http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com Straightforwardly explaining climate change, so you can read, react and then get on with your life. Mon, 20 Feb 2012 07:36:56 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://s2.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.png http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/population-and-climate-raise-tropical-cyclone-risks/ http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/population-and-climate-raise-tropical-cyclone-risks/#comments Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:08:16 +0000 andyextance http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/?p=3046 ]]> http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/population-and-climate-raise-tropical-cyclone-risks/feed/ 0 andyextance A boy at the site of his family's damaged house in the Bangladeshi coastal district Cox’s Bazar that was damaged by a tropical storm. When a tropical storm becomes a hurricane-speed cyclone, such houses are just washed away. Casualties are higher when the population is not aware of the coming of a cyclone. Tropical cyclones are expected to become less frequent but more intense with future climate change. Credit: amioascension/Flickr Map showing distribution of hazard frequency and mortality risk from tropical cyclones for the year 2010. Credit: Nature Climate Change Tropical Cyclone Nargis several days before reaching Myanmar (Burma) in 2008, whose official warning to its population was provided on page 15 of the newspaper The New Light of Myanmar. At least 138,000 people died in Myanmar in the "mega-disaster" that followed. Governance is an important factor in determining the risks from tropical cyclones, Bruno Chatenoux and his colleagues found. Credit: NASA http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/volcano-cloud-over-tree-ring-temperatures-clears/ http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/volcano-cloud-over-tree-ring-temperatures-clears/#comments Sat, 11 Feb 2012 12:28:51 +0000 andyextance http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/?p=3024 ]]> http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/volcano-cloud-over-tree-ring-temperatures-clears/feed/ 0 andyextance Pennsylvania State University's Michael Mann thinks he has found the reason behind key outstanding disagreements between the historical temperature record based on tree rings and climate models for the same period. Credit: Pennylvania State University An energy-balance climate model (red) and a general circulation model (orange) both predict much greater temperature drops for three volcanic eruptions than the tree-ring temperature record (blue) shows. Credit: Nature Geoscience While ring width in trees near the tree line, like those shown here in Mount Clay, New Hampshire, is most affected by temperature, the sudden temperature drops caused by volcanoes can stop growth altogether, which may have confused reconstructed temperature records. Credit: flickr/Shelly and Roy http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/building-climate-adaptation-on-flooded-fields/ http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/building-climate-adaptation-on-flooded-fields/#comments Sat, 04 Feb 2012 08:48:10 +0000 andyextance http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/?p=3000 ]]> http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/building-climate-adaptation-on-flooded-fields/feed/ 2 andyextance Emma Tompkins from the University of Southampton has been studying why people do things that help their whole community adapt to climate change. Credit: International Institute for Sustainable Development Arizona State University's Hallie Eaken found that both she and the University of Southampton's Emma Tompkins had heard of instances when people were doing things to adapt to climate change that benefited their entire communities. Credit: University of California, Santa Barbara By letting their fields flood, farmers can protect more developed areas. But why would they? That's what Emma Tompkins and Hallie Eakin want to know. Credit: Tigerweet/Flickr http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/if-you-question-the-numbers-ask-the-plants/ http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/if-you-question-the-numbers-ask-the-plants/#comments Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:14:41 +0000 andyextance http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/?p=2953 ]]> http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/if-you-question-the-numbers-ask-the-plants/feed/ 6 andyextance The 2012 Plant Hardiness Zone Map unveiled by the US Department of Agriculture this week shows average annual extreme minimum temperatures based on data from 1976-2005.This version is modified to use the same colour code as 1990. See the end of the entry for original image and link to USDA interactive map. Credit: US Department of Agriculture/Friend of the Earth Much of the US was one 5°F (2.8°C) half-zone colder in the 1990 Plant Hardiness Zone Map compared to the latest version. Credit: US Department of Agriculture The cycles in China during the 1960s (blue line) and a 1998-2007 (red line). Dashed lines indicate temperature thresholds for the 24 solar terms, which have risen during this period, making spring events happen earlier and autumn events later. Credit: Science China Press The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that 2011 tied with 1997 as the 11th warmest year since records began in 1880, and was the warmest La Niña year. Credit: NOAA It's possible to see cooling trends in the record of global temperatures if you focus on short time periods, but the record as a whole reveals steady warming. Credit: Skeptical Science This is the 2012 Plant Hardiness Zone Map from the US Department of Agriculture with revised half zone colour coding. Credit: US Department of Agriculture http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/recycling-carbon-taxes-can-benefit-planet-and-pocket/ http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/recycling-carbon-taxes-can-benefit-planet-and-pocket/#comments Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:17:09 +0000 andyextance http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/?p=2914 ]]> http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/recycling-carbon-taxes-can-benefit-planet-and-pocket/feed/ 1 andyextance Yoram Bauman, The Stand-Up Economist Taken from the book "The Cartoon Introduction to Economics, Volume 1: Microeconomics" Credit: Yoram Bauman/Grady Klein. Click to see a larger version. Taken from the book "The Cartoon Introduction to Economics, Volume 1: Microeconomics" Credit: Yoram Bauman/Grady Klein. Click to see a larger version. Taken from the book "The Cartoon Introduction to Economics, Volume 1: Microeconomics" Credit: Yoram Bauman/Grady Klein. Click to see a larger version. http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/the-hills-are-alive-with-a-changing-plant-mix/ http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/the-hills-are-alive-with-a-changing-plant-mix/#comments Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:01:43 +0000 andyextance http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/?p=2894 ]]> http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/the-hills-are-alive-with-a-changing-plant-mix/feed/ 0 andyextance This alpine species (Nevadensia purpurea) could disappear from some European mountains in the next few decades Credit: Harald Pauli On each summit's four compass points, a cluster of four 1 x 1m monitoring plots was installed. Plant cover was surveyed for each plot, and soil temperature was recorded hourly from 2001-2007. Credit: Nature/GLORIA All 32 authors involved in the study used the same sampling procedures enabling pan-continental comparisons to be made for the first time, here at the Austrian Hochschwab mountains Credit: Harald Pauli Researchers Anne Olga Syverhuset and Jarle Inge Holten check a plant plot in the Dovre region in central Norway using the same methods as the other GLORIA teams. Photo credit: Ottar Michelsen. http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/warming-puts-species-on-collision-course/ http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/warming-puts-species-on-collision-course/#comments Sat, 07 Jan 2012 09:16:05 +0000 andyextance http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/?p=2872 ]]> http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/warming-puts-species-on-collision-course/feed/ 2 andyextance Amphibians demonstrate the important role that the ability to shift habitat, or disperse, plays in responding to climate change, as some disperse only a few meters a generation, while others can disperse a kilometre or more. Credit: R. Semlitch/D. L. Drake Urban and colleagues' model assumes a thermal gradient from 10 °C to 30 °C which could simulate a mountainside as pictured or a larger flat terrain running north-south. It then allows the gradient to warm by 4 °C in 100 years. Species lettered a-g each are each best suited to different temperature ranges. Reproduced with permission from: Mark C. Urban, Josh J. Tewksbury and Kimberly S. Sheldon, "On a collision course: competition and dispersal differences create no-analogue communities and cause extinctions during climate change", Proc. R. Soc. B, 2012, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2011.2367, data supplement, figure S1A, Royal Society Publishing. Mark Urban, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut, stands under a sheet of aufeis in the Brooks Range of mountains in Alaska, a region where some of the most dramatic climatic changes of anywhere in the world have been seen. Credit: Heidi Golden http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/the-worlds-new-years-resolution-a-global-climate-law/ http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/the-worlds-new-years-resolution-a-global-climate-law/#comments Sat, 31 Dec 2011 09:15:02 +0000 andyextance http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/?p=2856 ]]> http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/the-worlds-new-years-resolution-a-global-climate-law/feed/ 5 andyextance South African Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres at the closing briefing after the adoption of the 'Durban Platform' at the Climate Change conference in Durban Credit: Unati Ngamntwini/COP 17 For the first time, in 2009, developing countries surpassed developed countries in consumption-based CO2 emissions, underlining the need to include them in control legislation. The shaded region represents the difference between developed and developing world consumption-based and production-based carbon dioxide emissions. Credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratories http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/did-climate-change-make-it-harder-to-get-your-christmas-presents/ http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/did-climate-change-make-it-harder-to-get-your-christmas-presents/#comments Sat, 24 Dec 2011 09:50:55 +0000 andyextance http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/?p=2837 ]]> http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/did-climate-change-make-it-harder-to-get-your-christmas-presents/feed/ 0 andyextance A US SH-60F Sea Hawk helicopter assigned to Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron (HS) 14, flies around the Bangkok area with members of the humanitarian assessment survey team and the Royal Thai Armed Forces to assess the damage caused by flooding. Credit: Petty Officer 1st Class Jennifer Villalovos/DVIDS Warm weather in the UK this autumn brings good news in at least one area, meaning that traditional Christmas vegetable Brussels sprouts are 25 per cent bigger than normal. Credit: Jen Waller/Flickr http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/fjord-beds-show-climate-role-in-glacier-mass-loss/ http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/fjord-beds-show-climate-role-in-glacier-mass-loss/#comments Sat, 17 Dec 2011 10:54:36 +0000 andyextance http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/?p=2807 ]]> http://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/fjord-beds-show-climate-role-in-glacier-mass-loss/feed/ 0 andyextance Sun setting over Sermilik Fjord into which Helheim Glacier calves large amounts of icebergs each summer. Credit: Camilla S. Andresen. Andresen and her team drill cylindrical sediment cores from the bed of Sermilik Fjord. Their work, including the coring study, is supported amongst others by the Danish Council for Independent Research│Nature and Universe, Geocenter Denmark and the Greenland Climate Research Centre. Credit: Robert Fausto Reconstructed calving record of Helheim Glacier calculated as the average sand deposition rate in grams per square metre per year (gm-2yr-1) of the three cores. Glacier margin positions (red) are relative to the 1993 position according to aerial and satellite images. More glacier calving is linked with the margin, where the glacier ends, retreating.Credit: Camilla Andresen/Nature Geoscience Sermilik Fjord and Helheim Glacier with position of the cores Andresen and her team took. The length of the fjord is about 90 km and the width is 5–12 km. Cores ER13, ER07 and ER11 are retrieved from 660 m, 525m and 600m water depth, respectively. Credit: Nature Geoscience/Camilla Andresen