Culture's vulnerability to climate

Science Daily: The growing relationship between scientists and curators is the focus of a 4-day, UN-affiliated international conference in Caracas designed to promote innovative ways to stem the decay of some of humanity's greatest art and cultural treasures.

"With the world financial crisis and the advent of climate change effects, there is a state of emergency at the museums of several tropical countries: entire collections are compromised," says Alvaro Gonzalez, a researcher at the Caracas-based Institute of Advanced Studies (IDEA) and Director of Venezuela's Cultural Heritage Conservation Foundation, the host of the event.

Says Jose-Luis Ramirez, Director of the United Nations University's Programme for Biotechnology for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNU-BIOLAC), an event sponsor: "The normal concern about single artifacts is no longer paramount. Storing and protecting entire collections safely has become a priority and scientists have a key role: developing techniques and procedures that are fundamental to heritage conservation."

Many of the world's cultural treasures are creations made of organic materials such as paper, canvas, wood and leather which, in prolonged warmth and dampness, attract mold, micro-organisms and insects, causing decay and disintegration. New biotechnology techniques to be described include the use of micro-organisms to remove fungus and other problems on artwork, photos, documents, masonry and more….

Jacek Malczewski's Melancholia, 1894

Bushfires and global warming: is there a link?

Guardian (UK): Scientists are reluctant to link ­individual weather events to global warming, because natural variability will always throw up extreme events. However, they say that climate change loads the dice, and can make severe episodes more likely.

…Bob Brown, a senator who leads the Australian Greens, said the bushfires showed what climate change could mean for Australia. "Global warming is predicted to make this sort of event happen 25%, 50% more," he told Sky News. "It's a sobering reminder of the need for this nation and the whole world to act and put at a priority our need to tackle climate change."

…More than 60% of Queensland has been declared a disaster zone in the worst floods for more than 30 years. Some 3,000 homes have been affected, and the main highway between Cairns and Townsville has been cut off. Roger Stone, a climate expert at the University of Southern Queensland, said: "It certainly fits the climate change models, but I have to add the proviso that it's very difficult, even with extreme conditions like this, to always attribute it to climate change."

…Australia is in the grip of the worst drought in a century, which has stretched for more than seven years in some areas and has forced restrictions on water use in the country's big cities.

A government-commissioned report on climate change last year warned that exceptionally hot years, which used to occur once every 22 years, would occur every one or two years, virtually making drought a permanent part of the Australian environment.

A 2002 astronaut photo of fire scars in the Simpson Desert, Australia. NASA

Rural Africans are observing clear trends in local climate across a range of environments from humid to semi-arid.

Africa Science News Service: They are already adapting to climate change with or without external support. This information is contained in a paper written by Sonja Vermuelen and Duncan Macqueen of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), Everhart Nangoma (EU), Krystel Dossou, Organisation des Femmes pour la gestion de l’Energie, de l’Environnement et la promotion du Développement Intégré (OFEDI-Benin) and Dominic Walubengo (Forest Action Network-Kenya).

They say that for communities dependent on natural resources, adaptation involves a mix of technical solutions (such as different crops or planting patterns) and institutional solutions (such as new means of sharing information).

Local adaptations include responses to specific trends (such as fishing with finer-meshed nets), but also building of capacity and resilience say through savings groups and diversified agriculture to cope with future uncertainties. Supporting local initiatives and institutions may be the most effective way to support climate change adaptation.

Climate change is often seen as a global problem demanding global solutions. But for poor people hit hard by the impacts, climate change is a not a boardroom abstraction, but day-to-day reality. Faced with local shifts in weather patterns and natural resources, they are forced to find ways of coping that are locally relevant.

This kind of experience, gained at the grassroots, boosts resilience as no top-down initiative can. Three case studies from rural communities in Benin, Kenya and Malawi show how it is done…..

Rain forest around Mt. Kenya. This Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons image is from the user Chris 73 and is freely available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rain_forest_around_Mt_Kenya_2.JPG under the creative commons cc-by-sa 2.5 license.

Developing countries could benefit from Adaptation Fund as early as April

Jamaica Observer: Developing countries like Jamaica could see their climate change adaptation efforts boosted this year as they may be able to dip into the Adaptation Fund as early as April, according to Jamaica's representative on the Adaptation Fund board, Jeffrey Spooner.

"(Countries could benefit) anytime after the first quarter of this year. And I say so based on the fact that the Adaptation Fund Board has asked the World Bank, who is the invited trustee, to monetarise the CERS (certified emission reductions), that is, to change the CERS into money for concrete adaptation projects and programmes," he said.

…But before developing countries like Jamaica can benefit, there are several procedural matters that the fund's board will have to undertake in accordance with developments at last December's United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Poznan, Poland. These include informing parties to the Kyoto Protocol of the operational policies, guidelines and procedures for application for funding for adaptation projects and programmes as soon as the board has adopted them.

However, Spooner expects that this work will be completed at their next meeting in March. "There is basically one outstanding piece of work left, and that is to look at or adopt the modalities for the executing and implementing entities to have direct access to the adaptation fund," he said. "We are hoping to finish that next piece of work at our next meeting in March."…

Extreme weather events multiply existing risks and vulnerabilities of nuclear power

A few snips from a vigorous, long piece in Dissident Voice, where Jo-Shing Yang lays out the problems with the new push for nuclear energy: …This week, America found out that President Obama’s economic stimulus plan includes a $50 billion loan guarantee for nuclear power plants in the Senate version. …. The irony is that while nuclear proponents cite global warming as the key impetus for expanding nuclear power, it is precisely global climate disruptions and the associated extreme weather events which will significantly multiply and amplify the existing risks and costs of nuclear power to make it more costly, risky, lethal, and unreliable. With global warming, nuclear power threatens to turn ordinary natural disasters (such as floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, and droughts) into potential nuclear disasters.

As an insider and consultant to the nuclear industry, retired Yale professor Charles Perrow warns in his book, The Next Catastrophe (2007): “Nuclear power plants concentrate more lethal potential than anything else in our society. These vulnerabilities of nuclear power require a vigorous regulatory effort, especially since there is no meaningful liability penalty for a catastrophic accident.” Unfortunately, what we see in the energy industry–just like what we see today in the financial industry and Wall Street–has been vigorous deregulation (which essentially allows the energy industry to self-regulate) and a woeful lack of governmental oversight and failure of enforcement. …. If the existing nuclear utilities cannot even do a decent job on securing their power plants, how can the public have faith in their ability to upgrade their facilities in the face of extreme climate disruptions or well-trained foreign terrorists?

…Nuclear power plants are a voracious consumer of water. Nuclear power requires even more water than gas-fired generators, at 3,100 liters per megawatt hour of electricity, just to keep the nuclear reactors from overheating. (Coal and natural gas use 2,800 liters and 2,300 liters per megawatt hours, respectively.) According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2006 “Report to the Congress on the Interdependency of Energy and Water,” the most water-intensive form of electricity generation is nuclear power, especially the plants with the open-loop cooling (once-through) design…..

The Idaho National Lab's Advanced Test Reactor

Climate change poses more threats to southern tip of Vietnam

VietNamNet Bridge: The WWF Greater Mekong Program has called for a range of approaches to be taken for Ca Mau to counter climate change as its impacts are predicted to become more serious for the country’s southernmost province in the coming years. The program points out in a statement that widespread inundation and increased salinity in freshwater systems as among the major challenges climate change will pose for the coastal province in the next 25 years as shown in a recent study.

The Ca Mau study that the program released on Tuesday indicates that the impacts of storms and sea-level rise (SLR) will likely pose serious threats, and that current management initiatives are insufficient to meet this emerging risk. Therefore, the study proposes integrated water management strategies including hydraulic works to control the volume, quality and movement of water within enclosed areas, and consideration of climate change in planning future agriculture and aquaculture development.

The study also recommends provincial planners to maintain or restore dunes, wetlands, and coastal forests as a way to buffer against storm surges, improve water quality, and regulate water flow. Tuesday also saw the program releasing a study on the impact of climate change on Thailand’s province of Krabi, where a shorter rainy season leading to water scarcity is seen as among the major challenges for the future…

Ca Mau City seen from the air, shot by Genghiskhanviet, Wikimedia Commons

China orders $13-billion drought relief for wheat growers

Los Angeles Times: With the global economic crisis already producing unrest in rural areas, Chinese authorities have taken emergency action in wheat-growing regions that are suffering from their worst drought in 50 years. The three eastern provinces that account for more than half of the country's wheat production have seen winter rainfall levels as much as 80% lower than normal, the National Meteorological Center reported.

In a sign of how seriously the government is taking the drought, state-run media reported that the State Council, the highest-level of executive authority, discussed the crisis Thursday. The official New China News Agency reported that President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao had personally ordered the emergency efforts to deal with the drought.

The state-run media reported today that the Finance Ministry had allocated nearly 87 billion yuan, or close to $13 billion, for drought relief, most of which would fund direct aid grants to farmers. The rest will go to help bail out grain producers….

The national emblem of the People's Republic of China

Wildires in Australia -- a selection of stories

Australia drops water bombs on raging bush fires Reuters - 46 minutes ago SYDNEY (Reuters) - Aircraft dropped water bombs on raging Australian bush fires on Saturday as a "once in a century" heatwave sparked dozens of blazes ...

Officials: Fire danger extreme in Australia The Associated Press - 1 hour ago SYDNEY (AP) — Crews battled to contain dozens of wildfires across southeastern Australia on Saturday as temperatures soared to record levels and officials ...

Australian Firefighters Brace for Bushfires Amid Heatwave Bloomberg - 2 hours ago By Gavin Evans Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Firefighters across Australia’s southeast are on alert as near-record temperatures and forecast strong winds threaten ...

Fires rage, floodwaters rise in Australian extremes AFP - 2 hours ago SYDNEY (AFP) — Flood waters were rising Saturday in northern Australia while more than 100000 firefighters remained on standby as the country's east ...

Climate change threatens to kill off Lebanon's cedars

Daily Star (Lebanon): Lebanon's majestic cedar trees have withstood the test of time for centuries, but climate change is threatening to eradicate the country's most treasured symbol. Used by various civilizations throughout history for their strong and durable wood, Lebanon's cedars are now on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's "Red List" as a "heavily threatened" species.

Local experts and environmentalists warn that global warming could have a negative impact on the cedars. "Enough talking about the need to preserve the cedars, it's time for action. We must preserve the trees now," said Nizar Hani, scientific coordinator of the Al-Chouf Cedar Nature Reserve in the mountainous Chouf area southeast of Beirut."All indications are that if the current climatic changes continue, the cedars could be in danger."

Lebanon's largest reserve, where 25 percent of the country's 2,000 hectares of cedar trees are located, was established in 1996 in an area that stretches from Dahr al-Baidar in the north to Niha Mountain in the south. Some of the reserve's cedar trees, which belong to the pine family and have needle-like leaves bearing seeds in scaled clusters, are estimated to be 2,000 years old.

"The melting of snow on mountains as a result of climate change would lead to the disappearance of the cedars in Lebanon," said Wael Hmaidan, executive director of the League of Independent Activists, or IndyAct, a non-governmental organization which focuses on environmental issues. "We need to tackle climate change and limit its effects before it's too late."…

Al Arz above Bsharri (Forest of the cedars of God), shot by BlingBling10, Wikimedia Commons,under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

‘Redress of climate change crisis a common responsibility’

The Hindu (India): Hoping for an ambitious, comprehensive and ratifiable agreement at Copenhagen later this year to deal with the climate crisis, United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon has said the negotiations will have to resolve three main political challenges — clarity on commitment, financing the mitigation and adaptation needs of the developing countries, and finding credible solutions for the governance of new funds.

Speaking at the Ninth Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS), organised by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) here, Mr. Ban said Copenhagen, where the U.N. climate change conference is scheduled in December, must clarify commitments of developed countries to reduce their emissions by setting ambitious mid-term targets, with credible baselines and advance on the issue of financing the mitigation and adaptation needs of developing countries.

In this context, the agreement on the Adaptation Fund in Poznan was a good first step, he said. Finally, governments as well as the United Nations system must come up with credible solutions for governance of new funds and for their implementation response.
Obama’s assurance

Mr. Ban said U.S. President Barack Obama had assured him of full cooperation to make the Copenhagen meet a success. “He has assured me that climate change is his domestic as well as international priority. Domestic action by the United States is beginning to unfold,” Mr. Ban said. He looked forward to the leadership role of the U.S. in the inter-governmental negotiations….

United States protects the Arctic from industrial fishing

Oceana: The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) voted unanimously today, February 5th, 2009, to prevent the expansion of industrial fishing into all U.S. waters north of the Bering Strait for the foreseeable future to limit stress on ocean ecosystems in light of the dramatic impacts of global climate change in the Arctic. With no large-scale commercial fishing in the U.S. Arctic at present this decision establishes one of the largest preventative and precautionary measures in fisheries management history.

"As goes the Arctic, so goes the planet. We must wake up and recognize that in reality, we are all on thin ice," said Jim Ayers, vice president of Oceana. "The Arctic Ocean is a unique place vital to the people in the region and the Earth's health. The NPFMC is leading the way toward a science- based precautionary approach and this action -- the largest of its kind-- is a model for management of our Arctic Ocean."

Climate change is causing the Arctic to warm twice as fast as the rest of the planet, leading to a dramatic reduction in Arctic sea ice cover and other potentially catastrophic changes to Arctic Ocean ecosystems. The loss of sea ice threatens not only the Arctic, but the rest of the planet as the Arctic plays a critical role in global weather and climate patterns. In addition, melting sea ice opens previously ice-covered waters to new industrial activities. Scientists, conservationists and local Arctic communities have expressed concern that additional strain from industrial activities like large-scale commercial fishing, shipping, or oil and gas development could overwhelm Arctic ecosystems.

"Today's decision signals a new day in the Arctic, where science comes first and where we think about the consequences of our actions before we take them," said Janis Searles Jones, vice president with Ocean Conservancy…

This shot of a fishing trawler by Axel Rouvin

Cape Cod without oysters and lobsters?

Cape Cod Online: …Experts at a symposium on climate change testified yesterday to a number of scenarios that could strike Massachusetts as oceans rise and warm, but one stood out.

The ocean is absorbing carbon from the atmosphere, which combines with sea water to form an acid. With the world pumping carbon into the air faster than at any point in history, scientists warned that the ocean is quickly becoming inhospitable to shell-building animals including lobsters, scallops, clams, corals, and even some types of plankton.

That's bad news, not only for New England diners, but also for the region's billion-dollar fishing industry, the second largest fishery in the country in terms of revenues. Shellfish, including clams, oysters, and scallops, as well as lobsters, make up 80 percent of those revenues. New Bedford, for instance, is the top port in the country in terms of the value of the fish and shellfish they harvest. The bulk of their $268 million catch value comes from sea scallops.

Along with the many fishermen who harvest wild shellfish and lobster, the Cape also has the largest aquaculture industry in the state, which had $5.2 million in sales in 2006 and employed approximately 200 full-time and part-time workers….

A Cape Cod beach at sunset, shot by Daniel Schwen, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License

Emergency as drought hits key farm regions in China

Terra Daily, via Agence France-Presse: China on Thursday declared an emergency for parts of the country experiencing their worst drought in half a century, with some of the nation's winter harvest at risk, state media reported. President Hu Jintao called for an all-out effort to help offset the dry spell that has spread across seven key farming provinces, leading to water shortages for millions of people and livestock.

"With the drought reaching a severity rarely seen in history, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters has called a level two emergency," China National Radio reported. Level two is categorised as a "serious" emergency on a four-stage scale, with level one being the worst.

…At least 3.7 million people and 1.9 million head of livestock are short of water, according to the China Daily. About 9.5 million hectares (23.5 million acres) of farmland, representing 43 percent of the country's winter wheat supplies, are also affected, the paper said.

The situation is unlikely to improve soon as no rain has been forecast for the next 10 days, according to the China Daily. Meteorological authorities in the central province of Henan, one of China's most populous with 93.6 million people, have called the drought the worst since 1951, after 105 days without rain…Further north in the capital Beijing, rain has not fallen for 100 days, a situation not seen in 38 years, the paper said….

China, Xinjiang, a satellite view of the desert known as Lop Nur

More extreme weather in Arctic

Science Daily: A new study published in Climate Dynamics by Erik Kolstad and Thomas J. Bracegirdle reveals that one of the most visible signs of climate change is the dramatically reduced ice cover in the Arctic. The retreat of the sea ice leads to rapid changes in the weather conditions in these areas. The study reveals that regions that have been covered by sea ice until now will be exposed to new kinds of severe weather. This may have dire consequences for human activities in the Northern regions.

The study was led by a member of the International Polar Year project IPY-THORPEX (THe Observing system Research and Predictability EXperiment). The main focus of the project is to study extreme weather phenomena from the inside, with the purpose of acquiring new knowledge in order to improve weather forecasts. Large increases in the potential for extreme weather events were found along the entire southern rim of the Arctic Ocean, including the Barents, Bering and Beaufort Seas. While these areas are sparsely populated, an increasing commercial marine activity is predicted there, paradoxically because the sea ice is set to retreat.

"One consequence of climate change is that new areas are uncovered, opening for commercial activities," said Dr. Erik Kolstad, at the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, who led the study. At the same time, commercial activities in the North (e.g. fisheries, oil industry and shipping) will become increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather as the activities in these areas increase. "It is important that we get better at forecasting these weather phenomena, in order to prevent the loss of human lives and environmental disasters in the future," Kolstad said….

1890 print of traveling via reindeer, Wikimedia Commons

How Africa can adapt

This Day Online (Nigeria): …Africans are highly dependent on climate-sensitive resources like agriculture which up to 90 per cent is rain-fed, accounts for 70 per cent of regional employment. The poorest inhabitants of developing countries, especially those in the least developed countries are already struggling to cope with current extreme weather events and climate variability. In 2004, for example, severe flooding in Bangladesh caused by excessive rains of the annual Asian Summer Monsoon killed over 600 people and displaced over 20 million.

….Adapting to the impacts of climate change, is a way of reducing vulnerability, increasing resilience, moderating the risk of climate impacts on the lives of Africa people, and taking advantage of opportunities posed by actual or expected climate change. In building capacity to adapt to climate change, there must be an improvement on social, economic and technical resilience and increasing flexibility within systems as a form of adaptation.

….Adaptation should aim to strengthen traditional coping mechanisms, optimising current systems whilst building flexibility to cope with the uncertainties posed by climate change. Introducing new technology can be sustainable where it strengthens and builds on traditional approaches and reinforces local knowledge.

…Initial work will focus on linking seasonal forecasts with health and agricultural planning to build resilience to short-term climate variability. Strengthening of climate monitoring networks will take place in regions with data deficiency, such as Africa. To further increase awareness of climate change through education aid agencies, such as the Red Cross, find that people in developing countries are aware of changes taking place and have begun to adjust through long and short-term coping methods.

…Although climate change is a global issue, its impacts are felt locally. Managing the impacts, including adaptation, is a national issue, taking place at national level, community and individual level. Adaptation requires a very different project development and implementation framework than climate change mitigation efforts.

Antarctic bulge could flood Washington DC

New Scientist: Rather than spreading out evenly across all the oceans, water from melted Antarctic ice sheets will gather around North America and the Indian Ocean. That's bad news for the US East Coast, which could bear the brunt of one of these oceanic bulges. Many previous models of the rising sea levels due to climate change assumed that water from melted ice sheets and glaciers would simply run into the oceans and fill them uniformly. These models predict a 5-metre rise in sea levels if the West Antarctic ice sheet melts, but fail to acknowledge three important factors.

First, Jerry Mitrovica and colleagues from the University of Toronto in Canada considered the gravitational attraction of the Antarctic ice sheets on the surrounding water, which pulls it towards the South Pole. As the ice sheet melts, this bulge of water dissipates into surrounding oceans along with the meltwater. So while the sea level near Antarctica will fall, sea levels away from the South Pole will rise. Once the ice melts, the release of pressure could also cause the Antarctic continent to rise by 100 metres. And as the weight of the ice pressing down on the continental shelf is released, the rock will spring back, displacing seawater that will also spread across the oceans.

Redistributing this mass of water could even change the axis of the Earth's spin. The team estimates that the South Pole will shift by 500 metres towards the west of Antarctica, and the North Pole will shift in the opposite direction. Since the spin of the Earth creates bulges of oceanic water in the regions between the equator and the poles, these bulges will also shift slightly with the changing axis.
Washington awash The upshot is that the North American continent and the Indian Ocean will experience the greatest changes in sea level – adding 1 or 2 metres to the current estimates. Washington DC sits squarely in this area, meaning it could face a 6.3-metre sea level rise in total. California will also be in the target zone….

Majority of world population face water shortages unless action taken, warns UN official

UN News Centre: Two-thirds of the world’s population will face a lack of water in less than 20 years, if current trends in climate change, population growth, rural to urban migration and consumption continue, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro warned today.

Speaking at a high-level symposium on water security at UN Headquarters, Ms. Migiro stressed that “if present trends continue, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with water scarcity by 2025, and two-thirds of the world population could be subject to water stress.” “The lack of safe water and sanitation is inextricably linked with poverty and malnutrition, particularly among the world’s poor,” she said at the two-day meeting organized by the World Water Organization (WWO).

“It limits girls’ school attendance and exacerbates maternal mortality. Yet today about 900 million people still rely on unimproved drinking-water supplies, and 2.5 billion people remain without improved sanitation facilities.” Unless urgent action is taken the conflict between water supply and demand is set to get worse, Ms. Migiro told the symposium’s participants, comprising of experts from the UN, Member States, as well as corporate, medical, scientific, academic and non-governmental organization (NGO) communities….

Melting glaciers on China's Qinghai-Tibet plateau water source 'worrisome'

Xinhua: Chinese scientists said Wednesday glaciers that serve as water sources on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau are melting at a "worrisome speed," having receded 196 square km over the past nearly 40 years. The decline is equal to about one-fourth of the area of New York City.

Xin Yuanhong, senior engineer in charge of a three-year field study of glaciers in the region, said glaciers at the headwaters of the Yangtze, China's longest river, cover 1,051 square km, down from 1,247 square km in 1971. "The reduction means more than 989 million cubic meters of water melted away," said Xin, whose team surveyed the glaciers between June 2005 and August 2008. That much water would fill Beijing's largest reservoir.

The team found the glacier tongue of Yuzhu Peak of Kunlun Mountain fell by 1,500 meters over the past nearly 40 years. The retreat rate is close to that of the Quelccaya Glacier in Peru, the world's largest tropical ice mass. The eastern side of the glaciers in the Tanggula Mountain Pass saw the fastest melt rate, with the front receding 265 m annually. The average annual retreat speed was 7.57 m when compared with the figures for 1970. Xin attributed the accelerated melting to global warming…

Kunlun Mountain, shot by B_cool from SIN, Singapore, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License

Plenty of blame for collapsing fish stocks

IPS: Climate change, pollution and overfishing have left the oceans in crisis, experts agree. Now a new study reveals that every national government with a fishing fleet has dramatically failed to manage fisheries in a responsible manner. A detailed survey of the 53 countries that land 96 percent of the world's marine catch shows that all have failed to comply with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation's Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries. Developed in 1995, the 53 fishing nations all agreed to comply with the code as a potential rescue measure for the world's fisheries.

And while countries claimed to comply, in fact not one is in full compliance, according the detailed analysis reported in the science journal Nature Wednesday. "I'm confident we would have turned the corner on the collapsing fish stocks had countries complied with the code," said Tony Pitcher of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, on the study co-authors.

"The code effectively dealt with 98 percent of the major problems of fisheries," Pitcher said in an interview. Even the more responsible nations such as Norway, the United States, Canada, Australia and Iceland only qualified for a rating of "good" with an estimated 55 to 60 percent compliance based on the four-year survey and analysis. Twenty-eight countries, mainly in the developing world and representing 40 percent of the world's marine fish catch, are failing badly, the report found….

Line art drawing of a cod by Pearson Scott Foresman, donated to the Wikimedia Foundation

Projecting the future of nitrogen pollution

Environmental Science & Technology: Heavier rainfall due to climate change will exacerbate the effects of increased fertilizer use for corn-based ethanol production, causing a significant increase in nitrogen levels in rivers, according to a new study in ES&T (DOI 10.1021/es801985x). The good news is that if farmers choose organic practices and reduce fertilizer use, the impact of heavy rains will lessen and nitrogen pollution levels might drop to below present-day levels, the study concludes.

The study by research fellow Haejin Han of the University of Michigan and colleagues is the first to simultaneously model the changes in nitrogen runoff across space – 18 watersheds in the Lake Michigan basin – and over time, the past 20 years. Using a model they developed, the researchers then project future variations in nitrogen loading under different land-use and climate scenarios.

The study reinforces an old message for lawmakers: current decisions on land use and agriculture will have a strong impact on the future availability of freshwater and the health of our aquatic and coastal ecosystems, says David Allan, one of the authors on the study. It also reinforces the notion that two factors drive the future of nitrogen pollution, he notes: climate change and how much nitrogen humans use on land.

…The authors also found that a 7-fold increase in nitrogen input from humans caused river nitrogen levels to increase 8-fold, but when the rainfall increases by 7-fold, nitrogen levels double in the rivers. This suggests that human impact is greater than that of climate on the nitrogen levels, especially in agricultural areas….

Image of a canal by Alfredobi, Wikimedia Commons

Category 5 cyclones and Australia

NT News (Australia): Dr Greg Holland, from America's National Center for Atmospheric Research, says there has been between a 300 and 400 per cent increase in category 5 storms in the past 10 years in the US. He said the Top End seemed to be experiencing a similar trend, although records were less reliable due to changes in observing and analysis practices

"I think that what we're seeing here in the north Australia region - with the Monicas and storms like that - is a similar sort of thing," he said. "It's not good news ... a category 5 storm typically causes more than 1000 times the damage of a category 1 storm."

Dr Holland - an Australian who was a forecaster in Darwin during Cyclone Tracy - gave a talk in Darwin this week about his analysis of cyclone data. He believes the increasing number of severe cyclones is an indicator of climate change. He said slight increases in the overall total of cyclones might be difficult to detect, but when there were changes in rare events, it was by a "very large" proportional amount.

"So that climate (change) signal will appear first in the extreme events, be it tropical cyclones, heat waves or heavy rain," he said. Dr Holland said although Australia had the world's best building codes - thanks to Tracy - it was time the Top End reviewed its codes…..

Buildings in Darwin, Australia, after Cyclone Tracy, 1970, shot by Billbeee, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

Warming could erase California's farms

The Daily Green: In another sign that change has indeed come to the White House, President Obama's Energy Secretary, Stephen Chu, is discussing the threat of global warming in new, stark and -- frankly -- frightening terms. This is not the kind of warning we ever heard from the Bush Administration.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, his first since being confirmed as Energy Secretary, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist said that all agriculture in California could be undermined by global warming by the end of this century. In other words, within the space of one lifetime, the nation's largest farm producer -- known as the "salad bowl" because it provides about half of the nation's veggies -- could quickly become more like barren a dust bowl.

Not only that, but California's cities are in jeopardy, too, Chu said. The reason? Mountain snowpack in the Sierras is dwindling, as warmer temperatures prevent snow accumulation and lead to greater evaporation. It's the runoff from those mountain snows that irrigate land and keep thirsty people alive in the valleys below.

That's not a new warning. The declining spring runoff has been a significant factor in water stress, wildfires and other problems in California for several years. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been warning that California is already experiencing the ill effects of climate change, in the form of a year-round fire "season" and increasingly untenable divisions of water wealth.

California is in its third year of drought, and currently the snowpack holds only 61% of the water it holds in a normal year, according to a recent survey. The drought could become the worst in modern history, and as the climate continues to warn, severe drought could persist indefinitely, or recur more frequently....

Australians warned of crocodiles in major floods

Reuters: Australians battling major floods in the tropical state of Queensland have been warned to be on the look out for crocodiles and snakes, after a series of sightings in flooded towns, officials said on Wednesday. Some 17 rivers are in flood and 62 percent or more than 1 million sq kms (386,000 sq miles) of Queensland, Australia's second largest state, has been declared a natural disaster.

Some towns are virtually underwater and others will be isolated for weeks by floodwaters, officials said. Thousands of homes have been declared flood-affected and the damage bill is around A$110 million ($70 million).

"Unrelenting rain and flooding has battered North Queensland over recent weeks and the Queensland government is working hard to ensure residents are receiving the financial assistance and support they need," Communities Minister Lindy Nelson-Carr said in a statement on Wednesday…..

Our staff is ready to assist you in all your flood needs. Photo by Elgaard, Wikimedia Commons,under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License

New York City's smaller wetlands remain unprotected

Environment News Service: It's hard to image standing in midtown Manhattan, but wetlands do exist within New York City, and they both protect the city and need protection themselves, according to a report released Friday by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "Many New Yorkers don't realize there are thousands of acres of wetlands in the five boroughs," said Mayor Bloomberg. "Wetlands are robust ecosystems that perform crucial environmental functions like trapping pollutants, capturing stormwater runoff, sequestering carbon dioxide, and moderating storm surges."

Today, the city has only one percent of its historic freshwater wetlands and 10 percent of its historic tidal wetlands. These tidal remaining wetlands are concentrated in Brooklyn around Jamaica Bay, in Queens, and in Staten Island, which also has freshwater wetlands. Freshwater wetlands smaller than 12.4 acres are not protected by state law and are vulnerable to determinations that they are outside of the scope of federal protection.

The new report shows that the extent of these smaller wetlands in New York City is not fully known. To gather more information on the smaller freshwater wetlands, the report recommends developing new high-resolution aerial and satellite wetland maps to precisely determine the size and location of unprotected wetlands before pursuing other options outlined in the report. This mapping is scheduled to start later this year.

"In PlaNYC, we promised to study wetlands and build on wetland successes like the impressive Staten Island Bluebelt stormwater project managed by the Department of Environmental Protection, as well as the thousands of acres of wetlands managed by the Parks Department," said the mayor…..

USS Akron (ZRS-4) flying over the southern end of Manhattan Island, New York City, circa 1931-1933

Ecologists report quantifiable measures of nature's services to humans

Science Daily: The idea of ecosystem services is a promising conservation concept but has been rarely put into practice. In a special issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, researchers use novel tools to report some of the first quantifiable results that place values on nature's services to humans.

"The idea of 'ecosystem services' – identifying and quantifying the resources and processes that nature provides for people – gives us a framework to measure nature's contribution to human well-being," write authors Peter Kareiva, guest editor for this issue and the chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, and Susan Ruffo, director of ecosystem services programs at TNC, in an editorial in the issue. "It provides a credible way to link nature and people that goes beyond emotional arguments and points us toward practical solutions."

Some of the best-described ecosystem services include pollination of crops, flood and storm protection, water filtration and recreation. The challenging part is translating these services into something with a measurable value. Economic valuation methods take changes in the supply of ecosystem services and translate these into changes in human welfare.

…Novel programs such as the Florida Ranchlands Environmental Services Project (FRES) are designed to encourage the provisioning of ecosystem services from agricultural lands. These initiatives differ from traditional cost-sharing programs by paying landowners directly for the services their lands already provide, instead of giving incentives to adopt additional practices.

…Another study shows that although wave attenuation, or the minimizing of ocean damage to shorelines by wetland habitats, provides quantifiable protection to coastal communities, this service can vary over time. Much like an economic market rises and falls with prosperous and hard times, these services vary over the winter and summer months, when shoreline plants are at different densities. The authors argue that most ecosystem services likely vary in a non-linear fashion, which will prove challenging for ecosystem modelers...

Wetlands next to the Morava River (Gestütwiese), near Hohenau an der March in Austria, shot by Stanislav Doronenko (nazdar!), Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

Adaptation is the main challenge

Daily Star (Bangladesh): Adaptation to climate change is one of the biggest challenges for Bangladesh right now, and it is already making efforts to face this challenge and should share its knowledge and experience in this field with other countries. Visiting Danish Minister for Climate and Energy Connie Hedegaar said this at a seminar on “Road to Copenhagen--Seen from Bangladesh” at a city hotel yesterday.

State Minister for Environment and Forest Mustafizur Rahman, who also spoke at the seminar, asked for resources from development partners to integrate climate change initiatives in the country's mainstream development process.

The Danish minister said, " I have learnt that in Bangladesh up to 40 percent of the investment in development and infrastructure is likely to be affected by climate change." The Danish government committed additional initial funds for the new Strategy and Action Plan for Management of Climate Change for Bagladesh, she added. "Denmark is contributing 120 million taka or 10 million Kroner in addition to the more than two billion taka that we already commit each year here in Bangladesh," Hedegaar said.

Mustafizur also sought support of development partners, including Denmark, Sweden and the UK, to Bangladesh's proposal for setting up an international adaptation research and training centre. The seminar was held ahead of Denmark's hosting of Copenhagen Conference of Parties (COP) 15 of UNFCCC…..

New $2 Million network to help threatened ecosystems and societies adapt to the impacts of climate change

MarketWatch: Recognizing the significant impacts climate change is already having on both nature and people, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation today announced it is providing $2 million to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to develop a new Ecosystems and Livelihoods Adaptation Network. The Network will serve as a resource for conservation groups, governments, international agencies, and others working to make vulnerable ecosystems more resilient and help human communities adapt sensibly to changing climates.

"The scale and urgency of climate change demands global cooperation and innovation to help animal and human populations adapt to our changing planet," said Jonathan Fanton, President of the MacArthur Foundation. "Mitigation is a necessary but insufficient response. We can no longer afford to dismiss adaptation as 'giving in' or worry that it will reduce incentives for addressing the root causes of climate changes. This creative new network will nurture the emerging field of adaptation science, helping to build knowledge and catalyze new ideas."

…The Network will take a targeted, localized approach to climate change adaptation, focusing initially on the developing world, where climate impacts are generally more acute and response capacity more limited. Climate change assessments funded by the MacArthur Foundation have already been carried out in eight hotspots in the developing world, providing a starting point for addressing biodiversity adaptation challenges in those regions. Projects include using geographical information systems to determine how a rise in sea level will impact coastal ecosystems and communities in the Caribbean, Madagascar, and Melanesia, and developing models to determine how specific species' elevational distribution will change in the Andes, the Himalayas, and Africa's Albertine Rift. The Network will organize similar assessments in other parts of the world to develop critical baseline information for prioritizing adaptation needs…..

The global water crisis

Richard Black on the BBC has a long, worthy piece: If you look at the numbers, it is hard to see how many East African communities made it through the long drought of 2005 and 2006. Among people who study human development, it is a widely-held view that each person needs about 20 litres of water each day for the basics - to drink, cook and wash sufficiently to avoid disease transmission.

Yet at the height of the East African drought, people were getting by on less than five litres a day - in some cases, less than one litre a day, enough for just three glasses of drinking water and nothing left over. The scarcity at the heart of the global water crisis is rooted in power, poverty and inequality.

Some people, perhaps incredibly from a western vantage point, are hardy enough to survive in these conditions; but it is not a recipe for a society that is healthy and developing enough to break out of poverty. "Obviously there are many drivers of human development," says the UN's Andrew Hudson. "But water is the most important."

….It is a tremendously complex picture; and forecasting its impacts makes simple climate modelling look a trivial task by comparison. Researchers at the University of Kassel in Germany, led by Martina Floerke, have attempted it. Their projections suggest that some regions are likely to see drastic declines in the amount of water available for personal use - and for intriguing reasons.

"The principal cause of decreasing water stress (where it occurs) is the greater availability of water due to increased annual precipitation related to climate change," they conclude. "The principal cause of increasing water stress is growing water withdrawals, and the most important factor for this increase is the growth of domestic water use stimulated by income growth."

The Sahara, shot by rossella piccinno, Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

Connectivity illuminates risk of spread of crop pests, diseases

Science Daily: The United States is one of the most important crop production areas in the world, so its vulnerability to crop pests is a vital concern. Ten such pests are estimated to enter the country every year, and the federal government spends more than $1 billion annually on research, emergency response, and education related to crop pests.

A graphical analysis that assesses the vulnerability of different crops to pests in the United States is described in the February issue of BioScience. Margaret L. Margosian of Kansas State University and her colleagues based their work on county-level information about the amount of four key crops grown per hectare across the lower 48.

By assuming that pests spread more easily between closely spaced counties and between those with high densities of a particular crop, they could identify regions of the country within which pests affecting the crop in question should move relatively easily. The analysis was repeated for hypothetical pests that are transmitted with different levels of difficulty.

Data on soybean, maize, wheat, and cotton yielded distinctly different patterns of connectivity at the national scale. The soybean crop was judged highly connected for easily transmitted pests, and thus potentially vulnerable to their spread. It was however, less connected for less easily transmitted pests. Maize was vulnerable to pests with a wide range of transmissibilities. Cotton and wheat, in contrast, were much less connected nationally.

Margosian and colleagues suggest their type of analysis could help in the formulation of strategies for dealing with invasive pathogens and pests. It might, for example, be prudent to encourage cropping patterns that disrupt connectivity, to minimize the likelihood that a pest will spread. And once a pathogen or pest has been introduced, graphical analysis could suggest where and when radical interventions, such as crop eradication, might be justified to prevent the pest's spread….

Illustrations from the Nuremberg Chronicle, by Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514)

Alabama A&M University named Watershed Management Center

Environment News Service: Alabama A&M University has become the first historically black college or university to be designated by the U.S. EPA as a Center of Excellence for Watershed Management. This is only the second Center of Excellence to be named in Alabama and the fifth in the Southeast. AAMU president Dr. Beverly Edmond signed a Memorandum of Understanding with officials from the EPA and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management during a ceremony Thursday at the university's Agricultural Research Center.

"Everyone lives in a watershed and at EPA we believe a watershed approach is the most effective framework to address today's water resource challenges," said EPA Acting Regional Administrator Stan Meiburg. "This designation will allow AAMU to continue developing the strong partnerships with other institutions, organization and agencies required to protect and restore watersheds in northern Alabama."

Some of the benefits of being a recognized Center of Excellence include receipt of EPA technical assistance where needed, such as instructors and speakers, EPA letters of support for grant opportunities, and identification of opportunities for Center of Excellence involvement in local and regional watershed issues.
Low water on the Flint River in northern Alabama (Photo credit unknown)

…Each EPA designated Center actively seeks out watershed-based stakeholder groups and local governments that need cost effective tools for watershed scientific studies, engineering designs and computer mapping, as well as assistance with legal issues, project management, public education and planning….

Alabama River, Montgomery train yard, around 1897

Rising sea salinates India's Ganges: expert

Reuters: Rising sea levels are causing salt water to flow into India's biggest river, threatening its ecosystem and turning vast farmlands barren in the country's east, a climate change expert warned Monday. A study by an east Indian university in the city of Kolkata revealed surprising growth of mangroves on the Ganges river, said Pranabes Sanyal, the eastern India representative of the National Coastal Zone Management Authority (NCZMA).

"This phenomenon is called extension of salt wedge and it will salinate the groundwater of Kolkata and turn agricultural lands barren in adjoining rural belts," said Sanyal, an expert in global warming. Sea levels in some parts of the Bay of Bengal were rising at 3.14 mm annually against a global average of 2 mm, threatening the low-lying areas of eastern India.

Climate experts warned last year that as temperatures rise, the Indian subcontinent -- home to about one-sixth of humanity -- will be badly hit with more frequent and more severe natural disasters such as floods and storms and more disease and hunger. Sanyal and the department of Oceanography at the Kolkata-based Jadavpur University spotted the mangrove plants, a rare phenomenon along the Ganges river belt, where east India's biggest city of Kolkata with 12 million people lies. "We were surprised over the natural regeneration of mangroves along the river bank in Kolkata and it is worrisome," said Sanyal, who teaches in the university….

Early morning on the Ganges, shot by John Hill in 1973 (the upper Paleozoic in internet time), Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

Kentucky ice storm called worst in history

Disaster News Network: It's being called the worst natural disaster in Kentucky's recent history and emergency officials warn it may be more that a week before all of the power is restored following January's ice storm which has also crippled parts of Tennessee and Arkansas. Weather forecasters Monday were predicting strong winds and warning that even more trees and power lines may be knocked down.

While electrical power remains off to as many as 138,000 residents, faith-based organizations are gearing up assist from providing shelters to helping clearn up. In Paris, both the First Presbyterian and First United Methodist Churches set up shelters last week while in Puryear, TN, members of the First Baptist Ministry and emergency responders worked to clear trees and brush brought down by the storm.

Many of the people staying in Tennessee shelters had driven from their homes in Kentucky.

…Calling the storm "the biggest natural disaster this state has ever experiences in modern history," Kentucky's Gov. Steve Beshear called up members of the state's National Guard to help residents in the hardest hit areas of the state. The storm has been blamed for at least seven deaths in the state….

The north fork of the Licking River in Kentucky, shot by ChristopherM, Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

A parched Australia faces collapse as climate change kicks in

Malaysian Insider: Leaves are falling off trees in the height of summer, railway tracks are buckling, and people are retiring to their beds with deep-frozen hot-water bottles, as much of Australia swelters in its worst-ever heat wave.

On Friday, Melbourne thermometers topped 43°C on a third successive day for the first time on record, while even normally mild Tasmania suffered its second-hottest day in a row, as temperatures reached 42.2°C. Two days before, Adelaide hit a staggering 45.6°C. After a weekend respite, more records are expected to be broken this week.

Ministers are blaming the heat — which follows a record drought — on global warming. Experts worry that Australia, which emits more carbon dioxide per head than any nation on earth, may also be the first to implode under the impact of climate change.

At times last week it seemed as if that was happening already. Chaos ruled in Melbourne on Friday after an electricity substation exploded, shutting down the city's entire train service, trapping people in lifts, and blocking roads as traffic lights failed. Half a million homes and businesses were blacked out, and patients were turned away from hospitals.

More than 20 people have died from the heat, mainly in Adelaide. Trees in Melbourne's parks are dropping leaves to survive, and residents at one of the city's nursing homes have started putting their clothes in the freezer. "All of this is consistent with climate change, and with what scientists told us would happen," said Climate Change Minister Penny Wong.

Australia, the driest inhabited continent on earth, is regarded as highly vulnerable. A study by the country's blue-chip Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation identified its ecosystems as "potentially the most fragile" on earth in the face of the threat….

Australian Outback: Mount O'Connor, a mesa between Alice Springs and Uluru. Shot by Gabriele Delhey, Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

Beef drives 80% of Amazon deforestation

Mongabay: Nearly 80 percent of land deforested in the Amazon from 1996-2006 is now used for cattle pasture, according to a report released today by Greenpeace at the World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil. The report, Amazon Cattle Footprint: Mato Grosso: State of Destruction [PDF], confirms that cattle ranching is the primary driver of deforestation in Earth's largest rainforest: the Brazilian Amazon.

Over the past decade more than 10 million hectares – an area about the size of Iceland - was cleared for cattle ranching as Brazil rose to become the world's largest exporter of beef. Now the government aims to double the country's share of the beef export market to 60% by 2018 through low interest loans, infrastructure expansion, and other incentives for producers. Most of this expansion is expected to occur in the Amazon were land is cheap and available — 70 percent of the country's herd expansion between 2002 and 2006 occurred in the region.

The number of cattle bred in the Legal Amazon is growing fast: between 1990 and 2003, the bovine herd more than doubled, from 26.6 million to 64 million head of cattle – 60% of the herd are in the states of Mato Grosso and Pará.

Recent reports suggest that much of this expansion has been illegal. Laws for maintaining a "legal forest reserve" on Amazon land are widely flouted and many landowners acquire land without proper title. Corruption is rampant in frontier areas making law enforcement ineffective and sometimes complicit in illicit activities — including illegal logging and abuse of workers — that often accompany land clearing….

Amazon deforestation seen from space, NASA

Despair in Fiji

Fiji Times: Every time it floods in the Sigatoka Valley there is a price to pay for farmers and dwellers there. Almost an acre of their farms is swept away and gravel and sand is left behind to thwart any attempts to rescue their livelihood for a good six months.

The floods may have left three weeks ago but for the farmers in Nabitu and Vunaqoru in the upper reaches of the Kavanagasau Road, they have to bite the bullet and wait for the cyclone season to end before the recovery process begins. In Nabitu Jaswant Singh, Ram Raj and Jitend Prasad said they had lost almost 30 acres of land to the floods three weeks ago. "What the floods left behind was fine sand and gravel," Raj said.

…At the same time it would be right to acknowledge the efforts of Non Government Organisations and all organisations, including Government to assist those affected. They just need to be bolder to get to the hard to reach places.

Thanks should also go to the President of the United States Barack Obama for signing a new environmental measure aimed at combating greenhouse gas emissions and ending US dependency on foreign energy.…This will be a major turnaround to the Bush Administration's eight years of not acting on calls to reduce emissions and failing to act on the California request. Today for the farmers in the valley it may be late, but better late than not at all.

Why markets won't work

Anne Peterman and Orin Langelle in Z magazine undertake give a vigorous poke to market-based approaches to climate change: The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) once again failed to take concrete steps to avert the ever-worsening climate crisis at its 14th Conference of the Parties (COP-14), held December 1-12 in Poznan, Poland. This failure has been widely denounced by social movements, climate justice groups, and indigenous peoples organizations that have already begun to organize a mass mobilization around the next Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, scheduled for December 2009.

…Climate Justice Now! (CJN!), the climate justice alliance founded at the 2007 Climate Conference in Bali, released a statement that further denounced the UN climate process, stating, "The three main pillars of the Kyoto Protocol—the clean development mechanism, joint implementation and emissions trading schemes—have been completely ineffective in reducing emissions, yet they continue to be at the center of the negotiations."

…The impacts of climate change and false solutions to climate change on forests and indigenous peoples were highlighted by indigenous peoples organizations and climate justice groups, especially with regard to a mechanism called REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries). Contrary to its presumed mission to protect forests, the emphasis of REDD is on how to best use the world's remaining forests as carbon offsets to enhance the profits of polluting industries and industrialized countries and ensure they do not have to reduce their carbon emissions by any significant amount.

…The most positive development that came out of the 2008 UN Climate Convention was both the strengthening of the CJN! alliance and the advancement of the mobilization against the Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009. In their final statement, CJN!, which has grown over the past year to include over 160 groups and indigenous peoples' organizations from across the globe, called for a "radical change" in the UN climate process. CJN! insists that radical change is needed due to the overwhelming infiltration of business interests, the marginalization of NGOs and indigenous peoples organizations, and the almost exclusive focus on market-based mechanisms to address climate change…