by the decade-long framework include ensuring food, water and energy security as well as maintaining high levels of biodiversity in the region’s temperate and alpine forests. Working groups based in each of the four nations will hammer out details on food, water, biodiversity and energy targets over the following months. Final plans will be tabled at the Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas scheduled for 14 October in Thimphu, Bhutan…

Mount Jomolhari in Bhutan, shot by Christopher Fynn, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Metamaterials approach makes better satellite antennas

Penn State Live: Cheaper, lighter and more energy-efficient broadband devices on communications satellites may be possible using metamaterials to modify horn antennas, according to engineers from Penn State and Lockheed Martin Corp.

"Existing horn antennas have adequate performance, but have undergone little change over several decades except for advances in more accurate modeling techniques," said Erik Lier, technical Fellow, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. "Modifications enabled by metamaterials can either enhance performance, or they can lower the mass and thus lower the cost of putting the antenna in space."

Lighter antennas cost less to boost into space and more energy-efficient antennas can reduce the size of storage batteries and solar cells, which also reduces the mass. Metamaterials derive their unusual properties from structure rather than composition and possess exotic properties not usually found in nature.

"Working with Penn State, we decided that the first year we were going to focus on applications for radio frequency antennas, where we thought we had a reasonable chance to succeed," said Lier. According to Douglas H. Werner, professor of electrical engineering, Penn State, this is one of the first practical implementations of electromagnetic metamaterials that makes a real world device better.

"These results also help lay to rest the widely held viewpoint that metamaterials are primarily an academic curiosity and, due to their narrow bandwidth and relatively high loss, will never find their way into real-world devices," the researchers report in the current issue of Nature Materials.
They specifically designed their electromagnetic metamaterials to avoid previous limitations of narrow bandwidth and high intrinsic material loss, which results in signal loss. Their aim was not to design theoretical metamaterial-enhanced antennas, but to build a working prototype….

A three-dimentional rendering of metamaterial lined feed horn antenna with low loss, low weight, and over an octave bandwidth for satellite communications shown with satellite. From the Penn State website

San Joaquin River delta's biggest enemy hard to pinpoint

Alex Breitler in Recordnet.com (Stockton, California): There are more than 40 potential causes for the [San Joaquin River] Delta's decline, scientists said Friday, but ranking them in order is just too difficult "We're not in a position now - we may be in a position later - to say it's these three stressors that are causing 90 percent of the problem, or one stressor causing 45 percent of the problem," said Richard Norgaard, chair of the Delta Independent Science Board, a panel of 10 experts established by California's sweeping water reform in 2009.

"At the present state of knowledge, we just think there's a lot of interacting stressors," Norgaard told the Delta Stewardship Council on Friday. Scientists say many causes may be contributing to the decline of the Delta:

Global causes: Climate change (sea level rise, changes in water flows, higher temperatures and changes in ocean conditions); earthquakes; population growth; state economy.

Historic causes: Habitat loss; mercury from the Gold Rush accumulating in fish; toxic selenium runoff from farms; sinking Delta islands; artificial levees that may break, causing flooding; upstream dams that cut off breeding areas for salmon; agricultural subsidies; development, zoning and building codes; invasive species.

Current causes: Water withdrawals upstream of the Delta, in the Delta and outside of the Delta; fish sucked into export pumps; nutrients from farm runoff and city wastewater treatment plants; pesticides; metals that enter the water from farms, cities and industry; channel dredging; illegal harvest of threatened species; hatcheries that alter the genetic makeup of fish.

Anticipated causes: Landscape changes; urban expansion; land use along streams feeding the Delta; people's lifestyle decisions on where and how they live….

The San Francisco Bay Area, home to the San Joaquin River Delta, via NASA

Risk management in the era of unpredictability

Leon Gettier in the Sydney Morning Herald: The floods that ravaged Queensland and Victoria are a warning for businesses to overhaul their risk-management strategies. They are events that tell us we are now in a very different world.

How different? Erwann Michel-Kerjan, managing director of the Wharton Business School's Risk Centre in the US and chairman of the OECD secretary-general's advisory board on financial management of catastrophes, says that in the 21st century there has not been a six-month period without a major crisis that simultaneously affected several countries or industry sectors. We are seeing more and bigger catastrophes created by increasing urbanisation, climate change and globalisation. The world has become an interdependent village.

…It's fair to say that the floods did not figure highly in risk-management strategies. Woolworths has cut its net profit growth guidance to a range of 5-8 per cent, from 8-11 per cent, partly due to uncertainties presented by the floods. Virgin Blue announced a $40 million hit because of floods and fragile consumer sentiment. Treasurer Wayne Swan says the floods will have a ''dramatic'' effect on the budget and IBISWorld has downgraded Australia's GDP forecast from 2.9 per cent to 2.6 per cent.

We now see forecasts of a worldwide impact on the supply and prices of commodities such as cotton, wheat, sugar and other foodstuffs, and coal, which will in turn put pressure on utilities reliant on coal-based energy generation. Climate specialists say global warming has contributed to the disaster, with record ocean temperatures around Australia and, from July to October, record rainfall and humidity.

…Some commentators describe the floods and La Nina as a ''black swan'', the kind of low-probability event like natural disasters, pandemics and terrorists slamming planes into buildings, described by Nicholas Taleb, events that no one predicted. That is not strictly true, though. In Australia, floods, droughts and bushfires are hardly unpredictable. They are part of the natural system….

A pair of black swans, shot by Sannse or perhaps Pixel ;-), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Sand storms in Mideast 'damaging people's health'

Trade Arabia Business News Information: Dust and sand storms in Bahrain and the region risk damaging people's health and could lead to climate change, an expert has warned. Dust and sand particles hanging in the air for long periods of time prevent the sun's rays from reaching the ground, leading to colder than usual weather, said Geneva-based World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) research department scientific officer Slobodan Nickovic.

'Gradually, this can lead to the weather patterns changing,' he told our sister newspaper Gulf Daily News (GDN). Speaking on the sidelines of an international symposium on sand and dust storms in the Arab region, he said while it is impossible to prevent such conditions given the huge desert areas in the region, one could predict them better and manage the situation in advance.

'Though climate change is an important side effect, people's health being affected is a major issue if these dust storms are not managed properly,' said Nickovic. He said a number of studies on climate change found ground temperatures can drop up to 6C if dust blankets the atmosphere….

A sand storm over Erfoud, Morocco, shot by Galilea for German Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

J$474.58 million set for Jamaican climate change adaptation project

Jamaica Information Service: Approximately J$474.58 million has been allocated for the implementation of a Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction project. Funding has been provided through grant resources from the European Union. It will be officially launched by the Prime Minister, the Hon. Bruce Golding on Wednesday, February 2, 2011 at the Office of the Prime Minister, Banquet Hall.

The project is being co-managed by the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) through the Project Management Unit in the Sustainable Development and Regional Planning Division and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). Overall objectives are geared towards assisting with the adaptation of climate change and contributing to the sustainable development of Jamaica by increasing resilience of vulnerable areas and reducing risks associated with natural hazards. The project will involve watershed and coastal rehabilitation as well as climate change awareness.

According to the PIOJ, there has been an increase in storm intensity and incidence of floods and drought which has resulted in significant social dislocation and monumental economic loss and damage. In 2004 for instance, Hurricanes Ivan and Dean resulted in damage and losses totalling J$35 billion and J$23 billion respectively….

A rogue storm system caused Pakistan's floods

Terra Daily: Last summer's disastrous Pakistan floods that killed more than 2,000 people and left more than 20 million injured or homeless were caused by a rogue weather system that wandered hundreds of miles farther west than is normal for such systems, new research shows.

Storm systems that bring widespread, long-lasting rain over eastern India and Bangladesh form over the Bay of Bengal, at the east edge of India, said Robert Houze, a University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor. But Pakistan, on the Arabian Sea west of India, is substantially more arid and its storms typically produce only locally heavy rainfall.

The flooding began in July and at one point it was estimated that 20 percent of Pakistan's total land area was under water. Structural damage was estimated at more than $4 billion, and the World Health Organization estimated that as many as 10 million people had to drink unsafe water.

Houze and colleagues examined radar data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite and were able to see that the rainfall that caused the Indus River in Pakistan to overflow was triggered over the Himalayas, within a storm system that had formed over the Bay of Bengal in late July and moved unusually far to the west. Because the rain clouds were within the moisture-laden storm from the east, they were able to pour abnormal amounts of rain on the barren mountainsides, which then ran into the Indus….

Alaska seeing impact of climate change in its infrastructure, villages

Molly Rettig in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (Alaska): Climate change has already begun to make life difficult for state transportation managers. And they expect it to become a bigger and more expensive challenge if warming trends continue as predicted.

“With over 6,600 miles of coastline and 80 percent of the state underlaid by ice-rich permafrost, you can certainly imagine we are at the forefront of climate change impacts,” said Mike Coffey, maintenance and operations chief for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.

Coffey discussed the impact of climate change on transportation in a webinar last week, hosted by the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. New challenges include warming permafrost, coastal erosion and the potential for more dramatic storms and flooding, he said. These could lead to more highways and facilities cracking, icing up or even washing away. The hardest-hit areas are northern, western and Interior Alaska, where roads and structures are built over permafrost and near the coast.

…Melting permafrost is the biggest challenge for roads and infrastructure, Coffey said. “Permafrost is essentially a function of average annual temperature. If average annual temperature goes above the freezing point, eventually you’ll see changes,” said Nancy Fresco, coordinator at Scenarios Network for Alaska Planning…

Alaska Road Commission employees in front of Camp Comfort Roadhouse.jpgAn undated view of wagons carrying Alaska Road Commission employees, in front of Camp Comfort Roadhouse, Valdez-Fairbanks Trail, Alaska. Photographer's number J354. n.d. Photographer: P.S. Hunt.

Pakistan flood crisis as bad as African famines, UN says

Declan Walsh in the Guardian (UK): A "humanitarian crisis of epic proportions" is unfolding in flood-hit areas of southern Pakistan where malnutrition rates rival those of African countries affected by famine, according to the United Nations.

In Sindh province, where some villages are still under water six months after the floods, almost one quarter of children under five are malnourished while 6% are severely underfed, a Floods Assessment Needs survey has found. "I haven't seen malnutrition this bad since the worst of the famine in Ethiopia, Darfur and Chad. It's shockingly bad," said Karen Allen, deputy head of Unicef in Pakistan.

The survey reflects the continuing impact of the massive August floods, which affected 20 million people across an area the size of England, sweeping away 2.2m hectares of farmland. The figures were alarming, Neva Khan, of Oxfam, said. "Emergency aid right after the floods saved many lives, but, as these figures show, millions are at serious risk," she said.

…But the figures highlight a broader truth: that Sindh, a ragged province where poor peasants toil under powerful landlords, has long had some of the worst poverty levels in South Asia. "This sort of thing doesn't happen overnight. It indicates deep, slow-grinding poverty," said Dorothy Blane, of Concern.

The most recent nutrition survey across Pakistan in 2002 found a national malnutrition rate of 13.2%. The survey of 786 households, jointly carried out by the UN, aid agencies and the government, recorded global malnutrition rates of 23.1% in northern Sindh and 21.2% in the southern part of the province….

The Indus River delta seen from space, via NASA