Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Manila, Philippines



People wade in the chest deep floodwater Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009 in suburban Cainta, east of Manila, Philippines. Rescuers plucked bodies from muddy floodwaters and scrambled to save drenched survivors on rooftops Sunday after a tropical storm tore through the northern Philippines and left 75 people dead or missing in the region's worst flooding in more than four decades.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

India heading for worst drought since 1972: data

NEW DELHI (AFP) – India's monsoon was about 20 percent below strength just over a week before the official end of the rainy reason, putting the country on course for its worst drought since 1972, weather data showed Wednesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090923/sc_afp/indiadroughtfarm_20090923121435

Arctic ice melts to third-smallest area on record

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Arctic's sea ice pack thawed to its third-lowest summer level on record, up slightly from the seasonal melt of the past two years but continuing an overall decline symptomatic of climate change, U.S. scientists said on Thursday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090918/sc_nm/us_climate_arctic

NASA data: Greenland, Antarctic ice melt worsening

WASHINGTON – New satellite information shows that ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica continue to shrink faster than scientists thought and in some places are already in runaway melt mode.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090923/ap_on_sc/us_sci_big_melt

Warming ocean melts Greenland glaciers

Curry and her colleagues from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts zigzagged between majestic icebergs in the Sermilik fjord last month in search of proof that waters from warmer latitudes, or subtropical waters, are flushing through this remote and frigid region.

They found it — all the way up to the base of the outlet glaciers that spill into the ocean like tongues of ice from Greenland's massive ice sheet.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090923/ap_on_re_eu/eu_climate_09_greenland_warming_ocean

milk U.S. flood damage in Georgia to top $250 million

ATLANTA (Reuters) – Flooding in north Georgia that killed nine people caused $250 million worth of damage to property and tens of millions of dollars more damage to infrastructure, the state insurance commissioner said on Wednesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090923/us_nm/us_usa_georgia_floods

Dust storm shrouds Sydney, obscures monuments

SYDNEY – Red Outback grit shrouded Australia's largest city Wednesday, blotting out such landmarks as the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge and even reaching underground to coat subway stations. The country's worst dust storm in 70 years diverted planes and produced an eerie orange sky.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090923/ap_on_re_au_an/as_australia_dust_storm

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Drought makes California vulnerable to busy fire season

LOS ANGELES — Even as a mammoth wildfire still burns in the San Gabriel Mountains, California hasn't seen this year the level of destruction that flames delivered the past two years.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wildfires/2009-09-09-california-fire-season_N.htm

Warming Arctic follows 1,900 years of cooling, scientists find

WASHINGTON — The Arctic was cooling for 1,900 years because of a natural change in Earth's orbit until greenhouse gas accumulation from the use of fossil fuels reversed the trend in recent decades, according to a study published Thursday in Science magazine .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090903/sc_mcclatchy/3305145

Arctic Temperatures Are Warmest in 2,000 Years

Arctic air temperatures in the 1990s were the warmest in the last 2,000 years and were a result of rising greenhouse gas levels, a new study concludes.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090903/sc_livescience/arctictemperaturesarewarmestin2000years

The Changing Arctic: How Animals Respond to Climate Change

The dramatic changes sweeping the Arctic as a result of global warming aren't just confined to melting sea ice and polar bears - a new study finds that the forces of climate change are propagating throughout the frigid north, producing different effects in each ecosystem with the upshot that the face of the Arctic may be forever altered.

"The Arctic as we know it may be a thing of the past," said Eric Post of Penn State, who led an international team that brought together research on the effects of climate change from ecosystems across the Arctic.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090910/sc_livescience/thechangingarctichowanimalsrespondtoclimatechange

Drought-stricken Guatemala pleads for aid

GUATEMALA CITY (AFP) – Guatemala on Friday called on the international community to stump up 110 million dollars to help battle a famine and drought that has struck the Central American nation.

The drought is also being felt in neighboring Mexico, where the country's water commission last month warned of a "critical" water shortage that was likely to reach crisis levels by next year.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090911/sc_afp/guatemalapovertydrought_20090911233028

In tiny `Tuk,' they man climate's front line

TUKTOYAKTUK, Northwest Territories – Caught between rising seas and land melting beneath their mukluk-shod feet, the villagers of Tuktoyaktuk are doing what anyone would do on this windy Arctic coastline. They're building windmills.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090908/ap_on_re_ca/cn_climate_09_frigid_front_line

Walruses congregate on Alaska shore as ice melts

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Thousands of walruses are congregating on Alaska's northwest coast, a sign that their Arctic sea ice environment has been altered by climate change.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090910/ap_on_re_us/us_sea_ice_walrus

Effects of Arctic warming seen as widespread

WASHINGTON – Arctic warming is affecting plants, birds, animals and insects as ice melts and the growing season changes, scientists report in a new review of the many impacts climate change is having on the far north.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090910/ap_on_sc/us_sci_arctic_warming

Greenland's melt mystery unfolds, at glacial pace

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090911/ap_on_sc/climate_09_greenland_s_melt

HELHEIM GLACIER, Greenland – Suddenly and without warning, the gigantic river of ice sped up, causing it to spit icebergs ever faster into the ocean off southeastern Greenland.

The Helheim Glacier nearly doubled its speed in just a few years, flowing through a rift in the barren coastal mountains at a stunning 100 feet (30 meters) per day.