weather

Extreme Weather Ahead: Your El Nino Travel Survival Guide

Christopher Elliot

There's only one way to avoid extreme winter weather and still travel -- and that is to select your destination carefully to steer clear of the worst of it. Head south to avoid severe blizzards. Or travel to Asia or Europe to escape the worst effects of this climate pattern.

Mega-Cities Face Peril as Climate Change Intensifies

Christina Conklin and Marina Psaros

In his major post-storm speech, Mayor Michael Bloomberg noted that in 2050, one-quarter of the city’s land and 800,000 residents would be within the one-hundred-year flood zone. But instead of talking about the devastation as an opportunity to reshape the city’s shoreline to better reflect future sea levels and more frequent storm surges, he doubled down. “As New Yorkers, we cannot and will not abandon our waterfront. It’s one of our greatest assets. We must protect it, not retreat from it,” he said.

What is the U.N. Plan to Help Climate Migrants?

Megan Darby

In a report released this week, the ‘task force on displacement’ called for better data collection and analysis on climate migration trends, and finance to help those hardest hit. “The UN currently lacks a systemwide lead, coordination mechanism, or strategy on disaster displacement, including related to climate change,” wrote the authors, who mostly represent UN agencies. They called on Secretary General Antonio Guterres to develop a response.

How Bad is California’s Drought?

Allyson Escobar

Impelled by severe drought conditions, residents have been seriously saving water in the last few months of summer. Californians cut water use by 27 percent in August, according to the Associated Press. That’s compared to August 2013, state regulators announced on Thursday, Oct. 1. The reduction was slightly less than the 31 percent decline in July, but stable with the 27 percent conservation effort made in June.

Facing Severe Drought, Californians Support Cutbacks

Ngoc Nguyen

Californians rank the drought as their number-one environmental concern, according to a new statewide survey. The poll by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) found three out of four residents favor mandatory curbs on water use. “They want the local district to do something -- mandatory reductions -- and they want the state government to do something,” said Mark Baldassare, PPIC president and CEO. “They recognize that it is a problem and the most important issue.”

 

California Agriculture Is at Risk of Greatest Water Loss To Date

Kat Kerlin

The study found that the drought — the third most severe on record — is responsible for the greatest water loss ever seen in California agriculture, with river water for Central Valley farms reduced by roughly one-third. Groundwater pumping is expected to replace most river water losses, with some areas more than doubling their pumping rate over the previous year, the study said. More than 80 percent of this replacement pumping occurs in the San Joaquin Valley and Tulare Basin.

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