February 2015 Global Warming News

US Senator Confuses Weather With Climate
Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, brought a snowball onto the floor of the U.S. Senate on Thursday as supposed evidence of the non-existence of climate change.

Health Alliance Calls For End To Coal In Australian State
The Climate and Health Alliance (CAHA) has called on the New South Wales government to phase out coal mining and coal-fired power generation in state's Hunter Valley. CAHA says the industry is responsible for creating annual medical costs of around $600 million and 348 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

Climate Change No Conspiracy: Prince Charles
At a gathering of health professionals in London, Prince Charles has said the approach so far to dealing with climate change was akin to having "waited until we had tested the disease to the patient's destruction"

Alaskan Village Threatened By Climate Change
Climate change has thinned the ice around the village of Kivalina, Alaska so much that it has become too dangerous for its inhabitants to hunt whales - something they've been doing for generations. Soon it might be too dangerous for them to live in Kivalina itself.

Siberian Crater Creep
Mysterious craters found appearing in Siberia seem to be multiplying. One of the theories concerning the phenomenon is long-term thawing is liberating underground reservoirs of methane. That methane is also a potent greenhouse gas, with many times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.

Climate Change Doubting Scientist Funded By Fossil Fuel
The New York Times reports a  scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who claims the sun can largely explain recent global warming has accepted more than $1.2 million from the fossil-fuel sector over the last 10 years - and has failed to disclose the conflict of interest in many of his scientific papers.

Tropical Expansion Will Push Cyclones Into New Areas
The tropics are expanding at the rate of 150-300 kilometres every 30 years, a phenomenon that was driven home to residents in Queensland yesterday when a category 5 cyclone slammed into the coast. Cyclone Marcia the second most southerly system to hit the state's coast.

Harvard Pressured To Divest From Fossil Fuels
Some of Harvard’s best known graduates have called on the university to dump fossil- fuel companies from its $36bn endowment. The University is reportedly being taken to court by some of its own students in relation to the issue.

Making The Emotional Connection To Climate Change
While many people understand the impacts of climate change at an intellectual level, making the emotional connection, the one that triggers action is a different story. Physicist Robert Davies has developed a hybrid event that appears to be bridging the gap.

Ocean Acidity Around The World Mapped
Researchers at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom have generated a map created from NASA satellite data showing the variation in ocean acidity around the world. Oceans are becoming more acidic as they become saturated with carbon dioxide; a situation with rather grim consequences for marine life - and consequently, humanity.

What's Behind Shell's Climate Change Concerns?
Ben van Beurden, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, recently stated large energy companies need to push more strongly for climate action. What gives? Peter Burdon from the University of Adelaide offers his opinion.

Free Booklet: The Science Of Climate Change
The Australian Academy of Science has revamped and relaunched its booklet, "The science of climate change: Questions and Answers." The publication, which involved input from 17 of Australia’s leading experts in related fields, is designed to deal confusion and misinformation on the topic.

Carbon Sequestration - Wetlands Trump Rainforests
A new study out of Deakin University in Australia states swamps could be fare more effective than rainforests in the climate change battle - freshwater swamps could sequester up to a third of the carbon found in terrestrial soils.

Megadrought Predicted For US Southwest
As if the current drought situation wasn't dire enough, Researchers from NASA and Cornell and Columbia universities have forecast a megadrought wil occur in the U.S. Southwest this century that could last as long as 30 years.

UK Leaders Sign Climate Change Pact
UK leaders David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband have signed a pledge that acknowledges climate change as being one of the most serious threats facing the world today and commits to accelerating an energy-efficient low-carbon economy and to end the use of unabated coal for power generation.

Obama: Climate Change A Bigger Threat Than Terrorism
In a recent interview, US President Barack Obama agreed the media at times exaggerates the level of alarm people should have about terrorism as opposed to climate change; saying climate change is "not a sexy story"  and is "a hard story for the media to tell on a day-to-day basis."

Seagrass And Its Role In Carbon Sequestration
Seagrass meadows around the world are disappearing at an alarming rate. Aside from providing crucial habitat and feed for marine creatures, it turns out the meadows also have an important role as a carbon sink.

Geoengineering Research Should Start Now
While stressing that geoengineering should not be deployed now, the pace of climate change has been so fast that the time has come to begin researching geoengineering possibilities says the National Academy of Science. The stance should serve as a massive wake-up call that the battle against global warming is being lost.

Experiment Shows Warming Impacts Already Occurring 
The results of a 23 year study on the effects of global warming have presented some surprises from the small plots of land monitored. Some of the plots were artificially warmed and others weren't - but even in those plots the "natural" temperature increase has had measurable effects.

Global Divestment Day On February 13/14
Global Divestment Day will see actions around the world demanding institutions and individuals dump their investments in fossil fuels.

University Of Sydney (Partially) Divesting
The University of Sydney has announced it will reduce the carbon footprint of its listed share portfolio over the next three years by 20 percent. While this has been generally welcomed, some say it doesn't go far enough.

Scrubbing Emissions With Baking Soda
A new development is touted to provide a cheaper, faster, and greener way of grabbing carbon dioxide out of the air  - small silicon beads containing a baking soda based solution. However, it may be years before the invention can be used in the stacks of coal fired power plants.

Australia's Record Hot Year ' Virtually Impossible' Without Climate Change
A new report from Australian group, the Climate Council, says it would have been nearly impossible for record temperatures in 2013 to have occurred without anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The annual number of record hot days across Australia has doubled since 1960.

Australia' Love Affair With Brown Coal Rekindled
Since the axing of the nation's carbon tax, burning emissions-intensive brown coal for power generation is climbing. Black and brown coal's share of power generation has risen to 74.7%.

Greenland's Hidden Meltwater Lakes
Massive lakes forming deep below the melting Greenland ice sheet can soften surrounding ice, which may eventually result in increased ice flow. Greenland is home to enough ice that if all of it should melt; it would raise sea levels around the world by 7 metres.

Clean Coal Power Plant Axed
The US Department of Energy is axing financing of the troubled FutureGen 2.0 project, citing there would be insufficient time to  complete construction of the project before a required deadline.

UN Says 2014 The Hottest Year
The UN’s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) says 2014 was the warmest year on record and pointed out 14 of the 15 hottest years have occurred during this century.

Cantona's Ruin The Result Of Climate Change
The demise of Cantona, an ancient city in Mexico, has been linked to a period of droughts lasting centuries; which were most likely brought on by climate change.

The Death Of The Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef, facing serious threats from climate change and coal projects make it even worse; could effectively be dead by the end of the century.

The Future Wheat Shock
A recently published study by Australia's CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology states global wheat production could fall six per cent for every degree Celsius of temperature rise - and temperatures in Australia could rise by 4.2 degrees on average by 2090. Not only would production fall, but volatility would increase. 

Little Penguins Threatened By Climate Change
When little penguins spend time on land, they suffer heat stress rapidly as their feathers and fat insulation have evolved to keep them warm while foraging at sea. Australian researchers are currently assessing the possible effect of climate change on little penguins.

NSW Joins The Climate Group
New South Wales' Baird government has become Australia's first conservative government to sign up to The Climate Group. Only two other states are part of the group - Tasmania and South Australia.

Climate Refugee Case Goes To Supreme Court.
A Kiribati man whose lawyer says is being persecuted indirectly by the inability of the industrialised world to reduce carbon emissions will have his case for refugee status heard by New Zealand's Supreme Court.

Climate Change Satellite Launched
A rocket carrying a NASA satellite that will assist with tracking global climate change has launched from Vandenberg Air Force. The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) will operate for at least 3 years.

Sea Level Rise Factoring Into US Projects
Any new or rebuilt federally funded construction project in the USA will need to have flood risk from sea level rise factored into planning..