How to ensure climate change finance is well spent

Neil Bird and Jonathan Glennie in the PovertyMatters blog in the Guardian (UK): Most commentators agree that the additional funding developing countries need to respond to climate change will require a major flow of finance from richer countries to poorer ones. The 2010 World Development Report estimated that the overall incremental cost of mitigation and adaptation in poor countries will be between $170bn and $275bn per year by 2030. The sourcing and spending of such a large amount of money represents an extraordinary challenge for the global development finance system.

Climate finance, which is meant to pay for climate mitigation and adaptation in poor countries, is set to reach $100bn a year, according to the promises of rich countries. As with traditional forms of aid, quality will be as important as quantity, if not more so.

We have written a paper suggesting some ways to judge the quality of climate finance spending. We argue that the results of climate spending should be judged according to three criteria. First, how well actions that are funded lead to the desired result, in this case the mitigation of carbon emissions and the strengthening of adaptive capacity to climate change. Second, how such results can be achieved with the least amount of waste, or at the least cost. And third, the impact of such actions, in particular whether they meet the needs of the most vulnerable people.

While there are similarities between aid and climate finance, there are also important differences, which is why the Paris Principles on aid effectiveness, agreed by the major donors and recipient countries in 2005, are insufficient….

Perry asks federal aid for 'mean' Texas wildfires

Environment News Service: Months of extreme drought have sparked wildfires across the state of Texas that have taken four lives, engulfed 3.6 million acres and destroyed more than 1,000 homes. Local and state firefighters have responded to more than 20,900 fires this season, one of the most devastating in Texas history, stretching their resources to the limit.

Spreading fast in hot, dry conditions, the worst fire is located in Bastrop County, about 30 miles southeast of Austin, the state capital. The Bastrop County Complex started on Sunday afternoon in the Lost Pines area just northeast of Bastrop. The blaze has now killed at least two people, bringing the death toll from the current crop of wildfires to at least four.

Uncontained, its cause under investigation, the Bastrop fire continues to rage rapidly south and east. Some 5,300 residents in numerous subdivisions and a local hospital have been evacuated. Nearly 600 homes have been destroyed.

…On September 4, the Federal Emergency Management Agency regional administrator approved a Fire Management Assistance Grant request from the state of Texas for the Bastrop Fire. Heavy airtankers and single-engine airtankers are assisting efforts to control this fire.

…Perry, a Tea Party favorite who is campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination, cut short a campaign visit to South Carolina to return to Austin to deal with the fires. Well known for criticizing federal government spending, Perry has since April been seeking federal assistance to pay for wildfire relief and preparedness….

On September 5, 2011, a wall of smoke from the Bastrop County Complex fire looms over Texas State Highway 71, at the intersection of Old Bastrop Road and Tucker Hill Lane. Shot by Jon Lebkowsky, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

CERES continues legacy of cloud study on a crucial climate monitoring satellite program

From NASA: In October when NASA launches its next-generation Earth-observing satellite, NPP (NPOESS Preparatory Project), one of the passengers aboard will be the latest in a series of instruments that has studied the Earth's climate for nearly 30 years. The first Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument launched in 1997. Before that, the job was done by the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) beginning in 1984.

For 27 years without a break, the instruments collectively have returned a vast amount of data about the solar energy reflected and absorbed by Earth, the heat the planet emits, and the role of clouds in that process. "Like wine, CERES gets better with time," said Norman Loeb, CERES principal investigator at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

Amassing a long record of data is important because CERES monitors minute changes in the Earth's energy budget - the balance between incoming and outgoing energy - that can lead to serious longer-term consequences, such as polar ice melting and rising sea levels, said Loeb.

Scientists are studying the planetary energy balance that results from these interactions primarily because the Earth's atmosphere is influenced by the buildup of human-released carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. "Clouds both reflect sunlight and block energy from radiating to space," Loeb said. "Which of these two dominates depends upon the properties of clouds, such as their amount, thickness and height."…

This image from NASA's Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) sensor on the Terra satellite show reflected solar radiation. Dark blue in the Arctic regions of the right image show the lack of reflected radiation. Greens, yellows, and whites indicate higher levels of reflected radiation in higher latitudes. Credit: NASA/T. Wong, CERES Science Team

Water scarcity overtakes global warming as top environmental concern

Carys Matthews in edie.net: Water pollution and water supply issues have overtaken global warming as a top environmental concern, according to a new report.

Data gathered by global information and measurement provider Nielsen as part of its 2011 Global Online Environment & Sustainability survey, revealed that worldwide concern for global warming had slipped in priority with global consumers from 72% in 2007 to 66% in 2009. In contrast, issues such as water and air pollution have been rated as a higher priority with three out of four global consumers rating them as top concerns at 75% and 77% respectively.

The survey, which polled more than 25,000 respondents in 51 countries throughout Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and North America between 23 March and 12 April 2011, also discovered the fastest growing worldwide concern was over water shortages at 75%, the use of pesticides% and packaging waste both at 73%, a rise of around 15% on the 2007 figures.

According to the findings, the top environmental concerns among Asia Pacific consumers included water shortages and air pollution, while water pollution was the main concern for Latin American, Middle East and Africans, Europe and North America.

In addition, American consumers showed the largest decline in concern about climate change and global warming, with just 48% of American respondents saying that they were concerned about the issue, compared to around 62% in 2007. In contrast, 90% of Latin American and 80% of Middle Eastern and African respondents said they were concerned about the issue of global warming, compared to around 68% of European respondents….

Parched earth in the Dead Vlei in Namibia, shot by MarkDhawn, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Floods highlight the disaster-preparedness needs of Laos

IRIN: Heavy flooding during the northern summer, affecting 10 of the country's 17 provinces, has underlined the need for stronger disaster-management efforts, say experts. Tropical storm Haima struck central and northern Laos on 24 June, with Nock-Ten hitting central and southern areas on 30 and 31 July.

More than 300,000 people were affected and 26 died in the two storms, which resulted in more than US$100 million in damages, the government's National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) reported. More than 37,000 hectares of rice fields were damaged at a time when farmers were planting for the new season. This will affect harvests this year, with aid workers warning of long-term food distribution needs.

"When the emergency struck, they [local communities] quickly mobilized, organized themselves and divided the roles and responsibilities to respond. However, this could have been much better had they been better prepared and planned beforehand," Ghulam Sherani, a programme specialist in disaster risk management for the UN Development Programme (UNDP), told IRIN.

Sherani believes that lives, livestock and food stocks could have been saved had an improved early warning system been in place, noting that unlike earthquakes, where and when cyclones and typhoons strike is predictable.

"If we can translate that information to an understandable language for local communities then this will make a big difference," he said.

"We must strengthen the institutions related to disaster management and make sure that early warning is a priority and reaches the communities," Thanongdeth Insisiengmay, senior project manager for the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), added….

Nepali women sow a secure future

Sudeshna Sarkar in IPS: Learning a lesson from crop failures attributed to climate change, Nepal’s women farmers are discarding imported hybrid seeds and husbanding hardier local varieties in cooperative seed banks."I had a crop failure two years ago," says Shobha Devkota, 32, from Jibjibe village in Rasuwa, a hilly district in central Nepal which is part of the Langtang National Park, a protected area encompassing two more districts, Nuwakot and Sindhupalchowk.

"The maize was attacked by pests, the paddy had no grain and the soil grew hard. I had a tough time trying to feed my three daughters and sending them to school."Since her marriage 17 years ago, Shobha had been sharing farming chores with her husband Ram Krishna. However, when he left for Dubai four years ago to work as a security guard, farming became her responsibility entirely.

Though she has never been to school and can only scrawl her name, Shobha and other women in the village who share similar backgrounds, are keenly aware of changing climate and its adverse impact on livelihoods. "Daytime temperatures are rising, rainfall has become erratic and there are frequent landslides and hailstorms," she says….

Taken from Swayabonath, the Monkey Temple, in Kathmandu, shot by Bengtern, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Katia ramps up power, but seen missing US east coast

Pascal Fletcher in Reuters: Hurricane Katia powered up to a major Category 4 storm on Monday, but was expected to veer away from the U.S. East Coast later this week, avoiding a direct hit on a seaboard already battered by Hurricane Irene. The U.S. National Hurricane Center warned, however, that U.S. East Coast beaches should still watch out in the coming week for large swells generated by Katia that could cause life-threatening coastal surf and rip currents.

By late Monday evening, Katia's winds had strengthened to 135 miles per hour, making it a Category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale as it tracked northwestward on a path over the ocean between Bermuda and the Caribbean, the Miami-based center said. The storm was moving toward the northwest at about 10 mph and the hurricane center said it was expected to continue in this general direction through Wednesday.

The center said some fluctuations in strength were possible during the next 24 hours, followed by a slow weakening. NHC hurricane specialist Robbie Berg told Reuters the greatest threat from Katia for the U.S. eastern seaboard was likely to be the large swells and resulting dangerous coastal surf and currents the storm generated on its path...

Katia was a tropical storm gathering energy over the Atlantic Ocean when one of the Expedition 28 crew took this photo on Aug. 31, 2011, from aboard the International Space Station. The picture, taken with a 12-mm focal length, was captured at 14:09:01 GMT. Later in the day Katia was upgraded to hurricane status. Two Russian spacecraft -- a Progress and a Soyuz --can be seen parked at the orbital outpost on the left side of the frame. From NASA

Depression Lee weakens over US South

Terra Daily via AFP: The remnants of Lee meandered up the Mississippi River valley Monday, bringing rain and tornado warnings as it weakened to a tropical depression, forecasters said. The slow-moving storm is now expected to continue to draw moisture from the Gulf as it gradually drifts north to drench the Appalachian mountains and Tennessee River valley.

The National Weather Service meanwhile on Monday issued tornado warnings across the deep South. With some areas forecast to receive up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) of rain over the Labor Day holiday weekend, officials warned residents of coastal states as well as landlocked Kentucky and Tennessee to prepare themselves for extensive flooding.

"A lot of it has been flash flooding where the water's rising quite quickly," said Corey Pieper, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "Roadways is where it gets really dangerous because people think they can make it across," he told AFP.

Too often, the floodwaters are hiding the fact that the road has been washed out, he said. And even if it's still there, the flood can be far more powerful than most people expect....

Tropical Storm Lee's path up to September 4, 2011, in a map by Cyclonebiskit

UK faces 'crippling' fines unless it invests billions in waste facilities

Maxine Perella in edie.net: The UK needs to invest £8bn over the next ten years to finance new waste infrastructure if it is to avoid crippling landfill taxes and EU fines, according to a parliamentary report released today (September 6). The study Rubbish to resource: Financing new waste infrastructure warns that landfilled waste is "now costing the country" with landfill tax set to rise to £80 a tonne by 2014-15.

With a quarter of household and commercial/industrial waste still projected to end up in landfill, the report says more reprocessing facilities need to be built - and fast.

The study is the result of a seven-month inquiry by the Associate Parliamentary Sustainable Resource Group (APSRG). With the UK resource efficiency sector valued between £50-70bn, the document outlines several key investment opportunities. But it also highlights numerous barriers to such investment, including a reduction in public spending, a fall in bank lending and inherent waste infrastructure project risks....

A photo by Sebastian Ballard, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Bay of Gibraltar is 'disaster waiting to happen'

Sandrine Morel in the Guardian (UK): The rock of Gibraltar rises to the east, its massive limestone cliffs more than 400 metres above sea level. To the west lies the Spanish port of Algeciras and its nature reserve. Between the two is a gulf barely 7km across where about 30 tankers and liners compete for space.

They are moored in the bay waiting. Gibraltar is Europe's top port for refuelling. Located on one side of the strait connecting the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, with more than 110,000 ships passing through every year, it is a very attractive spot, especially since it levies no tax on fuel. Ships filling their tanks here can even dispense with mooring fees. But according to environmental campaigners the outlook is far from idyllic: the Bay of Gibraltar is a disaster waiting to happen.

A few hundred metres off the coast of the British overseas territory, a huge oil tanker, the Jacques Jacob, is pumping thousands of litres of diesel fuel into a pipe, which reaches down its hull, over the water and into the tank of a refuelling freighter. The two vessels, moored in the open sea, are only separated by a buoy that acts as a buffer. But at the slightest mishap, a spill is highly likely.

Day after day, dozens of cargo ships repeat the tricky process of "bunkering"'. On the Spanish side freighters refuel in dock, but Gibraltar does not have enough space for fuel tanks. So at any given time there are three floating filling stations cluttering up the bay. Authorised by the UK authorities, they are forbidden in Spain. "The risk is too great," says Alfonso Marquina, the harbour master at Algeciras-La Linea. Each of the tankers carries up to 100,000 litres of diesel.

...The Algeciras harbour master has registered four spills since the beginning of the year. In January, the fuel tank on a ship that was filling up overflowed, releasing five cubic metres of diesel. In June, 300 litres of coolant leaked into the sea, and of course there are countless spills involving just a few litres...

Gibraltar seen from La Linea, shot by Hans Lohninger, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

A company helps provide disaster risk reduction in Pakistan

A company press release, but still, a pertinent topic from Cision Wire: Mott MacDonald has been appointed by the Department for International Development-funded Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) to provide technical assistance to Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) for a climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction project in Punjab, Pakistan.

In 2010 the Punjab province was affected by catastrophic floods. Since then the PDMA has been managing the post disaster reconstruction programme. As part of this programme ‘model villages’ which include schools, houses, health centres and other community infrastructure to replace those destroyed by the floods are being developed. The Government of Punjab is proposing to develop similar villages in the region, which will be exemplars for reconstruction in other flood-affected communities. These will show how such villages can be better planned, built to higher standards and with improved community infrastructure and facilities.

Mott MacDonald is providing practical planning tools and guidance to improve the climate compatibility of post disaster reconstruction and the model villages. This includes reviewing and reporting on sample model village plans, as well as offering recommendations on how to improve the resilience of spaces and structures to future extreme climate events...

Arctic closing in on 2007 melting record

Rolf Schuttenheim in Bits of Science: It´s September and we have about two weeks to go till the annual Arctic sea ice minimum. As far as we can tell it´s going to be a close call – with a good chance that this year will beat all previous melting records. That would then have to include the melting record of 16 September 2007, when the Arctic sea ice extent plummeted to 4.28 million square kilometers – 39% below average.

In the Far North there have already been silent melting records this year. In line with record-low sea ice during the autumn of 2010 in March 2011 the annual sea ice maximum turned out to be the lowest ever – and also in May, June and July there was less ice in the Arctic Ocean than ever before, including record year 2007.

At the end of July and in early August the melting slowed down somewhat – and the ice extent for August 2011 was larger than for August 2007. However in recent days the ice graph has kept a steady declining course and with just two weeks to go till the expected minimum, 2007 and 2011 are now in a neck and neck race, as the daily updates of the NSIDC show.

Much now will depend on the Arctic weather for the rest of the month, which means we can actually consult weather forecasts to get an idea of what might turn out. Normally we can simply look to the North Atlantic Oscillation index, which describes the air pressure differences between the Arctic and lower latitudes. ‘A negative NAO’ implies high pressure over the Arctic and relatively warm air sinking down from adjacent regions, promoting further ice loss.

NOAA in its ensemble forecast expects the NAO index has for the next two weeks about even chances of turning to a negative phase as it has to turn to a positive phase [although perhaps the latter would be slightly favoured]....

Graphic comparing Arctic sea ice extent year by year from the National Snow and Ice Data Center

More flooding expected as Lee nears Alabama

CBS News: Tropical Storm Lee - downgraded to a tropical depression - has dropped a foot of rain in some places, spreading the risk of flash flooding as it heads north, especially in Louisiana. The storm left 13 inches in New Orleans and 15 inches in the metro areas, and spawned tornadoes in Lilliana.

Jackson, Miss., has gotten more than ten inches of rain. The storm is expected to bring between four and eight inches of rain as it crosses over into Alabama tomorrow. CBS News correspondent Bigad Shaban reporting Monday from Crown Point, La., said while the storm is expected to die down this morning, coastal communities are suffering the effects of storm surge, turning homes into tiny islands.

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser told "The Early Show" that water is still coming over the levee there. "Highway 23 is completely underwater, cut our parish in half," he said. Nungesser said it was not as bad as Hurricane Katrina, but said that with water pounding on the levee for three days, "it was inevitable the levee would be overtopped. " He said about 5,000 people were stranded in South Plaquemine.

While Lee's winds have lost some of their punch, forecasters warn that its slow-moving rain clouds pose a worse flooding threat to inland areas with hills or mountains in the coming days....

Tropical Storm Lee on September 3, 2011, just off the coast of Louisiana

UN declares sixth famine zone in Somalia

Mark Tran in the GlobalDevelopment blog in the Guardian (UK): The UN on Monday declared another region in Somalia to be in famine. Southern Somalia's Bay region is the latest region to be declared a famine zone, bringing to six the areas affected. Around 4 million Somalis – more than half of the population – are now in crisis in the drought-stricken country. The UN says 750,000 people are now at risk of death in the next four months if there is no adequate response, an increase from the July figure of 350,000.

Estimates of deaths in the region so far run into the tens of thousands, with the crisis affecting Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. More than 150,000 refugees have sought aid in the last few months. Somalia has been hit hardest, its problems compounded by civil war and the fact it has not had a functioning government since 1991.

Al-Shabaab Islamist insurgents deny that there is famine in areas under their control and have blocked major western aid agencies from providing urgent food supplies. Apart from a few charities, such as Islamic Relief and the Red Cross, most western agencies are banned by al-Shabaab, making it difficult for the UN's World Food Programme, to reach the most distressed areas. Most of the aid being distributed is going to Somalis who have managed to make it to the capital, Mogadishu, or to refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia....

Months later, Slave Lake’s struggles continue

Josh Wingrove in the Globe and Mail (Toronto): At first, Kevin Parsons was among the lucky ones – his family’s apartment was still standing after a wildfire roared through Slave Lake, [Alberta], in May, leaving hundreds homeless. The wind that blew the fire into town, however, tore up his building’s roof. When Slave Lake was hit again the next month with heavy rain, water flooded their unit.

Their case is indicative of the year Slave Lake has had – one setback after another. Mr. Parsons, his pregnant wife and two children spent two months camping in a tent. “This is what we call home right now,” Mr. Parsons, 34, shrugs as he sits next to his campfire, eating Kraft Dinner one August afternoon. “We go day by day. Some days are better than others.”

Slave Lake still faces a long road on its rebuild. Officials had initially hoped to have temporary housing in place this week, allowing families displaced by fire and flood to settle while kids, such as Mr. Parsons’s five-year-old son Damon, returned to school. Without it, they feared families would leave the community of 7,000 altogether, as 22 families already have....

Main Street in Slave Lake, Alberta, shot by Glenlarson

India may suffer many climate-based disasters

Bharati Chaturvedi in the Hindustan Times: By now, most of us have nearly forgotten Irene, the hurricane that wasn't quite. We shouldn't. Perhaps the hurricane itself is not due to climate change, but data from blogs all over suggests the speed of the winds, the amount of rain and the intensity with which the waves hit were greater because of effects of climate change. When, just seven years ago, the film The Day After Tomorrow, was released, it showed snowfall in Delhi and devastating floods in New York. We laughed at this exaggeration.

But what seemed absurd in the near past is reality today. Perhaps the hurricane itself is not due to climate change, but data from blogs suggests the speed of the winds, the amount of rain and the intensity with which the waves hit are all greater than they would be otherwise.Let’s take this seriously. India is expected to suffer many climate-based disasters. The government must learn from this scare and plan for climate change adaption in the 25% of the country’s most vulnerable areas.

This means plan with communities, make resources available and share all the information transparently. In cities, it includes planning to absorb more migrants and basic living standards for everyone. The current budget was a cop-out as far as climate change goes. Watch out for the next budget, and see how serious the government is this time....

A ship run aground on a beach in Goa, shot by Vikasmta, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Tropical Storm Lee to dump heavy rain across metro Atlanta

Mike Morris in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: A flash flood watch has been posted for north Georgia as forecasters are predicting that the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee could bring the area as much as a half foot of rain.

The flood watch, meaning that conditions may develop that could lead to flooding, is in effect from late Sunday night through Tuesday.

"Widespread rain with embedded thunderstorms is expected to develop over north and central Georgia as Tropical Storm Lee moves northeast from the Louisiana coast and interacts with a cold front drifting southward from the Ohio and Tennessee Valley region," the Weather Service said in a statement issued early Sunday. "This precipitation will likely begin this afternoon and persist through Tuesday."

The Weather Service said that 5 to 7 inches of rain could fall from the northern suburbs of Atlanta northward, with 3 to 5 inches possible as far south as a LaGrange to Eatonton to Washington line, before the rain begins to taper off early Tuesday.

The leading edge of the rain was approaching the southern suburbs late Sunday morning, with heavier rain moving northeastward through southern Alabama...

Storm map from NOAA's website

Vermont's tragic flooding demonstrated the incredible power of water

Matt Sukowski in the Burlington Free Press (Vermont): Maybe the most searing image of the flood tragedy that struck Vermont a week ago was the video of the 140-year-old Lower Bartonsville Covered Bridge in southeastern Vermont washing away. The physical power of the torrent was stunning. The bridge sank, defeated but dignified, into the raging brown water like a captain going down with the ship.

The emotional power was just as striking. In the video, you hear Susan Hammond, the woman shooting the images, crying and swearing as the bridge collapsed. You can’t blame her. Vermont’s worst natural disaster since 1927 felt like a rock-hard sucker punch to the gut. Several days later, Hammond said the whole village of Lower Bartonsville, a section of Rockingham, remained stunned by the loss of the bridge. “It was devastating,” she said.

That Vermont’s usually scenic, tame waterways could rise up and kill people, shove buildings off their foundations, make miles of state highways disappear in a day and upend everyone’s sense of security is testimony to the extreme intensity of the floodwaters.

The volume of water racing down Vermont rivers and brooks boggles the mind. The peak flow along the White River in West Hartford was 100,000 cubic feet per second, said Andy Nash, head meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in South Burlington. That’s 500 times the normal flow of the White River — and equivalent to the normal volume in the Mississippi River at St. Louis.

“The fact it is approaching or maybe exceeding the ’27 flood in certain areas of the state is what startles me more than anything else,” said Barry Cahoon, a river management engineer with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation....

Swept away: the Bartonsville covered bridge in Rockingham, Vermont, shot by Sfoskett, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

An end to the east Africa drought predicted

Judith Akolo in the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation: The IGAD Climate Predictions and Applications Center - ICPAC has predicted the end to the drought ravaging the vast part of the Horn of Africa region. Speaking in Entebbe, Uganda, at the release of the short rains seasonal forecast for the Horn of Africa region, the Director of ICPAC Prof. Laban Ogallo warned that the rains expected to begin this month will not be able to completely reverse the suffering of thousands of people considering it has been a prolonged drought.

"To be able to reverse the current situation, the region would need very heavy and prolonged rainfall to completely recover from the devastating drought," said Prof Ogallo. He added that it is the short rains season which lasts some three to four months preceding yet another dry spell that begins January through to March.

Ogallo however said that if the little rain expected is well utilized, it could alleviate suffering to some extent. He urged governments in the greater Horn of Africa to take advantage of the short rains in order to mitigate the sufferings of communities in Somalia, North Eastern Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia, who have experienced the devastating drought.

The regional consensus climate outlook for the September to December 2011 rainfall season indicates increased likelihood of above normal to near normal rainfall. This condition will be experienced over the eastern parts of Southern Somalia, coastal, eastern and central Kenya as well as northeastern Tanzania....

Ali Hussein camp is one of several large camps for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) on the edge of Burao town, shot by Oxfam East Africa, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Typhoon Talas toll lifts to 17 in Japan

Sydney Morning Herald: Typhoon Talas dumped record rainfall in many areas of Japan, leaving 17 dead and 54 missing as swollen rivers swept away buildings and landslides crushed houses on Sunday. Evacuation orders and advisories have been issued to 460,000 people in western and central Japan as officials warned of flooding and mudslides.

One woman died and seven people were missing after two houses were swept away by a swollen river in Totsukawa village, Nara prefecture on Saturday night. A 73-year-old man was killed by a mudslide in the same village, broadcaster NHK said.

Since Tuesday, more than 1,800 millimetres of rainfall had been dumped in Kamikitayama village, Nara prefecture, which was about two thirds of the area's annual precipitation, NHK said. Rainfall of 50-70 mms per hour was forecast for some areas in the Kinki and Tokai regions on Sunday, the agency said....

Tropical Storm Talas on September 1, 2011, shot by NASA

Women unseen victims of resource wars linked to climate change

Noor Aftab in The News (Pakistan): Experts have indicated that women are more likely to be unseen victims of resource wars and violence directly related to adverse effects of climate change. Bushra Khaliq, general secretary of the Women Workers Helpline, said the phenomenon in years 1999 and 2000 clearly indicated the vulnerability when thousands of poor families had to flee from drought-hit areas of Balochistan where women and children were seen the most suffered sections of society.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, in its report, stated that there is a common perception that it is men who are the farmers . Contrary to this perception, women in Pakistan produce 60-80 per cent of food consumed in the house.

A report of the World Bank also showed that in Pakistan, especially in the mountainous regions, men out-migrate for livelihood opportunities (from 50% to 63% of the households) and it is the women who look after the family s agriculture piece of land along with many other responsibilities.

...Many destructive activities against the environment disproportionately affect them, because most women in Pakistan are dependent on primary natural resources: land, forests, and waters. In case of droughts they are immediately affected, and usually women cannot run away. Men can trek and go looking for greener pastures in other areas and sometimes in other countries...

Women filling water from a reservoir on the way to Mubarak Village in Sindh, Pakistan, shot by Shabbir Siraj, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Tropical Storm Lee gathers strength, pounds Louisiana with rain

Richard Fausset in the Los Angeles Times: Thick sheets of rain from Tropical Storm Lee pounded southern Louisiana on Saturday morning as the storm continued to loiter just offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, gathering strength with sustained winds approaching 60 mph.

The storm is expected to cause extensive flooding in southern Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, with rainfall of 20 inches expected in some areas. The National Weather Service, in a Saturday morning bulletin, said the center of the storm should hit the Louisiana coast in the morning or early afternoon, then move slowly across southern Louisiana on Sunday.

Officials in the region have taken the threat seriously, with states of emergency declared in Louisiana and Mississippi, and voluntary evacuations called for in some low-lying areas. In the New Orleans area, officials posted online a list of streets prone to flooding. They also put swift-water rescue teams on standby, though authorities said they are confident that the levee system will hold, bolstered by a multibillion-dollar upgrade since its catastrophic failure after 2005's Hurricane Katrina.

...A tropical storm warning is in effect for the stretch of the Gulf Coast between the Alabama-Florida border and the Sabine Pass in Texas. A tropical storm watch is in effect from the Alabama-Florida border east to Destin, Fla. Alex Sosnowski, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather.com, wrote Friday that the storm "has the potential to be the next billion-dollar disaster for the U.S., by way of epic flooding."...

This graphic from NOAA's website shows an approximate representation of coastal areas under a hurricane warning (red), hurricane watch (pink), tropical storm warning (blue) and tropical storm watch (yellow). The orange circle indicates the current position of the center of the tropical cyclone. The black line, when selected, and dots show the National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecast track of the center at the times indicated

Famine in Somalia: a man-made crisis

A comment by Unni Karunakara in the Guardian (UK): The emergency unfolding in and around Somalia is being portrayed by many aid organisations and the media in one-dimensional terms, such as "famine in the Horn of Africa" or "worst drought in 60 years". But only blaming natural causes ignores the complex geopolitical realities exacerbating the situation and suggests that the solution lies in merely finding funds and shipping enough food. Glossing over the man-made causes of hunger and starvation in the region and the difficulties in addressing them will not help resolve the crisis.

I have just returned from Kenya and Somalia and what I and my Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) colleagues are seeing indicates a profoundly distressing situation. In Mogadishu, I met a young woman from the southern region of Lower Shebelle who is now living in one of the many makeshift camps appearing all over the city. She left home with her husband and seven children because of a bad harvest and her inability to afford food and water. Somewhere along her trek, she had to leave her husband and three children behind, as they were too weak to complete the five-day walk.

Her story echoes those of thousands of other families in southern and central Somalia who have been ravaged by conflict for years and were tipped over the edge by drought. Malnutrition is chronic in many parts of the Horn of Africa and there needs to be a long-term international effort to ensure nutritious foods reach the people who need them. Today, however, the most urgent needs are concentrated in southern and central Somalia. Even if we do not have a full picture, we know the situation is dire from the large numbers of Somalis arriving in weak condition in the capital, Mogadishu, and at camps across the border in Kenya and Ethiopia.

The failed harvests exacerbated what was already a catastrophe. Somalia is the theatre for a brutal war between the transitional government, backed by western nations and supported by African Union troops, and armed opposition groups, most notably al-Shabaab. It is this war, combined with the internecine rivalries of the various Somali clans, that has kept independent international assistance away from many communities. The Somali people are trapped between various forces trying to weaken their opponents. There is virtually no access to healthcare in vast tracts of land across the country....

A malnourished child in an Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) treatment tent in the Dolo Ado camp, near Ethiopia's border with Somalia. Shot by Cate Turton/Department for International Development, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Global warming threatens food security

Nthambeleni Gabara in AllAfrica.com via BuaNews (Tshwane, South Africa): The food security threat posed by climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the African continent, says Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson. "Africa has the responsibility to feed the world as well as its own African people, but we are faced with enormous climate change constraints such as severe drought, floods dreadful diseases.

"Climate change is a serious threat to the agricultural field in the African continent," Joemat-Pettersson told BuaNews at a breakfast briefing today with African ambassadors to solicit support for the planned meeting on climate-smart agriculture. The objective of the African Ministerial Conference on Climate-smart Agriculture is to share perspective amongst the leadership, explore challenges and grasp new opportunities for agriculture in Africa.

Themed "Climate-Smart Agriculture Africa: A call to Action", the conference is part of the build up to the upcoming 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), scheduled for November and December in Durban.

"As African ministers responsible for agriculture, we want to go to the COP 17 conference with one idea of pushing for climate-smart agriculture. Speaking in one voice on agriculture as African ministers, food security, adaptation and mitigation will be our key focus of the new concept 'climate-smart agriculture' at the COP 17 conference," she said....

A vineyard next to the Orange River in South Africa, shot by Jcwf, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

An extreme and exhausting year for US disasters

Seth Borenstein in the Associated Press: Nature is pummeling the United States this year with extremes. Unprecedented triple-digit heat and devastating drought. Deadly tornadoes leveling towns. Massive rivers overflowing. A billion-dollar blizzard. And now, unusual hurricane-caused flooding in Vermont.

If what's falling from the sky isn't enough, the ground shook in places that normally seem stable: Colorado and the entire East Coast. On Friday, a strong quake triggered brief tsunami warnings in Alaska. Arizona and New Mexico have broken records for wildfires.

Total weather losses top $35 billion, and that's not counting Hurricane Irene, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. There have been more than 700 U.S. disaster and weather deaths, most from the tornado outbreaks this spring. Last year, the world seemed to go wild with natural disasters in the deadliest year in a generation. But 2010 was bad globally, and the United States mostly was spared.

This year, while there have been devastating events elsewhere, such as the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Australia's flooding and a drought in Africa, it's our turn to get smacked. Repeatedly. "I'm hoping for a break. I'm tired of working this hard. This is ridiculous," said Jeff Masters, a meteorologist who runs Weather Underground, a meteorology service that tracks strange and extreme weather. "I'm not used to seeing all these extremes all at once in one year."

The U.S. has had a record 10 weather catastrophes costing more than a billion dollars: five separate tornado outbreaks, two different major river floods in the Upper Midwest and the Mississippi River, drought in the Southwest and a blizzard that crippled the Midwest and Northeast, and Irene...

Aerial views of the Missouri River in the Bismarck-Mandan, North Dakota area June 8, 2011. The photos were taken from a North Dakota National Guard (UH-60) Black Hawk. The upstream Garrison Dam is releasing water into the Missouri River at a flow of 140,000 cubic feet per second (cfs). About 850 North Dakota National Guard members are on duty assisting with flooding operations in the Bismarck-Mandan area. (North Dakota National Guard photo by Maj. Gen. David Sprynczynatyk). US Army Corps of Engineers. They posted the photo on Flickr, but since I'm a taxpayer, I'm just using it

Few insurers planning for climate change

Reuters: Only one in eight insurers has a formal policy in place to manage climate risk, despite rising evidence that environmental changes are exacerbating insurers' disaster losses, according to a coalition of public interest groups.

The coalition, Ceres, looked at 88 filings from six states by insurance companies, using a form developed by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Ceres said it was the first-ever effort to quantify how U.S. insurers manage climate risk in their day-to-day operations. Despite the broad lack of a formal policy, Ceres said insurers generally acknowledge the problem of climate change and the effect it can have on their business.

"Even those insurers with no formal climate policy, no climate risk management structure and a stated belief that the company is not vulnerable to the effects of climate change still name perils that may be affected by climate change 20 percent of the time," Ceres said in its report.

Of the 11 companies with formal climate policies, two -- Prudential Financial (PRU.N) and Genworth Financial (GNW.N) -- are life insurers. The rest are mostly multi-line insurers or reinsurers. Among them are ACE Ltd (ACE.N), AIG's (AIG.N) Chartis unit.

The Ceres report comes as insurers start paying claims for last week's Hurricane Irene, which broke flood records across the U.S. Northeast, and as they look to the Atlantic for the approach of what may become Hurricane Katia....

A voice from Vermont

Stephen Aldrich, the head of bio-era and a friend of this blog, sent us a heartbreaking e-mail: ...There is a semblance of normalcy inside our house…But outside, the destruction is everywhere, immense, and thoroughly transforming… It’s both difficult and dangerous to move around… Many roads and bridges have been disfigured or destroyed…. Houses have collapsed or been swept away… Fields and forests have simply been erased by the water… vanished….down to the bedrock.

Bethel is the nearest town to our house, just 5 miles away. For us, the leisurely drive into Bethel along our own River Road has for years been an incredibly beautiful and restorative tonic, but now whole sections of the road and the landscape have washed away… as if flushed down a toilet… and what’s left of the landscape is ugly and brutal -- as if a great and destructive battle had taken place here… And it’s everywhere you turn…

It took me more than two hours just to get to Bethel and back on what’s left of a treacherous dirt track…

I’ve been trying to comprehend what has happened here, but words fail me…

On one level, an extraordinarily heavy rainfall upon the steep Vermont hillsides gave birth to an explosion of angry serpents bent on destruction….all feeding the mother of angry river serpents which raged out of all control and destroyed Vermont…. And that is really no exaggeration. Vermont is now just a shadow of what it was… and it is one of the greatest tragedies I have witnessed in life…

My sad thought is that people warming our planet means that more and worse is on the way…

Until I can find new photos, this FEMA photo of a 1998 flood in Vermont will have to do

US flood victims still in the dark, stuck in mud

Scott Malone in Reuters: Residents of several Northeast states approached the Labor Day holiday weekend mired in mud and stuck in the dark on Thursday nearly a week after Hurricane Irene swallowed parts of the region with flooding. About 1.1 million homes and businesses on the East Coast were still without electricity after Irene knocked out power to more than 6.7 million customers on its rampage last Saturday and Sunday.

The upcoming long weekend, normally a celebration of the end of summer, will be a wet, stinky mess for hundreds of thousands of homeowners who suffered damage, their cities and towns submerged under floodwaters in states such as New York, New Jersey and Vermont. Hundreds of people were rescued in Paterson, New Jersey, one of several New York City suburbs that were under water while the city itself went relatively unscathed some 20 miles away.

In Vermont, the National Guard airlifted food and water to towns cut off by storm-damaged highways. Upstate New York saw rural mountain resorts flooded, ruining business for the holiday weekend. "Everything smells like sewer because the water got up so high. It stinks so bad," Melody Hawkins, 55, said as she sat on the stoop of her home in Ludlow, one of more than a dozen towns in Vermont -- an inland state normally protected from tropical storms -- to face severe flooding....

At 11:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on August 28, Irene finally became a post-tropical cyclone near the U.S.-Canadian border, the U.S. National Hurricane Center reported. NASA image

Public’s disregard for proper garbage disposal aggravates climate change in the Philippines

Venus H. Sarmiento in the Philippine Information Agency: The public’s disregard for proper garbage disposal and outright pollution of the environment aggravate climate change in the country, says a top aide of President Aquino. Neric Acosta, presidential adviser for environment protection, said the impact of climate change is so much felt now because apart from the greenhouse gases emitted in the air, people continue to throw garbage in the river systems which pollute the environment.

...Acosta said the weather used to be predictable but due to climate change, rains now pour during hot months. Hurricanes, drought and flooding are all manifestations of change in climate, he said. The government, he said, has enacted two laws in the last two years in response to this. The Climate Change Act and the National Disaster and Risk Reduction Management Act where the steps on handlings disasters are laid down.

The Climate Change Commission is also a creation of these laws, he added. Acosta said the environment and climate change cluster is a new addition to the clusters in the Aquino Cabinet because of the government’s recognition of the great impact of climate change considering that the Philippines is in the top five list of countries that are most vulnerable to climate change...

Investment in pastoralists could help combat east Africa food crisis

Mark Tran in globaldevelopment, a blog at the Guardian (UK): Governments need to build a coalition of support for pastoralists to tap their potential for economic development in east Africa, a top US official said on Thursday. Jeff Hill, director for policy at USAid, the US development arm, said underinvestment in pastoralist communities in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya have contributed to the extreme levels of food insecurity in the Horn's dry lands.

"It is not drought, but vulnerability to drought that is eroding food security in these areas," Hill told agricultural experts at a meeting in Nairobi, "and this vulnerability is a result of chronic under-investment. This is particularly true for the livestock-based systems which are and will be a dominant part of the arid and semi-arid lands."

His comments came at a time when the plight of pastoralists has become a key concern in a drought and famine that have left more than 12 million in need of emergency help. Lloyd Le Page, CEO of the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centres (Cgiar), agreed on the importance of livestock in the current crisis. "Livestock provides more food security than growing crops in many arid and semi-arid areas," he told the meeting. "The food crisis in the Horn is essentially a livestock crisis."

The crisis in the Horn has focused the minds of policy makers on the need to improve food security in the region, with a particular focus on small farmers and how to build up their resilience to forestall extreme hunger in the future. The G20 group of leading economies meet later this month in Montpellier, France, to discuss priorities for global food security, following a G20 agriculture summit in Paris in June....

In Ethiopia's Ghibe valley, ILRI-led Tsetse Fly control methods have allowed cattle to flourish in an area previously almost uninhabitable for them. This has encouragd more farming in the area, relieving to a degree population and soil erosion pressures in higher, Tsetse free, elevations. The ILRI control herd waiting for monthly parasitology tests. Shot by ILRI/Stevie Mann, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Aquarius makes first ocean salt measurements

NASA: NASA's Aquarius instrument has successfully completed its commissioning phase and is now "tasting" the saltiness of Earth's ocean surface, making measurements from its perch in near-polar orbit. "This marks the end of the long odyssey to design, build and launch this mission, and the start of a new journey of scientific exploration," said Aquarius Principal Investigator Gary Lagerloef of Earth & Space Research, Seattle. "Scientists from around the world are ready and waiting to study this important new satellite measurement for ocean and climate research."

The Aquarius/SAC-D (Satélite de Aplicaciones Científicas) observatory, a collaboration between NASA and Argentina's space agency, Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), launched from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on June 10 aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket and was placed in its proper initial orbit. Ground controllers at the SAC-D Mission Operations Center in Teófilo Tabanera Space Center in Cordoba, Argentina, then began a complete in-orbit checkout of all SAC-D spacecraft systems.

With all observatory systems confirmed to be healthy, SAC-D spacecraft commissioning activities were completed on July 24. The spacecraft's propulsion system then underwent a series of tests, and preliminary orbit adjustments were performed in preparation for turning on the observatory's eight science instruments.

Aquarius will make NASA's first space observations of the salinity, or concentration of salt, at the ocean surface, a key variable in satellite studies of Earth. Variations in salinity influence the ocean's deep circulation, outline the path freshwater takes around our planet and help drive Earth's climate....

Artist's concept of the Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft, a collaboration between NASA and Argentina's space agency, with participation from Brazil, Canada, France and Italy. Aquarius, the NASA-built primary instrument on the spacecraft, will take NASA's first space-based measurements of ocean surface salinity, a key missing variable in satellite observations of Earth that links ocean circulation, the global balance of freshwater and climate. The mission is scheduled to launch in June. Image credit: NASA

Smart Phones Know When Rivers Rise...with USGS WaterAlert

US Geological Survey: You can receive a text or email from the USGS when waters are rising in rivers and streams near you. The service is called WaterAlert. It allows you to receive notifications about water levels at any of over 7,000 USGS real-time streamgages around the country. There is no cost to users for this notification service.

"USGS WaterAlert provides current river information to people in harm's way," said Bill Werkheiser, USGS associate director for water. "WaterAlert can be used by emergency managers and the general public alike as a first alert for a developing flood."

To sign up go to WaterAlert and select a specific site. Users then select the preferred delivery method (email or text), whether they want hourly or daily notifications about river data, and the specific water levels at which they want to be notified. Users can set the system to alert them when conditions are above a value, below a value, and between or outside a range of values.

From historic flooding on the Mississippi River, to relentless floods in the northern Midwest region, and now to devastating floods in the Northeast caused by Hurricane Irene, many areas of the country have already been impacted by floods in 2011.

WaterAlert also allows users to receive updates about groundwater levels, water temperatures, rainfall and water quality at sites where USGS collects real-time water information....

Smart phone icon by G.Hagedorn, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

CLOUD experiment provides unprecedented insight into cloud formation

University of Leeds News: Research from CERN involving University of Leeds scientists provides news insights into cloud formation in the atmosphere. In a paper published in the journal Nature today, the CLOUD experiment - designed to study the effect of cosmic rays on the formation of atmospheric aerosols under controlled laboratory conditions - reports its first results.

Aerosols are tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere which are thought to be responsible for a large fraction of the seeds that form cloud droplets. Understanding the process of aerosol formation is therefore important for understanding the climate.

The CLOUD results show that trace vapours assumed until now to account for aerosol formation in the lower atmosphere can explain only a tiny fraction of the observed atmospheric aerosol production. The results also show that ionisation from cosmic rays significantly enhances aerosol formation. Precise measurements such as these are important in achieving a quantitative understanding of cloud formation, and will contribute to a better assessment of the effects of clouds in climate models.

"These new results from CLOUD are important because we've made a number of first observations of some very important atmospheric processes," said the experiment's spokesperson, Jasper Kirkby from CERN. "We've found that cosmic rays significantly enhance the formation of aerosol particles in the mid troposphere and above. These aerosols can eventually grow into the seeds for clouds. However, we've found that the vapours previously thought to account for all aerosol formation in the lower atmosphere can only account for a small fraction of the observations - even with the enhancement of cosmic rays."

Co-author Professor Ken Carslaw from the University of Leeds, said: "Twenty years of research has told us that the formation of atmospheric particles is important for Earth's climate. Now the CLOUD experiment has given us a unique insight into how the particles form and will completely change our understanding of what's happening in the atmosphere."...

A roll cloud in Racine, Wisconsin in 2007, shot by Eazydp, Wikimedia Commons

Second giant ice island set to break off Greenland glacier

Ian Johnston at MSNBC.com: New photographs taken of a vast glacier in northern Greenland have revealed the astonishing rate of its breakup, with one scientist saying he was rendered "speechless." In August 2010, part of the Petermann Glacier about four times the size of Manhattan island broke off , prompting a hearing in Congress.

Researcher Alun Hubbard, of the Centre for Glaciology at Aberystwyth University, U.K., told msnbc.com by phone that another section, about twice the size of Manhattan, appeared close to breaking off. In 2009, scientists installed GPS masts on the glacier to track its movement. But when they returned in July this year, they found the ice had been melting so quickly — at an unexpected 16-and-a-half feet in two years — that some of the masts stuck into the glacier were no longer in position.

Hubbard, who has been working with Jason Box, of Ohio State University, and others, said in a statement issued by the Byrd Polar Research Center that scientists were still trying to work out how fast the glacier was moving and the effect on the ice sheet feeding the glacier. But he said he was taken aback by the difference between 2009 and 2011 when he visited the glacier in late July.

"Although I knew what to expect in terms of ice loss from satellite imagery, I was still completely unprepared for the gob-smacking scale of the break-up, which rendered me speechless," he said in the statement. "I'm very familiar with the glacier. It's very hard to sort of envisage something so big not being there ... to come back and basically see an ice shelf has disappeared, which is 20 kilometers across (about 12 miles) ... I was speechless and started laughing because I couldn't sort of believe it," Hubbard added, speaking to msnbc.com...

Natural-colour satellite image of the ice island that calved off the Petermann Glacier in north-western Greenland on August 5, 2010. NASA image

Deadly tropical storm makes landfall in China

Voice of America: Tropical Storm Nanmadol made landfall in southeastern China early Wednesday, striking Fujian province with maximum winds of 72 kilometers an hour. Authorities say there have been no immediate reports of casualties in China despite the death and destruction caused by Nanmadol in Taiwan and the Philippines.

Forecasters expect the storm to linger over the region for the next few days and produce heavy amounts of rain. Authorities canceled some flights and shut down a shipping lane between Taiwan and the mainland in advance of the storm's arrival.

Officials in the Philippines say 22 people were killed by floods and mudslides triggered by the storm, which struck with hurricane-force winds last week...

Irene damages to US more than $10 billion

Terra Daily via AFP: Hurricane Irene caused more than $10 billion in total damages to the United States as it swept across the country's east coast, a leading risk-assessment firm said on Wednesday. "Irene caused significant damage to property," the firm, Eqecat, said in a report. "Eqecat estimates that Irene caused in excess of $10 billion in economic damages in its traverse across the mainland US."

More than 40 million people in the densely populated eastern seaboard of the United States were affected by Irene, with the worst damages due to flooding, said the Oakland, California-based company. Insured losses in the United States were from $1.5 billion to $2.8 billion, with about 60 percent of the losses in the northeastern states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, Eqecat said.

Adding earlier losses in the Caribbean, Eqecat put the total insured losses from Irene at between $1.8 billion to $3.4 billion. Earlier, Standard & Poor's put insurance losses from Irene at around $5 billion. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear...

A downed tree in East River Park in Manhattan's East Village after Hurricane Irene. Shot by David Shankbone, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license