Kenya: Malaria Spread Blamed On Global Warming

A sharp increase in malaria outbreaks in Kericho and throughout the East African highlands may be a by-product of global warming, a team of US scientists suggests.

Their study of temperature records in highland areas since the 1970s found an overall warming trend of 0.5 degrees Celsius. And although this change is small, its apparent effect on mosquito populations has been large, the researchers say.

A computer simulation indicates that the observed temperature rise has led to a 40 per cent increase in the number of mosquitoes in Kericho and doubling of the number in Kabale, Uganda.

"Malaria is indeed affecting more and more residents of Kenya's highlands, where cool temperatures have in the past meant that mosquito abundance is typically very low," notes ecologist Mercedes Pascual. The frequency of severe malaria cases on Kericho's tea estates soared from 16 per 1,000 people in 1986 to 120 per 1,000 in 1998.

Melting icebergs triggering glacier earthquakes

Ice falls from the Perito Moreno Glacier in Santa Cruz province, Patagonian southern Argentina , some 3,200 kilometers, (2,000 miles) south of Buenos Aires, Thursday, Oct.16, 2003. A study suggests, that melting of glaciers in the Patagonian ice fields of southern Argentina and Chile has doubled in recent years, caused by higher temperatures, lower snowfall and a more rapid breaking of icebergs. (Natacha Pisarenko/ AP Photo )

"We had over a hundred glaciers," said Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who took ABC News for a helicopter tour of Montana's Glacier National Park. "Now we're down to a couple dozen, and by 2025, 2035 at the rate that they've been declining, there will be no glaciers in Glacier National Park."

It's not surprising there's been such disagreement and confusion about global warming, because in one sense it's the biggest problem we've ever faced. It's affecting the whole planet, and all at once.

The latest studies report what we cannot see — some deep ocean currents, normally icy cold, are beginning to warm up.

Upcoming Hurricane Season Likely Strong

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The top U.S. hurricane expert said Thursday that this year's hurricane season is likely to be stronger than average, though short of the record 2005 season, the costliest on record.

"It would be an unbelievable record to have another season like that, that's just not very realistic," said Max Mayfield, director of the

National Hurricane Center

National Hurricane Center in Miami.

But he warned that this year's hurricane season, which officially begins on June 1, might be stronger than average.

"I think everybody is going to say we're going to have an above-average season here," Mayfield told a news conference at a San Juan hotel, adding: "We don't have the numbers worked out yet."

A record 27 tropical storms formed in 2005, with seven becoming major hurricanes — including four that made landfall in the United States.

Air Warming Above Antarctica

WASHINGTON - The air over Antarctica is warming even faster than in other parts of the world, according to an analysis of 30 years of weather balloon data.

While surface warming has been reported in parts of Antarctica, this is the first report of broad-scale climate change across the whole continent, the British Antarctic Survey says in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

The weather balloon data show a warming of 0.9 degree to 1.3 degree Fahrenheit per decade over the last 30 years. By contrast, the average worldwide temperature has risen 0.2 degree per decade in that time, according to the paper.

Caribbean Coral Suffers Record Death

WASHINGTON - A one-two punch of bleaching from record hot water followed by disease has killed ancient and delicate coral in the biggest loss of reefs scientists have ever seen in Caribbean waters.

Researchers from around the globe are scrambling to figure out the extent of the loss. Early conservative estimates from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands find that about one-third of the coral in official monitoring sites has recently died.

"It's an unprecedented die-off," said National Park Service fisheries biologist Jeff Miller, who last week checked 40 stations in the Virgin Islands. "The mortality that we're seeing now is of the extremely slow-growing reef-building corals. These are corals that are the foundation of the reef ... We're talking colonies that were here when Columbus came by have died in the past three to four months."

Some of the devastated coral can never be replaced because it only grows the width of one dime a year, Miller said.

Coral reefs are the basis for a multibillion-dollar tourism and commercial fishing economy in the Caribbean. Key fish species use coral as habitat and feeding grounds. Reefs limit the damage from hurricanes and tsunamis. More recently they are being touted as possible sources for new medicines.

Powerful cyclone threatens Western Australia coast

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A powerful cyclone with winds up to 300 kph (190 mph) menaced northern parts of Western Australia on Wednesday, less than two weeks after a storm devastated homes and crops on the other side of the country.

Some oil and gas operations and key iron ore ports closed ahead of the arrival of Cyclone Glenda in an area known as "cyclone alley" because it is regularly swept by storms at this time of year.

The storm, ranked in the most powerful grade for cyclones, category five, was about 335 km (210 miles) north of the town of Port Hedland and moving south along the coast, the Tropical Cyclone Warning Center said.

"Tomorrow's really the day where things could happen," said forecaster Adam Conroy from the center in Perth, the capital of Western Australia.

Be worried, be very worried

(Time.com) -- No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth.

Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.

From heat waves to storms to floods to fires to massive glacial melts, the global climate seems to be crashing around us.

The problem -- as scientists suspected but few others appreciated -- is that global climate systems are booby-trapped with tipping points and feedback loops, thresholds past which the slow creep of environmental decay gives way to sudden and self-perpetuating collapse. That's just what's happening now.

Dwindling fish sparks fierce feuds in Kenya's Lake Turkana

LOWERENGAK, Kenya (AFP) - A once bountiful lake in Kenya's parched northwest has turned into a nightmare for local fishermen, forced into deeper waters and hostile zones in search of fish migrating from receding southern shores.

Weapons, mainly AK 47 assault rifles, have been added to their usual gear alongside the poles and nets.

Lake Turkana, the northernmost of Kenya's Rift Valley lakes and fed mainly by an Ethiopian source, is like so much else here a victim of a drought that is ravaging east Africa.

Ebenyou Lokitare, a teenage fisherman, nurses a bullet wound on his right arm after surviving an attack by armed Ethiopian fishermen who killed three of his colleagues on a recent expedition to the lake's north in search of food.

"We were in the lake for three days but we had not caught any fish at all. At about 4:00 am, we were woken up by gunshots," said Lokitare, whose bandaged arm is suspended in a sling. "Those who attacked us were Ethiopians."

New City-sized Iceberg Created Near Antarctica

A city-sized iceberg has broken off an island near Antarctica.

The iceberg is about 8 miles wide and 15 miles long. It broke free of the Fimbul Ice Shelf, a large glacial ice sheet along the northwestern section of Queen Maud Land, in the eastern Weddell Sea near Antarctica.

The discovery was announced Friday. The National Ice Center, using visible satellite imagery from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, spotted the iceberg now named named D-16.

Iceberg names are derived from the Antarctic quadrant where they are first sighted.

Last year, a larger wandering iceberg named B-15A rammed into the continent and single-handedly ripped two other new city-sized icebergs free.

Melting ice threatens sea level rise

WASHINGTON - The Earth is already shaking beneath melting ice as rising temperatures threaten to shrink polar glaciers and raise sea levels around the world.

By the end of this century, Arctic readings could rise to levels not seen in 130,000 years — when the oceans were several feet higher than now, according to new research appearing in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Even now, giant glaciers lubricated by melting water have begun causing earthquakes in Greenland as they lurch toward the ocean, other scientists report in the same journal.

In principal findings:

• At the current warming rate, Earth's temperature by 2100 will probably be at least 4 degrees warmer than now, with the Arctic at least as warm as it was 130,000 years ago, reports a research group led by Jonathan T. Overpeck of the University of Arizona.

• Computer models indicate that warming could raise the average temperature in parts of Greenland above freezing for multiple months and could have a substantial impact on melting of the polar ice sheets, says a second paper by researchers led by Bette Otto-Bliesner of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Melting could raise sea level one to three feet over the next 100 to 150 years, she said.

Front lines of global warming: Student recounts Mt. Kilimanjaro experiences

Front lines of global warming: Student recounts Mt. Kilimanjaro experiences

By Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations | 17 March 2006

BERKELEY — Kate Cheney Davidson, a student in UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, recently learned firsthand that people living in farming communities on Mt. Kilimanjaro are already feeling the negative consequences of a changing climate.

"They've experienced three years of severe drought already, and the short rains, which were supposed to come October through December, were a no-show again this year," Davidson said. "Crops are dying, especially in the lower elevations, and people are being forced in greater numbers into the forests to fell trees so they can exchange charcoal for food in the market."

Some farmers told Davidson that without rain, they can't water their crops, while others said that fights have broken out in certain areas over the right to traditional water sources.

Davidson heard about other changes, too.

"One older man told me about how all the houses in Mweka used to have fireplaces, but now they are never used," she said. "They used to wear sweaters and long sleeves, but now wear only short sleeves because it’s so warm."

Davidson described Kahe, a small village that lies in the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro, as a place marked by withered corn stalks, dusty roads and residents left wondering if the rains will ever return.

How to spot the signs of global warming in your back garden

Global warming doesn't only mean melting polar ice caps - it's changing the plants, birds and insects in your own back garden. Peter Marren reports

Spring is coming. Or is it? Many traditional signs of the new season have already appeared in the south of England. Trees are coming into leaf ever earlier. Animals and insects are emerging from hibernation in mid-winter. The grass is growing. And hands up everyone who used a lawnmower before mid-March last year (admittedly this year has been slower to get started).

What event defines the spring for you? Maybe it's the first primrose. Primroses traditionally appear around Mothering Sunday. But last year the countrywide average date for the first primrose was 28 February. And even in these climatically challenged times, February is not many people's idea of spring.

How about frogspawn? Well, if you live in Cornwall, frogs start to feel the urge around Christmas time. By the time spring comes to the south-west, garden ponds are full of tadpoles.

Climate change puts pressure on London defences

LONDON (Reuters) - London is mustering its flood defences more often as global warming raises sea levels, the UK government's chief scientific adviser, David King, told a Reuters conference on climate change and investment.

"The biggest indicator of change that is already happening is usage of the Thames Barrier," King told the conference late on Monday.

"The Thames Barrier was designed to be used once every two or three years and in that period after it was built in 1980 it was indeed used once every two or three times a year. We're now using it six times a year."

The direct cost of a breach in the flood defences would exceed 30 billion pounds ($52.70 billion) directly, King added, not including the "indirect" damage to people's lives.

Scientists predict that heat-trapping carbon dioxide (CO2), produced by burning fossil fuels, can raise the temperature of the Earth, melt ice caps and cause flooding.

The most recent time that CO2 levels were higher than now was 55 million years ago, when CO2 was more than double current levels and the sea about 100 meters higher, King said.

King saw climate change posing the biggest threat to Britain from changes to rainfall patterns and storm damage to coastlines.

Radar Altimetry Confirms Global Warming Is Affecting Polar Glaciers

This image of South Greenland was acquired on 16 February 2006 by Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS), working in Reduced Resolution mode. (Credit: ESA)

Using radar altimeter data from ESA’s ERS-1 and ERS-2, Jay Zwally, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and his colleagues mapped the height of the ice sheets and found there was a net loss of ice from the combined sheets between 1992 and 2002 and a corresponding rise in sea level.

Polar ice plays a crucial role in regulating global climate because it reflects about 80 percent of the incoming sunlight. If the ice caps over the polar ocean melt, the ocean water would absorb a large part of the radiation energy, which would lead to further melting of the ice and further warming of the climate.

According to the NASA study, published in the March edition, 20 billion net tonnes of water are added to oceans each year as a result of Greenland’s ice sheet gaining some 11 billion tonnes of water annually, while Antarctica loses about 31 billion tonnes per year.

The study found that Antarctica lost much more ice to the sea than it gained from snowfall, resulting in an increase in sea level, while the Greenland ice sheet gained more ice from snowfall at high altitudes than it lost from melting ice along its coast.

Swiss Ski Resort Tries to Cover up Climate Change

VERBIER, Switzerland - Global warming may be the last thing on the minds of extreme skiers speeding down the blustery cliff faces at Verbier-4 Vallees this winter.

But looking down from the chic Swiss ski resort's 10,800-foot (3,300 m) peak, Eric Balet, whose company runs the ski lifts, says climate change has become a business concern.

The Tortin glacier topping Verbier used to stretch to the base of ski lifts and other paths, but Balet now has to use heavy machinery every autumn to move snow to fill gaps left from the ice formation's steady retreat.

"Only five to 10 years ago we didn't need any additional snow from the glacier," said Balet, director general of Televerbier.

In spring last year, to save surging fuel and other costs from moving the snow, he opted to cover up 26,900 square feet (2,500 sq m) on the glacier's edge with a thin insulating sheet to try to slow the melting.

Global warming is causing a major shift in the Bering Sea ecosystem.

Decades of climate data have demonstrated conclusively that the Arctic ice sheet is rapidly melting away. Less attention has been paid to the effect global warming will have on neighboring near-Arctic ecosystems, but a new study published in the journal Science reports that these regions are just as endangered.

The study, conducted by a multi-disciplinary group of researchers from the US and Canada, found that the Bering Sea is warming at a rate that's causing major changes in its marine ecosystem, a trend that makes it an excellent model for the rest of the world's waterways.

"Really what we're seeing is a fundamental shift in the food web," said Lee Cooper, a marine biologist at the University of Tennessee . "Probably what's going to happen is that fish and other animals in the southern Bering Sea will be moving north, reproducing and competing with animals that live there now."

Cyclone points to global warming

THE cyclone that devastated parts of far north Queensland is a stark reminder of the worsening impact of climate change, conservationists say.

The Innisfail region, south of Cairns, yesterday bore the brunt of Cyclone Larry's 290 km/h winds, which tore roofs from buildings, uprooted trees, downed powerlines and destroyed banana crops and sugarcane fields.

Queensland Conservation Council co-ordinator Toby Hutcheon said scientists forecast an increase in severe weather events and in the intensity of cyclones, due to climate change.

"This is principally because of rising water temperatures and that creates greater volatility," Mr Hutcheon said.

He acknowledged that cyclones had long caused destruction before concern was sparked by climate change, which scientists continually link to pollution.

Changing Climate Threatening Development

MEXICO CITY - Droughts, floods, changing rain patterns and rising sea levels are threatening development in the world's poorest countries, experts and aid workers said Monday at an international water forum.

Regions including Africa and South Asia — home to most of the 1.1 billion people who live without clean water — will be among the hardest hit by changing weather patterns, experts at the 4th World Water Forum said. They blamed the threats largely on changes in the global climate.

"Droughts will worsen. We will see deforestation, forest fires, a loss of biodiversity and degradation of the environment," said Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the

Warmer Seas Creating Stronger Hurricane, Study Confirms

A rise in the world's sea surface temperatures was the primary contributor to the formation of stronger hurricanes since 1970, a new study reports.

While the question of what role, if any, humans have had in all this is still a matter of intense debate, most scientists agree that stronger storms are likely to be the norm in future hurricane seasons.

The study is detailed in the March 17 issue of the journal Science.

An alarming trend

In the 1970s, the average number of intense Category 4 and 5 hurricanes occurring globally was about 10 per year. Since 1990, that number has nearly doubled, averaging about 18 a year.

Category 4 hurricanes have sustained winds from 131 to 155 mph. Category 5 systems, such as Hurricane Katrina at its peak, feature winds of 156 mph or more. Wilma last year set a record as the most intense hurricane on record with winds of 175 mph.

While some scientists believe this trend is just part of natural ocean and atmospheric cycles, others argue that rising sea surface temperatures as a side effect of global warming is the primary culprit.

UN says 2004 set record highs for greenhouse gases in atmosphere

GENEVA (AP) - Greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere reached record highs in 2004 and are still climbing, the

World Meteorological Organization

World Meteorological Organization said Tuesday.

"Global observations co-ordinated by WMO show that levels of carbon dioxide, the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, continue to increase steadily and show no signs of levelling off," said Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the UN climate and weather agency.

The agency made no reference to global warming, which many scientists have blamed on the heat-trapping greenhouse gases created in the burning of fossil fuels. According to

NASA

NASA, 2005 had the highest annual average surface temperature worldwide since instrument recordings began in the late 1800s.

But Leonard Barrie, chief of atmospheric research at WMO, said the greenhouse gases clearly posed a problem.

"Given that the lifetime of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 50 to 200 years depending on how you calculate it . . . it doesn't take a nuclear scientist to state that we're going to have this problem for a long time," he told reporters at UN offices in Geneva.

Handout photograph shows fish swimming above bleached coral near Miall Island in the Keppel island group about 550 kilometres (340 miles) north of Brisbane February 22, 2006. Australia has just experienced its warmest year on record and abnormally high sea temperatures during summer have caused massive coral bleaching in the Keppels. Sea temperatures touched 29 degrees Celsius (84 Fahreheit), the upper limit for coral. Picture taken February 22, 2006. To match feature

Winter Warmest Ever on Record in Canada

TORONTO - The winter of 2005-2006 has been Canada's warmest on record and the federal agency Environment Canada said Monday it was investigating whether it's a sign of global warming.

Between December and February, the country was 3.9 degrees above normal — the warmest winter season since temperatures were first recorded in 1948. Environment Canada climatologist Bob Whitewood said it smashed the previous record set in 1987 by 0.9 degrees.

"We saw it coming from mid-January on that we were seeing something quite remarkable," Whitewood said.

The experience has been similar south of the border where the U.S. National Climatic Data Center said the winter has been the fifth warmest on record. December through February are considered meteorological winter.

Ice Thawing Earlier on Maine Lakes

LEWISTON, Maine - Ice on dozens of lakes in Maine and four other states is melting earlier in the year than in decades past, according to a new analysis.

The study, "On Thin Ice: The Melting of an American Pastime," examined the records of ice cover on more than 50 lakes in Maine, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York and Alaska.

In Maine, the study found that Moosehead Lake, the state's largest body of water, is now thawing eight days earlier than its historic average based on 149 years of records. Damariscotta Lake is clearing 12 days earlier than in the past, and Rangeley Lake is thawing five days earlier.

The analysis mirrors other studies that show that the climate is changing, said Susan Sargent, Maine representative of the National Environmental Trust.

Himalayan melting risk surveyed

Most of the scientific reports have shown that glacial retreat and increases in lake size are occurring at a rapid rate.

Between 1970 and 1989, Japanese researchers discovered most glaciers in the Everest region had retreated 30-60m (100-200ft). To the west, in the Dhaulagiri region, field studies carried out before 1994 showed the same trend.

Nepal's most studied glacier in Tsorong Himal underwent a 10m (33ft) retreat between 1978 and 1989.

However, the Himalayan glacial system is not the only one under threat.

The World Glacier Monitoring Service, supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), collated records from across the globe and concluded that 30 major glaciers - assessed as being a representative global sample - had thinned by an average of 6m (20ft) between 1980 and 2001.

Shrinking Antarctic ice proves scientists wrong

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2066926,00.html

The frozen continent is shedding about 36 cubic miles (152 cu km) of ice every year — enough to supply Los Angeles with water for 36 years — according to research suggesting that sea levels could rise more rapidly than predicted.

Scientists had expected that over the coming century global warming would increase the size of the Antarctic ice sheet, as higher temperatures brought increased snowfall, but the new data suggest that it is losing mass.

The findings, from the satellites of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) begun in 2002, are a concern because the ice sheet would increase sea levels by as much as 45m (150ft) were it all released. The West Antarctic ice sheet, where the bulk of the melting is taking place, holds water that would raise the sea level by more than 6m (20ft). The East Antarctic sheet, which is eight times larger, appears to be more stable.

The results indicate that rising temperatures are having a major impact on both ice caps: two weeks ago, a separate study found that the amount of ice dumped into the ocean by glaciers in Greenland had doubled over five years.

'Rapid Warming' Spreads Havoc in Canada's Forests

QUESNEL, B.C. -- Millions of acres of Canada's lush green forests are turning red in spasms of death. A voracious beetle, whose population has exploded with the warming climate, is killing more trees than wildfires or logging.

The mountain pine beetle has infested an area three times the size of Maryland, devastating swaths of lodgepole pines and reshaping the future of the forest and the communities in it.

"It's pretty gut-wrenching," said Allan Carroll, a research scientist at the Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria, whose studies tracked a lock step between warmer winters and the spread of the beetle. "People say climate change is something for our kids to worry about. No. It's now."

WATER WARS

Water Wars: Climate change may spark conflict

John Reid warns climate change may spark conflict between nations - and says British armed forces must be ready to tackle the violence

Published: 28 February 2006

Israel, Jordan and Palestine

Five per cent of the world's population survives on 1 per cent of its water in the Middle East and this contributed to the 1967 Arab -Israeli war. It could fuel further military crises as global warming continues. Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Jordan rely on the River Jordan but Israel controls it and has cut supplies during times of scarcity. Palestinian consumption is severely restricted by Israel.

Armed forces are put on standby to tackle threat of wars over water

Published: 28 February 2006

Across the world, they are coming: the water wars. From Israel to India, from Turkey to Botswana, arguments are going on over disputed water supplies that may soon burst into open conflict.

Yesterday, Britain's Defence Secretary, John Reid, pointed to the factor hastening the violent collision between a rising world population and a shrinking world water resource: global warming.

Antarctic ice sheet in 'significant decline': study

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Antarctica's mammoth ice sheet, which holds 90 percent of the Earth's ice, is showing "significant decline" as world temperatures heat up, according to a new study released.

As Earth's fifth largest continent, Antarctica is twice the size of Australia and contains 70 percent of Earth's fresh water resources. British research suggests the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet alone would raise global sea levels by over 20 feet (six meters).

And now a team of US researchers at the University of Boulder in Colorado say they have discovered that the Antarctic ice sheet is losing up to 36 cubic miles (152 cubic kilometers) of ice annually.

The estimated ice mass in Antarctica is the same as 0.4 millimeters of global sea rise annually, with a margin of error of 0.2 millimeters, according to the study. There are about 25 millimeters to one inch.

Study predicts of 25 percent surface water drop in Africa in 2100

Johannesburg - Changes in rainfall as a result of global warming could leave one quarter of the African continent dry by the end of the century, according to a study by South African scientists.

The study published in the the scientific journal 'Science' on Thursday took into account the loss of water drainage from lakes and rivers across the continent, using climate models for the 21st Century.

Maarten de Wit and Jacek Stankiewicz of the University of Cape Town stated: 'Using predicted precipitation changes, we calculate that the decrease in perennial drainage with significantly affect present surface water access across 25 per cent of Africa by the end of this century'.

Hurricanes and global warming

“The general scientific consensus on climate change and hurricanes is this: Hurricanes won’t necessarily become more frequent, but they will become more intense. While ocean and atmospheric circulation is the engine of a hurricane, heat is the fuel. ‘In order to form, a hurricane must have ocean temperature of at least 80 degrees down to a depth of 164 feet,’ says Curry. ‘Sea surface temperatures all over the tropics are running 1.8 to 3.6 degrees above normal. This is due to global warming.’ Thus, when other factors line up to form a storm, a warmer ocean means it will be all the more powerful and destructive.”

And that is indeed what some scientists are now saying (though others remain skeptical). Katrina was one of the strongest hurricanes ever encountered in the Gulf of Mexico, and it wasn’t alone. A study in the July issue of Nature reported that large tropical storms have increased by 50 percent in both the Atlantic and Pacific over the past 30 years. “These have been linked to rises in the temperatures of the ocean surfaces and warmer air temperatures,” said the Times of London’s online edition.

Warming World May Introduce New Threats to Human Health

Climate scientists see a warming trend behind the reduction in Arctic sea ice, and the retreat of mountain and land glaciers. McMichael notes a worrisome increase in correlation with the rising temperatures, the emergence of infectious disease.

"That includes malaria in Africa, tick-born encephalitis in Sweden, patterns of cholera in Bangladesh, which come and go with changing temperatures of coastal waters, and a recent report of an increased annual frequency of food poisoning off the north coast of Alaska from bacterially-contaminated oyster beds known to be very temperature dependent," he says.