Tiger-rescue plan to be drawn up in Indonesia

Yahoo News 14 Jul 10;

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AFP) – Representatives from 13 "tiger-range countries" on Wednesday drew up a rescue declaration in Bali in a bid to save the big cats from extinction.

The declaration, which is to be signed in September at a "tiger summit" in St. Petersburg in Russia, aims to double the number of wild tigers across their range by 2022.

It includes plans to "do everything possible to effectively manage, preserve, protect and enhance habitats".

It also pledges to "work collaboratively to eradicate poaching, smuggling and illegal trade of tigers, their parts and derivatives".

Countries invited to attend the St. Petersburg summit are Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.

World Bank Global Tiger Initiative programme director Keshav Varma said there was a "clear direction to move forward" after the pre-summit meeting in Bali, but funding was still an issue.

"There is a need to develop a global fund, multi-donor trust fund or some kind of flexible financial mechanism for this," Varma said.

Indonesian conservation official Harry Santoso said Indonesia was working on a proposal to obtain 54.17 million dollars of grant from the Global Environment Facility for biodiversity conservation projects.

Santoso said they were yet to figure out how much of the grant would be allocated for tiger conservation.

"Now that these countries have shown their willingness to act, the success of any global plan launched in St. Petersburg will depend on financial support from the international community and the tiger nations themselves," WWF Tiger Programme head Michael Baltzer said in a statement.

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Biological bonanza in Kenya's threatened forest

Peter Greste BBC News 14 Jul 10;

The Matthews Range of mountains rises from the arid brown plains of northern Kenya like a green tropical island; its peaks looming above the dusty haze blanketing the otherwise featureless landscape.

The flat lands that surround it stretch for almost 100km in any direction, leaving the Matthews blissfully isolated.

It has been this way for at least 10 millennia, the dry sea lapping against its shores - sometimes rising, sometimes falling in a tide driven by periods of global warming and cooling that has always kept it cut off from the rest of East Africa's forests.

But that isolation has also helped protect the Matthews from any serious human encroachment.

The Samburu tribes who graze their cattle in the surrounding grasslands have for most of their history left it largely untouched, retreating there only when drought forces them to search for grazing or when the elders harvest plants used for traditional medicines.

It is what the scientists have dubbed a "sky island": a remarkably untouched patch of tropical highland forest that has been allowed to evolve in its own direction, free of influence from the rest of the region by that dry gulf too vast for most plants and insects to cross.

"It's impressive to see how intact this forest really is," says Quentin Luke, panting and sweating on the flanks of one of the higher peaks.

Over his shoulder, he slings a bag filled with plants he's collected on the trek that have never been seen here before. By the end of two weeks, he would find more than 150.
Indicator species

Mr Luke is one of Kenya's most respected botanists and he's been contracted by the Nature Conservancy, a US-based conservation organisation that arranged the first comprehensive scientific survey of the ecology of the Matthews Range.

In all, there are about a dozen international and Kenyan scientists taking part in the study, and according to the expedition organiser Matt Brown, Mr Luke's findings go a long way towards meeting at least two of their five objectives.

"We want to document a biological inventory of these hills. We also want to work out the current condition of the habitat and assess the level of threat to the ecosystem," he said.

The team also aims to identify some key "indicator species" that the local Namanyak community can use to monitor the health of the forest; they plan to transfer some of their skills to the Namanyak game scouts who police the hills; and finally record what the local elders know of the forest.

Their ultimate aim is to preserve the Matthews, not just for what the scientists expect will be a biological bonanza, but for the "ecological services" the forest provides to the surrounding communities such as clean water and dry-season grazing.

But those communities are growing fast, and the pressure on the Matthews is growing with it. Here and there along the flanks of the hills, dark green scars run vertically up the slopes - clear evidence, says Mr Luke, of fires caused by honey hunters who use smoke to drive bees out of their hives.

The group is taking a pragmatic approach.

Matt Brown says: "It obviously doesn't work just to fence off the area and keep people out and claim that you're helping them by protecting the forest for future generations.

"It's really about focusing on that balance between people and wildlife and finding ways that they can continue to sustainably use the forest."

The Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) is central to the project. A Kenyan organisation that creates community-based conservancies, the NRT convinced the Samburu tribes surrounding the Matthews to join their scheme.

But there is not much point in forming a conservancy without a scientific understanding of what is going on in forest. Which is why the NRT invited the Nature Conservancy in for its study.

For entomologist Dino Martins, there is plenty to look at.

With a butterfly net tucked under his arm and a back-pack full of specimen jars, Mr Martins has been scouring the valleys and creeks for butterflies and dragonflies.

"They're really good indicators of the health of an ecosystem," said Mr Martins. "They can't survive without good, clean water and lots of food-sources."

And by that measure, the ecosystem appears to be healthy indeed. In the space of two weeks, Mr Martins managed to record 125 butterfly species - roughly 15% of all Kenya's butterflies, and more than twice that of all the UK.

"Those insects also tell us the ecosystem has been very stable, and the high diversity especially of butterflies suggests that the forest has been here not just for a 1,000 or 10,000 years but actually for several million years."

It's a conclusion that Quentin Luke agrees with. Among the plants he's most interested in is the Matthews Cycad - a huge palm-like tree with bottle-green fronds that dot the forest.

The cycad's origins stretch back 280 million years when they dominated the landscape. They are a true living fossil and a hint that perhaps the Matthews Range can trace its origins back that far as well.

"They are a weird species that has male and female plants and an unusual system of pollination," Mr Luke said.

"And apart from one or two other forests in East Africa, we don't find this particular species anywhere else in the world."

And anywhere else, that fact alone might justify saving the Matthews. But here, with growing numbers of cattle looking for grass to graze and humans looking for timber to burn, there need to be other reasons to protect it.

The Nature Conservancy and the Northern Rangelands Trust are convinced they can find it.

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Scientists say Gulf spill altering food web

Matthew Brown And Ramit Plushnick-masti, Associated Press Yahoo News 14 Jul 10;

NEW ORLEANS – Scientists are reporting early signs that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is altering the marine food web by killing or tainting some creatures and spurring the growth of others more suited to a fouled environment.

Near the spill site, researchers have documented a massive die-off of pyrosomes — cucumber-shaped, gelatinous organisms fed on by endangered sea turtles.

Along the coast, droplets of oil are being found inside the shells of young crabs that are a mainstay in the diet of fish, turtles and shorebirds.

And at the base of the food web, tiny organisms that consume oil and gas are proliferating.

If such impacts continue, the scientists warn of a grim reshuffling of sealife that could over time cascade through the ecosystem and imperil the region's multibillion-dollar fishing industry.

Federal wildlife officials say the impacts are not irreversible, and no tainted seafood has yet been found. But Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who chairs a House committee investigating the spill, warned Tuesday that the problem is just unfolding and toxic oil could be entering seafood stocks as predators eat contaminated marine life.

"You change the base of the food web, it's going to ripple through the entire food web," said marine scientist Rob Condon, who found oil-loving bacteria off the Alabama coastline, more than 90 miles from BP's collapsed Deepwater Horizon drill rig. "Ultimately it's going to impact fishing and introduce a lot of contaminants into the food web."

The food web is the fundamental fabric of life in the Gulf. Once referred to as the food chain, the updated term reflects the cyclical nature of a process in which even the largest predator becomes a food source as it dies and decomposes.

What has emerged from research done to date are snapshots of disruption across a swath of the northern Gulf of Mexico. It stretches from the 5,000-feet deep waters at the spill site to the continental shelf off Alabama and the shallow coastal marshes of Louisiana.

Much of the spill — estimated at up to 182 million gallons of oil and around 12 billion cubic feet of natural gas — was broken into small droplets by chemical dispersants at the site of the leaking well head. That reduced the direct impact to the shoreline and kept much of the oil and natural gas suspended in the water.

But immature crabs born offshore are suspected to be bringing that oil — tucked into their shells — into coastal estuaries from Pensacola, Fla., to Galveston, Texas. Oil being carried by small organisms for long distances means the spill's effects could be wider than previously suspected, said Tulane professor Caz Taylor.

Chemical oceanographer John Kessler from Texas A&M University and geochemist David Valentine from the University of California-Santa Barbara recently spent about two weeks sampling the waters in a six-mile radius around the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon rig. More than 3,000 feet below the surface, they found natural gas levels have reached about 100,000 times normal, Kessler said.

Already those concentrations are pushing down oxygen levels as the gas gets broken down by bacteria, Kessler and Valentine said. When oxygen levels drop low enough, the breakdown of oil and gas grinds to a halt and most life can't be sustained.

The researchers also found dead pyrosomes covering the Gulf's surface in and around the spill site. "There were thousands of these guys dead on the surface, just a mass eradication of them," Kessler said.

Scientists said they believe the pyrosomes — six inches to a foot in length — have been killed by the toxins in the oil because there have no other explanation, though they plan further testing.

The researchers say the dead creatures probably are floating to the surface rather than sinking because they have absorbed gas bubbles as they filtered water for food.

The death of pyrosomes could set off a ripple effect. One species that could be directly affected by what is happening to the pyrosomes would be sea turtles, said Laurence Madin, a research director at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Cape Cod, Mass. Some larger fish, such as tuna, may also feed on pyrosomes.

"If the pyrosomes are dying because they've got hydrocarbons in their tissues and then they're getting eaten by turtles, it's going to get into the turtles," said Madin. It was uncertain whether that would kill or sicken the turtles.

The BP spill also is altering the food web by providing vast food for bacteria that consume oil and gas, allowing them to flourish.

At the same time, the surface slick is blocking sunlight needed to sustain plant-like phytoplankton, which under normal circumstances would be at the base of the food web.

Phytoplankton are food for small bait fish such as menhaden, and a decline in those fish could reduce tuna, red snapper and other populations important to the Gulf's fishing industries, said Condon, a researcher with Alabama's Dauphin Island Sea Lab.

Seafood safety tests on hundreds of fish, shrimp and other marine life that could make it into the food supply so far have turned up negative for dangerous oil contamination.

Assuming the BP gusher is stopped and the cleanup successful, government and fishing industry scientists said the Gulf still could rebound to a healthy condition.

Ron Luken, chief scientist for Omega Protein, a Houston-based company that harvests menhaden to extract fish oil, says most adult fish could avoid the spill by swimming to areas untainted by crude. Young fish and other small creatures already in those clean waters could later repopulate the impacted areas.

"I don't think anybody has documented wholesale changes," said Steve Murawski, chief scientist for the National Marine Fisheries Service. "If that actually occurs, that has a potentially great ramification for life at the higher end of the food web."

Experts fear long oil effect on marine life, food chain
Michael Mathes Yahoo News 18 Jul 10;

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Scientists studying the massive BP oil spill fear a decades-long, "cascading" effect on marine life that could lead to a shift in the overall biological network in the Gulf of Mexico.

With some 400 species estimated to be at risk -- from the tiniest oil-eating bacteria to shrimp and crabs, endangered sea turtles, brown pelicans and sperm whales -- experts say the impact of oil and chemical dispersants on the food chain has already begun, and could grow exponentially.

"A major environmental experiment is underway," Ron Kendall, director of the Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Texas Tech University, told AFP.

"We are already impacting the base of the food chain," he said, including plankton, which provide crucial food for fish, and juvenile shrimp in intertidal marshes along the Gulf Coast.

Kendall, whose institute is studying tissue samples from live and dead Gulf fish to analyze the spill's impact, helped study effects of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil disaster on wildlife in Alaska's Prince William Sound.

With the Exxon Valdez, a finite amount of oil poured into the sea -- about one 17th of the low estimate of the oil that has gushed from a ruptured well into the Gulf -- and rose to the surface to coat the shoreline.

"This is so much more complex, what we're dealing with now," he said, noting that the 1.84 million gallons (7.0 million liters) of chemical dispersants used to fight the spill has kept some of the oil from fouling shores, but created potentially drastic problems by breaking up the oil has into droplets that may never be recovered.

Dispersants, says Kendall, release aromatic hydrocarbons and allow small oil droplets to be consumed by marine life, potentially threatening the food supply for humans.

No contaminated Gulf fish or seafood has reached the market, according to experts, but authorities have closed some 35 percent of all fishing waters, threatening the livelihoods of thousands and putting the region's multibillion-dollar seafood industry in peril.

Researchers have reportedly observed major die-offs of organisms such as pyrosomes, cucumber-shaped creatures that are favorite meals of endangered sea turtles, which have been dying by the hundreds.

Kendall acknowledged that species shifts are possible but added that "we're at the early stages of documenting the scientific effects of what's occurring."

BP and the US government say they have found more than 2,600 dead birds, mammals and turtles, but Doug Inkley, a senior scientist at the National Wildlife Federation, warns that could be the tip of the iceberg.

Many dead fish and sharks sink, so their numbers may never be known.

Inkley pointed to ongoing studies which show oil is expected to have a large effect on plankton -- and the animals that eat them.

"This could be an effect that will ripple all the way up the food chain," he said.

He fears a delayed disaster, similar to when Prince William Sound's Pacific herring population collapsed four years after the Exxon Valdez spill, likely because few of the herring that spawned in 1989 reached maturity.

Dozens of marine and bird species were beginning their breeding season in April when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank, setting off the huge spill.

"You could have a (population) crash later because of the failure of many of the young to survive this year," said Inkley. "The impacts on wildlife I expect will last for years, if not decades."

Congressman Ed Markey, chairman of a House subcommittee on energy and the environment, echoed the concerns in a letter to the Food and Drug Administration.

He said evidence showed "the marine food chain in the Gulf of Mexico has already been contaminated," and pointed to researchers who recently uncovered oil droplets found inside crab larvae harvested from the Gulf.

"This finding is particularly disconcerting because these larvae are a source of food for numerous aquatic species and this is therefore the first sign that hydrocarbons have entered into the food web."

Complicating the scenario, the Gulf will soon host millions of fowl on autumn and winter migrations.

"We'll have a whole new wave of ducks and waterbirds that will be coming here and getting affected," Kendall said. "Who knows what impact that will bring?"

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Unpredictable climate affect Indonesian livestock

Woeful climate threatens nation's husbandry
Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post 15 Jul 10;

Unpredictable changes in world climate and the global energy crisis have affected the production of livestock, according to an expert.

"We used to have a year of half rain and half sunshine. Farmers had no difficulties in poultry provision," Iman Hernawan, a poultry nutritionist from Padjadjaran University, said in Bandung on Wednesday.

He said the current unpredictable climate had been adverse to the husbandry, in regard to productivity and quality, over the past two years.

Indonesian husbandry, which is only a sub-tier of the agriculture industry, according to Iman, will find it increasingly difficult to operate because of the absence of mechanisms to provide feed.

The world energy crisis, he added, exacerbated the condition with corn and soybean producing countries reducing exports of the crops, often used for feed, opting instead to convert the commodity into bio-ethanol.

"Such conditions have caused a stagnation in the growth of Indonesia's cattle population," Iman said.

Data shows that the beef cattle population in Indonesia experienced a rise from 11.5 million in 2007 to 12.2 million in 2008 before stagnating to 12.6 million in 2009. East Java has the largest stock of cattle with 3.4 million.

The population of dairy cattle is also said to have experienced near stagnation with only a 6.5 percent rise from 457,000 in 2008 to 487,000 in 2009.

Jajang Sumarno said the difficulties in breeding cattle related to a lack of available feed, adding he had to slash the amount of grass feed because of shrinking grasslands.

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Massive mice, locust plagues threaten Australian crops

(AFP) Google News 14 Jul 10;

SYDNEY — Plagues of mice and locusts are threatening huge swathes of Australia's farming heartland and could wipe out crops worth one billion dollars (880 million US), scientists warned Wednesday.

Millions of mice are currently devouring crops and will be joined within months by dense swarms of locusts, affecting southeastern regions with the combined area of Portugal.

"This is the result of what we are calling a perfect storm," said Chris Adriaansen from the Australian Plague Locust Commission. "Many millions of eggs will hatch."

High rainfall and mild temperatures have created ideal breeding conditions for the pests, which will hit parts of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia, experts told a briefing.

Mass locust hatching in September and October is set to create swarms of up to 15,000 per square metre (yard), devastating crops at a rate of several hundred metres a day.

Scientists said the best way to stop the plagues was to predict their movement and use pesticides, but held out hope that cannibalism by the locusts could limit the disaster.

"Locusts are constantly nibbling on each other and are more than willing to feed on each other," said Greg Sword, an Associate Professor at the University of Sydney's Molecular Ecology Lab.

"The locusts would effectively be feeding on themselves and could help limit their own populations."

Aerial tracking aircraft will be used to follow the outbreaks, allowing farmers to target the use of pesticides to protect their vegetable and grain crops.

"The problem with poisons is that they have other impacts throughout the ecosystem," said Mathew Crowther, a lecturer in wildlife management at the University of Sydney.

"They're also quite expensive, and when the farmers do put them out, often a lot of the damage is already done."

But the impact of inaction could be far worse, with Adriaansen estimating losses of up to one billion Australian dollars if the plagues are left unchecked.

And while scientists are confident they will ultimately be able to control the outbreak, it is expected to continue for several months at least.

"This will be a problem that will continue into (southern hemisphere) summer," said Adriaansen.

News of the plagues comes after a mass sabotage in Queensland wiped out seven million vegetable plants, mainly tomatoes, which cost an estimated 50 million dollars and is expected to send prices soaring.

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China faces worst floods in years, Japan on alertChina faces worst floods in years, Japan on alert

Ben Blanchard and Manny Mogato Reuters 15 Jul 10;

* Local authorities urge evacuation of 300,000 in Japan
* Typhoon Conson expected to hit China, Vietnam late Friday
* Power restored in Manila, minimal damage to crops (Adds details on storm landing in China, paragraphs 5-7)

BEIJING/MANILA, July 15 (Reuters) - Heavy rains and powerful winds battered East Asia on Thursday, pressing authorities to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in Japan and putting China on alert for its worst floods in years.

In the Philippines, power was gradually restored to millions of homes in and around Manila after Typhoon Conson hit the capital harder than expected on Tuesday night, killing 23 people and leaving dozens missing.

Tropical Storm Risk downgraded the typhoon to a tropical storm on Thursday, but the Philippines' weather bureau said it was expected to regain strength as it moved over the South China Sea and headed towards southern China and northern Vietnam.

Conson was due to hit land late on Friday, the Tropical Storm Risk website (http://www.tropicalstormrisk.com) said.

China's Xinhua news agency said the storm would make landfall in Hainan island's southern resort city of Sanya before moving into Guangdong and Guangxi, bringing heavy rain.

"Winds will gradually strengthen and it may increase in intensity to a typhoon," the China Meteorological Administration said on its website (www.cma.gov.cn).

More than 24,000 fishing boats have taken shelter in harbours around Hainan and ferry services between the island the mainland will be stopped in the early evening, Xinhua said.

Typhoons and tropical storms regularly hit the Philippines, China, Taiwan and Japan in the second half of the year, gathering strength from the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean or South China Sea before normally weakening over land.

Japan's Kyodo news agency said local governments had recommended that some 300,000 people be evacuated from their homes, as the Meteorological Agency forecast heavy rains from a separate weather system for the west and east of the country later on Thursday.

TV images showed some houses tilted after being hit by mudslides, swollen rivers and abandoned cars almost totally submerged in flooded streets. Footage also showed a rescue crew saving a man caught in a fallen tree on a fast-running river.

Authorities say at least two people have been killed.

"NO ROOM FOR OPTIMISM" IN CHINA

Central China also faces its worst flooding since 1998, when thousands died, as rain continues to batter the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

"Although the current situation along the Yangtze River has yet to reach the danger level, it is definitely at a crucial point," the China Daily quoted senior flood official Wang Jingquan as saying.

"If heavy rain hits the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, coupled with the continuous rainfall in the middle and lower reaches, severe flooding similar to that in 1998 will occur," Wang added.

"There will be no room for optimism as the incoming Typhoon Conson will add to the grave situation in flood control."

Yangtze floods 12 years ago killed more than 4,000 people and forced the evacuation of more than 18 million.

Rain across a large swathe of southern China has already killed around 400 people this year.

President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have ordered local governments to step up flood relief efforts and "stressed that people residing in areas under the threat of floods and typhoons must be relocated to safety in a timely manner", the report said.

POWER RETURNS IN MANILA

Trains, planes and ferries returned to normal operations in the Philippines as Typhoon Conson tracked toward Hainan.

More than 8,000 people remained in temporary shelters in five cities and 47 towns on Luzon, the Philippines' main island.

About 40 percent of the Luzon power grid's daily requirement of nearly 5,500 megawatts had been restored, although repairs have been slowed down by damaged bridges and roads, fallen trees and posts and snapped cables and transmission lines.

Power distributor Manila Electric Co (Meralco) said it had restored power in most of the capital, but wider areas south of Manila will remain in the dark until Friday.

Civil defence chief Benito Ramos said the typhoon had not caused a great deal of damage to rice- and coconut-growing areas near the capital. (Additional reporting by Yoko Nishikawa; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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China faces worst flooding in 12 years on Yangtze

Reuters 15 Jul 10;

BEIJING, July 15 (Reuters) - Central China faces its worst flooding since 1998 when thousands died, as rain continues to batter the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River, a state newspaper said on Thursday.

"Although the current situation along the Yangtze River has yet to reach the danger level, it is definitely at a crucial point," the China Daily quoted senior flood official Wang Jingquan as saying.

"If heavy rain hits the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, coupled with the continuous rainfall in the middle and lower reaches, severe flooding similar to that in 1998 will occur," Wang added.

"There will be no room for optimism as the incoming Typhoon Conson will add to the grave situation in flood control," he added, referring to a storm heading towards the southern Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Hainan.

Yangtze floods in 1998 killed more than 4,000 people, forced the evacuation of more than 18 million and causes damage worth $37 billion, the newspaper said.

Rain across a large swathe of southern China has already killed around 400 people this year.

Storms over the last week in Yunnan, Sichuan and Hunan provinces have killed at least 41 and left nearly 40 others missing, with many vanishing under landslides.

President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have ordered local governments to step up flood relief efforts and "stressed that people residing in areas under the threat of floods and typhoons must be relocated to safety in a timely manner", the report said. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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Indian Ocean Sea Level Rise Threatens Millions

David Fogarty PlanetArk 15 Jul 10;

Sea levels are rising unevenly in the Indian Ocean, placing millions at risk along low-lying coastlines in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, scientists say in a study.

Researchers from the University of Colorado and the National Center for Atmospheric Research say the rising sea levels are caused in part by climate change and are triggered by warming seas and changes to atmospheric circulation patterns.

In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize last year, President Barack Obama warned that if the world does nothing to confront climate change, "we will face more drought, famine and mass displacement that will fuel more conflict for decades".

The authors of the latest study say higher seas could exacerbate monsoon flooding, placing crops, homes and livelihoods at greater risk. They argue a better understanding of the changes are needed to improve risk assessment planning for the future.

Sea levels in general are rising globally by about 3 mm (0.1181 inch) a year. Scientists blame rising temperatures caused by the growing amounts of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, that trap heat in the atmosphere.

Oceans are absorbing a large part of this extra heat, causing them to expand and sea levels to rise. Warmer temperatures are also causing glaciers and parts of the ice blanketing Greenland and West Antarctica to melt.

The team of researchers in their study used long-term tide gauge data, satellite observations and computer climate models to build a picture of sea level rises in the Indian Ocean since the 1960s.

They found that sea-level rise is particularly high along the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, Sri Lanka, Sumatra and Java and that these areas could suffer rises greater than the global average.

But they also found that sea levels are falling in other areas. The study indicated that the Seychelles Islands and Zanzibar off Tanzania's coast show the largest sea-level drop.

WARM POOL

"Global sea level patterns are not geographically uniform," said co-author Gerald Meehl of NCAR in Boulder, Colorado.

The study is published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Geoscience.

A key player in the process is the Indo-Pacific warm pool, a large oval-shaped area spanning the tropical oceans from the east coast of Africa to the International Date Line in the Pacific.

The pool has warmed by about 0.5 degrees Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit) over the past 50 years, primarily because of mankind's greenhouse gas emissions. The warmer water has strengthened two major atmospheric circulation patterns that have a major impact on sea levels.

"Our new results show that human-caused atmosphericoceanic circulation changes over the Indian Ocean, which have not been studied previously, contribute to the regional variability of sea-level change," the researchers say in the study.

The two main wind patterns in the region are the Hadley and Walker circulations.

In the Hadley circulation, air currents rise above strongly heated tropical waters near the equator and flow poleward at upper levels, then sink to the ocean in the subtropics and cause surface air to flow back toward the equator.

The Walker circulation causes air to rise and flow westward at upper levels, sink to the surface and then flow eastward back toward the Indo-Pacific warm pool.

Strengthening of these two patterns could have far-reaching impacts on AsianAustralian monsoons, Indonesian floods and drought in Africa, the study says.

Indian Ocean Sea Levels Rising Due to Greenhouse Gases
Environment News Service 14 Jul 10;

BOULDER, Colorado, July 14, 2010 (ENS) - Rising sea levels in parts of the Indian Ocean appear to be a result of increases of atmospheric greenhouse gases caused by human activities, finds new research led by scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder and funded by federal government agencies.

The study of sea surface measurements going back to the 1960s and satellite observations shows sea levels are rising along coastlines of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, the island nation of Sri Lanka, and the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java.

"Our new results show that human-caused changes of atmospheric and oceanic circulation over the Indian Ocean region, which have not been studied previously, are the major cause for the regional variability of sea level change," wrote the authors in "Nature Geoscience," where the research is published in the current issue.

The findings indicate "anthropogenic climate warming likely is amplifying regional sea rise changes in parts of the Indian Ocean, threatening inhabitants of some coastal areas and islands," said CU-Boulder Associate Professor Weiqing Han, the study's lead author.

The sea level rise, which may aggravate monsoon flooding in Bangladesh and India, could have far-reaching impacts on both future regional and global climate, warned Han of CU-Boulder's atmospheric and oceanic sciences department.

The Indian Ocean is the world's third largest ocean and makes up about 20 percent of the water on Earth's surface. The ocean is bounded on the west by East Africa, on the north by India, on the east by Indochina and Australia, and on the south by the Southern Ocean off the coast of Antarctica.

The key player in the process is the Indo-Pacific warm pool, an enormous, bathtub-shaped area of the tropical oceans stretching from the east coast of Africa west to the International Date Line in the Pacific.

The warm pool has heated by about one degree Fahrenheit, or 0.5 degrees Celsius, in the past 50 years, an effect "primarily caused by human-generated increases of greenhouse gases," said Han.

"If future anthropogenic warming effects in the Indo-Pacific warm pool dominate natural variability, mid-ocean islands such as the Mascarenhas Archipelago, coasts of Indonesia, Sumatra and the north Indian Ocean may experience significantly more sea level rise than the global average," said Han.

While a number of areas in the Indian Ocean region are showing sea level rise, the study also indicated the Seychelles Islands and Zanzibar off Tanzania's coastline show falling sea levels.

Sea rise in some areas correlates with sea level fall in other areas, said co-author Gerald Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, NCAR, in Boulder.

Global sea level patterns are not geographically uniform, he explained.

The patterns of sea level change are driven by the combined enhancement of two primary atmospheric wind patterns known as the Hadley circulation and the Walker circulation.

The Hadley circulation in the Indian Ocean is dominated by air currents rising above strongly heated tropical waters near the equator and flowing poleward, then sinking to the ocean in the subtropics and causing surface air to flow back toward the equator.

The Walker circulation causes air to rise and flow westward at upper levels, sink to the surface and then flow eastward back toward the Indo-Pacific warm pool. "The combined enhancement of the Hadley and Walker circulation form a distinct surface wind pattern that drives specific sea level patterns," said Han.

The international research team used several sophisticated ocean and climate models for the study, including the Parallel Ocean Program, the ocean component of NCAR's widely used Community Climate System Model. In addition, the team used a wind-driven, linear ocean model for the study.

Han said that based on all-season data records, there is no significant sea level rise around the Maldives. But when the team looked at winter season data only, the Maldives show significant sea level rise, a cause for concern.

The smallest Asian country, the Maldives is made up of more than 1,000 islands, about 200 of which are inhabited by about 300,000 people, and are on average only about five feet above sea level.

The complex circulation patterns in the Indian Ocean may also affect precipitation by forcing even more atmospheric air down to the surface in Indian Ocean subtropical regions than normal, Han speculated.

"This may favor a weakening of atmospheric convection in the subtropics, which may increase rainfall in the eastern tropical regions of the Indian Ocean and increase drought in the western equatorial Indian Ocean region, including east Africa," Han said.

The new study indicates that in order to document sea level change on a global scale, researchers also need to know the specifics of regional sea level changes that will be important for coastal and island regions, said Aixue Hu of NCAR. Along the coasts of the northern Indian Ocean, seas have risen by an average of about 0.5 inches, or 13 millimeters, per decade.

"It is important for us to understand the regional changes of the sea level, which will have effects on coastal and island regions," said Hu.

Co-authors included Balaji Rajagopalan, Xiao-Wei Quan, Jih-wang Wang and Laurie Trenary of CU-Boulder, Gerald Meehl, John Fasullo, Aixue Hu, William Large and Stephen Yeager of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Jialin Lin of Ohio State University, and Alan Walcraft and Toshiaki Shinoda of the Naval Research Laboratory in Mississippi.

The study was funded by NCAR, the National Science Foundation, NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy.

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Britain unveils Google Earth map showing temperature rises

AFP Yahoo News 15 Jul 10;

LONDON (AFP) - – British ministers on Wednesday launched a new Google Earth map designed to show the potential impact of temperature rises of four degrees Celsius.

The interactive map lets members of the public see the dramatic changes that could occur if action is not taken to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Significant alterations include higher temperatures over land compared to the sea, and extreme temperature increases in the Arctic, according to the map.

It was created using analysis from the Met Office Hadley Centre, a largely state-funded climate change research unit that advises government, and other leading scientists in the field, according to a Foreign Office statement.

Unveiling the map, Foreign Office minister Henry Bellingham said it demonstrated the new government's determination to tackle climate change and show a wide audience the dangers or rising temperatures.

"The threat from climate change has not gone away and this government is committed to doing what it can to take action," he said.

"We are committed to being the 'greenest' government ever."

Greg Barker, energy and climate change minister, said: "This map reinforces our determination to act against dangerous man-made climate change."

Vicky Pope, from the Met Office, added: "If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, global average temperatures could increase by four degrees Celsius by the end of the century, and possibly as early as 2060."

The map can be viewed at: www.fco.gov.uk/google-earth-4degrees.kml.

Google Earth must already be installed for the application to work.

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Last six months second driest in the UK in 96 years, say scientists

River flows have dropped to their lowest levels in 50 years, hundreds of fish have died and reservoirs are drying out, figures show
John Vidal guardian.co.uk 14 Jul 10;

The last six months have been the second driest recorded in the UK in 96 years, with river flows in some areas at their lowest levels in 50 years and much of northern England and western Scotland now "exceptionally" water-stressed.

Provisional June figures released today by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, a publicly funded leading research establishment, also show reservoir levels falling rapidly in north-west England and Wales. However, underground water levels in most major aquifers in Eastern, Central and Southern England are at normal levels, suggesting restrictions on water use will not be needed over most of Britain. A hosepipe ban has been imposed on 6.5m people in the north-west.

The regional drought, which has hit the normally wet, western areas of Britain unusually hard, is now causing "significant" environmental and ecological stress, says the centre which monitors river flows, underground water levels and soil moisture. North-west England in particular, has received nearly 40% less rain than normal this year, with only 1929 on record as being drier. Without an extremely wet November 2009, the situation would have been far worse, suggests the centre.

Also in northern England, almost half of the Leeds and Liverpool canal, the longest in Britain, is scheduled to close from 2 August from Gargrave in the Yorkshire Dales and Wigan. The move follows a drop in the levels of seven moor-top reservoirs which feed the stretch. British Waterways said levels were just under 30% of capacity instead of the usual July figure of 80%.

The drop in river levels has led to many hundreds of fish deaths. Hundreds have already died and specialists working with water companies and the Environment Agency in Wales, Scotland and the Lake District have rescued thousands more in the Taff, Terne, Tywi and Ely rivers, among others.

"In some places we've had to deal with some pretty serious environmental consequences such as fish-kill incidents linked to poor water quality and low flows," said an Environment Agency Wales spokesman.

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Climate Change report sets out impact on British seas

The Telegraph 15 Jul 10;

The UK's seas are experiencing warmer temperatures, rising sea levels, changes in fish stocks and declines in breeding seabirds as a result of climate change, a report showed today.

According to the annual report for the Government by almost 100 scientists from 40 leading UK organisations, some fish moved northwards by between 50km to 400km (30-250 miles) over the past 30 years, with coldwater species such as monkfish moving furthest.

Plankton, which underpin the marine food chain, are also shifting, according to the review of what is happening to our seas and potential future impacts of climate change.

The study said global warming contributed to a 9% decline in the number of seabirds breeding in the UK between 2000 and 2008 and a drop in breeding success.

UK sea levels rose in line with global rises of an average 1.8mm a year since 1955.

The rate of increase escalated in recent years, with sea levels rising by 3mm a year on average since 1992, the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership said.

The oceans are becoming more acidic, at a rate faster than anything experienced in the past 55 million years, with concerns for ecosystems and species that could be affected by the changes.

And sea temperatures are generally rising, although there are fluctuations between years and UK coastal sea surface temperatures were lower in 2008 than the 2003 to 2007 average.

The report said warmer temperatures in the seas had an impact on coldwater species such as cod, threatening the survival of larvae and the growth of the fish, while salmon and eels were shown to be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

The shifting distribution of fish, partly as a result of climate change, was having an impact on the effectiveness of closing fishery areas to manage stocks sustainably.

But elsewhere there were boosts for fisheries, with seabass off the coast of the South West and South Wales quadrupling since 1985 and squid becoming more abundant in the northern North Sea.

The report card, which also looked at regional impacts of climate change on the seas, warned there was erosion of saltmarshes, which provide important habitat for species and can help limit flooding, on the coasts of the English Channel.

It also said red seaweed, introduced from Asia, was now present in Kent, Devon and Cornwall, while the increased temperatures in the seas were leading to increased disease outbreaks in pink sea fan.

In Scotland, birds including Arctic skuas, black-legged kittiwakes and shags have declined due to a drop in food availability.

The report outlines potential impacts of climate change on the UK's seas, including rises in sea levels which could top half a metre by the end of the century.

Sea levels could increase by between 21cm and 68cm in Cardiff and by 7cm to 55cm in Belfast, while increased algal blooms could lead to fish-kills.

Changes in winter wave heights in the Irish Sea and northern Channel could hit built structures, while storm surges could further erode saltmarshes in the eastern English Channel.

Marine environment minister Richard Benyon said: "For hundreds of years our seas have supported our fishing industry that provides us with food and coastal communities a way of life, as well as the vital marine ecosystem that is home to half the world species and habitats.

"But the seas and oceans are changing and we are only just starting to understand what this means.

"Scientific studies through partnerships such as this provide the research and knowledge that we need to take to understand how climate change is affecting the world's waters and what action we need to take."

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Rich countries to pay energy giants to build new coal-fired power plants

UN's Clean Development Mechanism to use European carbon offset credits to subsidise 20 'efficient' coal plants in India and China
John Vidal, guardian.co.uk 14 Jul 10;

The UN is set to channel billions of pounds of public money from rich countries to giant energy companies to build 20 heavily polluting coal-fired power plants on the basis that they will emit less carbon dioxide than older ones.

Data seen by the Guardian shows that 12 companies have applied to the UN for hundreds of millions of emission reduction credits to subsidise "efficient" coal-fired power stations in China and India. Many of the plants would be paid for with carbon offsets bought by British and European companies in lieu of cutting their own emissions.

If, as expected, the power company applications are approved by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), they will earn around £3.5bn at current carbon market prices. This would make the UN body set up to promote clean energy and reduce global climate emissions one of the world's largest provider of funds for new coal burning.

The rush by companies to take advantage of the UN's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) subsidies follows the successful application for credits by the Indian Adani coal group for two large power stations at Mundra in Gujarat, India. Adani will earn around £25m a year for the lifetime of its power stations in return for using "super-critical" technology, which burns the coal at lower temperatures and emits up to 30% less carbon dioxide than conventional power plants.

An Adani company spokesman said that its application had been approved by the UN only after a "complex and gruelling" evaluation process by national government, independent inspectors and a UN committee.

Others companies are now examining if they qualify. Eskom, the giant South African coal mining company controversially loaned £3.75bn by the World Bank in April to build what one of the largest coal-fired power stations in the world, has said it will apply for emission reduction credits. If built, the Medupi plant will emit nearly 25m tonnes of CO2 a year, more than the national output of 115 individual countries.

If Medupi is allowed to sell carbon offsets to Britain and other rich countries, it will be able to discount 6.5m tonnes of CO2 every year for 10 years, earning it tens of millions of pounds. It would be able offset all the emissions from a major new coal power station in the UK, effectively allowing the British government to meet its carbon-reduction targets by subsidising a plant in South Africa that would have been built anyway.

Eva Filzmoser, director of CDM-watch said: "It's completely unacceptable for the UN to keep issuing an inflated number of bogus credits that create vast profits for carbon trading groups and chemical companies. If the UN wishes to avoid irreparable damage to its reputation and show that is truly serious about climate mitigation, it must put the current methodology on hold with immediate effect and halt issuing credits until the methodology is revised."

David Abbass, a Unfccc spokesman, said the CDM has features that prevent projects supported by the scheme from inadvertently prolonging fossil fuel use or competing against renewable energy sources. "Fossil fuel will be a part of the energy mix for many years to come. It makes sense that the CDM should be used to reduce the emissions associated with that fossil fuel use."

"The methodology has a phase-out feature that limits the number of certified emission reduction credits that can be earned. As well, the number of projects eligible in a given country is limited, based on a percentage of the fossil fuel, covered by the project, used in the country."

The news comes at the same time as a report into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) by the campaign group Sandbag. In 2009, European companies bought €860m of international offsets to comply with caps imposed by the ETS, but the report found that companies were directly subsidising competing industries in developing countries. Sandbag says this undermines claims by these companies that caps on their emissions force business to countries outside the EU and so lead to "carbon leakage". The largest purchaser of offsets, for example - Salzgitter's Glock Satzgitter steel production plant - bought 40,000 offsets from an Indian steel project.

"Frustratingly, it seems that EU installations seem to have a greater incentive to fund abatement projects amongst their competitors rather than invest in these improvements themselves," said Sandbag founder and director, Bryony Worthington, "While it is perfectly legal and on one level economically rational to do this, it begs the question of why companies would choose to send a direct subsidy to their international competitors if fears of carbon leakage were so pronounced."

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