Ice That Took 1,600 Years to Form in Peru’s Andes Melted in Only 25, Scientists Say. A Long Drought Tests Texas Cattle Ranchers’ Patience and Creativity. Getting Serious About a Texas-Size Drought. Washington Post - How the White House thinks about climate change. The latest Economic Report of the President (pdf) has a whole chapter on energy and climate change that's worth reading as a window into how the White House thinks about the topic. Here's the basic story in chart form: 1) If the world doesn't tackle global warming soon, the United States will get uncomfortably hot.
"For example, according to the USGCRP estimates, under a high-emissions scenario, areas of the Southeast and Southwest that currently experience an average of 60 days a year with a high temperature above 90°F will experience 150 or more such days by the end of the century. " 2) U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions are falling, but the country's nowhere near on pace to meet its climate goals. 3) Most of the recent drop in emissions has been due to the recession. 4) The U.S. economy is still heavily dependent on fossil fuels. 5) Natural gas is going to continue to dominate for years to come. 6) Wind power has also seen rapid growth over the past decade.
Preventing an Arctic Cold War. Global Temperatures Highest in 4,000 Years, Study Says. Study predicts Arctic shipping quickly becoming a reality. The North Pole stands to become a viable international shipping route for some vessels in coming decades, as melting ice clears the way for cargo movement through corridors never before considered possible. New research from the University of California, Los Angeles, predicts ice-strengthened ships will be able to regularly cross the top of the globe by mid-century in September, the month when ice cover is at its thinnest.
Climate models run by UCLA researchers also show that by 2040 to 2059, the period they studied, the Northwest Passage and Russia’s Northern Sea Route will both routinely open to transits from vessels with no ice strengthening at all. “Our model is thinking about this the way a ship captain would. It’s looking to optimize and do it as fast as possible,” said Laurence C. Smith, a UCLA professor of geography. “From a sea ice perspective, it is rather startling,” Prof. That is “a little scary,” Prof. The reason comes down to distance. But, Mr. Global greening as plant life moves northwards. Douglas Heaven, reporter (Image: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio) Across the entire northern hemisphere, ice and snow are retreating in front of an invading green army as warmer climates turn once-freezing tundras into temperate shrublands. A new analysis of satellite data collected since 1982 has revealed a vigorous increase in vegetation growth between the 45th parallel north and the Arctic Ocean over the past 30 years.
Based on NASA's Vegetation Index, this map shows areas where plant growth has increased in green and blue and areas where it has decreased in orange and red. Green quite clearly wins. Vegetation in these regions now covers 9 million square kilometres, roughly the size of the US and over a third of the 21 million square kilometres that were analysed. But the global greening might be only temporary, with the future looking brown.