Author: postMigrator

Gannett News Service
Published: 04.10.2008

Expect a busier Atlantic hurricane season than initially believed.

Professor William Gray’s Colorado State University forecasting team published its updated 2008 predictions Wednesday, and the numbers are on the rise. The latest forecast calls for 15 named storms and eight hurricanes — four of them major hurricanes of Category 3 or stronger.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 until Nov. 30.

“To put it in perspective, a typical season has 10 named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes,” said Phil Klotzbach, Gray’s research partner. “So we’re calling for about 160 percent of an average hurricane season this year.”
In early December, Gray and Klotzbach predicted a “somewhat above-average” Atlantic hurricane season, featuring 13 named storms and seven hurricanes, three of them major. They upped those numbers Wednesday.

Klotzbach devised a new computer statistical model after his team overestimated the last two hurricane seasons. The researchers will release an updated forecast June 3, the third day of the hurricane season.

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Analysis Shows American Forests Contain Enormous Carbon Reserves,
But Available Measuring Tools Reflect Gaps in Underlying Data

Report Highlights Importance of Protecting Existing Forests: Lower 48
States Alone Hold Carbon Reserves Equal to 20 Years of U.S. Greenhouse
Emissions.

For Immediate Release:
April 9, 2008
Contacts:        –Ann Ingerson, M.S., Economic Research Associate,
TWS: 802-586-9625
–Dr. Jerry F. Franklin, Professor, College of Forest Resources,
University of Washington
–Bob Perschel, Northeast Region Director, Forest Guild: 508-756-4625
–Chris Mehl, Communications Director, TWS: 406-581-4992

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A report released today by The Wilderness Society
emphasizes the enormous carbon reserves held by forests in the
contiguous states – roughly equivalent to more than 20 years of
current United States greenhouse gas emissions from industrial and
other sources.  Across the U.S., public and protected forests
generally store the most carbon.  The analysis also cautions that
existing carbon measurement tools have significant limitations due to
gaps in the underlying data: old growth forests, in particular, may
be undervalued.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 8, 2008
2:35 PM

CONTACT: Defenders of Wildlife
Richard Charter, (707) 696-1363
Sandra Purohit, (202) 772-0250

Offshore Drilling Could Destroy Bristol Bay Fisheries
Defenders of Wildlife Opposes Interior Department Approval of New Leases

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA – April 8 – Today’s announcement by the Department of the Interior inviting offshore oil and gas drilling throughout Alaska’s fishery-rich Bristol Bay could undermine commercial and recreational fishing throughout the region, Defenders of Wildlife warned. It also puts at risk important marine mammal and migratory bird habitat.

“Through thousands of years of careful stewardship, Alaska’s indigenous peoples have maintained the healthy web of life in Bristol Bay. Now the Bush administration is encouraging the oil industry to submit maps showing where they want to drill offshore,” said Richard Charter, a consultant for Defenders of Wildlife. “This is a tragic and high-risk decision destined to ultimately destroy one of America’s only remaining sustainable marine ecosystems.”

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Published on Monday, April 7, 2008 by The Guardian/UK
Climate Target Is Not Radical Enough – Study
by Ed Pilkington in New York

One of the world’s leading climate scientists warns today that the EU and its international partners must urgently rethink targets for cutting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of fears they have grossly underestimated the scale of the problem.0407 01 1 2

In a startling reappraisal of the threat, James Hansen, head of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, calls for a sharp reduction in C02 limits.

Hansen says the EU target of 550 parts per million of C02 – the most stringent in the world – should be slashed to 350ppm. He argues the cut is needed if “humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed”. A final version of the paper Hansen co-authored with eight other climate scientists, is posted today on the Archive website. Instead of using theoretical models to estimate the sensitivity of the climate, his team turned to evidence from the Earth’s history, which they say gives a much more accurate picture.

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