Status of Canadian polar bears updated map from Environment Canada

by Dr. Susan Crockford, May 24, 2018 in PolarBearScience


DDuring a meeting of polar bear range states (Canada, Russia, Greenland, Norway, and the USA) in late January 2018 to discuss conservation issues, Canada — home to ~2/3 of the world’s polar bears — included in its presentation an updated population status and trend map approved by the Polar Bear Technical Committee in its presentation. This 2017 map replaces one from 2014 but is not yet available on the Environment Canada website.

 

 

New Scientific Evidence Robustly Affirms Scandinavian Temperatures Were 3-4°C Warmer 9000 Years Ago

by K. Richard, May 31, 2018 in NoTricksZone

Because trees may only grow within narrowly-defined temperature ranges and elevations above sea level, perhaps the most reliable means of assessing the air temperatures of past climates is to collect ancient treeline evidence.  In a new paper, Kullman (2018) found tree remnants at mountain sites 600 to 700 meters north of where the modern treeline ends, strongly implying Early Holocene air temperatures in northern Sweden were 3-4°C warmer than recent decades.

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Flooding really was worse in the old days

by Oliver Moody, May 29, 2018 in TheNYTimes


Since the 1950s the number of lives and the amount of money lost to floods have declined, despite little change to the frequency of catastrophic floods, according to the first comprehensive study of European historical records.

Academics at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands found that the number of flood deaths across Europe has been falling by about 5 per cent a year for the past six decades. Financial losses to flooding have declined by 2 per cent a year, according to their paper in Nature Communications.