Energy

Feed-in tariffs cut

The Czech energy regulator has cut feed-in tariffs for solar-generated power by 5 per cent from the beginning of 2010, the country's energy regulator announced.
26 November Reuters article

Solar mirror plants for Spain

Spanish renewable energy company Abengoa will team up with German utility E.ON to build two solar mirror plants in southern Spain, benefiting from E.ON's cash and large grid expertise.
26 November Reuters article

Norway builds (tiny) osmotic power plant

Norway has opened the world's first osmotic power plant, which produces emissions-free electricity by mixing fresh water and sea water through a special membrane. State-owned utility Statkraft's prototype plant, which for now will produce a tiny 2-4 kilowatts of power or enough to run a coffee machine, will enable Statkraft to test and develop the technology needed to drive down production costs.
25 November Reuters article

India's solar plan

India's cabinet has approved its first solar power plan, pledging to boost output from near zero to 20 gigawatts (GW) by 2020.
20 November Reuters article

Partnership for wind energy

The governors of Virginia, Maryland and Delaware in the United States of America have announced a partnership designed to promote and coordinate the development of wind energy off the mid-Atlantic coast.
19 November Washington Post article

EU compromises on energy savings in buildings

EU lawmakers have forged a long-awaited compromise on the recast buildings directive, agreeing that all new buildings would have to comply with high energy-performance standards and supply a significant share of their energy requirements from renewable sources after the end of 2020.
18 November EurActiv brief

Tidal turbines exceed expectations

Speaking at the Lisbon International Ocean Power Conference, Peter Fraenkel, Technical Director and co-founder of Marine Current Turbines (MCT), the UK-based company that designed and developed SeaGen, the world's only commercial scale tidal stream turbine, told delegates that "We are delighted with SeaGen's performance. It is running reliably and delivering more energy than originally expected in an extremely aggressive environment."
18 November Reuters article

50 million tonnes of timber imports to make 'green' power

To feed its new biomass-fired electricity generation plants, Britain is set to increase its timber imports by 150 per cent to 50 million tonnes a year, burning fuel both in the shipping to Britain and in baking the timber to ensure it contains no pests before being shipped. But the timber will, according to a spokesman for one of the generating plants, be sourced only from proven sustainable sources.
16 November Times article

Spain plans more renewable capacity

Spain plans to bring 8.8 gigawatts of renewable energy generating capacity onstream in 2010-2012, 5.3 GW of which will be wind power and 1.5 GW will be from solar mirrors, the government said.
16 November Reuters article

Double win in new gasification process

Scientists have adaspted the gasification process, injecting carbon dioxide into the process and increasing efficiency. The technique has a double benefit for the environment: it provides a use for carbon dioxide that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere and, after the hydrogen is siphoned off from the syngas, the remaining carbon monoxide can be buried safely underground.
15 November Guardian article

Perverse outcome potential from EU cars law

The idea that a wholesale switch to electric transport would automatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions and dependence on oil is a myth, says the analysis prepared for the Environmental Transport Association. In fact, says the report, a loophole in EU vehicle emissions regulations means the more electric cars produced, the more auto manufacturers can produce gas-guzzling vehicles such as SUVs while still hitting their overall emissions targets. Ultimately, this would lead to an increase in the amount of oil used and the amount of carbon dioxide generated by the car fleet as a whole.
12 November Independent article

Energy policy 'an incoherent mess'

Britain’s energy policy is an incoherent mess. We need a simple and explicit carbon tax to fund the greenest alternatives. First, we have simply not invested enough in infrastructure to meet future demand for heat and power. The second problem is how to mitigate climate change by cutting carbon emissions.
11 November Times opinion by Dieter Helm

Japan plans power station in space

Japan’s space agency is planning to construct a solar power station in space and use it to beam energy down to Earth using lasers.
10 November Telegraph article

Britain plans 10 nuclear plants

British Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Milliband has announced plans to build 10 new nuclear power stations capable of providing up to 25 per cent of the country's power needs.
9 November Telegraph article

Ed Miliband says: we need 10 new nuclear stations – and quick about it. The men with the calculators reply: at the moment, it’s looking about as possible as splitting the atom with a blunt instrument and your bare hands.
10 November Telegraph commentary

Funding for wave-power project

Renewable energy firm Ocean Power Technologies has won a A$66.5 million ($61 million) grant from the Australian government for a project set to be one of the first to generate power from waves on a utility scale. It is expected to begin work in mid-2010 on the 19 megawatt project which uses buoys floating up and down to drive an electrical generator, with the power generated being transmitted onshore via an underwater cable. The project is off Victoria, and is being carried out in conjunction with Leighton Contractors.
9 November Reuters article

Al Gore proposes 'green cathedral' thinking

Al Gore, climate change campaigner and former US vice-president, wants to build "a green cathedral". By that he means he wants leaders and their communities to do what the communities in the Middle Ages did when they worked for generations to erect the great cathedrals of Europe. He wants us to give up short-term thinking and instead turn on the parts of our brains that allow us to react not just to threats we are conditioned to but threats such as climate change that can only be understood through reason.
6 November The Age article

Wind-farm interest sold

Centrica Plc, owner of the British Gas brand, will sell a 50 per cent stake in three wind farms to US based TCW, signaling renewed investment interest in an industry where recession has crimped financing.
29 October Reuters article

Offshore wind farm for Taiwan

British renewable energy company SeaEnergy said on Tuesday it will build offshore windfarm projects in Taiwan with the Taiwan Generations Corporation (TGC), an energy project development company.
28 October Reuters article

Plug-in hybrid to rise from GM ashes

The bankrupt shell of carmaker General Motors Co is making its first major asset sale, selling a Delaware manufacturing plant to Fisker Automotive, which will make plug-in hybrid electric cars beginning in 2012.
28 October Reuters article

Advanced biofuels to add to emissions

Advanced cellulosic biofuels will actually lead to higher carbon emissions than gasoline per unit of energy, averaged over the 2000-2030 time period, according to a study published in Science. This is because the land required to plant fast-growing poplar trees and tropical grasses would displace food crops, and so drive deforestation to create more farmland, a powerful source of carbon emissions.
23 October Reuters article
Abstract from Science Express
Article from Science Express (subscription required or purchase access online)

Brazilians switch away from ethanol

Some Brazilian motorists who fuel their cars solely on cane-based ethanol are switching back to gasoline as high sugar prices now make the biofuel more costly in some states.
22 October Reuters article 

Windpower 'nimbys' attacked

Former British Deputy Prime Minister and now rapporteur on climate change for the Council of Europe has attacked "landowners and nimbys" who hold up installation of wind farms. “We cannot let the squires and the gentry stop us meeting our moral obligation to pass this world on in a better state to our children and our children's children.”
20 October Independent article

Billions in subsidies to dirty fuels

A conservative analysis of externalities in energy markets, undertaken by the United States Natiional Research Council, found energy in the US subsidised by $120 billion in hidden costs in 2005, with more than half the subsidy going to coal-fired electricity generation.
20 October Grist article
Link to read report on line at no cosst
Link to purchase the study report

I'd choose nuclear over coal, but I'd prefer neither

Today, while the threat of nuclear war hasn't disappeared, it is less urgent than the prospect of climate breakdown. . . There's little doubt that nuclear power could be produced safely and cleanly. There's also little doubt that it seldom has been. The contrast between the way things are and the way they should be threatens to split the environmental movement from top to bottom. But the persistent trouble with nuclear power – like any other potentially polluting industry – is that doing things the right way is expensive, while doing them the wrong way is cheap.
20 October Guardian opinion by George Monbiot 

UN questions biofuels' environmental credentials

A United Naitons panel said that biofuels' effects on air and water have not been sufficiently explored despite growing global production. The UN Environment Programme's report concludes that so-called lifecycle assessments must go beyond calculating greenhouse gas emissions and consider how agricultural production of feedstocks affects the acidification and nutrient loading of waterways.
16 October New York Times article
Download the report

Sugar cane cheapest way to cut emissions

Use of sugar cane-based ethanol as a substitute for gasoline is among the cheapest and easiest ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to a Brazilian study.
14 October Reuters article

First gas-powered airline flight

The world's first commercial passenger flight powered by a fuel made from natural gas completed a six-hour journey from London to Qatar, one of the biggest producers of natural gas. Shell developed and produced the 50-50 blend of synthetic Gas to Liquids (GTL) kerosene and conventional oil-based kerosene fuel used in Qatar Airways' Airbus A340-800 aircraft.
14 October Reuters article

Europe pressed to soften emissions curbs

France, Italy and Germany have asked the European Commission to either delay or soften a planned proposal to curb CO2 emissions from new vans, EU diplomats say.
14 October EurActiv brief

When wind turbines move in, birds leave the neighbourhood

Wind farms can reduce bird numbers in the immediate by up to half, according to a new study by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. But it appears this is because birds do not like living near wind turbines, rather than that they are killed by the turbines.
26 September Telegraph article

New motor vehicle standards in US

The Obama administration in the United States of America has unveiled a 1,200 page document of proposed regulation changes that will drastically alter fuel economy and emissions standards that motor vehicle manufacturers will be required to meet.
17 September ENN article

Geothermal project blamed for earthquake

German government officials are reviewing the safety of a geothermal energy project that scientists say set off an earthquake in mid-August, shaking buildings and frightening residents.
10 September New York Times article

Wind 'could power China'

Wind power could meet China's electricity demands through 2030 and cut carbon dioxide emissions in China by 30 per cent, United States and Chinese researchers said.
10 September Reuters article

Time 'ripe for nuclear'

If there ever were a time that seemed ripe for nuclear energy, it's now. For the first time in decades, popular opinion is on the industry's side.
8 September Wall Street Journal article

Sweden, Norway agree on green certificates

Sweden and Norway have agreed to establish a common market for green electricity certificates, the countries' energy ministers announced. The scheme promotes green energy by offering producers of electricity from renewable sources a green certificate for every MWh of electricity produced, which they can sell for extra income.
8 September EurActiv brief

Clean clothes with lower emissions and water consumption

A new washing machine uses thousands of nylon beads, and just a cup of water, to provide a greener way to do the laundry, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 per cent.
3 September Economist article

Asia floods global solar market

The solar cells manufacture industry is collapsing in previously leading countries such as Germany and Spain as Chinese firms use government subsidies and ultra-cheap loans to flood the world market with low-cost solar cells and panels.
28 August The Australian feature
28 August The Australian news article
11 August Reuters article through Planet Ark
26 August New York Times article

Subsidy for ethanol

The Canadian Government will provide an operating subsidy of up to C$72.8 million for an ethanol plant in Minnedosa, Manitoba.The money comes from a federal fund established in 2008 to boost production of renewable fuels. Ethanol from grain, such as that produced at the Minnedosa plant, generates up to 40 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline, the Government said.
26 August Reuters article through Planet Ark

Momentum for Europe's Sahara power deal

A 400 billion euro plan to power Europe with Sahara sunlight is gaining momentum, even as critics see high risks in a large corporate project using young technology in north African countries with weak rule of law.
25 August Reuters article through Planet Ark

Big oil hits Brazil

Brazil, with a proud history of pushing to develop renewable energy and wean itself off oil, is the site of the largest western hemisphere oil discovery in 30 years. The find, in territorial waters, has brought tension between those in favour of urgent development of the find and those supporting more renewal energy development.
24 August Associated Press article

Plan for solar-powered oil production

Chevron Corp is building a solar plant to create the steam to boost production at an aging California oilfield, in a pioneering project the company aims to replicate elsewhere if it works.
24 August Reuters article through Planet Ark

British subsidy for oil

The British government has spent 20 times more subsidising the coal industry over the past six years than it has put into marine energy, new figures show.
23 August The Observer article

German focus on electric cars 

Germany lawmakers have approved a plan to put a million electric cars on German roads by 2020, in a bid to become the worlds top market for electric vehicles.
21 August EurActiv brief

Solar plant for China

Chinese solar wafer manufacturer ReneSola won exclusive rights to develop a $706 million, 150-megawatt solar power plant in northern China.
21 August Reuters article through Planet Ark

German plan for electric cars

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet has agreed a plan to get a million electric cars on Germany's roads by 2020 and transform the country into the world's top electric car market.
20 August Reuters article through Planet Ark

Geothermal test delays

The United States' first major test of geothermal energy as a significant alternative to fossil fuels has fallen seriously behind schedule, several federal scientists said this week, even as the project is under review because of the earthquakes it could generate in Northern California.
19 August New York Times article

US spending threatens Canada's clean energy

The United States' titanic $60 billion spending plan for the US clean energy sector is luring investors away from green businesses in Canada, threatening the industry's growth there.
19 August Reuters article through Planet Ark

Gas 'huge opportunity' for US

The United States of America's huge reserves of natural gas mean that the global transformation to cleaner energy and a more-secure future could prove to be the nation's economic opportunity of the coming century. 
17 August Wall Street Journal opinion

Billions for batteries

United States Presidxent Obama has annoounced $US2.4 billion in funding for 48 advanced battery and electric drive projects, the largest yet single investment in advanced battery technology for hybrid and electric-drive vehicles which aims to accelerate the manufacturing and deployment of batteries and electric vehicles in the US.
14 August CSIRO statement

From dead zone to fuel oil

A United States based start-up company proposes to harvest the algae blooms which grows in so-called dead zones in coastal waters, a response to fertiliser run-off, feed the algae to fish, harvest the fish, and extract fish-oil as a fuel.
14 August Wall Street Journal article  

China invests in wind

China has started construction of the country's first 10-gigawa wind power base in Jiuquan of northwest Gansu province as Beijing seeks more clean power to fuel its fast economic growth.China, the world's second-largest energy user, has said it would bring its total wind power capacity to 100 GW by 2020 from the current 12 GW, part of a broad energy target to generate 3 per cent of total electricity from non-hydro renewable energy.
10 August Reuters article through Planet Ark

Energy from sweat

Electrical engineers in the US think that synthetic leaves could be used to generate electricity in a different way – by sweating.The new synthetic leaves lose water through evaporation to create a mechanical water pump effect, and use it to generate power.
30 July New Scientist article

Tar sands mired again

The Canadian tar sands are mired in more controversy as an indigenous community launched an international appeal for financial aid to battle against further development. The Cree gave up ancestral lands in return for guaranteed rights to hunt, fish and gather plants but say that damage to the environment prevents them from doing so.
21 July GreenBusiness article

Italian oil looks to solar future

Solar energy is the only one renewable that really can solve our problems,"  Italian energy company CEO Scaroni said in a BBC interview.  Eni which produces around 1.8 million barrels of oil equivalent per day was "quite optimistic" on efforts to find new solar technology it is involved in with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston.
21 July Reuters article
BBC interview

Australia needs many energy options

The Energy Minister said Australia needs a broad range of options to meet domestic and export demand including coal, liquefied natural gas (LNG), alternate fuels, uranium, wind, solar and geothermal energy which all must be developed as quickly as possible.
20 July WA Today article

US energy use dropped in 2008

Americans used more solar, nuclear, biomass and wind energy in 2008 than they did in 2007, according to the most recent energy flow charts released by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The nation used less coal and petroleum during the same time frame and only slightly increased its natural gas consumption. Geothermal energy use remained the same.
 20 July Science Daily article

Joint energy research for China and U. S.

The world's two largest polluters agreed to each put in $15m (£9.2m) to set up a joint energy research facility, which will have headquarters in both countries. The US and China aim is to develop more fuel-efficient vehicles, energy-efficient buildings and new technology to reduce and sequester carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal.
17 July GreenBusiness article

Keeping it going for longer

Intermittent winds have been seen as one of the key hurdles for the widespread adoption of wind power but, according to a flurry of reports, large scale deployment of wind energy does away with the problems of variable wind. Greater grid connectivity across Europe may take the variability sting out of regional weather patterns.
8 July Guardian article
14 July edie article
National Grid: Operating in 2020 Report
UK DECC Report
WWF Report

Scotland renewed

The Scottish executive has published the Renewables Action Plan outlining how developing the right renewables infrastructure and boosting skills will help Scotland to meet its climate change targets while providing an economic benefit to ensure at least a fifth of Scotland's energy comes from renewables by 2020.
2 July edie article

Retrofit coal-fired power plants to capture CO₂

A report from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology symposium found the U.S. government isn’t moving quickly enough to bring feasible retrofit technologies to scale, or investing enough in research and development programs to develop medium- and long-term solutions to growing emissions.
23 June ClimateBiz article
Report

America stimulates renewable energy

The Energy and Treasury departments released guidance to help renewable energy project developers apply for roughly $3 billion in stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which will open the market to many technologies that weren't economically feasible before.
10 July ClimateBiz article

Biofuel white elephant in Texas

A Texas biofuel plant that is 95% completed has become bankrupt before generating its first ethanol from locally abundant cow manure. Amid construction flaws and a viral outbreak among workers the $200m facility has ceased trials pending a new buyer to bring the plant on line.
23 June BBC article
10 June DomesticFuel article

Urban biofuel from garbage

Of London's 3 million tonnes of food waste annually, 60% currently goes to landfill. So Lord Mayor Johnson has launched London Waste to Fuel Alliance with the aim of establishing five bio-fuel plants in the capital by 2012 to save 500,000 tonnes of co2 annually.
12 June edie article

Energy investment turns the low carbon corner

For the first time annual renewable investment was higher than in fossil fuels. According to figures released by the United Nations, investment for power generation through wind, solar and other clean technologies attracted $140bn (£85bn) compared with $110bn for gas and coal for electrical power generation.
3 June The Guardian article
4 June New York Times article
UNEP

American biodiesel duty for EU

A European Union move to extend its duties on U.S. biodiesel imports is good news for producers but may not be enough to prevent more companies from going under as margins remain poor, Europe's largest maker said on Thursday. An EU executive arm has submitted a proposal to impose tariffs of up to five years at a meeting of the EU's anti-dumping committee.
28 May Reuters article

Oil dependence negotiations

The U.S. President will meet with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah next week to discuss their commercial and strategic relationship. Obama said he also wanted to make the point that it is not in the world's interests for the United States to be so dependent on fossil fuels because of their impact on global climate change.
28 May Reuters article

Power hungry gadgets need diet

International Energy Agency (IEA) reports that devices from cellphones to personal computers consume 15 per cent of all household power. The report found that by 2030, electronic gadgets could require 280 gigawatts of new generating capacity, but energy consumption could be reined in using the most efficient technology available.
24 May New Scientist article

Planned flooding for parts of the Severn

The Atkins Review, commissioned by the National Trust, RSPB, WWF and the Anglers' Trust, says Britain significantly underestimates the benefits of ecologically sensitive schemes and is giving permit preference to large scale clean energy projects that threaten environmental degradation.
8 May The Guardian article
Report

Sustainable mobility

Engineers and racing car enthusiasts have gathered in Germany for a car race that does not reward the fastest car, but focuses instead on the most fuel-efficient. The best cars could travel the entire length of Britain five times on a single gallon of petrol.
8 May The Guardian article

More coal from China, less from the EU

More of the world's electricity was generated from coal last year, reveals a new European coal industry report, which shows global hard coal production increased by at least 200 million tonnes (Mt) last year, mainly from China. In the face of new regulations European coal producer feel disadvantaged.
5 May EurActiv article
Euracoal report

Americans pursue energy breakthroughs

In an effort to expand federal energy and climate research, the US Department of Energy announced funding for 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers and released its first call for proposals from the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).
1 May Nature article
1 May Phoenix Business Journal article

Renwable energy enforcement lacks power

The European Commission insists that the EU's new Renewable Energy Directive gives it sufficient power to ensure national compliance, after it admitted that the Union is unlikely to meet its goal of sourcing 12% of its energy from renewables in 2010.
30 April EurActiv article

Welsh wet energy

Ongoing efforts to accelerate the development and deployment of wave and tidal generation technologies were a focus at the British Wind Energy Agency (BWEA) tidal and wave conference. A new UK government-commissioned study is to examine the full energy potential of English and Welsh waters.
30 April BusinessGreen article

European energy efficiency regulated

The European Parliament approved the extension of the Ecodesign Directive to cover products that have an indirect impact on energy use in order to speed up the EU move towards a low-carbon economy. Critics point out that the directive only applies to energy using products such as fridges, hairdryers and televisions.
27 April EurActiv article

No palm oil in Tanoe forest

Palmci have abandoned plans for a oil palm plantation in the Tanoe forest wetlands of southern Cote d' Ivoire (Ivory Coast) amid low palm oil prices and a concerted campaign to protect the vulnerable ecology of the region. The company said it would continue to seek sites for oil palm plantations in the west African country.
25 April Mongabay article

Carbon Sink or Carbon Sinner

UK Environment Agency report 'Biomass: Carbon Sink or Carbon Sinner' found that the greenhouse gas emission savings from Biomass power - such as burning wood for energy, were currently highly variable and  could do more harm than good in the battle to reduce greenhouse gases.
14 April BBC article

Energy efficiency jobs given a boost

The U.S. has set aside $20 billion for energy efficiency in the federal stimulus package result ing in a case study in the challenges of flooding federal dollars into a sector that long survived on a trickle. This is a boon for state-sponsored programs that trais workers in re-engineering buildings to cut electricity use.
5 April LA Times article

Shallow solutions for US wind energy

The American Interior Department reported that wind turbines off U.S. coastlines could potentially supply more than enough electricity to meet the nation's current demand. Harnessing the wind in the most accessible and technically feasible sites for shallow water offshore turbines could produce at least 20% of the power demand for most coastal states.
3 April LA Times article

 

Sequestration

 

Climate change

Climate change 'to increase risk of civil war'

The march of climate change could make civil wars much more likely, research suggests, with models predicting nearly 400,000 extra deaths in African conflicts by 2030. Marshall Burke, a University of California economist and the study's lead author, said: "Our study finds that climate change could increase the risk of African civil war by over 50 percent in 2030 relative to 1990, with huge potential costs to human livelihoods."
25 November Telegraph article

Climate tracks worst-case scenarios

Key climate change measures are tracking near or beyond worse-case scenarios predicted just two years ago, according to a science update drawing on more than 200 recently published studies. Co-authored by 26 climate scientists, The Copenhagen Diagnosis reports that melting of summer Arctic sea ice, loss of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and projections of the rise in sea levels have accelerated dramatically since 2007. It says greenhousing gas emissions are surging, Arctic sea-ice decline has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models, that delay in action risks irreversible damage, and that annual per-capita emissions must shrink to below 1 tonne of carbon dioxide by 2050, 80 to 95 per cent lower than recent emissions in developed nations.
25 November The Age article
24 November media statement by authors of The Copenhagen Diagnosis (through Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)
Link to download The Copenhagen Diagnosis or read it online

Next year forecast to be hottest yet

A new Hadley Centre forecast for the decade from 2009 onwards suggests that "at least half" of the years up to 2019 will be hotter than the hottest year so far, which was 1998. And it indicates that the first of the years to break the current record will actually be 2010.
25 November Independent article

$trillions in assets at risk

A possible rise in sea levels by 0.5 metres by 2050 could put at risk more than $28 trillion worth of assets in the world's largest coastal cities, according to a report compiled by the Tyndall Centre for the insurance industry.
23 November CNN article

Antarctic ice loss faster than thought

The East Antarctic icesheet, once seen as largely unaffected by global warming, has lost billions of tonnes of ice since 2006 and could boost sea levels in the future, according to a new study led by University of Texas Professor Jianli Chen.
23 November Independent article
Abstract from Nature Geoscience
Article from Nature Geoscience (subscription required, or purchase access online)

Diluted ocean waters threaten shellfish

Melting of the Arctic sea ice due to global warming is diluting surface waters and this is endangering some species of shellfish which need minerals in the water to form their shells and skeletons, according to research led by Fiona McLaughlin, research scientist at Canada's Institute of Ocean Sciences's department of fisheries and oceans.
19 November Reuters article
Science abstract
Science article (subscription required, or buy access online)

Just 10 years to slash emissions

Greenhouse gas emissions need to be brought under control within 10 years to stop runaway climate change, according to the latest Met Office predictions. n the first study of its kind, climate scientists looked at how much pollution the world could afford to produce between now and the end of the century in order to keep temperature rises within a "safe limit". A number of different scenarios were run and the most likely outcome was that carbon dioxide emissions peaked somewhere between 2010 and 2020 and then fell rapidly to zero by 2100. In the worse-case scenario, modelled by the Met Office Hadley Centre, emissions had to turn negative by 2050 to stand any chance of keeping the temperature rise below 2C (3.6F). This would mean using "geo-engineering" such as artificial trees that are designed to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
15 November Telegraph article

'Philosphy' of climate change worries scientists

A ruling by a judge in England that a worker was entitled to legal protection for his 'philosophical belief in climate change' has alrmed scientists, who point out that science emerged self-consciously, as an alternative to world views based on faith, moral conviction and other forms of a priori thought. If science is recast by a legal ruling as simply a moral or religious world view, then its pre-eminent authority is likely to be compromised. What is to distinguish science from quacks with strongly held principles?
13 November The Australian article

'Oceans and forests store ever-more carbon dioxide'

The proportion of carbon dioxide emissions captured and stored in oceans and forests has remained around 50 per cent of all emissions over the past 150 years despite huge increases in annual emissions over that period, according to a study by researchers at Bristol University.
11 November Telegraph article

War of words over glacier melt

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chairman Rajendra Pachauri has accused the Indian environment ministry of "arrogance" after the release of an Indian Government report claiming that there is no evidence climate change has caused "abnormal" shrinking of Himalayan glaciers. The government report was prepared by a geologist, Vijay Kumar Raina, a former Deputy Director General of Geological Survey India. He is said to have retired some years ago. Pachauri says the report has not been peer reviewed and has few scientific citations.
9 November Guardian article
Download the report, A State-of-Art Review of Glacial Studies, Glacial Retreat and Climate Change (3.6MB pdf)

Threat to meagre arid-area plant-life

As the climate gets warmer, arid soils lose nitrogen as gas, reports a new Cornell University study. That could lead to deserts with even less plant life than they sustain today, say the researchers.
5 November Cornell Chronicle article

'Greatest hoax of the century?'

Preparing for the deluge of rising sea levels, we were treated to footage from parliamentary question time starring Julia Gillard and her gumboots. Appropriately she was followed on ABC1 by Bananas in Pyjamas. Could man-made climate change turn out to be the greatest hoax of the present century? Certainly, ordinary people are beginning to ask questions.
4 November The Australian opinion by Janet Albrechtsen

Fears for price of bread and beer

In Britain a loaf of bread will cost £6.50 and a pint of beer £18 by 2030 unless urgent action is taken to avert dangerous climate change, environmentalists claimed.
28 October Telegraph article

Rising temperatures hit seaweed farmers

Seaweed farmers in Nusa Penida and Nusa Lembongan islands, Bali, Indonesia, are suffering from changing sea conditions as a result of climate change.
28 October Jakarta Post article

'A handful of scientists with flawed theories take us to the Dark Ages'

By any measure, the supposed menace of global warming – and the political response to it – has become one of the overwhelmingly urgent issues of our time. If one accepts the thesis that the planet faces a threat unprecedented in history, the implications are mind-boggling. But equally mind-boggling now are the implications of the price we are being asked to pay by our politicians to meet that threat. More than ever, it is a matter of the highest priority that we should know whether or not the assumptions on which the politicians base their proposals are founded on properly sound science. As the world has already been through two of its coldest winters for decades, with all the signs that we may now be entering a third, the scientific case for CO₂ threatening the world with warming has been crumbling away on an astonishing scale. In a new book, Christopher Booker details how, in his view, "a handful of scientists, who have pushed flawed theories on global warming for decades, now threaten to take us back to the Dark Ages".
25 October Telegraph article

Met models 4 degrees average temperature rise

Britain's Met Office has produced an interactive climate impacts map illustrating the outputs of modelling a global average temperature rise of 4 degrees C above pre-industrial temperatures, a level that could be reached before the end of this century . The modelling indicates temperatures much higher than 4 degrees over many land areas, with over-ocean temperatures lower, and a range of other climate impacts, including substantial reductions in the production of cereal crops in all major growing areas. 
22 October Telegraph article
22 October Met Office statement
Interactive climate impacts map
Telegraph version of climate impacts map

The rise in mean sea level mapped by the Met Office would bring floods to more than 33 million people living in Indonesia and other countries in South-east Asia, a region redicted to be hit harder than any other part of the world. People severely affected by the rising sea level will be those living along the East Asian coast, the South-east Asian coast and the Indian Ocean coast, bounded by the islands of Sumatra and Java and many other smaller ones on the East.
29 October Jakarta Post article

Yemen set to be first nation to run out of water

Yemen is set to be the first country in the world to run out of water, providing a taste of the conflict and mass movement of populations that may spread across the world if population growth outstrips natural resources.
Government and experts agree that the capital, Sanaa, has about ten years at current rates before its wells run dry but the city of two million continues to grow as people are forced to leave other areas because of water shortages.
21 October Times article

Russian permafrost melting

For 1,000 years the indigenous Nenets people have herded their reindeer along the Yamal peninsula. But their survival in this remote region of north-west Siberia is under serious threat from climate change as Russia's ancient permafrost melts.
20 October Guardian article

Sediment demonstrates 50 years of warming

Muddy sediment from the bottom of a frozen lake on a remote island off Canada's northern coast, some of it 200,000 years old, shows that Baffin Island has undergone an unprecedented warming over the past half-century, morre than offsetting a natural cooling trend which began 8,000 years ago.
20 October Independent article

Coral reefs 'on brink of collapse'

The world's coral reefs save us $172 billion every year, but they're on the brink of collapse  because of political inertia, an ecological economist has told the global Diversitas biodiversity conference in Cape Town, South Africa.
19 October New Scientist article

Start planning for refugees from Pacific islands

Many Pacific islands in danger of being obliterated by rising sea levels should seek relocation aid at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, according to Professor Patrick Nunn, a climate change researcher at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji.
18 October AFP article

Current path 'will not limit warming to 2 degrees'

Current policies to fight climate change in China, India, the United States and other major carbon-dioxide emitters are not enough to limit global temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), a US envoy said.
18 October Bloomberg article

Ice-free Arctic 'within 20 years'

Ships will be able to sail in open water to the North Pole in the summer of 2020, according to a study that found a rapid acceleration in the loss of sea ice. The Arctic will be ice-free in summer within 20 years, the study by the Polar Ocean Physics Group from Cambridge University found, while the Earth will lose the white cap that can be seen in photographs taken from space.
15 October Times article
15 October Guardian article
16 October The Australian article

Is it all too late?

The climate predictions are frightening. Those who listen to them feel anxious, fear, rage, guilt, anguish, helplessness, hope and apathy. The prognosis makes them worry about the well-being and survival of children and grandchildren. It destabilises the unquestioned belief in a continuously peaceful and prosperous societies. The health of the planet and its natural marvels is at stake. What’s going on in the psyche? How do we cope with this profound threat to our conception of the future?
16 October Crikey opinion by Clive Hamilton

The collapse of civilisation will bring us a saner world, says Paul Kingsnorth. No, counters George Monbiot – we can't let billions perish.
Guardian blog

The root cause, the source of the symptoms, is 300 years of our relentlessly exploitative, extractive, and exponentially growing technoculture, against the background of ten millennia of hierarchical and colonial civilisations. This should be no news flash, but the seductive promise of endless growth has grasped all of us civilized folk by the collective throat, led us to expand our population in numbers beyond all reason and to commit genocide of indigenous cultures and destruction of other life on Earth.
Grist opinion by Adam Sacks

Climate exiles unprotected by refugee laws

Human migration due to global warming may create “climate exiles” who are not protected under world refugee laws, according to the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development.
15 October Bloomberg article

Warm enough for flies at Everest base camp

Earlier this year Dawa Steven Sherpa was resting at Everest base camp when he and his companions heard something buzzing. "What the heck is that?" asked the young Nepali climber. They searched and found a big black house fly, something unimaginable just a few years ago when no insect could have survived at 5,360 metres.
12 October Guardian article

Climate change blamed for ocean dead zone

Oxygen-starved dead zones in the world's oceans have been appearing with increasing frequency, with some 400 identified so far. While most are caused by sewage or fertiliser leaching into the ocean, a possible new driver has appeared in the north-west Pacific: climate change.
10 October Times article

Severe declines in fish stocks predicted

The first study to look at how climate change will affect food supplies offshore warns of severe declines in fish stocks in some of the world's poorest regions.
8 October Guardian article

Catastropic change 'in just 50 years'

Catastrophic climate change could happen with 50 years, five decades earlier than previously predicted, according to a study by Britain's Met Office Hadley Centre. An average global temperature rise of 7.2F (4C), considered a dangerous tipping point, could happen by 2060, causing droughts around the world, sea level rises and the collapse of important ecosystems, it warns. The Arctic could see an increase in temperatures of 28.8F (16C), while parts of sub Saharan Africa and North America would be devastated by an increase in temperature of up to 18F (10C).
27 September Telegraph article
28 September Reuters article

Dust storms spread lethal epidemics

Huge dust storms, like the ones that swept across eastern Australia and moved on to New Zealand recently, are spreading lethal epidemics around the world. However, they can also absorb climate change emissions, say researchers studying the little understood but growing phenomenon.
27 September Guardian article

The pace quickens

The Climate Change Compendium 2009, which looked at 400 recent reports from peer-reviewed literature or from research institutions, concludes that climate is changing more rapidly than expected in the IPCC's 2007 report. It found higher likelihood of higher temperatures and greater acidification of seawaters.
24 September Telegraph article 
United Nations Environment Programme link to download the report

Land-based ice sheets melting more rapidly

Melting ice is pouring off Greenland and Antarctica into the sea far faster than was previously realised because of global warming, according to new research by scientists from the British Antarctic Survey and the University of Bristol.
24 September Independent article

More droughts threatened

Global warming may have spawned a new type of El Nino in the central Pacific and this could worsen the droughts in Australia and India, a new study by researchers in South Korea and the United States has found.
23 September Reuters article

Flood-threated deltas are sinking

While it has long been known that low-lying river deltas are at severe risk from rising seas, a new study led from the University of Boulder indicates added threat: river deltas across the world are sinking as a result of a range of human activity.
21 September New Scientist article

Why fly south when winter in Alask is warming?

In the autumn of 2007, tens of thousands of small arctic geese called Pacific brant (Branta bernicla nigricans) decided not to go south for the winter. For these long-haul migratory birds, it was a dramatic choice: they usually spend the cold months munching their favorite eel grass in the waters off Mexico's Baja peninsula. But changes in Earth's climate are such that they decided the the barren windswept lagoons of western Alaska were warm enough to winter in.
18 September ENN article

Climate change could chill North America

Global warming could actually chill down North America within just a few decades, according to a new study that says a sudden cooling event gripped the region about 8,300 years ago. The study was led by Tim Daley of Swansea University in the United Kingdom.
16 September National Geographic article through ENN

Oceans warm to new record

The world's ocean surfaces had their warmest summer temperatures on record, the US national climatic data centre said. Climate change has been steadily raising the earth's average temperature in recent decades, but climatologists expected additional warming this year and next due to the influence of El Niño.
16 September Guardian article

Sea ice thaw not quite a record

The Arctic's sea ice pack thawed to its third-lowest summer level on record, up slightly from the seasonal melt of the past two years but continuing an overall decline symptomatic of climate change, the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the United States of America reported.
17 September Reuters article

Society 'faces helath catastrophe'

Human society faces a global health catastrophe if climate change is not effectively tackled , leading doctors from around the world warn.
16 September Independent article

Scientists find CO2 link to ice cap

A team of scientists from Cardiff, Bristol and Texas A&M Universities, studying rock samples in Africa, has shown a strong link between falling carbon dioxide levels and the formation of Antarctic ice sheets 34 million years ago. The results are the first to make the link, underpinning computer climate models that predict both the creation of ice sheets when carbon dioxide concentrations fall and the melting of ice caps when carbon dioxide concentrations rise.
14 September The Independent article
14 September Science Daily article
Letter from Nature (subscription required, or purchase access online)

Arctic already transformed

The most comprehensive study to date of conditions in the Arctic shows that climate change has already transformed landscapes and ecosystems through Siberia, northern Canada, Alaska, Greenland, and other far northern regions.
11 September Science Daily article
11 September Philadelphia Inquirer article
11 September Voice of America article

New study confirms warming man-made

Long-term climate records from the Arctic provide strong new evidence that human-caused global warming can override (and have overridden) Earth's natural heating and cooling cycles, United States researchers reported this week in the journal Science.
5 September Los Angeles Times article
Abstract from Science with links to full text (subscription required for full text, or purchase access online)

Now the bad news

Our climate models are missing something. At the carbon dioxide concentrations believed to exist at the time, models can account for only about half the temperature rise in the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Jerry Dickens of Rice University in Houston, co-author of a new study in Nature, suggests that the warming capacity of carbon dioxide might be greater than scientists believe, that sensitivity to rising carbon dioxide concentration is not liner, or that there is an additional positive feedback that is triggered by high concentration of carbon dioxide. Either way, we might be in for much more warming than currently anticipated.
31 August Christian Scince Monitor article
Abstract from Nature with links to full text (subscription required for full text, or purchase access online) 

Analysis highlights the vulnerable

Norway, Finland, Japan, Canada and New Zealand are the countries best placed to weather the effects of climate change, while Africa
hosts 22 of 28 “extreme risk” countries, according to the Climate Change Vulnerability Index, released by global risks consultancy, Maplecroft.
3 September media statement

Support for scientific accurary

The European Commission has announced its backing for a new climate change framework to improve the scientific accuracy of climate forecasts and modelling. The Global Framework for Climate Services is designed to develop better science-based climate change information and understanding of how the process of climate change works.
7 September media statement

US governors warned

Global climate change over the next 20 years will cause intense droughts in the southwest United States of America, floods in the northeast threatening the coastline and urban areas, and significant storm damage along the Gulf Coast, a panel of southern US governors was told.
26 August Richmond Times-Dispatch article

When it rains, it pours

Rainfall patterns are changing in the midwest of the United States of America, with more falling as high-intensity storms and drier periods between, a review of records shows.
22 August Plain Dealer article

The poor to suffer most

The impact of climate change will fall heaviest on the desperately poor, according to a study across 16 developing nations.
21 August USA Today article 
21 August Science Daily media statement
Environmental Research Letters abstract
Environmental Research Letters article

World's oceans warmest on record

July was the hottest month for the world's oceans in almost 130 years of record-keeping.
20 August Associated Press article through Toronto Star
14 August National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration statement

Mexico in drought

Mexico is suffering from its driest year in 68 years, killing crops and cattle in the countryside and forcing the government to slow the flow of water to the crowded capital. Authorities are questioning to what extent the drought is because of El Nino and to what extent climate change.
20 August Reuters article through Environmental News Network

Earth's axis to tilt further

Warming oceans could cause Earth's axis to tilt in the coming century, a new study suggests. The effect was previously thought to be negligible, but researchers now say the shift will be large enough that it should be taken into account when interpreting how the Earth wobbles.
20 August New Scientist article

Personal sacrifice 'not necessary'

Personal sacrifices are not necessary in the fight against global warming, according to Britain's Transport Secretary, who promised that greener technologies would mean Britons should have no need to cut back on travel.
18 August Telegraph article

Methane evidence of positive feedback

Scientists say they have evidence that the powerful greenhouse gas methane is escaping from the Arctic sea-bed. Researchers say this could be evidence of a predicted positive feedback effect of climate change.
18 August BBC article
Geophysical Research Letters abstract with links to article (subscription required, or purchase access to article online)

Temperatures tipped to spike in next five years

Global warming and a hotter solar cycle will bump up average atmospheric temperatures about 0.15 degrees C by 2014, and then flatten out for the rest of the decade, according to a study led by Judith Lean of the US Naval Research Laboratory and published in Geophysical Research Letters. Temperate regions of the northern hemisphere would be most affected.
18 August USA Today article
Geophysical Research Letters abstract
Geophysical Research Letters article (subscriptioon required or purchase access online)

Devastating change in Tibet

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, one of the most susceptible areas on the planet to global warming, is heating up at such an alarming rate that experts fear it will suffer environmental deterioration and water shortages that may threaten the entire continent.
18 Augsut China Daily article
17 August AFP article

Glacier melt implications for sea levels

Pine Island Glacier, west Antarctica's largest, has thinned four times more quickly over a decade than anticipated. British scientists say this has serious implications for the rise in global sea levels.
17 August The Age article

Bird species decline in size

Some species of Australian birds are shrinking and the trend will likely continue because of global warming, according to a study led by Janet Gardner, an Australian National University biologist.
15 August Canadian Press article
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences abstract
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences article (subscription reequired or purchase access online)

'Global emergency' of forest fires

Greenpeace warned of an imminent "global emergency" as climate change fuels forest fires that have already destroyed tens of thousands of hectares in southern Europe this year."Climate change is driving a new generation of fires with unknown social and economic consequences," said Miguel Soto, Greenpeace Spain forests campaigner.
13 August IOL article

Glaciers shrink

Three major glaciers in Alaska and Washington state have thinned and shrunk dramatically, clear signs of a warming climate, according to a study released by the United States Geological Survey.
11 August Reuters article through Planet Ark
10 August US Geological Survey statement

Fire in the Arctic

It has been shown that an Alaskan tundra fire in 2007 dumped 1.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the charred area also increses soil warming and the release of additional carbon. As climate change takes hold tundra fires will become more frequent.
30 July New Scientist article 

Wildfires to increase as globe warms

As the climate warms in the coming decades, atmospheric scientists at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and their colleagues expect that the frequency of wildfires will increase in many regions.
29 July Science Daily article

Study expected to silence sceptics

A new climate study combining factors including greenhouse gases, volcanic activity, solar variations and El Niño, shows the world will warm faster than predicted in next five years based on the forthcoming upturn in solar activity and El Niño southern oscillation cycles.
27 July The Guardian article

Satellites spy for climate science

Pictures taken by spy satellites over the past decade and declassified by the White House this month provide the first graphic images of how vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months. The one-metre resolution images revealed important changes.
26 July The Guardian article

Drying Colorado River in the American West

A 10 year long drought has reduced the Colorado River stream flow, affecting 30 million people. There's a one-in-two chance that the water reservoirs of the Colorado River will dry up by 2050 if water management practices remain unchanged in our warming world, a new study finds.
20 July liveScience article

Salt marshes set to lose out

Global warming may exact a toll on salt marshes in New England, where plants known as forbes are especially vulnerable to increased temperature. After a short growth spurt this food for migratory birds dies off to be replaced by other species including grasses.
15 July ScienceDaily article

El Niño expected in force

Climate scientists have warned of wild weather and increased Atlantic hurricanes as the start of the global "El Niño" climate phenomenon exacerbates the impacts of global warming. As well as droughts, floods and other extreme events, the next few years are also likely to be the hottest on record, scientists say.
12 July USA Today article
13 July Guardian article

Ancient burrows hold the clues

Australian fossil records of dinosaur burrows from 110 million years ago hold clues to a global warming survival tactic. A new find shows burrowing behaviours were shared by dinosaurs in different hemispheres during the Cretaceous Period, one of the last times the Earth experienced global warming.
11 July Science Daily article

Warming Arctic could teem with life in 20 years

As global warming removes the arctic's icy lid, by 2030 the Arctic Ocean could be teeming with tiny algae called diatoms which could give species that currently live further south an incentive to move into the region by providing them with food.
8 July New Scientist article

Dramatic Arctic sea ice thinning

Based on data from a NASA Earth-orbiting spacecraft, Arctic sea ice has proven to thin dramatically between the winters of 2004 and 2008, with thin seasonal ice replacing thick older ice as the dominant type for the first time on record. The new results show the rapid, ongoing transformation of the Arctic's ice cover.
10 July Science Daily article
7 July NASA article

Looming El Nino climate pattern

Climatologists say an El Nino weather pattern is developing, increasing the chances of further drought and forest fires in Australia and Indonesia. Australia's weather bureau reports that the weather pattern could be bad news for the nation's farmers as the drier conditions arrive during harvest times.
7 July Voice of America article
7 July The Australian article

44,838 threatened species and counting

An International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) report warns that an unacceptable number of species are still being lost forever despite world leaders pledging action to reverse the trend. A third of amphibians, a quarter of mammals and one-in-eight birds are threatened with extinction.
2 July BBC article
Report

More carbon in Arctic than in atmosphere

Carbon stored in soils surrounding the North Pole has been hugely underestimated. Based on a four-year study of the latest research on permafrost, data from new drilling projects and previously unpublished data from the Russian Academy of Sciences, a new report shows the vulnerable stock is double previous estimates.
30 June Reuters article
30 June USA Today article
1 July Xinhua article
1 July Bloomberg article

Mobile phones to aid African climate

A partnership between humanitarian groups and mobile phone companies will mount 5,000 automatic weather stations across the African continent on phone masts. They will gather data on aspects of weather such as rainfall and wind, and could help save lives of people on "the frontlines of climate change".
18 June BBC article

The UK in 2050

United Kingdom meteorologists have released their estimates of average expected UK temperatures in 2050. Based on only moderate carbon emissions they say by 2080, London will be between 2C and 6C hotter than it is now. The results can inform long-term investment decisions that could be influenced by a changing climate.
18June BBC article
18 June The Guardian article
interactive map

Climate report gives reality check

The University of Copenhagen released the Synthesis Report drawing on 1,600 scientific contributions to a global climate summit held in Copenhagen earlier this year. Researchers are warning the planet is facing a growing risk of abrupt and irreversible climatic shifts as impacts exceed highest 2007 projections.
18 June ABC article
18 June Bloomberg article
Report (pdf)

Increased African conflict

According to an international review panel, 23 countries in Africa face “a high risk of violent conflict” from climate change and a further 14 countries face “a high risk of political instability” while only a fraction of international funds intended for climate change mitigation projects find their way to the continent.
12 June COP15 article

Open ocean may become dominated by jellyfish

New research presents convincing evidence that a jellyfish population boom is associated with over-fishing and excess nutrients from fertilisers and sewage. As well, climate change may favour some jellyfish species by increasing the availability of key jellyfish food sources while warmer oceans could also extend the distribution of many jellyfish species.
9 June ScienceAlert article

Too far to fly

Bird migrations are likely to get longer according to the first ever study of the potential impacts of climate change on the breeding and winter ranges of migrant birds. Increases up to 400 km could have serious consequences for many species.
8 June Science Daily article

Significant eruptions smaller than our smog

A Curtin University researcher has shown that some ancient periods of massive eruptions released green house gases so quickly that they caused rapid climate change and mass extinctions. Currently we are adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere faster than even the most rapid sequence of eruptions.
5 June ScienceAlert article

Climate change silent human crisis

The Global Humanitarian Forum led by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan showed that climate-change disasters kill around 300,000 people a year and cause about $125 billion in economic losses. They say the number of people seriously affected will double by 2030 from the current estimated 325 million. 
30 May AP article

The fierce urgency of now

According to the St James Place Nobel Laureate Symposium the world must begin decreasing their ever rising carbon emissions within 6 years or face disaster. The 20 Nobel prize winners agreed that without urgent action the world faces unmanageable climate risks.
28 May Tmes on Line article
27 May BBC article
Declaration

Permafrost to release carbon

According to recent research, total carbon emissions from thawing Arctic soils will depend on the balance between releasing long-stored carbon into the warming atmosphere by bacteria and the absorption of carbon by new plant growth promoted by the warmer weather. They expect a substantial rise because there is so much carbon in the permafrost that eventually the plants can't keep up.
28 May Science Daily article

North Pole to lose its cap

A new assessment based on analysis of nearly 40 years of sonar data as well as new observations, shows that the polar ice cap which has been a permanent feature for at least 100,000 years, will become seasonal and by about 2020, it is possible that only one area will remain in summer.
13 May BBC article

Climate change displacement has begun

The first evacuation of an entire community due to manmade global warming is happening on the Carteret Islands, small coral atolls off the coast of Papua New Guinea, foreshadowing the likely mass displacement of people from coastal cities and low-lying regions as a result of rising sea levels.
6 May Solomon Times article
8 May The Guardian article

Shrimp may be hungry in hot water

Shrimp eggs need to hatch within days of each spring phytoplankton bloom - the main food source for the larvae. But to get the timing right, the shrimp must mate during exactly the right period during the previous year. If seas warm as predicted, northern shrimp stocks could collapse.
7 May BBC article

Tibet under threat

Rising temperatures in Tibet are threatening droughts and floods, which could endanger millions of people, China's top weather official warned. Experts say more than 400 million people in China are already living with the problem of desertification, partly brought on by climate change.
6 May BBC article

Black carbon a dirty word

Black soot is identifiedf as a major contributer to global environmental change, increasing trapped heat in the Himilayas and ispeeding ice melting at the poles. While the visibly dirty black carbon is easy to identify it's complex role in climate is not fully understood.
1 May Wall Street Journal article
28 April Space Daily article

Tree killing tropical cyclones

A study of hurricane impact on U.S. trees shows that hurricane damage can diminish a forest’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide, a major contributor to global warming. The impact of tropical cyclones on U.S. forests from 1851–2000 showed that changes in hurricane frequency might contribute to global warming.
1 May Science Daily article

Spectacular coral reef recovery

A lucky combination of rare circumstances allowed reefs to achieve a spectacular recovery after high sea temperatures in 2006 caused massive and severe coral bleaching in the Keppel Islands, in the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef.
24 April Science Daily article

Fires feeding warming

A new study shows approximately 20 percent of the warming effect of greenhouse gases is coming from deforestation fires set by people. This is in addition to wildfires and creates a feedback where increased fires and mega fires contribute to the warming trends that may increase the size and frequency of future fires.
23 April Mongabay article
24 April Tucson Citizen article

Ocean methane more stable than thought

Measurements made from the largest Greenland ice sample ever analysed have confirmed that an unusual rise in atmospheric methane levels about 12,000 years ago was not the result of a catastrophic release of seafloor "hydrate deposits," as some scientists had feared.
23 April EuekAlert! article

U.S. government recognises emissions danger

International climate negotiations have advanced as the Obama administration formally declared that greenhouse gas emissions are a danger to public health and welfare. In the US this signals regulation of emissions from coal-fired power plants, and greater fuel  efficiency in new vehicles.
17 April CBS article
18 April Guardian article
18 April Time article