by Kerry Sheridan Agence France Presse TAMPA, United States (AFP) — Installing massive wind and solar farms in the Saharan desert could slow global warming, and also give a small but beneficial boost to rain in the dry African region, researchers said Thursday. The study in the journal Science used computer modeling to simulate the effect of covering 20 percent of the largest desert on the planet in solar panels and installing three million wind […]
Tag: climate
Global warming will make insects hungrier, eating up key crops: study
by Kerry SHERIDAN Agence France-Presse TAMPA, United States (APF) – Researchers have found a new way that global warming is bad for the planet: more hungry bugs. Rising temperatures will stimulate insects’ appetites — and make some prone to reproducing more quickly — spelling danger for key staples like wheat, corn and rice which feed billions of people, researchers said Thursday. And since these three crops account for 42 percent of the calories people eat […]
Brace for extra-warm weather through 2022: study
by Marlowe Hood Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – Manmade global warming and a natural surge in Earth’s surface temperature will join forces to make the next five years exceptionally hot, according to a study published Tuesday. The double whammy of climate change and so-called natural variability more than doubles the likelihood of “extreme warm events” in ocean surface waters, creating a dangerous breeding ground for hurricanes and typhoons, they reported in Nature Communications. “This […]
Ten ways the planet could tip into ‘Hothouse Earth’
by Marlowe Hood Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Even if humanity slashes greenhouse gas emissions in line with Paris climate treaty goals, the planet could overwhelm such efforts and irretrievably tip into a hellish ‘hothouse’ state, top scientists warned Monday. Under such a scenario, Earth’s average temperature would stabilize 4 or 5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, rather than the 1.5 C to 2 C (2.7 or 3.6 Fahrenheit) cap called for […]
World’s biggest king penguin colony shrinks 90 percent
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — The planet’s largest colony of king penguins has declined by nearly 90 percent in three decades, alarmed researchers said Monday. The last time scientists set foot on France’s remote Ile aux Cochons — roughly halfway between the tip of Africa and Antarctica — the island was blanketed by two million of the flightless birds, which stand about a meter (three feet) tall. But recent satellite […]
Heatwaves from the Arctic to Japan: a sign of things to come?
by Amélie Bottolier-Depois Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Intense heatwaves like the one which fuelled Greece’s deadly wildfires are set to become increasingly frequent around the world due to climate change, experts warn. – Is the current heatwave exceptional? – Record high temperatures have been registered across the Northern Hemisphere in recent weeks, from Norway to Japan. Sweltering summers are the norm in Greece, where at least 82 people have been killed […]
Climate change sinking Arctic archeological treasures
by Michel Comte Agence France Presse A mad rush is needed to preserve or catalogue thousands of Arctic archeological sites before they are washed away by warming hastening the thaw of permafrost and coastal erosion, a study said Thursday. For millennia, the cold has conserved ivory artifacts, driftwood houses and human remains in often near-perfect conditions. But with faster and more severe climate change in the poles than the rest of the world, the situation […]
Earth’s intact forests vanishing at accelerating pace: scientists
by Marlowe Hood Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Earth’s intact forests shrank by an area larger than Austria every year from 2014 to 2016 at a 20 percent faster rate than during the previous decade, scientists said Wednesday as the UN unveiled an initiative to harness the “untapped potential” of the land sector to fight climate change. Despite a decades-long effort to halt deforestation, nearly 10 percent of undisturbed forests have been fragmented, […]
Global warming will make veggies harder to find: study
TAMPA, United States (AFP)—Global warming is expected to make vegetables significantly scarcer around the world, unless new growing practices and resilient crop varieties are adopted, researchers warned on Monday. By the end of this century, less water and hotter air will combine to cut average yields of vegetables — which are crucial to a healthy diet — by nearly one-third, said the report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A 7.2 Fahrenheit […]
US property crisis looms as sea level rises, experts warn
by Kerry Sheridan © Agence France-Presse SARASOTA, United States (AFP) — Along sun-splashed shorelines in the US state of Florida, home prices are on the rise, developers are busy building new complexes, and listings just blocks from the beach describe homes that are “not in a flood zone,” meaning no flood insurance is required. But experts warn that ignoring sea level rise won’t prevent a looming economic crisis caused by water-logged homes that will someday […]
‘Shocking’ die-off of Africa’s oldest baobabs: study
by Mariëtte Le Roux Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Some of Africa’s oldest and biggest baobab trees — a few dating all the way back to the ancient Greeks — have abruptly died, wholly or in part, in the past decade, researchers said Monday. The trees, aged between 1,100 and 2,500 years and some as wide as a bus is long, may have fallen victim to climate change, the team speculated. “We report that […]
UK, US launch biggest-ever study of Antarctic glacier
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Britain and the United States on Monday launched a research program billed “the most detailed and extensive examinations of a massive Antarctic glacier ever undertaken” to gauge how quickly it could collapse. Teams from Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) will visit the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica to assess if its cave-in could begin in the next few decades or centuries. […]





