The distribution of wildlife on Earth is changing with the climate, making conditions more favorable to odd species such as trumpeter swans, beetles, marmots, albatross, killer whales and white-tailed deer. Imagine a planet where jellyfish rule the seas, giant rodents roam the mountains and swarms of insects blur everything in sight. It may sound far-fetched, [...]
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Skeptical Science has done what it does so well this week and taken an opportunity to look into a scientific matter related to a current hot topic, the Heartland Institute leak. Dana Nuccitelli, in the piece reposted in full below, discusses the “climate-skeptic” NIPCC report and how it differs from the Nobel-prize-winning IPCC’s widely cited [...]
Michael Mann reveals his account of attacks by entrenched interests seeking to undermine his ‘hockey stick’ graph. It is almost possible to dismiss Michael Mann’s account of a vast conspiracy by the fossil fuel industry to harrass scientists and befuddle the public. His story of that campaign, and his own journey from naive computer geek [...]
University of Kashmir has become part of the countrywide efforts for undertaking joint research on glaciers and climate change in the Himalayas and Karakoram. An Inter-University Consortium on Cryosphere and Climate Change (IUCCC) with membership from Kashmir University JNU, Jammu University and Sikkim University was recently launched at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. During [...]
RTCC: The Sagarmatha National Park is an exceptional area with dramatic mountains, glaciers and deep valleys where Mount Everest (or Sagarmatha in Nepali), the highest peak in the world (8,848 m), is located. Several rare species, such as the snow leopard and the lesser panda, are found in the park. The air temperatures in this [...]
First 500 words: In 1997 a group of Chinese and American glaciologists extracted ice-core data from the world’s highest site in central Tibet. Under harsh physical conditions, 7,200 metres above sea level, the team recovered three ice cores from the Dasuopu glacier that revealed current temperatures were the highest in a thousand years. Expeditions across [...]
MIT: With climate change, today’s ’100-year floods’ may happen every three to 20 years, according to new research. Last August, Hurricane Irene spun through the Caribbean and parts of the eastern United States, leaving widespread wreckage in its wake. The Category 3 storm whipped up water levels, generating storm surges that swept over seawalls and [...]
Mongabay: Last year the Arctic, which is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth due to global climate change, experienced its warmest twelve months yet. According to recent data by NASA, average Arctic temperatures in 2011 were 2.28 degrees Celsius (4.1 degrees Fahrenheit) above those recorded from 1951-1980. As the Arctic warms, imperiling its biodiversity [...]
Scientific American: Climate change may ultimately push some species off mountainous islands in the sky. The cloud forests of the Andes mountains, bound between the Amazonian lowlands to the west and the peaks of the Andean uplift to the east, harbor worlds upon worlds. Within the mountains’ mosaic of high plateaus, deep-cut valleys and steeply [...]
In the first comprehensive satellite study of its kind, a University of Colorado at Boulder-led team used NASA data to calculate how much Earth’s melting land ice is adding to global sea level rise. Using satellite measurements from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), the researchers measured ice loss in all [...]
Greenland, Antarctica and global glaciers and ice caps lost roughly 8 times the volume of Lake Erie from 2003-2010, a new study has revealed. According to the study led by the University of Colorado Boulder, earth’s glaciers and ice caps outside of the regions of Greenland and Antarctica are shedding roughly 150 billion tons of [...]
New scientific analysis of satellite gravity measurements has shown that ice is melting from glaciers around the world much less quickly than had been thought. The new research is important as worldwide glacier melt is thought to be one of the main factors which could drive rising sea levels in future. The new results were [...]
Asia’s highest peaks have not lost ice over the past decade, according to new research. Glaciologist Prof Jonathan Bamber answers your questions. A new study published in Nature has found that the world’s largest mountain chain, running from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of Kyrgystan and China, has not experienced any net [...]
Meltwater from Asia’s peaks is much less then previously estimated, but lead scientist says the loss of ice caps and glaciers around the world remains a serious concern. The world’s greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice [...]
Times of India: Is the chemical reaction involving radical-molecule complexes responsible for climate changes? If experts are to be believed, the better understanding of structure and reactivity of radical-molecule complexes can provide deep insight into various atmospheric phenomenons, including ozone depletion (global warming), acid rain and climate changes. “The recent studies focusing on understanding of [...]
Improved integrated water management practices could increase agricultural production, protect natural systems and improve regional food security A major new survey of the likely effects of climate change on India’s water resources identifies huge challenges to maintaining adequate supplies in the next few decades, but argues that these can be overcome with an integrated, multi-sectorial [...]
30,000-year-old bison bones help scientists unravel mystery of animals adaptations to environmental change. Thirty-thousand-year-old bison bones discovered in permafrost at a Canadian goldmine are helping scientists unravel the mystery about how animals adapt to rapid environmental change. The bones play a key role in a world-first study, led by University of Adelaide researchers, which analyses [...]
Improved integrated water management practices could increase agricultural production, protect natural systems and be a ‘game changer’ for national food security A major new survey of the likely effects of climate change on India’s water resources published today identifies huge challenges to maintaining adequate supplies in the next few decades, but argues that these can [...]
A 30,000-year-old bison bone plucked from the thawed permafrost inside a Yukon gold mine has helped a team of Australian scientists make a potentially groundbreaking discovery about the way animals adapt to climate change. A study published in the latest issue of the journal PLoS One describes the Canadian specimen — a bone from the [...]
What was past glaciation in the Bhutan Himalayas like? Current mountain landscapes (i.e. glacier lakes, ancient lakes, water fall, and rock cliff etc.) relate largely to the past behaviour of Bhutan’s glaciers. Although it is reported that Bhutan’s mountain glaciers have shrunk in recent years, past behaviour of Bhutan’s glaciers has not been well studied, [...]
Climate change has long-since ceased to be a scientific curiosity, and is no more just one of many environmental and regulatory concerns. It is the major, overriding environmental issue of our time, and the single greatest challenge facing environmental regulators. It is a growing crisis with economic, health and safety, food production, security, and other [...]
Climate Progress: A few simple and clear pictures (and links) showing how the planet continued to warm and change around us in 2011 by Peter Gleick, water and climate scientist, in a Forbes repost These facts are just part of why all national academies of science on the planet and every major geophysical scientific society agree that [...]
BEN: Australia’s infrastructure is not prepared to withstand the consequences of catastrophic climate change events such as floods, droughts, coastal erosion, tropical cyclones, fires and seal level rise. The report released today calls on all stakeholders to address regulatory frameworks gaps, which are acting as barriers towards effective climate adaptation. It analyses the extent to [...]
NASA: Hubble Solves Mystery on Source of Supernova in Nearby Galaxy 01.12.12 Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have solved a longstanding mystery on the type of star, or so-called progenitor, which caused a supernova seen in a nearby galaxy. The finding yields new observational data for pinpointing one of several scenarios that trigger [...]
NewYork Times: Agriculture has long been a stepchild in global negotiations over the climate. Hopes had risen that this might change at the latest big global climate session, in Durban, South Africa, in December. It did not. Now, a group of experts led by John Beddington, the chief science adviser of the British government, is [...]
PHYSORG: Biodiversity is declining rapidly throughout the world. The challenges of conserving the world’s species are perhaps even larger than mitigating the negative effects of global climate change. Dealing with the biodiversity crisis requires political will and needs to be based on a solid scientific knowledge if we are to ensure a safe future for [...]
Reducing Soot and Methane Would Bring Fast Results, Says Study A study by a large international team of scientists says that relatively cheap, simple measures to cut two common pollutants could substantially reduce global warming and improve human health and agriculture in coming decades. Instead of focusing on carbon dioxide—the main culprit in climate change–they [...]
Times of India: The number of extreme events of rainfall (very heavy rainfall) has almost doubled in the country in the last 50 years. On the other hand, there has been a decrease in low and moderate rainfall over central India, according to scientists of the India Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune. The scientists [...]
Telegraph Nepal: Though Climate Change (CC) has moved to the centre stage of public affairs, there is no effective policy of CC. Publications like “The Climate Change Risk Atlas” 2010[i] ranked Nepal as the fourth most vulnerable country in the world after Somalia, Haiti and Afghanistan. Why is this country so vulnerable to CC for [...]
Melting Himalayan Glaciers Can Threaten Animals, Humans Daily Bhaskar: The melting down of the Himalayan glaciers due to climate change may be solving the current water crisis, but can also have a devastating effect on animal and human lives in the long run, environmentalist and polar explorer Robert Swan has said. “What scares me is [...]
Dawn: PAKISTAN’S climate change policy whose draft took more than a year to be readied is now under print and may be presented to the federal cabinet for approval in a few weeks. The draft will unveil an action plan to mitigate adverse effects of extreme weather events as witnessed in 2010 and again in [...]
Economics Time: The Finance Ministry of Government of India will expand the size and scope of the annual Economic Survey, to be released sometime in March, by incorporating chapters on global imbalances, human development and climate change issues. “We will come out with new chapters including ‘India and the Globe’ to give a view on [...]
Climate change in the form of reduced snowfall in mountains is causing powerful and cascading shifts in mountainous plant and bird communities through the increased ability of elk to stay at high elevations over winter and consume plants, according to a groundbreaking study in Nature Climate Change. The U.S. Geological Survey and University of Montana [...]
As climate change progresses, the planet may lose more plant and animal species than predicted, a new modeling study suggests. This is because current predictions overlook two important factors: the differences in how quickly species relocate and competition among species, according to the researchers, led by Mark Urban, an ecologist at the University of Connecticut. [...]
Hockystick: A paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters predicts less 21st century ‘greenhouse’ warming than the IPCC [transient climate response of 1.3-1.8C with a midpoint of 1.5C vs. IPCC's 1-3C with a midpoint of 2C]. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 39, L01704, 5 PP., 2012 doi:10.1029/2011GL050226 Key Points Estimates of TCR and 21st century warming are [...]
Over the next few weeks, ClimateEthics will take a deeper look at what has been referred to as the “climate change disinformation campaign” through an ethical lens. Although ClimateEthics has examined these issues briefly before, see: An Ethical Analysis of the Climate Change Disinformation Campaign: Is This A New Kind of Assault on Humanity?, this [...]
Global warming results in habitat loss for many species, new research shows. In a world first, scientists with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the University of Queensland have measured the relationship between climate change and habitat loss on plants and animals on a global scale. Their results, published recently in Global [...]
DNA India: A new study of changing mountain vegetation has suggested that some alpine meadows could disappear within the next few decades as a result of climate change. The first ever pan-European study carried out by an international group of researchers revealed that climate change is having a more profound effect on alpine vegetation than [...]
BBC News: Tropical forests in Africa may be more resilient to future climate change than the Amazon and other regions, a gathering of scientists has said. An international conference agreed that the region’s surviving tree species had endured a number of climatic catastrophes over the past 4,000 years. As a result, they are better suited [...]
Himalayan Times: Claims glacial retreat is not happening. Ask a question about melting glaciers and pocket $500. “Glacier-hard cash in your pocket… all you have to do is attend a movie screening, ask a question and send us a video,” Steven Milloy, climate change denier wrote on the US-based website junkscience.com. After the US Department [...]
David Archer, the author of “The Long Thaw” and a Realclimate.org contributor, has weighed in at length on questions and assertions about the greenhouse risk posed by methane released from warming Arctic seabeds and tundra. I encourage you to have a look in relation to the string of recent posts here aiming to restore some [...]
Scientific American: A NASA study finds that climate change will change the mix of plants on nearly half of the planet. Climate change will alter the mix of vegetation on 49 percent of Earth’s land surface by the end of this century, scrambling and shifting existing ecosystems, according to a new study. Researchers at NASA [...]
Deccan Herald: Because of the high political and economic stakes involved in climate change, the research limitations that lead to an erroneous conclusion like the vanishing of Himalayan glaciers, won’t be taken lightly. But these are only natural in research process. As an editorial in the January 21 issue of ‘Nature’ suggests, “Climate science like [...]
Times of India: If not kissing the frog, at least appreciating their ‘croak’ may lead to some headway in to climate research . For the first time frog song is being monitored using automated sound recorders by Indian scientists to track the impact of climate change on amphibians in the forests of southern Western Ghats. [...]
Everest Journal: Ngozumpa glacier in Nepal is melting away at a rapid pace and retreating at its edges because of global warming. The Nepalese Himalayas have been warming considerably more than the global mean temperature in recent decades. Glaciers in most of the region are showing signs of shrinking, thinning, and retreating, which is giving [...]
Watts Up With That: Chinese 2485 year tree ring study shows sun or ocean controls climate, temps will cool till 2068. A blockbuster Chinese study of Tibetan Tree rings by Lui et al 2011 shows, with detail, that the modern era is a dog-standard normal climate when compared to the last 2500 years. The temperature, [...]
Eurasia Review: Millions of people in South Asia are vulnerable to climate change because of depleting glaciers, increasing coastal erosion, frequent floods and other natural disasters associated with global warming, warn environmentalists and development agencies. “We are extremely vulnerable to climate change threats.” Says Dr. Durga Poudel, Head of Department of Renewable Resources, University of [...]
Nepali Times: Since 2007, Jean Marc Hero has been bringing students from Griffith University in Australia to Nepal to take part in expeditions that focus on learning about environmental research and teaching methods. The Program for Planned Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research (PPBio) aims to establish an international monitoring system that measures biodiversity and the long [...]
Since the late 1990s Karakoram Himalayan glaciers have stabilized and, in the high Karakoram, advanced while total snow cover has also been increasing in the high Karakoram. Reference Hewitt, K. 2011. Glacier change, concentration, and elevation effects in the Karakoram Himalaya, upper Indus Basin. Mountain Research and Development 31: 188-200. Background The author writes that “in [...]
Nature: Forest-monitoring project has measured 150,000 trees and provided researchers with reams of data. One of the biggest citizen-science projects ever conducted concludes this monthafter five years of data collection. The wealth of information gathered will help researchers to understand how climate change is affecting forests. The effort has been coordinated by Earthwatch, an environmental [...]
The Hindu: Area of dry land will increase by 11 per cent, says ICRISAT expert. Climate change poses the most serious threat to agriculture world over and to the food security, with countries like India facing the most unfavourable crop prospects, according to Chief Operating Officer of NutriPlus Knowledge Programme of ICRISAT Saikatdatta Mazumdar. Area [...]
Bhutan is soon expected to have a strong information database on environment with the establishment of Environment Research Centre by Royal Society for Protection of Nature (RSPN). Currently being planned, the research centre will provide researchers, students, government agencies and the public updated information and critical scientific data on environment. The programme manager of RSPN, [...]
Bhutan Today: Spearheaded by the Department of Geology and Mines (DGM), the government, to cope up with the changing climate scenario, has carried out numerous mitigation measures to curb any disaster in waiting – including GLOFS. According to sources from DGM most of the major river basins in Bhutan are categorized as debris cover glacier [...]
BioOne: This paper examines the use of forest resources by local residents in Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park, Bhutan. It also inquires into local residents’ knowledge and perceptions of park management interventions. The data were collected through a questionnaire survey, group discussions, and observations. The results show that local people depend on forest resources for [...]
BioOne: Despite the growing number of studies and research projects on climate change adaptation, only a few have examined the gender and cultural dynamics of the adaptation process. Inequality has been identified as a major indicator of the vulnerability of individuals and groups; nevertheless, the gender and cultural aspects of inequality have not received much [...]
Livemint (Republished from Dec 2010 Report): In what could revive controversy over the state of glaciers in the Himalayas, researchers associated with the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) and the government-run Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology suggest that aerosols such as soot—tiny particles that are often the result of insufficiently burnt gases—may be playing a [...]
The Earth Institute Columbia University: Bhutan’s Melting Glaciers May Affect Farming, Hydropower, Floods In many ways, the tiny, landlocked eastern Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan sits apart from the modern world; its rugged landscapes cradle swift-flowing rivers, expansive old-growth forests and hundreds of glaciers. Combining selective modernization with ancient traditions, it is the only country that [...]
National Science Foundation: In February 2012, the journal Nature Climate Change will publish a paper on rainfall extremes in India by principal investigator Vipin Kumar of the University of Minnesota’s computer science and engineering department and co-principal investigator Auroop Ganguly of the civil and environmental engineering department at Northeastern University in Boston, members of the [...]
Bits of Science: The results of studies that try to quantify the effects of climate change on biodiversity loss which include damage to the micro scale level of subspecies and genetic variation are perhaps most shocking. When however you focus on the response to climate change at the macro level, the ecosystem level, you get [...]
