Drought brings Amazon tributary to lowest level in a century

Tom Phillips in the Guardian (UK): One of the most important tributaries of the Amazon river has fallen to its lowest level in over a century, following a fierce drought that has isolated tens of thousands of rainforest inhabitants and raised concerns about the possible impact of climate change on the region.

The drought currently affecting swaths of north and west Amazonia has been described as the one of the worst in the last 40 years, with the Rio Negro or Black river, which flows into the world-famous Rio Amazonas, reportedly hitting its lowest levels since records began in 1902 on Sunday. In 24 hours the level of the Rio Negro near Manaus in Brazil dropped 6cm to 13.63 metres, a historic low.

The Solimoes and Amazonas rivers have also seen their waters plunge since early August, stranding village dwellers who rely on the Amazon's waterways for transport and food and marooning wooden boats on brown sand banks.

According to local authorities nearly half of Amazonas state's 62 municipalities have declared states of emergency, among them Manaquiri, one of the worst hit areas during the last major drought in the region in 2005. That year thousands of families were forced to abandon their homes and schools closed for lack of students.

Authorities say around 62,000 families have been affected by this year's receding rivers and on Friday the federal government announced $13.5m (£8.5m) in aid for the region….

A sunset over Brazil's Rio Negro in wetter times, shot by P199, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Norway says more aid needed to save Indonesian forest

Sunanda Creagh in Reuters: Indonesia could match Brazil's success in slowing deforestation but needs far more aid from rich nations such as the United States, Japan and the European Union, Norway's environment minister said on Monday. Norway has signed a $1 billion climate deal with Indonesia, under which Jakarta has agreed to impose a two-year ban on new permits to clear natural forests.

Norway has already released $30 million of the funds, with the bulk to be paid out later after Indonesia proves greenhouse gas emissions have gone down and an independent audit is done. But more aid is needed to save Indonesia's forests, said Norwegian environment minister Erik Solheim.

"$1 billion is a huge amount of money but Indonesia needs quite substantially more to be able to conserve and sustainably manage its forests," Solheim told Reuters in an interview in Jakarta, where he is meeting Indonesian officials. "The United States should come in, Japan, other European nations could come into this scheme to make it robust enough."…

A forest on Java in 1915 or 1916, from the Tropenmuseum Collection, Wikimedia Commons

Wildlife health reporting tools may help prevent human illness

A very cool idea from the US Geological survey: Two new tools that enable the public to report sick or dead wild animals could also lead to the detection and containment of wildlife disease outbreaks that may pose a health risk to people. The Wildlife Health Event Reporter (WHER) is a new website that enables anyone with an Internet connection to report sightings of sick or dead wildlife.

HealthMap.org has enhanced its mobile phone application “Outbreaks Near Me” to accept and relay wildlife health reports to the WHER site. The application continues to accept reports of human illness. Researchers in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center in Madison created the WHER so that people around the world can easily share information about possible health threats to wildlife and humans.

“Avian influenza, SARS, West Nile virus, and rabies are just a few of the rogues’ gallery of human diseases in which wildlife play a role. Seventy-five percent of recent emerging infectious diseases in humans began as animal infections, and most of these have involved wildlife,” explains USGS scientist Joshua Dein, one of the WHER’s developers. “If these tools had been available 10 years ago, we might have had an earlier identification of West Nile virus by people reporting that they were seeing dead crows in their backyards,” said Dein. “We don’t know what the next emerging disease outbreak will be, but given recent history, it will likely be preceded by wildlife health events.”

Users of the WHER create accounts online to register sightings of sick or dead wildlife. Anyone can visit the site to see what others have reported and can subscribe to an RSS feed to receive new reports via e-mail. Reports can be limited to specific states, and data can be readily exported or sent through special feeds to other websites. Local wildlife officials who wish to be notified of observations also can subscribe and, when available, their contact information will be given to those who submit reports.

...Dein notes that the WHER is experimental and will require high participation rates over a considerable period of time to provide useful data. He adds that despite the connections between human and animal diseases, people should not view wildlife as a threat to human health. “A more accurate vision is that we all share risks from these disease threats,” said Dein. “These new tools can help researchers use wildlife as sentinels to alert us to diseases in the environment.”...

Jan Weenix in 1692, "Der weiße Pfau" (the white peacock)

UN aid for flood-stricken Benin

AllAfrica.com via UN News: The United Nations is mobilizing aid to Benin, where nearly 700,000 people have been affected by severe flooding, with the world body and its partners shortly set to launch a humanitarian appeal to help the flood-stricken in the West African nation. According to latest assessments, some 680,000 people in 55 of Benin's 77 municipalities have been affected by the flooding.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported today that water, food and emergency shelter are among the priority needs in flooded areas. Cholera cases have been reported in some areas, with fears that the epidemic will spread.

OCHAwater, food and emergency shelter are among the priority needs in flooded areas. noted that food is being distributed in flood-hit parts of Benin and that several new emergency shelter sites have been identified. The Office has also allocated an emergency cash grant for tents and to support logistics operations, with a humanitarian appeal for funds to help flood victims under way.

For its part, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will airlift supplies, including tents, from its emergency stockpiles in Copenhagen to Benin in the coming days. The agency focuses on helping the 7,300 refugees and asylum-seekers in the country, but "we have been called upon to help with the emergency shelter needs of some of the homeless people in the southern parts of the country where we have a presence," agency spokesperson Adrian Edwards told reporters in Geneva today….

A river and flood plain in Benin, shot by ~Pyb, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Hurricane Richard batters Belize

BBC: Hurricane Richard has hit the Central American nation of Belize, knocking out electricity and blowing off roofs, but no deaths or injuries were reported. Some 10,000 people took shelter in schools and churches.

But Richard was downgraded to a tropical storm as it moved west-north-west towards south-eastern Mexico. It is moving at 19km/h (12mph), and is forecast to reach Mexico's oil-producing region in the Bay of Campeche late Monday or early Tuesday.

Patrick Jones of the radio station Love News FM told the BBC that there was "massive flooding" in Belize City, after the hurricane blew in just to its south. "A number of people have been calling for emergency services to come rescue them because they are either trapped by the rising water, or because their houses have collapsed," he said. Belize City, which has a population of about 100,000, contains a large number of wooden, tin-roofed homes that are vulnerable to strong winds.

Richard was rated as a category one hurricane, the lowest on the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale, and was the 10th storm of the hurricane season. But as it moved into northern Guatemala on its way into south-eastern Mexico, it was downgraded to a tropical storm, packing maximum sustained winds of 105km/h (65mph)….

Hurricane Richard on October 24

Chinese blogger creates Google maps of violent land grabs

Seed Daily via AFP: A Chinese blogger is tracking violent and sometimes deadly land grabs taking place in the Asian nation and recording them on Google Maps in a bid to try and get people to boycott "blood housing."

The anonymous blogger on Sina.com has recorded more than 70 different confirmed and unconfirmed incidents around the country on two so-called "Bloody Maps," which had registered more than 52,000 hits on Friday. "Record demolitions and refuse to buy blood housing," he wrote on his blog http://t.sina.com.cn/bloodymap, which provides links to the maps.

One map records incidents that have been reported by media or have been confirmed, while the other also pinpoints events that have been mentioned online or raised by Internet users. Net users are able to click on each mark on the map to get a description of what reportedly happened….

Haze highlights weak ASEAN cooperation

Martin Abbugao in AFP: Just a week after Southeast Asia hailed "substantive progress" against cross-border air pollution, Singapore and parts of Malaysia are again being blanketed by smog from forest fires in Indonesia. The problem, known euphemistically as "the haze", raises fresh questions about the effectiveness of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), whose leaders will hold a summit in Hanoi from October 28-29.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo phoned his Indonesian counterpart Marty Natalegawa on Friday to press for action and offer help in extinguishing forest fires largely set by farmers in the vast island of Sumatra to clear land for cultivation. Malaysian officials also vented their frustration at the persistent problem, which analysts said highlights weakness both within individual ASEAN countries and the bloc itself in enforcing domestic laws and regional pacts.

"This just shows that ASEAN must move from talk to action," said Joko Arif, Southeast Asia forest team leader at environmental group Greenpeace. "ASEAN has been talking for more than 10 years on how to combat forest fires and haze, but I think more concrete action needs to be done," he told AFP. For its part, Indonesia should effectively implement laws that ban the use of fire to clear land and be more transparent in giving out information on the location and size of the burning activities, Arif said….

Typhoon Megi pounds southern China

Al-Jazeera.net: Typhoon Megi, the strongest storm to sweep through the northwest Pacific in two decades, has weakened and been downgraded to a strong tropical storm. The typhoon had hit southern China, bringing torrential rains and powerful winds that prompted officials to shut down public services across the region.

Flood control authorities evacuated some 160,000 people from the coastal Fujian province to safety ahead of the typhoon, the official Xinhua news agency said. State television broadcasted images of gales bending trees and toppling billboards, as large waves whipped the coast. Roads were also flooded in the city of Zhangzhou.

The main airport in the coastal city of Xiamen cancelled 79 flights due to the typhoon. Authorities also stopped ferry services throughout the province. China's national meteorological centre had earlier confirmed that the typhoon had reached the Asian country's coast and advised people to avoid going out.

…But the intensity of the typhoon, which was initially feared to be among the worst in 50 years to hit China, weakened as it reached the province. Megi had already swept through the Philippines earlier in the week, killing at least 36 people as it caused widespread flooding. In Taiwan it brought record-high rainfall that triggered massive landslides leaving at least 12 people dead….

Typhoon Megi on October 21

Greece, Turkey spearhead efforts to fight climate change in the Mediterranean

Kostis Geropoulos in New Europe: Greece and Turkey may disagree on many issues but are brought together in the fight against global warming. Athens and Ankara agreed on 22 October to join forces to combat climate change in the Mediterranean.

In an idyllic setting at a luxury south coast resort near Vouliagmeni, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, together with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, Palestinian National Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, as well as environmental representatives from neighboring Mediterranean countries signed a political declaration on 22 October. The agreement launches the Mediterranean Climate Change Initiative (MCC) in collaboration with leaders from across the Mediterranean and with the support of the European Investment Bank (EIB), which aims to accelerate environmental cooperation in the region, protect the fragile ecosystem and promote and implement low-carbon development projects in the region.

…The deputy foreign minister reminded that the Mediterranean Green Development Investors Forum was due to take place here on 23 October on the subject of “Financing profitable green initiatives and investments across the Mediterranean.” The forum was expected to allow key policy-makers, technology providers, business and finance leaders and international investors to discuss the initiatives and investments for a sustainable green economy across the Mediterranean. Kouvelis said business and investment can give a further impetus to the whole effort in the fight against climate change and Green Development.

…Opening the Mediterranean Climate Change Initiative conference, Papandreou said that from within the "bad scenarios" for climate change appearing to be coming true in the southeastern Mediterranean with increasingly frequent extreme weather phenomena and threats to the region's unique agricultural production, "which is a capital for its culture," an opportunity arises that of taking advantage of the cooperation among the regional countries "to develop a new growth model, making use of the region's resources, to create new green industries."

Near Vouliagmeni, shot by Charski A.V.

Universities receive grants to study climate change decisions

Red Orbit: The National Science Foundation recently awarded nearly $5 million to four university-based centers whose research focuses on understanding decision making within the context of climate change and other long-term environmental risks.

The awards bring together scholars from many different fields, such as decision science, psychology, economics, geography, atmospheric science, engineering, mathematics and computer science, to identify effective ways to make decisions when both the nature of the problems and the potential impacts of responses are uncertain.

"These centers are taking a novel approach to environmental decision making," said Cheryl Eavey, a program director in NSF's Division of Social and Economic Sciences (SBE) and one of three co-managers of the awards. "Together, they are examining problems in coordinated ways that have not been undertaken in the past, and they are actively working with practitioners and stakeholders to facilitate the use of basic knowledge in practical ways."

These awards were supported by SBE through its Decision Making Under Uncertainty (DMUU) funding opportunity. Comparable levels of support are expected to be provided for the following four years to enable these teams to conduct longer-range, integrated research, education, and outreach activities.

"The DMUU research teams are examining many questions regarding how people and organizations understand climate change and other long-term environmental risks and how those understandings influence their plans to react to changing environmental conditions," said co-manager Thomas Baerwald, senior science advisor in NSF's Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences. "In addition to understanding the varied approaches that are used for different kinds of problems, a special challenge is to understand how effective decisions can be made across a number of environmental policy issues when long-term outcomes are uncertain."…

Rodin's "Thinker," taken in Musee Rodin in Paris, France by wikipedian Pufacz

Munich Re highlights climate change link to extreme weather events

ClaimsJournal.com: A bulletin from Munich Re underlines the "exceptionally high" incidence of "weather-related natural catastrophe losses in the first nine months of 2010," both in "number and scale." The floods in central Europe, wildfires in Russia and widespread flooding in Pakistan headed the list.

The timely roundup coincides with the approaching World Climate Summit scheduled for November 29 to December 10 in Cancún, Mexico. Munich Re said that it "emphasizes the probability of a link between the increasing number of weather extremes and climate change." In the run-up to the summit, Munich Re will focus attention on this issue with a series of communications on natural catastrophes, climate change and potential solutions.

In addition Munich Re pointed out that "globally, 2010 has been the warmest year since records began over 130 years ago, the ten warmest during that period all falling within the last 12 years. The warmer atmosphere and higher sea temperatures are having significant effects."

Prof. Peter Höppe, Head of Munich Re's Geo Risks Research/Corporate Climate Centre stated: "It's as if the weather machine had changed up a gear. Unless binding carbon reduction targets stay on the agenda, future generations will bear the consequences."

Munich Re recorded a total of 725 weather-related natural hazard events with significant losses from January to September 2010, the second-highest figure recorded for the first nine months of the year since 1980. Some 21,000 people lost their lives, 1,760 in Pakistan alone, up to one-fifth of which was flooded for several weeks. Overall losses due to weather-related natural catastrophes from January to September came to more than $65 billion and insured losses to $18 billion….

Climate development in Africa

Ramesh Jaura in InDepth News: Amidst persistent warnings that climate change will destroy Africa, the leaders of the world's second largest and second most populous continent have launched the 'Climate for Development in Africa Programme' and decided to set up an 'Africa Green Fund'.

The two significant steps to defend the continent come in run-up to the landmark UN climate change conference from November 29 to December 10 in Cancun, Mexico, where the African Green Fund is expected to get underway.

The Climate for Development in Africa (ClimDev-Africa) Programme has been launched by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Union Commission (AUC) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) at a ceremony on the sidelines of the Seventh African Development Forum (ADF VII) on October 13 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

…Of 22 climate funds available worldwide, Africa has access only to a few. The carbon market has not brought much money to Africa so far. Several hundred projects in Mexico, Brazil, India and China are funded under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). There are only a handful of CDM projects in South Africa and very few others on the rest of the continent.

… Africa is not well served by existing financing mechanisms since the continent's unique problems such as high vulnerability to climate change and unique emission patterns related to agriculture and land use are never factored into the design of global funds. He called for a more appropriate financing mechanism such as the Africa Green Fund…..

A giant anthill in Zambia, shot by J nestor, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons CC0 waiver

Underwater robot studying ice-covered Antarctic Ocean

CTV News (Canada): An underwater robot owned by the University of British Columbia is probing the ice-covered waters off Antarctica as part of a project designed to give scientists a rare glimpse into the forbidding depths at the South Pole. Until now, scientists have had a hard time figuring out exactly what's going on in the deep, frigid waters beneath the ice shelves that cling to 44 per cent of the Antarctic coastline.

Traditional depth profiling instruments are dropped through a limited number of drill holes, providing a limited vertical profile of water temperature, salinity and other variables. In contrast, a robot that can dive, collect data and return to its starting point autonomously has the potential to advance scientists' perspective from knowing what's going on in a narrow column of water to having a dynamic 3-D perspective of the largely uncharted ice-covered waters.

Ultimately, researchers hope data they collect from beneath the ice will be used to better understand the global climate. "The bigger goal is to actually help the climate modelers get a better idea of how these ice-ocean interfaces are reacting to changes in the ocean," UBC doctoral candidate Andrew Hamilton told CTV News in an interview from Christchurch, New Zealand.

"We have a fairly good understanding of how ice masses react to atmospheric changes, but we really don't have a good understanding of what's happening underneath these masses at the water interface."…

The Kapitan Dranitsyn breaking ice in Antarctica, shot by Turk17, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Europe should pay more attention to invasive species

Deutsche Welle: As governments meet in Nagoya, Japan, to discuss ways to halt the declining variety of the world's plants and animals, some German scientists are calling for more action against one of the threats to biodiversity in particular - invasive alien species. These are plants and animals brought to new habitats either on purpose or as unseen stowaways. When these alien arrivals come into contact with new ecosystems, the results can be devastating.

Carsten Nowak from the Senckenberg Research Institute in Germany is worried that globalization may be leading to a gradual homogenization of species across the continents. "If we want to maintain regional differences, we have to somehow stop (current rates of) species invasions," he told Deutsche Welle.

Europe now has 10,000 alien species. Some 10 percent of these are considered invasive, meaning that when they arrive, they tend to eradicate native plants and animals. The European Union acknowledges that this is a problem for the bloc: These invaders are costing European economies 12 billion euros every year in agricultural losses and health care costs, as well as impoverishing the diversity of local ecosystems.

However, "there is no consistent horizontal coordination at EU level" for tackling this problem, a spokesperson for the EU's environment policy chief told Deutsche Welle….

Japanese knotweed is considered an invasive in Europe, shot by KENPEI, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Playing politics with Pakistan's flood relief

Mariam Mufti: The scale of the calamitous floods experienced in Pakistan after the monsoonal rains this year has quite clearly been beyond the capacity of an administratively and financially drained state. But instead of concentrating on the flooding itself, the media and political analysts have instead concentrated on revelations made about Pakistan's apparent double game in Afghanistan and on criticizing the government severely after President Zardari made the politically unwise decision to leave Pakistan after the onset of the flood for a state trip to Europe. The disaster wreaked by the floods has also been analyzed through the lens of terrorism and corruption, rhetoric that is commonly used when talking about Pakistan, taking away the focus from the flood and the vulnerability of Pakistan's population.

This vulnerability is both physical and institutional. Much of the death and destruction that has ensued since the floods began could have been prevented if the institutions responsible for the provision of security (the Pakistani government and the irrigation department in particular) had responded more effectively to the crisis. An uncritical media has reproduced not only stereotypical depiction of hazards and disasters as natural but, in this particular case, has contributed to vulnerability by creating a particular depiction of Pakistan, its people and government. Furthermore, vulnerability of the Pakistani state needs to be examined at yet another level and that is the dependency of the government on foreign aid and its alliance with the United States for its sustenance.

The lack of capacity and expertise of the Pakistani government was made apparent by the mismanagement of the national disaster and the unsatisfactory response to provide relief to the flood-affected areas. There has been a complete lack of initiative taken by the Pakistani government towards natural disaster management and relief, whether after the Kashmir earthquake in 2005, Cyclone Yemyin in 2007, an earthquake in Ziarat district in Baluchistan in 2008, or the current flooding….

A peek at the US Drought Monitor

Richard to become a hurricane as it closes in on Belize

Gustavo Palencia in Reuters: Tropical Storm Richard strengthened on Saturday as it dumped rain on Honduras and was seen reaching hurricane strength before hitting Belize and Mexico's Yucatan peninsula later in the weekend. The storm was about 65 miles north of Cabo Gracias a Dios, a remote area known as Honduras' and Nicaragua's "mosquito coast" where indigenous groups live in wooden houses along rivers vulnerable to flooding.

Richard had top sustained winds of 65 miles per hour, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Some residents and tourists were evacuating from the mosquito coast area in Honduras as winds picked up, local civil protection officials said. "Richard is expected to become a hurricane on Sunday," the NHS said.

The 17th named storm in the Atlantic this year, Richard will likely barrel through southern Mexico and emerge in Mexico's oil-rich Bay of Campeche as a tropical depression, the NHS said. Some computer weather models forecast that it could then veer north toward the U.S. oil and natural gas production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico…..

Honduras has issued a hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning for the coast from the Nicaragua-Honduras border westward to Limon, Honduras, the hurricane center said.

This GOES-East image from NOAA, taken on October 22, at 1445Z, shows Tropical Storm Richard located east-northeast of Cabo Gracias a Dios on the Nicaragua/Honduras border. This system is moving west near 3 MPH, with winds near 40 MPH. According to the National Hurricane Center, Richard is forecast to strengthen over the next 48 hours and could become a hurricane during the weekend.

Arctic unlikely to return to the way it was

Renee Schoof in Commons Dreams via McClatchy: New observations this year about snow, ice and temperatures support the conclusion that the Arctic is unlikely to return to the conditions known in the 20th century — and that's likely to affect the weather in the lower 48 United States.

That was this year's key message in the annual update of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Arctic report card, released Thursday. The key points, a video and links to scientific reports by 69 scientists from eight countries are available from NOAA online.

The report card is one way that scientists share information about trends they're seeing in the Arctic as a result of the region's warming cycle: Higher air temperatures melt snow and ice, leaving the ocean and land darker, and they then absorb more solar energy, causing more heating and melting.

In the past year: There was a link between changes in the Arctic and the severe cold weather last winter in eastern North America, northern Europe and eastern Asia. Usually, cold air is bottled up in the Arctic, but this year the cold was blown south. "As we lose more sea ice, we'll probably see more of that," said Jim Overland, an oceanographer with NOAA in Seattle. Many scientists are studying the link, but they don't fully understand it yet, he said.

The unusual shift in weather patterns that brought cold air down from the Arctic has happened only twice before in the last 160 years. Overland said it was "a major surprise. I'd put it right up there with the (record) ice loss in 2007."…

A fjord on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, shot by Александр, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Chile mulls industry's water footprint

Terra Daily via UPI: Chile's industrial advancement has been achieved at some cost to the country's freshwater resources but it's only now that awareness of the impending crisis has led to calls for action, environmentalist campaigners said. Chilean campaigners for a more intelligent and less destructive use of freshwater resources by industry are being helped by the Water Footprint Network, a non-profit organization that has headquarters at the University of Twente, Netherlands.

The Water Footprint Network has been measuring Chile's water footprint -- the quantity of freshwater used in the production of a specific product -- in about the same way that other organizations have been monitoring the carbon footprint of consumer and industrial activities. The Dutch-led international body measures the direct and indirect water use by industry in the process of producing consumer products. A national average of water use is then measured for the production of specific goods or services.

A WFN study found that producing 1 pound of beef required 1,891 gallons of water, while a glass of beer could entail supply of more than 19 gallons of water, mostly on preparing barley for the process. More than 18 gallons of water go behind a tree producing a single apple. Chilean lobbyists for more intelligent water use said that Chile would need to bring in new legislation to make sure water conservation and a more sensible use of fresh water resources was adhered to….

Torres del Paine from Lake Pehoé, Torres del Paine National Park, Chile. Shot by Miguel.v

The stakes for adaptation in Africa

Olu Sarr in AllAfrica.com via Interim Guinea Current Commission (Accra): African countries have been advised to cooperate in adapting now to the ravages of climate change or face the harsh consequences of inaction that would befall large numbers of the continent’s 967 million people.

“We need to have early warning systems and other types of monitoring systems to know what is changing and the impact of that,” Thomas Staal, the mission director for USAID Africa Bureau, said at one of several sessions of the 7th African Development Forum held from 10-16 Oct in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.

Among his numerous suggestions were that science and technological innovations should forge adaptive solutions, such as modifying crops or changing the growing periods of crops to fit the changing and emerging climatic conditions. Adaptation and cooperation emerged as the central point of agreement from a wide-ranging debate on dealing with the problem, at the session on “Climate change, human development, security and ecosystem sustainability”.

…One of the most dramatic effects of climate change in Africa is occurring along its western coastlines and in their marine ecosystems. Rising sea levels are washing away coastal communities in the countries sharing the Guinea Current Large Marine Ecosystem. Unchecked, the rising waters would lead to the salinization of large coastal aquifers, lagoons and other fresh water sources thus reducing agricultural production. The result of such outcomes would be the displacement of large numbers of people, and more….

The city of Conakry, Guinea, originated on Tombo Island and spread up the Kaloum Peninsula, sandwiched between mangrove swamps. In the 1960s, the city had a population of fewer than 40,000; in 2006, it had a population of nearly 2 million. These natural-color images, acquired by NASA’s Landsat satellites, show the city’s dramatic growth from 1986 to 2000. Land and water features look similar to how they would look in a photograph by a digital camera. Water ranges in color from deep to pale blue, vegetation appears dark green, and bare ground and urbanized areas range in color from gray to beige to reddish-brown.

Warning of massive flooding for Asia's coastal mega-cities

GMA News TV (Philippines): The Asian Development Bank (ADB) warned Asia’s coastal megacities, including Manila, of more massive flooding incidents that could affect millions of people should current climate change trends continue. In a report titled "Climate Risks and Adaptation in Asian Coastal Megacities," the ADB said the cost of major flooding on infrastructure and the economy could run into billions of dollars, with urban poor populations likely to be the hardest hit.

Apart from Manila, the other Asian megacities identified in the report were Bangkok in Thailand and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. The report, released Friday in Bangkok is the product of a two-year collaborative study by the ADB, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, and the World Bank. The ADB said the three megacities should find effective ways to address climate change issues such as rising sea levels and extreme weather changes.

…“Land subsidence due to groundwater pumping, dumping of solid waste into city canals and waterways, clogged drainage systems, and deforestation in the upper watershed all contribute to urban flooding," the statement said.

The report said the governments of the three cities should address climate risks as an integral part of urban planning. The measures include “developing strategic urban adaptation frameworks for managing climate risks, strengthening institutional capacity for adaptation, and implementing measures such as land use planning and zoning to help reduce urban vulnerability."…

Bangkok by satellite

Weather extremes for Saskatchewan

Rory MacLean in the StarPhoenix (Saskatchewan): The South Saskatchewan River is a lifeblood for the province, but melting glaciers and fast-rising demand threaten to leave Saskatchewan high and dry, say local water experts. "I think we're going to have to prepare for some very serious droughts . . . decade droughts," said Meewasin Valley Authority CEO Susan Lamb.

Climate change models point to a much dryer future for Saskatchewan, meaning the time to re-evaluate essential water resources is now, she says. "These days there's a lot of talk about, 'Potash belongs to the people of Saskatchewan.' Well, water does, too."

The South Saskatchewan River Basin covers a huge territory, more than 440,000 square kilometres that stretches across three provinces -- almost the size of France. Most of the water comes from the melt of seasonal snow pack and glaciers, and a portion of the in-flow comes from local precipitation. But save for an uncommonly wet spell around the time of settlement, Saskatchewan's contributions to the basin have been minimal.

"Everybody who migrated to Saskatchewan came during the longest, wettest period in its history . . . the government got lucky," said David Sauchyn, a member of the University of Regina-based Prairie Adaptation Research Collective and author of The New Normal: Canadian Prairies in a Changing Climate….

The South Saskatchewan River near Medicine Hat, shot by Paul Jerry, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Struggling to adjust

A few snips from an interesting piece by Tan Cropsey in China Dialogue: The climate is changing and human beings will need to change with it. People will have to adapt to floods, droughts, disease, increasingly severe weather events and disrupted water and food supplies. But some of those facing these threats have limited capacity to respond. International finance to help vulnerable nations adapt to climate change is therefore hugely important.

But who accesses these funds and how they access them are already hotly contested issues. At the heart of this debate are differing views over the status of adaptation. Should it be considered aid or reparations for past wrongs? More prosaically, can adaptation actually work, or will it fall prey to the types of problems that have hindered development aid and international attempts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions?

…The key point here is that adaptation finance is not aid. Existing processes were designed to provide grants and loans from developed nations. Sven Harmeling, an expert on climate change adaptation at German NGO Germanwatch, notes that “developing countries are entitled to receive adaptation funds because of the harm done by (developed country) greenhouse-gas emissions.” As such they have a moral case that they should have a say over how money is provided and spent. Funding for adaptation is not granted but owed.

…. Improving the resilience of the country’s infrastructure in the face of climate threats includes everything from the construction of new sea-walls in order to keep out rising seas to improving the design of the airport to better cope with huge storms and facilitate subsequent relief efforts.

….It makes sense that time is spent putting in place structures and institutions to distribute money and agree a fair definition of who should get first access. This may mean that not all of the fast-start finance pledged for adaptation will be spent by 2012. But it is surely better to have positive examples to learn from than to rush blindly to spend set quantities of money ahead of artificial deadlines. As the climate changes, adaptation is only going to become more important. It is vital that mistakes are minimised at the start of a process that may be centuries long.

Rain at Ocean Beach, San Francisco, shot by Mila Zinkova, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Climate change may create tipping points for populations, not just species

EurekAlert: As Earth's climate warms, species are expected to shift their geographical ranges away from the equator or to higher elevations. While scientists have documented such shifts for many plants and animals, the ranges of others seem stable. When species respond in different ways to the same amount of warming, it becomes more difficult for ecologists to predict future biological effects of climate change--and to plan for these effects.

In a study published this week in the journal Nature, University of Wyoming ecologist Daniel Doak and Duke University ecologist William Morris report on a long-term study of arctic and alpine plants. The results show why some species may be slow to shift their geographic ranges in the face of climate change, and why we might expect to see sudden shifts as warming continues.

"This study illustrates the critical need for long-term research to address our most pressing ecological challenges," says Saran Twombly, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research.

…By looking at the performance of individual plants in particularly hot and cold years, they found that the compensatory effects across moderately cold to moderately warm years (lower survival balanced by more rapid growth) will not hold up with increased warming….

Sky Pilot (Polemonium eximium), at about 13,000', on Mount Abbot, shot by Will Beback, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Water scarcity risk in the US municipal bond market

Electric Power News Today: Growing water scarcity in many parts of the United States is a 'hidden risk" for investors who buy the water and electric utility bonds that finance much of the U.S.'s vast public water infrastructure, according to a new report that will be released at 11 a.m. EDT/4 p.m. GMT Thursday (October 21, 2010) on a live-phone based news conference.

Of interest to all bond investors, the report is a first-time look at why investors should be treating water scarcity as a growing credit risk in water and electric utility bonds – and how these risks are currently being ignored by credit rating agencies rating municipal bonds.

The report includes a quantitative model developed by PwC to assess both water and electric utility water risk exposure by comparing their available supplies with projected water demand up to 2030, using stress scenarios that incorporate climate change impacts, regional water conflicts and other potential external risks on water supplies.

The report examines water scarcity risks for specific water utilities in water-stressed regions: Los Angeles, Phoenix, Glendale (AZ), Atlanta and Dallas/Forth Worth. The report also focuses on water scarcity risks for municipally owned electric power utilities, including public utilities serving Los Angeles and southern Alabama/northwest Florida…

A tenantless farm in the Texas Panhandle, 1938

Haze from Indonesia disturbs neighboring countries

Bernama: Forest fires burning in Indonesia began to affect neighbouring countries, spreading thick clouds of smoke and haze to Malaysia and Singapore, news agencies reported Thursday. Speaking to China's Xinhua news agency, Head of Weather Monitoring Unit of Sumatra's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency Marzuki said despite the number of hot spots has decreased after rains, the feasibility is still low in Riau province.

This is also not a favorable condition for flights and one small airport in Dumai district was closed on Wednesday due to the haze, said a weather observer at Riau province Tarman Sembiring to Xinhua on Thursday.

In MALAYSIA, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on Wednesday advised schools in Muar to temporarily close as the haze enveloping the district has reached a hazardous level. Indonesian news wire Antara reported that the skies over Singapore were slightly hazy on Saturday, attributing this to the smoke haze from the fires in Sumatra brought in by the prevailing southwesterly winds….

NASA shot of fires on Sumatra in October 2006

Old logging practices linked to high erosion rates today

University of Oregon: Clear-cut logging and related road-building in the 1950s and 1960s in southern Oregon's Siskiyou Mountains disrupted soil stability and led to unprecedented soil erosion made worse during heavy rainstorms, report University of Oregon researchers.

While logging practices have improved dramatically since then, the damaged landscape -- the removal of low vegetation that helps to protect hillsides during fires and rain -- continues to pose a threat into the foreseeable future, said Daniel G. Gavin, professor of geography, and postdoctoral doctoral researcher Daniele Colombaroli.

Their research -- funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the UO -- involved the analyses of charcoal, pollen and sediment taken from 30-foot-deep cores drilled below Upper Squaw Lake in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. Their findings, which provide a look at the impacts of fires over the last 2,000 years, appeared online Oct. 18 in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The data, which provided for greater scrutiny than that of tree-ring records, allowed the researchers to analyze conditions at different time periods and compare soil conditions during fire and flooding events over time.

"There is a legacy of poor logging practices conducted decades ago," Gavin said. "Road building during that period was done with little concern for subsequent erosion. The soils were much more heavily impacted by that development compared to the prehistoric fires of the past. Our study shows that at least four times more erosion occurred on the landscape after the logging and floods of the 1960s compared to the most severe prehistoric fire. So we are dealing with a more delicate, less-resistant ecosystem in the majority of areas that has seen this logging."…

Forests and mountains in Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, Oregon, from a Bureau of Land Management photo

China braces for Typhoon Megi

Marianne Barriaux in AFP: Chinese authorities on Wednesday ordered fishermen back to shore and halted rail services as Typhoon Megi, the strongest storm to hit the northwest Pacific since 1990, barrelled towards the mainland. Megi has already wreaked havoc in the Philippines, killing at least 19 people and leaving relief workers scrambling to deliver aid to devastated, remote towns.

It is now making its way towards southern China, where it is expected to make landfall in the southern province of Guangdong on Saturday, the National Meteorological Centre said. "We expect that the strong winds and torrential rain brought by Megi will increase the probability of geological disasters happening in the south such as floods, land and mudslides," the centre warned.

…China's state-run Xinhua news agency, citing the State Oceanic Administration, has said that Guangdong could see storm-triggered waves of up to seven metres (21 feet). Reservoirs and hydroelectric stations in Guangdong have been put on high alert, and local flood control officials have been told to ensure the safety of venues for the upcoming Asian Games in the provincial capital Guangzhou.

In Hainan, which is still reeling from recent severe flooding, authorities have halted passenger train services, and residents in the island's capital Haikou have flocked to supermarkets to stock up on goods, state media said.

…Megi, which according to the Hong Kong Observatory is currently packing winds of 185 kilometres (115 miles) an hour, is the strongest storm seen worldwide so far this year….

Megi makes landfall in the Philippines, October 18, from NASA

A worthy book: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Ecological and Economic Foundations

Earthscan has come out with a book that’s getting some coverage in the UK: Human well-being relies critically on ecosystem services provided by nature. Examples include water and air quality regulation, nutrient cycling and decomposition, plant pollination and flood control, all of which are dependent on biodiversity. They are predominantly public goods with limited or no markets and do not command any price in the conventional economic system, so their loss is often not detected and continues unaddressed and unabated. This in turn not only impacts human well-being, but also seriously undermines the sustainability of the economic system.

It is against this background that TEEB: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity project was set up in 2007 and led by the United Nations Environment Programme to provide a comprehensive global assessment of economic aspects of these issues. This book, written by a team of international experts, represents the scientific state of the art, providing a comprehensive assessment of the fundamental ecological and economic principles of measuring and valuing ecosystem services and biodiversity, and showing how these can be mainstreamed into public policies.

This volume and subsequent TEEB outputs will provide the authoritative knowledge and guidance to drive forward the biodiversity conservation agenda for the next decade.

US land loss in Gulf of Mexico coast could add up to $350 billion by 2030

Mark Schleifstein in the New Orleans Times-Picayune: Economic losses along the coasts of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama caused by rising seas, subsidence and hurricane damage could total $350 billion by 2030, if no steps are taken to counteract the effects of subsidence and global warming, according to a new report commissioned by Entergy Corp. and the America's WETLAND Foundation.

Taking the most sure steps to counteract those losses during the next 20 years could cost $50 billion, but could reduce storm loses by $135 billion over the lifetime of the improvements. Pursuing all potentially attractive actions would cost $120 billion over 20 years, but could save $200 billion over their lifetime, the study said. The study estimates that $44 billion of that cost would be shouldered by public agencies, and the rest would come through private investment.

The wide variety of protective steps suggested by the report range from stronger building codes and roof improvements for residential and commercial buildings; 20-foot levees around power plants, refineries, natural gas processing facilities and chemical plants; similar levees around high-risk clusters of residences and businesses; strengthened designs of offshore oil exploration and production facilities; and a variety of coastal restoration measures…..

Vermilion Parish, LA, October 4, 2002 -- An aerial view of the flooded roads and fields in Louisiana are shown after Hurricane Lili came ashore the Louisiana coast. Photo by Jason Pack/FEMA News Photo

Big economies of the future most at risk from climate change

Maplecroft: A new global ranking, calculating the vulnerability of 170 countries to the impacts of climate change over the next 30 years, identifies some of the world’s largest and fastest-growing economies, including India, as facing the greatest risks to their populations, ecosystems and business environments.

The new Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI), released by global risks advisory firm Maplecroft, enables organisations to identify areas of risk within their operations, supply chains and investments. It evaluates 42 social, economic and environmental factors to assess national vulnerabilities across three core areas. These include: exposure to climate-related natural disasters and sea-level rise; human sensitivity, in terms of population patterns, development, natural resources, agricultural dependency and conflicts; thirdly, the index assesses future vulnerability by considering the adaptive capacity of a country’s government and infrastructure to combat climate change.

The index rates 16 countries as ‘extreme risk,’ including nations that represent new Asian economic power and possess significant forecasted growth. Bangladesh (1), India (2), Philippines (6), Vietnam (13) and Pakistan (16) all feature in the highest risk category and are of particular importance as they are major contributors to the ongoing global economic recovery and are vital to the future expansion of Western businesses in particular.

“These countries are attracting high levels of foreign investment from many multinational organisations,” said Principal Environmental Analyst at Maplecroft, Dr Matthew Bunce. “However, over the next 30 years their vulnerability to climate change will rise due to increases in air temperature, precipitation and humidity. This means organisations with operations or assets in these countries will become more exposed to associated risks, such as climate-related natural disasters, resource security and conflict. Understanding climate vulnerability will help companies make their investments more resilient to unexpected change.”…

An image of utopia from a 1907 Russian magazine

Drought may threaten much of globe within decades

UCAR: The United States and many other heavily populated countries face a growing threat of severe and prolonged drought in coming decades, according to a new study by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist Aiguo Dai. The detailed analysis concludes that warming temperatures associated with climate change will likely create increasingly dry conditions across much of the globe in the next 30 years, possibly reaching a scale in some regions by the end of the century that has rarely, if ever, been observed in modern times.

Using an ensemble of 22 computer climate models and a comprehensive index of drought conditions, as well as analyses of previously published studies, the paper finds most of the Western Hemisphere, along with large parts of Eurasia, Africa, and Australia, may be at threat of extreme drought this century.

…“We are facing the possibility of widespread drought in the coming decades, but this has yet to be fully recognized by both the public and the climate change research community,” Dai says. “If the projections in this study come even close to being realized, the consequences for society worldwide will be enormous.”

While regional climate projections are less certain than those for the globe as a whole, Dai’s study indicates that most of the western two-thirds of the United States will be significantly drier by the 2030s. Large parts of the nation may face an increasing risk of extreme drought during the century. Other countries and continents that could face significant drying include:

• Much of Latin America, including large sections of Mexico and Brazil
• Regions bordering the Mediterranean Sea, which could become especially dry
• Large parts of Southwest Asia
• Most of Africa and Australia, with particularly dry conditions in regions of Africa
• Southeast Asia, including parts of China and neighboring countries…

This drought map and others on the NCAR website

Spain’s former president Aznar to chair Global Adaptation Institute Advisory Council

PR Newswire: Jose Maria Aznar, former President of Spain will Chair the Advisory Council of Global Adaptation Institute, a new climate group (http://www.GlobalAdaptationInstitute.org) that seeks to become the pragmatic leader on the critical environmental issue of adaptation to climate change.

"The world must adapt to environmental change and to new social and economic circumstances, especially to protect and benefit people throughout the developing world. Global Adaptation Institute is an urgent, worthwhile initiative focusing on authentic, efficient solutions. I am proud to be part of it," Aznar affirmed.

Institute CEO Dr. Juan Jose Daboub, former second in command at the World Bank, praised Aznar as "one of the most prominent European statesmen of this generation. Under his leadership, Spain's economy grew by 68% to become the 8th largest in the world. He is an extraordinary international leader – serious and consequential – and a great champion for global adaptation."

…In Washington last month, Aznar participated in a work session on climate adaptation sponsored by Global Adaptation Institute with representatives from the United States, Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia and Australia, including former presidents, a former president of the World Bank, corporate leaders, philanthropists, and experts from top universities, think tanks, and foundations.

Ken Hersh, CEO of NGP Energy Capital Management, a $9.5 billion natural resources investment firm based in Irving, Texas, pledged a $10M donation to Global Adaptation Institute based in Washington and launching later this year….

José María Aznar López (born February 25, 1953, in Madrid, Spain) was Prime Minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004. US Navy photo

A Texas subdivision retains attorneys for flood claims against town

Sara Foley in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times (Texas): Many residents of the flooded Las Colonias subdivision have retained attorneys and put the city on notice that legal action may be coming. The Westside subdivision flooded during torrential rains triggered by Hurricane Karl. Neighborhood residents have pointed to poor city drainage designs, engineering problems and an abandoned improvement project as the reason floodwaters climbed up to 4 feet in some homes.

Two law firms notified the city that they’re representing Las Colonias residents and City Attorney Carlos Valdez said he has heard there may be more. No lawsuits have been filed. Valdez said he hopes to work with neighborhood residents toward a solution without going to court. “If we can talk about it, I think we can sort it all out,” he said.

Attorney Robert Brunkenhoefer sent the city a letter Thursday with a list of 18 neighborhood residents he represents. The letter asked the city to contact him before any city employees or subcontractors contact his clients. Valdez interpreted that to mean that the list of people were rejecting volunteer relief workers, who have been repairing homes free of cost, according to a letter he sent the attorney. Brunkenhoefer responded soon after, saying that they weren’t rejecting help, but that he wanted to be notified if people entered the property so that he could document it and take photographs.

… The area isn’t in the Federal Emergency Management Authority’s flood maps, so houses in the area weren’t required to have flood insurance and many people said they weren’t insured.

An old map of Corpus Christi in 1887

Tropics in decline as natural resources exhausted at alarming rate

Science Daily: New analysis shows populations of tropical species are plummeting and humanity's demands on natural resources are sky-rocketing to 50 per cent more than the earth can sustain, reveals the 2010 edition of WWF's Living Planet Report -- the leading survey of the planet's health.

The biennial report, produced in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network, uses the global Living Planet Index as a measure of the health of almost 8,000 populations of more than 2,500 species. The global Index shows a decrease by 30 per cent since 1970, with the tropics hardest hit showing a 60 per cent decline in less than 40 years.

"There is an alarming rate of biodiversity loss in low-income, often tropical countries while the developed world is living in a false paradise, fuelled by excessive consumption and high carbon emissions," said Jim Leape, Director General of WWF International.

While the report shows some promising recovery by species' populations in temperate areas, thanks in part to greater conservation efforts and improvements in pollution and waste control, tracked populations of freshwater tropical species have fallen by nearly 70 per cent -- greater than any species' decline measured on land or in our oceans.

"Species are the foundation of ecosystems," said Jonathan Baillie, Conservation Programme Director with the Zoological Society of London. "Healthy ecosystems form the basis of all we have -- lose them and we destroy our life support system.”…

That snazzy graphic is fromthe WWF's website, and it links to the publication

Extreme weather sows uncertainty in Ladakh farmers’ lives

Athar Parvaiz in IPS: …Usually, precipitation in Ladakh, which sits on the western part of the Tibetan plateau, does not even reach 20 centimetres in a whole year. Yet on Aug. 6, cloudbursts dumped as much as 250 cm of rain on Ladakh in just one hour, causing landslides and floods that left at least 233 people dead and thousands more homeless.

Says Pintoo Narbo, one of the many Leh residents who are still traumatised by the tragedy: "We have never heard of a disaster of this kind in Ladakh’s history." Still, even before record rainfall doused Ladakh in August, residents of its 241 villages were already wondering about the curious changes in weather and temperature that were wreaking havoc on the way they live.

…"The winters are getting shorter and warmer," says farmer Tashi Namgiyal. "The snowfall… melts quickly." He says the popular ‘Chadar Trek’, which Zanskar natives had done for generations during winter, when the Zanskar River surface would freeze solid, is now possible for a mere two months. Previously, he says, it "used to be from December to March."

"We are now seeing pests even in upper villages while they were earlier found only in villages lying lower," Namgiyal adds, pointing to more consequences of the changing conditions. "We are also witnessing a shift in sowing and harvesting of barley."

…"The damage is very extensive," confirms Robert Folkes, emergency officer of the non-government organisation Save the Children, referring to the effects of the recent floods. "The farmers certainly need… machines and manual labour for clearing the layers of silt from their fields," he says. "They also need help from the local government and the NGOs for repairing the damage caused to the irrigation system as agriculture mainly depends on irrigation in Ladakh."…

A farm in the Lamayuru area in Ladakh, India. Shot by Hamon jp, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Bus deaths push Vietnam flood toll to 59

AFP: The death toll from flooding in Vietnam climbed to 59 on Tuesday after police said 18 passengers whose bus was swept away are presumed dead. Heavy rains that began late last week have washed over three provinces, Nghe An, Quang Binh, and Ha Tinh -- where a state of emergency was declared on Tuesday afternoon.

Police in Ha Tinh said the bus disappeared on Monday in flood waters on the main north-south Highway 1A. Hundreds of soldiers using boats and metal detectors were mobilised to search for the missing passengers, state television reported. "I think they are all dead," Tran Van Long, deputy head of police in Nghi Xuan district, told AFP….

UK crops to face water supply crunch, may relocate

Nigel Hunt in Reuters: Agricultural crops in Britain may need to be moved to new areas as the threat of both drought and flooding rises in the coming decades, a report commissioned by the Royal Agricultural Society of England said on Monday. The report said climate change was expected to produce higher temperatures, drier summers and wetter winters across much of England.

"This is likely to mean reduced river flow and less water available for agriculture," said one of the report's authors, Alison Bailey, of the University of Reading's School of Agriculture, Policy and Development. The report also said there was a clear risk from more frequent extremes of drought and flooding.

"Plant breeders will need to incorporate drought resistance and waterlogging tolerance into new varieties...planners must be flexible in allowing farms to build reservoirs so that they can conserve winter rainfall for summer irrigation," Ian Smith, Agri-Science Director of RASE said in a statement. \

…The report's recommendations included better use of excess winter rainfall through capture and storage and investment in hedges, ditches and ponds to reduce flood risk….

Crewgarth Farm in the UK, shot by Charles Rispin, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license