Tag Archive: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change


32,4 million people were forced to flee their homes in 2012 due to natural disasters such as floods, storms and earthquakes, according to Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre

Filed under: Disaster Management, Drought, Earth Watch Report, Earthquakes, Extreme Weather, Flooding, Freak Natural Phenomena, Global Disaster Watch, Global Disasters, Landslides, Weather Phenomena — 2 Comments
May 18, 2013

Natural disasters uprooted more than 32 million people in 2012

Posted by Chillymanjaro on May 18, 2013

32,4 million people were forced to flee their homes last year due to natural disasters such as floods, storms and earthquakes, according to a report released by Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre on May 13, 2013. According to the report, 98% of those uprooted were displaced by climate- and weather-related events. Climate change is believed to play an increasingly significant role in global disasters. 2012 Special Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated that, “disasters associated with climate extremes influence population mobility and relocation, affecting host and origin communities.”

This map shows internal displacement worldwide in 2012 by state and number of displaced people. CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW (Credit: NRC/IDMC)

Floods in India and Nigeria were responsible for 41 % of displacement worldwide last year. Monsoon floods in India uprooted about 6.9 million people, while in Nigeria some 6.1 million were newly displaced. While Asia and Africa were hardest affected, some 1.3 million people were displaced in wealthy nations, especially the United States. Last year, the U.S. was among the 10 countries that experienced the most new displacement. Following Hurricane Sandy, most of those displaced were able to find refuge in adequate temporary shelter while displaced from their own homes.

The largest regional increase in the number of internally displaced people in 2012 was in the Middle East and North Africa, where 2.5 million people were forced to flee their homes. There were almost 6 million affected in the region at the end of 2012, a rise of 40 % on the 2011. Asia showed the second highest increase in new displacement after the Middle East and North Africa, with 1.4 million people forced to flee their homes during 2012.

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The 21st century could be the last for eastern Pacific populations of leatherback turtles.

Filed under: Animal Advocacy, Climate Change, Conservation, Poaching, Pollution, Wildlife — Leave a comment
July 11, 2012

Rising heat at the beach threatens largest sea turtles

by Staff Writers
Philadelphia PA (SPX)

Climate Science

 


Leatherbacks are the largest species of sea turtles and are critically endangered. Heat-related deaths of turtle eggs and hatchlings in nests before they emerge and enter life at sea was identified as the leading projected cause of climate-related decline in leatherback turtles in the eastern Pacific in a new study. The study suggests that climate change could exacerbate existing threats that have already made leatherbacks critically endangered, and nearly wipe out the eastern Pacific population in the 21st century. The study, by a research team from Drexel University, Princeton University, other institutions and agencies, is published online in Nature Climate Change on July 1, 2012.

For eastern Pacific populations of leatherback turtles, the 21st century could be the last. New research suggests that climate change could exacerbate existing threats and nearly wipe out the population. Deaths of turtle eggs and hatchlings in nests buried at hotter, drier beaches are the leading projected cause of the potential climate-related decline, according to a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change by a research team from Drexel University, Princeton University, other institutions and government agencies.

Leatherbacks, the largest sea turtle species, are among the most critically endangered due to a combination of historical and ongoing threats including egg poaching at nesting beaches and juvenile and adult turtles being caught in fishing operations.

The new research on climate dynamics suggests that climate change could impede this population’s ability to recover. If actual climate patterns follow projections in the study, the eastern Pacific population of leatherback turtles will decline by 75 percent by the year 2100.

Modeling the Ebb and Flow of Turtle Hatching with Climate Variation
 “We used three models of this leatherback population to construct a climate-forced population dynamics model. Two parts were based on the population’s observed sensitivity to the nesting beach climate and one part was based on its sensitivity to the ocean climate,” said the study’s lead author Dr. Vincent Saba, a research fishery biologist with the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service Northeast Fisheries Science Center, visiting research collaborator at Princeton University, and a Drexel University alumnus.

Leatherback turtle births naturally ebb and flow from year to year in response to climate variations, with more hatchlings, and rare pulses of male hatchlings, entering the eastern Pacific Ocean in cooler, rainier years. Female turtles are more likely to return to nesting beaches in Costa Rica to lay eggs in years when they have more jellyfish to eat, and jellyfish in the eastern Pacific are likely more abundant during cooler seasons.

Turtle eggs and hatchlings are also more likely to survive in these cooler, rainier seasons associated with the La Nina climate phase, as this research team recently reported in the journal PLoS ONE. In addition, temperature inside the nest affects turtles’ sex ratio, with most male hatchlings emerging during cooler, rainier seasons to join the predominantly-female turtle population.

The researchers applied Saba’s combined model of these population dynamics to seven climate model projections assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The climate model projections were chosen based on their ability to model El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) patterns on the temperature and precipitation in the region of Costa Rica where this team has conducted long-term leatherback studies.

Hot Beaches, More Warm Years Threaten Turtles’ Recovery
 The resulting projections indicate that warmer, drier years will become increasingly frequent in Central America throughout this century. High egg and hatchling mortality associated with warmer, drier beach conditions was the most significant cause of the projected climate-related population decline: This nesting population of leatherbacks could decline by 7 percent per decade, or 75 percent overall by the year 2100.

The population is already critically low.

“In 1990, there were 1,500 turtles nesting on the Playa Grande beach,” said Dr. James Spotila, the Betz Chair Professor of Environmental Science in the College of Arts and Sciences at Drexel. “Now, there are 30 to 40 nesting females per season.”

Spotila, a co-author of the study, has been studying leatherback turtles at Playa Grande in Costa Rica, the largest leatherback nesting beach in the eastern Pacific, with colleagues and Drexel students, for 22 years.

Poaching of turtle eggs was a major cause of the initial decline, and was once such a widespread problem that virtually no turtle hatchlings would survive at Playa Grande. Spotila and colleagues worked with the local authorities in Costa Rica to protect the leatherbacks’ nesting beaches so that turtle nests can hatch in safety. Bycatch of juvenile and adult turtles in fishing operations in the eastern Pacific remains a threat. For the population to recover successfully, Spotila said, “the challenge is to produce as many good hatchlings as possible. That requires us to be hands-on and manipulate the beach to make sure that happens.”

Spotila’s research team is already investigating methods such as watering and shading turtle nests that could mitigate the impact of hot, dry beach conditions on hatching success.

 

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Climate Science News – Modeling, Mitigation Adaptation

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More than 2.5 million acres of pinyon pine and juniper trees in the American Southwest during the past 15 years, killed by drought and mountain pine beetles

Filed under: Climate Change, Environmental, Wildlife — Leave a comment
July 7, 2012

Dying trees in Southwest set stage for erosion, water loss in Colorado River

by Staff Writers
Corvallis OR (SPX)


Pinyon pine forests near Los Alamos, N.M., had already begun to turn brown from drought stress in the image at left, in 2002, and another photo taken in 2004 from the same vantage point, at right, show them largely grey and dead. (Photo by Craig Allen, U.S. Geological Survey).

New research concludes that a one-two punch of drought and mountain pine beetle attacks are the primary forces that have killed more than 2.5 million acres of pinyon pine and juniper trees in the American Southwest during the past 15 years, setting the stage for further ecological disruption. The widespread dieback of these tree species is a special concern, scientists say, because they are some of the last trees that can hold together a fragile ecosystem, nourish other plant and animal species, and prevent serious soil erosion.

The major form of soil erosion in this region is wind erosion. Dust blowing from eroded hills can cover snowpacks, cause them to absorb heat from the sun and melt more quickly, and further reduce critically-short water supplies in the Colorado River basin.

The findings were published in the journal Ecohydrology by scientists from the College of Forestry at Oregon State University and the Conservation Biology Institute in Oregon. NASA supported the work.

“Pinyon pine and juniper are naturally drought-resistant, so when these tree species die from lack of water, it means something pretty serious is happening,” said Wendy Peterman, an OSU doctoral student and soil scientist with the Conservation Biology Institute. “They are the last bastion, the last trees standing and in some cases the only thing still holding soils in place.”

“These areas could ultimately turn from forests to grasslands, and in the meantime people are getting pretty desperate about these soil erosion issues,” she said. “And anything that further reduces flows in the Colorado River is also a significant concern.”

It’s not certain whether or not the recent tree die-offs are related to global warming, Peterman said. However, the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected that while most of the United States was getting warmer and wetter, the Southwest will get warmer and drier.

Major droughts have in fact occurred there, and the loss of pinyon pine and juniper trees would be consistent with the climate change projections, Peterman said.

Pinyon pine and juniper are the dominant trees species in much of the Southwest, routinely able to withstand a year or two of drought, and able to grow in many mountainous areas at moderate elevation. The trees are common in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, and may have expanded their range in the past century during conditions that were somewhat wetter than normal.

In some places up to 90 percent of these trees have now died, many of them during a major drought in 2003 and 2004. The new research concluded that most of the mortality occurred in shallow soils having less than four inches of available water in about the top five feet of the soil column.

Most of the tree mortality, the scientists said, was caused by trees being sufficiently weakened by drought that opportunistic bark beetle epidemics were able to kill the pinyon pine, and the vascular system of the juniper ceased to function.

Traditionally, pinyon pine and juniper were not considered trees of significant value. They were occasionally used for firewood, but otherwise small and not particularly impressive.

They perform key ecosystem functions, however, not the least of which is stabilizing soils and preventing erosion. They also provide some food in the form of pine nuts and juniper berries, and store carbon in their biomass, and in the soils beneath their canopies.

 

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Oregon State University
Water News – Science, Technology and Politics

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Peter Taylor-Corporatization of the Environmental Movement

Filed under: Activism, Climate Change, Corruption, Crimes, Deforestation, Elite / NWO Agenda, Environmental, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), Global News, Government Overreach, Hypocrisy, Legislation, Politics, Pollution, Preservation, Psy - Ops, Sustainability2, Wildlife — Leave a comment
June 17, 2012

Uploaded by on Jan 5, 2011

Peter Taylor from Ethos UK joins us to talk about The Corporatization of the Environmental Movement, The Fraud of Cap and Trade, Al Gore, the Computer Models Predicting Global Warming and his experience of how Greenpeace and other Environmental Organizations have been hijacked. Peter provides the ecological science background for the Ethos team. He has extensive experience of research and policy analysis across a wide field of environmental issues, having advised governments, the European Commission, and UN organizations. He has made a significant contribution to international treaties on ocean protection and the development of the precautionary principle. Recent work has included consultancy to UK government agencies and non-government organizations on renewable energy policy and rural issues (he sits on the National Advisory Group for the Community Renewables Initiative (a joint Countryside Agency and DTI program). Topics Discussed: Ethos, 3D Environment, Bio Diversity, Renewable Energy in the landscape of 2050, Wind Power, stop climate chaos, carbon dioxide, IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Generation Investment Management, Roger Revelle, Tom Wigley, Greenpeace Receiving Millions, Biodiversity Strategies, Energy Policy, Gulfstream, Computer Models, Hara Software, Cap and Trade Companies, 120 Billion and 2 Trillion, David Kelly, Phil Jones and more. February 13, 2010 http://www.redicecreations.com/

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