Global Drowning

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More than 130 key port cities worldwide were analysed to investigate the likely impact of climate change alongside subsidence, population growth, and urban economic development.

The study focused on the exposure of people and property and infrastructure to a 1-in-100 year flood event now and in the future. The cities most exposed to coastal flooding today and in the future were ranked into a league table.

London was ranked 41 in a list for population exposed in 2070 and 27th for property and infrastructure assets exposed.

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Over the coming decades, the unprecedented growth and development of the Asian mega-cities will be a key factor in driving the increase in coastal flood risk globally. In terms of population exposure, Calcutta will be closely followed by Mumbai, Dhaka, Guangzhou, Ho Chi Minh City, Shanghai, Bangkok and Rangoon. Miami is in ninth place and would be the only top 10 city situated in a currently developed country, while Hai Phong (Vietnam) is ranked tenth.

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50 years on: The Keeling Curve legacy

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His very precise measurements produced a remarkable data set, which first sounded alarm bells over the build-up of the gas in the atmosphere, and eventually led to the tracking of greenhouse gases worldwide.

The curve set the scene for the debate over climate change, and policies, sometimes controversial, that address the human contribution to the greenhouse effect.

"It wasn't until Keeling came along and started measuring CO2 that we got the evidence that CO2 was increasing from human activities," says Professor Andrew Watkinson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK.

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Mexican floods strand 300,000; more rain ahead

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An estimated 900,000 people had their homes flooded, damaged or cut off, and as of Thursday 300,000 still had not been rescued, Tabasco Gov. Andres Granier said. Police, soldiers and military workers were still trying to reach them.

It was becoming difficult to find a safe place to put refugees. Officials improvised, turning parking garages and any other dry structure into temporary shelters. Dozens of Mexico's hospitals and medical centers were also flooded, complicating treatment of the sick. Watch residents swim through flooded streets »

Health officials warned that flooding could trigger epidemics of cholera, although none were yet reported.

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Global Warming May Cause Widespread Water Shortages, Studies Say

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In addition to the western United States and Canada, hard-hit regions include parts of Europe, South America west of the Andes, and much of central Asia from northern India across to China and Russia.

About one-sixth of the world's population—more than a billion people—inhabit these areas. The regions at risk also account for about a quarter of the world's economic output.

"What are those people going to do?" Barnett asked. "Just sit there and be thirsty and watch their crops die?"

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Deforestation Needs to be in Next Climate Pact

Himalayan glaciers are melting fast

Himalayan glaciers are the headwaters for Asia's nine largest rivers, crucial for the 1.3 billion people who live downstream. The melting glaciers could endanger water supplies for hundreds of millions of people, it said.

"Emission of greenhouse gases is the biggest threat to Kashmir's ecology and environment," said Arjimand Talib, head of ActionAid's Kashmir chapter, releasing the report in Srinagar, summer capital of the revolt-hit region.

"Many of the areas have seen a complete disappearance of small glaciers. In other areas, the height of the small glaciers has reduced to over one-fourth of the original height," the 28-page report from the non governmental group said.

Major glaciers were also melting fast, the report said, while water levels in almost all the streams and rivers in Kashmir have decreased by two-thirds during the last 40 years.

series of tornadoes hit central and southern England on Monday,

Arctic Ice shrinks by an Alaska plus a Texas

The Top 100 Effects of Global Warming

Say Goodbye to Guacamole
Scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory predict hotter temps will cause a 40 percent drop in California’s avocado production over the next 40 years. [Lawrence Livermore National Lab]

Climate change will harm life on the deep ocean floor, study finds

A study of a species of tiny shrimp living around deep-sea vents has found that they produce microscopic larvae as part of their lifecycle and that when these larvae migrate they have to rely on food coming down from the sunlit waters above. So the animals living on the deep seabed have to time the hatching of their eggs to coincide with spring blooms of microscopic plant life growing at the surface – a link that has been overlooked.

Dr Copley and his colleagues studied deep-sea shrimps and mussels and found they have a reproductive cycle that is seasonal – just like surface creatures – even though they are totally isolated from the changes in the seasons. They have to do this to ensure their larvae survive.

One species in four 'could be gone in 50 years'

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The union says that the rapid extinction rate is between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the expected, natural rate.

It warns that humans are to blame. Urbanisation, agriculture, deforestation and hunting all cause loss of habitat - the biggest danger to plants and animals.

Climate change is also thought to be an increasing threat.

There are already more than 16,000 species threatened with extinction, including the polar bear, hippopotamus, sharks, freshwater fish and Mediterranean flowers. The Chinese medicine trade threatens tigers and rhinos.

In the past 500 years, human activity has forced 820 species to extinction.

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The number of people made homeless by flooding in north-east India and Bangladesh has risen to some 1.5 million, officials say.

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India's Assam state is suffering its third wave of floods this year, caused by heavy rains over the past four days.

The army has evacuated 800,000 people as the Brahmaputra rive and its tributaries flow at danger levels.

Downstream in Bangladesh, officials say half a million people are affected and many have been moved to safer places.

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Climate, biofuel new challenge to poverty alleviation

Global warming to decimate China's harvests

The year 2030 is a key date because that is when the nation's population is expected to peak at 1.5 billion people, up from just over 1.3 billion today, requiring an extra 100 million tons of food to feed them. "Global warming may cause the grain harvest to fall by five to 10 percent, that is by 30-50 million tons, by 2030," the China Daily quoted Zheng as saying.

"Warmer weather will shorten the growth period of some grains and their seeds won't have enough time to ripen." Farmland has been shrinking rapidly in recent years due to China's historic urbanisation process, and Zheng's estimate of an extra 10 million hectares is nearly double what is available today.

Let Them Eat Cake

Bad weather in key grain growing areas such as Canada and parts of Europe has limited supplies as demand has risen, sparking fears of a supply shortfall.

Surging prices are also expected to have widespread fallout for consumers.

While it will mean higher bread prices, it could also trigger an increase in meat and dairy prices as farmers battle to pass on rising feed costs.

Global wheat stockpiles will slip to their lowest levels in 26 years as a result, official US figures predicted earlier this month.

Agricultural Civilization Dying Where it Began

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The Delta was already in danger, threatened by the side effects of southern Egypt's Aswan Dam. Though the dam, completed in 1970, generates much-needed electricity and controls Nile River flooding, it also keeps nutrient sediment from replenishing the eroding Delta.

Add climate change to the mix, and the Delta faces new uncertainties that could have a potentially more devastating effect on Egypt.

Scientists generally predict that the Mediterranean, and the world's other seas, will rise between one foot and 3.3 feet by the end of the century, flooding coastal areas along the Delta.

Already, the Mediterranean has been creeping upward about .08 inches annually for the last decade, flooding parts of Egypt's shoreline, el-Raey said.

By 2100, the rising waters could wipe out the sandy beaches that attract thousands of tourists. Also at risk would be the buried treasures archaeologists are still uncovering in ancient Alexandria, once the second most important city in the Roman Empire.

But those losses would pale to the impact of the worst-case scenario that some scientists are predicting - global warming unexpectedly and rapidly breaking up the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets.

If this happens, seas could rise by about 16 feet, causing mass devastation to the region, according to a World Bank study released this year.

Richard Alley, a geosciences professor at Penn State University, said the sheets are collapsing at slow rate, but much faster than scientists thought a decade ago. A complete collapse could take "at least centuries," said Alley, an expert on ice melt.

But even minimal sea rise in the next century would have serious consequences for Egypt, experts warn.

A rise of 3.3 feet would flood a quarter of the Delta, forcing about 10.5 percent of Egypt's population from their homes, according to the World Bank. The impact would be all the more staggering if Egypt's population, as expected, doubles to about 160 million by the middle of the century. The Delta is already densely packed with about 4,000 people per square mile.

Also hit would be Egypt's food supply. Nearly half of Egypt's crops, including wheat, bananas and rice, are grown in the Delta.

Areas not under water would also be affected, with salt water from the Mediterranean contaminating the fresh ground water from the Nile River used for irrigation.
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13 die as floodwaters inundate Midwest

Australia holds the world's last great savanna as Planet is Destroyed

F2 Tornado Confirmed In Brooklyn: Twister First Ever To Strike Borough In Recorded History

Man Made Climate Catastrophe

The heatwave experienced by Europe in 2003 had major adverse socio-economic and environmental effects.

Thousands of elderly people died. Forests were devastated by fire, water ecosystems were strained, and the total mass of Alpine glaciers shrank by 10%.

The authors say we can expect extreme weather events like this to occur more frequently in future.