Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – If you’re too busy to dive into the complex topics surrounding climate change, under discussion in Geneva 31 August to 4 September during the third World Climate Conference in 30 years, consider these facts:
- Carbon sinking: any natural store of carbon that can absorb CO2 from the air, such as forests, grasslands and oceans. (WWF jargon buster & acronyms, climate change)
- Zebra mussels, tiny freshwater mollusks, invaded US waterways in the early 1980s, imported from Russia, and they now post water management problems in many areas, complicating existing problems due to changes in water levels and quality. (Boston.com and Trout Unlimited)
- Globally, 10 of the hottest years on record have occurred since 1990 (records began in 1861)(Cambridgeshire CC, UK)
- Read more…
Getting out while there's time
Complete coverage of the WCC-3 by GenevaLunch
Conference is 31 August – 4 September 2009
Updated: Jimena video below / Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Hurricane Jimena is moving in on Cabo San Lucas, the Mexican resort town in southern Baja California, packing 195 km winds. Hotel guests are huddled in their boarded-up rooms.
Mexican authorities are polishing evacuation plans for people most at risk from flooding and storm surges.
Reducing disasters risk: debate at the World Climate Conference in Geneva
The incredibly detailed information at hand to track Jimena and other major weather events like it is the result of a complex interplay of sources of information from the most obvious, satellite images in almost real time, to a range of what climatologists call observations from the ground. The satellite data is collated with radar images, barometric information, wind speed and temperatures that are carefully collected and evaluated. For storms such as hurricane Jimena, the infrastructure is in place and the information is at hand. The first challenge to the scientists is to make the data available quickly and in a useful way to people at all levels, in order for them to be able to make meaningful decisions concerning safety and well-being.
Gordon Shepherd, WWF international policy and Martin Sommerkorn, WWF Arctic research, at Geneva climate conference
Photo: Marco Tedesco, WWF
Complete coverage of the WCC-3 by GenevaLunch
Conference is 31 August – 4 September 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – One-quarter of the world’s population is likely to be affected by rising ocean levels provoked by melting Arctic ice, a WWF study released 2 September shows. The Arctic is heating up at twice the rate of the rest of the Earth, the new Arctic Climate Feedbacks report shows. As a result, the level of oceans can be expected to rise by one metre by the end of the 21st century, twice as fast as current predictions suggest.
The report pulls together the most recent data covering the Arctic and its impact. It includes the ice sheets of Greenland and West Antarctica in global sea level projections, which were not included in the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 2007 assessment of the Arctic, widely relied on. The addition of these areas appears likely to change temperature and precipitation patterns in Europe and North America, affecting agriculture, forestry and water supplies, the new data shows.
Photo: Marco Tedesco, WWF
The Arctic holds twice as much carbon as the rest of the world and the study indicates that as warming speeds up, carbon released by warmer soils could reach significant levels. Read more…
Geneva, Switzerland: third World Climate Change Conference 2009
Complete coverage of the WCC-3 by GenevaLunch
Conference is 31 August – 4 September 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Small is increasingly seen as beautiful by climate experts, who say that making more information available about climate change at a local level is a key to helping the world adapt.
Leading specialists in the field, meeting at the World Climate Conference (WCC-3) which opened Monday 31 August in Geneva, are also putting the accent on developing countries, saying that while we all need more local information about climate change, these countries are in critical need of micro-solutions. These will be developed, however, only when appropriate, accurate, user-friendly weather information is available to them. Many developing countries lack even the most basic weather information, disseminated on a large scale.
© 2009 CICG
Complete coverage of the WCC-3 by GenevaLunch
Conference is 31 August – 4 September 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The third World Climate Conference (WCC-3) promises “better climate information for a better future” but in the immediate short term it is expected to cause a severe strain on Geneva’s traffic and accommodations this week.
Lake Geneva
Complete coverage of the WCC-3 by GenevaLunch
Conference is 31 August – 4 September 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Geneva is home this week to a key global conference on how the world can adapt to climate change – disasters such as floods and hurricanes, but also the more subtle changes that affect agriculture, tourism and daily life.
The conference agenda is wide-ranging and includes improvements to early warning systems for disasters and how to provide more precise and more localized weather forecasting, needed by developing countries as well as industries in the developed world.
The meeting is hosted by Switzerland and organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and a group of partners.
