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RESULTS		Results 1 – 25 of 27
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
It actually doesn't fall on the plain ... or anywhere else Spain experiencing severe drought due to climate change	Joseph Romm	03 Jun 2008	Gristmill
Warming-driven desertification is spreading. Australia has gotten the most attention, but Spain is also turning into a desert. As Time reported: Spain is in the grip of its worst drought in a century as a result of climate change -- this year's total rainfall, for example, has been 40 percent lower than average for the equivalent period, and the country's reservoirs are, on average, only 30 percent full. The reservoirs serving Barcelona are only 20 percent full, and ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, desertification, severe weather, Spain, water crisis (all these topics)

Australia today = the Southwest by 2050 Lessons the United States can learn from the drought in Australia	Joseph Romm	04 Mar 2008	Gristmill
The brutal drought has ended over large parts of Australia -- and consumers are obsessively reducing their demand for water -- and yet water 'prices are set to double in the next five to 10 years,' Water Services Association Australia executive officer Ross Young told a drought briefing in Canberra. The focus on water conservation has never been higher: Water is a dinner table topic. People are quite passionate about water and they are quite concerned about wa ...
Topics: Australia, desertification, severe weather, water crisis (all these topics)

Water, water ... nowhere Science says we are turning the West into a desert	Joseph Romm	24 Feb 2008	Gristmill
A major new study in Science by a dozen water experts, concluded humans are the primary cause of changes in Western river flow, winter air temperature and snow pack in the past 50 years -- and things will only get worse if we don't act soon. The abstract of the study, 'Human-Induced Changes in the Hydrology of the Western United States' (subs. req'd), led by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, states: Observations have shown that the hydrological cycle of ...
Topics: desertification, water crisis (all these topics)

The desertification-global warming feedback loop Desertification amplifies climate change, and vice versa	Joseph Romm	13 Sep 2007	Gristmill
Here is yet another carbon-cycle amplifying feedback not in most climate models. On the one hand, the United Nations' top climate official, Yvo de Boer, announced that: Climate change has become the prime cause of an accelerating spread of deserts which threatens the world's drylands. On the other hand, he pointed out that desertification would, in turn, accelerate climate change: You'll see a sort of feedback mechanism ... quite a lot of carbon is captured in ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, climate science, desertification (all these topics)

Droughting on our parade Global warming cancels 4th of July celebrations	Joseph Romm	04 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Global warming threatens our White Chistmases with winter heatwaves and our Arbor Days with record wildfires. And now it imperils our Independence Day fireworks with ever worsening droughts. The Drudge Report headline blares 'No Fireworks.' As USA Today reports: Dozens of communities in drought-stricken areas are scrapping public fireworks displays and cracking down on backyard pyrotechnics to reduce the risk of fires. 'From a fire standpoint and a safety stan ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, desertification, green living, holiday (all these topics)

For those planning on growing a lot of biofuels Anyone got those cans of instant water? (Just add water)	JMG	08 Jun 2007	Gristmill
'A drought for the ages.
Topics: climate, desertification, severe weather, water crisis (all these topics)

When the western gas boom goes boom Declining production and what comes next	Erik Hoffner	08 Jun 2007	Gristmill
This week the Durango Herald discussed the steadily declining production of methane gas from wells in southern Colorado's La Plata County and what impacts there will be when the wells go dry. Unfortunately, the article focuses only on the economic implications and goes nowhere on the topic of what the landscape will look like when those companies pull up stakes for new pastures. Even if all the well pads are reclaimed, which would be a miracle, what kind of rangeland ...
Topics: Colorado, desertification, water crisis (all these topics)

Story of the day: Nukes and global warming The two don't mix well	Joseph Romm	21 May 2007	Gristmill
This story deserves singling out because it is on an important but too-neglected subject -- the connection between energy and water. 'Climate change puts nuclear energy into hot water,' from the International Herald Tribune. Key point: Nuclear power 'requires great amounts of cool water to keep reactors operating at safe temperatures. That is worrying if the rivers and reservoirs which many power plants rely on for water are hot or depleted because of steadily rising ai ...
Topics: desertification, energy, nuclear power, water crisis (all these topics)

Australia's great drought	Jason D Scorse	29 Apr 2007	Gristmill
The Economist has a great article on Australia's crippling drought. If this is what global warming is likely to bring Australia, we should pay attention and hopefully learn something about how best to cope.
Topics: Australia, climate, climate change impacts, desertification, water conflicts (all these topics)

Australia's 'food bowl' running dry And their PM is still in denial	Joseph Romm	27 Apr 2007	Gristmill
Australian Prime Minister John Howard is in a sticky, yet dry, situation. Even though a drought has caused Australia's agricultural production to fall 25 percent in the last year, Howard may have to ban irrigation so that urban centers can have drinking water. The targeted river basin, the Murray-Darling, is known as Australia's 'food bowl' because it houses 72 percent of Australia's farm and pasture land. If insufficient rain continues through the next few weeks, ...
Topics: Australia, climate, climate change impacts, desertification (all these topics)

Dry As a Slightly Moist Bone Aral Sea restoration project nets $126 million more from World Bank		10 Apr 2007	Daily Grist
Dry As a Slightly Moist Bone Aral Sea restoration project nets $126 million more from World Bank When is a sea not a sea? When it's a desert. Over the last five decades, the inland Aral Sea -- which straddles the border of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan -- has shrunk to a fraction of its original size, thanks to Soviet policies that diverted its feeder rivers for farming. But a dam funded by the World Bank has beg ...
Topics: desertification, Kazakhstan, news, Uzbekistan (all these topics)

Why Ask Why? Try Everything Dry American Southwest soon will face permanent drought, says study		06 Apr 2007	Daily Grist
Why Ask Why? Try Everything Dry American Southwest soon will face permanent drought, says study Tired of depressing climatic news? Too bad, here's more! A new study in Science predicts that as early as 2021, global warming could create Dust Bowl-like conditions in the American Southwest. Much of the region has been severely dry since 2000, and researchers say 18 of the 19 computer models studied pred ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, desertification, news (all these topics)

Herd It Through the Decline Climate change ravages land and livelihoods of Kenya's nomadic herders		14 Nov 2006	Daily Grist
Herd It Through the Decline Climate change ravages land and livelihoods of Kenya's nomadic herders As climate talks continue in Nairobi, Kenya, the world's climate-change canaries aren't far away. Severe floods in the country's northern and coastal regions have killed more than 20 people and forced 60,000 to relocate over the last few weeks, and a flood-drought cycle is disrupting a traditional way of life for 3 mill ...
Topics: climate, desertification, Kenya, news (all these topics)

Heart of a Howard Australia plagued by historic drought, not-so-responsive leadership		08 Nov 2006	Daily Grist
Heart of a Howard Australia plagued by historic drought, not-so-responsive leadership Wondering how Australia's doing? It's dry as a dead dingo, thanks for asking. The "Sunburnt Country" is undergoing a severe drought -- the worst in 1,000 years, according to one expert. The lack of precipitation could cut agricultural output by 20 percent, and it's only going to get worse: a government organization has ...
Topics: Australia, climate, desertification, news (all these topics)

We Must, We Must, We Must Increase Our Dust Saharan dust may decrease effect of Atlantic hurricanes		11 Oct 2006	Daily Grist
We Must, We Must, We Must Increase Our Dust Saharan dust may decrease effect of Atlantic hurricanes Thick clouds of dust rising up from the Sahara Desert are linked to less frequent Atlantic hurricanes, says a new study in Geophysical Research Letters. Studying satellite data from 1981 to the present, American researchers noted that dust clouds were scarce in years with intense hurricane activity ...
Topics: Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean, desertification, Florida, news (all these topics)

Talk About the Wither Extreme drought will spread widely over coming century, report predicts		05 Oct 2006	Daily Grist
Talk About the Wither Extreme drought will spread widely over coming century, report predicts Millions of lives will be endangered by droughts affecting half of the planet's land surface by 2100, top British climate scientists predict in a study to be published in the Journal of Hydrometeorology. And on nearly a third of the land surface, that drought could be extreme, rendering agriculture virtually impossible. That's compa ...
Topics: climate, desertification, news (all these topics)

Maybe I'm Amazoned at the Way I Really Need You Drought could turn Amazon into desert, researchers warn		25 Jul 2006	Daily Grist
Maybe I'm Amazoned at the Way I Really Need You Drought could turn Amazon into desert, researchers warn The Amazon rainforest -- soon to be called The Artist Formerly Known as the Amazon Rainforest, and then just some weird little symbol -- appears to be undergoing a second year of drought, and that has researchers seriously alarmed. Starting in 2002, scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center simulated drought on a small s ...
Topics: Amazon, desertification, news (all these topics)

Going to Hell in a Sandbasket North central China being slowly swallowed by desert		09 Jun 2006	Daily Grist
Going to Hell in a Sandbasket North central China being slowly swallowed by desert Two deserts in north central China are rapidly expanding, burying 1,500 square miles of grasslands, lakes, forests, and villages under sand every year. Government-led deforestation and water-engineering projects are largely to blame. A giant reservoir near the town of Minqin diverts all available water resources into an irrigation system, but ev ...
Topics: China, desertification, news (all these topics)

If a tree falls in a desert ...	Chris Schults	06 Jun 2006	Gristmill
Speaking of desertification, we learn of this depressing story via Boing Boing: The T�n�r� wastelands of northeastern Niger were once populated by a forest of trees. By the 20th century, desertification had wiped out all but one solitary acacia. The Tree of T�n�r�, as it came to be called, had no companions for 400 km in every direction. Its roots reached nearly 40 m deep into the sand. In 1973, the tree was knocked over by a drunken Libyan truck driver. It has been ...
Topics: desertification (all these topics)

And the Sand Played On World's deserts will become more desert-y, says U.N.		05 Jun 2006	Daily Grist
And the Sand Played On World's deserts will become more desert-y, says U.N. Happy World Environment Day -- we got you some bad news! As climate change progresses, desert temperatures will rise up to 12.6 degrees F by the end of the century; rainfall in most deserts will decline by up to 20 percent; water will become scant, or too salty to drink or use for crops. So warns a chipper new Un ...
Topics: desertification, energy, news, solar voltaic power, United Nations (all these topics)

We Hear Helsinki Is Beautiful This Time of Year The desertification of southern Europe may be under way		03 Aug 2005	Daily Grist
We Hear Helsinki Is Beautiful This Time of Year The desertification of southern Europe may be under way With 2003's deadly European heat wave still lingering in memory, this summer's spiking temperatures, rampant forest fires, and record droughts along the Mediterranean are increasingly being seen not as freaky aberrations, but signs of global warming. Dozens of fires have burned from Greece to Portugal. Some Spanish ...
Topics: desertification, European Union, news (all these topics)

Arid Extra Dry Desertification will be big bummer for hundreds of thousands worldwide		21 Jun 2005	Daily Grist
Arid Extra Dry Desertification will be big bummer for hundreds of thousands worldwide Hundreds of thousands of people -- some of them the world's poorest -- will be displaced in the next 30 years as the globe's deserts expand, according to the latest report from the U.N.'s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Climate change is likely to intensify droughts, heat waves, and floods in "drylands," which co ...
Topics: climate, desertification, news, United Nations (all these topics)

Big Trouble in Big China News flash: China's environment is bad and getting worse		20 Sep 2004	Daily Grist
Big Trouble in Big China News flash: China's environment is bad and getting worse A Washington Post exploration of China's environmental problems confirms all the sorry tales you've been hearing. The country contains at least six of the world's 10 most polluted cities, experts say, leading to respiratory problems for millions of citizens. Deforestation in north and central China means deserts ...
Topics: China, deforestation, desertification, pollution and waste (all these topics)

Well To-Do Farmers Across Asia Emptying Underground Water Tables		27 Aug 2004	Daily Grist
Well To-Do Farmers Across Asia Emptying Underground Water Tables Farmers in India, Pakistan, Vietnam, and northern China are setting themselves up for drought and famine in decades to come by pushing wells deep into the ground, emptying underground reserves at a rate faster than precipitation can replenish them. India's government system of irrigation canals is decrepit, so farmers have sunk some 21 million wells an ...
Topics: Asia, desertification, water pollution (all these topics)

Deserters Conference on Desertification Gains Little Ground		03 Sep 2003	Daily Grist
Deserters Conference on Desertification Gains Little Ground The sixth international conference on desertification ended yesterday in Cuba with few results, save for a decision on how to finance efforts to slow the encroachment of arid regions and the loss of fertile lands. Leaders of 10 African and Caribbean nations attending the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification agreed to use the Global Environment Facility as their main fund ...
Topics: Cuba, desertification (all these topics)

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