Climate Change Working Group

submitted by Samuel Bendett

homelandsecuritynewswire.com - February 18, 2013

Mounting scientific evidence indicates climate change will lead to more frequent and intense extreme weather that affects larger areas and lasts longer. We can reduce the risk of weather-related disasters, however, with a variety of measures. Experts say that a good strategy should include a variety of actions such as communicating risk and transferring it through vehicles such as insurance, taking a multi-hazard management approach, linking local and global management, and taking an iterative approach as opposed to starting with a master plan.

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By Flavia Krause-Jackson - Feb 14, 2013 8:30 PM MT - Bloomberg News

Members of the United Nations Security Council in New York met with Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who presented a number of scenarios to show the connection between climate change and global security challenges.

Climate change is a “reality that cannot be washed away,” according to notes prepared for diplomats at today’s session. “There is growing concern that with faster than anticipated acceleration, climate change may spawn consequences which are harsher than expected.”

Topics ranged from Hurricane Sandy, to fossil-fuel deposits, to glacial melting and how the seeds of conflict, unrest, and revolution are being sewn.

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sciencemag.org - Darryn W. Waugh¹,Francois Primeau²,Tim DeVries³,Mark Holzer⁴ - February 1, 2013

Abstract

Surface westerly winds in the Southern Hemisphere have intensified over the past few decades, primarily in response to the formation of the Antarctic ozone hole, and there is intense debate on the impact of this on the ocean's circulation and uptake and redistribution of atmospheric gases. We used measurements of chlorofluorocarbon-12 (CFC-12) made in the southern oceans in the early 1990s and mid- to late 2000s to examine changes in ocean ventilation. Our analysis of the CFC-12 data reveals a decrease in the age of subtropical subantarctic mode waters and an increase in the age of circumpolar deep waters, suggesting that the formation of the Antarctic ozone hole has caused large-scale coherent changes in the ventilation of the southern oceans.

climatecentral.org - by Andrew Freedman - February 1, 2013

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The "Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012," which struck the Arctic at the height of the sea ice melt season in early August, was not responsible for causing sea ice extent to plunge to a record low just a few weeks later. That is one of the conclusions of a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. It is the first study to quantify the impacts that the storm had on the fragile Arctic sea ice cover, which has been rapidly shrinking and thinning in response to rapid Arctic warming.

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