Typhoon Haiyan, One Month Later

TACLOBAN, Philippines -- The government is back at work, and markets are laden with fruits, pork, fish and bread. Shredded trees are sprouting new leaves. Above all, the sounds of a city getting back on its feet fill the air: the roar of trucks hauling debris, the scrape of shovel along pavement, the ping of hammer on nails.

One month since Typhoon Haiyan, signs of progress in this shattered Philippine city are mixed with reminders of the scale of the disaster and the challenges ahead: Bodies are still being uncovered from beneath the debris. Tens of thousands are living amid the ruins of their former lives, underneath shelters made from scavenged materials and handouts.

City administrator Tecson Lim says a sense of "normalcy" has returned and has begun talking of a silver lining: "The opportunity to transform our city into a global city, a city that is climate change resilient and that can perhaps be a model."

Rebuilding will take at least three years, and success will depend on good governance and access to funds. The Philippines is currently posting impressive economic growth, but corruption is endemic and the country remains desperately poor, with millions living in slums. 

National and regional authorities had ample warnings and time to prepare before the storm hit early on the morning of Nov. 8, but evacuation orders were either ignored or not enforced in a region regularly hit by powerful typhoons. Haiyan plowed through Tacloban and other coastal areas, leaving over 5,700 dead and more than 1,700 missing throughout the region. Some 4 million people were displaced.

The storm, one of the strongest to hit land on record, triggered an international response, led by the United States and U.N. agencies.The Philippine government has joined them in paying for food-for-work and cash-for-work emergency employment for thousands who lost their livelihoods. The workers clean up the twisted houses, trees and others debris that still cover large parts of the city and receive about 500 pesos ($11.36) a day.

In Palo town near Tacloban, dozens of names of villagers who perished were read in a memorial Sunday before Archbishop John Du celebrated Mass at a cathedral where the moon was visible through the steel rafters of the roof that was blown away by the typhoon. Held to remember the dead and provide healing and closure, the ceremony was attended by survivors who recounted their tragic ordeals.

http://www.weather.com/news/typhoon-haiyan-yolanda-update-20131207

What Sea Level Rise Looks Like When Today's Kids Grow Up

When Sarah (left) reaches the age of her life expectancy in 2068, sea level in Portland, Oregon, will be 26 inches higher than it is today. When Roy (right) reaches his life expectancy in 2076, sea level in New Orleans will be 39 inches higher than today.

If you don't live in a coastal city, sea level rise is likely one of the impacts of climate change that doesn't sound like a big deal. Especially because it's happening so slowly, by only a few millimeters every year in most places around the world.

But if you live in a place like South Florida or along the coast of Louisiana, rising sea levels already are beginning to interfere with daily life. Witness the street flooding that now regularly occurs during high tides in parts of Miami Beach, with or without rain.

Taken by Florida-based photographer Mary Brandenburg, the portraits aim to show what kind of future awaits for the children now living in many of the nation's biggest coastal cities, by depicting how far sea levels will rise by the time those children reach their natural life expectancy.

"I don't think we realized how powerful they would be," said Mary Beth Hartman of the university's Center for Environmental Studies, who worked with Climate Central's Ben Strauss to calculate for each photo how far in inches sea levels are expected to rise in different coastal cities around the U.S.

The numbers were based on data from Climate Central's Surging Seas project, which combine ZIP code, age and gender, and local sea level rise projections to come up with estimates for how far the sea level is expected to rise for a person living today in any given coastal location.

"But it’s just not the same as me standing up to my shin [in water] as it is of these kids," she said. "As parents, it’s so powerful that this is what we’re leaving them. This is a real and difficult issue that we’re leaving them."

Communicating the often complex issues around climate change and sea level rise, she added, requires doing so in a way that engages – but doesn't frighten – the public. “You can’t solve a problem if you don’t know it exists," she said. "A lot of scientists out there are doing these gloom and doom ideas that get people afraid and worried. And I really don’t agree with that.

http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/future-sea-level-rise-around-us-photos-20131203

Devastating Historic Floods: A Look Back

September 1931: Severe flooding in Hankou, China

In a time without advanced technology for radar and communication, some of the worst weather killers were floods. During the late 19th and early 20th century, major storms and flooding meant staggering death tolls for the areas affected.

 

Two of the world’s deadliest natural disasters were both flooding events in the late 19th century, according to weather.com meteorologist Jonathan Erdman. Flooding in China in 1887 claimed more than 900,000 lives and another flood in the summer of 1931 claimed over a million lives.

 

The deadliest U.S. flood also occurred in the 19th century, in Johnstown, Pa. The South Fork Dam failed after heavy rainfall and water rushing through the town killing 2,200. According to Erdman, technology played a huge factor in the amounts of devastation floods left in their paths in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

 

"Imagine a time without satellite, radar, forecast models, dense observations networks, the Internet or social media. Now, imagine a town near a small creek swamped by a 10-15 foot wall of water from a thunderstorm. About 1,300 Heppner residents had no idea of what was about to happen in their town. The flood claimed 247 lives, second only to the Johnstown flood, according to The Oregonian.

"Thanks to better technology, communication, forecasting and awareness, flooding deaths not from tropical cyclones have been reduced in recent times, particularly in the U.S," said Erdman.

http://www.weather.com/news/devastating-historic-floods-look-back-photos-20131205 

Massive Underwater Lab Will Allow for Long-Term, Continuous Study of Ocean

When it launches in 2016, the SeaOrbiter will be the only underwater lab in the world that allows researchers to spend countless time beneath the waves of the ocean.

When the SeaOrbiter comes to life in 2015, it will be the only vessel in the world to allow long-term study of the ocean for months at a time.

At nearly 200 feet high (with 100 feet below the ocean’s surface and 90 feet above) and made of 2,600 tons of recyclable aluminum, the floating lab will be able to house up to 22 crew members — scientists, vessel operators, media, astronauts-in-training — for as long as those people want to stay below the undulating surface. A typical mission will last three months.

The goal is scientific advancement and education, Ariel Fuchs, the project’s executive director, told weather.com. “We’ve monitored the ocean from the outside, from the surface,” he said. “Observing the ocean on a 24-hour basis day and for an extended period of time, it has never been done. This really [will close] the gaps into understanding the ocean ecosystem and how it works.”

One of the projects, for example, will study rain in the middle of the ocean, something scientists have little data on to this point.

The project is a collaboration with institutions in France and other European countries, the United States, Japan, Korea and China. An international science committee will decide which missions will happen when.

http://www.weather.com/news/science/massive-underwater-lab-will-allow-long-term-continuous-study-ocean-20131206

Power cuts, evacuations, as heavy storms sweep Europe

London (CNN) -- Strong winds and heavy rain battered Scotland and eastern England Thursday, disrupting rail and road traffic as northwestern Europe braced for heavy storms sweeping across the North Atlantic and North Sea.

Farther south, England was facing the most serious coastal tidal surge in more than 60 years, the Environment Agency warned. Residents in some towns and cities on the Norfolk coast were evacuating. In some areas, sea levels could be higher than those during the devastating floods of 1953.

The 1953 North Sea storm surge killed about 1,800 people in the Netherlands and more than 300 in the UK, according to the British Met Office.

Thousands of residents were being evacuated in the Great Yarmouth area in eastern England, Norfolk police said. The strong winds also hit electricity networks.

In Germany, the DWD weather service issued high-level warnings for northern coastal regions, expecting the storm to peak Thursday evening. It said arctic polar air would stream into the country. Wind speeds of up to 103 kilometers per hour (64 mph) were expected inland, rising to 140 kilometers per hour (87 mph) in the mountains.

In the Netherlands, KLM said it had canceled a significant number of flights to European destinations.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/05/world/europe/europe-weather/ 

Winter Storm Dion to Dump Snow, Sleet, Freezing Rain

 

Winter storm Dion is expected to blast much of the U.S. with snow and sleet throughout the weekend.

The storm is rapidly moving east, already causing 103,000 North Texans to lose power Saturday, NBC reports. A combination of snow, sleet and freezing rain is anticipated to hit the Midwest, Mid-South, Ohio Valley, Middle Atlantic and Northeast on Saturday through Monday, according to weather.com

Meanwhile, Nevada, Utah, southern Idaho, northern and central Arizona, northern New Mexico and Colorado can expect snow through early Sunday. The storm will also hit Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia early Sunday before it heads to New York City by nightfall.
Freezing rain will follow Monday, as the storm moves over Canada.

http://nation.time.com/2013/12/07/winter-storm-dion-to-dump-snow-sleet-freezing-rain/

Oklahoma Earthquakes: Central Oklahoma Rattled by Multiple Quakes

A slew of small earthquakes have rattled parts of the Oklahoma City Metro.

A series of earthquakes rattled parts of central Oklahoma on Saturday. There have been no reports of damage or injuries, but the quakes were a rude awakening to some in the northeastern suburbs of Oklahoma City.

According to the United State Geological Survey (USGS), the first quake – a 3.7-magnitude – struck about five miles east-southeast of Edmond, around 4:36 a.m. local time.
A 2.6-magnitude quake struck the same area just over an hour later.

Shaking has continued intermittently through the morning. A 2.7-magnitude earthquake struck six miles east-southeast of Edmond at 7:04 a.m. local time and a larger 3.6-magnitude was recorded at 9:19 a.m.

A recently released report from the USGS suggests that the latest series of quakes could be related to an increase in seismic activity dubbed an ‘earthquake swarm.’  According to the report, since 2009, Oklahoma has experienced a dramatic increase in the average number of earthquakes with a magnitude of 3.0 or greater.

http://www.weather.com/news/quakes-rattle-central-oklahoma-20131102

Thanksgiving's Seven Most Memorable Storms

While much of the United States will be calm for Thanksgiving Day, there are some trouble spots, including rain in California and lake-effect snow downwind of the Great Lakes.

Mother Nature was not so kind for some Thanksgiving holidays in our country's history. Below is a list of a few of the nation's most memorable Thanksgiving weather events in chronological order:

1. The Snow Bowl
Two days after Thanksgiving on Nov. 25, 1950, the Ohio State Buckeyes hosted the Michigan Wolverines in Columbus, Ohio, for a collegiate football game that would go down in history.
Now referred to by some as the "Blizzard Bowl," the game is famous for its blizzardlike conditions, as temperatures dropped 10 degrees during the game, accompanied by blowing snow and wind.

2. Hurricane Iwa
While hurricanes in the Hawaiian Islands are somewhat rare, the Hawaiian Island of Kauai was slammed by Hurricane Iwa just two days before Thanksgiving on Nov. 23, 1982. This hurricane was the first direct hit on the island since 1959.

3. San Joaquin Valley Dust Storm
Just one day after Thanksgiving in 1991, a blinding dust storm swept through California's main highway, the Interstate 5, in San Joaquin Valley area. As one of the main travel days around the holiday, this dust storm proved to be catastrophic as it caused a 100-vehicle chain accident on the freeway. More than 15 people lost their lives and more than 130 were injured as a result of the massive pileup.

4. 1992 Tornado Outbreak
The weekend before Thanksgiving, a three-day severe weather outbreak unleashed tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds across 13 states.

5. The Sleet Bowl
While this Nov. 25, 1993 Thanksgiving Day game went down in the history books for Leon Lett's fumble that cost the Dallas Cowboys the victory against the Miami Dolphins, the game also came with some unexpected weather, making it the first time ever that winter precipitation was recorded on Thanksgiving in Dallas.

6. Winds in Western Washington
Two days after the 1998 Thanksgiving holiday, dozens of flights were canceled out of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport after portions of the building lost power due to high winds. Sustained winds of 50 mph swept through much of the western Washington area, downing trees and power lines on the way.

7. Major Lake-Effect Snowstorm
After a cold front swung across the snow-belt regions on Thanksgiving morning in 2005, winds shifted and ignited lake-effect snow as the bands headed southwestward.
 

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/thanksgivings-most-memorable-weather-events/20194510

Drought likely to persist or develop in the Southwest, Southeastern U.S. this winter

No strong climate pattern influence anticipated through upcoming winter season

November 21, 2013

 

The Precipitation Outlook favors:

• Below-average precipitation in the Southwest, Southeast and the Alaskan panhandle.
• Above-average precipitation in the Northern Rockies, particularly over Montana and northern Wyoming and in Hawaii.

Winter is likely to offer little relief to the drought-stricken U.S. Southwest, and drought is likely to develop across parts of the Southeast as below-average precipitation is favored in these areas of the country, according to NOAA's annual Winter Outlook.

Drought has been an ongoing concern across parts of the Southwest and Texas for nearly three years, and after some relief during the past few months, drought is likely to redevelop during winter.

Sea surface temperatures across the equatorial Pacific have been near average since spring 2012, and forecasters expect that to continue through the winter. This means that neither El Niño nor La Niña is expected to influence the climate during the upcoming winter.

 

The Temperature Outlook favors:

• Below-average temperatures in the Northern Plains and the Alaskan Panhandle.
• Above-average temperatures in the Southwest, the South-Central U.S., parts of the Southeast, New England and western Alaska.

The rest of the country falls into the “equal chance” category, meaning that there is not a strong or reliable enough climate signal in these areas to favor one category over the others, so they have an equal chance for above-, near-, or below-normal temperatures and/or precipitation.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2013/20131121_winteroutlook.html

Thanksgiving Storm: Where Winter Storm Boreas Will Hit And How It Will Affect Travel In Northeast, South

 

A large winter storm that has already affected parts of the Western and Southwestern U.S. is threatening to spread south, east, and into the Northeast just in time for some of the busiest travel days of the year.

Winter Storm Boreas has already dumped up to a foot of snow in Utah and Colorado and caused 13 deaths and is now picking up speed as it heads for the Northeast.

Forecasters predict rain and ice will sweep across the South and converge as the system reaches the Great Lakes.

The Northeast will start to feel Boreas on Tuesday. The Appalachians, Shenandoah Valley and Upper Ohio Valley will be hit with a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain on Tuesday morning that will spread to western, central and Upstate New York, northern and western New England by Tuesday afternoon.

Boreas is expected to bring ice to Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia and parts of the Carolinas late Monday night and into Tuesday.  

The National Weather Service has issued a storm warning for North Texas until midday Monday, and Oklahoma is under a winter storm warning, as well as southwestern Arkansas.  

By Thanksgiving Day, the storm will have tapered off. The Northeast will still get some snow, but the rest of the country should experienced a calm but cold Turkey Day.

http://www.ibtimes.com/thanksgiving-storm-where-winter-storm-boreas-will-hit-how-it-will-affect-travel-northeast-south 

Deaths From Heat Waves May Increase Ten Times By Mid-Century

 

As Thanksgiving approaches and leaves and temperatures start to fall across the country, heat waves are probably the last thing on anyone’s mind. But ever since the Fifth Assessment Report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was released in September, a group of researchers from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta have been using these latest projections to understand the rising human toll of a warmer future. 

According to findings, heat waves will kill about ten times more people in the Eastern United States in 45 years than they did at the turn of this century. In 2002-2004, an average of 187 people in the eastern third of the U.S. succumbed to heat waves. By 2057-2059, that number will rise to over 2,000.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 660 people die nationwide from heat waves each year, making it the leading cause of weather-related mortality in the country. The CDC defines heat waves as “several days of temperatures greater than 90° F; warm, stagnant air masses; and consecutive nights with higher-than-usual minimum temperatures.” 

Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey were identified by the researchers as the states that will witness the biggest spikes in heat-related mortality.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/11/08/2917691/heat-waves-ipcc-mortality/ 

Water vapor in the upper atmosphere amplifies global warming, says new study

A new study shows that water vapor high in the sky and the temperature at the Earth’s surface are linked in a “feedback loop” that further warms our climate.

According to the study this feedback loop could be about 10% of the climate warming from all greenhouse gases.

For well over 100 years it has been known that increased emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide will warm the planet. As the lowest layer of the atmosphere, called the troposphere is warmed, the air becomes more humid because warmer air holds more water vapor. This “tropospheric water vapor feedback” approximately doubles the initial warming caused by carbon dioxide.

The new study shows that in addition to the well-understood tropospheric water vapor feedback on climate change, there is also a significant amplifying feedback associated with water vapor in the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere above the troposphere that extends to ~30 miles above Earth’s surface.

The new results suggest that the stratospheric water vapor feedback may be an important component of our climate system. The researchers estimated that at a minimum this feedback adds another ~5-10% to the climate warming from the addition of greenhouse gases, and is possibly substantially more than this amount.

http://research.noaa.gov/News/NewsArchive/LatestNews/TabId/684/ArtMID/1768/ArticleID/10307/Water-vapor-in-the-upper-atmosphere-amplifies-global-warming-says-new-study.aspx

Sandy — One Year Later

 By: Louis Uccellini, National Weather Service Director
 

It’s been one year since Sandy struck the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast coasts with powerful winds, rain, and storm surges that caused unprecedented damages in some of the nation’s most populous areas. 

Sandy was unique in many ways. It merged with a weather system arriving from the west and transitioned into an extra-tropical cyclone creating a massive storm with impacts far and wide.

By providing timely and accurate forecasts and collaborating closely with partners up to six days in advance NOAA’s National Weather Service helped save lives by providing critical information that prompted people to act.

Yet even with this forecasting success, there were many challenges and lessons to be learned. In the year since Sandy struck, NWS begun to take a series of steps that will bring improvements to the way they operate.

NWS has broadened the definitions of hurricane and tropical storm watches and warnings to allow watches and warnings to be issued or remain in effect after a tropical cyclone becomes post-tropical.

Whizzing through 213 trillion calculations per second, newly-upgraded NWS supercomputers are now more than twice as fast as they were during Sandy in processing sophisticated computer models to provide more accurate forecasts further out in time.

Storm surge created some of Sandy’s most devastating impacts. To forecast storm surge, the NHC uses the SLOSH (Sea, Lake and Overland Surges from Hurricanes) model. Thanks to increased computer speeds, National Hurricane Center able to run more model scenarios than in the past, providing a better picture of potential surges.

Sandy was one of the most unusual and challenging storms in recent history and its impacts are still being felt by those who suffered the most from its devastation. By focusing on what was learned from the impacts of Sandy, NOAA and NWS are working to build a Weather-Ready Nation:  a Nation in which people are prepared to deal with high-impact weather, water, and climate events, despite where they occur or what specific hazards they bring.
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/com/weatherreadynation/news/131028_sandy.html#.Unxg6eLDt_j

Hurricane-force gusts batter UK, France, the Dutch

A major storm with hurricane-force gusts lashed southern Britain, the Netherlands and parts of France on Monday, knocking down trees, flooding low areas and causing travel chaos. Four deaths were reported.

Weather forecasters say it's one of the worst storms to hit Britain in years. Gusts of 99 miles per hour (160 kph) were reported on the Isle of Wight in southern England, while gusts up to 80 mph hit the U.K. mainland. 

London's Heathrow Airport, Europe's busiest, cancelled at least 130 flights and express trains between central London and Gatwick and Stansted airports were suspended.

UK Power Networks officials said up to 270,000 homes were without power. Thousands of homes in northwestern France also lost electricity, while in the Netherlands several rail lines shut down, airport delays were reported.

 

The storm has hurricane-force gusts but is not classified as a hurricane since it did not form over warm expanses of open ocean like the hurricanes that batter the Caribbean and the eastern United States.

Britain does not get hurricanes because hurricanes are "warm latitude" storms that draw their energy from seas far warmer than the North Atlantic.


http://news.yahoo.com/hurricane-force-gusts-batter-uk-113908544.html;_ylt=A2KLOzIKfm5SbDMAWZjQtDMD

The year 2012 was among the 10 warmest years on record

The United Nation’s weather agency has confirmed that 2012 was the ninth warmest year since record keeping began in 1850, and the 27^th consecutive year that global land and ocean temperatures were above average.

A heat wave caused record temperatures last summer in Canoga Park, Calif. U.N. meteorologists say 2012 was the ninth hottest year since 1850.

Last year exceeded the global average temperature of 58 degrees Fahrenheit despite the cooling influence of a La Nina weather pattern. The years 2001 to 2012 were all among the top 13 warmest years on record.

A La Niña year happens when Pacific Ocean surface water temperatures north and south of the equator are colder than average. An El Niño year is the opposite, when the water temperatures are higher than normal, making for wetter winters.

Although natural climate variability has always resulted in extremes, the physical characteristics of extreme weather and climate events are being increasingly shaped by climate change. Hurricane Sandy caused about 130 death and tens of billions of dollars in damage in the eastern United States and killed nearly 100 people in the Caribbean and Typhoon Bopha the deadliest tropical cyclone of the year, hit the Philippines – twice – in December.

Overall, climate change has become a source of uncertainty for climate-sensitive economic sectors like agriculture and energy. Portions of the United States and southeastern Europe experienced extreme drought conditions in 2012, while West Africa was severely hit by extreme flooding.


http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-2012-record-heat-20130502,0,2784525.story

Yosemite's largest ice mass is melting fast

The photo on the left of Lyell Glacier in Yosemite National Park was taken by the U.S. Geological Survey in 1883; the one on the right was taken by park geologist Greg Stock in late September.

Climate change is taking a visible toll on Yosemite National Park, where the largest ice mass in the park is in a death spiral. Lyell Glacier has dropped 62% of its mass and lost 120 vertical feet of ice over the last 100 years.

If carbon dioxide levels continue to rise, the earth will eventually become ice-free, according to a study by Ken MacLeod, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Missouri.

Research by scientists at NASA suggests that absorption of sunlight in snow by industrial air pollution including soot, or black carbon, is also causing snow and ice to melt faster.

Yosemite's other glacier, Maclure, is also shrinking, but it remains alive and continues to creep at a rate of about an inch a day.

Future research projects will attempt to use climate shifts chronicled in the widths of tree rings in nearby forests to create computer models that will show the shrinkage of Yosemite's glaciers over the last 300 years — and help predict when they will disappear entirely.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-glaciers-20131002,0,7692754.story

Wacky jet stream to blame for wild North American weather

A lot of wild weather has afflicted North America this year: deluges in Colorado and Alberta, a heatwave in Alaska, and bitter cold in Florida. But there’s a high-altitude link between each of these unusual events which itself might be tied to climate change: erratic behavior by the polar jet stream.

The normally direct polar jet stream has been swinging wildly this summer, dipping north and south like the line graph on a U.S. jobs report. At times it splits in two.

Usually at this time of year the jet stream is a single band around the Northern Hemisphere, but in August what we’ve seen is a smaller jet stream over the Arctic Ocean, and another jet stream in the midlatitudes.”

There’s no scientific agreement right now on what role, if any, climate change is playing in the polar jet stream’s erratic behavior. But Francis points out that it is the product of vast temperature differences between the equator and the North Pole.

    

As the globe warms, the Arctic heats at a disproportionately fast rate, and that chips away at the temperature gradient. If that turns out to be what sent the jet stream into a weird spin cycle, then the Northern Hemisphere has a lot more extreme weather coming its way.

http://grist.org/news/wacky-jet-stream-to-blame-for-wild-north-american-weather/

Warming in danger zone

Humans have already released half the total carbon dioxide emissions permissible before the planet is at risk of warming to dangerous levels, a draft United Nations scientific assessment says.

The final draft of a major assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that keeping warming to 2 degrees - regarded as a guard-rail against the worst impacts of climate change - will require deep global emissions cuts in coming decades.

Under the future emissions scenarios considered by the IPCC, only the most stringent would keep the world within the remaining CO2 allowance for 2 degrees. It would mean an average global emission cut of 50 per cent by mid-century on 1990 levels, and possibly require removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by 2100.

The draft report lifts the IPCC's scientific certainty that human activity - such as burning fossil fuels - caused more than half the warming since the middle of last century to a 95 per cent confidence.

For the first time, the IPCC draft also includes an estimate of the total cumulative CO2 emissions that can be released since pre-industrial times to give the world above a 66 per cent chance of keeping warming below 2 degrees.

The draft estimates total human CO2 emissions need to be limited to about 3670 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to keep below 2 degrees. If the world proceeds along the highest future emissions path, a further 6183 billion tonnes of CO2 would be released by 2100, the draft says, meaning potential temperature rises of 2.6 to 4.8 degrees by century's end.

 

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/warming-in-danger-zone-20130920-2u5jx.html 

 

Warm spring to stoke early-season fire risks

Fires threatened Sydney's outskirts on September 10

The exceptionally warm start to spring for south-eastern Australia is likely to extend well into October, breaking more records and exacerbating early-season fire risks. Both Sydney and Melbourne – and much of the nation – are well on course to set record temperatures for September with weather models indicating next month will also be unusually hot.

Sydney's maximums this month are running at about 23.6 degrees, well above the long-term norm of 20 degrees, and eclipsing the previous record of 23.3 degrees in 1980. The Bureau of Meteorology predicts days will average about 24 degrees over the next week.

Melbourne's maximums are running at about 19.5 degrees, just shy of the 2006 record of 19.7 degrees, but the mercury is likely to reach an average of about 21 degrees or more for the next week.

Australia's record heat over the past year has surprised climate experts, not least because it has occurred in a period without an El Nino weather pattern over the Pacific Ocean, the conditions that typically see national temperatures spike.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/warm-spring-to-stoke-earlyseason-fire-risks-20130920-2u3vj.html

Sinking Cities: Why Rising Seas Threaten Many of The World's Great Destinations

By Terrell Johnson Published: Sep 12, 2013, 5:35 PM EDT

Since the 1920s, China's biggest city has sunk more than 6 feet thanks to a combination of pumping groundwater for drinking and the construction of dozens of densely packed skyscrapers and high-rise buildings. 

 

Little by little, the ground underneath cities from Venice to Jakarta is sinking every day. In some places, it's occurring as slowly as a millimeter or two every year, while in others, it's dropping by as much as a few inches every year.

 

The reasons why vary by location, but scientists point to a familiar script: As people move from the countryside and into urban areas, they bring pressure to extract more and more natural resources from the ground, like water and oil.

 

Meanwhile, more and bigger buildings are built – sometimes spectacularly big, like China's new Shanghai Tower whose immense weight presses down on the Earth, sometimes even causing cracks on surrounding streets.

 

While these are happening, the ground is also naturally sinking in many places, especially in coastal cities built on river deltas. Called land subsidence, this phenomenon accelerates when humans build structures like levees and dams that prevent river floods from replenishing the ground with silt and sand from upstream, and instead wash it out to sea.

And there's a fourth culprit: rising global sea levels, driven by the warming and expanding of the oceans and the melting of glaciers, polar ice, and the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets.

 

http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/worlds-fastest-sinking-cities-20130910