What is El Nino Taimasa?

EurekAlert via the University of Hawaii: During very strong El Niño events, sea level drops abruptly in the tropical western Pacific and tides remain below normal for up to a year in the South Pacific, especially around Samoa. The Samoans call the wet stench of coral die-offs arising from the low sea levels "taimasa" (pronounced [kai' ma'sa]). Studying the climate effects of this particular variation of El Niño and how it may change in the future is a team of scientists at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Two El Niño Taimasa events have occurred in recent history: 1982/83 and 1997/98. El Niño Taimasa differs from other strong El Niño events, such as those in 1986/87 and 2009/10, according to Matthew Widlansky, postdoctoral fellow at the International Pacific Research Center, who spearheaded the study.

"We noticed from tide gauge measurements that toward the end of these very strong El Niño events, when sea levels around Guam quickly returned to normal, that tide gauges near Samoa actually continued to drop," recalls Widlansky.

During such strong El Niño, moreover, the summer rain band over Samoa, called the South Pacific Convergence Zone, collapses toward the equator. These shifts in rainfall cause droughts south of Samoa and sometimes trigger more tropical cyclones to the east near Tahiti.

Using statistical procedures to tease apart the causes of the sea-level seesaw between the North and South Pacific, the scientists found that it is associated with the well-known southward shift of weak trade winds during the termination of El Niño, which in turn is associated with the development of the summer rain band.

Looking into the future with the help of computer climate models, the scientists are now studying how El Niño Taimasa will change with further warming of the planet. Their analyses show, moreover, that sea-level drops could be predictable seasons ahead, which may help island communities prepare for the next El Niño Taimasa...

This shows flat-top Porites coral on a shallow reef near American Samoa. Coral heads are fully submerged under normal conditions. During El Niño Taimasa, tops of large flat coral on the reef are exposed to air at low tide. Credit: Image courtesy of the National Park of American Samoa

Unstable Atlantic deep ocean circulation under future climate conditions

AlphaGalileo via University of Bergen: A new study looking at past climate change, asks if these changes in the future will be spasmodic and abrupt rather than a more gradual increase in the temperature.

Today, deep waters formed in the northern North Atlantic fill approximately half of the deep ocean globally. In the process, this impacts on the circum-Atlantic climate, regional sea level, and soak up much of the excess atmospheric carbon dioxide from industrialisation — helping to moderate the effects of global warming. Changes in this circulation mode are considered a potential tipping point in future climate change that could have widespread and long-lasting impacts including on regional sea level, the intensity and pacing of Sahel droughts, and the pattern and rate of ocean acidification and CO2 sequestration.

Until now, this pattern of circulation has been considered relatively stable during warm climate states such as those projected for the end of the century. A new study led by researchers from the Bjerknes Centre of Climate Research at the University of Bergen (UiB) and Uni Research in Norway, suggests that Atlantic deep water formation may be much more fragile than previously realised.

...“Our study demonstrates that deep water formation can be disrupted by the freshening of the regional surface water, which might happen due to enhanced precipitation and glacier melting under future climate change scenarios,” says Yair Rosenthal, a co-author on the paper.

...Many models have actually predicted a slow and gradual decline in North Atlantic circulation over the next century. However, different models offer widely different scenarios for what will happen in the future. While the climate of the last interglacial is not exactly what will be the case in a future greenhouse world, it does share some features, including being fresher and warmer by a few degrees Celsius in the northern Atlantic....

Ocean Circulation Conveyor Belt. The ocean plays a major role in the distribution of the planet's heat through deep sea circulation. This simplified illustration shows this "conveyor belt" circulation which is driven by the difference in heat and salinity. Records of past climate suggest that there is some chance that this circulation could be altered by the changes projected in many climate models.  US federal government image

Extreme weather decides distribution of insects

Christina Troelsen and Johannes Overgaard in a press release from the University of Aarhus (Denmark): As climate change is progressing, the temperature of our planet increases. This is particularly important for the large group of animals that are cold-blooded (ectothermic), including insects. Their body temperature is ultimately determined by the ambient temperature, and the same therefore applies to the speed and efficiency of their vital biological processes.

But is it changes in average temperature or frequency of extreme temperature conditions that have the greatest impact on species distribution? This was the questions that a group of Danish and Australian researchers decided to examine in a number of insect species. ... The results demonstrate that it is especially the extreme temperature events that define the distribution of both tropical and temperate species. Thus climate change affects ectotermic animals primarily because more periods of extreme weather are expected in the future.

The researchers examined 10 fruit fly species of the genus Drosophila adapted to tropical and temperate regions of Australia. First they examined the temperatures for which the species can sustain growth and reproduction, and then they found the boundaries of tolerance for hot and cold temperatures. “This is the first time ever where we have been able to compare the effects of extremes and changes in average conditions in a rigorous manner across a group of species”, mentions Ary Hoffmann.

 Based on this knowledge and knowledge of the present distribution of the 10 species they then examined if distribution was correlated to the temperatures required for growth and reproduction or rather limited by their tolerance to extreme temperature conditions. "The answer was unambiguous: it is the species' tolerance to very cold or hot days that define their present distribution," says Johannes Overgaard.

It is therefore the extreme weather events, such as heat waves or extremely cold conditions, which costs the insects their life, not an increase in average temperature. With this information in hand, the researchers could then model how distributions are expected to change if climate change continues for the next 100 years....

A fruit fly, shot by Sanja565658, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Flooding displaces hundreds in Mozambique

AllAfrica.com via the Mozambique Information Agency : Heavy rains in the central Mozambican province of Zambezia have forced 110 families to leave their homes in the districts of Mocuba and Maganja da Costa, reports the daily newspaper “Noticias”.

According to Maria Luciano, the Zambezia provincial delegate of the country's relief agency, the National Disasters Management Institute (INGC), 80 of those families came from the town of Mocuba. The flood victims are being temporarily housed in premises owned by the publicly owned ports and rail company, CFM.

Luciano said that the other families, from Nante and Maganja da Costa, are being accommodated in a former rice processing factory.

Luciano told “Noticias” that the INGC's focus is on assessing the needs of the displaced families so that help can be provided. Special attention is being given to Maganja da Costa and Namacurra, where it is estimated that nine thousand people are at risk of being hit by flooding, in the valley of the Licungo river. She added that five boats were available for rescue operations.

The INGC has also dispatched a team to Furquia, in Namacurra district, where houses and farms have been flooded....

Winds batter southeastern US after snowstorm, tornadoes blast Midwest

Reuters: A powerful storm that blasted the north central United States with heavy, wet snow and damaging tornadoes pushed onward Friday, threatening more twisters, severe thunderstorms and high winds in the southeastern states, forecasters said.

In central Georgia, trees and power lines were knocked down, and several buildings damaged on Friday morning, but no injuries were reported, a county official said. The damaging winds came "very, very close" to a private school with children inside, Laurens County manager Bryan Rogers said.

The storm, called a panhandle hook for its origin in the panhandles of Oklahoma or Texas and its twisting shape, triggered concerns about damaging winds and possible tornadoes from parts of South Carolina through North Carolina, Virginia, southern Maryland and Delaware, forecasters said.

"There is a pretty extensive line of storms that extends from just west and southwest of Washington D.C. all the way down to the Florida panhandle," said Jeremy Grams, a meteorologist with the Storm Prediction Center.

There were more than three dozen reports on Friday of high winds and damage in southern Georgia, northern Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and eastern Kentucky....

From 2003: Naval Station Norfolk, Va. (Sept. 18, 2003) -- Rain and heavy winds from Hurricane Isabel pound the beach at Naval Station Norfolk, as the storm moves inland. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Michael Pendergrass. (RELEASED)

Peru’s Manu National Park sets new biodiversity record

Robert Sanders at the UC Berkeley News Center: Peru’s treasured Manu National Park is the world’s top biodiversity hotspot for reptiles and amphibians, according to a new survey published last month by biologists from the University of California, Berkeley, Southern Illinois University in Carbondale (SIU-Carbondale) and Illinois Wesleyan University.

The park, which encompasses lowland Amazonian rain forest, high-altitude cloud forest and Andean grassland east of Cuzco, is well known for its huge variety of bird life, which attracts ecotourists from around the globe. More than 1,000 species of birds, about 10 percent of the world’s bird species; more than 1,200 species of butterflies; and now 287 reptiles and amphibians have been recorded in the park.

Postdoc Rudolf von May discusses the reptile and amphibian biodiversity in Peru’s Manu National Park. Video by Phil Ebiner and Roxanne Makasdjian. Photos and video footage by Alessandro Catenazzi, SIU-Carbondale, and Rudolf von May, UC Berkeley.

“For reptiles and amphibians, Manu and its buffer zone now stands out as the most diverse protected area anywhere,” said study coauthor Rudolf von May, a postdoctoral researcher in UC Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

Despite the park’s abundant and diverse animal life, von May said, not all is well in the preserve. The devastating chytrid fungus has caused a decline in the number of frogs there, as it has elsewhere around the world, while deforestation for subsistence living, gold mining and oil and gas drilling are encroaching on the buffer zones around the park.

“All of this is threatening the biodiversity in the park and the native peoples who live in settlements in the park,” von May said. At least four Amazonian tribes and a nomadic group of hunter-gatherers known as Mashco-Piro live within the confines of Manu National Park and its buffer zone....

A new species of stream-living lizard discovered in Manu National Park, Peru, by Alessandro Catenazzi. Catenazzi of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, UC Berkeley postdoc Rudolf von May and taxonomist Edgar Lehr of Illinois Wesleyan University have completed a survey of the park and its buffer zone, uncovering a greater diversity of reptiles and amphibians than any other protected area in the world. Alessandro Catenazzi image.

Google-backed database steps up fight on deforestation

Terra Daily via AFP: Google, environmentalists and governments on Thursday unveiled a state-of-the-art database to track deforestation, hoping to ramp up enforcement of a major culprit behind climate change. The website, www.globalforestwatch.org, will show tree loss around the world in high resolution and with frequent updates. The data -- aimed both at policymakers and companies buying from forest areas -- will be available for free and not require much technical skill to use.

The planet lost some 2.3 million square kilometers (900,000 square miles) of forest from 2000 to 2012, according to data by Google and the University of Maryland, despite what some environmentalists call good-faith efforts by nations such as Indonesia.

"The problem to date hasn't been the lack of goodwill, or even the lack of nice forest regulations and laws written down. It has been, among other things, the lack of ability to really know what's going on," said Andrew Steer, chief executive of the World Resources Institute, a leader in creating the database.

"When the president of Indonesia passed good laws on forests, it was very difficult for him to know what was actually going on in real-time," Steer told reporters ahead of Global Forest Watch's launch Thursday in Washington.

The database will allow anyone to look online and verify the boundaries of protected forests, including buyers of palm oil who want to avoid illicit production, Steer said....

Deforestation in Haiti (left) and the Dominican Republic (right). NASA image

Cities support more native biodiversity than previously thought

Julie Cohen in the Current at the University of California (Santa Barbara): The rapid conversion of natural lands to cement-dominated urban centers is causing great losses in biodiversity. Yet, according to a new study involving 147 cities worldwide, surprisingly high numbers of plant and animal species persist and even flourish in urban environments — to the tune of hundreds of bird species and thousands of plant species in a single city.

Contrary to conventional wisdom that cities are a wasteland for biodiversity, the study found that while a few species — such as pigeons and annual meadow grass — are shared across cities, overall the mix of species in cities reflects the unique biotic heritage of their geographic location. The findings of the study conducted by a working group at UC Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and funded by the National Science Foundation were published today in the Proceedings B, a journal of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences.

“While urbanization has caused cities to lose large numbers of plants and animals, the good news is that cities still retain endemic native species, which opens the door for new policies on regional and global biodiversity conservation,” said lead author and NCEAS working group member Myla F. J. Aronson, a research scientist in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

The study highlights the value of green space in cities, which have become important refuges for native species and migrating wildlife. This phenomenon has been named the Central Park Effect because of the surprisingly large number of species found in New York’s Central Park, a relatively small island of green within a metropolis.

Unlike previous urban biodiversity research, this study looks beyond the local impacts of urbanization and considers overall impacts on global biodiversity. The research team created the largest global dataset to date of two diverse taxa in cities: birds (54 cities) and plants (110 cities)....

A feral pigeon on the Empire State Building. Shot by ZeroOne, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Mauritania fertile ground for Arab donors

IRIN: Drought-prone, chronically hungry Mauritania, with the help of the UN, is reaching out to Arab donors, encouraging them to reach beyond their customary role in development and engage in humanitarian response.

Traditional humanitarian donors are largely members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC). But non-traditional, non-DAC donors’ contributions to humanitarian financing have been increasing in recent years. And with many Western donors cutting budgets amid fears of another recession, the Gulf region has gained influence in aid, especially in countries with large Muslim populations.

In early February, a group of Arab donors visited the food-insecure regions of Brakna and Gorgol, a trip organized by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Gogol and Brakna are severely food insecure. According to the most recent study, from December 2011, acute malnutrition rates surpassed the World Health Organization’s emergency threshold, at 11.7 percent in Gorgol and 12.5 percent in Brakna.

The World Food Programme (WFP), with its partner NGO Au Secours, is targeting 7,000 households across the region with cash transfers of 20,000 ouguiyas per month. It has 120 households on its books in Guosse Village in Brakna.

Chief of Guosse, Sidi Brahim Ould Samba, told IRIN his village, “like so many others, lacks everything… access to water, education and health." Even with ongoing help from the government, WFP, NGOs and other donors, it is never enough to move them much beyond survival, he said...

A valley in Mauritania, shot by c.hug, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license 

Statistics research could build consensus around climate predictions

Science Daily: Vast amounts of data related to climate change are being compiled by research groups all over the world. Data from these many and varied sources results in different climate projections; hence, the need arises to combine information across data sets to arrive at a consensus regarding future climate estimates.

In a paper published last December in the SIAM Journal on Uncertainty Quantification, authors Matthew Heaton, Tamara Greasby, and Stephan Sain propose a statistical hierarchical Bayesian model that consolidates climate change information from observation-based data sets and climate models.

"The vast array of climate data -- from reconstructions of historic temperatures and modern observational temperature measurements to climate model projections of future climate -- seems to agree that global temperatures are changing," says author Matthew Heaton. "Where these data sources disagree, however, is by how much temperatures have changed and are expected to change in the future. Our research seeks to combine many different sources of climate data, in a statistically rigorous way, to determine a consensus on how much temperatures are changing."

Using a hierarchical model, the authors combine information from these various sources to obtain an ensemble estimate of current and future climate along with an associated measure of uncertainty. "Each climate data source provides us with an estimate of how much temperatures are changing. But, each data source also has a degree of uncertainty in its climate projection," says Heaton. "Statistical modeling is a tool to not only get a consensus estimate of temperature change but also an estimate of our uncertainty about this temperature change."

The approach proposed in the paper combines information from observation-based data, general circulation models (GCMs) and regional climate models (RCMs).

…By combining information from multiple observation-based data sets, GCMs and RCMs, the model obtains an estimate and measure of uncertainty for the average temperature, temporal trend, as well as the variability of seasonal average temperatures. The model was used to analyze average summer and winter temperatures for the Pacific Southwest, Prairie and North Atlantic regions (seen in the image above) -- regions that represent three distinct climates. The assumption would be that climate models would behave differently for each of these regions. Data from each region was considered individually so that the model could be fit to each region separately.

"Our understanding of how much temperatures are changing is reflected in all the data available to us," says Heaton. "For example, one data source might suggest that temperatures are increasing by 2 degrees Celsius while another source suggests temperatures are increasing by 4 degrees. So, do we believe a 2-degree increase or a 4-degree increase? The answer is probably 'neither' because combining data sources together suggests that increases would likely be somewhere between 2 and 4 degrees. The point is that that no single data source has all the answers. And, only by combining many different sources of climate data are we really able to quantify how much we think temperatures are changing."…

This map (presented here just as a generic illustration) shows the projected impact of climate change in the 2080s on agricultural productivity across the world. Impacts are measured as a percentage change in agricultural productivity compared to 2003 levels. It is based on work by Cline (2007) (referred to by the European Environment Agency (EEA)

US midwest enjoys break from freezing weather but braces for flooding

The Guardian (UK): Blue skies and temperatures above freezing had giddy Chicago residents basking in the rare sunshine after one of the cruelest winters in recent memory. But there were signs – melting snow, growing puddles – that mother nature was about to unleash new misery on the midwest.

Flooding.

Weeks of subfreezing weather are giving way, at least briefly, to temperatures in the 40s and 50s, putting many midwestern cities on guard for flooding, roof collapses and clogged storm drains. Some areas expected a double whammy: warm, spring-like air combined with heavy rains that could compound the problem and turn the big melt into a muddy, damaging mess.

A whole new layer of snow and sleet was forecast to accumulate early Thursday, particularly across Wisconsin, northern Illinois and parts of Indiana, before temperatures rise and change the precipitation to rain, according to the National Weather Service. The warmer temperatures may be accompanied by fog and strong winds that could reach 50mph.

Landscaping companies’ phones were ringing off the hook Wednesday with calls from homeowners seeking crews to scoop snow piles onto dump trucks and haul them away before basements or streets flooded.

“They’re calling me to say, ‘With this rain coming, where is that water and the snow going to go when it melts?’” said Jodey Schmiedekamp of Countryside Industries in suburban Chicago….

Shoveling snow on Chicago's Belden Avenue in 2011, shot by t3xt (talk), Wikimedia Commons, made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

UN focuses on faltering goals: water, sanitation, energy

Thalif Dean in IPS: When the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reach their deadline in 2015, there will still be a critical setback: millions of people in the developing world without full access to safe drinking water, proper sanitation and electricity in their homes.

Conscious of this shortcoming, the 193-member General Assembly hosted a two-day high-level meeting, which concluded Wednesday, to address three thematic issues: water, sanitation and sustainable energy, specifically in the context of the U.N.’s post-2015 development agenda

But water experts are sceptical whether the targets will be fully met by 2015 unless there is a dramatic acceleration of the current pace, particularly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. A 2012 U.N. report claimed the goal to halve the proportion of people living without access to safe drinking water has been reached – with more than two billion people being the beneficiaries.

Still, there are 327 million sub-Saharan Africans without this crucial service today than in 1990, Girish Menon, director of international programmes at the London-based WaterAid, told IPS. At current rates, he predicted, it will take until at least 2030 for sub-Saharan Africa to meet the MDG water target.

Addressing delegates Tuesday, General Assembly President John Ashe described the magnitude of the problem as great: 783 million people live without clean water, 2.5 billion have no adequate sanitation and 1.4 billion people are without access to electricity, he said….

A toilet in a Munich theater, shot by Usien, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license

Stepping up the fight against drug-resistant malaria in southeast Asia

IRIN: Efforts are being scaled up to stem a further spread of drug-resistant malaria in Southeast Asia.

“The emergence of resistance… threatens worldwide malaria control and treatment since there is no alternative to this drug if its efficacy decreases further and the resistance spreads outside the region,” wrote the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which is providing some US$150 million for malaria prevention and elimination programmes in the Greater Mekong sub-region within the next two years.

The region includes southern China, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar.

In 2008, artemisinin-resistant malaria was first discovered in Cambodia’s Pailin Province along the Thai border, which immediately alarmed health experts.

About 60 years earlier, malaria strains had also developed resistance against chloroquine, then the most common drug to treat malaria. A spread of resistance could not be stopped, and several years later, chloroquine was deemed useless globally…

CDC image of plasmodium falciparum

'Mosaic’ landscapes seen to reduce fire risk in Peruvian Amazon

Barbara Fraser in Forests News: Ricardo Vásquez Sánchez glances up at the dry thatched roof on the wood-framed platform that is his home in Peru’s sweltering Amazon lowlands. “If a spark lands there, it’ll go up in flames,” he says.

It is a very real danger, especially in the driest months of the year — June through September, when his neighbors set fire to fields and pastures. A rogue gust of wind could whip the fire toward his home, burning through his cacao bushes and fruit trees, forcing him to flee with his wife and whatever possessions they can carry.

“Fire is one of the most important hazards limiting development, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and to sustain food and environmental security,” said Miguel Pinedo-Vásquez, a senior scientist with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) who studies the causes and consequences of fires near Pucallpa, a Peruvian city of more than 200,000 people situated on the banks of the Ucayali River, a major tributary of the Amazon River.

As climate change increases the likelihood of drought, farmers can reduce risk by transforming the landscape into mosaics made up of both fields and forests, Pinedo-Vásquez said. “The risks will increase as we face climate change, demographic shifts and changes in land use,” he said. “The shift to more large-scale industrial palm plantations is reducing highly diverse farming systems that incorporate forests as well as agriculture.”

….“We have to understand fire not just as a practice that damages the environment, but as the cheapest and practical tool for making agriculture fields, controlling pests and for managing pastureland,” he said….

Generic fire image, US Fish and Wildlife Service

Fertilization destabilizes global grassland ecosystems

University of Minnesota News: A new study led by University of Minnesota researchers demonstrates that fertilization of natural grasslands -- either intentionally or unintentionally as a side effect of global farming and industry -- is having a destabilizing effect on global grassland ecosystems. Using a network of natural grassland research sites around the world called the Nutrient Network, the study represents the first time such a large experiment has been conducted using naturally occurring sites.

Led by Yann Hautier, a Marie Curie Fellow associated with both the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at the University of Minnesota and the Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zurich, the research team included U of M associate professors Eric Seabloom and Elizabeth Borer, and research scientist Eric Lind, along with scientists from institutions around the world including Andy Hector at Oxford University's Department of Plant Sciences. The findings were published on February 16 in the journal Nature.

The researchers found that plant diversity in natural ecosystems creates more stable ecosystems over time because of less synchronized growth of plants. "This is sometimes called the portfolio effect," says Seabloom. "If you have money in two investments and they’re both stocks, they’re going to track each other, but if one is a stock and one is a bond, they’re going to respond differently to the overall economy and are more likely to balance each other."

The researchers collected plants from each of the sites, then sorted, dried, and weighed them to monitor the number of species of plants and total amount of plants, or "biomass," grown over time. They used this information to quantify species diversity and ecosystem stability. Says Hautier: "It was really striking to see the relationship between diversity and stability" and the similarities to data collected from artificial grasslands as part of a research effort called BioDepth, indicating that the results from natural grasslands of the Nutrient Network could be predicted from the results of artificial grasslands.

"The results of our study emphasize that we need to consider not just how productive ecosystems are but also how stable they are in the long-term, and how biodiversity is related to both aspects of ecosystem functioning," says Andy Hector....

Short-grass prairie along the front range of the Rockies, south-central Colorado, as seen from Interstate 25. Shot by Nicholas A. Tonelli fr, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr,  under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license 

NASA data find some hope for water in Aral Sea basin

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: A new study using data from NASA satellite missions finds that, although the long-term water picture for the Aral Sea watershed in Central Asia remains bleak, short-term prospects are better than previously thought.

Once the fourth largest inland sea in the world, the Aral Sea has lost 90 percent of its water volume over the last 50 years. Its watershed -- the enormous closed basin around the sea -- encompasses Uzbekistan and parts of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Graduate student Kirk Zmijewski and assistant professor Richard Becker of the University of Toledo, Ohio, wanted to find out whether all of the water was gone for good, or whether some of it might have ended up elsewhere in the watershed, behind dams or in aquifers. They also wanted to gauge whether decreasing rainfall has contributed to the catastrophic water loss.

The researchers used data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites to map monthly changes in mass within the watershed from 2003 to 2012. These changes are associated with changes in water volume, both on and below the land surface. They mapped the entire Aral Sea watershed, which is more than twice the size of Texas at 580,000 square miles (1.5 million square kilometers).

Zmijewski and Becker found that each year throughout the decade, the watershed lost an average of 2.9 to 3.4 cubic miles (12 to 14 cubic kilometers) of water, or the equivalent of one Lake Mead per year. That's a sobering rate of loss, but it's only about half as much as the rate at which the Aral Sea itself is losing water (5.8 cubic miles or 24 cubic kilometers). "That means that roughly half the water lost from the Aral Sea has entirely left the watershed, by evaporation or agricultural uses, but half is upstream within the watershed," said Becker.

Specifically, more water is now in the central part of the watershed, where almost all of the region's farming takes place. That area increased in mass during the last four years of the study. The researchers believe that some of the increase comes from improvements in water conservation practices, though some was simply the result of inefficient irrigation, for example, water seeping out of unlined ditches into aquifers....

A stranded ship in the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan, shot by Staecker, public domain 

Extreme weather images in the media cause fear and disengagement with climate change

AlphaGalileo via Taylor & Francis: The paper ‘ Images of Extreme Weather: Symbolising Human Responses to Climate Change’, by Brigitte Nerlich & Rusi Jaspal, published in Science as Culture, reveals that extreme weather images represent human suffering and loss. They are iconic of climate change and are symbols of its natural impacts.

Reporting on extreme weather has increased over the last few years. In the past social scientists, and media and communication analysts have studied how climate change is depicted in the text of media and social media. While researchers have become increasingly interested in climate change images, they have not yet studied them with respect to symbolising certain emotions.

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a draft report on extreme weather and climate change adaptation. The report was covered in the news and illustrated with images. Some of these depicted ‘extreme weather’, in particular with relation to floods, droughts and heat waves, hurricanes and ice/sea-level rise.

Researchers studied images published in the news to illustrate their coverage of the IPCC report. They used visual thematic analysis, examining the way they might symbolise certain emotional responses, such as compassion, fear, guilt, vulnerability, helpless, courage or resilience.

...New research has shown that images of extreme weather in the media create negative emotional meanings and might lead to disengagement with the issue of climate change. The images symbolised fear, helplessness and vulnerability and, in some cases, guilt and compassion. Appealing to fear of disaster can lead to denial and paralysis rather than positive behaviour change.

The research confirmed: “There is no indication of victimhood or desperation, but rather a mundane sense of routine. Crucially, these images represent flooding as a distant phenomenon, with which viewers are not invited or necessarily encouraged to identify. For readers in the West such images may not symbolise, or indeed convey, compassion...”....

A 1907 flood in Kofu, Japan 

How global forest-destroyers are turning over a new leaf

Bill Laurance in Terra Daily via the Conversation: Indonesia is the world's biggest destroyer of forests and four multinational corporations - APP, APRIL, Wilmar and Golden Agri Resources - have been responsible for much of it. Until recently these mega-corporations were considered environmental pariahs, but suddenly things seem to be changing, with all four proclaiming "no deforestation" policies. What gives?

APP and APRIL are giant paper-pulp corporations. Collectively, they've cleared several million hectares of native Indonesian rainforest and other lands to grow fast-growing pulpwoods, turning the original rainforest into pulp in the process. Wilmar and Golden Agri Resources are the world's two biggest producers of palm oil - a key driver of forest destruction across the tropics, especially in southeast Asia.

Golden Agri Resources led the way, announcing a no-deforestation policy in 2011. Under growing pressure, its sister company APP (Asia Pulp and Paper) followed suit early last year.

APP's metamorphosis was especially stunning. For years, APP had thumbed its nose at critics while bulldozing ever more forest. This was easy for it to do because APP is largely a privately held corporation and because countries such as China and India - which generally don't fuss too much about the environment - snapped up much of its pulp and paper products.

But gradually, the tide turned against APP. Its critics mounted, its reputation turned increasingly toxic, and it began to lose more and more market share. By this point, it had cleared vast expanses of native forest for plantations, and so had less need for more forest clearing....

The last batch of sawnwood from the peat forest in Indragiri Hulu, Riau Province, Indonesia. Deforestation for oil palm plantation. Shot by Aidenvironment, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Burundi’s avoidable flood deaths

IRIN: Building and planning code violations were largely to blame for the deaths - amid torrential rain earlier this month - of dozens of people in Burundi’s capital, and the destruction there of 3,500 homes, according to a leading urban planning expert who noted that numerous reports had warned of just such an eventuality.

Children accounted for most of the 68 deaths on 10 February in a city that is surrounded by very steep hills. Some 15,000 people have been left homeless and are now staying in five centres around the city where the government and Red Cross are providing food and other essentials.

“Most of the victims had built their homes in the beds of major water courses, whereas construction is forbidden in these locations,” Bernard Sindayihebura, a professor at the University of Bujumbura, told IRIN. Much of the recent construction in the city was haphazard and did not follow regulations, he said.

And while quarry businesses have since 1993 been obliged by law to rehabilitate areas worked, including by planting trees, the professor noted that the once-forested hillsides around the capital are bare, exploited anarchically with no effort made to fill holes dug.

Another problem he noted was that some drains become narrower rather than wider as they descend the steep hillsides and this, coupled with maintenance failures, led to catastrophic overflows into inhabited areas when there was heavy rain....

Common ground fosters climate change understanding

Michigan State University Newsroom: Grasping the concept of climate change and its impact on the environment can be difficult. Establishing common ground and using models, however, can break down barriers and present the concept in an easily understood manner.

In a presentation today during the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Michigan State University systems ecologist and modeler Laura Schmitt-Olabisi shows how system dynamics models effectively communicate the challenges and implications of climate change.

“In order to face the ongoing challenges posed by climate adaptation, there is a need for tools that can foster dialogue across traditional boundaries, such as those between scientists, the general public and decision makers,” Schmitt-Olabisi said. “Using boundary objects, such as maps, diagrams and models, all groups involved can use these objects to have a discussion to create possible solutions.”

Schmitt-Olabisi has vast experience working directly with stakeholders using participatory model-building techniques. She uses a model of a hypothetical heat wave in Detroit to illustrate the implications of climate change.

...“The model challenges some widely held assumptions, such as the belief that opening more cooling centers is the best solution,” Schmitt-Olabisi said. “As it turns out, these centers are useless if people don’t know they should go to them.”

More importantly, the model provides a tool, a language that everyone can understand. It is a positive example of how system dynamics models may be used as boundary objects to adapt to climate change, she added....

Detroit's skyline at night, shot by Shakil Mustafa, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

If you start sulfate geoengineering to mitigate climate change, don't stop. Seriously

Science 2.0: Policy makers are in constant discussion about a range of climate change mitigation possibilities and among the least understood are geoengineering methods. The injection of sulfate particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and curb the effects of global warming could pose a severe threat if not maintained indefinitely and also supported by strict reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, write  University of Washington researchers in Environmental Research Letters.

They highlight the risks of large and spatially expansive temperature increases if solar radiation management (SRM) - whereby tiny sulfate-based aerosols are released into the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight and cool the planet - is abruptly stopped once it has been implemented.

The technique has been shown to be economically and technically feasible; however, its efficacy depends on its continued maintenance, without interruption from technical faults, global cooperation breakdown or funding running dry.  And whether or not it will actually work or do more harm than good.

According to the study, global temperature increases could more than double if SRM is implemented for a multi-decadal period of time and then suddenly stopped, in relation to the temperature increases expected if SRM was not implemented at all.

The researchers used a global climate model to show that if an extreme emissions pathway—RCP8.5—is followed up until 2035, allowing temperatures to rise 1°C above the 1970–1999 mean, and then SRM is implemented for 25 years and suddenly stopped, global temperatures could increase by 4°C in the following decades...

The Chatsworth, Illinois train wreck of 1887, from Harper's Weekly

Burials in UK being delayed as floods create dangerous conditions at graveyards

The Guardian (UK): The flood crisis is causing further anguish for bereaved families as wet ground is making burials impossible in the worst-hit areas. Authorities say there is little they can do about weather-related funeral delays that have been described as "absolutely abnormal". While families face the possibility of extra distress, the floods have created dangerous conditions for gravediggers.

Crematoriums have not been immune from the issue either, with one having to close for about two months due to flooding. The chief executive of the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management, Tim Morris, said it was "absolutely terrible for people". He said: "It's actually all around the major flooded areas."

Morris said there was "very little the burial authorities can do until the water subsides", adding: "You can imagine it's impossible to excavate a grave for a funeral where parts of the cemetery are under 2 feet of water."

Having been involved in burial and cremation for more than 30 years, Morris said he has never known cemeteries to be affected by the weather to this extent. "It's just absolutely abnormal," he said....

An emptied grave in the UK, shot by Stephen Craven, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Climate change triggers disease risk in Tanzania

Kizito Makoye in IPS: Residents in low-lying areas in Tanzania’s largest city, Dar es Salaam, are potentially at risk of contracting waterborne diseases as heavy rains, which started last week, continue to pound the city.

Early this month, the Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA) announced that Dar es Salaam was among the areas in northern and southern Tanzania that would receive above-average rainfall and strong winds in the coming weeks, and urged residents to take precautions.

Tanzania’s eastern Morogoro Region was also affected in January as flash floods displaced over 10,000 people and damaged infrastructure such as roads and houses. In Jangwani and  Kigogo, administrative areas in Dar es Salaam, residents who refused to heed the government’s call to vacate the area are being affected by the current downpour.

...Local residents from Kigogo told IPS that the water had become a serious health hazard because people are emptying their pit latrines into the flooded water, which resulted in human excreta spreading through the area.

...Public health experts have cautioned that residents in disaster-prone areas are potentially vulnerable to epidemic diseases. Dar es Salaam regional commissioner Said Meck Sadick told IPS that waterborne diseases were endemic to the city because some residents did not observe good hygiene....

An aerial view of Dar es Salaam, shot by BBM Explorer, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr,  under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license 

Second Japan snow storm leaves thousands stranded as toll rises to 23

Elaine Lies in Reuters: Snow-choked roads cut off thousands on Tuesday as parts of Japan struggled to dig out from its second storm in a week, with the death toll rising to at least 23.

Train services were suspended in some areas after the Valentine's Day storm dumped more than a meter of snow in parts of central Japan and blanketed the capital with record snow for the second weekend in a row, snarling airline traffic and slowing production at some Japanese automakers.

The freak storm dumped more than 1.1 meters of snow in Yamanashi prefecture in central Japan, the most in more than a century of record-keeping, and lesser amounts across a wide swathe of the eastern and northeastern parts of the nation. Tokyo was hit by 27 cm (10.6 inches).

By Tuesday, least 23 people had died, including some killed in traffic accidents or by being caught under snow that fell from roofs. Several died in cars stuck in the snow, apparently from carbon monoxide poisoning as they ran their car engines to keep warm.

At the peak of the storm, thousands of households lost power and hundreds of flights were canceled. Train services were disrupted and highways closed, with some of the nation's main arteries jammed with cars, some for days....

Snow on a tree in Japan in 2009, shot by contri, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, nder the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

UK weather: changing jet stream linked to flooding crisis

Tom Revell in Blue and Green Tomorrow: The system of winds that is responsible for bringing weather to Northern Europe and North America may be changing, new research has found. A study suggests that the jet stream, a high-speed air current that carries weather around the globe, is taking a longer, more meandering route than usual. This means that weather patterns will remain the same in some areas for longer periods.

If accurate, these findings could explain the recent stormy spell that has brought devastating flooding to many parts of the UK. “This does seem to suggest that weather patterns are changing and people are noticing that the weather in their area is not what it used to be”, said Prof Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University in the US. “We can expect more of the same and we can expect it to happen more frequently.”

It has been suggested that the jet stream has been affected by the warming of the Arctic region, caused by manmade climate change. Francis said that it was too early to definitively confirm the link, but added, “As we have more data I do think we will start to see the influence of climate change.”

Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, defence secretary Philip Hammond said climate change was “clearly a factor” in the prolonged stormy period. Labour leader Ed Miliband has also partly blamed a lack of government spending in the fight against climate change for the crisis.

“What we’ve learnt from what’s happened over the last few weeks, tragically, is that the costs of not acting on climate change in terms of the billions of pounds that are lost in terms of businesses and families as well as the human costs are greater than the costs of acting”, he said, also speaking on Sunday....

Stormy skies over Poole Harbour in September 2013, shot by Ian Kirk, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Why global water shortages pose threat of terror and war

Suzanne Goldenberg in the Guardian (UK): On 17 January, scientists downloaded fresh data from a pair of Nasa satellites and distributed the findings among the small group of researchers who track the world's water reserves. At the University of California, Irvine, hydrologist James Famiglietti looked over the data from the gravity-sensing Grace satellites with a rising sense of dread.

...There are other shock moments ahead – and not just for California – in a world where water is increasingly in short supply because of growing demands from agriculture, an expanding population, energy production and climate change.

Already a billion people, or one in seven people on the planet, lack access to safe drinking water. Britain, of course, is currently at the other extreme. Great swaths of the country are drowning in misery, after a series of Atlantic storms off the south-western coast. But that too is part of the picture that has been coming into sharper focus over 12 years of the Grace satellite record. Countries at northern latitudes and in the tropics are getting wetter. But those countries at mid-latitude are running increasingly low on water.

"What we see is very much a picture of the wet areas of the Earth getting wetter," Famiglietti said. "Those would be the high latitudes like the Arctic and the lower latitudes like the tropics. The middle latitudes in between, those are already the arid and semi-arid parts of the world and they are getting drier."

On the satellite images the biggest losses were denoted by red hotspots, he said. And those red spots largely matched the locations of groundwater reserves. "Almost all of those red hotspots correspond to major aquifers of the world. What Grace shows us is that groundwater depletion is happening at a very rapid rate in almost all of the major aquifers in the arid and semi-arid parts of the world."

The Middle East, north Africa and south Asia are all projected to experience water shortages over the coming years because of decades of bad management and overuse....

NASA satellite image of agricultural fields in northern Saudi Arabia

Kenya's empty bread basket

Miriam Gathigah in IPS: ...The Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) says that in total at least one quarter of the 41 million people in this East African nation lack sufficient food and 1.7 million are under threat of hunger and starvation.

According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, aside from a few areas, no part of the country is food secure as this season’s harvest of maize – the country’s staple food – was not enough to feed the nation. The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations says the country is short of about 10 million bags of maize and warned that the drought is expected to reach its peak in August.

But agricultural researchers like Professor Mary Abukutsa-Onyango have blamed an over reliance on rain-fed agriculture for the shortage. According to the ministry of agriculture, less than seven percent of cropped land here is under irrigation and the government’s plan to place half a million hectares under irrigation, particularly in arid and semi-arid areas, has not made sufficient progress.

...Limited financing to the agricultural sector has also been blamed for the poor food production. In 2003, Kenya was among the 53 African countries who signed the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme to accelerate growth and reduce mass poverty, food insecurity and hunger in Africa by allocating at least 10 percent of their national budget to agriculture. Oxfam International statistics show that only nine countries have met this threshold....

A USAID photo of a corn crop in Kenya, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, public domain

Philippines vows to build back better 100 days after typhoon

Terra Daily via AFP: The Philippines vowed Sunday to "build back better" 100 days after its deadliest typhoon left thousands dead and millions without homes.

Acknowledging that huge gaps in rehabilitation remained despite progress in humanitarian work, the government urged all Filipinos and donor agencies to keep extending support to those still vulnerable.

"As we mark the 100th day after super typhoon Yolanda (local name of Haiyan), the government is firmly determined to carry out massive rehabilitation efforts in all 171 municipalities and cities affected by this unprecedented calamity," said presidential spokesman Herminio Coloma.

He said the disaster-prone country "must break the cycle of prediction, devastation and rehabilitation by adopting the principle of build back better" following the deadly storm.

Haiyan slammed into the central Visayas region on November 8 last year with winds of up to 315 kilometres (195 miles) an hour, triggering unprecedented destruction that left four million without homes....

Big freeze and storms in the US impose losses up to $40 billion

Peter Morici in UPI: The January freeze and crippling storms gripping the eastern United States and upper Midwest are having significant effects on normal life and commerce. Gauging its ultimate impact on the U.S. economy -- still affected by a nagging hangover from the Great Recession -- is far more complex than merely adding up lost retail and insurance payouts for damage.

The United States braces for cold and storms each winter but this year's conditions are more severe than cities and counties customarily prepare to address. Many commercial structures and homes weren't built for these unanticipated conditions.

The storms these past few weeks in New York would have been manageable for Minneapolis but the Big Apple isn't set up for a Minnesota winter. Nor is Minnesota for arctic conditions. For a few days, many restaurants closed and workers didn't go to their offices. Overall retail sales were adversely affected, as many shoppers couldn't so easily get to the malls. Pipe bursts and similar mechanical breakdowns damaged homes and commercial structures.

Many businesses closed and lost worker productivity, even though many employees will still be paid. Overall ... the freezing temperatures and ice imposed big losses. Initially, lost economic activity and damages will range between $20 billion and $40 billion
.
Still, it is important to recognize, unlike the 1950s when the nation's workers were much more concentrated in factories, most of the lost productivity and commerce in a modern service economy is more easily made up once warmer weather returns....

An 1895 painting by John Henry Twachtman, "Snow"

Archaeologists bring long-term perspective to food security and climate shock

EurekAlert via Arizona State University: What role does pre-existing vulnerabilities play for people who experience a climate shock? Does it amplify the effects of the climate shock or is effect negligible? Four Arizona State University archaeologists are looking into this as part of an international team examining how people can be most resilient to climate change when it comes to food security.

The group questioned whether vulnerability to food shortages prior to a climate shock – not the actual experience of the food shortage – is related to the scale of impact of that shock. They found a strong relationship.

The team used long-term archaeological and historical data from the North Atlantic Islands and the U.S. Southwest to form the basis of their understanding of changing dynamics in these areas. Each case in their study included information on evolving social, political and economic conditions over centuries, as well as climate data. The extended timeframe and global scope allowed them to witness changes in the context of vulnerabilities and climate challenges on a wide scale.

"The pattern is so consistent across different regions of the world experiencing substantially different climate shocks, that the role of vulnerability cannot be ignored," said Margaret Nelson, an ASU President's Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change.

...Their findings support the argument for focusing on reducing vulnerabilities to climate shocks to boost resilience, which will ultimately lead to fewer required recovery efforts when crises occur. Nelson said that most often disaster management does not address vulnerabilities prior to shocks but instead focuses on returning a system to its previous condition following a disaster.

"Exposures to climate challenges and other environmental risks are not the sole causes of disasters," she says. "People have unintentionally built vulnerabilities through decisions and actions in social, political and economic realms."...

Cutthroat Castle at Hovenweep National Monument, Utah. Shot by HJPD, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Climate change threatens Indonesians' way of life: Kerry

Arshad Mohammed in Reuters: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned Indonesians on Sunday that climate change could threaten their "entire way of life" as he called for all nations to do more to stop global warming.

Speaking to students, Kerry derided skeptics of the view that human activity causes global warming as "shoddy scientists" and "extreme ideologues" and he said big companies and special interests should not be allowed to "hijack" the climate debate.

Aides said the U.S. secretary of state had chosen Indonesia for the first of what is to be a series of speeches on the topic this year partly because as an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands it is particularly at risk from rising sea levels.

"Because of climate change, it's no secret that today Indonesia is...one of the most vulnerable countries on Earth," Kerry said in speech at a high-tech U.S.-funded cultural center at a Jakarta mall. "It's not an exaggeration to say that the entire way of life that you live and love is at risk," he added.

Kerry's public push takes place against the backdrop of a negotiation among nearly 200 nations about a possible new global treaty on climate change that is scheduled to be agreed next year and to address greenhouse gas emissions from 2020....