In the Sichuan province of China, there is an abundance of orchards but no bees. Thousands of people are hired to climb fruit trees and hand-pollinate the flowers with small brushes because natural pollinators like bees have been killed by pesticides
Jed Fuhrman, holder of the McCulloch-Crosby Chair in Marine Biology at USC College (via climateadaptation)

(via climateadaptation)

Source: uscnews.usc.edu

Texas Drought Forces Town to Haul in Water by Truck - Manny Fernandez via NYTimes.com

The Texas drought continues:

Manny Fernandez via NYTimes.com

Droughts are deceptive disasters: they knock down no buildings, spread no debris. But they are disasters nonetheless. The Texas drought that started more than a year ago has cost ranchers and farmers billions of dollars in lost income or additional expenses. It has forced hundreds of towns and cities to restrict water use and has turned lakes into ponds. Last year was the driest in Texas since 1917, with a total statewide rainfall of 15 inches, much lower than the average of 27.64 inches, according to John Nielsen-Gammon, the state climatologist.

The Spicewood Beach well is one of 13 public water systems in the state that are projected to run out of water in 180 days or less and that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is tracking. Officials who oversee many of those systems are taking steps to increase their water supply, including digging new or deeper wells. One water system that serves about 1,500 people in Limestone County near Waco is estimated to run out of water on March 1.

There have been signs, however, that parts of Texas are recovering. For the first time since early July, the latest United States Drought Monitor map, released on Thursday, classified much of the Dallas-Fort Worth area as not experiencing drought. But state weather experts expect drought conditions to persist in most of the state through the summer.

[…]

Lake Travis sets the decidedly recreational tone of Spicewood Beach. Residents, many of them retired, park their boats on the front lawn, and the no-nonsense woman in the neon-green sweatshirt who roams the streets in a cart is not headed to the golf course — she is Connie Heller, 64, making her rounds as part of the Spicewood Beach security patrol.

The lake has all but vanished in the drought. Down past the well, Lake Travis is now a kind of sandy, rocky canyon, where wooden fishing docks sit like shipwrecks on dry land and you can walk more than halfway across the lake bed before your feet get wet in a thin band of water. A dead lake is a surreal thing, as is the drought itself, which for the moment seems impervious to the rain that has fallen here and throughout the state in recent weeks. The lake’s water level has decreased 44 feet below its February average.

And no end in sight, really.

How bad does it have to get before people start moving out? How many ecological refugees before the government starts to pay attention to climate as an immediate issue, not something for our grandkids to straighten out?

Note that this article does not mention climate change once.

No end in sight to the warm winter - Tina Susman via latimes.com

The freakishly warm weather over the central and eastern US looks likely to continue, but this story fails to mention tornado season started 31 January in Alabama.

Tina Susman via latimes.com

In New York City, where “unseasonably mild” and “balmy” have been the forecasts of late, temperatures this week have been at least 10 to 20 degrees warmer than the usual average high of 39, a pattern seen across much of the eastern half of the country.

In Wichita, Kan., where the average high temperature last month was 37, about 6 degrees above normal, it hit 62 on Thursday — warmer than Las Vegas. Washington topped out at 56 on Thursday. In Chicago, where the average January day is 29.5 degrees, it was 59 on the last day of the month.

“A measly 19%” of the country was covered in snow, according to Weather.com. New York City, which last year was staggering beneath 36 inches of snow by Feb. 1, has seen just 4 inches fall so far this winter, and the remnants of the last storm melted away long ago.

The winter with no winter.

Realize that we are heading toward an iceless earth, so this may soon become the new normal.

Climate Scientists' editorial rebuttal published in the WSJ!

climateadaptation:

A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal published an anti-climate change op-ed signed by 16 scientists. None of the authors are climate scientists, nor do peer review research in the field.

No matter, it got published anyway. And shortly after the piece was published, real climate scientists came out off the woodwork to condemn the WSJ and the so-called scientists that wrote it. Andrew Revkin of the NYTimes has been tracking the pushback, here.

I’m happy to say that the WSJ published a rebuttal from real climate scientists and researchers, and it is epic. A taste:

Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate

Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition? In science, as in any area, reputations are based on knowledge and expertise in a field and on published, peer-reviewed work. If you need surgery, you want a highly experienced expert in the field who has done a large number of the proposed operations.

You published “No Need to Panic About Global Warming” (op-ed, Jan. 27) on climate change by the climate-science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology. While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in climate science. The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert. This happens in nearly every field of science. For example, there is a retrovirus expert who does not accept that HIV causes AIDS. And it is instructive to recall that a few scientists continued to state that smoking did not cause cancer, long after that was settled science.

Climate experts know that the long-term warming trend has not abated in the past decade. In fact, it was the warmest decade on record. Observations show unequivocally that our planet is getting hotter.

Via Revkin

Source: climateadaptation

More compelling evidence of global warming at its relationship to violent weather. And, no, it ‘s not just La Nina:

David Horne, A Year Of Weather Extremes? via The Energy Collective

With so much focus on extreme events and a further focus by many on an apparent plateau seen in global temperatures in recent years, are we perhaps missing some clearer signals buried in the data? One such signal, which got very little media coverage, was published by the WMO at the very end of 2011 and shows last year to be the hottest ever, for a La Nina year (which are typically cooler). In fact every La Nina year over the past 40 years has been warmer than the previous one.

Over six decades and taking just the La Nina years (chart above) there has been a temperature movement of 0.7 deg.C, or 0.12 deg.C per decade. This is somewhat less than the climate sensitivity indicated by the IPCC, but equally it may only be indicative of what is probably the bottom edge of the span of temperature change. It is nevertheless an important trend to understand and follow. Extreme weather events also deserve considerable attention, but there needs to be some increased diligence when it comes to immediately associating them all with climate change.

Report Finds Slow Response to East Africa Famine - AP via NYTimes.com

Not as bad as I predicted, I am glad to say. But the underlying cause of famine in East Africa and now West Africa is drought, and that is not going to change anytime soon. And the international community’s attention is elsewhere, on the Euro, and the price of oil.

AP via NYTimes.com

Thousands of people died needlessly and millions of dollars were wasted because the international community did not respond fast enough to early signs of famine in East Africa, aid agencies said Wednesday.

Most rich donor nations waited until the crisis was in full swing before donating much money, said a report by the aid groups Oxfam and Save the Children. A food shortage had been predicted as early as August 2010, but most donors did not respond until famine was declared in parts of Somalia last July.

The report also said aid agencies were too slow in intensifying their response.

The British government estimates that 50,000 to 100,000 people died from the famine, mostly Somalis.

Now, there are clear signs of an impending hunger crisis in West Africa, said Justin Forsyth, chief executive of Save the Children.

Other countries at risk are Niger, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad, said Alun McDonald, regional spokesman for Oxfam.

The world is unready for 100M climate refugees.

Texas - Much-Needed Downpour Has a Downside - AP via NYTimes.com

Another downside of climate change: even when you finally get rain in a drought-stricken area, the storm is likely to be violent, leading to flooding and other problems. Just so this week in Texas, where 2011 rainfall averaged 14.89 inches, instead of the recent historical average of 29.39 inches:

AP via NYTimes.com

Several inches of rain fell in the drought-stricken area over a two-hour period. Roads rapidly flooded and drivers became stranded on major arteries that connect the city’s sprawling neighborhoods and suburbs. In Texas City, about 40 miles southeast of Houston, a possible tornado damaged the roof and wall of the Mall of the Mainland. The building was evacuated and shut. In North and West Texas, the National Weather Service said, a steady downpour will drop an inch or two of much-needed rain.

ryking: That sinking feeling Male´ - the Maldivian capital and the most densely populated island in the world, with more than 110,000 people crammed onto 1.77 square kilometres of land - required tens of millions of dollars spent on a three-metre sea wall to keep the ocean out. ”The science here is very sorted,” Nasheed says. ”They say there is a window of opportunity of about seven or eight years.” For some in this archipelago, that window is already closed. Already, 14 of 200 inhabited islands are gone. Coastal erosion has made their seaside villages unliveable. A further 70 islands rely on desalinated drinking water because aquifers have been overcome by seawater. At least 80 per cent of the Maldivian landmass is less than a metre above sea level, the archipelago’s highest point a mere 2.4 metres above high tide. A sea-level rise of 59 centimetres over the next century, the upper limit forecast by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, would render most of the Maldives uninhabitable.
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ryking:

That sinking feeling

Male´ - the Maldivian capital and the most densely populated island in the world, with more than 110,000 people crammed onto 1.77 square kilometres of land - required tens of millions of dollars spent on a three-metre sea wall to keep the ocean out.

”The science here is very sorted,” Nasheed says. ”They say there is a window of opportunity of about seven or eight years.”

For some in this archipelago, that window is already closed. Already, 14 of 200 inhabited islands are gone. Coastal erosion has made their seaside villages unliveable. A further 70 islands rely on desalinated drinking water because aquifers have been overcome by seawater. At least 80 per cent of the Maldivian landmass is less than a metre above sea level, the archipelago’s highest point a mere 2.4 metres above high tide.

A sea-level rise of 59 centimetres over the next century, the upper limit forecast by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, would render most of the Maldives uninhabitable.

(via silas216)

Source: ryking

saveplanetearth: Climate change castaways consider move to Australia @ Sydney morning Herald To Escape Rising Seas, Maldives President May Move His Entire Island Nation to Australia @ TreeHugger
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saveplanetearth:

Climate change castaways consider move to Australia @ Sydney morning Herald

To Escape Rising Seas, Maldives President May Move His Entire Island Nation to Australia @ TreeHugger

Source: saveplanetearth

A Tempestuous Year - NYTimes.com

A typical year in the United States features three or four weather disasters costing more than $1 billion. In 2009 there were nine. Last year brought a dozen, at a cost of $52 billion, making it the most extreme year for weather since accurate record keeping began in the 19th century. There was drought in the Southwest while Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee destroyed homes and rerouted rivers in the Northeast. The most severe tornado ever recorded, and the most tornadoes recorded in a single month, flailed the Southeast. Floods drowned the Midwest.

People are putting the picture together of the coming Water Wars, but generally stop short of saying the obvious: world climate change has destabilized large parts of the world, principally due to drought and rising heat, and the consequent lack of water. This is the most dangerous trend on Earth, and a large minority of US politicians can’t even admit that climate change is happening. Damian Carrington, Food is the ultimate security need, new map showsA new map of food security risk around the world is, in some ways, depressingly familiar. Sub-saharan Africa leaps out as the place where the most people fear for their next meal, while the rich world has more to fear from obesity. But there’s plenty of salutary reminders and fascinating detail, like India’s food problems and the vulnerability of Spain.And it demonstrates the sickening, symbiotic relationship between lack of food and conflict: where one leads, the other follows.We must start with the worst, in the horn of Africa. In Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, human failings mean a severe drought has tipped millions into famine. It’s a textbook case of why things go wrong. War begets poverty, leaving food unaffordable. Devastated infrastructure destroys both food production and the ability to truck in emergency food. The collapse of society means the effects of extreme weather such as drought cannot be dealt with. And the fear of violence turns people into refugees, leaving their livelihoods and social networks behind. If you move away from the Horn of Africa — where we can expect millions to die in the next year from famine — the really scary area is Pakistan/India/China. All three countries have serious food supply problems — in the map above red is most dangerous and green is least — and Pakistan and India are arch-enemies with decades of open conflict.India and China have fought several border wars, as well. It is almost impossible to imagine a good outcome there, where the rivers from the Himalayas cross Chinese territories, then India, then Pakistan. Three nuclear powers, with histories of conflict, requiring more water as their populations and water needs grow, and no obvious means to get more water locally. (Note: China is buying up arable land in other continents, and importing the food grown there back to China, which is one way to increase water: use water located elsewhere). The Water Wars are already here, we just haven’t started using the term, yet. Also note that very few regions are free of this danger. Notably, North America is positioned to become the breadbasket of the world, again. Although we can’t just look at that transactionally, because there is the huge externality of shipping away our water — in the form of foods — to other, drought-ridden countries. We will have to consider the full costs of shipping an apple, or a ton of wheat, to Spain or Turkey.
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People are putting the picture together of the coming Water Wars, but generally stop short of saying the obvious: world climate change has destabilized large parts of the world, principally due to drought and rising heat, and the consequent lack of water. This is the most dangerous trend on Earth, and a large minority of US politicians can’t even admit that climate change is happening.

Damian Carrington, Food is the ultimate security need, new map shows

A new map of food security risk around the world is, in some ways, depressingly familiar. Sub-saharan Africa leaps out as the place where the most people fear for their next meal, while the rich world has more to fear from obesity. But there’s plenty of salutary reminders and fascinating detail, like India’s food problems and the vulnerability of Spain.

And it demonstrates the sickening, symbiotic relationship between lack of food and conflict: where one leads, the other follows.

We must start with the worst, in the horn of Africa. In Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, human failings mean a severe drought has tipped millions into famine. It’s a textbook case of why things go wrong. War begets poverty, leaving food unaffordable. Devastated infrastructure destroys both food production and the ability to truck in emergency food. The collapse of society means the effects of extreme weather such as drought cannot be dealt with. And the fear of violence turns people into refugees, leaving their livelihoods and social networks behind.

If you move away from the Horn of Africa — where we can expect millions to die in the next year from famine — the really scary area is Pakistan/India/China. All three countries have serious food supply problems — in the map above red is most dangerous and green is least — and Pakistan and India are arch-enemies with decades of open conflict.India and China have fought several border wars, as well.

It is almost impossible to imagine a good outcome there, where the rivers from the Himalayas cross Chinese territories, then India, then Pakistan. Three nuclear powers, with histories of conflict, requiring more water as their populations and water needs grow, and no obvious means to get more water locally. (Note: China is buying up arable land in other continents, and importing the food grown there back to China, which is one way to increase water: use water located elsewhere).

The Water Wars are already here, we just haven’t started using the term, yet.

Also note that very few regions are free of this danger. Notably, North America is positioned to become the breadbasket of the world, again. Although we can’t just look at that transactionally, because there is the huge externality of shipping away our water — in the form of foods — to other, drought-ridden countries. We will have to consider the full costs of shipping an apple, or a ton of wheat, to Spain or Turkey.

(via stoweboyd)

Source: Guardian

A Quebec flag in the back yard of a flooded home in Saint-Blais-Sur-Richelieu, 60 kilometres south-east of Montreal on Monday, May 16, 2011. Consistent rains have once again increased the water levels of the Richelieu river in southern Quebec. Photograph by: Dario Ayala/THE GAZETTE Quebec on the verge of catastrophic climate change, experts say, William Marsden via The Montreal Gazette Record floods, melting permafrost, shoreline erosion and intense winds caused havoc for thousands of Quebecers as 2011 proved to be yet another year of higher than normal temperatures. These higher temperatures add to the credibility of climate models that have predicted the march of global warming will accelerate the more greenhouse gases we pump into the atmosphere, scientists say. “It is striking that over the last 10 to 15 years we didn’t have a single season colder than normal,” said Alain Bourque, director of climate change impacts and adaptation at Quebec’s climate change research institute Ouranos. “That is a clear indication that Canada’s climate is heating up beyond any reasonable doubt.” While most Quebecers may cheer the warmer winters, Bourque warns it is already endangering coastlines, the northern communities that are built on permafrost and our forests, which probably will not be able to adapt fast enough to a warmer climate. He said warmer temperatures for pretty well all seasons indicate Quebec is well on its way to meeting the climate-model predictions that we are fast closing in on the 2C mark many scientists claim is the tipping point that will plunge the globe into catastrophic climate change. The models indicate mean temperatures in the southern half of Quebec will be 2C to 3C higher than normal by 2020. In northern Quebec, the warming will be even higher. And at the present rate of warming as tracked since 1948, we are on track to be well over 4C by 2050 and as high as 7C to 9C by 2080. “We are halfway along this timeline and are well on our way to achieving what the model says we will achieve in 2020,” Bourque said. “So for the experts such as me who study the impact of climate change, essentially everything is happening as predicted.” According to Environment Canada, spring temperatures in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River region, which includes Montreal and Quebec City, were 54 per cent higher than normal. This is the highest percentage deviation from the norm recorded since 1948. Montreal temperatures in October, November and December were well above normal. Temperatures for the first two weeks of December were on average 3.8C above normal. Not a single daily maximum fell below zero despite the fact the normal maximum daily for this time of year in Montreal is below freezing, according to Environment Canada.
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A Quebec flag in the back yard of a flooded home in Saint-Blais-Sur-Richelieu, 60 kilometres south-east of Montreal on Monday, May 16, 2011. Consistent rains have once again increased the water levels of the Richelieu river in southern Quebec.

Photograph by: Dario Ayala/THE GAZETTE

Quebec on the verge of catastrophic climate change, experts say, William Marsden via The Montreal Gazette

Record floods, melting permafrost, shoreline erosion and intense winds caused havoc for thousands of Quebecers as 2011 proved to be yet another year of higher than normal temperatures.

These higher temperatures add to the credibility of climate models that have predicted the march of global warming will accelerate the more greenhouse gases we pump into the atmosphere, scientists say.

“It is striking that over the last 10 to 15 years we didn’t have a single season colder than normal,” said Alain Bourque, director of climate change impacts and adaptation at Quebec’s climate change research institute Ouranos. “That is a clear indication that Canada’s climate is heating up beyond any reasonable doubt.”

While most Quebecers may cheer the warmer winters, Bourque warns it is already endangering coastlines, the northern communities that are built on permafrost and our forests, which probably will not be able to adapt fast enough to a warmer climate.

He said warmer temperatures for pretty well all seasons indicate Quebec is well on its way to meeting the climate-model predictions that we are fast closing in on the 2C mark many scientists claim is the tipping point that will plunge the globe into catastrophic climate change.

The models indicate mean temperatures in the southern half of Quebec will be 2C to 3C higher than normal by 2020. In northern Quebec, the warming will be even higher. And at the present rate of warming as tracked since 1948, we are on track to be well over 4C by 2050 and as high as 7C to 9C by 2080.

“We are halfway along this timeline and are well on our way to achieving what the model says we will achieve in 2020,” Bourque said. “So for the experts such as me who study the impact of climate change, essentially everything is happening as predicted.”

According to Environment Canada, spring temperatures in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River region, which includes Montreal and Quebec City, were 54 per cent higher than normal. This is the highest percentage deviation from the norm recorded since 1948.

Montreal temperatures in October, November and December were well above normal. Temperatures for the first two weeks of December were on average 3.8C above normal. Not a single daily maximum fell below zero despite the fact the normal maximum daily for this time of year in Montreal is below freezing, according to Environment Canada.

Source: montrealgazette.com

Texas Drought Kills As Many As Half A Billion Trees - Jim Forsyth via Planet Ark

Only a half a billion? Aw, shucks, that’s nothing in Texas! We got a trillion trees!

Jim Forsyth via Planet Ark

The massive drought that has dried out Texas over the past year has killed as many as half a billion trees, according to new estimates from the Texas Forest Service.

“In 2011, Texas experienced an exceptional drought, prolonged high winds, and record-setting temperatures,” Forest Service Sustainable Forestry chief Burl Carraway told Reuters on Tuesday. “Together, those conditions took a severe toll on trees across the state.”

He said that between 100 million and 500 million trees were lost. That figure does not include trees killed in wildfires that have scorched an estimated 4 million acres in Texas since the beginning of 2011. A massive wildfire in Bastrop, east of Austin in September that destroyed 1,600 homes, is blamed for killing 1.5 million trees.

The tree loss is in both urban and rural areas and represents as much as 10 percent of all the trees in the state, Carraway said.

“This is a generational event,” Barry Ward, executive director of the nonprofit Trees for Houston, which supports forestry efforts, told Reuters on Tuesday. “Mature trees take 20 or 30 years to re-grow. This will make an aesthetic difference for decades to come.”

He said the loss will affect the state in many ways. For example, there is increased fire danger because all the dead trees are now fuel, Ward said.

Scattered rain and snow has only recently put a dent in the historic drought. The one-year period between November 1, 2010 and October 31, 2011 was the driest in the state’s history, according to State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon. Along with the drought has come punishing hot weather. The National Weather Service said the months of June through August in Texas were the hottest three-month period ever reported by any state in American history.

Not to worry folks. After all, climate change is just an unproven theory promoted by hippie beatniks who secretly are planning an overthrow of the US capitalist system.

(via Bruces)

Source: stoweboyd

Climate Scientists Hampered in Study of 2011 Extremes - Justin Gillis via NYTimes.com

#1 predication for 2012: more extreme weather.

A dried lake bed in San Angelo, Tex., in August.

Justin Gillis via NYTimes.com

A typical year in this country features three or four weather disasters whose costs exceed $1 billion each. But this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has tallied a dozen such events, including wildfires in the Southwest, floods in multiple regions of the country and a deadly spring tornado season. And the agency has not finished counting. The final costs are certain to exceed $50 billion.

“I’ve been a meteorologist 30 years and never seen a year that comes close to matching 2011 for the number of astounding, extreme weather events,” Jeffrey Masters, a co-founder of the popular Web site Weather Underground, said last month. “Looking back in the historical record, which goes back to the late 1800s, I can’t find anything that compares, either.”

Many of the individual events in 2011 do have precedents in the historical record. And the nation’s climate has featured other concentrated periods of extreme weather, including severe cold snaps in the early 20th century and devastating droughts and heat waves in the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s.

But it is unusual, if not unprecedented, for so many extremes to occur in such a short span. The calamities in 2011 included wildfires that scorched millions of acres, extreme flooding in the Upper Midwest and the Mississippi River Valley and heat waves that shattered records in many parts of the country. Abroad, massive floods inundated Australia, the Philippines and large parts of Southeast Asia.

A major question nowadays is whether the frequency of particular weather extremes is being affected by human-induced climate change.

Climate science already offers some insight. Researchers have proved that the temperature of the earth’s surface is rising, and they are virtually certain that the human release of greenhouse gases, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, is the major reason. For decades, they have predicted that this would lead to changes in the frequency of extreme weather events, and statistics show that has begun to happen.