Showing posts with label Mediterranean. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mediterranean. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Besides setting off every geiger counter in the country...

This explains why the fish were glowing!
Mafia 'sank nuclear waste ship'
So does that mean we don't eat anything pulled from the Mediterranean for a while?

Sunday, June 28, 2009

When climate change affects the weather patterns

People die. We're going to see lots of articles like these as the water wars start, the oceans' rising temperatures make fish die off or stop breeding....:
"No one will call us for work and the children will have to go hungry. We won't have anything to eat."

Devi is among roughly 600 million people in India who make a living off the land. That is about 60 percent of India's population of 1.1 billion.

Most of the country is suffering from a rain deficit. The Monsoon has been delayed in some parts of the country. Usually the season begins around the first of June.

In developed countries, irrigation is common and electricity readily available, but both are a luxury for most Indian farmers.

Rainwater is key to crop survival and the livelihoods of those who work the farms.

Devinder Sharma is a food and trade policy analyst. He says "65 percent of farmers in India rely on rainwater."
Fish will become harder and harder to find:
French fishermen hit back at stars' bid to save bluefin tuna

[snip]

It has been a long few weeks for captain Jean-Louis Donnarel and the crew of the Provence-Côte d'Azur II. Long, rough and not very profitable. After sailing a total of 6,600 nautical miles - first to Cyprus, then the length of the Egyptian coast, to Malta, around the Balearics and then home - the Provence-Côte d'Azur II returned with 84 tonnes of bluefin tuna, a catch that will barely cover the costs of the voyage.

"We found fish on the last day," Donnarel said last week. "Without that, we would have been finished. Someone has to take a decision. Do they want us to fish or not? If not, they should put us out of our misery."

Donnarel and his crew are at the sharp end of an increasingly bitter row: one that links globally known restaurants, top celebrities, huge international conglomerates, sushi shops and supermarkets across half the world to the livelihoods of a few thousand fishermen.

At stake is the survival of the bluefin tuna, a single specimen of which can be sold for tens of thousands of dollars - a price that has seen stocks decline in some areas by up to 90%.

It apparently hasn't dawned on the fishermen that if there are no more fish, there WILL BE no more jobs....

Update:
A severe heatwave has claimed the lives of nearly 100 people across India, reports say.

The eastern Indian state of Orissa appears to be the worst affected with 58 people dying from heat stroke, according to local officials.

Unofficial figures in the Orissa media put the number of dead closer to 200.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

A prediction for this summer

Anyone keeping score?

Countries around the Mediterranean are set to suffer up to five times as many dangerously hot summer days if greenhouse gas emissions continue their relentless rise, say researchers.

France will see the greatest increase in extreme summer temperatures, they predict.

Noah Diffenbaugh at Purdue University, US, and colleagues used a climate model for the Mediterranean region, which was so precise that they were able to resolve regional changes in temperature for every 20 square kilometres.

The model calculated an overall increase in temperature and also an increase in number of extremely hot days. Of all the Mediterranean countries, France will experience the greatest increase in extremely hot temperatures – in some French regions, summer days will be 8°C hotter than they were between 1961 and 1989.

Dangerously hot

But the thin strip of coast around the Med will see the largest increase in the number of dangerously hot days – up to 40 more days per year along the coastlines of Spain, Egypt and Libya.

The article finishes by reminding us:

...what makes the Mediterranean region so sensitive to climate change is a "surface moisture feedback": as temperatures rise, the landmass not only gets hotter, it gets drier too. "This means there is less evaporative cooling," explains Diffenbach.

The 2003 heatwave is thought to have killed 35,000 people across Europe, nearly 15,000 of which were in France.

Update 6/21:
ATHENS, Greece, June 21 Sweltering weather blanketed much of southeastern Europe Thursday, bringing a deadly storm to Vienna and power problems in Greece.

[snip]

In Athens, temperatures were expected to hit 110 degrees by the weekend, Ekathimerini reported. The Public Power Corporation Wednesday asked Athens residents to shut off air conditioners and refrain from cooking to save energy.

A "yellow code," signifying dangerous heat, remained in effect in Bucharest and southwestern Romania, hotnews.ro reported. Daytime temperatures were around 100 degrees. Authorities set up tents to provide emergency first aid in many cities in the region.

A severe drought has also hit Romania, with the government declaring the southwest a disaster area.

In Athens, a meteorologist told Ekathimerini that city residents should try to get out into the suburbs if they can. Matthaios Santamouris of Athens University said temperatures are likely to be 15 degrees lower away from the city.