Maroc: forum environnemental pour la COP22. Des responsables politiques, experts, représentants de la société civile et organisations internationales ont participé aujourd'hui à Rabat au lancement d'un forum mondial sur l'environnement en vue de préparer la 22e conférence de l'ONU sur le climat (COP22), prévue en novembre à Marrakech. "C'est une rencontre importante pour la préparation de la COP22 (...) et l'occasion d'accélérer la feuille de route", a affirmé à l'AFP Salaheddine Mezouar, le ministre marocain des Affaires étrangères et président de ce sommet qui doit se tenir à Marrakech du 7 au 18 novembre prochain.
L'accord de Paris a "dessiné les règles, le cadre et les objectifs", a indiqué Laurence Tubiana, la négociatrice française lors de la COP21 qui s'est tenue en décembre dans la capitale française. "Il faut maintenant que la mise en oeuvre se fasse entre les gouvernements et les acteurs de la société, comme les entreprises et les collectivités locales". Opération « Save the Arctic », Ludovico Einaudi. OSPAR Commission | OSPAR Commission. First Mammal Goes Extinct From Manmade Climate Change. We’ve reached a sad milestone: Climate change has claimed its first mammal species. Scientists have been warning us that a large percentage of species will face extinction thanks to manmade global warming, and the future is unfortunately here. According to The Guardian, climate change’s first mammal victim was an adorable rodent known as the Bramble Cay melomys.
Sometimes called a mosaic-tailed rat, the melomys was named after Bramble Cay, an Australian island close to Papua New Guinea, that was the only known home for the species. The primary reason for the melomys demise is no secret: the rising level of the ocean, a devastating consequence of climate change. Love This? Thanks for subscribing! Over the past 20 years, high tide has put more and more of the island underwater. When we discuss the consequences of a rising sea level (which is already not as often as we probably should), we tend to focus on the human inhabitants who will need to be displaced from their tiny island nations.
De violents incendies éclatent en Californie et au Nouveau-Mexique. Francetv info avec AFP et Reuters Mis à jour le , publié le Les services américains de surveillance des incendies lancent l'alerte. La saison des incendies entre dans sa pleine activité en juin et juillet aux Etats-Unis, et deux zones sont particulièrement à surveiller : l'Alaska et le sud-ouest du pays, la Californie, en l'occurrence. La forêt nationale Los Padres, près de Santa Barbara (Californie), brûle depuis deux jours. Il s'est rapidement étendu pour atteindre cinq kilomètres carrés jeudi 16 juin, ce qui en fait l'incendie le "plus vaste depuis 2009" dans cette région très touristique, selon une porte-parole du centre d'information du comté de Santa Barbara. Les pompiers se battent encore contre ce feu vendredi, rapporte le Los Angeles Times (en anglais). Des températures proches des records pour la saison sont attendues ce week-end dans la moitié sud de la Californie et devraient compliquer encore le travail des soldats du feu.
The Myth of 2C Being Safe and Achievable | Kevin Hester. At every twist and turn in our Runaway Abrupt Climate Change fiasco we have been lied to by the powers that be that they were acting and had the situation under control. Nothing could be further from the truth. William Nordhaus, an economist at Yale was the first corporate shrill to suggest that 2C was both achievable and safe. It was neither but we were collectively sold the lie. I have been moved to draft this blog after continually reading climate change articles that continue to reference 2C as being achievable as it patently is not and when the aware reader witnesses chaos unfolding at approximately 1.5C it is obvious that 2C will be catastrophic and is only a pathway to much higher global mean temperatures as a myriad of tipping points and self reinforcing feedback loops kick in.
Below are a number of embedded links to confirm the obvious: ‘Why the 2°C limit looks increasingly impossible‘ care of ” Vox”. “Would you want that for your children,” she responded. Comment from Chefurka: Pluies intenses et changement climatique, quel rapport ? Dans le contexte des intempéries récentes, on entend dans les médias tout et n'importe quoi sur les relations entre précipitations record et changement climatique.
Comment relier un évènement ponctuel, lié à la situation météorologique, et des changements sur le long terme ? Les chercheurs en sciences du climat développent analyses, observations et simulations pour évaluer s'il y a des changements significatifs dans l'intensité ou la fréquence des évènements extrêmes (ce qu'on appelle « la détection ») et, le cas échéant, comprendre les causes de ces changements (ce qu'on appelle « l'attribution »). De nouvelles méthodes sont mises au point pour comprendre si la même situation météorologique aurait eu le même effet, avec ou sans réchauffement du climat. L'augmentation de l'effet de serre, due aux activités humaines, entraîne un réchauffement des océans et de l'atmosphère, près de la surface.
Ce phénomène peut renforcer l'évaporation. Ce que disent le GIEC et de récents travaux. France ratifies U.N. climate deal. Your move, rest of world. France on Wednesday became the first global power to formally join the U.N. climate deal, after it was negotiated in Paris late last year. While 177 parties have signed the deal at the U.N. headquarters in New York so far, only 17 have gone all the way by ratifying the text in their home countries. To kick the agreement into action, 55 parties accounting for at least 55 percent of global emissions will need to ratify it.
There’s a catch with the French ratification, too: It won’t count for anything if the rest of Europe doesn’t do the same. The 28-member European Union negotiated and adopted the Paris Agreement as a bloc, and therefore must ratify it as such. As you might expect, that’s a little complicated. Citing the need to finalize implementation details, Germany and the United Kingdom currently oppose swift ratification.
France will continue to put pressure on the rest of the Europe, undeterred by the usual slow grind of E.U. politics. Bon mots, François. Melomys rubicola. Les océans, ces inconnus… QUIZ - L'ONU célèbre ce mercredi la Journée mondiale des océans. Essentiels à la vie sur la planète, 10% à peine de leurs fonds sont connus. Testez vos connaissances sur les mers et océans. «Homme libre, toujours tu chériras la mer!». Le bel envol du ténébreux Charles Baudelaire, fasciné par les flots et leurs habitants, est encore d'actualité. Comme tous les 8 juin, on célèbre ce mercredi (et ce depuis le sommet de la Terre de Rio de Janeiro en 1992), la Journée mondiale de l'océan.
«La gestion prudente de cette ressource mondiale essentielle est fondamentale pour un avenir viable», martèle l'ONU. Et la connaissance intime de ces masses d'eau est l'un des moyens les plus sûrs pour y parvenir. Si les océans et mers couvrent un peu plus de 70 % de notre planète, seul 1% en est aujourd'hui protégé. Pollution et destructions Pourquoi pas les Abysses? Tiny sea creatures are saving us from hell on earth. So why are we endangering them? Deep in the ocean where the sun don’t shine, fissures in the earth’s crust spew super-heated geothermal water and gases of up to 400 degrees Celsius.
Sounds like hell? Not quite — hydrothermal vents discovered just 40 years ago by scientists, teem with a surprising abundance of life. And these hotbeds of biodiversity are crucial for underwater ecosystems and the global climate, according to a recent report in Frontiers In Marine Science. The vents dot the sea floor at depths of 5,000 to 13,000 feet, gushing sulfides, methane, iron, and hydrogen into the ocean. Like moths to a (very hot) flame, microorganisms around the vents convert these elements into food. Importantly, researchers found that vent-dwelling creatures gobble up as much as 90 percent of the released methane — which, if it were to be released into the atmosphere, would act as a greenhouse gas 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
But before you can say “OMG tube worm!” Antarctica is melting and shows no sign of slowing down. Over the past few years, the evidence has piled up that glaciers in parts of Antarctica have been melting and retreating at an increasingly worrying — and potentially unstoppable — pace. Now, new research shows that glaciers in a region of West Antarctica that has received relatively little attention to date have lost a considerable amount of ice. And that ice melt and retreat has been going on for decades, longer than previously thought. The findings, detailed in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, have implications for understanding the potential sea-level rise that the vast icy expanse of Antarctica could unleash as the Earth’s temperature continues to rise.
“I think this study just underscores that West Antarctica, in general, is not only exceptionally vulnerable to retreat triggered by ocean melting at the coastline, but that it is happening now and it is showing no sign of slowing down,” study coauthor Robert Bingham of the University of Edinburgh said in an email. We need to find a better way to measure methane. Houston flooding is a perfect storm of climate change and bad urban planning. Flooding in Texas killed six over Memorial Day weekend, bringing the death toll from the state’s unprecedented floods this year to at least 14.
The area surrounding Houston has been hit especially hard: On Sunday, about 2,600 inmates were evacuated from two southeastern Texas prisons endangered by high water, and evacuation orders were issued Monday for homes along the Brazos River. Deluges like this aren’t exactly new to the area — downpours at this time last year brought a death toll of at least 30 — but as the climate warms, so does risk of flooding. In the past 30 years, reports the AP, the frequency of extreme downpours in the area has doubled.
“One likely cause,” Texas’ state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon tells Grist, “is the increase in ocean temperatures from the Gulf of Mexico and tropical Atlantic. That determines how much moisture is in the atmosphere.” But it’s not just the rainfall that is endangering Houston’s citizens — it’s also ecologically irresponsible development. Watch global warming spiral out of control. The temperature spiral that took the world by storm has an update. If you think the heat is on in our current climate, you ain’t seen nothing yet. To recap, University of Reading climate scientist Ed Hawkins wrecked the internet a few weeks ago with a revolutionary new way to look at global temperatures.
Using a circular graph of every year’s monthly temperatures and animating it, Hawkins’ image showed planetary heat spiraling closer to the 2 degrees C threshold in a way no bar or line graph could do. His tweet with the original graphic has been shared 15,000 times, and it’s been dubbed the most compelling climate visualization ever made (sorry, landmarked Keeling Curve). The spiral’s popularity can be attributed in part to its hypnotic nature and the visceral way it shows the present predicament of climate change. Hawkins’ graphic hints at the temperature spiral to come, but now a new addition brings what the future holds into stark relief.