The desert locust upsurge is yet another of 2020’s horrors. From a report: In June, remote sensing analyst Raj Bhagat noticed a strange signal on India’s weather radar. It looked like a small band of rain near Delhi, moving southwest, but Bhagat was convinced it was a locust swarm. “People began to report it,” he says, referring to sightings on the…
Tag: extreme weather
Friederike Otto interview: Can we sue oil giants for extreme weather?
We can now rapidly and reliably link heatwaves, droughts and hurricanes to human-induced global warming, says climate scientist Friederike Otto. The science could soon be used as evidence in legal cases brought against fossil fuel companies Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24732920-800-friederike-otto-interview-can-we-sue-oil-giants-for-extreme-weather/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continues unabated
NOAA reports that atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) measured at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory for May 2020 was the highest monthly reading ever recorded. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/rising-carbon-dioxide-co2-record-high-june2020…
What a Week’s Disasters Tell Us About Climate and the Pandemic
The hits came this week in rapid succession: A cyclone slammed into the Indian megacity of Kolkata, pounding rains breached two dams in the Midwestern United States, and on Thursday came warning that the Atlantic hurricane season could be severe. It all served as a reminder that the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed 325,000 people so far, is colliding with another…
Mysterious crater on Mars could be a good place to look for life
Could life on Mars have hidden from extreme weather in a cavern on the Pavonis Mons volcano? This 2011 orbiter image of an otherworldly crater has NASA asking just that Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532743-100-mysterious-crater-on-mars-could-be-a-good-place-to-look-for-life/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Poll reveals climate change as most important issue for U.S. adults
A Harris Poll survey – conducted online in December on behalf of the American Psychological Association – reports that more than half of U.S. adults (56%) cite climate change as the most important issue facing the world today. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/poll-reveals-climate-change-as-most-important-issue-for-u-s-adults…
Wild Swings in Extreme Weather Are Rising
As the world warms, scientists say that abrupt shifts in weather patterns, like droughts followed by severe floods, are intensifying. From a report: From 2011 to 2016, California experienced five years of extreme drought, during which numerous high temperature records were broken. These hot, dry years were followed by the extremely wet winter of 2016-2017, when, from October to March, an…
No storm in a teacup: It’s a cyclone on a silicon chip
University of Queensland researchers have combined quantum liquids and silicon-chip technology to study turbulence for the first time, opening the door to new navigation technologies and improved understanding of the turbulent dynamics of cyclones and other extreme weather. …
Some Farmers Have Discovered That Online Stardom Can Be More Lucrative Than their Crops or Livestock
An anonymous reader shares a report: It’s not an easy time to be an American farmer. The number of farms in the US is declining, according to the Department of Agriculture, as consolidation makes big operations even bigger. In 2017, the most recent year for the USDA’s industry census, the average farm income was just $43,053, and less than half of…
Climate Change is Forcing One Person From Their Home Every Two Seconds, Oxfam Says
Climate-fueled disasters have forced about 20 million people a year to leave their homes in the past decade — equivalent to one every two seconds — according to a new report from Oxfam. From a news report: This makes the climate the biggest driver of internal displacement for the period, with the world’s poorer countries at the highest risk, despite their…