‘Huge year for natural disasters’

The past year has been one of the most devastating ever in terms of natural disasters, one of the world’s biggest re-insurance companies has said.
Munich Re said the impact of the disasters was greater than in 2007 in both human and economic terms. The company suggested climate change was boosting the destructive power of disasters [...]

Repeat glacier photography

The National Park Service has an online collection of Repeat Glacier Photography with photos of glaciers in Alaska from early explorers side by side with photos taken in the present day. Needless to say, it’s a trend of icy photos next to photos of a lot of water:

Arctic losing long-term ice cover

The Arctic is losing its old, thick ice faster than in previous years, according to satellite data.
The loss has continued since the end of the Arctic summer, despite cold weather across the northern hemisphere.
The warm 2007 summer saw the smallest area of ice ever recorded in the region, and scientists say 2008 could follow a [...]

Global high temperatures from 1882 to 2003

Animation of global high temperatures from 1882 to 2003. The huge leap in temperatures in the last twenty years is pretty clear, and it doesn’t even include the last few years, which have kept breaking records.
From remote sensing and ice core studies. Presented in an ecology course at Stanford University.

‘Unexpected growth’ in CO2 found

Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere have risen 35% faster than expected since 2000, says a study. International scientists found that inefficiency in the use of fossil fuels increased levels of CO2 by 17%. The other 18% came from a decline in the natural ability of land and oceans to soak up CO2 from [...]

Amazon carbon sink effect ’slows’

3/10/07
Scientists have sounded the alarm after spotting changes in the environment in Brazil’s tropical rain forests. They say they have found worrying signs that the forests may become less able to absorb the carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming. Their long-term study in supposedly pristine areas reveals trees have been growing and dying faster [...]

Hot and Cold

Thirty-six years ago this month, President Nixon signed the Clean Air Act in a ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. The act — the product of a bipartisan effort extraordinary even for a day when bipartisanship was unexceptional — had been hammered out by a group of senators that included Democrats Edmund [...]

sea and land

Not strictly news, but a few articles by Elizabeth Kolbert about climate change:
The Darkening Sea, about the acidification of the oceans.
The Climate Of Man I: how the earth is changing.
The Climate of Man II: the Curse of Akkad.
The Climate of Man III: what can be done.

‘Spring is new summer’

Two events in nature that usually herald the beginning of summer have started already, say researchers looking into reports from the public. The blossoming of hawthorn and return of migrating swifts – usually in May – have prompted the Woodland Trust to declare “spring is the new summer”.
The trust has been analysing reports from members [...]

Tiny fossils reveal ice history

Tiny they may be, but fossil diatoms discovered deep under the ocean floor are revealing new details about Antarctica’s warmer past. The single-celled algae were pulled up by the Antarctic Geological Drilling (Andrill) Program, which has been operating from the Ross Ice Shelf. Some are new to science; others would normally only be expected in [...]