[Top News] from [REUTERS]
[Environment News][Science | Green Business | COP15]
Tim Cocks
ABIDJAN
Sun May 16, 2010 1:01pm EDT
Africa's lake Tanganyika warming fast, life dying
｛アフリカのタンガニーカ湖、温暖化加速、生物、死に直面｝
(Reuters) - Africa's lake Tanganyika has heated up sharply over the past 90 years and is now warmer than at any time for at least 1,500 years, a scientific paper said on Sunday, adding that fish and wildlife are threatened.
The lake, which straddles the border between Tanzania in East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is the world's second largest by volume and its second deepest, the paper says.
Lead scientist on the project Jessica Tierney told Reuters the sharp rise in temperature coincided with rises in human emissions of greenhouse gases seen in the past century, so the study added to evidence that emissions are warming the planet.
The 'Great Lakes' such as Tanganyika, Malawi and Kenya's lake Turkana were formed millions of years ago by the tectonic plate movements that tore Africa's Great Rift Valley.
Some 10 million people live around Tanganyika and depend upon it for drinking water and food, mostly fish.
Geologists at Rhode Island's Brown University used carbon dating to measure the age of sediments on the lake floor. They then tested fossilized micro-organisms whose membranes differ at various temperatures to gauge how hot it was at times past.
The results were published in Nature Geoscience on Sunday.
"Lake Tanganyika has experienced unprecedented warming in the last century," a press release accompanying the paper said. "The warming likely is affecting valuable fish stocks upon which millions of people depend."
"INTENSE WARMING"
Most climate change studies have focused on the atmosphere, but increasingly scientists are studying the effects on the oceans, seas and lakes, which all absorb a huge amount of heat.
The paper argues that recent rises in temperature are correlated with a loss of biological productivity in the lake, suggesting higher temperatures may be killing life.
"Lake Tanganyika has become warmer, increasingly stratified and less productive over the past 90 years," the paper says.
"Unprecedented temperatures and a ... decrease in productivity can be attributed to (human) ... global warming."
The rise in temperature over the past 90 years was about 0.9 degrees Celsius and was accompanied by a drop in algae volumes.
"We're showing that the trend of warming that we've seen is also affecting these remote places in the tropics in a very severe way," Tierney said by telephone from the United States. "We've seen intense warming in recent times ... not down to natural variations in climate."
She said the lake life had been harmed because in a lake as deep as Tanganyika, the nutrients form at the bottom but the algae needed to make use of them live at the top.
Higher surface temperatures mean less mixing of waters at the top and bottom." That's why a warmer lake means less life."
But the paper admits that other factors, like overfishing, may be doing more harm than any warming.
(Editing by Paul Casciato)
[Environment News][Green Business | COP15]
Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO
Sun May 16, 2010 1:40pm EDT
Climate change threatens health by Mediterranean
｛気候温暖化、地中海沿岸の人々の健康を脅かす｝
(Reuters) - People in cities around the Mediterranean including Athens, Rome and Marseilles are likely to suffer most in Europe from ever more scorching heatwaves this century caused by climate change, scientists said on Sunday.
The number of heatwaves was likely to surge to almost 3 each summer from 2071-2100 in the Mediterranean region from just one every third year from 1961-1990, it said. Most other parts of Europe would suffer far less.
The number of Mediterranean summer days with temperatures above 105 Fahrenheit (40.6C), a threshold in the United States for public health warnings, would rise to about 16 a year from 1.6 in the same period.
Heat-related health problems would be felt most by people living near the coast or in low-lying river valleys, according to scientists in Switzerland and the United States writing in the journal Nature Geoscience about health and heat projections.
"Some of the most densely populated European regions, such as the urban areas of Athens, Bucharest, Marseilles, Milan, Rome and Naples, would experience the severest changes in health indicators," they wrote.
About 40,000 people died in an extreme heatwave in Europe in 2003. But Erich Fischer, lead author of the study at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zurich, said it was uncertain how deadly future heatwaves would be.
Air pollution might aggravate health risks for people with respiratory or heart problems in hotter temperatures, he said. And he said the study did not consider that cities can act as "heat islands" -- often warmer than surrounding countryside.
On the other hand, improved weather forecasts can help ensure that people at risk -- especially the elderly and the very young -- stay in the shade and drink more on hot days. And air conditioning might become more efficient and widely used.
"People living in Arizona show that you can adapt to heat," Fischer told Reuters. In such hot climates, people avoid straining themselves outdoors at the hottest part of the day.
He said the study was the first to pinpoint areas of Europe where rising temperatures would coincide with rising humidity, high night-time temperatures and long-lasting heatwaves -- all factors that can aggravate health problems.
Global warming will mean more moisture in the air from the Mediterranean, for instance, making it harder for people to sweat away excess heat. High night-time temperatures can make sleep harder.
"We see the strongest increases in the number of these days with dangerous health conditions ... all along the coast of the Mediterranean and in low-altitude river basins, such as the Po or the Danube," he said.
The study defines a heatwave as at least 6 days in a row with temperatures among the hottest 10 percent of those recorded in the region for those dates. That means that a heatwave in Greece is hotter than one in Scandinavia.
[Environment News][U.S. | Green Business]
HOUSTON
Sun May 16, 2010 5:35pm EDT
BP responds to U.S. request to clarify liability
｛英石油ＢＰ、賠償責任の明確化でアメリカ政府の査問に応じる｝
(Reuters) - BP Plc on Sunday said its public statements to date are "absolutely consistent" with the Obama administration's request for the London-based oil giant to clarify its legal liability for paying to clean up a massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Top Obama administration officials on Saturday demanded "immediate public clarification" from BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward over BP's intentions about paying cleanup costs.
"What they are requesting in the letter is absolutely consistent with all our public statements on the matter," BP spokesman David Nicholas said.
At issue is a U.S. law that limits energy companies' liability for lost business and local tax revenues from oil spills to $75 million.
"The public has a right to a clear understanding of BP's commitment to redress all of the damage that has occurred or that will occur in the future as a result of the oil spill," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wrote in a letter to Hayward.
BP executives including Hayward have repeatedly said that the London-based energy giant will pay all "legitimate claims" related to the spill.
"We are taking full responsibility for the spill and we will clean it up, and where people can present legitimate claims for damages we will honor them," Hayward told Reuters in an interview on April 30.
Salazar and Napolitano said in their letter: "Based on these statements, we understand that BP will not in any way seek to rely on the potential $75 million statutory cap to refuse to provide compensation to any individuals or others harmed by the oil spill."
The spill could prove to be one of the most devastating environmental disasters the United States has ever faced, and experts have pegged BP's potential legal liability in the billions of dollars.
Nearly 100 lawsuits have already been filed across the Gulf region and lawyers envision the disaster becoming one of the biggest class actions in U.S. history.
(Reporting by Chris Baltimore; Editing by Sandra Maler)
[Environment News][Science | Green Business | COP15]
Tim Cocks
ABIDJAN
Sun May 16, 2010 1:01pm EDT
Africa's lake Tanganyika warming fast, life dying
｛アフリカのタンガニーカ湖、温暖化加速、生物、死に直面｝
(Reuters) - Africa's lake Tanganyika has heated up sharply over the past 90 years and is now warmer than at any time for at least 1,500 years, a scientific paper said on Sunday, adding that fish and wildlife are threatened.
The lake, which straddles the border between Tanzania in East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is the world's second largest by volume and its second deepest, the paper says.
Lead scientist on the project Jessica Tierney told Reuters the sharp rise in temperature coincided with rises in human emissions of greenhouse gases seen in the past century, so the study added to evidence that emissions are warming the planet.
The 'Great Lakes' such as Tanganyika, Malawi and Kenya's lake Turkana were formed millions of years ago by the tectonic plate movements that tore Africa's Great Rift Valley.
Some 10 million people live around Tanganyika and depend upon it for drinking water and food, mostly fish.
Geologists at Rhode Island's Brown University used carbon dating to measure the age of sediments on the lake floor. They then tested fossilized micro-organisms whose membranes differ at various temperatures to gauge how hot it was at times past.
The results were published in Nature Geoscience on Sunday.
"Lake Tanganyika has experienced unprecedented warming in the last century," a press release accompanying the paper said. "The warming likely is affecting valuable fish stocks upon which millions of people depend."
"INTENSE WARMING"
Most climate change studies have focused on the atmosphere, but increasingly scientists are studying the effects on the oceans, seas and lakes, which all absorb a huge amount of heat.
The paper argues that recent rises in temperature are correlated with a loss of biological productivity in the lake, suggesting higher temperatures may be killing life.
"Lake Tanganyika has become warmer, increasingly stratified and less productive over the past 90 years," the paper says.
"Unprecedented temperatures and a ... decrease in productivity can be attributed to (human) ... global warming."
The rise in temperature over the past 90 years was about 0.9 degrees Celsius and was accompanied by a drop in algae volumes.
"We're showing that the trend of warming that we've seen is also affecting these remote places in the tropics in a very severe way," Tierney said by telephone from the United States. "We've seen intense warming in recent times ... not down to natural variations in climate."
She said the lake life had been harmed because in a lake as deep as Tanganyika, the nutrients form at the bottom but the algae needed to make use of them live at the top.
Higher surface temperatures mean less mixing of waters at the top and bottom." That's why a warmer lake means less life."
But the paper admits that other factors, like overfishing, may be doing more harm than any warming.
(Editing by Paul Casciato)
[Environment News][Green Business | COP15]
Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO
Sun May 16, 2010 1:40pm EDT
Climate change threatens health by Mediterranean
｛気候温暖化、地中海沿岸の人々の健康を脅かす｝
(Reuters) - People in cities around the Mediterranean including Athens, Rome and Marseilles are likely to suffer most in Europe from ever more scorching heatwaves this century caused by climate change, scientists said on Sunday.
The number of heatwaves was likely to surge to almost 3 each summer from 2071-2100 in the Mediterranean region from just one every third year from 1961-1990, it said. Most other parts of Europe would suffer far less.
The number of Mediterranean summer days with temperatures above 105 Fahrenheit (40.6C), a threshold in the United States for public health warnings, would rise to about 16 a year from 1.6 in the same period.
Heat-related health problems would be felt most by people living near the coast or in low-lying river valleys, according to scientists in Switzerland and the United States writing in the journal Nature Geoscience about health and heat projections.
"Some of the most densely populated European regions, such as the urban areas of Athens, Bucharest, Marseilles, Milan, Rome and Naples, would experience the severest changes in health indicators," they wrote.
About 40,000 people died in an extreme heatwave in Europe in 2003. But Erich Fischer, lead author of the study at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zurich, said it was uncertain how deadly future heatwaves would be.
Air pollution might aggravate health risks for people with respiratory or heart problems in hotter temperatures, he said. And he said the study did not consider that cities can act as "heat islands" -- often warmer than surrounding countryside.
On the other hand, improved weather forecasts can help ensure that people at risk -- especially the elderly and the very young -- stay in the shade and drink more on hot days. And air conditioning might become more efficient and widely used.
"People living in Arizona show that you can adapt to heat," Fischer told Reuters. In such hot climates, people avoid straining themselves outdoors at the hottest part of the day.
He said the study was the first to pinpoint areas of Europe where rising temperatures would coincide with rising humidity, high night-time temperatures and long-lasting heatwaves -- all factors that can aggravate health problems.
Global warming will mean more moisture in the air from the Mediterranean, for instance, making it harder for people to sweat away excess heat. High night-time temperatures can make sleep harder.
"We see the strongest increases in the number of these days with dangerous health conditions ... all along the coast of the Mediterranean and in low-altitude river basins, such as the Po or the Danube," he said.
The study defines a heatwave as at least 6 days in a row with temperatures among the hottest 10 percent of those recorded in the region for those dates. That means that a heatwave in Greece is hotter than one in Scandinavia.
[Environment News][U.S. | Green Business]
HOUSTON
Sun May 16, 2010 5:35pm EDT
BP responds to U.S. request to clarify liability
｛英石油ＢＰ、賠償責任の明確化でアメリカ政府の査問に応じる｝
(Reuters) - BP Plc on Sunday said its public statements to date are "absolutely consistent" with the Obama administration's request for the London-based oil giant to clarify its legal liability for paying to clean up a massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Top Obama administration officials on Saturday demanded "immediate public clarification" from BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward over BP's intentions about paying cleanup costs.
"What they are requesting in the letter is absolutely consistent with all our public statements on the matter," BP spokesman David Nicholas said.
At issue is a U.S. law that limits energy companies' liability for lost business and local tax revenues from oil spills to $75 million.
"The public has a right to a clear understanding of BP's commitment to redress all of the damage that has occurred or that will occur in the future as a result of the oil spill," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wrote in a letter to Hayward.
BP executives including Hayward have repeatedly said that the London-based energy giant will pay all "legitimate claims" related to the spill.
"We are taking full responsibility for the spill and we will clean it up, and where people can present legitimate claims for damages we will honor them," Hayward told Reuters in an interview on April 30.
Salazar and Napolitano said in their letter: "Based on these statements, we understand that BP will not in any way seek to rely on the potential $75 million statutory cap to refuse to provide compensation to any individuals or others harmed by the oil spill."
The spill could prove to be one of the most devastating environmental disasters the United States has ever faced, and experts have pegged BP's potential legal liability in the billions of dollars.
Nearly 100 lawsuits have already been filed across the Gulf region and lawyers envision the disaster becoming one of the biggest class actions in U.S. history.
(Reporting by Chris Baltimore; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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