Climate & Agriculture 1: African food imports increase, while agricultural dependence stays high

Yes, we have many simultaneous climate series running here at Bits of Science. For instance one about the global temperature trend, another about sea level rise – and of course our series about climate change as a driver to the … Continue reading

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 35: 9 megatrend graphs show little base for optimism

Over 15,000 scientists have endorsed a newly published paper titled ‘World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice’ that’s set to quickly become a landmark publication. Essentially it’s an overview update (and very digestible, just a thousand words) on the … Continue reading

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 34: ‘Sahel greening’ unlikely to benefit African biodiversity

The below graph comes from a new global temperature trend study that compares different established datasets for land and ocean temperature. The results emphasize an often-overlooked phenomenon: geographically ‘skewed warming’ – leading to planet-wide precipitation shifts. Possible effects not only … Continue reading

New study: Recent drought eastern Mediterranean (Levant, incl. Syria) worst since Middle Ages, but complicated story

Droughts, or rather ‘air subsidence, hence low precipitation and high evaporation’ belong to the subtropics – therefore much of North Africa and the Middle East is covered by (semi) desert. What is a concern though, is possible further drying due … Continue reading

Take a look at this graph: Global air travel increased 8 fold in 4 decades – and it’s an accelerating trend. Yes we have a problem

Over the last 40 years global air travel has almost increased eight fold: In 1974 air planes carried 421 million people globally. In 2014 this number has increased to 3,21 billion passengers – that’s a billion more in just five … Continue reading

North Africa to lose another breadbasket due to climate change – Egypt’s Nile Delta dries out and submerges simultaneously, millions of migrants likely

Climate change not only causes decreased agricultural production due to droughts and desertification in Mediterranean North Africa and the ‘Fertile Crescent’ of the Middle East – it will also cost the region several thousands square kilometers of its most productive … Continue reading

The Syrian drought of 2006-2010 fits in climate trend of lower precipitation and higher temperatures, this graph shows

Over 2006 to 2010 a prolonged drought, unprecedented in modern documented history, caused a farming collapse in Northeastern Syria. Winter rainfall in the otherwise green & productive ‘Fertile Crescent’ decreased by at least a third in Syria (and up to … Continue reading

Largest known sea level rise took less than 350 years

Ocean level rise is known as one of the most disquieting effects of global warming, with more than three billion people living on the coast or less than 200 kilometres land inward and one tenth of the world population living … Continue reading