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Major storms set to increase
by Kate Taylor
So-called ‘storms of the century’ like last August’s Hurricane Irene could become almost commonplace, thanks to climate change.
A team from MIT and Princeton University says that such storms could make landfall far more frequently, causing powerful, devastating storm surges every three to 20 years.
The group simulated tens of thousands of storms under different climate conditions, and concluded that the sort of severe floods which now hit every five hundred years or so could, with climate change, start happening once every 25 to 240 years.
MIT postdoc Ning Lin says that planners should take the findings into account when designing seawalls and other protective structures.
“When you design your buildings or dams or structures on the coast, you have to know how high your seawall has to be,” Lin says. “You have to decide whether to build a seawall to prevent being flooded every 20 years.”
To simulate present and future storm activity, using New York City as a case study, the researchers combined four Read more…
World Bank Head Warns Markets Heading to New Danger Zone
United States and Europe, coupled with a fragile economic recovery have pushed markets into a new danger zone, something that policymakers have to take seriously, the head of the World Bank said on Sunday.
(Photo: REUTERS / Tim Wimborne)
World Bank Chief Robert Zoellick gestures while speaking at the Asia Society’s annual dinner in Sydney August 14, 2011.
Speaking at the Asia Society dinner in Sydney, Australia, Robert Zoellick also said the global economy was going through a multi-speed recovery, with developing countries now the source of growth and opportunity.
“What’s happened in the past couple of weeks is there is a convergence of some events in Europe and the United States that has led many market participants to lose confidence in economic leadership of some of the key countries,” he said.
“I think those events combined with some of the other fragilities in the nature of recovery have pushed us into a new danger zone. I don’t say those words lightly … so that policymakers Read more…
Loss of top animal predators has massive ecological effects
 When sea otters, which feed on sea urchins, were hunted to extinction in some coastal areas of the Pacific Ocean, sea urchins increased in abundance and decimated underwater kelp forests, also affecting other species that inhabit the kelp. Credit: Matt Knoth. |
“Trophic Downgrading of Planet Earth,” a review paper that will be published on July 15, 2011, in the journal Science, concludes that the decline of large predators and herbivores in all regions of the world is causing substantial changes to Earth’s terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems.
The paper claims that the loss of apex consumers from ecosystems “may be humankind’s most pervasive influence on nature.” The research was funded primarily by the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University with support from The Pew Charitable Trusts.
The paper is co-authored by the Institute’s executive director, Dr. Ellen K. Pikitch, and the lead author is Dr. James A. Estes, professor of ecology and evolution at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
The review, conducted by an international team of 24 scientists, illuminates the Read more…
Currencies dropping like stones
The markets have not yet thought about it, but the biggest threat to the Euro is not Greece, Ireland or Portugal, but the dangers posed by the fourth largest economy in Europe, which is also the third largest in the Eurozone, that of Italy. Italy is passing austerity measures but the measures may not be enough. The problem that the Euro faces is that there is little central control over the EU economy, control that exists affects states within Europe that have not adopted the Euro, as well as those that have.
Eleven years ago when the merits of the Euro were debated I argued against it. I was not fondly wishing to hold on to the pound sterling for sentimental reasons. I felt that there was a Read more…
Melting glaciers store up trouble
by Julia Slater, swissinfo.ch
As the alpine glaciers shrink they will affect the flow of Europe’s biggest rivers, impacting areas of the economy ranging from shipping to power generation.
Glaciologist Matthias Huss of Fribourg University has discovered that right down to the sea, the Danube, Rhine, Rhone and Po contain a larger proportion of water from glaciers than previously thought.
For example, more than a quarter of the water that flows from the Rhone into the Mediterranean in August has its origin in alpine glaciers. At its mouth in the Netherlands seven percent of the water in the Rhine is Read more…
World Population to Hit Seven Billion by October
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 7, 2011 (IPS) – The United Nations commemorates World Population Day next week against the backdrop of an upcoming landmark event: global population hitting the seven billion mark by late October this year.
According to current projections, and with some of the world’s poorest nations doubling their populations in the next decade, the second milestone will be in 2025: an eight billion population over the next 14 years.
Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), told IPS seven billion represents a challenge, an opportunity and a call to action.
On World Population Day Jul. 11, he will be Read more…
Heart Disease And Stroke Worldwide Tied To National Income
An analysis of heart disease and stroke statistics collected in 192 countries by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that the relative burden of the two diseases varies widely from country to country and is closely linked to national income, according to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
Reporting this week in the journal Circulation, the UCSF scientists found that developing countries tend to suffer more death and disability by stroke than heart disease – opposite the situation in the United States and other countries with higher national incomes.
This map shows the burden of disease from stroke and/or ischemic heart disease. Click to enlarge.
Credit: University of California – San Francisco
North Carolina Most At-Risk Against Rising Sea Levels
If one man could hold back the sea, North Carolina wouldn’t need to worry about rising ocean levels. Neither would New York, Boston or Miami. (Photo: Reuters Photographer/Reuters)The problem with reports about rising sea levels is that the damn thing—the world’s ocean—seems to creep up very, very slowly. In the past 21 centuries it’s raised an average of .07874 an inch every year, about the thickness of a nickel.
That doesn’t sound like much, right? Nothing to worry about! But what makes rising sea levels a deadly serious problem is that the ocean just keeps creeping up, up, up. And the average in recent decades is more like an inch a year.
In fact a new report from the National Academy of Sciences says the rate of Read more…
North America, southern Europe and China all likely to undergo extreme temperature shifts within 60 years
Tropical regions in Africa, Asia and South America could see ‘the permanent emergence of unprecedented summer heat’ in the next 20 years, scientists have warned.
The tropics and much of the 
Northern Hemisphere are likely to experience an irreversible rise in summer temperatures if greenhouse gas emissions continue at their present rate, a study claims.
Researchers at Stanford University said North America – including the U.S. – southern Europe and China are likely to undergo extreme summer temperature shifts within 60 years.
Red dunes in Namibia. Much of Africa, Asia and South America could see ‘the permanent emergence of unprecedented summer heat’ in the next 20 years
This dramatic change could have severe consequences for human health, agricultural production and Read more…
Millions displaced by natural disasters last year
AP Photo/Zhang WuOSLO, Norway (AP) — About 42 million people were forced to flee their homes because of natural disasters around the world in 2010, more than double the number during the previous year, experts said Monday.
One reason for the increase in the figure could be climate change, and the international community should be doing more to contain it, the experts said.
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said the increase from 17 million displaced people in 2009 was mainly due to the impact of “mega-disasters” such as the massive floods in China and Pakistan and the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti.
It said more than 90 percent of the disaster displacements were caused by weather-related hazards such as floods and storms that were probably impacted by global warming, but it couldn’t say to what extent.
“The intensity and frequency of extreme weather events is increasing, and this trend is only set to continue. With all probability, the number of Read more…
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