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DocWatch
drought
Twitterit?
News stories about "drought," with punchlines: http://apocadocs.com/d.pl?drought
Related Scary Tags:
weather extremes  ~ food crisis  ~ water issues  ~ anthropogenic change  ~ climate impacts  ~ global warming  ~ holyshit  ~ aquifers depletion  ~ ecosystem interrelationships  ~ rain forest depletion  ~ health impacts  



Wed, Jul 13, 2016
from University of Exeter, via DesdemonaDespair:
Drought stalls tree growth and shuts down Amazon carbon sink
A recent drought completely shut down the Amazon Basin's carbon sink, by killing trees and slowing their growth, a ground-breaking study led by researchers at the Universities of Exeter and Leeds has found. Previous research has suggested that the Amazon - the most extensive tropical forest on Earth and one of the "green lungs" of the planet - may be gradually losing its capacity to take carbon from the atmosphere. This new study, the most extensive land-based study of the effect of drought on Amazonian rainforests to date, paints a more complex picture, with forests responding dynamically to an increasingly variable climate.... Co-author Professor Oliver Phillips, from the University of Leeds, said: "For more than 20 years the Amazon has been providing a tremendous service, taking up hundreds of millions more tonnes of carbon every year in tree growth than it loses through tree death. But both the 2005 and 2010 droughts eliminated those net gains." ...


Surely this was included in the modeling algorithms upon which the barely-sufficient Paris accords depend.

ApocaDoc
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Sat, Feb 13, 2016
from Science Advances, via CommonDreams:
4 Billion People at Risk as 'Water Table Dropping All Over the World'
Freshwater scarcity is increasingly perceived as a global systemic risk. Previous global water scarcity assessments, measuring water scarcity annually, have underestimated experienced water scarcity by failing to capture the seasonal fluctuations in water consumption and availability. We assess blue water scarcity globally at a high spatial resolution on a monthly basis. We find that two-thirds of the global population (4.0 billion people) live under conditions of severe water scarcity at least 1 month of the year. Nearly half of those people live in India and China. Half a billion people in the world face severe water scarcity all year round. Putting caps to water consumption by river basin, increasing water-use efficiencies, and better sharing of the limited freshwater resources will be key in reducing the threat posed by water scarcity on biodiversity and human welfare. ...


C'mon. Drought is just a market opportunity!

ApocaDoc
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Sun, Nov 15, 2015
from DesdemonaDespair:
Sao Paulo on emergency reserve water; drought means Brazilian hydropower falls short
... The main water supply in São Paulo has been running on emergency reserves, and the system is only able to deliver about 40 percent of its usual capacity. Before 2014, it was able to supply approximately 8,700 gallons of water per second, but now, it only delivers around 3,500 gallons per second. Because two-thirds of Brazil's power comes from hydroelectric power plants, electricity has also been in short supply. Widespread blackouts have hit the country's largest cities, and increased energy rationing is a possibility, which could stunt the economy.... ...


The Free Market (™) will solve this problem for sure.

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Sep 28, 2015
from Inside Climate News:
Basic Water Source for Most Alberta Tar Sands Could Run Dry
"We show that the current and projected surface water allocations from the Athabasca River for the exploitation of the Alberta oil sands are based on an untenable assumption of the representativeness of the short instrumental record."... Tar sands projects are already threatened by a slump in oil prices, as well as pending global action to address climate change. Tar sands drilling is a prominent target of environmental groups and climate activists because the oil emits an estimated three to four times more carbon dioxide when burned than conventional crude. Its water use only adds to the environmental costs. ...


Brevity is the soul of "OMG, WTF?"

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Jul 13, 2015
from Vice, via DesdemonaDespair:
The Wettest Place in North America Is Burning
Vancouver Island is home to the wettest place in North America--and right now it's on fire. Drought has plunged the the Port Alberni-Clayoquot Region, part of Canada's only rainforest, into one of the worst dry seasons on record. Forest fires are spreading quickly through sun-scorched woods that, in the past, have received almost seven metres--or 22 feet--of precipitation per year. The fire, which has been burning since last Saturday on Dog Mountain near Sproat Lake, has reached over 245 hectares and is still spreading.... ...


I fear we're nowhere near Peak Irony.

ApocaDoc
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Tue, May 19, 2015
from London Guardian:
Charlize Theron: Mad Max landscape awaits unless we tackle climate change
The actor Charlize Theron, who takes a leading role in the new Mad Max movie as a one-armed warrior driving five sex slaves to safety, has expressed her fears that a bleak future awaits the planet unless global warming is addressed. ...


In this bleak future, commerce will cost us our arms and legs.

ApocaDoc
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Thu, Mar 12, 2015
from Fusion:
Drop by drop: Living through the São Paulo water crisis
According to Sabesp, the Brazilian water company, residents of São Paulo -- more than 10 million people -- should expect five days a week of restrictions and only two days of full service. There was no date given for our access to be restored. If the situation gets worse, people from São Paulo will need to move to other parts of the nation with adequate water. I don't have a wife or kids yet, but this is difficult for everyone. We are all worried we will become refugees. Since October of 2014, I've suffered from water rationing. I know friends and other colleagues who've had these problems since September 2014. This shortage was not an accident, nor an act of God: this is a result of twenty years of government neglecting the ecological management of the water supply. ...


Livin' la agua loca.

ApocaDoc
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Tue, Mar 3, 2015
from Mashable:
Seeds of war
Manmade global warming helped spark the brutal civil war in Syria by doubling to tripling the odds that a crippling drought in the Fertile Crescent would occur shortly before the fighting broke out, according to a groundbreaking new study published on March 2. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to attribute the drought in Syria in large part to global warming. In doing so, it provides powerful evidence backing up the Pentagon and intelligence community's assessments that climate change is likely to play the role of a "threat multiplier" in coming decades, pushing countries that are already vulnerable to upheaval over the edge and into open conflict. ...


Peace out

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Mar 2, 2015
from Guardian:
Sao Paulo - anatomy of a failing megacity: residents struggle as water taps run dry
According to a crisis report published on 9 February by the pressure group Aliança Pela Água (Water Alliance), whereas catastrophic situations like flooding often fosters solidarity, a lack of resources tends to do the opposite, leading to chaos and even violence. In Itu, a city 100km from São Paulo a desperate water shortage in late 2014 led to fighting in queues, theft of water, and the looting of emergency water trucks, which are now accompanied by armed civil guards. These events left many paulistanos wondering how the hardship might play out in their own pressurised and densely populated city. ...


drip... drip... drip...

ApocaDoc
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Sun, Feb 15, 2015
from InsideClimate News:
Droughts Will Hammer U.S. West as 21st Century Unfolds
As harsh as the current long-running California drought has been, conditions in the American West will substantially worsen in coming years, according to new research... According to the new research, droughts in the Southwest and Central Plains will only worsen during the second half of this century. The closest comparison is to the 1930s Dust Bowl or 1950s drought, but lasting 35 years instead of just a few. ...


From Dust Bowl to Dust Pit.

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Feb 2, 2015
from Reuters:
California suffers dry January, prolonging devastating drought
California has experienced one of the driest Januarys on record, and the lack of rain during a time of year when the weather is usually wet indicates the state is likely headed for a fourth straight year of drought, officials said. A prolonged drought could portend further economic and environmental setbacks for the nation's most populous state, which has already lost both crops and jobs to the dry weather. ...


Parchifornia

ApocaDoc
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Wed, Jan 14, 2015
from Reuters:
China sets 2020 "artificial weather" target to combat water shortages
China aims to induce more than 60 billion cubic metres of additional rain each year by 2020, using an "artificial weather" programme to fight chronic water shortages, the government said on Monday. China's water resources are among the world's lowest, standing at 2,100 cubic metres per person, or just 28 percent of the world average.... Artificial rain is created by rocket-launching chemicals, such as silver iodide, into clouds to boost rain. China used the technology, known as cloud seeding, to scatter clouds ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.... Around 70 percent of China's rivers and lakes have become too polluted to use. ...


I've looked at clouds from both seeds now.

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Dec 29, 2014
from Los Angeles Times:
State's drought having pronounced effect on wildlife
...aby squirrels are just one of many animals fleeing their homes and risking their lives to search for food sources that have been diminished by drought. California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials said drought has forced more bears and deer to venture onto mountain highways, where many are struck and killed by vehicles. ...


Let them drink cake.

ApocaDoc
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Fri, Dec 5, 2014
from Reuters, via DesdemonaDespair:
São Paulo taps emergency water reserves which may last for two months - 'If it doesn't rain, we won't have an alternative but to get water from the mud'
São Paulo, Brazil's drought-hit megacity of 20 million, has about two months of guaranteed water supply remaining as it taps into the second of three emergency reserves, officials say. The city began using its second so-called "technical reserve" 10 days ago to prevent a water crisis after reservoirs reached critically low levels last month. This is the first time the state has resorted to using the reserves, experts say.... Brazil's southeast region is suffering its worst drought in at least 80 years after an unusually dry year left rivers and reservoirs at critically low levels. ...


Twenty million people without showers is an aesthetic nightmare!

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Nov 3, 2014
from ThinkProgress:
NASA Bombshell: Global Groundwater Crisis Threatens Our Food Supplies And Our Security
An alarming satellite-based analysis from NASA finds that the world is depleting groundwater -- the water stored unground in soil and aquifers -- at an unprecedented rate.... The groundwater at some of the world's largest aquifers -- in the U.S. High Plains, California's Central Valley, China, India, and elsewhere -- is being pumped out "at far greater rates than it can be naturally replenished." The most worrisome fact: "nearly all of these underlie the word's great agricultural regions and are primarily responsible for their high productivity." And this is doubly concerning in our age of unrestricted carbon pollution because it is precisely these semiarid regions that are projected to see drops in precipitation and/or soil moisture, which will sharply boost the chances of civilization-threatening megadroughts and Dust-Bowlification. ...


You can't frack water from a stone -- or can you??

ApocaDoc
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Fri, Oct 17, 2014
from Bloomberg:
Sao Paulo Running Out of Water Unless Reserve Tapped Now
Latin America's biggest metropolis may run out of water next month. For some of the 20 million residents across Sao Paulo, the nation's financial hub, taps are already running dry. Dilma Pena, chief executive officer of the state-run water utility, told the city council yesterday that supplies are only guaranteed until mid-November unless it can tap the last of the water in its Cantareira reservoir. The four-lake complex that supplies half of Sao Paulo has already been drained of 96 percent of its water capacity amid Brazil's worst drought in eight decades. ...


Bring out the reserve immediately, Chives.

ApocaDoc
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Tue, Sep 30, 2014
from Lincoln Journal-World:
Ogallala water continues to pour onto farm fields despite decades of dire forecasts
...The aquifer, a shallow, underground sea under parts of eight states and spanning 174,000 square miles, is the main source of water in the western third of Kansas. Counties on top of the aquifer account for roughly two-thirds of the state's agricultural economic value. Without Ogallala water, significant portions of the region's agriculture and its related businesses could not be sustained, manufacturing could not continue, recreational opportunities would diminish and towns could vanish, state officials say. ...


How brown will the earth / turn in a state run by a / climate denier?

ApocaDoc
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Sat, Sep 27, 2014
from Yale360:
Aral Sea Basin Dry for the First Time in Modern History, NASA images show
For the first time in modern history, the eastern basin of the South Aral Sea has gone completely dry, as this NASA satellite image captured in late August shows. The Aral Sea is an inland body of water lying between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in central Asia. It was once one of the four largest lakes in the world, but it has been shrinking markedly and dividing into smaller lobes since the 1960s, after the government of the former Soviet Union diverted the region's two major rivers to irrigate farmland. One Aral Sea researcher suggested that it has likely been at least 600 years since the eastern basin entirely disappeared. Decreasing precipitation and snowpack in its watershed led to the drying this year, and huge withdrawals for irrigation exacerbated the problem. ...


The early superstardom went to Aral's head, and now look at him.

ApocaDoc
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Fri, Aug 22, 2014
from Climate Central:
Epic Drought in West is Literally Moving Mountains
Climate change is driving the Greenland Ice Sheet to melt, which is contributing to sea level rise. But imagine that the same amount of water melting from Greenland each year is being lost in California and the rest of the West because of the epic drought there. What happens? The land in the West begins to rise. In fact, some parts of California's mountains have been uplifted as much as 15 millimeters (about 0.6 inches) in the past 18 months because the massive amount of water lost in the drought is no longer weighing down the land, causing it to rise a bit like an uncoiled spring, a new study shows. ...


In the post-apocalypse, the mountains will ascend into the sky.

ApocaDoc
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Fri, Aug 22, 2014
from Mother Nature Network:
California's drought? 'Normal' versus 'now' in pix
Situated at the foot of the Sierra Nevadas in Butte County, Lake Oroville is one of the largest reservoirs in California, second only to Shasta Lake. After enduring three straight years of drought, the lake is currently only filled to 32 percent of its capacity.... To get a better idea of the dire situation in the Golden State, continue below for a photo comparison of water levels taken in 2011 and 2014, looking at Lake Oroville and Folsom Lake, another major California reservoir located in Sacramento County that is now filled at 40 percent of its capacity. ...


I think I need to reassess my late-summer frolic plans.

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Aug 18, 2014
from Washington Post:
West's historic drought stokes fears of water crisis
When the winter rains failed to arrive in this Sacramento Valley town for the third straight year, farmers tightened their belts and looked to the reservoirs in the nearby hills to keep them in water through the growing season. When those faltered, some switched on their well pumps, drawing up thousands of gallons from underground aquifers to prevent their walnut trees and alfalfa crops from drying up. Until the wells, too, began to fail. Now, across California's vital agricultural belt, nervousness over the state's epic drought has given way to alarm. Streams and lakes have long since shriveled up in many parts of the state, and now the aquifers -- always a backup source during the region's periodic droughts -- are being pumped away at rates that scientists say are both historic and unsustainable. ...


Waiter, there's fur in my aquifer!

ApocaDoc
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Tue, Aug 5, 2014
from Cliff Mass Weather Blog:
Will the Pacific Northwest be a Climate Refuge Under Global Warming?
As global warming takes hold later in the century, where will be the best place in the lower 48 states to escape its worst effects? A compelling case can be made that the Pacific Northwest will be one of the best places to live as the earth warms. A potential climate refuge. ...


Don't tell anyone.

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Jul 28, 2014
from Washington Post:
Study: Colorado River Basin drying up faster than previously thought
Seven Western states that rely on the Colorado River Basin for valuable water are drawing more heavily from groundwater supplies than previously believed, a new study finds, the latest indication that an historic drought is threatening the region's future access to water. In the past nine years, the basin -- which covers Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and California -- has lost about 65 cubic kilometers of fresh water, nearly double the volume of the country's largest reservoir, Lake Mead. That figure surprised the study's authors, who used data from a NASA weather satellite to investigate groundwater supplies..."We really don't know how much water is down there. We've already depleted a lot of it. There could be more, but when we have to start to dig deeper to access it, that's a bad sign," Castle said. "If [ground water basins] continue to be depleted, they don't come back up." ...


We could always squeeze water out of stones, right?

ApocaDoc
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Wed, May 14, 2014
from Yale360:
Half of US is experiencing some degree of drought, analysis finds
Half of the United States is in the midst of a drought, a recent analysis from the U.S. National Drought Monitor found, with nearly 15 percent of the nation in extreme to exceptional drought. Dry conditions are pushing north rapidly, along with warmer temperatures, and soil moisture and groundwater levels are low far in advance of the agricultural peak demand season, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center. Much of the Southwest and Great Plains regions have been in a persistent drought for several years, and as this map prepared by federal agencies shows, an exceptional drought is currently plaguing parts of those regions. ...


Existing power, in the face of systemic drought, is not just transitory, but faintly ridiculous.

ApocaDoc
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Wed, May 7, 2014
from Associated Press:
Climate report predicts more extremes in Midwest
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- A report by the National Climate Assessment says a warming planet will worsen a series of weather trends already showing up across the Midwest. Look for more extremes: searing heat, late-spring freezes, floods and droughts across a region that includes Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri.... FARMS AND FORESTS: The growing season, already two weeks longer than in 1950, will continue lengthening. But the gains will be offset by smaller yields for some crops, including corn. ...


Amber waves of pain.

ApocaDoc
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Fri, Apr 25, 2014
from Environmental News Service:
Green Heart of Africa Turning Brown
Africa's Congo rainforest, the second-largest tropical rainforest in the world, has lost its much greenness over the past decade, a new analysis of satellite data shows. The study demonstrates that a persistent drought in the Congo region since 2000 has affected the greenness of an increasing amount of forest area and that the browning trend has intensified over the 13 years of the study. ...


Maybe we should stop paying attention!

ApocaDoc
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Fri, Apr 11, 2014
from Los Angeles Times:
Beef prices hit all-time high in U.S.
Come grilling season, expect your sirloin steak to come with a hearty side of sticker shock. Beef prices have reached all-time highs in the U.S. and aren't expected to come down any time soon. Extreme weather has thinned the nation's beef cattle herds to levels last seen in 1951, when there were about half as many mouths to feed in America.... Soaring beef prices are being blamed on years of drought throughout the western and southern U.S. The dry weather has driven up the price of feed such as corn and hay to record highs, forcing many ranchers to sell off their cattle. That briefly created a glut of beef cows for slaughter that has now run dry.... ...


Welcome to the new world of fa$t food.

ApocaDoc
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Thu, Apr 10, 2014
from Newsweek:
Death on the Farm
...the suicide rate for male farmers has remained high: just under two times that of the general population. And this isn't just a problem in the U.S.; it's an international crisis. India has had more than 270,000 farmer suicides since 1995. In France, a farmer dies by suicide every two days. In China, farmers are killing themselves to protest the government's seizing of their land for urbanization. In Ireland, the number of suicides jumped following an unusually wet winter in 2012 that resulted in trouble growing hay for animal feed. In the U.K., the farmer suicide rate went up by 10 times during the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 2001, when the government required farmers to slaughter their animals. And in Australia, the rate is at an all-time high following two years of drought... One factor disputed among agricultural and mental health professionals is the connection between pesticides and depression. ...


A global pharnomenon.

ApocaDoc
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Wed, Mar 26, 2014
from National Geographic News:
In California, Demand for Groundwater Causing Huge Swaths of Land to Sink
Extensive groundwater pumping is causing a huge swath of central California to sink, in some spots at an alarming rate, the U.S. Geological Survey reports. With California in the throes of a major drought and demand for groundwater rising, officials and landowners are racing to respond to the process known as subsidence. Some areas of the San Joaquin Valley, the backbone of California's vast agricultural industry, are subsiding at the fastest rates ever measured, said Michelle Sneed, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist and lead author of the recent report. ...


The sky is falling ... and the land is sinking!

ApocaDoc
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Wed, Mar 19, 2014
from Reuters:
Warmest winter on record worsens California drought
California is coming off of its warmest winter on record, aggravating an enduring drought in the most populous U.S. state, federal weather scientists said Monday. The state had a average temperature of 48 Fahrenheit (9 Celsius) for December, January and February, an increase from 47.2 F in 1980-81, the last hottest winter, and more than 4 degrees hotter than the 20th-century average in California, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in a statement. Warmer winters could make the already parched state even drier by making it less likely for snow to accumulate in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, NOAA spokesman Brady Phillips said. That snow, melting in the spring and summer and running down through the state's rivers, is vital for providing water in the summer, when the state typically experiences little rain. ...


When it rains it pours, and when it droughts it deserts.

ApocaDoc
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Wed, Mar 12, 2014
from London Guardian:
California considers trucking live salmon to the ocean due to drought
Wildlife officials said they will consider a plan to move millions of hatchery-raised salmon by tanker trucks to the ocean if the Sacramento River and its tributaries prove inhospitable due to the drought. Officials fear the rivers could become too shallow and warm, affecting food supply and making salmon easier to catch by predators, the Sacramento Bee reported. State and federal officials said Monday they were watching conditions and would be ready to implement the plan next month, barring heavy rains. ...


Hopefully they drive up-highway to their destination.

ApocaDoc
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Tue, Feb 25, 2014
from NPR:
Brutal Drought Could Drain More Than Brazil's Coffee Crop
Brazil, a country usually known for its rainforests, has been facing a severe drought in its breadbasket region, leaving people in the cities without water and farmers in the countryside with dying crops. Global prices for coffee, in particular, have been affected. Scientists in Brazil say the worst is yet to come -- yet no one in the government, it seems, is listening.... "All of us have never seen a drought that's been so prolonged and so aggressive as this one," Polidor says. "In 49 days, we got maybe 11 millimeters of rain."... Juliano Jose Polidor, the corn farmer in the Brazilian countryside, doesn't have strong political views and doesn't know much about the debate about climate change. He says he just knows what he sees. "I think we are getting to the hour where it's not just me who needs to be worried, but the whole world," says Polidor. "We will have to decide what to do about what is happening." ...


Welcome to the Hotel California. You can check out any time you like. But you can never leave.

ApocaDoc
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Wed, Feb 12, 2014
from tcktcktck:
Extreme Weather Hits Hard Worldwide
From unprecedented storms and flooding in the UK to severe drought in California and Brazil, 2014 has kicked off with some exceptional and weird weather events. Scientists are increasingly able to link the upward trends in extreme weather to climate change--and these latest examples are giving them even more evidence. ...


We are colonized/by the extreme weather that/we have created

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Feb 10, 2014
from Mother Jones:
California's Drought Could Be the Worst in 500 Years (And why it's too late for the rain.)
The Golden State is in the midst of a three-year drought--and scientists believe that this year may end up being the driest in the last half millennium, according to UC Berkeley professor B. Lynn Ingram. Californians are scared, with good reason: Fire danger in the state is high, and drinking water supplies are low. But the drought will have repercussions outside the state's borders, as well. California produces a good chunk of the nation's food: half of all our fruits and vegetables, along with a significant amount of dairy and wine.... About ten percent of the state is experiencing "exceptional drought," the highest possible level. As of this week, seventeen communities are in danger of running out of water, forcing some to buy it or run pipes from other districts.... [T]he state would need to experience heavy rain or snowfall every other day from now until May in order to achieve average annual precipitation levels. ...


Calidessication.

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Sun, Feb 2, 2014
from LA Times:
California snowpack hits record low
Even with the first significant storm in nearly two months dropping snow on the Sierra Nevada, Thursday's mountain snowpack measurements were the lowest for the date in more than a half-century of record keeping. At 12 percent of average for this time of year, the dismal statewide snowpack underscored the severity of a drought that is threatening community water supplies and leaving farm fields in many parts of California barren. ...


Let them drink Dasani.

ApocaDoc
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Wed, Jan 22, 2014
from University of New South Wales:
Get Used to Heat Waves: Extreme El Nino Events to Double
Extreme weather events fueled by unusually strong El Ninos, such as the 1983 heatwave that led to the Ash Wednesday bushfires in Australia, are likely to double in number as our planet warms... We currently experience an unusually strong El Niño event every 20 years. Our research shows this will double to one event every 10 years," said co-author, Dr Agus Santoso of CoECSS... Extreme El Nino's occur when sea surface temperatures exceeding 28°C develop in the normally cold and dry eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. ...


Els Ninos

ApocaDoc
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Sun, Jan 19, 2014
from London Guardian:
Global food crisis will worsen as heatwaves damage crops, research finds
The world's food crisis, where 1 billion people are already going hungry and a further 2 billion people will be affected by 2050, is set to worsen as increasing heatwaves reverse the rising crop yields seen over the last 50 years, according to new research. Severe heatwaves, such as those currently seen in Australia, are expected to become many times more likely in coming decades due to climate change. Extreme heat led to 2012 becoming the hottest year in the US on record and the worst corn crop in two decades. ...


Come and get your hot crops!

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Sun, Jan 19, 2014
from Huffington Post:
California Has Driest Year Ever -- And It May Get Worse
... For California, 2013 was the driest year since the state started measuring rainfall in 1849, before it was a state, according to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, or UCAR, a consortium of 75 schools. Low rainfall has shattered records in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Shasta and on up to Eugene, Ore... Meteorologists say the reason behind the low precipitation is a massive zone of high pressure nearly four miles high and 2,000 miles long that has been blocking storms for more than a year. Meteorologist Daniel Swain has dubbed it "The Ridiculously Resilient Ridge." ...


I call it "The Rush Limbaugh."

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Mon, Dec 30, 2013
from Center for American Progress:
Devastating Drought Continues to Plague California
As California enters its third consecutive dry winter, with no sign of moisture on the horizon, fears are growing over increased wildfire activity, agricultural losses and additional stress placed on already strained water supplies. The city of Los Angeles has received only 3.6 inches of rain this year--far below its average of 14.91 inches, USA Today reported. And San Francisco is experiencing its driest year since record keeping began in 1849. As of November, the city had only received 3.95 inches of rain since the year began. ...


The city of (parched) angels.

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Mon, Oct 14, 2013
from BBC:
Global warming will increase intensity of El Nino, scientists say
Scientists say they are more certain than ever about the impact of global warming on a critical weather pattern. The El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) occurs in the Pacific Ocean but plays an important part in the world's climate system. Researchers have until now been unsure as to how rising temperatures would affect ENSO in the future. But this new study suggests that droughts and floods driven by ENSO will be more intense. ...


El Nino ... El Nono!

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Mon, Sep 2, 2013
from Grist:
U.S. government paid $17 billion for weather-withered crops last year
Desiccated corn and sun-scorched soybeans have been in high supply lately -- and we're paying through the nose for them. The federal government forked out a record-breaking $17.3 billion last year to compensate farmers for weather-related crop losses -- more than four times the annual average over the last decade. The losses were mostly caused by droughts, high temperatures, and hot winds -- the sizzling harbingers of a climate in rapid flux. ...


The Sizzling Harbingers is the name of my new band, dude!

ApocaDoc
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Tue, Aug 27, 2013
from KSU, via PNAS and ScienceDaily:
Future Water Levels of Crucial Agricultural Aquifer Forecast
If current irrigation trends continue, 69 percent of the groundwater stored in the High Plains Aquifer of Kansas will be depleted in 50 years. But immediately reducing water use could extend the aquifer's lifetime and increase net agricultural production through the year 2110.... The study investigates the future availability of groundwater in the High Plains Aquifer -- also called the Ogallala Aquifer -- and how reducing use would affect cattle and crops. The aquifer supplies 30 percent of the nation's irrigated groundwater and serves as the most agriculturally important irrigation in Kansas. ...


Can't we just squeeze the earth harder?

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Tue, Jun 11, 2013
from Texas Tribune, in New York Times:
Experts Urge Focus on Aquifers in Push for Water From Mexico
At least 20 aquifers stretch across the United States-Mexico border, said Gabriel Eckstein, a professor at the Texas Wesleyan University School of Law and the director of the International Water Law Project. Some are being mined at a record pace, he said. "I know you have a lot of agricultural interests in the Valley yelling and screaming about water in the Rio Grande; that is going to continue," he said. But of the 14 million people living within 50 miles of the border, "80 or 90 percent of them get their water from aquifers." "I would suggest that focusing on just the rivers is a mistake," he said. "Every state is pumping based on its own rules without actually quantifying how much water is in the aquifers." ...


Translation from the original Malthusian: "What's ours is mine."

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Thu, May 23, 2013
from Texas Tribune:
Ogallala Aquifer in Texas Panhandle Suffers Big Drop
... The Ogallala wells measured by the district experienced an average drop of 1.87 feet from 2012 to 2013. That makes it one of the five or 10 worst drops in the district's more than 60-year history, said Bill Mullican, a hydrogeologist with the district. "There are some pretty remarkable declines," Mullican said. One well in the western part of the water district, he said, dropped 19 feet over the year. The vast majority of Texas is enduring a drought, but the Panhandle has been especially hard hit, causing farmers to pump more water to make up for the lack of rain. That depletes the amount of water stored in the aquifer over the long term, which means future generations will find less water to pump to grow crops.... "The general trend has been [that] the depletion in the High Plains Aquifer is more severe the further south you go," said Leonard Konikow, a USGS hydrologist and the study's author.... As to how much water is left, Konikow was not optimistic. In some hard-hit Texas portions of the Ogallala, "it appears that about half the aquifer's saturated thickness has dried up," he said. ...


Somebody had some way of describing this "used up half of a resource" thing, somehow or another. Was it "Speak" resource? "Beak" resource? Gimme a minute, it'll come to me...

ApocaDoc
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Wed, May 22, 2013
from New York Times:
Wells Dry, Fertile Plains Turn to Dust
... And when the groundwater runs out, it is gone for good. Refilling the aquifer would require hundreds, if not thousands, of years of rains. This is in many ways a slow-motion crisis -- decades in the making, imminent for some, years or decades away for others, hitting one farm but leaving an adjacent one untouched. But across the rolling plains and tarmac-flat farmland near the Kansas-Colorado border, the effects of depletion are evident everywhere. Highway bridges span arid stream beds. Most of the creeks and rivers that once veined the land have dried up as 60 years of pumping have pulled groundwater levels down by scores and even hundreds of feet.... In 2011 and 2012, the Kansas Geological Survey reports, the average water level in the state's portion of the aquifer dropped 4.25 feet -- nearly a third of the total decline since 1996. And that is merely the average. "I know my staff went out and re-measured a couple of wells because they couldn't believe it," said Lane Letourneau, a manager at the State Agriculture Department's water resources division. "There was a 30-foot decline."... "Looking at areas of Texas where the groundwater has really dropped, those towns are just a shell of what they once were," said Jim Butler, a hydrogeologist and senior scientist at the Kansas Geological Survey. ...


"Peak Water" was so 20th century.

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Tue, Feb 19, 2013
from Climate Central:
The Top 10 Hardest-Hit States for Crop Damage
The searing U.S. drought of 2012 devastated the nation's corn crop, pushing yields down in some states to their lowest levels in nearly 30 years. According to recently-released numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Missouri, Illinois and Indiana were among the hardest hit Corn Belt states, with yields at 28-, 26-, and 22-year lows, respectively.... Overall, crop-related farm income was not down substantially in 2012, despite the severe drought. The unusually high crop prices and record insurance payouts -- at least $14 billion in government aid has already been doled out -- helped offset drought-related profit losses. ...


Monoculture = welfare state.

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Mon, Feb 4, 2013
from Detroit News:
Lakes Michigan, Huron sink to lowest level ever
In the nearly 100 years researchers have catalogued the rise and fall of the Great Lakes, Michigan and Huron have never seen a month like January. The two-lake system recorded its lowest-ever level for a month, a mean of 576.02 feet above sea level. It's a number that dips below the all-time low for January -- 576.12 feet -- as well as the all-time low for any month, 576.05 feet in March 1964.... Keith Kompoltowicz, the U.S. Army Corp.'s chief of watershed hydrology, said the weather so far -- including the recent string of days with 50 degree temperatures -- has been inconsistent. "It's really been a mixed bag of conditions so far," he said. ...


I'm just glad those lakes are too Great to fail.

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Mon, Jan 28, 2013
from St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Drought prompts Missouri ethanol plant to suspend production
Poet Biorefining says its temporarily suspending operations at its Macon ethanol plant next week because the drought left it unable to source enough local corn. Production will be halted Feb. 1, the company said. All 44 employees will continue top [SIC] be paid for regular hours and many will be used to assist in upgrades to the plant while it's off line. Corn will continue to be stockpiled at the plant for future use, the company said. But there's currently no set timeline for resuming production. ...


There's irony, though little poetry, in this tragedy.

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Tue, Jan 22, 2013
from The Globe and Mail:
Is there water enough for U.S. to frack its way to energy independence?
In chemistry you quickly discover that oil and water don't mix. The same is true in the energy industry. It's unfortunate, because the new fuel sources that the International Energy Agency claims will allow North America to reach energy independence require tremendous amounts of water. Whether from shale plays or the oil sands, millions of gallons of water are needed to pull that energy out of the ground.... The industry's growing need for water comes at a time when much of the country is grinding through the worst drought in more than half a century....it takes about 600,000 litres to drill a single well. And that's a drop in the bucket compared to the 23 million litres that are needed to frack that same well. ...


I'd rather die of thirst than a lack of energy!

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Mon, Jan 21, 2013
from NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory:
Severe Climate Jeopardizing Amazon Forest, Study Finds
An area of the Amazon rainforest twice the size of California continues to suffer from the effects of a megadrought that began in 2005, finds a new NASA-led study. These results, together with observed recurrences of droughts every few years and associated damage to the forests in southern and western Amazonia in the past decade, suggest these rainforests may be showing the first signs of potential large-scale degradation due to climate change. ...


I'm guessing a rainforest needs the occasional rainstorm.

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Tue, Jan 15, 2013
from London Guardian:
Global food crisis will worsen as heatwaves damage crops, research finds
The world's food crisis, where 1 billion people are already going hungry and a further 2 billion people will be affected by 2050, is set to worsen as increasing heatwaves reverse the rising crop yields seen over the last 50 years, according to new research. Severe heatwaves, such as those currently seen in Australia, are expected to become many times more likely in coming decades due to climate change. Extreme heat led to 2012 becoming the hottest year in the US on record and the worst corn crop in two decades. ...


Can't we build a supermassive air conditioner?

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Jan 7, 2013
from Reuters:
Australia braces for "catastrophic" wildfire day
Australia was bracing on Monday for days of "catastrophic" fire and heatwave conditions, with fires already burning in five states and as a search continued for people missing after devastating wildfires in the island state of Tasmania. Prime Minister Julia Gillard toured fire-ravaged Tasmanian townships and promised emergency aid for survivors, who told of a "fireball" that engulfed communities across the thinly-populated state on Friday and Saturday. "The trees just exploded," local man Ashley Zanol told Australian radio... ...


You know you're in trouble when the trees explode.

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Sun, Dec 23, 2012
from New Scientist:
2012 review: The year in environment
For anyone living on planet Earth, 2012 was a rough year. The US sweltered in a devastating drought, only to then bear the brunt of superstorm Sandy. Meanwhile Arctic sea ice shrank to its lowest extent on record, months after evidence emerged that it might have passed the point of no return. Even as evidence for human-driven climate change continued to mount, the world did little about it. A major UN summit achieved little other than a vague promise to pay developing countries when they suffer harm from the changing climate. Developed countries continued their dash for gas, often using hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" to extract it, and greenhouse gas emissions kept rising. On a bright note, solar panels became the cheapest energy source in parts of the tropics. Here is our pick of this year's environment stories.... ...


As if we actually should pay attention to the environment!

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Thu, Dec 20, 2012
from Reuters:
Pinpoint climate studies flag trouble for Mexico, Central American farmers
A growing body of scientific evidence ranks Mexico and its southern neighbors near the top of the list of countries most vulnerable to global warming, and advances in micro-forecasting foresee a grim future in alarming detail. According to two new studies, a deadly combination of warmer weather and less rainfall in the years ahead will devastate yields of traditional crops like corn and beans, as well as the region's market-critical coffee harvest. ...


And the macro-forecasting looks macro-grim.

ApocaDoc
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Fri, Oct 12, 2012
from AlJazeera:
Africa facing intensified 'food crisis'
Seventy-five per cent of countries on the African continent and several Arab countries face an impending food crisis, a new study has revealed. Maplecroft's Food Security Risk Index, a report released on Wednesday, found that in a survey of 197 countries worldwide, up to 39 of the 59 most at risk of food insecurity were African countries. "Although a food crisis has not emerged yet, there is potential for food-related upheaval across the most vulnerable regions," including sub-Saharan African and Arab states, Helen Hodge, head of maps and indices at Maplecroft, said. Maplecroft said that low crop yields had pushed global food prices up by six per cent in July 2012, raising concerns of a repeat of the 2007/2008 food crisis. ...


Looks like a great time for a KFC franchise in Addis Ababa!

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Oct 8, 2012
from Washington Post:
U.S. runs out of funds to battle wildfires
In the worst wildfire season on record, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service ran out of money to pay for firefighters, fire trucks and aircraft that dump retardant on monstrous flames. So officials did about the only thing they could: take money from other forest management programs. But many of the programs were aimed at preventing giant fires in the first place, and raiding their budgets meant putting off the removal of dried brush and dead wood over vast stretches of land -- the things that fuel eye-popping blazes, threatening property and lives. ...


I fear this will fuel a fiery feedback loop!

ApocaDoc
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Sat, Sep 29, 2012
from Huffington Post:
2012 Will Be Hottest Year On Record Unless Winter Is Abnormally Cold
The U.S. has experienced its warmest year-to-date (January-August) on record, and unless the next four months are about as cold as the first eight months were hot, 2012 will go down as the hottest year on record.... Additionally, according to The Weather Channel, taking only the years since World War II, the odds of not surpassing the warmest year are just 7 percent. So while it's certainly possible that 2012 won't be a record-breaker, it would take a heck of a cold snap to pull that off. ...


I understand the likelihood of a record-breaking wingspan on a pig is less than that.

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Sep 24, 2012
from Reuters:
Sweet times for cows as gummy worms replace costly corn feed
Mike Yoder's herd of dairy cattle are living the sweet life. With corn feed scarcer and costlier than ever, Yoder increasingly is looking for cheaper alternatives -- and this summer he found a good deal on ice cream sprinkles... As the worst drought in half a century has ravaged this year's U.S. corn crop and driven corn prices sky high, the market for alternative feed rations for beef and dairy cows has also skyrocketed... in the mix are cookies, gummy worms, marshmallows, fruit loops, orange peels, even dried cranberries. ...


If they are feedin' 'em gummy worms they better be showin' 'em some movies, too!

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Sep 17, 2012
from Politico:
Droughts latest wrinkle in climate debate
Climate change is here. Even those who differ over its cause agree that it's happening. In the United States alone, 28,570 high-heat records have been set so far this year, more than ever before, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported this month. As if that weren't problem enough, the world is also plunging into another major food crisis. And what most people don't know is that the two issues are directly related. Food prices "soared by 10 percent in July" alone, the World Bank said, because of "an unprecedented summer of droughts" worldwide. The U.S. is hardly the only nation affected, but the Department of Agriculture said more than half of this nation's counties have been designated disaster zones because of the summer's devastating drought, including many major food producers. That has never happened before either. ...


You'd think something named "NOAA" would be reporting floods not drought.

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Sep 17, 2012
from InsideClimate News:
U.S. Paying a Price for Lack of Water Policy
The worst drought since at least the 1950s has barely registered on political radar screens this year. Water doesn't make it into convention or stump speeches, or onto bumper stickers or campaign signs. To many people concerned about the nation's water supply, this drought of attention to a vital resource underscores a glaring, ongoing problem that will likely worsen in coming years if it is not addressed soon. "The nation lacks a coherent approach to dealing with water," said Gerald Galloway, a civil engineer, hydrology expert and former president of the American Water Resources Association. "Everyone is just hoping it will get better. Hope is not a method." ...


Sounds like we need a Water Czar.

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Sep 3, 2012
from New York Times:
Isaac Brings Touch of Relief, and Hope for Next Season, to Corn Belt
All through the scorching summer, as their crops withered under cloudless skies, Corn Belt farmers waited and prayed for this moment. Now, courtesy of Hurricane Isaac, it has finally arrived: three days of rain to soak their parched fields and soften the cracked soil. ...


Thanks, Isaac, for the belt.

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Aug 27, 2012
from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry:
Summer Weather Could Mean Fall Colors Pop in Northeast U.S.
The summer's dry weather, combined with recent cool nights, could combine for a colorful fall foliage season in the Northeast, U.S. "Right now, without knowing what's going to happen in the middle of October when the fall colors start to peak regionally, it looks like it's going to be a good year for fall colors," said Dr. Donald J. Leopold, a dendrologist and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. ...


A dendrologist: One who looks on the bright side!

ApocaDoc
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Thu, Aug 16, 2012
from Live Science:
July Ranks as Fourth Warmest on Record
Last month, the planet saw the fourth warmest July since record-keeping began in 1880, according to U.S. weather records. Most areas of the world experienced above-average monthly temperatures, including most of the United States and Canada... Last month, the continental United States saw a bigger milestone. July 2012 was the warmest month on record for the lower 48 states, surpassing the previous record holder, July 1936. ...


We're all in this together!

ApocaDoc
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Wed, Aug 8, 2012
from CNN:
NOAA: July hottest month on record for continental US
The July heat wave that wilted crops, shriveled rivers and fueled wildfires officially went into the books Wednesday as the hottest single month on record for the continental United States. The average temperature across the Lower 48 was 77.6 degrees Fahrenheit, 3.3 degrees above the 20th-century average, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration reported. That edged out the previous high mark, set in 1936, by two-tenths of a degree, NOAA said. U.S. forecasters started keeping records in 1895. The seven months of 2012 to date are the warmest of any year on record and were drier than average as well, NOAA said. ...


The warmists are in collusion with the weather?

ApocaDoc
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Tue, Aug 7, 2012
from Reuters:
Water shortages driving growing thefts, conflicts in Kenya
As droughts become more frequent and water shortages worsen, Kenya is seeing an increase in water thefts and other water-related crime, police records show. The most common crimes are theft, muggings and illegal disconnections of water pipes by thieves who collect and sell the water. Many of the crimes occur in urban slums, which lack sufficient piped water. ...


Hydrobbers!

ApocaDoc
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Fri, Aug 3, 2012
from New York Times:
Big Drought Makes for a Small 'Dead Zone'
Researchers from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium have found that this summer's hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico - the oxygen-devoid area of water colloquially known as the dead zone - covers one of the smallest areas recorded since scientists began measuring the hypoxic zone in 1985.... "Because of the massive drought in the Midwest, there's a whole lot less fertilizer being flushed into the rivers and whole lot less water being flushed into the gulf," said Don Scavia, an aquatic ecologist with the University of Michigan.... Dr. Scavia said the small size of this year’s hypoxic zone was especially interesting because a reduction in the amount of nitrates entering the gulf has an immediate effect. "If we could find some way to stop all that nitrate from going down the river, the problem would be solved in a year or two," he said. ...


The natural balance of environmental collapse is a wonder to behold!

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Tue, Jul 31, 2012
from ClimateWire:
1988 vs 2012: How heat waves and droughts fuel climate perception
Coming on the heels of decades of research, the 1988 North American drought bridged the gap between scientific and popular understanding, pulling climate change down out of the atmosphere and planting it firmly in the minds of the U.S. public. From that union came the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the modern climate movement and its counterpart, the climate skeptic movement. More than two decades later, the drought of 2012 has reignited national interest in global warming. National news coverage is up, and a recent poll found that recognition of climate change rose 5 percent on the back of the July heat wave. Yet the debate today is framed within fundamentally different parameters, polarized by party lines and upstaged at every turn by the woes of a flagging global economy. For a significant portion of Americans' belief in climate change seems inextricably linked to the weather, rising with the temperature only to fade again as the seasons turn. ...


Americans are fair weather fans.

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Mon, Jul 30, 2012
from Oregon State University:
Chronic 2000-04 Drought, Worst in 800 Years, May Be the 'New Normal'
The chronic drought that hit western North America from 2000 to 2004 left dying forests and depleted river basins in its wake and was the strongest in 800 years, scientists have concluded, but they say those conditions will become the "new normal" for most of the coming century. ...


The new normal: horror.

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Sat, Jul 28, 2012
from AP, via Yahoo, via DesdemonaDespair:
Report shows US drought rapidly intensifying
The widest drought to grip the United States in decades is getting worse with no signs of abating, a new report warned Thursday, as state officials urged conservation and more ranchers considered selling cattle. The drought covering two-thirds of the continental U.S. had been considered relatively shallow, the product of months without rain, rather than years. But Thursday's report showed its intensity is rapidly increasing, with 20 percent of the nation now in the two worst stages of drought -- up 7 percent from last week. The U.S. Drought Monitor classifies drought in various stages, from moderate to severe, extreme and, ultimately, exceptional. Five states -- Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska -- are blanketed by a drought that is severe or worse. States like Arkansas and Oklahoma are nearly as bad, with most areas covered in a severe drought and large portions in extreme or exceptional drought. ...


You say drought, I say "temporary natural variation."

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Tue, Jul 24, 2012
from Lester Brown, in The Guardian:
The world is closer to a food crisis than most people realise
On 21 May, 77 percent of the US corn crop was rated as good to excellent. The following week the share of the crop in this category dropped to 72 percent. Over the next eight weeks, it dropped to 26 percent, one of the lowest ratings on record. The other 74 percent is rated very poor to fair. And the crop is still deteriorating. Over a span of weeks, we have seen how the more extreme weather events that come with climate change can affect food security. Since the beginning of June, corn prices have increased by nearly one half, reaching an all-time high on 19 July.... Although the world was hoping for a good US harvest to replenish dangerously low grain stocks, this is no longer on the cards. World carryover stocks of grain will fall further at the end of this crop year, making the food situation even more precarious. Food prices, already elevated, will follow the price of corn upward, quite possibly to record highs. ...


Disaster capitalism will save the day!

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Fri, Jul 20, 2012
from Reuters, via Chicago Tribune, from DesdemonaDespair:
US drought could go through October: forecasters
Hotter-than-normal temperatures are expected through October over most of the contiguous 48 U.S. states, with below-average precipitation for Midwest areas already hit by the worst drought in a half century, government forecasters said on Thursday. Experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration did not rule out drought that could continue past October, and they noted that there was a chance of an El Nino pattern that could mean more excessive heat and dry conditions by the end of 2012.... "There's a greater chance that there is no relief possible or in sight" for the U.S. Midwest, Collins said, stressing that these are probabilities, not definitive predictions. ...


Apocaiku:
Evident absence / of rain. Evidence denied / will not stay absent.

ApocaDoc
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Thu, Jul 5, 2012
from US Drought Monitor, via EurekAlert:
US Drought Monitor shows record-breaking expanse of drought across US
More of the United States is in moderate drought or worse than at any other time in the 12-year history of the U.S. Drought Monitor, officials from the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln said today. Analysis of the latest drought monitor data revealed that 46.84 percent of the nation's land area is in various stages of drought, up from 42.8 percent a week ago. Previous records were 45.87 percent in drought on Aug. 26, 2003, and 45.64 percent on Sept. 10, 2002.... "The recent heat and dryness is catching up with us on a national scale," said Michael J. Hayes, director of the National Drought Mitigation Center at UNL. ...


No rain explains the dryness of the plains.

ApocaDoc
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Thu, Jun 7, 2012
from E&E Publishing:
Record N.M. blaze behaving differently from last year's fires
A wildfire has burned through more than 255,000 acres in the Gila National Forest, eclipsing last summer's Las Conchas fire as the largest blaze in New Mexico history. Two years of drought and winds of up to 50 miles an hour have created perfect conditions for the fire, which began as two separate lightning-sparked blazes but merged May 23. As of this morning, the fire was "very active" and exhibiting "extreme behavior," including some flaring into treetops, the interagency Southwest Coordination Center said. ...


Why do you think they call it a wildfire.

ApocaDoc
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Mon, May 28, 2012
from Agence France-Press:
North Korea suffering severe drought
North Korean state media says the impoverished communist country is suffering a prolonged and widespread drought, raising fears it will worsen already dire food shortages. If the unusually dry weather persists to the end of the month, it will be the driest May in 50 years in western coastal areas, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, warning: "The drought is expected to get more serious." ...


My state media says it's pouring in North Korea.

ApocaDoc
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Tue, May 15, 2012
from Climate Central:
A Tour of Drought as it Unfolds Across the U.S.
Last year at this time, all eyes were on Texas, where drought conditions were intensifying into what became that state's worst single year drought on record, causing nearly $8 billion in economic losses. Recently, though, Texas has gone from famine to feast in the precipitation department, and drought concerns for the upcoming summer are focused farther to the west, as drought tightens its grip across a broad swath of the interior West and Southwest In addition to the West, drought conditions are also prevalent in the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and parts of the Northeast as well, along with a small pocket in the Upper Midwest. In all, 56 percent of the Lower 48 states were experiencing drought conditions as of May 8, almost twice the area compared to last year at this time, according to data from the U.S. Drought Monitor. ...


I'd cry but it would waste moisture.

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Apr 16, 2012
from Telegraph.co.uk:
Britain faces worst drought since 1976
Half of Britain is now in drought as the country faces its most severe water shortage since 1976, the Environment Agency warns today. More than 35 million people are now living in drought-affected areas, with water shortages today declared across the Midlands and South West. Parts of the country are already drier than they were in the summer of 1976, when Britain experienced its worst drought for more than 100 years. The drought of 1976 led to standpipes being installed in residential streets, water supplies to businesses being rationed and schools having to close early. ...


When it doesn't rain, it doesn't pour.

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Mon, Apr 9, 2012
from The Daily Climate:
Warming Atlantic primes the Amazon for fire
...Scientists used to think the rainforest, especially in the western Amazon, was too wet to burn. But major fire seasons in 2005 and 2010 made them reconsider. Fires are a major source of carbon emissions in the Amazon, and scientists are beginning to worry that the region could become a net emitter, instead of a carbon sink. New findings link rising ocean temperatures off the northern coast of Brazil to changing weather patterns: As the Atlantic warms, it draws moisture away from the forest, priming the region for bigger fires. "We are reaching a tipping point in terms of drought, beyond which these forests can catch fire," says Daniel Nepstad, international program director at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute in Brasilia, Brazil. ...


Ocean vs forests: this time it's personal!

ApocaDoc
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Sat, Mar 24, 2012
from Agence France-Press:
2001-2010 warmest decade on record: WMO
Climate change has accelerated in the past decade, the UN weather agency said Friday, releasing data showing that 2001 to 2010 was the warmest decade on record. The 10-year period was also marked by extreme levels of rain or snowfall, leading to significant flooding on all continents, while droughts affected parts of East Africa and North America.... Nine of the 10 years also counted among the 10 warmest on record, it added, noting that "climate change accelerated" during the first decade of the 21st century. ...


Proof of global climate strange.

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Fri, Mar 16, 2012
from HuffingtonPost:
Monarch Butterflies Mexico Migration Dropped This Year
The number of Monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico dropped 28 percent this year, according to a report released Thursday, a decline some experts attribute to droughts in parts of the United States and Canada where the butterflies breed and begin their long migration south. Others say damage to wintering grounds in central Mexico's mountains remains a factor in the decline, citing deforestation of the fir and pine forests they favor. The numbers of butterflies spending the winter in Mexico have varied wildly in recent years. Concern rose two years ago, when their numbers dropped by 75 percent in the wintering grounds, the lowest level since comparable record-keeping began in 1993. They partially recovered last year, when the number of butterflies nearly doubled from that record low point. ...


Democracy butterflies are doing fine.

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Mon, Mar 5, 2012
from San Antonio Express-News:
Climate change made the drought worse, scientists say
Several scientists at NASA and the state climatologist say the record-setting heat and drought of last summer in Texas was made worse by climate change... "We conclude that extreme heat waves, such as that in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010, were 'caused' by global warming, because their likelihood was negligible prior to the recent rapid global warming," [James Hansen] wrote in the paper that is still undergoing peer review. "We can say with a high degree of confidence that these extreme anomalies were a consequence of global warming." ...


In Texas, global warming doesn't exist.

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Thu, Feb 2, 2012
from Reuters, via Scientific American:
Drought and Warmer Weather Persist in Much of U.S.
Weird weather kept vexing large swathes of the United States over the last week, with unseasonably warm and dry conditions melting northern snows and spreading drought through the southwest, even as heavy rains soaked parched pastures in Texas and Oklahoma, according to climate experts. Unseasonably warm temperatures were noted in Kansas and across many areas of the central Plains, with Kansas recording temperatures well above 60 degrees Fahrenheit this week.... Texas is trying to emerge from a year that saw records shattered for both high heat and lack of moisture. The one-year period between November 1, 2010, and October 31, 2011, was the driest in the state's history, and three-month period of June to August in Texas was the hottest ever reported by any state in U.S. history, according to state and federal climate experts. ...


It ain't just the heat, it's the non-humidity!

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Wed, Feb 1, 2012
from New York Times:
Food Crisis as Drought and Cold Hit Mexico
A drought that a government official called the most severe Mexico had ever faced has left two million people without access to water and, coupled with a cold snap, has devastated cropland in nearly half of the country.... While the authorities say they expect the situation to worsen, one of the five worst-affected states, Zacatecas, got a reprieve on Sunday. Heriberto Felix Guerra, head of the Ministry of Social Development, saw the rain, the first in 17 months, as a guardedly reassuring sign.... ...


What, they don't have faucets in Mexico? Or supermarkets?

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Tue, Jan 3, 2012
from Associated Press:
Chile battles 3 huge forest fires; 1 elderly man killed
Firefighters in Chile battled three huge wildfires Monday that have burned about 90 square miles (23,000 hectares) of forest, destroyed more than 100 homes and have driven away thousands of tourists while causing millions of dollars in losses. The fires also claimed their first victim: an elderly man who refused warnings to leave his home. Chile's normally rainy southern regions are suffering from a nationwide heat wave, on top of a drought that makes fires increasingly likely. The country was battling 48 separate fires on Sunday alone, and red alerts were declared for the regions of Magallanes, Bio Bio and Maule. ...


Too bad Chile ... isn't.

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Wed, Dec 28, 2011
from Wall Street Journal:
Drought Leads to Stray Donkey Deluge
Law-enforcement agencies in Texas are grappling with an unusual problem: stray donkeys, which are roaming roads and fields in growing numbers and overwhelming animal shelters. The donkey predicament is one of the odder ramifications of the record-setting drought that has dried up Texas. Hay supplies have shriveled, causing prices for a bale to more than double over the past year. Now, authorities say, owners who no longer can afford to feed their donkeys are turning them loose. "The donkey problem is epidemic," said Patrick Bonner, senior sergeant at the Dallas County Sheriff's Department. "We're inundated." ...


This is way beyond political symbolism.

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Thu, Dec 22, 2011
from Reuters:
Texas drought kills as many as half a billion trees
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. ...


Trees just cause pollution anyway.

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Wed, Nov 30, 2011
from New York Times:
As Texas Drought Reveals Secrets of the Deep
Despite periodic rainstorms, lower temperatures and even snowfall in Amarillo late last month, Texas remains in the midst of one of its worst droughts. From January through October, statewide rainfall totaled 10.77 inches, about 15 inches below average. The year that ended in September was the driest in Texas since at least 1895, when statewide weather records begin, breaking the previous record low set in 1956 by 2.5 inches. "It's the most severe single-year drought on record," said John Nielsen-Gammon, the state climatologist and a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University. "There literally is no point of comparison."... The water levels at many of the state's man-made lakes have become a drought barometer. Lake levels have decreased statewide by as little as a few feet to as much as 50 feet or more. Some lakes are completely dry, and others are close to it. Lake E. V. Spence in West Texas, which normally has a maximum depth of 108 feet, is less than 1 percent full. ...


Boy, when Texas does drought, they do it big!

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Tue, Nov 15, 2011
from AP, via HuffingtonPost:
Texas Wildfire Season Hits One-Year Mark With No End In Sight
The devastating Texas wildfire season reaches the one-year mark on Tuesday, and there appears to be no end in sight as officials brace for large blazes that could ignite anywhere across the drought-stricken state. Despite a recent lull in fire activity statewide, the threat remains in parts of Texas, so the Texas Forest Service is not declaring an end to the wildfire season that started Nov. 15, 2010. "This year is a little harder to call (for an ending point) because we're still picking up some fire calls daily," said Tom Spencer, director of the Texas Forest Service's predictive services department. And officials are expecting some large fires this winter and next spring because of dead trees and pastures across the bone-dry state, he said.... In the past year, wildfires statewide have destroyed nearly 4 million acres and more than 2,900 homes, killing 10 people. ...


"Seasons" are so last century.

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Fri, Nov 11, 2011
from Mongabay:
Monarch butterflies decline at wintering grounds in Mexico, Texas drought adds to stress to migration
A study published online last spring in Insect Conservation and Diversity shows a decrease in Mexico's overwintering monarch butterflies between 1994 and 2011. The butterflies face loss of wintering habitat in Mexico and breeding habitat in the United States. Extreme weather, like winter storms in Mexico and the ongoing drought in Texas, adds yet another challenge.... This fall, monarchs are navigating a drought-stricken landscape as the migration funnels through Texas. According to Brower, it will be "stress, stress, stress" as the butterflies search for nectar sources in the parched region.... Toone warns that monarch aficionados should not rest easy: "I know from my 23 years of experience going to Mexico, you don't have to be a scientist to be able to tell that the number of butterflies has just been in a horrific decline in those overwintering areas." ...


So there'll be fewer hurricanes, right?

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Wed, Oct 19, 2011
from Huffington Post:
Texas Gulf Coast Sees Largest Algae Bloom In Years
Historic drought conditions are fueling the largest algae bloom in more than a decade along the Texas Gulf Coast, killing fish, sparking warnings about beach conditions and making throats scratchy, researchers said Monday. The extent of the so-called red tide bloom came as no surprise to biologists because the microscopic algae love warm, salty water. Since March, Texas has recorded seven of the 10 driest months in 116 years, so scientists had anticipated a red tide.... The geographic scope of this red tide - affecting areas from Galveston to South Padre Island - is the largest since 2000, Byrd said from her office in Victoria. A variety of dead fish have been reported washing up in places since last month - including a 6-foot tarpon on Padre Island this weekend, but so far this bloom hasn't produced a fish kill as severe as others, Byrd said. ...


A red bloom sounds rosy to me!

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Mon, Sep 12, 2011
from Guardian:
US counts the cost of nine months of unprecedented weather extremes
As deadly fires continue to burn across bone-dry Texas and eight inches of rain from tropical storm Lee falls on New Orleans, the US is beginning to count the cost of nine months of unprecedented weather extremes. Ever since a massive blizzard causing $2bn of damage paralysed cities from Chicago to the north-east in January, nearly every month has been marked by a $1b+-weather catastrophe. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration (Noaa), there have been 10 major disasters already this year, leaving more than 700 people dead and property damage of over $35bn. In the past 31 years the mainland states have suffered 99 weather-related disasters where overall damages and economic costs were over $1bn. This year has seen three times as many than as usual. NOAA will release its August data next week but Summer 2011 is expected to be the warmest on record. Chris Burt, author and leading weather historian, has complied a list of more than 40 cities and towns that have experienced record temperatures this year. "So many heat records of various types have been shattered this past summer that it is impossible to quantify them," he said. "Not since the great heat waves of 1934 and 1936 has the US seen so many heat-related records broken as occurred this summer. ...


The rain is pain and plainly ain't explained.

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Fri, Sep 9, 2011
from Associated Press:
UN chief calls for urgent action on climate change
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that urgent action was needed on climate change, pointing to the famine in the Horn of Africa and devastating floods in northern Australia as examples of the suffering caused by global warming. Ban lashed out at climate change skeptics during a speech at the University of Sydney, arguing that science has proven climate change is real..."Watching this high tide standing on the shore of Kiribati, I said, 'High tide shows it's high time to act,'" Ban said. "We are running out of time." ...


"High" this... "high" that... I just want to get high.

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Fri, Sep 9, 2011
from NOAA:
U.S. experiences second warmest summer on record
The blistering heat experienced by the nation during August, as well as the June through August months, marks the second warmest summer on record according to scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, N.C. The persistent heat, combined with below-average precipitation across the southern U.S. during August and the three summer months, continued a record-breaking drought across the region. ...


Gee, thanks, NOAA; next you'll be telling us there's no need to build an ark.

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Wed, Sep 7, 2011
from BBC:
Somalia famine: UN warns of 750,000 deaths
As many as 750,000 people could die as Somalia's drought worsens in the coming months, the UN has warned, declaring a famine in a new area. The UN says tens of thousands of people have died after what is said to be East Africa's worst drought for 60 years. Bay becomes the sixth area to be officially declared a famine zone - mostly in parts of southern Somalia controlled by the Islamist al-Shabab. Some 12 million people across the region need food aid, the UN says. The situation in the Bay region was worse than anything previously recorded, said senior UN's technical adviser Grainne Moloney. "The rate of malnutrition [among children] in Bay region is 58 percent. This is a record rate of acute malnutrition," she told journalists in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. ...


This is one sad cirque du Somalia.

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Thu, Sep 1, 2011
from London Guardian:
Firing laser beams into the sky could make it rain, say scientists
Ever since ancient farmers called on the gods to send rain to save their harvests, humans have longed to have the weather at their command. That dream has now received a boost after researchers used a powerful laser to produce water droplets in the air, a step that could ultimately help trigger rainfall. While nothing can produce a downpour from dry air, the technique, called laser-assisted water condensation, might allow some control over where and when rain falls if the atmosphere is sufficiently humid. ...


Our twubbles are alllll over.

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Mon, Aug 29, 2011
from Pew Center on Global Climate Change:
The 2011 Texas Drought Worst In History
Texas climatologists have recently stated that the ongoing dry spell is the worst one-year drought since Texas rainfall data started being recorded in 1895. The majority of the state has earned the highest rating of "exceptional" drought and the remaining areas are not far behind with "extreme" or "severe" ratings by the U.S. Drought Monitor. So far, Texas has only received 6.5 inches of the 16 inches that has normally accumulated by this time of year.... Streams throughout Texas are running well below normal and reservoirs are running at 50 percent of capacity. Only one boat ramp remains open between Lake Travis and Lake Buchanan and water levels are falling by a foot per week. For farmers and ranchers who depend on Mother Nature to provide water for their livestock and crops, this lack of water has been crippling. Agricultural losses have already mounted to a record 5.2 billion, and the drought has not yet broken. ...


I blame it on illegal immigration.

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Wed, Aug 10, 2011
from Lloyd:
Climate change leads to rising subsidence risks in Europe
News reports on climate change have focused on dire predictions of more hurricanes and increasing flooding due to rising sea levels. But subsidence caused by drought, which has already become a major problem across Europe, will also become much worse due to global warming.... Subsidence is one of the costliest but least known property risks. Unlike a roaring storm, the damage wreaked by subsidence takes years rather than hours, but it can be serious.... A prolonged heatwave may bake the ground, creating fissures that can tear apart the foundations of houses, bridges and factories. In some parts of Europe, subsidence claims are now the costliest natural hazard, comparable to serious flooding, says Swiss Re in its report "The hidden risks of climate change: An increase in property damage from drought and soil subsidence in Europe". In France, subsidence-related claims have risen by more than 50 percent in the past 20 years, costing the affected regions 340 million euros every year on average. ...


OMG: PermaMoist breakdown! Who would have thought?

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Wed, Aug 10, 2011
from Fast Company:
In Drought-Stricken Texas, They're Drinking Water Recycled From Urine
Would you drink recycled urine? Residents of Big Spring, Texas may not have a choice--the local water district is breaking ground this year on a $13 million treatment plant that will direct 2 million gallons per day of thoroughly cleaned sewage back into the regular water system. It's a practical solution for a drought-stricken state that is hunting for water wherever it can. It's not as if wastewater recycling is a new idea. Texas has, in fact, used reclaimed water for over a century. But generally, the recycled water doesn't go to the tap; it's used in parks, golf courses, outdoor fountains, and more. The state has plenty of indirect sewage recycling plants--one of the newer plants filters wastewater through a wetland before sending it out to the facilities that want this so-called "raw water". In contrast, the Big Spring plant will use sewage that has already gone through a traditional wastewater treatment plant, clean it out further, and combine it in a pipeline with lake water before sending it out to be used by residents in their sinks, toilets, and showers. This is, according to KDAF-TV, the first plant of its kind in the state--and one of the only plants like it in the country. ...


Big Spring has sprung a leak!

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Mon, Aug 8, 2011
from DesdemonaDespair:
Oklahoma and Texas droughts significantly worsened after governors asked citizens to pray for rain
Yes, in a mere two weeks, another 30 percent of [Oklahoma] went into extreme or exceptional drought! Now the entire state is under severe drought or worse. For some reason, science-denying southern Republican governors keep returning to one particular ineffectual 'adaptation' strategy: "Texas Drought Now Far, Far Worse Than When Gov. Rick Perry Issued Proclamation Calling on All Texans to Pray for Rain" (7/15/11).... Of course, we don't really have any short-term strategies to address extreme weather. In the longer term, prayer would appear to be a non-optimal approach, given Texas's and Oklahoma's experience. "The percent of contiguous U.S. land area experiencing exceptional drought in July reached the highest levels in the history of the U.S. Drought Monitor, an official at the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln said." Sharply reducing greenhouse gas emissions, however, would seem our best hope of sharply reducing the prospects that the Southwest becomes a permanent dust bowl. It also has the benefit of science underpinning it.... [Take a look at this amazing animation of the last 12 weeks, by the US Drought Monitor: http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/12_week.gif -- 'Doc M] ...


Perhaps those prayers were aimed at Gaia's mean little brother, God.

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Wed, Aug 3, 2011
from Live Science:
End Times? Texas Lake Turns Blood-Red
A Texas lake that turned blood-red this summer may not be a sign of the End Times, but probably is the end of a popular fishing and recreation spot. A drought has left the OC Fisher Reservoir in San Angelo State Park in West Texas almost entirely dry. The water that is left is stagnant, full of dead fish -- and a deep, opaque red. The color has some apocalypse believers suggesting that OC Fisher is an early sign of the end of the world, but Texas Parks and Wildlife Inland Fisheries officials say the bloody look is the result of Chromatiaceae bacteria, which thrive in oxygen-deprived water. "It's just heartbreaking," said Charles Cruz, a fish and wildlife technician with Texas Parks and Wildlife in San Angelo, Tex. ...


What's "heartbreaking"? That's it's not the End Times?

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Mon, Aug 1, 2011
from Reuters:
Weather disasters seen costly sign of things to come
The United States is on a pace in 2011 to set a record for the cost of weather-related disasters and the trend is expected to worsen as climate change continues, officials and scientists said on Thursday. "The economic impact of severe weather events is only projected to grow," Senator Dick Durbin said at a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Financial Services and Government, which he chairs. "We are not prepared. Our weather events are getting worse, catastrophic in fact."... As of June, the United States has seen eight weather disasters exceeding $1 billion each in damage, and the annual hurricane season has hardly begun, said Kathryn Sullivan, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction and NOAA's Deputy Administrator. The record is nine in a single year, 2008. But April alone saw separate tornado, wildfire, flood and drought disasters. "Any one such a event in a year would be considered quite notable, and we had four in totally different hazard categories in the space of a month," Sullivan told Reuters. The costs of weather-disaster damages have climbed past $32 billion for 2011, according to NOAA estimates.... "Every weather event that happens nowadays takes place in the context of the changes in the background climate system," University of Illinois scientist Donald Wuebbles, who worked on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told the panel. "So nothing is entirely 'natural' anymore," he said. ...


I suppose I should be grateful to be alive while history is being made.

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Mon, Jul 18, 2011
from SciDev.net:
Forecasters 'warned of Horn of Africa drought' last year
Forecasting systems were warning about a serious drought in the Horn of Africa as much as a year ago -- but communication problems between scientists and decision-makers meant the alerts went largely unheeded, according to forecasters. Warnings about the drought -- which the United Nations says is the worst in 60 years -- were issued last August, when the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) released a brief on food security in East Africa following the declaration of a La Niña event, a cooling of the sea surface in the Pacific Ocean known to affect weather in Africa. "We were very confident that the October to December rains were going to be poor," Chris Hillbruner, a food security early warning specialist with FEWS NET, told SciDev.Net. "And there was an increased likelihood that the March to May rains were going to be poor as well."... Chris Funk, a climatologist with FEWS NET, said that the organisation's experts have been "a little frustrated that we provided this information quite early" but not enough has been done to make good use of it. ...


If they'd just predict good news, then scientists might get listened to.

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Sun, Jul 17, 2011
from ABC News:
Somalia Drought 'One of the Largest Humanitarian Crises in Decades'
The crisis has been brought on by a deadly combination of severe drought, with no rain in the region for two years, a huge spike in food prices and a brutal civil war in Somalia, where it is too dangerous for aid workers to operate. Somalians are walking as far as 50 miles to reach the Dadaab complex in eastern Kenya, the largest refugee camp in the world. The trek can take weeks through punishing terrain, which is desolate except for the carcasses that litter the land.... Even after enduring these difficult circumstances, leaving behind everything they own and arriving with only the clothes on their backs, many refugees say they are happier in the camps because at least they can find some food and rations to get by.... Almost 400,000 Somalis now call the Dadaab complex home, and more than 1,300 arrive every day. ...


Only fifty miles? I can drive that in an hour!

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Thu, Jul 7, 2011
from Telegraph.co.uk:
UN refugee agency warns of crisis 'of unimaginable proportions' in Somalia drought
Scores of Somali children are dying on the journey or within a day of arrival at refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia, as they flee the region's worst drought in decades, according to the UN's refugee agency. High levels of malnutrition, combined with ongoing violence in the war-torn Horn of Africa nation, are threatening "a human tragedy of unimaginable proportions", the UNHCR warned. Following several seasons of failed rains and spiralling global food prices, drought has hit more than 12 million people across Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. Thousands of Somali refugees are making perilous journeys of hundreds of miles to seek assistance: 54,000 people crossed into Ethiopia and Kenya in June alone. Levels of serious malnutrition amongst newly arrived children in Ethiopia are exceeding 50 per cent, while in Kenya levels are reaching 30 to 40 per cent. ...


If it can't be imagined, does it exist?

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Thu, Jun 30, 2011
from Grist:
In the worst drought in Texas history, 13.5 billion gallons of water used for fracking
Texas is experiencing the driest eight-month period in its recorded history. But in 2010, natural gas companies used 13.5 billion gallons of fresh water for hydraulic fracturing, and that could more than double by 2020. Where's all this water coming from? Oh, it was just lying around, in these aquifers! You guys weren't using it to drink or irrigate or anything, right? Guys? Crockett County, Tx., near San Angelo (which you probably also haven't heard of, but it's not near much else), has gotten less than two inches of rain since October. But water for fracking could soon make up 25 percent of the county's water usage, according to its groundwater conservation manager. Fracking takes between 50,000 and 4 million gallons for a single well, on average, and could take as many as 13 million gallons. And most of that water is gone for good -- 75 percent of it can't be recovered. ...


Think we slow down business just because of drought? You don't know Texas!

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Thu, Jun 30, 2011
from KPCD:
Drought, wildfires lead to natural disaster declaration by USDA
In all, 213 counties in Texas have lost at least 30 percent of their crops or pasture due to the drought and wildfires, according to the USDA. By declaring a natural disaster, farmers and ranchers will be able to qualify for emergency loans at lower interest rates. Every county in the South Plains is eligible. Tuesday we talked to South Plains farmers about the declaration. "This is a disaster," Scott Harmon continued. "This is a train wreck." Harmon's family has been farming land just south of Idalou since the 1920's. "We've never seen anything like this before," Harmon told us. "People are scared, they don't know what to do and what's going to happen to them next." ...


And we can't even sue the folks that got us here.

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Sat, Jun 18, 2011
from Guardian:
Warning: extreme weather ahead
Drought zones have been declared across much of England and Wales, yet Scotland has just registered its wettest-ever May. The warmest British spring in 100 years followed one of the coldest UK winters in 300 years. June in London has been colder than March. February was warm enough to strip on Snowdon, but last Saturday it snowed there. Welcome to the climate rollercoaster, or what is being coined the "new normal" of weather. What was, until quite recently, predictable, temperate, mild and equable British weather, guaranteed to be warmish and wettish, ensuring green lawns in August, now sees the seasons reversed and temperature and rainfall records broken almost every year. When Kent receives as much rain (4mm) in May as Timbuktu, Manchester has more sunshine than Marbella, and soils in southern England are drier than those in Egypt, something is happening. Sober government scientists at the centre for hydrology and ecology are openly using words like "remarkable", "unprecedented" and "shocking" to describe the recent physical state of Britain this year, but the extremes we are experiencing in 2011 are nothing to the scale of what has been taking place elsewhere recently.... Last month, Oxfam reported that while the number of "geo-physical" disasters - such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions - has remained more or less constant, those caused by flooding and storms have increased from around 133 a year in 1980s to more than 350 a year now. ...


There's something about that 350 number that rings a bell.

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Tue, Jun 14, 2011
from New York Times:
Europe Braces for Serious Crop Losses, Blackouts as Record Drought Persists
One of the driest spring seasons on record in northern Europe has sucked soils dry and sharply reduced river levels to the point that governments are starting to fear crop losses and France, in particular, is bracing for blackouts as its river-cooled nuclear power plants may be forced to shut down. French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire warned this week that the warmest and driest spring in half a century could slash wheat yields and might even push up world prices despite the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's predicting a bumper global crop due to greater plantings.... And the French government has set up a committee to keep an eye on the country's electricity supply situation and monitor river levels, as 44 of the 58 nuclear reactors that supply 80 percent of France's electricity are cooled by river water. The problem appears to be not that the reactors might overheat because of the lack of water but that the depleted rivers might overheat, creating ecological havoc, when the water returns to them after cooling the reactors. ...


Old Man River is looking hot.

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Mon, Jun 13, 2011
from CBC:
Manitoba flooding linked to climate change: officials
After four soggy years of flooded pastures and ruined crops, the Manitoba government is looking at how to help frustrated farmers cope with climate change in the province's Interlake region. The province has quietly issued a request for proposals for a study on how to deal with "excess moisture on agricultural lands" in the area sandwiched between Lake Manitoba and Lake Winnipeg, north of the provincial capital.... Many frustrated farmers say the proposed study is too little, too late, but the province says it's an important part of coming up with a strategy to help beleaguered producers. Tony Szumigalski, a policy analyst with Manitoba Agriculture, said climate change appears to be causing greater extremes on the Prairies, from drought in Alberta to chronic flooding in Manitoba. "The Interlake has been under water for the last three or four years," he said. "It's been very difficult, especially for a lot of the livestock producers. Their hay fields have been flooded out so there have been issues getting enough hay. There have also been issues related to crops as well." ...


Can we build dikes out of deniers somehow?

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Sat, Jun 11, 2011
from FAO, from DesdemonaDespair:
Climate change to have major impacts on water for farming
An acceleration of the world's hydrological cycle is anticipated as rising temperatures increase the rate of evaporation from land and sea. Rainfall will increase in the tropics and higher latitudes, but decrease in already dry semi-arid to mid-arid latitudes and in the interior of large continents. A greater frequency in droughts and floods will need to be planned for but already, water scarce areas of the world are expected to become drier and hotter. Even though estimates of groundwater recharge under climate change cannot be made with any certainty, the increasing frequency of drought can be expected to encourage further development of available groundwater to buffer the production risk for farmers.... Increased temperatures will lengthen the growing season in northern temperate zones but will reduce the length almost everywhere else. Coupled with increased rates of evapotranspiration this will cause the yield potential and water productivity of crops to decline. "Both the livelihoods of rural communities as well as the food security of city populations are at risk," said FAO Assistant Director General for Natural Resources, Alexander Mueller. "But the rural poor, who are the most vulnerable, are likely to be disproportionately affected." ...


C'mon. All you have do is drill a few more wells, right?

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Fri, Jun 10, 2011
from Financial Times, on DesdemonaDespair:
Danube river level falls to 100-year low, Europe's drought continues
While southern Europe experienced a rather damp spring, much of northern Europe is in the midst of a drought. In France, the months of March and May were the hottest for more than a century, while England and Wales had their second-driest spring since 1910. Between January and April, "severe" rain deficits were recorded in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Hungary and Austria, according to the European Commission. ... It is France's worst drought in more than 30 years, according to Bruno Le Maire, agriculture minister, with rainfall at barely 45 per cent of the average between 1971 and 2000. Restrictions on water use are already in place in nearly two-thirds of France's 96 mainland "departments".... Christian Steindl, managing director of the Ennshafen port on the Danube, says that, while low water levels are not unheard of, it is the timing that is unusual. "In August this can happen, but not in May." ...


Where's Strauss when you need him?

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Tue, Jun 7, 2011
from Stanford University via ScienceDaily:
Climate Scientists Forecast Permanently Hotter Summers
The tropics and much of the Northern Hemisphere are likely to experience an irreversible rise in summer temperatures within the next 20 to 60 years if atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations continue to increase, according to a new climate study by Stanford University scientists... "According to our projections, large areas of the globe are likely to warm up so quickly that, by the middle of this century, even the coolest summers will be hotter than the hottest summers of the past 50 years," said the study's lead author, Noah Diffenbaugh... ...


Just so the winters are bone-chillin' frigid!

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Mon, May 30, 2011
from Reuters:
China's 'land of fish and rice' parched by drought
The drought gripping stretches of central and eastern China has dried Lake Honghu into an expanse of exposed mud, stranded boats and dying fish farms, threatening the livelihoods of residents in Hubei Province who call this their "land of fish and rice." Dry spells and floods blight various parts of China nearly every year, and officials are prone to call each the worst in 50 years or longer. But many residents around the lake said that was a fitting label for the months-long drought that has drastically shrunk the lake, the adjacent Yangtze River, and many other lakes and tributaries along the mighty river's course through farming and industrial heartlands. "I've never, ever seen it this bad. Look at the rice. It's all going yellow and the stalks will die unless we get some rain soon," said Ouyang Jinghuang, a pepper-haired 66-year-old farmer tending rice paddies near Lake Honghu. "We're all digging wells and buying our drinking water. Usually, we have so much water here that we worry about floods, not droughts." ...


If only the reasons were more scrutable.

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Wed, May 18, 2011
from Xinhua News Agency:
Drought leaves 1,400 reservoirs 'dead' in C China
A lingering drought in Central China's Hubei province has rendered 1,392 reservoirs virtually useless as only dead water remains in them, said the local water authority Monday. Known as the "land of a thousand lakes" and a major producer of grain and cotton in the country, Hubei is suffering from a drought that has lasted for five months. As of Sunday, water in four medium-sized and 1,388 small-sized reservoirs had dropped below the allowable discharge level for irrigation and other purposes...the drought had left about 315,000 people and 97,300 livestock in the province short of drinking water. ...


Land of parched tongues.

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Tue, May 17, 2011
from London Guardian:
Vast Mongolian shantytown now home to quarter of country's population
It is a supreme irony in a country once known as the land without fences. Stretching north from the capital, Ulan Bator, an endless succession of dilapidated boundary markers criss-cross away into the distance. They demarcate a vast shantytown that sprawls for miles and is now estimated to be home to a quarter of the entire population of Mongolia. More than 700,000 people have crowded into the area in the past two decades. Many are ex-herders and their families whose livelihoods have been destroyed by bitter winters that can last more than half the year; many more are victims of desertification caused by global warming and overgrazing; the United Nations Development Programme estimates that up to 90 percent of the country is now fragile dryland. ...


My shantytown is shabby chic.

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Mon, May 16, 2011
from Reuters:
France in 'crisis' as drought deepens: minister
France has imposed limits on water consumption in 28 of its 96 administrative departments, the environment ministry said Monday, amid signs that a prolonged dry spell that has hit grain crops would continue. "We are already in a situation of crisis. The situation is like what we would expect in July for groundwater levels, river flows and snow melting," Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet told a press conference.... One of the hottest and driest Aprils on record in France has parched farmland and cut water reserves, stoking worries of a drought similar to that experienced in 1976 and fuelling concern harvests will suffer in the European Union's top grain producer. No substantial rainfall is expected in the next two weeks, weather expert Michele Blanchard told Monday's press conference. ...


Pouvre, pouvre petites plantes.

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Wed, May 11, 2011
from Southwest Farm Press, via DesdemonaDespair:
Texas/Southwest gripped in drought; crops 'pretty much shut down'
Crop and forage production has "pretty much shut down" due to severe to exceptional drought conditions, said a Texas AgriLife Extension Service statewide crop expert. "If you look at the U.S. drought monitor, about 26 percent of the state of Texas is an exceptional drought," said Dr. Travis Miller, AgriLife Extension program leader and associate department head of the soil and crop sciences department, College Station. "Exceptional," means it is a one-in-50-year occurrence, Miller explained. Much of the rest of the state was in what's classified as moderate, severe, or extreme drought. The distinctions are being based largely on how much damage and losses are expected to crops, forage production, livestock and water sources, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor classification scheme.... "But statewide, it's a pretty grim picture," he said. "And it's not just Texas; it's New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and parts of Arkansas. It's an exceptional drought across a big area." Corn along the Gulf Coast is stunted and tasselling early, Miller said. "It's in a lot trouble." ...


I'm just glad we can't blame it on climate change!

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Wed, Apr 20, 2011
from IRIN:
Somalia: "Worst drought in a lifetime"
Officials and aid workers in Somalia's Middle Shabelle region have raised the alarm over the plight of drought-stricken villagers urgently needing food and water. "We are experiencing the worst drought we have seen in decades; since the beginning of March, we have buried 54 people who died from the effects of the drought, seven of them today [20 April]," said Ali Barow, leader of the small town of Guulane, 220km northeast of Mogadishu, the Somali capital. Barow said Guulane and the surrounding villages of Eil Barwaaqo, Hirka Dheere and Hagarey, with an estimated population of 20,000-25,000, were suffering the effects of a prolonged drought.... He said all the water points in the area had dried up. "The remaining water points are not fit for human consumption but people are desperate and will drink anything." Tifow said almost all the deaths were water related. "Most of them died of AWD [acute watery diarrhoea] that was caused by drinking contaminated water." Alasow Sharey Bool, 80, said both people and livestock were dying in the area. "In my 80 years, I have never experienced what I have seen now. This is the worst drought I have witnessed in my lifetime." ...


Don't forget that the number of drowning victims has fallen dramatically.

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Tue, Apr 12, 2011
from EnvironmentalResearchWeb:
Satellites show effect of 2010 drought on Amazon forests
A new study has revealed widespread reductions in the greenness of Amazon forests caused by the last year's record-breaking drought. "The greenness levels of Amazonian vegetation - a measure of its health - decreased dramatically over an area more than three and one-half times the size of Texas and did not recover to normal levels, even after the drought ended in late October 2010," says Liang Xu of Boston University and the study's lead author. The drought sensitivity of Amazon rainforests is a subject of intense study. Computer models predict that in a changing climate with warmer temperatures and altered rainfall patterns, the ensuing moisture stress could cause some of the rainforests to be replaced by grasslands or woody savannas. This would release the carbon stored in the rotting wood into the atmosphere, and could accelerate global warming.... The maps show the 2010 drought reduced the greenness of approximately 2.5 million square kilometers (965,000 square miles) of vegetation in the Amazon - more than four times the area affected by the last severe drought in 2005.... "Last year was the driest year on record based on 109 years of Rio Negro water level data at the Manaus harbor. For comparison, the lowest level during the so-called once-in-a-century drought in 2005, was only eighth lowest," said Marcos Costa, coauthor from the Federal University in Vicosa, Brazil. ...


Are we sure the satellite's "hue" dial doesn't need adjusting?

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Wed, Apr 6, 2011
from SeekingAlpha:
Food Prices and Global Hunger Equal Riots, Civil Wars and Revolution
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at the United Nations puts out a global hunger index (pdf). The most recent was from 2010, well before this year's 45 percent price spike in foodstuffs. According to the IMF, each 10 percent increase in food prices doubles the likelihood of civil disorder, riots or worse by 100 percent [The Food Riot and Revolution Index]. By my math, we are at a four or five-fold increase and still ramping up. In the FAO's scoring, a hunger score above 30 is considered extremely alarming, 20-29 is alarming, and 10-19 is serious. With the massive food inflation, I submit that it's reasonable to add about 10 to the old, quickly outdated (by the day) 2010 number. If you care to argue this point, fine; but add something substantial. Nigeria was 18 in 2010, so this would be in the high 20s today, and at the upper end of the alarming score. Potential hotbed Pakistan was 19 in 2010. Another oil producer, Angola, had a 27 hunger index in 2010 and would now be in the extremely alarming category. Cameroon, a small African oil producer, has a 2010 score of 18. That country was severely impacted by food riots during the 2008 commodity bubble. Both Bangladesh, and emerging market darling India, were ranked 24 in 2010. With the spike, it would be well over 30 today. Don't be surprised if ethnic and religious turmoil breaks out in what are considered democracies. That will be hard for the U.S. to spin. I don't think the U.S. has enough aircraft carriers to cover these contingencies. ...


The military-industrial-ecocide complex is ready to help!

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Wed, Apr 6, 2011
from IRIN:
Kenya: Livestock dying as drought deepens
Thousands more heads of livestock have died in Kenya's arid Northeastern province as La Niña drought conditions worsen and water shortages become more acute.... Livestock farmers in the three regions have lost more than 17,000 animals since January.... Mass deaths of livestock began in February, but the average daily loss of animals has risen in the last three weeks as crucial water sources dried up. Many of the remaining water sources are contaminated, leading to increased incidents of water-borne diseases such as typhoid, amoeba and diarrhoea. A recent assessment by the UN found that the drought ravaging East Africa had left eight million needing food aid, 1.2 million in Kenya.... "We have not received a single drop of rain and yet the rains were expected two weeks ago. We are faced with a humanitarian crisis. A significant number of deaths, mainly of children, pregnant women and elderly people can be attributed to hunger, dehydration and lack of water," he said. "Banisa, a rich grazing area and a trading centre with more than 18,000 people and surrounded by 16 villages, is almost deserted now. The only dam which has served the whole population for last seven years dried up last week." ...


This is a great opportunity for disaster tourism!

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Sun, Apr 3, 2011
from Yale360:
Birds Delay Spring Migration As Tropical Rainfall Declines, Study Says
Declining rainfall in tropical regions can cause migratory birds to delay their departure from wintering grounds back to their northern breeding areas, according to a new study. In a five-year study of American redstarts, a species of warbler, scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute found that individual birds delayed their spring migration from Jamaica to North America when low rainfall produced a scarcity of insects, the birds' primary food supply; the redstarts apparently delayed migration because of insufficient nutritional reserves. Over the last 16 years, increasingly severe and unpredictable dry seasons in Jamaica have resulted in an 11-percent decrease in rainfall. "Our results support the idea that environmental conditions on tropical non-breeding areas can influence the departure time for spring migration," said Colin Studds.... While it is unclear whether the delayed migration will have an adverse impact on the birds, the study said a delayed departure could ultimately affect the arrival time to breeding territory, and thus yield less time to reproduce. ...


I can think of a few other reasons to hang out in Jamaica.

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Sun, Apr 3, 2011
from The Independent:
Britain's March was the driest in 40 years
The past month has been the driest March for around 40 years, forecasters said today. Provisional recordings show that the UK has also seen 25 percent more sunshine than usual over the last four weeks as temperatures climbed and Britons enjoyed their first taste of spring. But there was bad news for those hoping for an early start to summer - April showers are on their way as usual. According to provisional Met Office figures, the average rainfall between March 1 and 29 stands at only 39.1mm (1.5in). This is expected to rise very slightly when the showers of the past two days are factored in. However, it is still expected to be well below the 95.9mm (3.8in) norm for March. ...


So March came in like a lion, and left as a... camel.

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Thu, Mar 31, 2011
from PNAS, via Mongabay:
'Huge reduction' of water from plants due to higher CO2 levels
As if ocean acidification and a warming world weren't enough, researchers have outlined another way in which carbon emissions are impacting the planet. A new study shows that higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have taken a toll on how much water vapor plants release, potentially impacting the rainfall and groundwater sources. A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has found that carbon dioxide levels over the past 150 years has reduced plants' spores, called stomata, by over one third (34 percent). This is important because stomata take in oxygen and carbon dioxide and release water vapor in a process dubbed 'transpiration'. Less stomata means less water driven into the atmosphere. "The increase in carbon dioxide by about 100 parts per million has had a profound effect on the number of stomata and, to a lesser extent, the size of the stomata," explains co-authors David Dilcher of Indiana University Bloomington in a press release. "Our analysis of that structural change shows there's been a huge reduction in the release of water to the atmosphere."... "The carbon cycle is important, but so is the water cycle. If transpiration decreases, there may be more moisture in the ground at first, but if there's less rainfall that may mean there's less moisture in ground eventually," Dilcher says, adding that, "this is part of the hyrdrogeologic cycle. Land plants are a crucially important part of it." ...


But the glass was half-full so recently!

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Sun, Mar 20, 2011
from EnvironmentalResearchWeb:
Deadly heatwaves will be more frequent in coming decades, say scientists
The heatwave that scorched eastern Europe in 2010, killing thousands of people and devastating crops, was the worst since records began and led to the warmest summer on the continent for at least 500 years, a new scientific analysis has revealed. The research also suggests that "mega-heatwaves", such as the prolonged extreme temperatures that struck western Europe in 2003 will become five to 10 times more likely over the next 40 years, occurring at least once a decade. But the 2010 heatwave was so extreme - 10 deg C above the average for the first week of August between 1970 and 2000 - that similar events are only expected to occur once every 30 years or so.... The findings of the study are consistent with this, said Barriopedro: "Under global warming this kind of event will become more common. Mega-heatwaves are going to be more frequent and more intense in the future." ...


It ain't the heat -- it's the megaheat.

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Thu, Mar 3, 2011
from NOAA:
Significant Climate Anomalies and Events of 2010
...


Anomalies? What anomalies?

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Mon, Feb 28, 2011
from London Daily Mail:
Water demand will 'outstrip supply by 40 percent within 20 years' due to climate change and population growth
Water demand in many countries will exceed supply by 40 per cent within 20 years due to the combined threat of climate change and population growth, scientists have warned. A new way of thinking about water is needed as looming shortages threaten communities, agriculture and industry, experts said. In the next two decades, a third of humanity will have only half the water required to meet basic needs, said researchers. Agriculture, which soaks up 71 per cent of water supplies, is also likely to suffer, affecting food production. ...


That's why I'm sticking with my Diet Coke.

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Wed, Feb 23, 2011
from ScienceDaily:
6,000-Year Climate Record Suggests Longer Droughts, Drier Climate for Pacific Northwest
University of Pittsburgh-led researchers extracted a 6,000-year climate record from a Washington lake that shows that the famously rain-soaked American Pacific Northwest could not only be in for longer dry seasons, but also is unlikely to see a period as wet as the 20th century any time soon. Lead researcher Mark Abbott, a Pitt professor of geology and planetary science, said those unusually wet years coincide with the period when western U.S. states developed water-use policies. "Western states happened to build dams and water systems during a period that was unusually wet compared to the past 6,000 years," he said. "Now the cycle has changed and is trending drier, which is actually normal. It will shift back to wet eventually, but probably not to the extremes seen during most of the 20th century." ...


It never rains in sunny Seattle / and girl don't get rattled / when it pours / man it pours.

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Fri, Feb 18, 2011
from Bloomberg, via DesdemonaDespair:
Climate Change May Cause 'Massive' Food Disruptions
Global food supplies will face "massive disruptions" from climate change, Olam International Ltd. predicted, as Agrocorp International Pte. said corn will gain to a record, stoking food inflation and increasing hunger. "The fact is that climate around the world is changing and that will cause massive disruptions," Sunny Verghese, chief executive officer at Olam, among the world's three biggest suppliers of rice and cotton, said in a Bloomberg Television interview today. "We're friendly to wheat, corn and soybeans and bearish on rice."... Shrinking global food supplies helped push the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization's World Food Price Index to a record for a second month in January. As food becomes less available and more expensive, "hoarding becomes widespread," Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist at FAO, said Feb. 9, predicting prices of wheat and other grains are more likely to rise than decline in the next six months. Corn futures surged 90 percent in the past year, while wheat jumped 80 percent and soybeans advanced 49 percent as the worst drought in at least half a century in Russia, flooding in Australia, excessive rainfall in Canada, and drier conditions in parts of Europe slashed harvests. ...


Cokes will soon cost more than a beer!

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Thu, Feb 10, 2011
from Guardian:
Mass tree deaths prompt fears of Amazon 'climate tipping point'
Billions of trees died in the record drought that struck the Amazon in 2010, raising fears that the vast forest is on the verge of a tipping point, where it will stop absorbing greenhouse gas emissions and instead increase them. The dense forests of the Amazon soak up more than one-quarter of the world's atmospheric carbon, making it a critically important buffer against global warming. But if the Amazon switches from a carbon sink to a carbon source that prompts further droughts and mass tree deaths, such a feedback loop could cause runaway climate change, with disastrous consequences. "Put starkly, current emissions pathways risk playing Russian roulette with the world's largest forest," said tropical forest expert Simon Lewis, at the University of Leeds, and who led the research published today in the journal Science.... He said increasing droughts in the Amazon are found in some climate models, including the sophisticated model used by the Hadley centre. This means the 2005 and 2010 droughts are consistent with the idea that global warming will cause more droughts in future, emit more carbon, and potentially lead to runaway climate change. "The greenhouse gases we have already emitted may mean there are several more droughts in the pipeline," he said. ...


That tale of the pipeline is exhausting.

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Thu, Feb 3, 2011
from Discovery:
Amazon Drought of 2010 Sign of Forest Fatigue
The tropical forests of Amazonia may be giving up their role as buffers against the continuing buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, scientists report, a circumstance that could accelerate climate change. The warning comes in the new issue of the journal Science, where an international research team reports that the drought in the Amazon during 2010 was even worse than what scientists called the "once-in-a-century" drought of 2005.... "The two recent Amazon droughts demonstrate a mechanism by which remaining intact tropical forests of South American can shift from buffering the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide to accelerating it," the scientists write. Growing trees absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. Dying trees give it back. ...


How can a carbon sink become a carbon faucet?

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Sat, Jan 15, 2011
from Guardian:
Australian floods: Why were we so surprised?
After 10 years of drought, we are having the inevitable flooding rains. The pattern is repeated regularly and yet Australians are still taken by surprise. The meteorologists will tell you that the current deluge is a product of La Nina. At fairly regular intervals, atmospheric pressure on the western side of the Pacific falls; the trade winds blow from the cooler east side towards the trough, pushing warm surface water westwards towards the bordering land masses. As the water-laden air is driven over the land it cools and drops its load. In June last year the bureau of meteorology issued a warning that La Nina was about "to dump buckets" on Australia. In 1989-90 La Nina brought flooding to New South Wales and Victoria, in 1998 to New South Wales and Queensland. Dr Andrew Watkins, manager of the bureau's climate prediction services, told the assembled media: "Computer model forecasts show a significant likelihood of a La Nina in 2010." In Brisbane the benchmark was the flood of 1974; most Queenslanders are unaware that the worst flood in Brisbane's history happened in 1893. Six months ago the meteorologists thought it was worthwhile to warn people to "get ready for a wet, late winter and a soaked spring and summer". So what did the people do? Nothing. They said, "She'll be right, mate". She wasn't.... The rest of the world might well be scratching its head. Though the rise of the Brisbane river had been predicted for many days, owners left their boats on the river, some of them moored to pontoons, which were themselves ripped from their moorings. Literally hundreds of pontoons went careering down the river, crashing into unmanned powerboats that were already cannoning into each other. A long section of the riverside walkway broke away and became a waterborne missile.... After the Fitzroy river flooded Rockhampton in 1991, all the corals and sea grasses round the Keppel Islands died. The area had not yet recovered when the brown tide returned at the beginning of January, and keeps coming. The fresh water now entering the seas off Australia is expected to drift northwards to where the Great Barrier Reef is already struggling with rising sea temperatures. In ecological terms, worse, perhaps very much worse, is on the way. Australia owes it to the rest of the world to get a handle on its regular floods. Or she won't be right, mate. ...


But if we started believing computer models' predictions, we'd have to change our lifestyle!

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Wed, Jan 5, 2011
from FAO, via Guardian:
World food prices enter 'danger territory' to reach record high
Soaring prices of sugar, grain and oilseed drove world food prices to a record in December, surpassing the levels of 2008 when the cost of food sparked riots around the world, and prompting warnings of prices being in "danger territory".... Published by the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the index tracks the prices of a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, and has risen for six consecutive months.... Abbassian warned prices could rise higher still, amid fears of droughts in Argentina and floods in Australia and cold weather killing plants in the northern hemisphere. "There is still room for prices to go up much higher, if for example the dry conditions in Argentina tend to become a drought, and if we start having problems with winterkill in the northern hemisphere for the wheat crops," Abbassian said. ...


Those high prices are only for poor people, right?

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Fri, Dec 31, 2010
from Guardian:
Australian floodwaters rise as bushfire threat looms
Flooded area of north-east Australia is bigger than France and Germany, as southern states face tinder dry conditions.. Floodwaters have risen across a vast area of north-east Australia, affecting 22 towns, forcing 200,000 residents out of their homes and closing an important sugar export port. Flooding has already shut coal mines and the biggest coal export port in Queensland, forcing companies such as Anglo American and Rio Tinto to slow or halt operations.... In the southern states of Victoria and South Australia, meanwhile, soaring temperatures and tinder dry conditions have sparked bushfires. Authorities warned of possible "catastrophic" fires if conditions worsened, and holiday travellers were asked to prepare evacuation plans.... Emergency authorities said the flooding was not expected to reach a peak in some areas until Sunday and would not recede for at least a week. Australia has endured its wettest spring on record, according to the national weather bureau, causing six river systems in Queensland to flood. Swollen rivers in New South Wales have also caused flood damage to wheat crops. Possibly as much as half the Australian wheat crop, or about 10m tonnes, has been downgraded to less than milling quality because of rain damage. That has tightened global supplies and sent prices up by about 45 percent this year, the biggest surge since 2007. The floods have also pushed coking coal and thermal prices higher and tight markets are keeping a close eye on further disruptions. Queensland's ports have an annual coal export capacity of 225m tonnes. Australia is the world's biggest exporter of coking coal used for steel-making and accounts for about two-thirds of global trade. It is also the second-biggest exporter of thermal coal used for power generation. ...


Wet on one side, dry on the other? That's just an engineering challenge!

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Wed, Dec 22, 2010
from IRIN:
Water shortage hits Somaliland
Residents in parts of Somalia's northeastern self-declared republic of Somaliland are facing severe water shortages after poor October to December Deyr rains. "In the eastern regions of Somaliland, such as Sool, Sanag and Togdheer, the people are already facing livelihood difficulties, as well as water shortages, because all the barkads [water pans] have run out of water," said Mohamed Muse Awale, director of Somaliland's National Disaster Committee.... "The nearest place to get water is Damal Hagare [160km northeast] in Sanag region and the prices have increased from US$8 to $15 [for 200 litres]," Said Mohamoud Abdi Mohamoud, from the Hudun District in Sool, told IRIN. According to a Famine Early Warning Systems Network report, poor rainfall in December is likely to "further stress water resources and negatively impact [on] crop and rangeland conditions in the Greater Horn of Africa". ...


Why don't they just move? That's what I'd do.

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Fri, Dec 3, 2010
from Haaretz, via Perry:
Never-ending summer sends rabbis, imams, priests to pray for rain
Chief rabbis Yona Metzger and Shlomo Amar have decreed special days of fasting and prayer in response to the drought. The first of the fasts was yesterday, and the second will be on Monday. The rabbis also wrote a special prayer for rain and urged worshipers to insert it into the daily prayer service on every day when the Torah is read (Monday, Thursday and Saturday ).... "The summer is over, but we still haven't been saved by a blessed rainfall," the rabbis began the letter they sent this week to municipal and neighborhood rabbis both in Israel and abroad. "The water situation in the Land of Israel is one of great need and distress, especially because this is not the first year in which there has been a drought and the land has dried up, due to our multitude of sins. This requires us to seek out the reason. Our obligation in this situation is to examine and scrutinize our actions, to draw nearer to God with all our hearts and to pour out our supplication to him with a broken and downcast heart."... Two weeks ago, Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders conducted a joint prayer for rain in the Muslim village of Wallaja. The drought has also brought a rare moment of unity among the various Orthodox Jewish sects - all of whom issued a joint call to their followers to add "Ve'anenu," a special prayer for rain and for God's mercy in general, to the Amida, the central prayer of the thrice-daily service. There has been no rain at all this month, and most forecasters expect this dearth to continue through at least the beginning of December, and possibly even all of it. The drought covers the entire eastern Mediterranean region. Western Europe, in contrast, is suffering a plethora of precipitation. ...


I often pray that prayer might be enough.

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Mon, Nov 29, 2010
from Boston Globe:
Sudden-drought scenario
But according to recent research on the historical ecology of the Andes Mountains, conducted in part by an assistant professor at Westfield State University, those steady changes could reach a tipping point that would, in some cases, flip local ecosystems on their heads. The scientists examined fossilized pollen in Lake Titicaca on the border of Peru and Bolivia, the world's highest-elevation great lake. That, they said, allowed them to look about 370,000 years back in time. They found that in two periods of past warming, the lake shrank by as much as 85 percent, and the surrounding grassland ecosystem was turned into a desert. Based on their work, the group then projected that if temperatures were to rise between 3 and 5 degrees Fahrenheit, parts of high-elevation Bolivia and Peru would become desert-like as early as 2040. Such a change could be disastrous for the water supply for Bolivia's capital city, La Paz, and for farming.... Scientists have assumed such tipping points would take place, but the study allowed researchers to do something new: project the future.... "The implications would be profound for some 2 million people," said Paul Filmer, a foundation program director. ...


I'll see your two million and raise you six billion.

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Sat, Nov 20, 2010
from Guardian:
Severe weather warning: Peru as canary
For the indigenous Quechua people like Flores Choque, who have farmed Peru's highlands since the 15th century, the warning signs are already very real. Their farming calendar, dictated by the weather, has traditionally given their lives a steady rhythm. But in the last few years uncharacteristic and unpredictable weather - flooding, frosts, hail, intense heat and drought - has bombarded it. Crops have continually failed and Save the Children research reports production in some areas has fallen as much as 44 percent since 2007, with animal mortality rising from 20 percent to 48 percent. Water supply has diminished and the health and livelihoods of thousands been jeopardised.... "The people are becoming poorer and malnutrition is increasing," Apaza Maita stresses. "Children don't have defences and their health is suffering. They've always had respiratory problems but now they're much worse. For the first time we have cases of bronchitis."... Kallpa is also encouraging farmers to use natural fertilisers rather than chemicals. Hardy native potatoes are being planted again instead of the white potatoes previously grown for export, as well as crops such as tarwi, a bean that, though tasteless, bursts with nutrition.... "It's all connected with the weather and melting glaciers. Four years ago a small river near here ran at eight litres per second. This year it's four litres per second. Now there isn't enough water for the community." ...


It ain't just the heat, it's the extremity.

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Sat, Nov 13, 2010
from New York Times:
Drought in the Amazon, Up Close and Personal
In the field we worried about why it was raining so little. Back in Iquitos, Peru, we discovered that our field work had coincided with the worst drought ever recorded in the Amazon basin. Reading the previous two-and-a-half weeks of e-mail, it was possible to track the drought's progress through the newsletters I receive every few days from a Brazilian research institute. First there was a note saying that the river level gauge at Manaus was at the twelfth lowest stage in recorded history. A few days later, a note said it was at the second lowest stage in history, and then, on Oct. 26, a note confirmed that the river had dropped to the lowest recorded level since measuring began 108 years ago.... The low readings at Manaus did not make front-page news back home, but maybe they deserved to: Two of the three worst Amazon droughts in history have now occurred within the last five years,­ the sort of coincidence that also turns up in conversations these days about icebergs and hurricanes and Siberian heat waves. But the drought was definitely news in Iquitos, where people were deeply upset by the lack of rain. It was unsettling, too, for our little band of biologists to be writing about the drought on laptops powered by Iquitos's gas-fired power plant, located in a part of Peru where roughly half of the landscape is currently inside oil and gas concessions. ...


Iiii wanna know / if we never see the rain / will we smile / on a sunny day

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Sun, Nov 7, 2010
from GlobalPost:
Rivers run dry as drought hits Amazon
The world's largest rain forest was dangerously dry, and may well be drying out. October marked the end of one of the worst Amazon droughts on record -- a period of tinder-dry forests, dusty cropland and rivers falling to unprecedented lows. Streams are the highways of the deep jungle and they're also graveyards for dead trees, usually hidden safely under fathoms of navigable water. But not this year, and the drought's significance extends far beyond impeded boats. While the region has seen dry spells before, locals and experts say droughts have grown more frequent and severe. Scientists say there's mounting evidence the Amazon's shifting weather may be caused by global climate change.... "Every ecosystem has some point beyond which it can't go," said Oliver Phillips, a tropical ecology professor at the University of Leeds who has spent decades studying how forests react to changing weather. "The concern now is that parts of the Amazon may be approaching that threshold." Phillips led a team of dozens of researchers who studied the damage caused by a severe 2005 drought to trees and undergrowth at more than 100 sites across the Amazon. His findings, published in the journal Science, are troubling. ...


I'm sure everything's fine. They call it a rainforest, after all!

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Mon, Nov 1, 2010
from ScienceDaily:
Scientists Prepare for Confined Field Trials of Life-Saving Drought-Tolerant Transgenic Maize
Crop specialists in Kenya and Uganda have laid the groundwork for confined field trials to commence later this year for new varieties of maize genetically modified to survive recurrent droughts that threaten over 300 million Africans for whom maize is life, according to a speech given Oct. 14 by the head of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) at the World Food Prize Symposium, being held in Des Moines, Iowa.... Scientists working with AATF believe it's important to explore the potential of biotechnology to maintain and increase food production in Africa, given the large number of families dependent on maize, and warnings that maize yields could drop dramatically as climate change increases drought frequency and severity across the continent. There is preliminary evidence that the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) varieties, which were developed through a public-private partnership, could provide yields 24-35 percent higher than what farmers are now growing.... The push to develop drought-tolerant varieties has been given added urgency by threats likely to come from climate change.... If the transgenic corn is found to be safe and successful, the new varieties will be made available to smallholder farmers royalty-free. Under its agreement with its partners, any approved varieties would be licensed to AATF, which would then distribute to farmers through local seed supplies at a price competitive with other types of maize seed. The project partners expect that pricing will not be influenced by the requirement to pay royalties, as none of the partners will receive any royalty payment from seed companies for the drought tolerant lines/transgenic trait incorporating their intellectual property protected technology. ...


Transgenics developed without a profit motive? Monsanto must be pissed.

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Tue, Oct 26, 2010
from London Guardian:
Drought brings Amazon tributary to lowest level in a century
One of the most important tributaries of the Amazon river has fallen to its lowest level in over a century, following a fierce drought that has isolated tens of thousands of rainforest inhabitants and raised concerns about the possible impact of climate change on the region. The drought currently affecting swaths of north and west Amazonia has been described as the one of the worst in the last 40 years, with the Rio Negro or Black river, which flows into the world-famous Rio Amazonas, reportedly hitting its lowest levels since records began in 1902 on Sunday. In 24 hours the level of the Rio Negro near Manaus in Brazil dropped 6cm to 13.63 metres, a historic low. ...


What will we call the rainforest, in the Age of Drought?

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Tue, Oct 19, 2010
from NSF/NCAR, via EurekAlert:
Drought may threaten much of globe within decades
The United States and many other heavily populated countries face a growing threat of severe and prolonged drought in coming decades, according to results of a new study by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist Aiguo Dai. The detailed analysis concludes that warming temperatures associated with climate change will likely create increasingly dry conditions across much of the globe in the next 30 years. The drought may reach a scale in some regions by the end of the century that has rarely, if ever, been observed in modern times.... While regional climate projections are less certain than those for the globe as a whole, Dai's study indicates that most of the western two-thirds of the United States will be significantly drier by the 2030s.... "We are facing the possibility of widespread drought in the coming decades, but this has yet to be fully recognized by both the public and the climate change research community," Dai says. "If the projections in this study come even close to being realized, the consequences for society worldwide will be enormous." ...


Only this time, the great clouds of the dustbowl will be laced with unknown toxins from corporate farms.

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Mon, Oct 18, 2010
from New York Times:
Lake Mead Hits Record Low Level
Sometime between 11 and noon on Sunday, the water level in Lake Mead, the massive reservoir whose water fills the taps of millions of people across the Southwest, fell lower than it ever has since it was filled 75 years ago. Even as a flurry of thunderstorms dropped rain on the Las Vegas area, with as much as an inch falling in the mountains to the north, Lake Mead's level dropped to 1,083.18 feet above sea level just before noon, and fell further, to 1,083.09, by 9 local time Monday morning.... Lake Mead's levels are still eight feet above the level at which a shortage is officially declared and limited rationing could go into effect.... But Barry Nelson, a senior policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said: "This strikes me as such an amazing moment. It's three-quarters of a century since they filled it. And at the three-quarter-century mark, the world has changed."... Mr. Nelson said that the 11-year drought, which has caused the Colorado River to deliver considerably less water than its users have been promised, "reflects weather patterns that are what climate models predict for an era of climate change." "Either these are early indicators of climate change or conditions we should expect more of in the future," he concludes. ...


2010 just keeps rackin' up the records!

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Mon, Oct 11, 2010
from New York Times:
Water Crisis Threatens Asia's Rise
Framed by banana and eucalyptus trees, the caramel-colored Mekong River rolls through this lush corner of Yunnan Province in southwestern China with an unerring rhythm that is reassuring in its seeming timelessness. Yet as recently as April, a fearsome drought had shriveled the Mekong to its narrowest width in 50 years. Water levels were so low that at Guanlei, a river town not far from here, dozens of boats were laid up for more than three months....the incident highlighted the strains that are being generated as the unslakable Asian thirst for water collides with the reality of a supply that is limited and, if climate change projections are borne out, may shrink sharply....The risk of conflict over water rights is magnified because China and India are home to more than a third of the world's population yet have to make do with less than 10 percent of its water. ...


How dry I am just reading this story!

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Wed, Sep 29, 2010
from SPX:
Wildfires: A Symptom Of Climate Change
This summer, wildfires swept across some 22 regions of Russia, blanketing the country with dense smoke and in some cases destroying entire villages. In the foothills of Boulder, Colo., this month, wildfires exacted a similar toll on a smaller scale. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Thousands of wildfires large and small are underway at any given time across the globe. Beyond the obvious immediate health effects, this "biomass" burning is part of the equation for global warming. In northern latitudes, wildfires actually are a symptom of the Earth's warming. ...


"Global burning" is so much more dramatic a term than "global warming."

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Mon, Sep 6, 2010
from Burness Communications via ScienceDaily:
In a Changing Climate, Erratic Rainfall Poses Growing Threat to Rural Poor, New Report Says
Against a backdrop of extreme weather wreaking havoc around the world, a new report warns that increasingly erratic rainfall related to climate change will pose a major threat to food security and economic growth, especially in Africa and Asia, requiring increased investment in diverse forms of water storage as an effective remedy. "Millions of farmers in communities dependent on rainfed agriculture are at risk from decreasing and erratic availability of water," said Colin Chartres, director general of the Sri Lanka-based International Water Management Institute (IWMI), which released the report to coincide with World Water Week in Stockholm. "Climate change will hit these people hard, so we have to invest heavily and quickly in adaptation." ...


Ashes to ashes... dustbowl to dustbowl...

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Thu, Aug 26, 2010
from Yahoo News:
Behold the awesome power of the fire tornado
It turns out that "firestorm" isn't just a figure of speech. In a scene that looks like something straight out of the Book of Revelation, brushfires in Brazil combined with strong wind gusts to spark a tornado of fire. The bizarre weather event trailed flames in its wake as it touched down in the town of Aracatuba and around its surrounding countryside. Aracatuba hasn't seen any rain in three months. The flames brought traffic to a halt on a nearby road then disappeared. One local citizen caught the fearsome spectacle on camera. You can watch the raw footage... ...


The Apocalypse is going to be way cool!

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Thu, Aug 26, 2010
from IRIN:
Record low water levels threaten millions in Cambodia
Late rains and record low water levels in Cambodia's two main fresh water systems will affect food security and the livelihoods of millions, government officials and NGOs warn. "We expect the impact to be very strong," said Nao Thuok, director of the Fisheries Administration, adding that low water levels along the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers were already limiting fish production and migration. Crucial spawning grounds in floodplains along the rivers remained dry. "The places where the fish usually lay their eggs do not have much water so the fish population will decrease a lot," he warned. Approximately six million Cambodians or 45 percent of the population depend on fishing in the Mekong and Tonle Sap basins, the government's Inland Fisheries Research and Development Institute, reports. The annual "flood" season of daily rain usually starts in July but began a month late, local agricultural surveyors say.... Not only the fisheries sector is suffering, however. Rice farmer Meas Chan Thorn in western Pursat Province was only able to plant last week, a month behind schedule, because of the late rains, and predicted yields would be halved. ...


I'm sure this is just a "localized weather phenomenon."

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Mon, Aug 9, 2010
from PhysOrg:
Officials point to Russian drought and Asian deluge as consistent with climate change
Government officials are pointing to the drought and wildfires in Russia, and the floods across Central and East Asia as consistent with climate change predictions. While climatologists say that a single weather event cannot be linked directly to a warming planet, patterns of worsening storms, severer droughts, and disasters brought on by extreme weather are expected as the planet warms.... On Friday Medvedev continued his sudden frankness on climate change, warning that climate change could impact the Winter Olympics. "Frankly, what is going on with the world’s climate at the moment should incite us all (I mean world leaders and heads of public organizations) to make a more strenuous effort to fight global climate change," he said. Russia is one of the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters: when emissions due to deforestation are not included, Russia is listed as among the top 4, after China and the US, and nearly equal to India.... At the same time as central Russia is experiencing record heat and debilitating fires, a number of Asian nations have been hit with catastrophic flooding and mud slides. Flashfloods in India have left 132 people dead and some 500 missing, while mudslides in China due to flooding has taken the lives of 127 people. Nearly 50,000 people have been evacuated in China. But to date no nation appears worst hit than Pakistan, where flooding has killed 1,600 people and affected 14 million. Landslides have followed the flooding killing dozens more. ...


Nattering nabobs of the negative "new normal."

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Mon, Aug 9, 2010
from PhysOrg:
Moscow's toxic smog fails to shift as anger, heat grows
The toxic smog smothering Moscow showed little sign of abating Monday as media accused officials of covering up the scale of the disaster and the authorities raced to put out a fire near a nuclear site. Amid Russia's worst heatwave in decades, the raging wildfires and burning peat bogs in central Russia have choked Moscow for several days and even sent plumes of smoke as far as neighbouring Finland.... "Authorities do not release statistics in order to conceal their incompetence," the Kommersant daily quoted an unidentified head of an enterprise in the funerals industry as saying. "Morgues and crematoria are overcrowded."... "We have been strictly forbidden to hospitalize people barring the most extreme cases," he said, complaining of hazardous working conditions.... "Air conditioners work only on the floor of the administration, temperatures reach 30 degrees C (86 degrees F) in the operating room," he told Kommersant on conditions of anonymity. "It's hard to work in these conditions."... The heatwave created a national catastrophe which has affected all areas of life, with 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of agricultural land destroyed and the government ordering a controversial ban on grain exports. ...


But the vodka vendors are doing a bang-up business!

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Mon, Jul 26, 2010
from IRIN:
Mali: Water has become a "luxury"
Local and national authorities - backed by international agencies - have sent truckloads of water and thousands of tons of rice and fodder to Kidal, where animals are dying daily and water for drinking and bathing is increasingly rare. While residents say the assistance has been significant, they say it is insufficient and long-term solutions are indispensable. "Catastrophe" is in store if water shortages are not resolved, according to a report the Kidal regional assembly recently submitted to President Amadou Toumani Touré following an evaluation in the region. A continuation of today's conditions "will set in motion a vicious cycle: chaotic displacement of people, tension and conflict and urban overpopulation." "The region's very stability is threatened."... Housseini Maïga, president of a government and civil society water organisation in Mali, said a town north of Gao, Mali, "saw not a drop of rain in all of 2009 - nothing". ...


And waiter, bring me a bottle of your finest H20, spare no expense.

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Tue, Jul 13, 2010
from Reuters:
Climate-related farmer suicides surging in eastern Kenya
Eastern Kenya is seeing a surge in suicides after farmers hit by unusual weather and unable to repay loans are taking their lives, police say. As many as 2,000 people in Kenya's Eastern Province, many of them farmers, have committed suicide in the past year, up from a normal suicide rate of 300 per year in the area, Kenyan police records show. The deaths come as eastern Kenya has experienced extremely poor crop harvests as result of prolonged drought and unusual rainfall at harvest time, which has led to contamination of maize harvests with aflatoxins, produced by fungus that grows in wet grain. ...


As our habitat deteriorates, voluntary exit will become all the rage.

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Tue, Jul 6, 2010
from The Reno Gazette-Journal:
DRI researchers find air-pollution link to drought
An increasing amount of scientific evidence suggests air pollution may be playing a role in drought, experts from the Desert Research Institute said. DRI scientists working at a remote lab in the Rocky Mountains said polluted air can cut a storm's snowfall in half. And the same researchers said the remaining snow also is affected because pollution could be squeezing another 25 percent of its water content. The DRI findings are bad news for Western states like California and Nevada that rely on snowpacks for drinking and agricultural water. An estimated 90 percent of Nevada's water is provided by melting snowpacks. ...


From snowpacks... to no-packs.

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Mon, May 31, 2010
from London Guardian:
Hundreds die in Indian heatwave
Record temperatures in northern India have claimed hundreds of lives in what is believed to be the hottest summer in the country since records began in the late 1800s. The death toll is expected to rise with experts forecasting temperatures approaching 50C (122F) in coming weeks. More than 100 people are reported to have died in the state of Gujarat where the mercury topped at 48.5C last week. At least 90 died in Maharashtra, 35 in Rajasthan and 34 in Bihar. Hospitals in Gujarat have been receiving around 300 people a day suffering from food poisoning and heat stroke, ministers said. Officials admit the figures are only a fraction of the total as most of the casualties are found in remote rural villages. Wildlife and livestock has also suffered with voluntary organisations in Gujarat reporting the deaths of bats and crows and dozens of peacocks reported dead at a forest reserve in Uttar Pradesh. ...


This is an instance where being "hot" is not so desirable!

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Mon, May 10, 2010
from National Geographic News:
Underground "Fossil Water" Running Out
In the world's driest places, "fossil water" is becoming as valuable as fossil fuel, experts say. This ancient freshwater was created eons ago and trapped underground in huge reservoirs, or aquifers. And like oil, no one knows how much there is--but experts do know that when it's gone, it's gone....paleowater is the only option in many water-strapped nations. For instance, Libya is habitable because of aquifers--some of them 75,000 years old--discovered under the Sahara's sands during 1950s oil explorations. The North African country receives little rain, and its population is concentrated on the coasts, where groundwater reserves are becoming increasingly brackish and nearing depletion. ...


I fear there will be fur in my aquifer.

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Mon, May 3, 2010
from Agence France-Press:
Jordan River could die by 2011: report
The once mighty Jordan River, where Christians believe Jesus was baptised, is now little more than a polluted stream that could die next year unless the decay is halted, environmentalists said on Monday. The famed river "has been reduced to a trickle south of the Sea of Galilee, devastated by overexploitation, pollution and lack of regional management," Friends of the Earth, Middle East (FoEME) said in a report. More than 98 percent of the river's flow has been diverted by Israel, Syria and Jordan over the years. "The remaining flow consists primarily of sewage, fish pond water, agricultural run-off and saline water," the environmentalists from Israel, Jordan and the West Bank said in the report to be presented in Amman on Monday. ...


Humans, why have you forsaken your planet?

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Mon, Apr 19, 2010
from BBC:
UK water use 'worsening global crisis,' 'unsustainable.'
The amount of water used to produce food and goods imported by developed countries is worsening water shortages in the developing world, a report says. The report, focusing on the UK, says two-thirds of the water used to make UK imports is used outside its borders.... "We must take account of how our water footprint is impacting on the rest of the world," said Professor Roger Falconer, director of the Hydro-Environmental Research Centre at Cardiff University and a member of the report's steering committee.... Embedded in a pint of beer, for example, is about 130 pints (74 litres) of water - the total amount needed to grow the ingredients and run all the processes that make the pint of beer. A cup of coffee embeds about 140 litres (246 pints) of water, a cotton T-shirt about 2,000 litres, and a kilogram of steak 15,000 litres. ...


I didn't know you could concentrate water.

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Fri, Apr 9, 2010
from USA Today:
On Plains, concern about another Dust Bowl
...Seventy-five years have passed since the worst of the Dust Bowl, a relentless series of dust storms that ravaged farms and livelihoods in the southern Great Plains that carried a layer of silt as far east as New York City. Today, the lessons learned during that era are more relevant than ever as impending water shortages and more severe droughts threaten broad swaths of the nation...Gary McManus, a climatologist for Oklahoma's state-run climate organization, says global warming could have a "catastrophic" impact across the parts of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma that suffered most in the "Dirty Thirties." He says the region's climate is so dry, even in the best of times, that just a small increase in average temperatures could quickly cause critical amounts of moisture in the soil to evaporate. ...


My concern is more that we won't have John Steinbeck around this time.

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Sat, Apr 3, 2010
from Environmental Research Web:
Evidence suggests changing environment can bring down a civilization
Decades of drought, interspersed with intense monsoon rains, may have helped bring about the fall of Cambodia's ancient Khmer civilization at Angkor nearly 600 years ago, according to an analysis of tree rings, archeological remains and other evidence. The study, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may also shed light on what drives - and disrupts - the rainy season across much of Asia, which waters crops for nearly half the world's population.... Similar studies suggest that abrupt environmental changes may have pushed other ancient civilizations over the edge, including the Anasazi people of the southwestern United States; the Maya people of Central America, and the Akkadian people of Mesopotamia. There is some evidence that other once-powerful kingdoms in what is now Vietnam and Myanmar may have fallen during the late 1700s, following extreme dry and wet periods. "Both human society and the Earth's climate system are complex systems capable of unexpected behavior. Through the long-term perspective offered by climate and archaeological records, we can start to identify and understand the myriad ways they may interact," said study coauthor Kevin Anchukaitis, a tree ring scientist at Lamont. "The evidence from monsoon Asia should remind us that complex civilizations are still quite vulnerable to climate variability and change." ...


Thank goodness we are the first invulnerable civilization.

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Sun, Mar 21, 2010
from PhysOrg.com:
Sandstorms blanket Beijing in yellow dust
Beijingers woke up Saturday to find the Chinese capital blanketed in yellow dust, as a sandstorm caused by a severe drought in the north and in Mongolia swept into the city. The storm, which earlier buffeted parts of northeastern China, brought strong winds and cut visibility in the capital. Authorities issued a rare level five pollution warning, signalling hazardous conditions, and urged residents to stay indoors.... Scientists blame a combination of deforestation and prolonged drought in northern China for the phenomenon.... In the southwest of the country, drought has left 16 million people with a shortage of drinking water, according to a statement issued by the State Commission of Disaster Relief. Since late last year, the provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan and Guizhou, have received only half their annual average rainfall, leaving water supplies severely depleted. ...


Deforestation is just part of natural variation. There's nothing *we* can do.

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Thu, Mar 11, 2010
from IRIN:
Niger: Southern villages emptying as drought bites
"Empty" increasingly describes villages around the southern Niger town of Tanout in Zinder Region: Water wells and pastures, fields and food banks - and slowly - entire villages, are emptying.... Insufficient rains nationwide led to a 31 percent slump in crop production compared to last year - 410,000 tons less - according to the government's latest estimates.... The government has estimated that poor rains have forced some two million people to finish off their food reserves seven months before the next harvest. Another five million may soon follow. ...


What's new? Humans have been eating their seed banks for a hundred years.

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Mon, Mar 1, 2010
from PhysOrg.com:
Australian residents urged to flee 18-metre flames
Some 166 firemen using dozens of fire engines and aircraft were battling the flames, which have already consumed 22,000 hectares (54,000 acres) of land. FESA could not say how many homes were at risk in the sparsely populated area but said it was mainly farmland. Western Australia, a giant state four times the size of Texas, has just sweltered through its hottest southern hemisphere summer with temperatures averaging nearly 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit). News of the blaze follows an announcement that Western Australia has sweated through its hottest ever summer, recording average temperatures just shy of 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), officials have said. ...


Go East, young man -- and hurry!

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Sat, Oct 25, 2008
from San Diego Union-Tribune:
Drought, beetles killing forests
Bugs and diseases are killing trees at an alarming rate across the West, from the spruce forests of Alaska to the oak woodlands near the San Diego-Tijuana border. Several scientists said the growing threat appears linked to global warming. That means tree mortality is likely to rise in places as the continent warms, potentially altering landscapes in ways that increase erosion, fan wildfires and diminish the biodiversity of Western forests. ...


Treehuggers, unite! Your bosom buddies need you.

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Sun, Oct 19, 2008
from UN IRIN:
SOMALIA: Poor rains intensify human suffering and deprivation
The situation in Somalia has deteriorated into an "unfolding humanitarian disaster" with shocking levels of human suffering and deprivation, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned. "Rates of malnutrition in most of southern and central Somalia are above emergency threshold levels of 15 percent and in many areas greater than 20 percent and increasing," said an analysis prepared by FAO's Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU). ...


The Horn of Africa is playing 'Taps'.

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Mon, Aug 25, 2008
from University of Arizona, via ScienceDaily:
Drier, Warmer Springs In US Southwest Stem From Human-caused Changes In Winds
Since the 1970s the winter storm track in the western U.S. has been shifting north, particularly in the late winter. As a result, fewer winter storms bring rain and snow to Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, western Colorado and western New Mexico. "We used to have this season from October to April where we had a chance for a storm," said Stephanie A. McAfee. "Now it's from October to March".... McAfee's co-author Joellen L. Russell said, "We're used to thinking about climate change as happening sometime in the future to someone else, but this is right here and affects us now. The future is here." ...


"The future is here"?
Don't tell me that!

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Wed, Aug 6, 2008
from San Francisco Chronicle:
Golf courses try to play through drought
"Amid the current drought, golf courses in the East Bay are some of the hardest-hit water customers. While the local water district has ordered single-family home dwellers to cut water use by 19 percent, so-called irrigators such as golf courses must achieve a 30 percent savings.... The state's 900 golf courses cover about 130,000 acres, employ about 160,000 workers and pump nearly $7 billion into the economy. They are trying to make better use of surface water - and drilling for underground supplies. But environmentalists say keeping golf courses green shouldn't come at the expense of future water users." ...


Is it just environmentalists who think people are more important than golf courses?

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Tue, Jul 1, 2008
from Middle East Online:
Bread subsidies under threat in drought-hit Syria
The availability of cheap food has been a cornerstone Syrian domestic economic policy. However, there are growing doubts among ordinary people and analysts as to how much longer the country can remain relatively insulated from the global food crisis which has sparked riots in over 30 countries, including Egypt, where a similar authoritarian socialist government is in place. The government exerts significant control over food prices through its control of the marketing, import and export of agricultural produce, but the agricultural sector has been partially liberalised, and food prices have risen 20 percent in the last six months, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). ...


Let them eat pita.

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