Signs From Earth

Follow the Money: Reinsurer @MunichRe_US says more extreme weather "strong indication" of climate change

Pakistan flood victims struggle for airborne food aid, August 14, 2010. Photo from Creative Commons by Jacob Freeze/flickr

http://www.munichre.com/en/media_relations/press_releases/2010/2010_09_27_press_release.aspx

 (@MunichRe_US) Munich RE PR, Sept. 27: "...Munich Re's natural catastrophe database, the most comprehensive of its kind in the world, shows a marked increase in the number of weather-related events. For instance, globally there has been a more than threefold increase in loss-related floods since 1980 and more than double the number of windstorm natural catastrophes, with particularly heavy losses as a result of Atlantic hurricanes...

 "...The rise in natural catastrophe losses is primarily due to socio-economic factors. In many countries, populations are rising, and more and more people moving into exposed areas. At the same time, greater prosperity is leading to higher property values. Nevertheless, it would seem that the only plausible explanation for the rise in weather-related catastrophes is climate change. The view that weather extremes are more frequent and intense due to global warming coincides with the current state of scientific knowledge as set out in the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report....

 "....There are at present insufficient data on many weather risks and regions to permit statistically backed assertions regarding the link with climate change. However, there is evidence that, as a result of warming, events associated with severe windstorms, such as thunderstorms, hail and cloudbursts, have become more frequent in parts of the USA, southwest Germany and other regions. The number of very severe tropical cyclones is also increasing. One direct result of warming is an increase in heatwaves such as that experienced in Russia this summer. ..."

Strategic Risk: Extreme Weather Must be Linked to Climate Change (@strategicrisk)

http://www.strategicrisk.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=23&storycode=386895&c=1

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Climate Change: A Summary of the Science (via @royalsociety)

Screenshot of top of cover, PDF of document at link below

http://royalsociety.org/climate-change-summary-of-science/

"Climate change continues to be a subject of intense public and political debate. Because of the level of interest in the topic the Royal Society has produced a new guide to the science of climate change. The guide summarises the current scientific evidence on climate change and its drivers, highlighting the areas where the science is well established, where there is still some debate, and where substantial uncertainties remain...."

Royal Society Launches new short guide to the science of climate change

http://royalsociety.org/Royal-Society-launches-new-climate-change-guide/

"...Climate change: a summary of the science, describes how and why the earth is currently warming, and explains the wide range of independent measurements and observations which underpin this understanding. It shows that there is strong evidence that over the last half century, the earth's warming has been caused largely by human activity.  It also explains the uncertainty involved in predicting the size of future temperature increases. There are many potentially serious consequences of climate change, so that important decisions need to be made. The guide concludes that, as in many other areas, policy choices will have to be made in the absence of perfect knowledge, but that the scientific evidence is an essential part of public reasoning in this complex and challenging area...."

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Study: Dead zone in Gulf of Mexico linked to Midwest farmland with tile drains (via @futuritynews)

The greatest nitrate loss to streams in the Mississippi river basin directly corresponds to the highly productive tile-drained cornbelt from southwest Minnesota across Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. (Credit: U. Illinois)

http://www.futurity.org/earth-environment/gulf-dead-zone-tied-to-tile-drainage/

University of Illinois PR: Tile drainage directly related to nitrate loss

http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/news/stories/news5411.html

"......a recent study shows that the most heavily tile-drained areas of North America are also the largest contributing source of nitrate to the Gulf of Mexico, leading to seasonal hypoxia. In the summer of 2010 this dead zone in the Gulf spanned over 7,000 square miles...."

Journal of Environmental Quality: Sources of Nitrate Yields in the Mississippi Valley

https://www.agronomy.org/publications/jeq/abstracts/39/5/1657

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Water Scarcity: Southwest US Heads for Day of Reckoning (via @nytimes)

Lake Mead, Colorado River, July 2010. Photo from Creative Commons by Lauri Vain/flickr

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/us/28mead.html

Felicity Barringer, Sept. 27, 2010: "...For the first time, federal estimates issued in August indicate that Lake Mead, the heart of the lower Colorado basin's water system -- irrigating lettuce, onions and wheat in reclaimed corners of the Sonoran Desert, and lawns and golf courses from Las Vegas to Los Angeles -- could drop below a crucial demarcation line of 1,075 feet...."

US Bureau of Reclamation Lower Colorado Region

http://www.usbr.gov/lc/riverops.html

PDF: Draft 2011 Annual Operating Plan

http://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/rsvrs/ops/aop/AOP11_draft.pdf

also see: Water Scarcity: Lake Mead on Colorado River at 54-Year Low (via @NASA_EO @circleofblue)

http://ddimick.posterous.com/water-scarcity-pictures-of-lake-mead-on-color

Lake Mead, Sept. 7, 2010. Photo form Creative Commons by damndirty/flickr

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Water's Hidden Crisis: Groundwater depletion rate accelerating worldwide (via @theAGU)

Global map of groundwater depletion, measured in cubic meters of water per year Credit: AGU

http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2010/2010-30.shtml

AGU PR regarding study in Geophysical Research Letters: "In recent decades, the rate at which humans worldwide are pumping dry the vast underground stores of water that billions depend on has more than doubled, say scientists who have conducted an unusual, global assessment of groundwater use...."

"...Today, people are drawing so much water from below that they are adding enough of it to the oceans (mainly by evaporation, then precipitation) to account for about 25 percent of the annual sea level rise across the planet, the researchers find.

Soaring global groundwater depletion bodes a potential disaster for an increasingly globalized agricultural system, says Marc Bierkens of Utrecht University in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and leader of the new study...."

also see: Yale E360 Digest: Rate of groundwater depletion has doubled since 1960, study says

http://e360.yale.edu/digest/rate_of_groundwater_depletion_worldwide_doubled_since_1960_study_says/2610/

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Water Scarcity: Pictures of Lake Mead on Colorado River at 54-Year Low (via@NASA_EO @circleofblue)

Lake Mead, August 22, 1985. Image from NASA

Lake Mead, August 11, 2010. Image from NASA

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=45945

NASA Earth Observatory Sept. 23, 2010: "In August 2010, Lake Mead reached its lowest level since 1956. The largest reservoir in the United States was straining from persistent drought and increasing human demand...."

August Water Volume in Lake Mead, millions of acre feet. From August 1941 to August 30, 2010. Graphic: NASA.

August 12, 2010: Arizona Republic: Lake Mead at 54-low, stirring rationing fear

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/08/12/20100812lake-mead-low-water-level.html

"Drought-stricken Lake Mead has dropped an additional 10 feet since last summer, and now, Arizona and other Colorado River users are scrambling to keep the reservoir full enough to avoid water rationing. Before year's end, the lake will likely sink to within 9 feet of the level that would trigger the first round of restrictions - and the first such restrictions ever on the river. They begin with a reduction in water deliveries to Nevada and Arizona, where farmers would be affected first..."

Circle of Blue: Low Water May Still Hoover Dam's Power

http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/low-water-may-still-hoover-dam’s-power/

"A prolonged dry spell, lasting over a decade, is steadily draining the water sources that power Hoover Dam's giant turbines and has left Lake Mead at only 41 percent full. The lake has dropped 130 feet since 1999 and is now at 1,084 feet, depths not seen since 1956. The Bureau of Reclamation projects it will shrink another two feet by next month, reaching its lowest elevation since the reservoir was filled in the 1930s...."

Arachnoid: Lake Mead Water Levels Historical and Current (below)

http://www.arachnoid.com/NaturalResources/

Feet Above Mean Sea Level: Dynamically updating chart available at above URL, based on USGS  database:

http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/hourly/mead-elv.html

US Bureau of Reclamation: Lower Colorado River Operations Schedule (updated Sept. 17, 2010)

http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/hourly/rivops.html

"..."...Lake Mead storage is 10,236 KAF (thousand acre feed) (40 percent of capacity) ..."

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The World's Lungs: "A special report on forests: Seeing the wood" (via @TheEconomist)

Forest in Silver Falls State Park, Oregon, 2006. Photo from Creative Commons by Whateverthing/flickr

http://www.economist.com/node/17062713

The Economist: "Purveyors of water, consumers of carbon, treasure-houses of species: the world's forests are ecological miracles. Many of the world's biggest clearers of trees have started to hug them. Over the past decade, the UN records, nearly 8m hectares of forest a year were allowed to re-grow or were planted anew, with countries such as China undertaking huge reforestation projects. In our cover leader, which is backed up by a 14-page special report, we argue that there is hope for "the world's lungs", but mankind needs to move faster if they are to be saved. "

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Conservation Ecology: Conservation by Assisted Colonization? (via @sciencemagazine)

Home, Home Outside the Range? 

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/329/5999/1592

Richard Stone: "One of the hottest debates in conservation biology these days is to what extent scientists should help embattled species cope with climate change..."

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Extreme Ice Survey: James Balog Receives $100k Heinz Award for Climate Photo Project (via @pdnonline)

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/awards/e3if1d3902d12574ec25695687335bdab29

 "Photographer James Balog has won a $100,000 Heinz Award for his Extreme Ice Survey (EIS) project, which documents the effects of global climate change on glaciers around the world. Balog was among a group of ten individuals who received Heinz Awards (Sept. 22) for their environmental work...."

Heinz Awards: http://www.heinzawards.net/recipients/

Extreme Ice Survey: http://www.extremeicesurvey.org/

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"On Thin Ice: The world's two great ice sheets are melting faster than anyone believed possible" (via @rollingstone)

Paradise Bay, Antarctica. Feb. 2010. Photo from Creative Commons by hinayana/flickr

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/208775

Ben Wallace-Wells: "...Most of the ice in the world is contained in two great, ancient ice sheets, each of them the size of a continent: One covers Antarctica and the South Pole, and the other, not nearly as big, covers Greenland. Both of these formations slope gently from high interiors down to the coast, with ice edging outward in vast frozen rivers known as glaciers...

"...The ice sheets no longer seem static; they are mysterious, complicated dams that help hold back entire continents, keeping coastal cities free from flood. If you understand the ice sheets, and how they might melt, you can understand the future of the oceans -- how much they might swell, and on what schedule. And if you understand the oceans, you might be able to get a more accurate fix on the future of the world's coasts, and of the civilizations they hold..."

Ice, Greenland. April 2010. Photo from Creative Commons by Nancy Carels/flickr

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