Friday 24 July 2015

Natural heritage in danger

197 World Heritage Sites were selected because of their natural character. Of these 35 are threatened by climate change - the nearest being the Waddensee in north Germany.

Ironically the only natural character site to lose its world heritage status, the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary, did so because Oman decided to allow oil prospecting!

Thursday 23 July 2015

Sea level rise - No anomaly

Climate scientists had been concerned by an apparent slowing of sea-level rise over the last decade despite the increasing volume of run-off from glaciers. A recent paper in Nature Climate Change (DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2635) resolves the anomaly.

The authors showed that the rate of sea-level rise for 1993 to 2004 had been overestimated by about 20% due to inadequate calibration of the satellite-mounted altimeters. The new value, 2.6 to 2.9 mm/year, implies an acceleration in the rate of sea-level rise since 2004.