This joint WFP and Action Against Hunger publication presents the impacts of El Niño in LAC, highlighting the emergency response and resilience activities taken to mitigate the effect of climate shocks in the region. The publication underscores the significance of adequate anticipation, preparedness, and response to climate emergencies in LAC. …
Scientists say they are more certain than ever about the impact of global warming on a critical weather pattern. The El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) occurs in the Pacific Ocean but plays an important part in the world's climate system. Researchers have until now been unsure as to how rising temperatures …
IN 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body of scientists, said the glaciers of the Himalayas could melt by 2035. This was complete fiction. It also said global surface temperatures would go on rising by about 0.2°C a decade for the next 20 years. They have been …
A landmark report from the world's top climate scientists this week is likely to say with heightened certainty that humans are behind the planet's rising temperatures, and that surface temperatures are not the only indicators of climate change. Senior scientist Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in …
Extreme weather events ‐ Rainfall - a presentation by R. Krishnan at CSE Annual South Asian Media Briefing Workshop on Climate Change, 2013 held in New Delhi from September 18-19, 2013.
Monsoons, cyclones & extreme events – Role of oceans - a presentation by M. R. Ramesh Kumar at CSE Annual South Asian Media Briefing Workshop on Climate Change, 2013 held in New Delhi from September 18-19, 2013.
In the present study, the observed variability of monsoon droughts over India has been examined using a drought monitoring index, namely the Standardized Precipitation Evapo-transpiration Index (SPEI). For calculating the SPEI over different time periods, long term (1901–2010), high resolution, monthly gridded temperature and rainfall data sets have been used. …
Recent observed global warming is significantly less than that simulated by climate models. This difference might be explained by some combination of errors in external forcing, model response and internal climate variability.
Worldwide, 2012 was among the 10 warmest years on record according to the 2012 State of the Climate report released by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). The peer-reviewed report, with scientists from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC serving as lead editors, was compiled by 384 scientists from …
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said Thursday that the year 2012 was the ninth warmest on record despite the cooling influence of a La Nina episode early in the year. The WMO's Statement on the Status of the Global Climate said that the global land and ocean surface temperature in …
Reliable forecasts of future ‘megadroughts’ would be a boon to farmers and water managers. But results presented last week at the annual assembly of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna suggest that such forecasts are still beyond the reach of current climate models.
Prediction of monsoon changes in the coming decades is important for infrastructure planning and sustainable economic development. The decadal prediction involves both natural decadal variability and anthropogenic forcing. Hitherto, the causes of the decadal variability of Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon (NHSM) are largely unknown because the monsoons over Asia, West …
Rectification of surface chlorophyll (Chl) concentration by the atmospheric intraseasonal variability is detected in a numerical biophysical ocean model when it is forced by composite Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) events. In addition to the shoaled mixed layer depth (MLD) previously reported, it is found that increased mean Chl by MJO forcing …
A marine heatwave off Western Australia that killed fish and bleached coral was driven by unusual features in a warm ocean current, new research shows. During the 2011 heatwave, water temperatures were more than three degrees Celsius above long-term seasonal averages. At the peak of the event, for a two-week …
Emissions from landscape fires affect both climate and air quality. This study uses satellite-derived fire estimates and atmospheric modelling to quantify the effects on health from fire emissions in southeast Asia from 1997 to 2006. Strong El Nino years are found to increase the incidence of fires, in addition to …
Proxy indicators of relative moisture balance, in combination with long control simulations from coupled climate models, show that the Indian Ocean drives multidecadal hydroclimate variability by altering the local Walker circulation, whereas the influence of the Pacific Ocean is minimal on these timescales.
Last year was among the top 10 warmest in the modern global record, two U.S. climate-watching agencies reported on Tuesday, less than a week after 2012 was declared the hottest ever in the contiguous United States. The U.S. space agency NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration jointly issued …
Last year was among the top 10 warmest in the modern global record, two U.S. climate-watching agencies reported on Tuesday, less than a week after 2012 was declared the hottest ever in the contiguous United States. The U.S. space agency NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration jointly issued …
Tree-ring records are a valuable source of information for understanding long-term, regional-scale drought changes. In this study, a tree ring width chronology spanning the last 330 years (A.D. 1681–2010) is developed for the northern fringe of the Asian summer monsoon in north central China based on tree ring widths of …
The problem of piracy in the Indian ocean is hampering the collection of accurate water surface temperatures by international weather forecasting agencies that indirectly affects India’s long-range forecasts, a top weather scientist has said. India depends upon global agencies for the prediction of El Nino and the Indian Ocean Diapole …
It has been widely believed that the tropical Pacific trade winds weakened in the last century and would further decrease under a warmer climate in the 21st century. Recent high-quality observations, however, suggest that the tropical Pacific winds have actually strengthened in the past two decades. Precise causes of the …
