WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Average United States temperatures have risen dramatically and fast, with recent decades the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a draft federal government report cited by The New York Times on Tuesday. “Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now,” said the report by 13 federal agencies not yet released or approved by President Donald Trump’s administration. The report “directly contradicts claims by President Trump and […]
Tag: warming
US to join climate talks despite Paris accord exit
by Francesco FONTEMAGGI Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States announced Friday it would still take part in international climate change negotiations in order to protect its interests, despite its planned withdrawal from the Paris accord on global warming. Two months after President Donald Trump announced the United States would abandon the 2015 global pact, his administration confirmed it had informed the United Nations of its “intent to withdraw from the […]
Warmer Arctic harms crops in US, Canada: study
by Marlowe Hood Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Exceptionally warm years in the Arctic have provoked extra-cold winters and springs further to the south, decreasing crop yields across central Canada and the United States, researchers said Monday. “Our study demonstrates for the first time an apparent linkage between Arctic temperature variations and agricultural productivity in mid-latitudes,” they reported in the journal Nature Geoscience. Overall, global warming during the last half-century has boosted plant […]
Cities may be 8 degrees Celsius hotter by 2100: study
PARIS, France (AFP) — Under a dual onslaught of global warming and localized urban heating, some of the world’s cities may be as much as eight degrees Celsius (14.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer by 2100, researchers warned Monday. Such a temperature spike can have dire consequences for the health of city-dwellers, robbing companies and industries of able workers, and putting pressure on already strained natural resources such as water. The projection is based on the worst-case-scenario […]
Ice loss in southwest Antarctica may be slower than thought: study
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Global warming has caused ice to melt faster than normal in the Antarctic, but a study Tuesday suggested the rate of loss in some areas may be slower than previously thought. Researchers in Britain mapped the change in the speed of ice loss using data from five different satellites, said the report in Geophysical Research Letters, a US scientific journal. After studying changes at more than 30 glaciers since 1992 […]
Permafrost more vulnerable than thought: scientists
by Marlowe HOOD PARIS, France (AFP) — Frozen, sub-Arctic wastelands loaded with planet-heating greenhouse gases are more susceptible to global warming than previously understood, scientists warned on Monday. Even stabilising the world’s climate at two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels — the daunting goal laid down in the 196-nation Paris Agreement — would melt more than 40 percent of permafrost, or an area nearly twice the size of India, they reported in […]
Climate change ‘makes deadly China pollution worse’
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Global warming has boosted the frequency and severity of deadly air pollution peaks in northern China, scientists said Monday. Toxic particles in the air cause nearly a million premature deaths in the country every year, according to earlier research. “Climate change increases occurrences of weather conditions conducive to Beijing winter severe haze,” a team reported in the journal Nature Climate Change. In Beijing and other […]
Climate science bedeviled by ‘tipping points’
by Marlowe HOOD Agence Presse France PARIS, France (AFP) — Of the many things that keep climate scientists awake at night, tipping points may be the scariest. To start with, these thresholds for deep, sometimes catastrophic change in the complex web of Earth’s natural forces, caused by man-made global warming, are largely invisible. You can’t see them on the horizon, and could easily cross one without noticing. Also, there is no turning back — at […]





