Climate changes that may be indicative of what’s to come for agriculture (Google / Healthy Home Smart)

Read at : Google Alert – desertification

http://healthyhomesmart.com/2011/01/02/effects-of-global-warming-on-agriculture-2/

Effects Of Global Warming on Agriculture

Author: James Nash

The earth’s climate has been relatively stable for thousands of years. We know intuitively that it is hot, humid, and rainy in the Amazon, and that corn grows well in the US Midwest. We know that at a particular altitude we should plant a crop during a certain week of the year because conditions for it are just right then. For most of our memory as humans, our climates have closely oscillated around predictable patterns, and this has allowed us to feed ourselves and flourish.

When a stable climate system is modified beyond its “tipping point,” it gets out of balance and loses its equilibrium. While the system searches for a new set of patterns to stabilize around, variability and uncertainly are the norm. This, in essence, is the nature of the challenge that we are now facing.

Agriculture is one of the most weather-dependent of all human activities. It is ironic, then, that a significant percentage of greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. Fossil fuel-intensive agriculture is contributing to the creation of the unpredictable weather conditions that all farmers will need to battle in the not-too-distant future. Continue reading “Climate changes that may be indicative of what’s to come for agriculture (Google / Healthy Home Smart)”

Global Warming during the Coldest December since records (J. VAN COTTHEM)

Here is a message of my son Jan (Seattle) :

Scientists have determined that low sunspot activity corresponds with colder weather patterns.

The mini-ice age of the mid-1600s corresponded to the “Maunder Minimum”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum>

There was also a shorter mini-ice age in the 1800s that corresponded to the “Dalton Minimum”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum>

At the tail end of the Dalton Minimum, the “Donner Party” made a disastrous winter trek across the Sierra Nevada and had to resort to cannibalism to survive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party>

We have been in a period of low to non-existent sunspot activity as well (see picture below of today 19th December, 2010).

 

Water, its parallels with fossil fuels and its role in global warming (Google / Introduce Earth)

Read at : Google Alert – desertification

http://introduceearth.com/2010/12/waters-role-in-global-warming/

Water’s Role in Global Warming

Last week, we introduced you to the Resource Matrix, which is everywhere, it is all around us. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

We showed you how economics leads to people maximizing their benefits in “win-lose” propositions: you want diamonds and gold for nothing and they want to give you useless junk for a king’s ransom. And how we’ve been hypnotized in believing what they want is also what we want. Continue reading “Water, its parallels with fossil fuels and its role in global warming (Google / Introduce Earth)”

Climate change : Listening to one message is more convenient than relating to a cacophony of voices telling different stories (Our World 2.0)

Read at :

http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/the-complicated-truth-about-sea-level-rise/

The complicated truth about sea level rise

by Eilif Ursin Reed

Just like the swimming polar bears have become symbols for disappearing sea ice in the Arctic, the remote atolls of the Pacific and the Indian Ocean have become emblematic for the consequences of sea level rise.

It makes plain sense that on islands where the highest elevation is sometimes less than two meters, the IPCC’s predicted sea level rise of up to 58 cm by 2100 will cause devastation.

Or does it? Things that seem obvious at first glance, usually turn out to be more complicated if you look closer. So too with climate change.

(continued)

How much warming is being hidden by irrigation? (Science Daily)

Read at :

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100907171644.htm

Irrigation’s Cooling Effects May Mask Warming in Some Regions — For Now

ScienceDaily (Sep. 8, 2010) — Expanded irrigation has made it possible to feed the world’s growing billions — and it may also temporarily be counteracting the effects of climate change in some regions, say scientists in a new study. But some major groundwater aquifers, a source of irrigation water, are projected to dry up in coming decades from continuing overuse, and when they do, people may face the double whammy of food shortages and higher temperatures.

A new study in the Journal of Geophysical Research pinpoints where the trouble spots may be.

“Irrigation can have a significant cooling effect on regional temperatures, where people live,” said the study’s lead author, Michael Puma, a hydrologist who works jointly with Columbia University’s Earth Institute and its affiliated NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “An important question for the future is what happens to the climate if the water goes dry and the cooling disappears? How much warming is being hidden by irrigation?”

(continued)

Biodiversity Hot Spots and Global Warming (Science Daily)

Read at :

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100607165746.htm

Biodiversity Hot Spots More Vulnerable to Global Warming Than Thought

ScienceDaily (Aug. 12, 2010) — Global warming may present a threat to animal and plant life even in biodiversity hot spots once thought less likely to suffer from climate change, according to a new study from Rice University.

(continued)

Global Warming and Rainfall Patterns (Science Daily)

Read at : Science Daily

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100226093238.htm

Tropics: Global Warming Likely to Significantly Affect Rainfall Patterns

ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2010) — Climate models project that the global average temperature will rise about 1°C by the middle of the century, if we continue with business as usual and emit greenhouse gases as we have been. The global average, though, does not tell us anything about what will happen to regional climates, for example rainfall in the western United States or in paradisical islands like Hawai’i. Continue reading “Global Warming and Rainfall Patterns (Science Daily)”

Copenhagen also failed to bring smile in the face of Severn Suzuki (Google / Hotnhitnews)

Read at : Google Alert – desertification

http://hotnhitnews.com/Copenhagen_Climate_Change_Conference_Summit_of_Difference_Disagreement_n_Dissatisfaction_965_090032.htm

Copenhagen also failed to bring smile in the face of Severn Suzuki

When the temperature around the earth is rising, arctic ice and the glaciers are melting faster, sea level is rising at an alarming rate to submerge many island nations and whole of the earth is undergoing a terrible geographical change, how can the developed nations see the poor and developing countries as only vulnerable and count themselves as safe from the consequences of climate change?

Basudev Mahapatra : December 25, 2009

‘I am afraid to go out to sun now because of the holes in the ozone. I am afraid to breathe in the air now because I don’t know what chemicals are in it’ said Severn Suzuki in 1992 at Rio expressing her concern over the issue of climate change across the globe. ‘Now we hear of animals and plants going extinct every day, vanishing forever. Now, in my life, I have dreamt of seeing the great herds of wild animals, jungles and main forests full of birds and butterflies. But now I wonder if they were even exist for my children to see’, said Severn Suzuki asking delegations from across the globe, ‘Did you have to worry of these things when you were of my age?’ This was the concern of Severn Suzuki when she was 12-13 years old. Continue reading “Copenhagen also failed to bring smile in the face of Severn Suzuki (Google / Hotnhitnews)”

Is global warming melting the ice on Mt. Kilimanjaro? (Google / CS Monitor)

Read at : Google Alert – drought

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/11/03/is-global-warming-melting-the-ice-on-mt-kilimanjaro/

Is global warming melting the ice on Mt. Kilimanjaro?

By Pete Spotts

Global warming appears to be melting the ice on Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro. The summit’s glaciers are likely to be gone within a few decades

That’s the word from a study appearing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

But global warming may not be the whole story behind Mt. Kilimanjaro and its environs. And therein lies a tale of how human activities may affect local and regional climate in ways that can mask or reinforce a long-term warming trend.

Understanding those effects is critical to devising strategies for adapting to global warming at regional or local levels. Continue reading “Is global warming melting the ice on Mt. Kilimanjaro? (Google / CS Monitor)”

Biochar : Ancient soil replenishment technique helps in battle against global warming (Google / Science Codex)

Ancient soil replenishment technique helps in battle against global warming

Christoph Steiner, a University of Georgia research scientist in the Faculty of Engineering, was a major contributor to the biochar proposal that was submitted by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification last week at the …
<http://www.sciencecodex.com/ancient_soil_replenishment_technique_helps_in_battle_against_global_warming>
Science Codex – Earth
<http://www.sciencecodex.com/taxonomy/term/1/all&gt;

Heat Resistance in Plants (Google / Korea Times)

Read at : Google Alert -desertification

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/03/123_41421.html

Heat Resistance in Plants Found

By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter

Researchers are claiming advancement in the genetic engineering of plants to improve heat tolerance, which is increasingly critical in the global efforts to combat desertification.

In a study published by peer-review journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a team led by Gyeongsang National University scientist Lee Sang-yeol found that controlling the expression of AtTDX, a plant-specific protein, may provide a key in genetically-engineering plans against high-temperature stress. Continue reading “Heat Resistance in Plants (Google / Korea Times)”

Lebanon : “Green Land” Project (Makhzoumi Foundation)

Makhzoumi Foundation, in collaboration with “Art of Living – Lebanon”, distributed 4000 plants from the Foundation’s nursery in Akkar, to 20 universities and schools through different municipalities all over Lebanon. This activity took place on “Tree Day” in December 2008.

Makhzoumi Foundation involves youngsters in afforestation of Lebanon
"Green Land" Project in Lebanon : Makhzoumi Foundation involves youngsters in afforestation of Lebanon

It is worth mentioning that the activity comes within the framework of the “Green Land” Project, supported by the United Nations millennium campaign and the United Nation Environmental Program, which aims at disseminating awareness on the significant role of tree planting in alleviating the Global Warming.

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