Wintertime droughts are increasingly common in the Mediterranean region, and human-caused climate change is partly responsible, according to a new analysis by NOAA scientists and colleagues at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). In the last 20 years, 10 of the driest 12 winters have taken place in the lands surrounding the [...]
Tag Archives: Europe
2010 the hottest summer for European continent in at least 500 years
The heatwave that scorched eastern Europe in 2010, killing thousands of people and devastating crops, was the worst since records began and led to the warmest summer on the continent for at least 500 years, a new scientific analysis has revealed. Searing temperatures in July and August 2010 across Russia are estimated to have killed [...]
40% of new record highs in EU due to warming climate
report available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.3145
Record low December sea-ice warming Arctic, pushing cold wave south to Europe
Scientists have established a link between the cold, snowy winters in Britain and melting sea ice in the Arctic and have warned that long periods of freezing weather are likely to become more frequent in years to come. An analysis of the ice-free regions of the Arctic Ocean has found that the higher temperatures there [...]
15 year decline of white truffles linked to climate change
I asked John Magazino of Primizie Fine Foods, one of the leading truffle importers in the country, if he was noticing any decrease in demand. “If anything, there’s more,” he told me, adding that the global appetite for white truffles, especially the ones from around Alba, Italy, has utterly outstripped the harvest. From Macau to [...]
Freeze in Europe linked to cold wave pushed south by Arctic warming
Global warming may be contributing to the current heavy snow and subzero temperatures across Europe, which has closed major airports, caused hundreds of highway accidents and several deaths. Cold weather in Europe is often associated with a weather system known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) but there is also a significant impact from current [...]
Earth’s lakes now warming about 1° each decade
In the first comprehensive global survey of temperature trends in major lakes, researchers have determined that Earth’s largest lakes have warmed during the past 25 years in response to climate change. Philipp Schneider and Simon Hook of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., used satellite data to measure the surface temperatures of 167 large [...]
Belgium reels from worst flooding in 50 years
Torrential rain across Belgium has caused floods and mudslides, killing at least two people near the French border. An elderly woman was trapped in her car, a pedestrian was carried off by the current. A third person was reported missing: swept away by the floods as she tried to cross a bridge. The search was [...]
Arctic warming pushing colder winters south to Europe
The overall warming of the earth’s northern half could result in cold winters. The shrinking of sea-ice in the eastern Arctic causes some regional heating of the lower levels of air – which may lead to strong anomalies in atmospheric airstreams, triggering an overall cooling of the northern continents, a study recently published in the [...]
European birds faring better in northern end of ranges
… Success in the north, trouble in the south Climate change is affecting our fauna in various ways, by influencing distribution range, population size, and migration and breeding phenology. For example, recent studies have shown that European bird species living in a colder climate (that is, generally more northern bird species), are doing relatively poorly [...]
