The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
FRA 2005 examines current status and recent trends for about 40 variables, covering the extent, condition, uses and values of forests and other wooded land, with the aim of assessing all benefits from forest resources. In the main section of this report, results are presented according to six themes representing …
Water resources are vital to all human activities from basic survival to the most complex industrial production. In recent years, a broad set of national and international water issues has begun to receive significant attention. This paper provides a snapshot of current global water issues, assesses the water-related risks and …
Captures 10 years of action, impacts and learning to address the complex air pollution challenge in Asia. This book is a survival guide for Asian cities trying to steer their way out of the pollution haze.
Environmentalists and non-governmental organisations (ngos) in the Caspian region surrounding the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (btc) pipeline have voiced concerns about the proposed route for the pipeline. Apprehensions were raised at various public hearing meetings and till the last meeting, regional activists remain concerned about the pipeline's ecological threat. Various ngos voiced their …
viral cancer: The fusion of human cells is a normal process that leads, for instance, to the formation of muscle and bone. Viral infections can also cause cell fusion, but such cells are generally believed to die without consequences for the host. According to a recent study, however, cell fusion …
• Army contractors halted operations at the Newport Chemical Depot, in western Indiana, as nearly 500 gallons of caustic wastewater containing hydrolysate, leaked into a sealed area at the facility. This plant is used for destroying Cold War era chemical weapon VX. • A regional conference on sustainable transportation and …
Why has the Asian Brown Cloud now become the Atmospheric Brown Cloud? Brown clouds have been seen all over the world, including the us , Europe, India and China. Earlier, our focus was on South Asia; so we called these clouds the Asian Brown Cloud. Several Indian scientists and politicians …
The tropical monsoon rhythm for over centuries obviously occasioned the development of water works which facilitated wet rice cultivation in pre-modern Southeast Asia. The small-scale water works, purely an outcome of local initiative which survived for many centuries and outlived the state, were developed in the dry zone of Irrawaddy …
Being an integral effect of sub-seasonal rain spells over the season, the seasonal mean south Asian monsoon (SAM) rainfall could be affected by change in the length of the rainy season (LRS). An objective definition of the duration of the SAM season has, however, been lacking. Here we show that …
The past year's droughts in Africa, central America, Asia and Europe are part of an emerging, global warming-induced pattern that will become more pronounced if climate change is not curbed. In 2005, one in six countries will face food shortages, un scientists warned on June 29, 2005. The admonition was …
Tropical cyclones—variously defined as hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones—regularly impact human populations and periodically produce devastating weather-related natural disasters. The epidemiology of tropical cyclones is fundamentally determined by the physical forces of massive cyclonic systems intersecting with patterns of human behavior. The destructive forces of cyclonic winds, inundating rains, and storm …
A NEW understanding of future earthquakes, especially in South Asia, has emerged from studies of the tremor that caused the devastating December 26, 2004 tsunami in the region. The findings of three studies on the Sumatra-Andaman quake have been published in the latest edition of the journal Science (May 20, …
The Second World War (ww ii) was at its peak. The Allies (England and France) were facing the Axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan). When Japan bombed Pearl Harbour, Hawaii on December 7, 1941, the us joined the war on the Allied side. A month later, Japan attacked Burma (now …
The Russia-Turkmenistan row over natural gas price has been resolved. For over three months, Turkmenistan negotiated for a nearly 30 per cent hike in the price of the gas sold to Russia, which maintained that the price settled under earlier pacts should be effective till 2006 (see Down To Earth,
What do clothes and countries have in common other than the fact that both start with the same letter? Both can shrink, according to a US seismologist. Roger Bilham of the Colorado University in the US says Nepal is shrinking by 18 millimetre (mm) each year as a result of …
