By Jeff Masters 30 January 2013 […] Today’s severe weather outbreak was helped by record levels of January moisture, as a flow of unusually moist air rode northwards from the Gulf of Mexico, where water temperatures were about 0.5°F above average. Meteorologists use a term called “precipitable water” to discuss how much water vapor is […]
By Fred Pals30 January 2013 (Bloomberg) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), Europe’s biggest oil company, isn’t liable in four out of five claims bought by Nigerian farmers for pollution, a Dutch court ruled. The company’s local venture must pay compensation in one case. “Shell Nigeria has been sentenced to pay damages in one of […]
By Dr. Jeff Masters 29 January 2013 (Weather Underground) – The calendar says it’s January, but the atmosphere looks more like April over the Midwest U.S., where a spring-like surge of warm air is interacting with a strong low pressure system to create a dangerous severe weather situation. The warm air surging northwards has already […]
By Michael Slezak29 January 2013 The east coast of Australia has been drenched by floods and torrential rains, even as recent bush fires affecting much of the country continued to burn. Four people are known to have died as Australians get a further taste of extreme weather that is predicted to become more common as […]
29 January 2013 (mongabay.com) – NASA satellites picked up signals of extensive potential deforestation in Sumatra, Borneo, Central Africa, the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon, the Chocó in Colombia and Ecuador, and the Chaco region of Paraguay between October 1 and December 31, 2012, according to the latest update on Mongabay.com’s Global Forest Disturbance Alert System […]
28 January 2013 (NOAA) – According to a new technical report, the effects of climate change will continue to threaten the health and vitality of U.S. coastal communities’ social, economic and natural systems. The report, Coastal Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerabilities: a technical input to the 2013 National Climate Assessment, authored by leading scientists and experts, […]
By Peter Hannam, Carbon economy editor29 January 2013 (Sydney Morning Herald) – Update A slew of January rainfall records were broken as the remnants of ex-tropical cyclone Oswald heads south along the NSW coast. Pine Ridge, south of Tamworth, copped 131 millimetres of rain in the 24 hours to 9am Tuesday, setting an annual record, […]
By Jeremy Hance28 January 2013 (mongabay.com) – According to Susan Kelly, koalas have become “urban refugees,” under siege by expanding cities that bring with them deforestation, dogs, traffic, and other ills for native wildlife. Director of Global Briefing, and writer, producer and director of the new documentary Koala Hospital, Kelly has spent 3 years working […]
By Minxin Pei28 January 2013 (FORTUNE) – For a long time, environmental activists, economists, and China scholars have warned about the coming environmental disaster in China. Such a catastrophe finally appeared in the most dramatic form in mid-January, when a thick layer of poisonous pollutants smothered much of northern China and made air in Beijing […]
By Ilya Gridneff, Nicole Hasham, and Amy Remeikis29 January 2013 (Sydney Morning Herald) – A week after some of the hottest temperatures on record, four Queenslanders are dead and two men remain missing as winds and torrential rain lash the east coast and flooding wreaks havoc in parts of northern NSW. Ex-tropical cyclone Oswald has […]
