In December, the California Air Resources Board voted 9-1 to cap greenhouse gas emissions in the state. The new cap-and-trade program will begin in 2012, when an emissions cap will be set at the level forecast for that year. According to the ARB press release, the emissions cap...
In The News
California Moves Forward with Cap-and-Trade
January 4, 2011 |
California Air Resources Board
12th Century Drought Serves as Worst-Case Scenario for Future SW Climate
January 4, 2011 |
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
From 1146-1155 AD, the Southwest experienced a drought unprecedented in the last 1200 years. In a new report published in PNAS, Connie Woodhouse at the University of Arizona and her coauthors demonstrate that this drought can serve as analogue for the strength of future droughts across the region. The strength of this 12th...
Southwest Must Reduce Water Demand to Survive Drier Future
January 4, 2011 |
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Ensuring sustainable water supplies requires residents of the Southwest to start managing their water supplies more effectively, reports several papers in PNAS.
According to an article by John Sabo and colleagues, current water management and usage is unsustainable across the West. Testing the claims posed 20 years...
EPA Begins to Regulate Greenhouse Gases
January 4, 2011 |
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Starting this week, the U.S. EPA begins to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as it does other pollutants, due to their key role in driving global climate change. The new regulations will only pertain to the largest emitters—those releasing more than 100,000 tons of CO2-...
New Cancun Agreement Helps Developing Countries Fight Climate Change
December 13, 2010 |
Washington Post
Mixed Views on Cap-and-Trade across the Southwest
December 13, 2010 |
Farmington Daily Times and San Francisco Chronicle
The California Air Resources Board is posed to approve a cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions this week, and much of California seems pleased. A new survey of 493 registered California voters, conducted by Next 10, a nonpartisan Californian research organization, shows that 64% of Californians...
Clouds to Hasten Global Temperature Rise
December 13, 2010 |
Science
The direction of the cloud feedback has long been a source of uncetainty in projections of future temperature change, but a new study by Texas A&M scientist Andrew Dessler shows that as global temperatures rise, clouds will lead to further warming, acting as a positive feedback. The study, published in Science, looked at...
Western Forests Becoming Carbon Source Rather than Sink?
December 13, 2010 |
New York Times
According to the EPA, forests across the U.S. are currently a net sink for carbon from the atmosphere. In 2008, the 797 million acres of U.S. forest took up 256.5 teragrams of carbon, about 13.5% of our...
Track La Niña’s Effects on the Southwest
December 7, 2010 |
CLIMAS
The Climate Assessment for the Southwest has created a new resource that provides information on Southwest drought conditions related to La Niña variability. The La Niña Drought Tracker contains information and related graphics describing current and projected climate conditions across the Southwest, and how...
Rain Coming to Walker Lake
December 7, 2010 |
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is developing a plan to seed the clouds over the Walker River, in the hopes of bringing more rain to the region and reducing the salinity of Walker Lake. Walker...