Some recent articles.
Pacific leaders say climate will claim entire nations
Pacific leaders warned Thursday that entire island nations will disappear under the waves unless action is taken to address climate change.
The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) wrapped up its annual meeting in Palau with a call to action on the issue of global warming, with the 15-nation regional grouping saying there was no excuse not to act to curb climate change.
"We all know the causes of climate change, we know the solutions," Samoa Prime Minister Sailele Malielegaoi told reporters after releasing a communique from the three-day meeting.
"All that is left is decisive action from leaders with the courage to do what needs to be done to save the world."
Malielegaoi said Pacific island nations, some of which are barely one metre (three foot) above sea level, were at the forefront of the climate change issue because it was a matter of survival for them.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news...re-nations.html
Data confirms climate extremes are here to stay
In a paper published online today in the journal Scientific Reports, published by Nature, Northeastern researchers Evan Kodra and Auroop Ganguly found that while global temperature is indeed increasing, so too is the variability in temperature extremes. For instance, while each year's average hottest and coldest temperatures will likely rise, those averages will also tend to fall within a wider range of potential high and low temperate extremes than are currently being observed. This means that even as overall temperatures rise, we may still continue to experience extreme cold snaps, said Kodra.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news...e-extremes.html
Climate change will make some tropical regions wetter – then dry them out
Some parts of South America are projected to get wetter this century due to climate change, but then dry out again after 2100 as patterns of rainfall shift southwards – according to research involving the University of East Anglia
Read more at: http://phys.org/news...ons-wetter.html
Antarctic ice sheet is result of CO2 decrease, not continental breakup
Climate modelers from the University of New Hampshire have shown that the most likely explanation for the initiation of Antarctic glaciation during a major climate shift 34 million years ago was decreased carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. The finding counters a 40-year-old theory suggesting massive rearrangements of Earth's continents caused global cooling and the abrupt formation of the Antarctic ice sheet. It will provide scientists insight into the climate change implications of current rising global CO2 levels.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news...result-co2.html
Wildfires and other burns play bigger role in climate change, professor finds
It has long been known that biomass burning – burning forests to create agricultural lands, burning savannah as a ritual , slash-and-burn agriculture and wildfires – figures into both climate change and public health.
But until the release of a new study by Stanford University Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Mark Z. Jacobson, the degree of that contribution had never been comprehensively quantified.
Jacobson's research, detailed in a paper published July 30 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, is based on a three-dimensional computer model simulation of the impacts of biomass burning. His findings indicate that burning biomass is playing a much bigger role in climate change and human health issues than previously thought.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news...-professor.html
