10 new cases of chikungunya fever, 8 at Kranji Way cluster

Channel NewsAsia 8 Aug 08;

SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Health (MOH) says there are eight additional cases of chikungunya fever involving six foreign workers and two locals working at Kranji Way.

Five of the foreign workers are working and residing at the site in Kranji Way, while the remaining worker commutes daily from Malaysia to work. The total number of cases linked to Kranji Way currently stands at 28.

National Environment Agency (NEA) officers have been conducting intensive mosquito control operations within the vicinity of the cases' workplace and residences, and the areas that they frequent.

More than 28 premises have been inspected in the Kranji Way area and a total of 16 premises were found breeding the Aedes mosquito.

Outdoor and indoor fogging of insecticide has been carried out for all the premises checked.

MOH says this intensive operation to seek out and remove any mosquito-breeding habitats will continue.

Residents and premises owners in the vicinity of Kranji Way have all been advised to check their premises daily to remove any stagnant water that may breed mosquitoes.

The ministry has also been notified of two new cases of chikungunya fever not related to the Kranji Way cluster.

The first case involved a 27-year-old housewife who stays at Woodlands Street 81. She developed symptoms on Monday, sought outpatient treatment at a medical clinic and has since recovered.

She has no recent history of travel overseas and her movements were largely confined to her residence and nearby places. MOH has conducted active case detection among her seven household contacts. None was tested positive for chikungunya virus.

The second case involved a foreign worker, a 40-year-old Chinese national, who works and resides at Sungei Kadut Street 1. He developed symptoms on 4 August and was admitted to the Communicable Diseases Centre three days later.

MOH says he has no recent history of travel overseas and his movements were largely confined to his workplace and nearby places.

MOH has conducted active case detection among his 38 co-workers at his workplace. None was tested positive for chikungunya virus.

NEA is carrying out vector control operations in the premises around the cases' residences, including the common and public areas.

Areas where the cases frequented are also being inspected for mosquito breeding.

So far, five premises in the vicinity of the case residing at Woodlands St 81 were found breeding the Aedes mosquito.

NEA's checks in the respective areas are continuing.

95 cases of chikungunya fever were notified to MOH so far this year.

- 938LIVE.

10 more with chikungunya
Lee Hui Chieh, Straits Times 9 Aug 08;

TEN more people have caught chikungunya here, the Health Ministry said yesterday.

They include eight workers from Kranji Way (see other report 'Kranji fogged to control outbreak'), a foreign worker living and working at a factory in Sungei Kadut Street 1, and a housewife in Woodlands Street 81.

The Sungei Kadut worker, a 40-year-old Chinese national, fell ill on Monday and was admitted to the Communicable Disease Centre (CDC) three days later.

The housewife, 27, fell ill also on Monday, but has since recovered after seeing a doctor.

Health officers have screened the worker's 38 colleagues, as well as the seven people living with the housewife. All have been found clear.

The National Environment Agency (NEA), after blitzing the areas surrounding the affected factory and home, have so far found five premises near the housewife's home breeding the Aedes mosquito which transmits the chikungunya virus.

All of the latest patients probably contracted the mosquito-borne, dengue-like disease while here.

This brings this year's total tally of those infected while in Singapore to 49. A further 46 caught the disease overseas.

This is the first year in which the infection has spread locally. Thirteen people who became ill in 2006 and last year were infected abroad.

The growth in the number of cases here follows a rising trend in other countries, noted the CDC's clinical director, Associate Professor Leo Yee Sin.

For example, Malaysia has already chalked up a record high of 136 chikungunya patients this year, up from fewer than 100 patients for the whole of last year.

Prof Leo added that Singapore was at high risk as the Aedes mosquito flourishes here. Also, the people have no immunity to the disease, and many travel overseas or visit from abroad.

Investigations are still ongoing to see if the local cases here are linked, a Health Ministry spokesman said yesterday.

She urged travellers to areas which have had chikungunya outbreaks, such as Malaysia, Indonesia and India, to wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants when outdoors and to use insect repellent.

Singapore residents should take steps to prevent mosquito breeding, she said.

Kranji fogged to control outbreak
Chikungunya hits 28 in area; health officers destroy sites found to be breeding mosquitoes
Lee Hui Chieh, Straits Times 9 Aug 08;

IT WOULD have been a 10-minute walk from his Kranji workplace to a nearby clinic - in normal conditions.

But Mr T. Shankar took 45 minutes to hobble there, nursing a 39.5 deg C fever and doubled over in pain from swollen ankles, knees, wrists and fingers.

The Chennai native, 32, said: 'It was so painful that I couldn't sit down, stand up, lie down or walk. The soles of my feet were on fire.'

He was among 28 infected in a chikungunya outbreak at Kranji Way, which has since become the largest cluster of victims of the mosquito- borne disease here.

Before this, the first and largest outbreak in January had infected 13 people living or working in Little India.

In the Kranji outbreak, two foreign workers from a firm making building materials and a Singaporean making a delivery there were the first three victims reported at the end of last month.

Health officers, who screened 282 workers in the area, found 15 more patients from the company, including Mr Shankar, and two more working at a storage yard next door.

In the past three days, eight more workers from the company have fallen ill and been admitted to the Communicable Disease Centre (CDC), the Health Ministry said yesterday.

The group comprises two Singaporeans and a Malaysian, as well as two Bangladeshis and three Indian nationals who live on the company's grounds.

Officers from the National Environment Agency (NEA) checked more than 28 factories in the area, fogged their indoor and outdoor areas and destroyed mosquito-breeding sites in 16 of them.

It was an alert general practitioner who raised the alarm in the Kranji outbreak. Dr Yip Mang Meng's suspicions were aroused when five men limped into his Kranji Road clinic one after another, all with high fevers and severe joint pains.

They each took two to three minutes just to stagger from the waiting area into his consultation room, he said.

Dr Yip, 60, said: 'It was like they were suffering from gout and arthritis. And they couldn't grip with their hands because it was too painful.'

He sent their blood samples to be tested for dengue, malaria and chikungunya. It turned out that the lab he had sent them to did not do tests for chikungunya, though the blood samples were negative for dengue and malaria.

The next day, July 31, two more patients limped in with the same symptoms. Dr Yip sent their blood samples to the NEA's Environmental Health Institute, which has been running tests on blood samples collected by health officers. When those came back positive, he notified the Health Ministry.

No cure exists for the disease, which usually lasts three to 10 days and then goes away. It is rarely fatal.

Being told this by a doctor came as a huge relief to Mr Shankar. His fever subsided after three days, but returned after a week. The joint pains lingered.

He found out about chikungunya only after CDC health officers screened him on the day his fever came back. He was hospitalised for four days.

'I wouldn't wish for anybody to suffer this pain,' he said.

DAEDALUS: TECHNOLOGICAL TRIUMPHS AND CHALLENGES
What endemic chikungunya?
Andy Ho, Straits Times 9 Aug08;

BEFORE last week, there had been 51 chikungunya cases detected here since January. But just this week alone, a further 18 cases have popped up.

First identified in 1952 in an outbreak along the border between Tanganyika and Mozambique, the illness resembles dengue, with high fever and serious joint pains among its symptoms. The haemorrhagic illness common with dengue is, however, rare with chikungunya, which is thus usually non-fatal.

When it first appeared in Singapore in 2006, its three cases - as well as the 10 recorded last year - were all imported. In January, however, local transmission was for the first time definitively detected among 13 people living near Tekka Mall.

The local cases have derived mainly from infected foreign workers from the Indian subcontinent, carriers who then became index cases here. India, in turn, gets the bug from Africa.

Genomic studies reveal that the virus originated more than a millennium ago in West Africa, then spread to other parts of Africa before invading Asia and circulating in the Indian Ocean region.

The last major epidemic began in Kenya in 2004, spread to several Indian Ocean islands early in 2005, where the outbreaks were massive, before jumping to India, and thence to Singapore.

How it is transmitted differs geographically. In Africa, it is largely a rural phenomenon, with the Aedes mosquito spreading the virus from animal reservoirs, probably monkeys, to humans. In Asia, it is transmitted in crowded urban settings from human to human by the Aedes Aegypti. Recently, one mutation of the virus that arose in different parts of the world independently and separately has enabled the bug to also ride on the Aedes Albopictus, which attacks only humans, not animals.

The local transmissions involve three different strains. But the bug is unlikely to have mutated from one into another and then yet another strain since just January. So the authorities think the local cases are not linked to one another. Instead, they must have come from different, presumably imported, index cases. That is, the virus is not endemic - yet.

Here is the good news: Chikungunya may well remain non-endemic for a long time to come if patterns for its outbreaks outside Africa stay the same.

Unlike most insect-borne viruses, including dengue, chikungunya seems to go into long periods of quiescence after an outbreak before it re-emerges in another epidemic. In Malaysia, it reappeared after its 1998/99 outbreak only in 2006. Indonesia had a 20-year hiatus after an outbreak in 1985. India was free from 1971 to 2005, and it was all quiet in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for 39 years, until 2004.

This is quite significant. Given the high birth rates in these countries, most of their young would have no immunity to the bug, so epidemics should logically be more, not less, likely. The reason they are not might be that the dengue and chikungunya viruses are genetically very different, though they cause similar illnesses.

The dengue virus is a Flavivirus while the chikungunya is an Alphavirus. The former is able to break free of its animal reservoir while chikungunya has not - and finds it hard to. If so, non-African outbreaks will eventually still have to come from animal reservoirs in Africa.

Of course, cheap air travel and the flood of migrant workers have helped the virus bridge the vast distance from Africa to Singapore. But the virus is unlikely to make its home here because it needs to find not just a hospitable animal reservoir but also animal 'amplifiers' as well.

Delinked from its animal reservoirs, the dengue virus just had to adapt to locally available mosquitoes before it spread like wildfire among humans. In contrast, the chikungunya virus may have to jump through many other hoops.

Experts think these are like those faced by another Alphavirus found in rodents. The Culex mosquito spreads this virus among rodents. For it to spill over to humans, it must first go through horses, which amplify its virulence. Hence its name: Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis virus.

But for it to run riot among horses, the virus must acquire a very specific mutation so it can infect the Aedes mosquito, which is able to transmit the virus among horses and from horse to man. (The subtype of the virus in rodents can use only Culex mosquitoes, whereas the subtype in horses can use only Aedes mosquitoes.)

But acquiring a very specific mutation is an event of very low probability. Moreover, that mutation cannot be 'kept' once an epidemic burns out. That specific mutation must be reacquired by the bug before it can trigger off another epidemic.

If the chikungunya virus is like this cousin Alphavirus, then it would still be linked to its animal reservoirs and yet-identified animal amplifiers. And it will need to reacquire, each time, precisely that very same mutation that enabled it to spread around the Indian Ocean region in 2005/06 and to Italy last year.

That is a very tall order indeed. So it is unlikely to become endemic here. If our mosquito-busting efforts stop the virus in its tracks quickly, it might just go quiescent - hopefully for decades - while it tries to reacquire that dastardly mutation.

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No haze in Singapore - for now

Tania Tan, Straits Times 9 Aug 08;

HERE is some good news on the haze front: Prevailing winds are currently blowing smoke in a south-east or southerly direction - away from Singapore for now, says the National Environment Agency (NEA).

Air quality in Singapore yesterday was a low 35 - well within the 'good' range.

Anything above 51 on the Pollutant Standards Index is considered 'moderate'; a reading higher than 101 is considered 'unhealthy'.

Dry weather has caused an increase in slash-and-burn activities in Sumatra, leading to more than 500 hot spots flaring up last weekend.

There were fears that this weekend would be haze-filled, but that appears not to be the case.

The number of hot spots dropped to just 15 yesterday, said the NEA - although this was largely the result of extensive cloud cover shrouding most of the island and making satellite detection difficult.

Smoke plumes were also absent on the radar yesterday, said experts from the Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing (Crisp) at the National University of Singapore.

'We have to wait for a clear day to really tell what the situation is like,' said Crisp associate scientist Chia Aik Song.

On the whole, burning in Sumatra appears widespread but still confined to relatively small fires, he noted.

Serious haze episodes, like one in 2006, are usually the result of major fires, characterised by clusters of hot spots, he explained.

More than 8,000 hot spots were recorded in Sumatra two years ago, when the air quality in Singapore climbed past the unhealthy 150 mark.

Over in the Riau capital of Pekanbaru, Mr Afdhal Mahyuddin said warnings from the local government went out several days ago to stem slash-and-burn practices.

The air quality so far is normal, said the editor of the Eyes On The Forest website, a non-profit site focusing on the conservation of Indonesian forests.

'People are not wearing face masks yet.'

But he stopped short of saying that the haze threat had been licked.

'We're not sure whether the warnings have been heeded,' he said. 'I don't think they have been.'

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Haze disrupts air traffic in Indonesian province, says official

Yahoo News 8 Aug 08;

Thick haze from forest fires shrouded the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan Friday and disrupted air traffic, an airport official said.

"Two planes from Jakarta to Pontianak airport were delayed this morning due to the thick haze," Pontianak airport operational chief Edi Widodo told AFP.

He said the haze -- a recurring problem of the dry season which also affects neighbouring countries -- had hampered visibility since Thursday morning.

"It has happened since yesterday but the most significant disruption was this morning when it reached only 500 metres (yards)," he said.

The number of forest fires on Indonesian Borneo has soared over the past three days due to land clearing, raising concerns of foul air over Malaysia and Singapore.

The dry season from June to the end of September is the period of highest risk for the haze, which contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions.

Haze over Indonesia's Sumatra, flights delayed
Reuters 8 Aug 08;

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Choking smoke from forest fires hung over parts of Indonesia's Sumatra island on Friday, forcing a delay in flights, and prompting fears that conditions could worsen because of lack of rain, officials said.

About 450 hot spots have been detected across Indonesia, and forestry officials have warned that the number could exceed last year's total of 35,000 as the dry season this year is likely to be marked by less rain than usual.

"This morning two planes were delayed for half an hour because the visibility was only 200 meters (656 ft) because smoke and smog shrouded the airport," said Slamet Riyadi, analyst at Riau Meteorology and Geophysics Agency, referring to the airport in Pekanbaru, the provincial capital of Riau.

The number of hotspots had risen to 393 in West Kalimantan island on Borneo island, although the number in Sumatra had decreased after light rain late on Thursday, officials said.

Indonesia's neighbors have grown increasingly frustrated by the annual fires, most of which are deliberately lit by farmers, or by timber and plantation firms, to clear land for cultivation.

Depending on wind patterns, the smoke regularly blows across nearby Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, causing a health hazard and threatening tourism.

Most of the fires so far this year were on land being used for cultivation, although some were in forested areas, said Sonny Partono, head of forest fire control at the forestry ministry.

The ministry has said it is deploying 1,500 personnel to fight fires this year, assisted by community groups.

(Reporting by Olivia Rondonuwu; Editing by Ed Davies and Sanjeev Miglani)

Haze disrupts air traffic in Indonesia
Flights delayed in Riau, Kalimantan; lack of rain may worsen conditions
Straits Times 9 Aug 08;

JAKARTA: Choking smoke from forest fires hung over parts of Indonesia yesterday, forcing delays in flights and prompting fears that conditions could worsen because of a lack of rain.

About 450 hot spots have been detected across Indonesia, and forestry officials have warned that the number could exceed last year's total of 35,000. This is because the dry season this year is likely to be marked by less rain than usual.

'This morning, two planes were delayed for half an hour as visibility was only 200m because smoke and smog had shrouded the airport,' said Mr Slamet Riyadi, an analyst at the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) in Riau, referring to the airport in Pekanbaru, the provincial capital of Riau.

Local stations of the BMG have been issuing warnings about the thickening haze, caused by forest fires that have broken out in several places in South Sumatra, Jambi and Riau over the past few days.

The haze in Padang has exceeded the acceptable level and is dangerous for the human respiratory system, Mr Amarizal, head of information and observation at the BMG Tabing station in West Sumatra, warned on Thursday.

By that day, visibility had fallen to between 50m and 100m, forcing Padang's Minangkabau International Airport to delay a number of flights.

'We also strongly suggest the airport cancel any landings if visibility is low,' Mr Amarizal said.

In South Sumatra, BMG Kenten climatology station head Muhammad Irdam said the province had reached a very high dryness level of 1,575. The normal level is between 1,000 and 1,500.

He called on people to think twice before doing anything that could start a fire.

'Even a cigarette butt could cause a major fire here at this time because of the extreme dryness and strong wind,' he said.

He added that the haze thickness level in the province was still considered normal.

However, it was still enough to disrupt flight schedules at Palembang's Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin (SMB) international airport and land transportation across South Sumatra.

Along the Indralaya-Palembang highway, motorists were forced to move slowly because smoke from burning peat moss fields along the road had reduced visibility.

Officials say the haze is expected to reach its peak in the next two months.

'If no rain falls during the next two months and the temperature rises to 34degC, then there will be a greater likelihood of forest fires here, meaning the haze will be much thicker,' said Mr Setiadi, head of BMG's SMB international airport station.

While the number of hot spots in Sumatra has decreased after light rain late on Thursday, the number in West Kalimantan on Borneo island has risen to 393.

'Two planes from Jakarta to Pontianak airport were delayed this morning due to the thick haze,' Pontianak airport operational chief Edi Widodo told the Agence France-Presse.

'It has happened since yesterday but the most significant disruption was this morning, when visibility reached only 500m,' he said.

Indonesia's neighbours have grown increasingly frustrated by the annual fires, most of which are started deliberately by farmers or timber and plantation firms to clear land for cultivation.

Depending on wind patterns, the smoke regularly blows across nearby Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, causing a health hazard and threatening tourism.

Most of the fires so far this year were on land being used for cultivation, although some were in forested areas, said Mr Sonny Partono, the head of forest fire control at the forestry ministry.

The ministry is deploying 1,500 personnel to fight fires this year, assisted by community groups.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK

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Deep mystery: why sea turtles plumb the depths

Yahoo News 7 Aug 08;

Researchers say they have figured out why sea turtles that normally feed and breed in shallow water or on land will, very rarely, go deep sea diving: the reptiles are on reconnaissance.

Scientists have long puzzled over why leatherbacks are built to plumb the icy depths.

Imagine someone donning a complete set of scuba gear -- tanks, buoyancy compensator, regulator -- only to paddle about the surface of a shallow lagoon. What's the point?

The mystery deepens. Not only are the turtles equipped with myoglobin-rich blood ideal for stocking oxygen, they sometimes plunge more than a kilometer (three-quarters of a mile) below the surface.

Jonathan Houghton and colleagues from the University of Swansea in Britain conducted experiments to find out why the lumbering sea creatures make these rare forays, and published their findings Friday in the British Journal of Experimental Biology.

The researchers fitted 13 leatherbacks with data loggers which recorded location, temperature, dive depth and duration, and transmitted the information to satellites as the animals surfaced.

Of more than 26,000 dives logged all across the North Atlantic Ocean, only 95 -- less than half of one percent -- went below three hundred meters.

Several theories have competed to explain these out-of-character deep dives.

Some researchers argue that the egg-laying reptiles go below to escape predators, while others speculate they simply want to cool off.

A third hypothesis is that the turtles are on the hunt for deep-sea delicacies.

But Houghton's findings suggest all these theories are off the mark.

A turtle trying to avoid becoming some fish's lunch would surely swim a bit more vigorously that usual, but the data collected indicates they were in no hurry as they plunged.

Moreover turtles spent several hours at the surface just before deep diving, probably to boost oxygen efficiency.

"Hanging out at the surface would be a daft strategy for avoiding predators, because that is where they can spot your silhouette," said Houghton.

As for keeping cool, temperatures don't drop much after the 350-meter mark, so there's little incentive to go any deeper.

But the food hypothesis, the study found, may be at least half right: even if the turtles don't eat the food they find at extreme depth, they probably find the food they will eat -- later on.

Leatherbacks like to dine on surface-dwelling jellyfish, but during the months spent travelling from their tropical breeding grounds in the Caribbean to cooler waters, they rely on jellyfish-like animals that form long colonies during the day at depths of about 600 meters.

The turtles, Houghton speculates, dive when the sun is out to find the colonies, and then wait form them to surface at night to begin feasting.

This would explain why the leatherbacks often loiter in the same area for days or weeks after such a deep dive, he said.

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Poaching in India may increase as China opens ivory market

Sanjeeb Baruah, ICT by IANS Thaindia 8 Aug 08;

New Delhi, Aug 8 (IANS) Elephant poaching in India may increase as China plans to open its domestic market for limited sale of ivory products after a UN committee gave its consent, experts have said.

The CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna) recently allowed China to import 108 tonnes of elephant ivory from Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. China is considered the world’s largest ivory market.

Conservationists here said it would enthuse the illegal ivory market in China that could lead to increased poaching in India.

Experts say there are just about 26,000 to 30,000 wild elephants in the country. They face multiple threats of poaching, depleting habitat and food scarcity.

The four African countries were allowed to sell a combined 108 tonnes of raw ivory as part of a one-off sale before a nine-year trade ban comes into force.

Ashok Kumar, vice chairman of the NGO Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) said: “The CITES decision is a serious setback to elephant conservation which may trigger renewed poaching for ivory in the country.

“India is more vulnerable, since there are few tuskers (In Asian elephants only the male has tusks). The skewed sex ratio of elephants has been a serious concern already.

“When Japan was allowed to lift ivory stocks from these countries in 1999, we saw an increase in elephant poaching in the country.

“We may witness the same situation in the near future. The real danger is that the small number of tuskers could be wiped out unless we have a plan to counter this,” Kumar, a member of the CITES committee on the big cats, told IANS.

According to a WTI estimate, poachers killed at least 220 elephants between 1998 and 1999 in India, whereas in 1997 the number was just about 74.

The UN banned the ivory trade in 1989 after the mass slaughter of elephants in Asia and Africa came to light. However in 1999, the committee revised its position and allowed Namibia and Zimbabwe to sell 34 tonnes of registered ivory stocks to Japan.

These southern African countries saw an increase in elephant population in the last decade. This has been a major source of conflict with humans, who try to protect crops from marauding elephants.

The ivory stocks are from elephants that died of natural causes or were killed in population-management programmes.

Last year, the committee gave Japan the status of a trading partner in the deal, while the decision on China was announced July 15 this year. Both countries had applied to the CITES to obtain the items.

WTI said in one of the biggest seizures in June 2002, Singapore authorities seized six tonnes of ivory, including 532 raw ivory tusks and 40,810 ivory hankos (Japanese name for seals). A Japanese importer reportedly ordered the illegal shipment.

Japan was therefore in violation of its CITES obligations, said Vivek Menon, South Asia director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

An IFAW survey of Asian ivory markets showed the ivory from Asian elephants was considered superior in Japan for making hankos.

Besides, the difficulty in distinguishing Asian ivory from African would allow traders to target elephants across its range.

Experts observed that the number of seizures and the volume of trade increased manifold after Japan was allowed to buy African ivory.

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Clean-up bid? What garbage

Straits Times 9 Aug 08;

WASHINGTON: Clean-up efforts have slowed and garbage continues to pile up in a remote chain of Pacific islands that United States President George W. Bush two years ago made the biggest and most environmentally protected area of ocean in the world.

He declared the 362,600 sq km chain of islands in north-western Hawaii the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in June 2006.

His proclamation featured some of the strictest measures ever placed on a marine environment, including a prohibition on any material that might injure its sensitive coral reefs and 7,000 rare species, a fourth of them found nowhere else in the world.

The proclamation hasn't worked.

Ocean currents still bring an estimated 57 tonnes of garbage and discarded fishing gear to the 10 islands and waters surrounding them each year.

The Bush administration slashed the clean-up budget by 80 per cent from the US$2.1 million (S$2.9 million) spent in 2005 and requested only US$400,000 annually up to this year.

Mr Bush now wants an extra US$100,000 for removing the lighters, plastic bottles, refrigerators and fishing nets that litter the area's beaches and get snagged on its reefs. But the total amount he would spend next year is still only 25 per cent of what was spent four years ago.

'Unfortunately, in recent years, the US has not made picking up trash in our most special places in the ocean a priority,' said Dr Elliott Norse, president of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute in Washington state.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Wetlands as a solution to treating wastewater in southern Thailand

Johannes Kaltenbach, Malteser International - Germany, Reuters Alert 8 Aug 08;

Following the catastrophic tsunami in 2004, the rehabilitation of housing and the rebuilding of communities were the main focus of much of the relief and development work.

Malteser International piloted a wetland wastewater treatment plant in a relocated community on Koh Mook Island. The objective was to improve their sanitation facilities and offer a community based solution to environmental protection for a local fishing community by providing a wetland sewage treatment plant.

The lack of proper sanitation and hygiene facilities is a major concern for rural villages in southern Thailand. Coastal communities are suffering the consequences of pollution through untreated wastewater and solid waste. Diseases related to unhygienic conditions are widespread and harmful, particularly amongst children.

The sea has become polluted and therefore the source of income, marine products and tourism, are also in danger. The rehabilitation after the tsunami offered an ideal turning point.

By (re-) constructing settlements with a holistic concept, offering appropriate technology for waste treatment, the living conditions for the villagers could be made more sustainable in the areas of hygiene, sanitation and income generation.

A solution for the communities must be tailored to their requirements using simple and easily manageable techniques.

Wetland technology for treating waste water offers these requirements. Moreover, it provides an alternative for rural and small communities to treat sewage on a biological base with the outcome of a clean effluent according to international standards.

Thus, less pollution leads to better water quality in the shallow wells, no polluted run off into the sea, a clean environment, and fewer diseases.

The wastewater treatment plant is located on Koh Mook Island at a relocation site which covers 102 houses newly built by Safe Andaman Network and Malteser International. The construction area is located in a mangrove forest and therefore offers a real challenge for the constructors.

Wastewater (80 l per person per day) is collected from every household in a septic tank, where the sludge is separated. From here it is transported through pipes to pumping pits and finally pumped into the sub-terra reed beds.

In the beds it is evenly distributed through irrigation pipes. By percolating through a filter layer and treatment through the roots of the plants in the bed it is cleaned and the effluent is collected and drained as clean water into the mangroves.

However, the effluent can be used for agricultural and other purposes as e.g. flushing toilets. The whole system is easy to handle and runs automatically with a control unit switching pumps on and off.

A wastewater user group will be trained in the operation and maintenance of the system.

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Ethical coffee helps save Peruvian rainforest

Emmanuel Angleys, Yahoo News 8 Aug 08;

Once bleak and lifeless places degraded by years of high-impact farming, Peruvian coffee farms are being transformed by a growing trend for certification schemes offering ethical and environmental guarantees to western consumers.

One scheme run by the Rainforest Alliance has helped farmers in eastern Peru return to traditional ways of farming, finally laying to rest the damaging maximum production techniques of the 1970s.

"My parents systematically deforested in order to plant more coffee plants. Now we know that this was a mistake," said Evangelino Condori Rojas who has a small plantation near Quillabamba in the east of the country.

The plantation was one of the first to be certified by the New York-based organisation.

Its seal of approval gives consumers an assurance that the coffee they buy has been produced according to a range of criteria that balance ecological, economic and social considerations.

Coffee certified by the Rainforest Alliance is guaranteed to have been produced on farms where rivers, soil and wildlife are protected.

"The certification is a mechanism to avoid the slide towards deforestation," said Gerardo Medina of the Rainforest Alliance in Peru.

Such schemes are increasingly popular worldwide as a way of bolstering consumer concerns.

They typically offer guarantees on issues ranging from ethically-manufactured diamonds, pesticide-free food or the preservation of bird habitats.

Farm owners certified by the Rainforest Alliance are also required to meet specific standards on payment and treatment of workers.

The majority of Peru's coffee plantations are found in the eastern foothills of the Andes.

Here coffee was grown in the shade of rainforest for some 150 years until the 1970s when a new system promoted by agronomists saw the clearing of trees, according to the Rainforest Alliance.

As a result coffee bushes were packed into hedgerows and treated with agrochemicals, decimating wildlife and causing soil erosion and pollution of streams.

In addition to the environmental benefit that certification brings, farmers also find that the coffee sells for 15 to 20 percent more and part of the profits are used for developing infrastructure, according to Raul Del Aguila, head of the central agricultural cooperative Cocla.

The Rainforest Alliance, which is on good terms with manufacturers, started certifying coffee in Peru, Brasil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador in 2004.

"The marketing strategy is to persuade the big certified coffee purchasing groups that this corresponds to demand from consumers sensitized to the question of sustainable development," said Medina.

US food group Kraft Foods is the main purchaser of certified coffee from Peru.

Currently 5.7 percent of Peruvian coffee production is certified by the Rainforest Alliance. It aims to reach 14 percent by 2013.

The country currently has some 24,700 hectares (61,000 acres) on 7,200 farms used for producing certified coffee compared to 7,100 hectares (17,000 acres) and 1,600 farms in 2005, added Medina.

With uncertainty over global warming, farmers have become increasingly aware of the importance of farming that is ecologically friendly.

"One is already seeing the effects of climate change here. This year it has not rained very much and if that continues, we are going to have problems," said small plantation owner Isaias Zuniga.

Toucans are coming back to nest in the trees but "you no longer see monkeys or pumas," added his elderly mother Irene Paz Santacruz.

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California eyes cattails to combat climate change

Steve Lawrence, Associated Press Yahoo News 8 Aug 08;

On one side of the gravel road are hundreds of acres of corn. On the other is a different crop that scientists hope will enable farmers to rebuild sinking islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, combat global warming and make a profit at the same time.

The U.S. Geological Survey is growing tules and cattails on about 15 acres on Twitchell Island, about 5.7 square miles of rich but fragile peat soil 30 miles south of Sacramento.

Twitchell and other delta islands are slowing sinking, their soil eaten away by wind, rain and farming. Most are more than 20 feet below the surrounding water. A levee system keeps them from being flooded.

A collapse of the levees would bring in salt water from San Francisco Bay, damaging delta ecosystems and jeopardizing the state and federal programs that pump fresh water out of the delta for farms and cities to the south.

The Geological Survey project started 15 years ago as a small experiment on two 30-foot by 30-foot plots to see if growing mostly tules and cattails would help rebuild the islands' soil.

The plants can grow high enough to dwarf adults. As they die and decay, they slowly build up the peat. The soil under the 15-acre site has risen 1 to 2 feet since the project was moved there in 1996.

"All that soil out there are plants that grew 6,000 years ago and didn't decompose completely," said Robin Miller, a biogeochemist with the Geological Survey. "That's what peat is. So we're just making the same thing happen that happened here for millennia."

About 2 1/2 years ago, scientists noticed that their "big garden," as Miller calls it, was removing carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

"We were capturing a lot of (carbon dioxide) at levels much greater than other systems — marshes and forests, grasslands," said Roger Fujii, the project's director and the bay-delta program chief for the Geological Survey's California Water Science Center.

That revelation persuaded state and federal officials to expand the project. They are now trying to determine whether the tules and cattails could be used to combat global warming through what they call "carbon-capture" farming.

Under that scenario, companies could meet state greenhouse gas limits by paying delta farmers to plant tules and cattails rather than row crops.

"They can just sit back and watch the tules grow, and they should be making money," Fujii said. "That's what the vision is. It's not to do it just on Twitchell Island. It's to see if we can do it throughout the delta on subsided land."

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is at the heart of California's water delivery system. It's the meeting place of some of the state's largest rivers, draining an area stretching from the Cascades in Northern California to the central Sierra Nevada.

The region between the state capital and San Francisco Bay is dotted with dozens of islands, most of them surrounded by narrow canals and many used for farming.

With a three-year, $12.3 million grant from the state Department of Water Resources, the Geological Survey and its research partners at the University of California, Davis plan to move the project to a 300- to 400-acre site somewhere in the delta next year.

The larger size would enable farmers to see how "they could really make a difference," Fujii said.

A series of questions needs to be answered before scientists can conclude that carbon-capture farming is beneficial. Among them is whether turning cornfields into tule-filled wetlands will only replace one type of greenhouse gas with more of another.

Plowing for agriculture oxidizes the soil, creating "perfect banquet conditions" for microbes that eat the peat and release carbon dioxide, Miller said. Flooding the fields with low levels of water to make wetlands limits the oxygen but forces the microbes to turn to other compounds.

"When oxygen is limited, the bugs, the microbes, have to eat and breathe somehow," she said. "They will use sulfate, iron or some other compound. Instead of producing (carbon dioxide) at the end of the pathway ... they end up producing methane," another greenhouse gas.

Scientists also want to be sure that changing cornfields to wetlands won't increase a third greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide.

They also are trying to determine how to minimize another potential problem — dissolved organic matter, which leaches out of peat soil and plants when exposed to water.

When delta water containing dissolved organic matter is treated for drinking supplies, it forms something called "disinfection byproducts," compounds that are carcinogenic. Geological Survey scientists want to make sure that creating more wetlands won't increase levels of those compounds.

They also want to be sure that carbon-capture farming won't cause the release of mercury that has been washing into the delta from mining operations going back to the Gold Rush era.

If scientists can work out those problems, they hope to develop a manual showing farmers how to create their own carbon-capturing wetlands and keep them healthy.

Read more!

Kangaroo farming would cut greenhouse gases: study

Michael Perry, Reuters 7 Aug 08;

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Farming kangaroos instead of sheep and cattle in Australia could cut by almost a quarter the greenhouse gases produced by grazing livestock, which account for 11 percent of the nation's annual emissions, said a new study.

Removing seven million cattle and 36 million sheep by 2020 and replacing them with 175 million kangaroos, to produce the same amount of meat, could lower national greenhouse gases by 3 percent a year, said the University of New South Wales study.

Methane from the foregut of cattle and sheep constitutes 11 percent of Australia's total greenhouse emissions, but kangaroos produce negligible amounts of methane, said the study.

The study said methane was a principal concern in climate change because more than 500 million metric tons of the gas entered the atmosphere annually, which exceeds the amount that can be naturally removed.

Methane's warming potential over a 100-year time frame is 21 times higher than that of carbon dioxide, but its chemical lifetime in the atmosphere is only 8 to 12 years compared with carbon dioxide's 100 years.

"Therefore, reducing methane production is an attractive short-term target for mitigating global warming," said the study published in the latest edition of the international journal "Conservation Letters".

However, the study said changing farming practices in Australia, which is one of the world's top wool and beef producers but sells by comparison only small amounts of kangaroo meat for human consumption, would not be easy.

"The change will require large cultural and social adjustments and reinvestment. One of the impediments to change is protective legislation and the status of kangaroos as a national icon," it said.

The kangaroo is on Australia's coat of arms, but farmers regard the country's 34 million kangaroos as pests that compete for grazing pastures with sheep and cattle.

Australia is trying to develop a carbon emissions trading system by 2010, but the government has said agriculture would be excluded from the scheme.

Australia's greenhouse emissions totals 576 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, or about 1.5 percent of world emissions. But Australia emits 28.1 metric tons of carbon per person, the highest per capita in the developed world and five times more per person than China, due to use of coal for electricity.

Transport and energy accounts for the largest amount of emissions, at 69.6 percent, with agriculture creating 15.6 percent. Sheep and cattle alone produce 10.9 percent of emissions.

The study said farmers had few options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions other than changing feed stock, reducing livestock numbers or changing species. The study cited the growth of wildlife industries such as springbok farming in South Africa, red deer in Britain and bison in the United States.

"Using kangaroos to produce low-emission meat is an option for the Australian rangelands...and could even have global application," said the study.

(Editing by David Fogarty)

Kangaroo Meat Could Help Australia Cut Gas Emissions
Dave Hansford, National Geographic News 22 Aug 08;

Replacing much of Australia's beef and veal with kangaroo meat could significantly cut the continent's greenhouse gas emissions and save its native terrain, according to a new proposal.

A recent study suggests phasing out some 7 million cattle and 36 million sheep from Australian rangelands—semiarid land that doesn't naturally produce the grass that grazing animals require—and replacing them with kangaroos.

Because of their unique gut microbes, kangaroos emit much less methane than sheep and cattle, said lead author George Wilson, of Canberra consultancy Australian Wildlife Services.

"Methane is a very dangerous greenhouse gas—much more potent than carbon dioxide," he said.

Sheep and cattle are responsible for about 11 percent of Australian agricultural emissions, according to a government survey. Each cow produces 1.84 metric tons of greenhouse gas equivalents a year, and each sheep gives off more than 300 pounds (140 kilograms).

Kangaroos, meanwhile, emit less than seven pounds (three kilograms) of greenhouse gases. Under the study's proposal, that could translate into savings of 16 million tons of greenhouse gases annually—or 3 percent of Australia's total emissions.

The findings were published online last month in the journal Conservation Letters.

Profitable Pests?

Wilson estimated some 30 million kangaroos (including red kangaroos) already roam Australia's rangelands, where farmers typically regard them as pests. His proposal calls for the rangelands to be filled with five or six times that number.

The animals would become an asset to farmers, he said, if Australia includes agriculture—the sector that emits the most methane and nitrous oxide—in its Emissions Trading Scheme, a system the government is devising to impose charges on greenhouse polluters.

The government hopes to implement the scheme by 2010 but says it will not include agricultural emissions for another five years at least because of the difficulty in measuring them.

Wilson said the emissions saved by raising kangaroos could be worth about $650 million Australian (U.S. $570 million), based on current European carbon prices.

The impact would be strongest if livestock owners were required to purchase carbon permits to keep raising cattle and sheep, although such a scheme is far from being determined.

"If we let the kangaroo population rise to 175 million by 2020, farmers could be earning the same amount of money as they would be from cattle without that charge," he said.

"Completely Different Farming"

Peter Ampt, of the University of New South Wales, said Wilson's proposal "would require a completely different farming model."

Ampt, who is not involved with the study but is aligned with the cause, said: "Kangaroos are highly mobile and they don't herd very easily, so if you tried to apply a conventional farming model to kangaroos, there are a few obstacles."

The proposal would require farmers to "manage" kangaroos under a quota system as a wild resource, he said.

"It's a good model for conservation on private land," he added, because kangaroos would become valued instead of being regarded as pests.

"It costs an awful lot to run sheep and cattle on rangelands," he added. "You've got to maintain fences, stock water, you've got to bring them all in regularly and drench and vaccinate them. You don't have to do any of that with kangaroos."

Ampt also said conventional grazing has been "responsible for the loss a whole raft of small animals—bilbies and betongs and all those little creatures, which were incredibly important ecosystem engineers."

But How's It Taste?

The Australian government says kangaroo meat is increasingly popular.

Already available in Australian supermarkets, the meat could also be at grocer near you. The industry estimates that it exports to more than 55 countries and is looking for growth in the U.S. and Asian markets.

Ampt said the meat is "not unlike venison."

According to a government fact sheet, the meat's "growing appeal stems from its well-flavoured, slightly gamey taste."

Industry groups have posted free recipes online, and Ampt offered a little advice of his own.

"The way to cook it on a barbie," Ampt said, referring to a barbeque grill, "is you role it in some olive oil with a bit of garlic and a few herbs, and then you sear it on the barbie lightly, then let it sit for a while. It's really delicious."

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 8 Aug 08

Stork-billed Kingfisher catching armoured catfish
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

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Cockle liberation may harm environment

Letter from Brandon Seah, Straits Times Forum 8 Aug 08;

I READ with concern Tuesday's article, 'Temple devotees liberate 300,000 cockles', on cockles being liberated off Pulau Ubin by a group from a local Buddhist temple, as an act of merit.

While I understand the sentiments they bear, and appreciate that they believe they are doing something which benefits these animals, I must point out that their actions will probably harm the environment instead. However, because the 3 tonnes of cockles are covered by the waves, these effects may not be noticed so easily.

First, releasing so many cockles in one spot will probably attract predators from surrounding waters, so most of the cockles will be eaten soon after their release. Second, having been out of water and stored in sacks, these animals are in a weakened state, and most will probably not survive the shock of release. Third, when they die, their carcasses, being concentrated in a small area, will befoul the surrounding water by decomposition. Fourth, those that do survive will compete with native organisms for food and living space, resulting in an ecological upset.

Our local waters, despite pollution from shipping and other human activities, still contain much native marine life. These native organisms suffer whenever aliens are released in such quantity.

Read more!

10 green initiatives for ordinary Singaporeans

Letter from Maximilian Png, Straits Times Forum 8 Aug 08;

IN LINE with the Transport Minister's new policy of BMW (nothing to do with the German car maker - 'Next time you take a trip, instead of driving, consider taking the Bus, the MRT and Walk'), here are some ideas to save energy.

1. Cut down on use of long-sleeved shirt and tie. What's wrong with a short- sleeved shirt? Even people like Bill Gates of Microsoft, Steve Jobs of Apple and Sergei Brin of Google don't wear such attire. It also means no more embarrassing perspiration stains. This will lower the need for air-conditioning at freezing temperatures.

2. Switch on car air-conditioning only between 10am and 6pm. Contrary to what some people think, car air-conditioning does not filter out dust, smoke or odour particles - you can still smell that durian truck next to your car.

3.Do not charge your phone or laptop battery too often and too long, such as by plugging it into the socket and leaving the switch on overnight. Not only does this waste electricity, it also damages the battery, resulting in a shorter battery life, forcing you to charge more often.

4. Install chits at your windows and doors (such as the ones at your balcony). They are very effective at cutting down light (and thus heat) that enters the house.

5. Switch off your monitor when you are not using your computer. Many people simply shut down without switching off the monitor, which is a waste of electricity. Also switch off your monitor if you are going away for a short while and don't want to put the computer on standby.

6. Go outdoors to study or read. Not only will you enjoy a better environment, and not be cooped up in your room, but you also save electricity from your lights.

7. Refrigerators. Do not open and close the doors unnecessarily, and try to open at the smallest angle required. Immediately repair leaking fridges (if you can slide an A4 paper back and forth between the rubber sealing easily, it is leaking), and try to use only one refrigerator.

8. Re-use glasses and mugs. There really is no need to drink apple juice, wash the glass, then one hour later drink a glass of water. Unless the previous liquid was one that leaves unwanted dreck (such as bits of Milo powder), keep the glass aside for later use.

9. Cut down on washing your car. I have seen many people wash their car as often as every two days. This is an enormous waste of water. Once a week is perfectly okay - the car does not increase in value the more you wash it.

10. Spread the word. It is amazing what the multiplier effect does, and by positively pressuring your family and friends or even embarking on a project to educate others in what they can do.

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Hidden, a 3.5 Million Trash Heap Lies in the Ocean

The Great Pacific Garbage Dump Stretches From California to China
Darcy Bonfils and Imaeyen Ibanga, ABC News 6 Aug 08;

The world's largest trash dump doesn't sit on some barren field outside an urban center. It resides thousands of miles from any land  in the Pacific Ocean.

Bottle caps, soap bottles, laundry baskets and shards of plastic are just a few things that float in the ocean's vastness. Known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the "dump" is composed mainly of plastic, which isn't biodegradable.

Instead, the plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces in the patch that extends thousands of miles, from California's coast to China.

Charles Moore, who discovered the trash heap by accident in 1997 when he was sailing the Pacific, collects samples of the growing garbage bin. Some of his samples have contained six times more plastic than plankton.

"It is like a minestrone and ... a lot of the vegetables are plastic," said Moore, who stages regular trips to the garbage patch for research.

A series of currents in the Pacific Ocean create a circular effect that pulls debris from North America, Asia and the Hawaiian Islands into a toxic stew. Then it shoots it into a graveyard of 3.5 million tons of trash that's 80 percent plastic.

Moore said he has noticed an alarming trend. The quantities have increased dramatically -- more than doubling in five years. And Moore said there is no reason to believe the trend will slow.

And the plastic isn't just floating around in the ocean; new evidence suggests it is making its way into wildlife.

"I found 26 pieces of plastic, all different colors inside one stomach," said marine researcher Christiana Boerger.

Birds also are making a meal of the plastic, and large quantities have been found in their stomachs.

But the biggest debate surrounding the patch isn't its existence or its environmental impact, but rather how to clean it up.

"The experts say there is no silver bullet. We are going to keep looking, but at the moment it is not clear what the best course of action would be to deal with the materials that are already there," said Steve Russell of the American Chemical Council.

Moore, the patch's discoverer, said it's virtually impossible to clean it up. He said that stopping it from growing may be the best approach, which also may prevent other ocean dumps from forming.

Beach cleanups and improved recycling could help.

"The planet is a closed system. So everything that happens on Earth stays on Earth," said Steve Fleischl, president of the Waterkeeper Alliance . "What we need to do is to accept responsibility at the local level and rescue the amount of plastic that comes down our waterways and into our ocean."

Read more!

Indonesia warns over forest fires on Borneo

Yahoo News 7 Aug 08;

The number of forest fires on Indonesian Borneo has soared over the past two days due to land clearing, raising concerns it could lead to haze over Malaysia and Singapore, an official said Thursday.

More than 400 forest fires from traditional farming methods -- blamed for the smoke which shrouds the region annually -- were being monitored on Indonesian Borneo Thursday compared to 217 on Wednesday, officials said.

"It's doubled again to 415 hotspots, mostly from West Kalimantan," Israr Albar, a forestry ministry official monitoring the forest fires via satellite, told AFP.

He said 65 percent of hotspots recorded were from land clearing by local residents and the rest were from commercial plantation operations.

State-owned Antara news agency reported that the increasing number of forest fires had affected the air quality in Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan, despite government promises to control the annual burn-off.

"The air quality has been unhealthy for the last few days," the head of the provincial environmental impact agency was quoted as saying.

Malaysian environmental department director-general Rosnani Ibrahim said earlier this week that "we are concerned with the increasing number of hotspots," although there was no sign yet of a haze as a result.

The number of hotspots in Sumatra also showed a dramatic increase over the weekend, according to Malaysian meteorologists.

The dry season from June to the end of September is the period of highest risk for the haze, which has poisoned the air in neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore several times.

Experts also warn that the haze contributes significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions and could be impacting on climate change.

Read more!

Hundreds of invasive crayfish killed by disease

Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 8 Aug 08;

A deadly plague is thought to have wiped out hundreds of crayfish in a river system.

All the creatures killed so far have been from an invasive species - the Turkish crayfish - but there are fears the disease could spread to the native white-clawed crayfish.

The dead crayfish were found by a ranger in the lower River Colne in Colchester, Essex and samples have now been sent for analysis to the Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) in Weymouth.

But the crustaceans are thought to have been killed by the highly-virulent fungal disease Aphanomyces astaci, commonly known as crayfish plague.

A similar outbreak on the River Waveney in nearby Suffolk last October killed thousands of crayfish

The risk of the disease spreading piles further pressure on the native crayfish which has already been driven to local extinction on many of the waterways in southern England by the relentless advance of another invasive species the American Signal crayfish.

Larger than the native crayfish it was introduced to be farmed for the restaurant trade but many escaped and quickly became established in rivers and lakes. The voracious Signal eats almost anything in its path including plants, snails and fish and has quickly displaced the native crayfish. It also carries a variation of the plague which is harmless to itself but which is fatal to its English cousin.

The Turkish crayfish was also brought into the UK as a food source but has not spread as quickly as the Signal.

The population in the Colchester area has not been big enough to cause problems and the loss of significant numbers to the plague may even help native river wildlife.

"It is usually found at the bottom of the river and tends only to appear when other species of crayfish have moved on," said Environment Agency Fisheries, Recreation and Biodiversity officer Julia Stansfield.

"Although only Turkish crayfish have been affected so far we think it will be only a matter of time before it spreads to the native species and that would be a disaster. There are no native crayfish left in the Colne but there are still some remnants in the River Stour and the River Chelmer."

The Environment Agency is asking anglers and other river users to be aware of the dangers of spreading the disease and is urging them to clean and disinfect equipment such as keep-nets.

Ironically it may be people who are trapping bigger invasive crayfish for food - at the same time helping cut numbers in the river - who are spreading the disease.

Julia Stansfield explained: "One possible route for the spread of this disease is use of unlicenced crayfish traps. The idea of this 'wild food' is much in vogue.

"While this is safe to do in parts of the country where native crayfish have already been wiped out, in the east of England we are trying to protect one of the last strongholds.

'If members of the public notice dead crayfish in any other rivers, please let the Environment Agency know as soon as possible.'

Read more!

Australia's marine climate shifting south

Science Alert 8 Aug 08;

Australian Institute of Marine Science

Since the 1950s, average sea surface temperatures in northeast and northwest tropical Australian waters have increased steadily, causing a 200km shift southwards of climate zones along the northeast coast and an expansion in the area that can be designated "the tropics".

According to senior AIMS scientist and climate change team leader Dr Janice Lough, who has published her findings in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, if current trends continue, annual sea surface temperatures in northern Australian tropical waters could be around half a degree warmer and those of more southern parts about two degrees warmer within the next 100 years, with dire consequences for our coral reefs, particularly those in the more southerly areas.

This work provides further evidence of a significant widening of the global tropical belt.

"These rapid changes in oceanic climate are already causing responses in Australia’s tropical marine ecosystems and, if present rates continue, these will only intensify," Dr Lough said.

Many components of Australia’s unique tropical ecosystems are sensitive and vulnerable to the changing climate, as are many of Australia’s marine flora and fauna. Although well protected, Australia’s tropical reefs have not been immune to already observed impacts of a changing climate, such as mass coral bleaching events linked to warmer waters.

Dr Lough has analysed temperature records going back to 1950, seeking answers to the following questions: has Australia’s tropical climate already changed? Are rates of warming similar along the northwest and northeast coasts? Are there latitudinal differences in the rate of warming?

Her study used instrumental sea surface temperature (SST) records to examine annual average, maximum and minimum sea surface temperatures. Each variable has a profound impact on coral growth and health. She has found that Australia’s tropical ocean climate has already changed and that the rates of change vary in different regions.

Dr Lough’s work is part of an attempt to gather hard data on regional variation in the impacts of climate change. It has long been known that climate change effects are not evenly distributed and will affect different areas in different ways.

She has found that annual sea surface temperatures down to around 30 degrees south (about level with Coffs Harbour on the east coast) have already warmed between 1950 and 2007. This warming has shifted average climatic zones by about 200km southwards on the east coast and about half that distance on the west coast.

"A possible indicator of greater thermal stress in the southern Great Barrier Reef is the evidence from three recent large-scale coral bleaching events," Dr Lough said. These were recorded in 1998 and 2002 over large areas of the Reef, and in a more limited range in 2006.

"The rapidity and magnitude of warming along Australia’s tropical coastal regions is of great concern for maintenance of the integrity of their diverse tropical ecosystems, especially coral reefs," she said.

Read more!

Extreme rainstorms will rise by 10 per cent by 2050

Roger Highfield, The Telegraph 7 Aug 08;

Predictions that our warming world will become a wetter place have been confirmed by a study which suggests that extreme rainstorms will rise by more than 10 per cent by the year 2050.

For some time, computer models of the global climate have predicted that global warming will increase the intensity of rainfall and it is these extremes, linked with landslides and flooding, that are among the major impacts.

Today, in the journal Science, a study conducted at the University of Reading and the University of Miami provides the first hard evidence to confirm the link between a warmer climate and more powerful rainstorms, suggesting that extreme events may be even more common than predicted.

To understand how rainfall responds to a warmer climate, the researchers used a natural long term climate pattern called El Niño, a warming originating in the Pacific off South America that influences weather patterns around the globe.

Based on nearly 20 years of satellite observations the team could examine the relationship between tropical rainfall and changes in surface temperature as well as in atmospheric moisture.

In this way, they found a distinct link between tropical rainfall extremes and temperature, with heavy rain events increasing during warm periods and decreasing during cold periods.

"A warmer atmosphere contains larger amounts of moisture which boosts the intensity of heavy downpours," said Dr Brian Soden, at the University of Miami.

Changes in heavy rainfall seem to keep pace with atmospheric moisture which rises by around 7 per cent for each ºC of warming. Based on computer models, this could mean an increase in the intensity of heavy rainfall of around 10 per cent by 2050.

However, the observed increase in extreme downpours appears to be larger than the increases predicted by current computer simulations, suggesting that predicted changes in rainfall due to global warming may be underestimated, either because of flawed measurements or because computer models lack some key understanding, for instance of the action of aerosol particles in the atmosphere.

The researchers say it is difficult to be precise about the underestimate and add that it is crucial to determine the cause for this discrepancy as soon as possible in order to accurately understand the implications of global warming and its effects on the water cycle.

"Comparing observations with results from computer models improves understanding of how rainfall responds to a warming world" said Dr Richard Allan, NERC advanced fellow at the University of Reading's Environmental Systems Science Centre. "Differences can relate to deficiencies in the measurements, or the models used to predict future climatic change.

"Heavy rain in the tropics is often associated with thunderstorms and the same processes will also apply in the UK, particularly in summer where intense downpours are fueled by the additional moisture carried by warm, humid air.

"One of the most serious challenges that humanity will face in response to climate change is adapting to changes inextreme weather events. There is a major concern that heavy rainstorms will become more common and more intense in a warmer climate.

"Floods can completely devastate areas and people's livelihoods and so this knowledge could have massive implications on how we plan for our changing climate in the future."

Tropical downpours worsening, say scientists
Alister Doyle, Reuters 7 Aug 08;

OSLO (Reuters) - Tropical downpours are becoming more frequent and the trend seems worse than expected, bringing greater risks of flash floods, scientists said on Thursday.

"As the tropics warm are seeing an increased frequency in the heaviest rainfall," said Richard Allan of the University of Reading in England, who co-authored a study of tropical rains with Brian Soden of the University of Miami.

The satellite review of tropical rainstorms since the 1980s gave the first observational evidence to confirm computer models that predict more intense cloudbursts because of global warming stoked by human activities, they said.

Writing in the journal Science, they also said the trend to extreme soakings was stronger than predicted by computer models "implying that projections of future changes in rainfall extremes ... may be underestimated".

The findings were based on a study of the tropical oceans, where satellites can more easily record rainfall. Allan said the trends were likely to be matched over land.

The U.N. Climate Panel, drawing on the work of 2,500 scientists, said last year that rainfall was likely to get more intense in many tropical regions, raising risks of flash floods, erosion and mudslides.

The satellite data showed 2-3 times more intense downpours than predicted by the climate models, stoked by rising emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels in cars, factories and power plants.

But Allan told Reuters that the finding that the models were too cautious was less certain than the conclusion that tropical rainfall had become more intense. Checks might be made on land by examining rain gauges or river flows, he said.

FARMING THREATENED

The U.N. Climate Panel says that shifts in rainfall patterns are likely to disrupt farming in many regions, affecting the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

"Flash flooding can cause damage to settlements and societies. It can contaminate ground water, drinking supplies, with potential health effects," Allan said.

"The spread of disease can be impacted by heavy rainfall," he added. "Very intense rainfall can destroy crops. There are also possibilities of enhanced erosion, degradation of soil".

Scientists say it is hard to link climate change to one-off events such as floods in the U.S. Midwest that damaged millions of acres of cropland in June.

The U.N. Panel predicts more rain overall this century in many parts of the tropics and towards the polar areas with declines in middle latitudes such as the Mediterranean basin, the Western United States and southern Africa.

(Editing by Andrew Roche)

Extreme Rains to Be Supercharged by Warming, Study Says
Mason Inman, National Geographic News 7 Aug 08;

Global warming could make extreme rains stronger and more frequent than previously forecast, a new study suggests.

Such a scenario could make floods fiercer, damage more crops, and worsen the spread of diseases such as malaria, scientists say.

Rainfall patterns are already shifting as Earth warms under a blanket of humanmade greenhouse gases, experts say.

Study co-author Richard P. Allan, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Reading in Berkshire, United Kingdom, said previous studies have shown that "wet regions are becoming wetter, and dry regions drier."

The study team analyzed satellite images of rainfall over tropical oceans over nearly two decades, from 1988 to 2004.

The researchers found that during El Niño years, which tend to be warmer, rain fell in heavier showers. An El Niño is a climate event where the flow of abnormally warm surface Pacific waters temporarily changes global weather patterns.

"This is something that climate models had predicted," Allan said. "But getting the data from observations is very important."

Many previous rainfall pattern studies have relied on measurements from rain gauges. Such gauges are sparsely distributed across land, Allan said, whereas satellites can see large areas as a whole.

Global Warming Forecast

Although our planet is warming overall, Earth's climate still varies between warmer and wetter El Niño years and cooler and drier La Niña years.

Looking at these changes in rainfall can give scientists a good estimate of what will happen with continued global warming, according to Allan and his co-author, Brian Soder of the University of Florida.

With continued global warming, the changes in Earth's rainfall patterns will be worse than previously forecast, Allan and Soder write.

"The models seem to underestimate the response in extreme rainfall with warming," Allan said.

For every 1.8 degree Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) rise in global temperature, heavy rain showers became more common, with most intense category jumping 60 percent, says the study, which will be published tomorrow in the journal Science.

During the 20th century, Earth's average global temperature rose about 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit (0.7 degrees Celsius). But researchers predict that bump will be dwarfed by the warming to come.

The latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report predicts at least three times as much warming—about 3.2 to 7.1 degrees Fahrenheit (2 to 4 degrees Celsius)—by the end of the 21st century. (See [April 6, 2007].)

The uptick could drive a big jump in intense rainfall events, Allan and Soden argue.

Human Impact

Warmer air can hold more moisture. "So if the air is more moist, you get more heavy rainfall," Allan noted, adding that such extreme weather takes a toll on people.

With intense rains, "you can get flash flooding, and heavy rainfall can destroy crops," he said. "Those are the most immediate impacts."

Coupled with rising global temperatures, more frequent and intense rainfall has "major implications for infectious diseases," said Paul Epstein, a tropical disease expert at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.

"After floods one often sees clusters of vector-borne diseases—malaria, dengue fever, Japanese B encephalitis," Epstein said.

Floods often cause a jump in cholera and other water-borne diseases, as well as plague and other rodent-borne diseases, he added.

David Neelin, a climate scientist at the University of California in Los Angeles, takes a more cautious view of the study results.

"Rainfall changes remain among the hardest impacts of global warming to predict precisely," he said.

But, Neelin added, "Allan and Soden's results add fuel to the growing concern from a number of research groups [that] the extremes of rainfall may increase under global warming."

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