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Examining how climate change could raise food insecurity risk across the world, researchers have projected that the flow of the Ganges river could more than double at 2 degrees Celsius global warming, with floods putting food production at risk in countries like India. Using a new global model based on patterns of sea-surface temperatures and sea ice, the researchers looked at 122 developing and least-developed countries, mostly in Asia, Africa and South America. The researchers examined projected changes in weather extremes and their implications for freshwater availability and vulnerability to food insecurity. They found that warming was expected to lead...

The legal battle against oil companies for their purported role in contributing to a climate change crisis is starting to take shape. This past Wednesday, a federal judge in San Francisco made history, holding the first-ever U.S. court hearing exploring the impact of climate change. Lawyers representing the cities of Oakland and San Francisco as well as five of the largest multinational oil companies named in the lawsuit, participated in a climate change “tutorial,” a chance to explore both sides’ positions on several questions related to climate change. Here’s what we learned from the hearing: future litigation will pit reasoned...

Norfolk's butterflies, bees, bugs, birds, trees and mammals are at major risk from climate change as temperatures rise—according to new research from the University of East Anglia. Researchers carried out the first in-depth audit of its kind for a region in the UK to see how biodiversity might be impacted in Norfolk as the world warms. The study finds that the region's Swallowtail Butterfly, which can't be found anywhere else in the UK, is at risk - along with three quarters of bumblebee, grasshopper and moth species. The project reveals that at just 2oC, 72 per cent of bumblebees in...

With thousands of square miles of land already lost along the coast, Avery Island, home of the famed hot sauce, faces being marooned. The home of Tabasco, the now ubiquitous but uniquely branded condiment controlled by the same family since Edmund McIlhenny first stumbled across a pepper plant growing by a chicken coop on Avery Island, is under threat. An unimaginable plight just a few years ago, the advancing tides are menacing its perimeter. “It does worry us, and we are working hard to minimise the land loss,” said Tony Simmons, the seventh consecutive McIlhenny family member to lead the...

CHEYENNE — U.S. government officials who engage in regional planning for an area of Wyoming and Montana that supplies 40 percent of the nation’s coal must consider reducing coal mining as a way to fight climate change, a judge has ruled. Friday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Brian Morris in Great Falls, Montana, applies to the Powder River Basin, where house-sized dump trucks haul loads mined around the clock from open-pit coal mines. Some of the mines measure more than a mile wide. Morris rejected U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials’ argument that climate change could be addressed when they...

Each year, 150,000 people hike Scotland’s Ben Nevis – a former volcano and Britain’s highest mountain, at 4,400ft above sea level. Many opt to take the so-called tourist trail, the rocky path which winds and zigzags its way to the summit. Few realise that this path was initially carved out in 1883 for a very unique scientific expedition. Even fewer know that now, more than a century later, this site is providing UK scientists with insights into climate change. Today, we have advanced weather forecast models – which are capable of using the kind of data taken at Ben Nevis...

On Wednesday, a federal judge will hold a “climate science tutorial” as part of San Francisco’s and Oakland’s nuisance cases against five oil giants for damages related to sea level rise.

NOAA’s US temperature record shows that US was warmest in the 1930’s and has generally cooled as CO2 has increased. This wrecks greenhouse gas theory, so they “adjust” the data to make it look like the US is warming. The NOAA data tampering produces a spectacular hockey stick of scientific fraud, which becomes the basis of vast amounts of downstream junk climate science. Pre-2000 temperatures are progressively cooled, and post-2000 temperatures are warmed. This year has been a particularly spectacular episode of data tampering by NOAA, as they introduce nearly 2.5 degrees of fake warming since 1895. (Please see full...

"It was suspected that a harsh drought from about 2000 to 2010 that killed tens of thousands of livestock was unprecedented in the region’s history and primarily the result of human-caused climate change. But the tree ring data show that the dry spell, while rare in its severity, was not outside the realm of natural climate variability, researchers report online March 14 in Science Advances."

Global warming is leaving animals who take on a white coat in winter exposed as snow cover retreats. But scientists say hot spots for "evolutionary rescue" could see them adapt. There are 21 species of animals around the world that transform from brown in the summer to snowy white in the winter to blend in with their surroundings — from tiny prey animals like the Siberian lemming to the noble Peary caribou, which takes on a shaggy white coat in winter. But habitats with extreme seasons are among the most vulnerable to climate change. Winters are arriving later, and snow...

A new Columbia Business School study is out with the latest bizarre claim about man-made global warming — it could alter people’s personalities. “As climate change continues across the world, we may also observe concomitant changes in human personality,” reads the study, published in the journal Nature on Tuesday. It’s only the latest in a slew of studies on the potential psychological effects of future warming, and it’s not even the most bizarre. For example, recent studies have claimed worry about global warming is making people depressed. Those worried about man-made warming reported “feelings of loneliness and lethargy,” Reuters reported...

Add this to the list of decisions affected by climate change: Should I have children? It is not an easy time for people to feel hopeful, with the effects of global warming no longer theoretical, projections becoming more dire and governmental action lagging. And while few, if any, studies have examined how large a role climate change plays in people’s childbearing decisions, it loomed large in interviews with more than a dozen people ages 18 to 43. A 32-year-old who always thought she would have children can no longer justify it to herself. A Mormon has bucked the expectations of...

STUDY: Concern over climate change linked to depression, anxiety – ‘Restless nights, feelings of loneliness and lethargy’ By: Marc Morano - Climate DepotJanuary 20, 2018 1:55 PM with 0 comments Depression and anxiety are afflicting Americans who are concerned at the fate of the environment, according to a study of the mental health effects of climate change. Those hit hardest are women and people with low incomes who worry about the planet’s long-term health, said the study published this week in the journal Global Environmental Change. Symptoms include restless nights, feelings of loneliness and lethargy. “Climate change is a persistent...

Earth last year wasn't quite as hot as 2016's record-shattering mark, but it ranked second or third, depending on who was counting. Either way, scientists say it showed a clear signal of man-made global warming because it was the hottest year they've seen without an El Nino boosting temperatures naturally. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the United Kingdom's meteorological office on Thursday announced that 2017 was the third hottest year on record. At the same time, NASA and researchers from a nonprofit in Berkeley, California, called it the second. The agencies slightly differ because of how much they...

2017 was the hottest year since global records began that was not given an additional boost by the natural climate cycle El Niño, according to new data. Even without an El Niño, the year was still exceptionally hot, being one of the top three ever recorded. The three main global temperature records show the global surface temperature in 2017 was 1C above levels seen in pre-industrial times, with scientists certain that humanity’s fossil fuel-burning is to blame. The data, published on Thursday, means the last three years have been the hottest trio ever seen, with 2017 ranking second or third...

Manmade climate change is now dwarfing the influence of natural trends on the climate, scientists say. The acting director of the UK Met Office, Prof Peter Stott, told BBC News: "It's extraordinary that temperatures in 2017 have been so high when there's no El Niño. In fact, we’ve been going into cooler La Niña conditions. "Last year was substantially warmer than 1998 which had a very big El Niño. "It shows clearly that the biggest natural influence on the climate is being dwarfed by human activities – predominantly CO2; emissions." “The record temperature should focus the minds of world leaders,...

We always knew there would be winners and losers. The depressed mud crab is dealing with a lot right now. There’s climate change, pollution, and a real downer of a name. (Its scientific name, Eurypanopeus depressus, is no more cheery). But its greatest burden is probably the genital parasites. Yes, there’s a particular barnacle that latches onto depressed crab crotches, takes over the machinery therein, and co-opts it for its own reproduction. (And you thought herpes was bad.) But relief may be coming. Ocean ecologist Alyssa-Lois Gehman at the University of British Columbia has modeled how this host-parasite relationship will...

In the mountains of western Iran, the province of Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari is known for mile-high lagoons, flowing rivers and wetlands that attract thousands of species of migratory birds. But years of diminishing rainfall have shriveled water sources. Conditions worsened, residents say, after Iranian authorities began funneling water 60 miles away to the lowland city of Esfahan, sparking protests as far back as 2014. The uprising — in which at least 21 people died and thousands were arrested before authorities reimposed order — had many sparks: rising prices, persistent unemployment, bank collapses, a wide wealth gap, corruption in the theocracy. But an...

Climate scientists on Wednesday suggested that they may be able to rule out some of the most dire scenarios of what would happen if greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere were to double. Unfortunately, the same scientists say the best-case scenarios are also probably unrealistic. How a doubling of atmospheric greenhouse gases would affect the climate is of tremendous importance, as humans are running out of time to avoid that outcome. With current atmospheric concentrations at 405 parts per million, as opposed to about 280 parts per million before the dawn of the industrial era, the planet is already about...

Damage from extreme weather events during 2017 racked up the biggest-ever bills for the U.S. Most of these events involved conditions that align intuitively with global warming: heat records, drought, wildfires, coastal flooding, hurricane damage and heavy rainfall. Paradoxical, though, are possible ties between climate change and the recent spate of frigid weeks in eastern North America. A very new and "hot topic" in climate change research is the notion that rapid warming and wholesale melting of the Arctic may be playing a role in causing persistent cold spells. It doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to suppose that...