Japan launches IBUKI to monitor greenhouse gases

SpaceRef.com: The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency confirmed that the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite "IBUKI" (GOSAT) is now ready for the initial functional verification operation after shifting its attitude control system to the regular mode. Therefore, the critical phase operation of the IBUKI was completed at 5:15 p.m. on January 24, 2009 (Japan Standard Time, JST.)

The IBUKI was launched at 12:54 p.m. on January 23, 2009 (JST.) …The satellite is currently in good condition.

*1 Critical Operation Phase: the period of preparation for the initial functional verification operation from the launch phase until shifting the attitude control system to the regular operation mode including satellite separation from the launch vehicle and solar array paddle deployment after that

*2 Initial Functional Verification Phase: the period to verify the functions of the satellite itself and its onboard devices including observation sensors….

H-IIA Launch Vehicle Flight 15, launching IBUKI (GOSAT:Greenhouse gases Observing Satellite), shot by Naritama (NARITA Masahiro), Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

Experts: Climate change disasters to hit Arizona hard

Good article by B. Poole in the Tuscon Citizen (Arizona), followed by ignorant, racist outbursts in the comments: As climate change sweeps across the landscape of the Southwest, Arizona will take a hefty hit from what one expert calls "disaster justice." When natural disasters strike - insect invasions, illnesses, floods, hurricanes and droughts among them - they do not strike everyone equally, said Robert Verchick, an environmental law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans.

"All of those things affect different sets of the population," Verchick told a gathering of experts in Tucson for a climate change conference Thursday and Friday.

Though details are fuzzy, scientists expect climate change to bring the Grand Canyon state an increase in disease-carrying insects, funguses, storms that cause flooding and heat that spurs smog. All of those things hit the poor and minorities harder than other groups, he said. "Arizona is disproportionately poor, when you compare it to populations of low-income people in the United States," Verchick said Friday.

…He offered a simple formula to illustrate how disasters strike: Risk = Exposure + Vulnerability. Because we have more vulnerable people, we will suffer more, he said.

…Such issues will force bureaucracies - whether in or out of government - to change their ways. Governments are ill-equipped to deal with climate change for a number of reasons, said Craig Thomas, an associate professor of public affairs at University of Washington. Climate change is marked by uncertainty, and there is disagreement among agencies over the problem and its solutions.

...Environmental policies in the 1950s and 1960s were based on the archaic notion of global equilibrium. Scientists and policymakers are beginning to understand that there is no equilibrium and that the Earth is constantly in flux, Gunderson said.

The Painted Desert in Arizona, shot by Jon Sullivan

UN set to double food aid in 'catastrophic' Kenya

Terra Daily via Agence France-Presse: The United Nations is aiming to double food aid for Kenya to reach at least four million people because of a situation the World Food Programme described Friday as "catastrophic". President Mwai Kibaki declared a "national disaster" in Kenya a week ago, saying 10 million people faced food shortages and launching an appeal for 400 million dollars (312 million euros) in foreign aid.

"We will certainly have to more than double the number of people who are benefitting," Burkard Oberle, the UN food relief agency's representative in Kenya, told journalists in Geneva. "We will have to stretch our assistance from 2.1 million people to anywhere between four and 4.8 million in the worst case scenario. We are seeing at the moment a catastrophic decline in the food security in Kenya," Oberle said.

Kibaki says the food crisis is mainly due to drought but blames last year's post-electoral violence for disrupting the planting season and also points to high inflation and a global surge in food prices. Southeastern and coastal areas of Kenya, which only have one harvest a year, are particularly hard hit, according to the World Food Programme….

The Nairobi River in Kenya. UN photo

Controversial plans to deal with drought in Jordan

Middle East Online: Jordan's plight with drought has been highlighted this year with almost no rain falling on the kingdom, prompting officials to call on citizens to pray for rain on Friday 26 December. Fear is growing that if no rain falls in the coming few days, the agriculture season for vegetables, wheat and barley would be wasted. In the Jordan valley, one of the kingdom's main vegetables suppliers, rain has been scarce and farmers fear for the viability of their crops.

…A ministerial conference for the Mediterranean region was held on 23 December under the auspices of the European Union on the shores of the Dead Sea to discuss means of tackling climate change and its impact on water resources.

Of the 19 countries taking part in the one-day event, Jordan is the poorest in terms of water resources. Jordanian officials presented their case to donors with a call to support the long sought-for Dead Sea/Red Sea canal, that might prove to be the only life line for the 5.6 million population as water resources continue drying.

…However, implementing the Dead Sea/Red Sea canal project could be harder than Jordanians hoped, according to Jordan's former minister of water Hazem al-Nasser. He said political problems among the neighbours might delay the project.

…The canal would cut through the desert bordering Jordan and Israel in Wadi Araba, creating a natural borderline between the two countries, which signed a peace treaty in 1994. According to the plan, a total of 650 million cubic metres would be pumped from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea annually.

The flowing water would also help generate electricity as water is drawn from the Red sea, raised 170 metres above sea level and then released to the Dead Sea at 400 metres below sea level.

A rapid decline in Dead Sea water levels has alarmed environmentalists in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories who fear the biblical site might dry up within 50 years. Experts are at the final stages of a feasibility study funded by the World Bank to determine the environmental impact of the canal, with Egyptian authorities already saying they fear for the corals on the Red Sea if the canal is built.

Satellite image of Jordan by NASA

Urban poverty, climate change and built environment

Huraera Jabeen in the Daily Star (Bangladesh): Bangladesh is considered highly vulnerable climate change and climate variability. Various predictions of sea level rise puts 55% of its population on the threat of inundation. It will affect infrastructures including water systems, housing and settlements, transport networks, utilities, and industry.

….Urban poverty in Bangladesh is evident in all the towns and cities. It is estimated that 43% of urban households live below the poverty line among which 23% are considered extreme poor. Around 35% of the population of six major cities live in slums which cover only 4% of their land area with limited or no access to services. Fighting poverty in urban area requires a multi faceted approach of economic, social, cultural, political as well as physical agenda.

…Designers of built environment can contribute in three areas for improving living environment for the urban poor: in building design; in settlement planning and design as well as in urban planning. Within these three areas they are to work with housing standards, environmental sustainability, economic affordability, structure as well as aesthetics for individual structures.

...Adaptation in built environment will have to emphasize exploring innovative measures affordable for the urban poor. Deriving a 'standard' can be an outcome of an interactive and spontaneous participatory and self mobilizing planning process. Bangladesh has experience on community based disaster management. There are enormous possibilities to explore how the built environment of the urban areas can be designed and improved to include the urban poor in city level development process. These can include how to invest in resilient infrastructure -- improving drainage, adequate disaster-safe housing, increasing access to services such as health, water and sanitation, increased security of tenure for the informal settlements etc….

Rush hour in Dhaka, shot by Soman, Wikimedia Commons, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License

Winters warmer, spring earlier, University of California study finds

Jane Kay in the San Francisco Chronicle: Earth's coldest days of the year are getting warmer, and scientists have seen winter temperatures rising at a much faster pace than summer temperatures. Now UC Berkeley researchers have figured out exactly how much.

Outside of the tropics, summer temperatures have risen 1.7 degrees over the last 50 years compared with winters, which have jumped by 3.2 degrees, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The researchers have also identified a shift in the seasons: The hottest day of the year is occurring nearly two days earlier than it was a half-century ago. "The highest temperature is hotter, and the lowest temperature is also hotter. But you're getting to both temperatures earlier in the year," said lead author Alexander Stine, a graduate student in UC Berkeley's Department of Earth and Planetary Science.

The changes reported in the study might seem small, "but they have huge economic and other societal implications," said climate expert Gretchen Daily, director of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University. "In California, the changes are likely to reduce snowpack and water storage and supply, increase wildfires and lengthen and intensify heat waves," Daily said.

For 100 years, the arrival of spring showed up within the bounds of natural variability. But as global temperatures have risen in the last 50 years, researchers saw the advance of an earlier spring. When looking at temperatures over time, they found that summer tended to remain stable while winter temperatures jump up and down from year to year. "You have to see a lot of winters before you see a slow, steady signal," said Stine….

Black-and-white Ruffed Lemur sunning position itself; taken at the Santa Barbara Zoo by Visionholder, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

Human desperation and environmental catastrophe in Gaza

Environment News Service : Senior United Nations officials today began to assess humanitarian needs in Gaza, getting a first-hand look a the destruction inflicted on the area's 1.5 million residents and their environment during three weeks of Israeli military operations. "The mission was struck by the scale and urgency of the needs of the people of Gaza, and the heavy and multi-faceted impact that this conflict has had on the civilian population," according to a joint statement issued by John Holmes, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and Robert Serry, UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process.

The UN Security Council is calling for the temporary ceasefire in Gaza declared by both sides on January 18 to become a durable truce with guarantees to prevent arms smuggling and to ensure that all border crossings are permanently reopened. But shelling from both sides continues intermittantly, according to local media reports. Israel launched the 22 day offensive on December 27 with the stated aim of ending years of rocket fire from Hamas at southern Israeli towns. The fighting claimed over 1,300 lives in Gaza, 412 of them children, and wounded more than 5,450, 1,855 of them children, as well as causing widespread destruction and suffering.

…The bombing and shelling caused extensive damage to civilian facilities throughout the Gaza Strip, and supplies of basic food and fuel, and the provision of electricity, water and sanitation services remain critical. "We saw a lot of shocking destruction," Holmes said in an interview with UN Radio, describing the scene at several sites in Gaza, including the still-smoldering ruins of the UN compound that was hit last week by Israeli forces….

Map by Lencer, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License

Zurich unveils carbon capture and storage insurance

Environmental Finance: Zurich Financial Services has launched insurance products to cover capturing and storing carbon underground, in a bid to address a major barrier to the uptake of the technology. Many believe that carbon capture and storage (CCS) will be an invaluable weapon in the fight against climate change – and governments around the world are promising billions in subsidies and incentives to develop the technology, particularly to capture carbon from fossil-fuelled power stations. However, industry, government and environmentalists have expressed concerns about the long-term liabilities posed by the technology, which will require carbon to be permanently stored underground.

Zurich has launched two products, “designed to meet the unique insurance needs of CCS projects from design over operational phases through to closure and post-closure events at the geologic storage sites”. The company’s Carbon Capture and Sequestration Liability Insurance to cover liabilities from pollution events, business interruption, control of the well, liabilities relating to the transmission of carbon, and geomechanical liabilities, predominantly during the operational life of the storage facilities.

Its Geologic Sequestration Financial Assurance, however, is designed to run for some decades after the closure of the facility. It includes funding to close the covered well or wells, as well as to monitor the storage of carbon after closure.

A coal mine in Wyoming, US Bureau of Land Management

Sea bed provides information about present climatic change

Innovations Report (Germany): ...Although gases in the atmosphere tell us about this greenhouse effect, oceans have accumulated information for million years which allow us a better understanding of this phenomenon. The past lets us know the present. In this process, which involves a better knowledge of carbon cycle in the sea, David Gallego Torres developed the research work "Acumulación y preservación de materia orgánica en sedimentos marinos: implicaciones en los ciclos del carbono y nutrientes" (Accumulation and preservation of organic matter in marine sediments: implications in the cycles of carbon and nutrients), under the supervision of Professors Francisca Martínez Ruiz and Miguel Ortega Huertas of the University of Granada (Andalusian Institute of Earth Sciences, CEAMA and Department of Mineralogy and Petrology).
"Oceans may act as a drain of carbon, in the way of inorganic carbonates or as organic matter settled in sediments", says Gallego Torres, who did research, among other phenomena, into the accumulation of organic matter in the geological past (Plioceno-Holoceno), in the East of the Mediterranean.

...Doctor David Gallego Torres says that one of the main conclusions of his research is that "climatic fluctuations affect the marine environment in such a way that there may be a carbon taking by organic matter, due to these changes in marine environment’s oceanography, in such a way that the organic matter would remain accumulated again in the earth’s crust of sediments and would remain there for a while"…

The Atlantic Trench, US Geological Survey

Researchers raise concern about fragility of the global grain supply

Planet Earth Online: A major study of the vulnerability of Chinese cropland over the past 40 years has highlighted the growing fragility of the global grain supply. The research, published in the journal Environmental Science and Policy, attributes drought and rapid urbanisation for this mounting exposure.

The UK team, led by Dr Elisabeth Simelton from the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds, used harvest and rainfall data to create an annual 'crop-drought vulnerability index'. An important part of this was an analysis of socio-economic factors that affect China's vulnerability to drought. As expected, the poorer landlocked regions were particularly sensitive to crop failure. What surprised the researchers was the exposure in wealthy coastal areas.

China produces 413 million tonnes of grain a year, or 18% of the world total. The country, which is home to 1.33 billion people, claims it is 95% self-sufficient for staple crops like rice, wheat and corn. But rapid urbanisation, particularly in the south-east and by the coast, means less land is available to grow food, and space in some areas is saved for more profitable crops. The team report this is increasing China's vulnerability to harvest failure.

…Experts predict that if China's recent urbanisation trends continue, and crop failure forces the country to import just 5% more of its grain, this would swallow the entire amount exported by the rest of the world. …'China is a country undergoing a massive transformation, which is having a profound effect on land use,' says lead author Simelton. 'Growing grain is a low-profit exercise, and is increasingly being carried out on low-quality land with high vulnerability to drought.'

I know -- this is the third time I've run this tremendous shot by Jialiang Gao, www.peace-on-earth.org. Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2. It's such an arresting, beautiful image that I couldn't resist.

Much of Antarctica is warming more than previously thought

Science Daily: Scientists studying climate change have long believed that while most of the rest of the globe has been getting steadily warmer, a large part of Antarctica – the East Antarctic Ice Sheet – has actually been getting colder.

But new research shows that for the last 50 years, much of Antarctica has been warming at a rate comparable to the rest of the world. In fact, the warming in West Antarctica is greater than the cooling in East Antarctica, meaning that on average the continent has gotten warmer, said Eric Steig, a University of Washington professor of Earth and space sciences and director of the Quaternary Research Center at the UW.

…For years it was believed that a relatively small area known as the Antarctic Peninsula was getting warmer, but that the rest of the continent – including West Antarctica, the ice sheet most susceptible to potential future collapse – was cooling.…The study found that warming in West Antarctica exceeded one-tenth of a degree Celsius per decade for the last 50 years and more than offset the cooling in East Antarctica.

…"Simple explanations don't capture the complexity of climate," Steig said. "The thing you hear all the time is that Antarctica is cooling and that's not the case. If anything it's the reverse, but it's more complex than that. Antarctica isn't warming at the same rate everywhere, and while some areas have been cooling for a long time the evidence shows the continent as a whole is getting warmer."

A major reason most of Antarctica was thought to be cooling is because of a hole in the Earth's protective ozone layer that appears during the spring months in the Southern Hemisphere's polar region. Steig noted that it is well established that the ozone hole has contributed to cooling in East Antarctica. "However, it seems to have been assumed that the ozone hole was affecting the entire continent when there wasn't any evidence to support that idea, or even any theory to support it," he said.

"In any case, efforts to repair the ozone layer eventually will begin taking effect and the hole could be eliminated by the middle of this century. If that happens, all of Antarctica could begin warming on a par with the rest of the world."

This illustration depicts the warming in West Antarctica during the last 50 years, with the dark red showing the area that has warmed the most. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Washington)

Deaths and economic losses jump in 2008

International Strategy for Disaster Reduction: 2008 saw a marked increase in the number of deaths and economic losses compared to the 2000-2007 yearly average. The Center for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) released disaster figures for 2008 today in Geneva at a joint press conference with the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) Secretariat.

In 2008, 321 disasters killed 235,816 people, affected 211 million others and cost a total of US$181 billion. Asia remained the main affected continent. Nine of the top 10 countries with the highest number of disaster-related deaths were in Asia.

The death toll in 2008 was three times more than the annual average of 66,812 for 2000-2007 and was mainly caused by two major events: Cyclone Nargis which killed 138,366 people in Myanmar and the Sichuan earthquake in China which caused the deaths of 87,476 people.

The number of people affected by disasters in 2008 was below the 2000-2007 annual average of 231 million. Only 42 million people were affected by floods in 2008 compared to 164 million in
2007. Nevertheless, floods remained one of the most frequent disaster events in 2008 along with other weather-related disasters.

"Although fewer disasters occurred in 2008, events seem to have a larger impact on human
settlements. This is especially true in middle income countries such as China which was the largest contributor to economic losses last year. As countries move up the development ladder, their economic vulnerability tends to increase. Ideally, these countries need to invest more in disaster risk reduction measures if they want to better protect development gains,” said Professor Debarati Guha-Sapir, Director of CRED...

Tree deaths have doubled in the western US -- warming may be the cause

US Geological Survey: Tree death rates have more than doubled over the last few decades in old-growth forests of the western United States, and the most probable cause of the worrisome trend is regional warming, according to a U.S. Geological Survey-led (USGS) study published in Science on January 23.

The study found that the increase in dying trees has been pervasive. Tree death rates have increased across a wide variety of forest types, at all elevations, in trees of all sizes, and in pines, firs, hemlocks, and other kinds of trees.
see caption for details

Regardless of the cause, higher tree death rates ultimately could lead to substantial changes in western forests, said Phil van Mantgem, a USGS scientist and co-leader of the research team. Such changes, the team noted, can have cascading effects, such as by changing forest suitability for wildlife species. Additionally, increasing tree mortality rates mean that western forests could become net sources of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, further speeding up the pace of global warming.

… The study's authors ruled out a number of possible sources of the increasing tree deaths, including air pollution, long-term effects of fire suppression, and normal forest dynamics. In contrast, increasing regional temperature was correlated with tree deaths. "Average temperature in the West rose by more than 1° F over the last few decades," said van Mantgem. "While this may not sound like much, it has been enough to reduce winter snowpack, cause earlier snowmelt, and lengthen the summer drought."

…"Tree death rates are like interest on a bank account - the effects compound over time," said Nate Stephenson, also with the U.S. Geological Survey and research team co-leader. "A doubling of death rates eventually could reduce average tree age in a forest by half, thus reducing average tree size."…

Red fir, Sequoia National Park, California. Photo credit: Nate Stephenson, U.S. Geological Survey.

Madagascar cyclones

Climate Change Corp: Another cyclone made landfall on the African island nation of Madagascar Wednesday just a few days after another powerful storm left hundreds homeless

Cyclone Fanele made landfall on Madagascar's west coast Wednesday with winds up to 130 MPH, and reports indicated that the storm was still gaining strength. The storm has left a regional city, Morondava, without running water and electricity, and severe flooding is being reported as well. Local buildings, including schools and churches identified as emergency centers, have been damaged, though the full extent of the damage will not be known for several days.

Earlier this week, a weaker cyclone, Tropical Cyclone Eric, made landfall on Madagascar and left nearly a thousand people homeless. The storm is also being blamed for the death of one person….

Sunset on the avenue of the Baobabs. Grandidier's Baoba (Adansonia grandidieri) in Morondava, Madagascar. Shot by Olivier Lejade, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License

What's the best way to make decisions under uncertainty?

NOAA: The U.S. Climate Change Science Program has issued its final assessment product presenting a summary of methods and strategies to characterize, analyze, and deal with uncertainty as it relates to climate change and its effects. The report is written to serve the needs of climate scientists, experts assessing the likely impacts and consequences of climate change, as well as technical staff supporting policy makers. The report explores the sources and types of uncertainty, the importance of correctly quantifying those issues, the ability to make decisions in an uncertain environment and how to effectively communicate this information to the public.

"While there is considerable uncertainty associated with climate change and its effects, there are good tools and methods available to address and deal with it, and to make decisions today. We routinely make important decisions in our public and private life in the face of comparable or even greater levels of uncertainty," said M. Granger Morgan from Carnegie Mellon University and lead author of the report.

This report is one of the 21 Synthesis and Assessment Products commissioned by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program as part of an interagency effort to integrate federal research on climate change and to facilitate a national understanding of the critical elements of climate change.

The full Climate Change Science Program report, Best Practice Approaches for Characterizing, Communicating and Incorporating Scientific Uncertainty in Climate Decision Making, is available online.

Lucas Cranach, "The Judgement of Paris." That one didn't turn out so well.

Bacterial pathogens and rising temperatures threaten coral health

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: Coral reefs around the world are in serious trouble from pollution, over-fishing, climate change and more. The last thing they need is an infection. But that’s exactly what yellow band disease (YBD) is—a bacterial infection that sickens coral colonies. Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and colleagues have found that YBD seems to be getting worse with global warming and announced that they’ve identified the bacteria responsible for the disease.

Just as a doctor can diagnose a child with chicken pox by the small, round bumps on her skin, you can tell a coral with yellow band disease (YBD) by its own characteristic markings. This affliction etches a swath of pale-yellow or white lesions along the surface of an infected coral colony. The discolored band is a mark of death, indicating where the bacterial infection has killed the coral’s photosynthetic symbionts, called zooxanthellae. The coral host suffers from cellular damage and starves without its major energy source, and usually does not recover.

In a paper published in the November 2008 issue of the Journal of Applied Microbiology (JAM), lead author James Cervino, a guest investigator in the WHOI Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry department, and his colleagues report isolating the bacteria that cause YBD: a group of four new Vibrio species, which combine with existing Vibrio on the coral to attack the zooxanthellae. This is the first demonstration that the same bacterial culprits are to blame for the disease throughout the Caribbean as well as half way around the world in Indonesia.

The broad distribution of the core group of Vibrio also helps explain the expanding incidence of YBD throughout the world’s tropical oceans, Cervino says. The JAM study documents YBD infection in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. According to Cervino, “In the U.S. Virgin Islands, Florida, the Caribbean, YBD is one of the most threatening coral diseases.”

The Vibrio bacteria that cause YBD are part of a family with a reputation for disease. “What we have are coral pathogens that are genetically close to shellfish pathogens,” Cervino says. For example, one of the Vibrio bacteria found in corals also causes infections in prawns, shrimp, and crabs. The bacteria are also distantly related to Vibrio cholera, the pathogen that causes human cholera epidemics. There is no known danger to humans from YBD, however.

A pale yellow or white band across the surface of the coral characterizes yellow band disease. In this image of Fungia corals from the Indo Pacific, the banded areas indicate where bacteria from the genus Vibrio have killed zooxanthellae, the coral's source of energy. With depleted metabolic resources, the coral usually dies. (James Cervino, Pace University)

Limpopo River predicted to reach alert level

AllAfrica.com: The Limpopo river, in the southern Mozambican province of Gaza, is gradually rising and, according to a statement from the National Water Board (DNA), as of Monday it was only 23 centimetres short of flood alert level at the Combumune measuring station.

Since it is continuing to rain in the countries upstream (South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana) it is quite possible that the river will go into flood at Combumune within the next two days, but there is no immediate threat to the two major cities further downstream, Chokwe and Xai-Xai. The DNA also warns of the likelihood of rises in the levels of the Save, Buzi and Licungo rivers.

On the Zambezi, however, levels have dropped. The river has fallen below flood alert level at Marromeu, and is continuing to drop at Caia. The Pungue river, west of Beira, is still in flood, but has stabilized, and no longer threatens to cut off traffic on the Beira-Zimbabwe road.
Relevant Links

The development of a tropical storm in the Mozambique Channel on Sunday caused some alarm. By Monday afternoons, it had been upgraded to a cyclone and given the name "Fanele". Although it was some 400 kilometres from the Mozambican coast, its influence contributed to rainfall in excess of 50 millimetres in 24 hours in Sofala, Zambezia, Nampula and Manica provinces….

'Blueprint for legislative action'

US Climate Action Partnership: On January 15, 2009, the US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) issued the Blueprint for Legislative Action – a detailed framework for legislation to address climate change. The Blueprint represents two years of work by USCAP members building on our January 2007 Call for Action, a groundbreaking report containing principles and recommendations that urged “prompt enactment of national legislation in the United States to slow, stop and reverse the growth of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the shortest time reasonably achievable.”

The Blueprint is a direct response to requests by federal policymakers for a detailed consensus that could help inform legislation. While USCAP is a diverse organization, it does not include all stakeholders and we acknowledge that the Blueprint is not the only possible path forward. However, we believe the integrated package of policies we are recommending provides a pragmatic pathway to achieve aggressive environmental goals in a responsible and economically sustainable manner.
"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level."

…USCAP agrees that the science is sufficiently clear to justify prompt action to protect our environment. Each year of delayed action to control emissions increases the risk of unavoidable consequences that could necessitate even steeper reductions in the future, with potentially greater economic cost and social disruption.

Increasing weather losses: proof of climate change or not?

Lloyd’s: The string of natural catastrophes that wreaked havoc in 2008, costing the global economy $225 billion and leaving insurers with their second costliest year in history, graphically highlights the increasing risks to businesses of extreme weather events. Many companies are now grappling with the consequences of more frequent and more intense extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and rainstorms.

…That the two most expensive years for insurers on record, according to research by Swiss Re, should come during the last four again spurs debate: is climate change already having an effect on our weather?…The fact that out of a total insured catastrophe bill of $50bn—the highest after 2005’s record year—storms account for the lion’s share, costing the industry $39bn, is evidence for some scientists and underwriters that global warming is already at work.

…“Tropical cyclone losses—or any weather-related losses in general—are linked to climate, which is simply defined as the weather averaged over 30 years,” David Bresch, Head of Sustainability and Emerging Risk at Swiss Re, says. For Bresch the rise in insured losses from natural catastrophes since the 1970s is mainly driven by the growth in insured values and the increased exposure in catastrophe-prone regions, such as Florida coastal areas.

“During any such period you will see quite a lot of variability in weather: the first decade you may not have many cyclones, the next decade you may see a lot, while the third phase may see an average number,” he says.

“So 2008’s high activity—and 2009’s forecast for further high activity—compared to the lack of activity in 2006 and 2007 can be explained in terms of climate variability”…. “Climate change is a fact. But in many regions there is not yet enough evidence to attribute local extremes of weather to global warming,” Bresch adds.

Although there is no consensus among insurers and scientists over whether the recent string of natural disasters are a definite signal of climate change, they all agree that climate change will occur and warn businesses to act immediately to protect themselves from an increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters.

Insurance has played an important role in providing protection to firms against the vagaries of the weather. “Insurance, particularly reinsurance, has, in the past, been key in absorbing huge risks that go across national borders. It has helped economies to rebuild themselves quickly after a big catastrophe,” Swiss Re’s Bresch says.

The Lloyd's building in London, shot by Chris Beach from Hadleigh, England, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License

Survey: Scientists agree human-induced global warming is real

EurekAlert: …A group of 3,146 earth scientists surveyed around the world overwhelmingly agree that in the past 200-plus years, mean global temperatures have been rising, and that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures. Peter Doran, University of Illinois at Chicago associate professor of earth and environmental sciences, along with former graduate student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman, conducted the survey late last year. The findings appear today in the publication Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union.

In trying to overcome criticism of earlier attempts to gauge the view of earth scientists on global warming and the human impact factor, Doran and Kendall Zimmerman sought the opinion of the most complete list of earth scientists they could find, contacting more than 10,200 experts around the world listed in the 2007 edition of the American Geological Institute's Directory of Geoscience Departments.

Experts in academia and government research centers were e-mailed invitations to participate in the on-line poll conducted by the website questionpro.com. Only those invited could participate and computer IP addresses of participants were recorded and used to prevent repeat voting. Questions used were reviewed by a polling expert who checked for bias in phrasing, such as suggesting an answer by the way a question was worded. The nine-question survey was short, taking just a few minutes to complete.

Two questions were key: have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures. About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second.

In analyzing responses by sub-groups, Doran found that climatologists who are active in research showed the strongest consensus on the causes of global warming, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role. Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 and 64 percent respectively believing in human involvement. Doran compared their responses to a recent poll showing only 58 percent of the public thinks human activity contributes to global warming.

"The petroleum geologist response is not too surprising, but the meteorologists' is very interesting," he said. "Most members of the public think meteorologists know climate, but most of them actually study very short-term phenomenon."

He was not surprised, however, by the near-unanimous agreement by climatologists.

"They're the ones who study and publish on climate science. So I guess the take-home message is, the more you know about the field of climate science, the more you're likely to believe in global warming and humankind's contribution to it."

This is a picture of Sherlock Holmes

Southern Sudan floods displace tens of thousands

Climate Change Corp: More than 40,000 people have been displaced by severe floods pushing through southern Sudan amid pleas for international help

The flooding is concentrated in the country's southeastern Jonglei state, where the Nile River spilled over its banks and drenched the rural province last week. A local official, Diing Akol, commissioner of the Twic East County, is appealing for help to assist the thousands displaced in the flooding. Also, the floods have ravaged many farms in the area, cutting off a major source of food for locals.

The floods are extremely rare considering that this is southern Sudan's dry season, and heavy rains are almost unheard of this time of year. Juba, Sudan, the nearest major city to the Jonglei province, on average receives only 5 mm of rain during the month of January….

Lake Maleit in South Sudan, shot by NASA

Global bankers slam "expensive and inefficient" CDM

Business Green: The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is not fit for purpose and must be reformed if global emissions reduction targets are to be met, according to senior banking leaders gathered at this week's World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi.

Caio Koch Weser, vice chairman of Deutsche Bank group and a former German minister, led the criticism of the UN-backed carbon trading scheme, which allows businesses and governments in developed countries to invest in emissions reduction schemes in the developing world in return for carbon credits, arguing that the market was proving too inefficient.

"Financing abatement in the developing world is key and the CDM is well established to do that but it is very expensive and inefficient," he said. "One of the key issues at Copenhagen this year will be reforming the CDM into a scaled-up programmatic approach." This means that instead of a single project-by-project approach to gaining UN accreditation, projects are grouped into programmes of work that could be registered at the same time, streamlining the accreditation process and allowing them to issue and sell UN-approved certified emission reduction (CERs) credits far quicker.

…Green groups have argued that the UN is already guilty of granting accreditation to projects that fail to deliver promised emission cuts and fear that any attempts to streamline the accreditation process would make it easier for ineffective projects to issue carbon credits.

But those calling for reform counter that there is an urgent need to increase the scale of the CDM market and this can only be done through an improved accreditation process. So far the scheme has generated about 135 million tonnes of CO2 reduction – a figure experts calculate must rise to four gigatonnes if the world is to aim for a 450ppm concentration of CO2….

The distribution of certified emissions reductions under the Clean Development Mechanism, broken out by country by Masterthomas (no relation)

Insurance expected to rise after stormy 2008 in New Zealand

TVNZ (New Zealand): Insurance can be costly, and it's about to get more expensive as the risk from climate related disasters increases due to global warming. In 2008, five storms cost insurers more than $86 million with July seeing the highest number of storm related claims for a single month ever.

The first event was windstorms and flooding that affected nearly all parts of the North Island, costing $26 million. It was followed three days later by another storm that caused even more damage to areas in the lower South Island and the North Island costing $42 million. Wildlife ark Owlcatraz is only just recovering from the wild weather which hit them, the owner received $15,000 from insurance, but say it cost much more.

…All the bad weather has experts estimating that insurance premiums will rise by 5% - 10% in 2009.

A location in New Zealand used in the Lord of the Rings films, shot by Alientraveller (I think), Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License

African harbor cities at risk from rising sea-levels, say scientists

Environment News Service: Africa's harbour cities of Cape Town, Lagos and Alexandria are under threat from rising sea levels which could displace millions and cause massive economic losses, scientists said Wednesday. Speaking at an international climate change conference in Cape Town, Geoff Brundrit of the Global Ocean Observing System in Africa said even a slight increase in sea levels could wreak havoc on some countries.

"Disaster risk is high when the chance of occurrence of a hazard is high, when the vulnerability to damage from that hazard is high and when the capacity to cope with the consequences of the occurrence is low," he said. Brundrit told AFP that many African countries had "no resilience" to increasingly damaging storms as a result of the changing climate, and were often hit by the next before properly recovering from the last.

…According to Brundrit, "adaptation through protection will be difficult and expensive" across Africa's coast and immediate assessment needs to be done and policies put in place. "If you are really going to take cognisance of sea-level rise, put buffer zones along the coast where you restrict development," he said….

NASA shot of Alexandria, Egypt

New digital map of Africa's depleted soils

Terra Daily: Responding to sub-Saharan Africa's soil health crisis, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) announced an ambitious new effort to produce the first-ever, detailed digital soil map for all 42 countries of the region. This project combines the latest soil science and technology with remote satellite imagery and on-the-ground efforts to analyze thousands of soil samples from remote areas across the continent to help provide solutions for poor farmers, who suffer from chronically low-yielding crops largely because of degraded soils.

Efforts to improve African soils, which are among the most depleted on earth, have been hampered by a lack of up-to-date, comprehensive knowledge about current soil conditions. This information is critical to identify the types and amounts of mineral and organic nutrient sources needed to increase crop yields. The need for action is hard to ignore; according to FAO, one in three people - or 236 million (2007) - in Sub-Saharan Africa are chronically hungry.

The African Soil Information Service, or AfSIS, will respond to that need by making up-to-date assessments of soil properties. Researchers will probe the landscape of sub-Saharan Africa, using a variety of highly accurate digital soil mapping techniques to create detailed soil maps, which will be available on the Internet. Data provided by AfSIS at the regional, national and local levels will help farmers and agricultural experts identify the best options for sustainably improving crop production through better soil management.

Work on AfSIS is supported through a four-year grant of US$18 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). CIAT's Nairobi-based Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility (TSBF) Institute will lead the effort. The new digital soil map will ultimately be developed as part of a global soil mapping initiative, called GlobalSoilMap.net….

Antarctic ice shelf set to collapse due to warming

Alister Doyle in Reuters: A huge Antarctic ice shelf is on the brink of collapse with just a sliver of ice holding it in place, the latest victim of global warming that is altering maps of the frozen continent. "We've come to the Wilkins Ice Shelf to see its final death throes," David Vaughan, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), told Reuters after the first -- and probably last -- plane landed near the narrowest part of the ice.

The flat-topped shelf has an area of thousands of square kilometers, jutting 20 meters (65 ft) out of the sea off the Antarctic Peninsula. But it is held together only by an ever-thinning 40-km (25-mile) strip of ice that has eroded to an hour-glass shape just 500 meters wide at its narrowest. In 1950, the strip was almost 100 km wide.

"It really could go at any minute," Vaughan said on slushy snow in bright sunshine beside a red Twin Otter plane that landed on skis. He added that the ice bridge could linger weeks or months. The Wilkins once covered 16,000 sq km (6,000 sq miles). It has lost a third of its area but is still about the size of Jamaica or the U.S. state of Connecticut. Once the strip breaks up, the sea is likely to sweep away much of the remaining ice….

This highly detailed image from the Taiwanese Formosat-2 satellite shows the different sizes, shapes, and textures of the ice fragments on March 8, 2008. NASA

Nitrogen fixation in the English Channel, perhaps other shelf seas

National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK): An intriguing discovery made by scientists based at Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, could overturn present thinking about the role of shelf seas such as the English Channel and North Sea in global nitrogen budgets.

Nitrogen is an element essential for life, but in the form of a gas (N2), its value as a nutrient source is restricted to a few microorganisms. In a process called nitrogen fixation, such microbes convert N2 into key nutrient compounds such as ammonia and nitrate, thus providing fuel to marine organisms in otherwise low nutrient environments of the world’s ocean. Nitrogen fixation is also important because it replaces nitrogen lost from ecosystems by denitrification - a bacterial process that converts nitrate into N2 gas which escapes back to the atmosphere. Hence, nitrogen fixation ‘closes’ the global marine nitrogen budget.

Using stable isotopes of nitrogen, the researchers found high levels of nitrogen fixation in the western English Channel, a region characterised by high nutrient concentrations. “Until now, nitrogen fixation in the marine environment was largely thought to be restricted to regions in the ocean with low nutrient concentrations” says Dr Boris Kelly-Gerreyn of the National Oceanography Centre and one of the authors of the work.

This is the first evidence of nitrogen fixation in a shelf sea environment. Areas like the English Channel and North Sea were assumed to be ‘sinks’ of nitrogen from the marine environment, because of removal by denitrification. …If confirmed by more extensive sampling, the finding that nitrogen fixation more or less counteracts denitrification would overturn present thinking about these seas being globally important nitrogen sinks…..

Azobacter vinelandii, an N2 fixing bacterial species found in the English Channel – Photo source: http://ag.arizona.edu/PLP/projects/environment1.html (Dr Christina Kennedy)

Global warming may cut protein in plants

New Zealand Herald: Plants may give us fewer of the nutrients we need to survive if global warming is not controlled, a visiting expert says. Fossil expert Dr Scott Wing, who was in New Zealand to speak at the Greenhouse Earth Symposium at Te Papa last week, said a study suggested ancient plants may have made less protein as CO2 levels rose.

If the theory is correct, insects were left hungrier when plants made less of the protein they needed to live. The phenomenon could affect humans if plants begin cutting protein again. Fossil records show insects began eating more plants about 55 million years ago, when the planet suddenly warmed up.

Dr Wing, who is the curator of fossil plants at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, acknowledged there may have been more insects around to eat the plants. "We don't know this yet, but it could be that the increase in feeding was a response to both the warming and a change in atmosphere itself."….

Botanical drawings of fossil plants (1709) by Johann Jakob Scheuchzer

US may provide aid after waves pummel Marshalls

Agence France-Presse: The United States may provide emergency aid to two former Pacific territories after high waves hit low lying areas of the two atoll nations late last month, officials said. US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials are touring the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia this week assessing damage from the high waves that hit homes and crops and displaced hundreds of people.

Two FEMA inspectors left late Sunday with Marshall Islands Disaster Office authorities on a 14-day trip to assess the damage that prompted both the Marshalls and Micronesian governments to declare a state of emergency last month. "Food crops are a big concern," said Marshall Islands government Chief Secretary Casten Nemra, saying many areas around the country were inundated by salt water.

…Australia and Taiwan have provided assistance to the two countries since the flooding. Bart Deemer, a US Agency for International Development (USAID) official based in the Marshall Islands, said Sunday that US aid would be decided after the inspection by officials. Much of the land in the Marshall Islands is little more than one metre (yard) above sea level….

Sunset over the Pacific seen from Begin Island, Wotto, Marshall Islands, shot by Kepler, Wikimedia Commons

A bunch of 'scientists' claim that 2008 global temperature ties as eighth warmest on record, but what do they know?

NOAA valiantly takes a stand at odds with the denialist jabbering, for all the good it will do: The year 2008 tied with 2001 as the eighth warmest year on record for the Earth, based on the combined average of worldwide land and ocean surface temperatures through December, according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. For December alone, the month also ranked as the eighth warmest globally, for the combined land and ocean surface temperature. The assessment is based on records dating back to 1880.

The analyses in NCDC’s global reports are based on preliminary data, which are subject to revision. Additional quality control is applied to the data when late reports are received several weeks after the end of the month and as increased scientific methods improve NCDC’s processing algorithms.

NCDC’s ranking of 2008 as the eighth warmest year compares to a ranking of ninth warmest based on an analysis by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The NOAA and NASA analyses differ slightly in methodology, but both use data from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center – the federal government's official source for climate data. [Some highlights:]

• The combined global land and ocean surface temperature from January-December was 0.88 degree F (0.49 degree C) above the 20th Century average of 57.0 degrees F (13.9 degrees C). Since 1880, the annual combined global land and ocean surface temperature has increased at a rate of 0.09 degree F (0.05 degree C) per decade. This rate has increased to 0.29 degree F (0.16 degree C) per decade over the past 30 years.
• Separately, the global land surface temperature for 2008, through December, was sixth warmest, with an average temperature 1.46 degrees F (0.81 degree C) above the 20th Century average of 47.3 degrees F (8.5 degrees C).
• Also separately, the global ocean surface temperature for 2008, through December, was 0.67 degree F (0.37 degree C) above the 20th Century average of 60.9 degrees F (16.1 degrees C) and ranked tenth warmest.
  
  The Denial of Saint Peter, c. 1610. A woman points two fingers at Peter while a soldier points a third. Caravaggio tells the story of Peter denying Christ three times with this symbolism. No mention of climate change was recorded.

Less fog explains warming Europe, study says

Michael Kahn in Reuters: Fewer foggy, misty and hazy days help explain why Europe's temperatures have risen so fast over the past 30 years, a finding that could help predict future climate change, researchers said on Sunday. Clearer skies due to changing weather patterns and less air pollution have contributed on average to about 5 to 10 percent of the region's warmer temperatures during this period, said Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

"The temperatures in Europe have been going up twice as fast as climate models had predicted in the past decades. Less fog means more sunshine on the ground and hence higher temperatures," Van Oldenborgh, who worked on the study said in a telephone interview.

…In Europe, however, temperatures have been outpacing climate models and Van Oldenborgh and colleagues wanted to find out why…

Holland, fog, boat, sunset -- shot by DJ from De Lagelanden, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License

As climate change turns up the heat, how can our gardens survive?

With climate calamities threatening on all sides, citizens seek an authoritative voice to explain what’s most important. Such a voice is the Miami Herald: Climate change promises hotter temperatures, heavier downpours and more intense hurricanes -- and changes in our gardens.

Scientists predict that in the near future the southeastern United States will be wetter, but Florida may be drier. That could mean more wildfires and more stress on the water supply even though water restrictions are already in place. We can help our gardens adapt by modifiying the design as well as changing our practices.

We've already seen our warm weather move north. In 2006, the Arbor Day Foundation revisited the U.S. Department of Agriculture's plant hardiness zones, which indicate the lowest temperatures in a given area. While South Florida remains in Zone 10 a and 10 b (lows are 30 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit), Zone 10 has made a substantial northward move (see map), reaching Brevard County from Palm Beach County on the east coast, and Hillsborough/Pinellas counties from Charlotte on the west coast.

With these weather extremes, we must adapt and change our gardens. But how? We can plant more natives, increase our tree canopy for both carbon dioxide absorption and the protection of plants that need extra humidity and moisture. We also may become more selective with exotic plants….

Moonlight Garden, Edison and Ford Winter Estates, Fort Myers, Florida. Shot by Cornellrockey04, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Arctic heats up more than other places: high sea level rise predicted

Science Daily: Temperature change in the Arctic is happening at a greater rate than other places in the Northern Hemisphere, and this is expected to continue in the future. As a result, glacier and ice-sheet melting, sea-ice retreat, coastal erosion and sea level rise can be expected to continue.

A new comprehensive scientific synthesis of past Arctic climates demonstrates for the first time the pervasive nature of Arctic climate amplification. The U.S. Geological Survey led this new assessment, which is a synthesis of published science literature and authored by a team of climate scientists from academia and government. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program commissioned the report, which has contributions from 37 scientists from the United States, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom and Denmark. The new report also makes several conclusions about the Arctic:

• Taken together, the size and speed of the summer sea-ice loss over the last few decades is highly unusual compared to events from previous thousands of years, especially considering that changes in Earth's orbit over this time have made sea-ice melting less, not more, likely.
• Sustained warming of at least a few degrees (more than approximately 4° to 13°F above average 20th century values) is likely to be sufficient to cause the nearly complete, eventual disappearance of the Greenland ice sheet, which would raise sea level by several meters.
• The current rate of human-influenced Arctic warming is comparable to peak natural rates documented by reconstructions of past climates. However, some projections of future human-induced change exceed documented natural variability.
• The past tells us that when thresholds in the climate system are crossed, climate change can be very large and very fast. We cannot rule out that human induced climate change will trigger such events in the future....

Alaska's Range Glacier, shot by Jack French, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License

Caribbean to assess climate change impacts on groundwater

Jamaica Observer: The Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) has secured funding from the UNESCO to begin a regional project to, among other things, assess groundwater vulnerabilities in selected pilot sites in Jamaica's Rio Cobre basin as well as sections of Trinidad.

The announcement was made by the CCCCC's director Dr Kenric Leslie at the New Kingston Offices of the Water and Housing Ministry last Tuesday. The programme, which is being financed through UNESCO's International Hydrological Programme, is expected to cost 250,000 euros (J$26,839,719.11). A special meeting will be held in February to decide a start-up date for the project.

Leslie said that along with identifying groundwater vulnerabilities in sections of the region, the project would look at existing and future impacts of their sustainable use, particularly those related to climate change and human activities.

…Meanwhile, Leslie said climate change, as projected, will exacerbate development challenges and make it harder to achieve sustained millennium development goals and other development objectives. Speaking at the Ministry of Water and Housing last Tuesday, he noted that economic, social and environmental sensitivity to climatic conditions and poverty, driven by low adaptive capacity, compound the region's exposure and amplify its existing challenges. Leslie said it is therefore critical that climate change adaptation measures be put in place in order to assure sustainable development…

Insurance voices on natural catastrophes, the risk management business

A little insurance industry propaganda in the Insurance Journal: Munich Re's Webinar on Thursday - 2008 Natural Catastrophes - presented a detailed analysis of the increasing number of weather related events that concern both primary carriers and reinsurers. It also gave preeminent insurance guru, Dr. Robert P. Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute, a chance to describe the differences - point by point - between the banks and the insurance industry that put the financial crisis in a much needed perspective.

… Hartwig ticked off a number of points as proof that the insurance industry differs greatly from the banks. This means that insurers continue to:
-- Pay claims (whereas 25 banks have gone under)
-- Renew existing policies (banks are reducing and eliminating lines of credit)
-- Write new policies (banks are turning away people who want or need to borrow)
-- Develop new products (banks are scaling back the products they offer)

In short, said Hartwig, "the insurance markets, unlike banking, are operating normally. This includes global reinsurance markets. The basic function of insurance - the orderly transfer of risk from client to insurer - continues uninterrupted."

…Hartwig closed with a warning that the 2009 hurricane season will probably be as bad as 2008 with an above average number of 14 named storms predicted. He also pointed out that both Florida and New York alone have just under $2 trillion of "insured coastal exposure," making future "mega-losses" almost inevitable….

Hurricane Katrina, August 26, 2005. NOAA

Poverty hampers climate change adaptation, says Ethiopian Prime Minister

IRIN: Poverty poses a major obstacle for farmers in Ethiopia to adapt to climate change, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said. "The poor do not have the necessary technology and resources, in terms of money and so on, to be able to change and adapt," Meles told a national climate change conference in Addis Ababa.

"The injustice of the whole issue of global warming and climate change lies in the fact that those who have contributed nothing to its genesis will suffer the most from its consequences because they have the least capacity to adapt to these changes," he said on 15 January. "However unjust it might be we have to adapt or die. We can only succeed to adapt to climate change if we fight poverty effectively and generate the resources needed for the purpose," he said.

…According to a recent study, more than a third of rural Ethiopian households in the Nile River Basin have not made any adjustments to their farming practices in the face of global warming. The study was conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) , the Center for Environmental Economics and Policy in Africa, the Ethiopian Development Research Institute, the Ethiopian Economics Association and the University of Hamburg in Germany.

"In the coming decades, climate change will have a major impact on the availability of water and food, particularly in rural areas of developing countries such as Ethiopia, where agricultural production is the major source of income and employment," Claudia Ringler, IFPRI senior research fellow and project leader, said.

…Ethiopian farmers identified shortages of land as the single biggest constraint to adapting to climate change. This was followed by lack of information and credit as well as lack of labour, inputs, water and poor soils.…According to the government, more than six million Ethiopians require emergency food assistance because of drought and rising food prices….

Ethiopian highlands, shot by by Giustino modified by Andro96 , Wikimedia Commons, under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License