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  • Climate change more effective than diplomacy for India and Bangladesh

    For all the bad rap that climate change gets, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to look on the bright side of things. Tensions have been rising between Bangladesh and India for the last 30 years over who owns New Moore Island. But rising seas have made the island no more. Problem solved! (Unless, like LOST fans, […]

  • In Copenhagen: island nations confront big emitters

    Cross-posted from The Nation. Big news from Copenhagen today, where the divide between big emitters and at-risk nations deepened, threatening the prospects of reaching a climate deal for President Obama and other heads of state to sign when they arrive at the summit next week. In a day of major developments, the Alliance of Small […]

  • Flooding in Freetown

    Most people love their home town. But what if you lived in a regularly flooded slum? Kroo Bay is a community of 16,000 people living at the bottom of a valley in Freetown, Sierra Leone separated from the sea by a rubbish dump. During the rainy season once or twice a year, and with increasing frequency, the whole area floods.

  • Satellite data suggests "that EAST Antarctica is losing mass"

    The East Antarctic ice sheet has been losing mass for the last three years, according to an analysis of data from a gravity-measuring satellite mission. That’s from the BBC story.  Nature Geoscience just published the study online, “Accelerated Antarctic ice loss from satellite gravity measurements.”  It begins, “Accurate quantification of Antarctic ice-sheet mass balance and […]

  • Arctic sea ice is refreezing quite slowly. Go figure!

    When records were being set for loss of summer Arctic sea ice area (2007) and sea ice volume (2008), the deniers spent all their time talking about how quickly the ice refroze in the ensuing months.  Now, they are strangely quiet on the remarkably slow refreezing we’re seeing. Why the slow refreezing this year?  I’ll […]

  • Disappearing beaches in Gambia

    Hotel managers in Gambia say without the beach the tourists will not come. But the beach in front of the country’s two landmark hotels is disappearing pretty fast. It is a very serious state of affairs for a country that derives a major percentage of its income from tourism. Beach erosion is clearly visible at […]

  • Where the Sahara meets the Atlantic

    Rising sea levels are threatening the island homes of Mauritania’s Imraguen fishermen. Above, child plays alongside flooded landscape on Nair Island.Tim Bromfield / Atlantic Rising The Banc d’Arguin, where the Sahara meets the Atlantic in Mauritania, is a staging post for over two million exhausted migratory birds from Europe and Siberia. Terns dive for fish, […]

  • As the land disappears, an Indian tribe plans to abandon its ancestral Louisiana home

    For at least 170 years, Isle de Jean Charles — a narrow ridge of land lying between Bayou Terrebonne and Bayou Pointe-aux-Chene in southeastern Louisiana’s Terrebonne Parish — has been home to members of the Biloxi-Chitimacha tribe, native people related to the Choctaw and part of a larger confederation of Muskogees. But the tribe’s history […]

  • Mont St Michel — flushing the meadows

    Restoring the natural topography around Mont St Michel will result in a sandy stretch at low tide, prompting locals to suggest sand and eventual climate change will replace the region’s famous “pre-salted” lamb with pre-salted camel.Tim BromfieldThe lambs gambling in the meadows around Mont St Michel have a hard life. Grazed on the bay’s low-lying […]