Sean Batty
BBCThu, 01 Feb 2007 10:11 UTC
Arctic air has descended across much of the U.S., including Florida.
Holiday-makers who have travelled to Florida for a bit of winter sun would have been given a shivery shock this morning waking up to temperatures of 2C (36F) in Tampa, and 3C (37F) at Fort Myers. In the state temperatures usually range between around 10C (50F) and 23C (73F) by day and night in January.
Nick Bryant
BBCWed, 31 Jan 2007 18:50 UTC
A report on the effects of climate change in Australia paints an alarming picture of life in the city of Sydney.
It warns that if residents do not cut water consumption by more than 50% over the next 20 years, the city will become unsustainable.
SANTIAGO, Chile - A wave of small earthquakes that has caused alarm in southern Chile may be related to the birth of an undersea volcano, officials said Tuesday.
More than 1,700 tremors have been recorded recently in the rugged, sparsely populated area dotted with volcanos and cut with fjords. Dozens of people slept outside or in tents on recent nights, fearing a larger quake might follow and topple their houses.
Aaron Sheldrick
BloombergWed, 31 Jan 2007 11:54 UTC
A 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck in the vicinity of the Kermadec Islands north of New Zealand, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site. There were no immediate reports of a tsunami after an alert was issued.
A strong earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale occurred near Mariana Islands, the northernmost islands of Micronesia, early this morning.
The Meteorologyl Department said the 5.37am earthquake occurred at 21.1 degrees North, 145.1 degrees East and about 3,370km northeast of Sandakan, Sabah.
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
The Guardian Wed, 31 Jan 2007 03:46 UTC
The Bush administration was yesterday accused of systemic tampering with the work of government climate scientists to eliminate politically inconvenient material about global warming.
At a hearing of Congress, scientists and advocacy groups described a campaign by the White House to remove references to global warming from scientific reports and limit public mention of the topic to avoid pressure on an administration opposed to mandatory controls on greenhouse gas emissions.
While the rest of us are wondering if we should stop flying, some celebrities are just clocking up the air miles. Patrick Collinson rounds up some big names with huge carbon footprints
George Bush proposes to deal with climate change by means of smoke and mirrors. So what's new? Only that it is no longer just a metaphor. After six years of obfuscation and denial, the US now insists that we find ways to block some of the sunlight reaching the earth. This means launching either mirrors or clouds of small particles into the atmosphere.
The demand appears in a recent US memo to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It describes "modifying solar radiance" as "important insurance" against the threat of climate change. A more accurate description might be important insurance against the need to cut emissions.
Gas drilling on the Indonesian island of Java has triggered a "mud volcano" that has killed 13 people and may render four square miles (ten square kilometers) of countryside uninhabitable for years.
In a report released on January 23, a team of British researchers says the deadly upwelling began when an exploratory gas well punched through a layer of rock 9,300 feet (2,800 meters) below the surface, allowing hot, high-pressure water to escape.
WASHINGTON - Two private advocacy groups told a congressional hearing Tuesday that climate scientists at seven government agencies say they have been subjected to political pressure aimed at downplaying the threat of global warming.
The groups presented a survey that shows two in five of the 279 climate scientists who responded to a questionnaire complained that some of their scientific papers had been edited in a way that changed their meaning. Nearly half of the 279 said in response to another question that at some point they had been told to delete reference to "global warming" or "climate change" from a report.
