Amazon could shrink by 85% due to climate change

Scientists say 4C rise would kill 85% of the Amazon rainforest
Even modest temperature rise would see 20-40% loss within 100 years

Amazon could shrink by 85% due to climate change, scientists say | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Earth Hour

 

Earth Hour

Wired world - the global growth of mobile phone use | Business | guardian.co.uk

6 in 10 people now subscribe to a mobile phone

Wired world - the global growth of mobile phone use | Business | guardian.co.uk

China plans 59 reservoirs to collect meltwater

 

China

China is planning to build 59 reservoirs to collect water from its shrinking glaciers as the cost of climate change hits home in the world's most populous country.

The far western province of Xinjiang, home to many of the planet's highest peaks and widest ice fields, will carry out the 10-year engineering project, which aims to catch and store glacier run-off that might otherwise trickle away into the desert.

Behind the measure is a desire to adjust seasonal water levels and address longer-term concerns that downstream city residents will run out of drinking supplies once the glaciers in the Tian, Kunlun and Altai mountains disappear.

Anxiety has risen along with temperatures that are rapidly diminishing the ice fields. The 3,800-metre Urumqi No1 glacier, the first to be measured in China, has lost more than 20% of its volume since 1962, according to the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute (Careeri) in Lanzhou.

About 80% of the glaciers in the Tian (Heaven) range have declined, though increased precipitation has also led a small number to expand.

To deal with the consequences, Xinjiang will set aside 200m yuan (£20m) for each of the next three years. In the first phase, 29 reservoirs will be built with a combined capacity of 21.8 billion cubic metres of water, according to the Xinhua news agency.

Wang Shijiang, director of Xinjiang Water Resource Department, told the agency that the mountain reservoir system was designed to "intercept" meltwater so that it could be used more efficiently for irrigation and to adjust for seasonal variations in rainfall.

Xinjiang is particularly dependent on a steady supply of meltwater from glaciers, which act as solid reservoirs that store precipitation in the winter and release it in the summer.

Few city residents understand the problem because in recent years water supplies have surged thanks to the extra meltwater and increased rainfall. The excess supply has been used to water golf courses and make artificial snow for a ski slope in semi-desert Urumqi. But scientists say the glut is unsustainable because it comes from the release of water that has built up over thousands of years.

"At the moment there is plenty of water in the big cities. But it is hard to say how long it will last," said He Yuanqing, a glaciologist at Careeri. "On one hand, global warming is accelerating the melt. But on the other, it is increasing rainfall, so we need a way to store the extra water."

Estimates of how long it will take Urumqi's glacial water supplies to start to decline range from 40 to 100 years.

It is unclear, however, how long the water can be stored without replenishment. Experts have previously called for the reservoirs to be built underground so that the water does not evaporate in the summer, when Xinjiang has the highest average temperatures in China.

Over-exploitation of river systems and oases has exacerbated the problem. The volume of water in the once vast Aibi lake in Xinjiang has decreased by two-thirds over the past 50 years, the Beijing News reported today.

In terms of glacier melt, the worst affected area in China is the Tibetan plateau, often described as "the roof of the world". Last month, Chinese scientists warned that glaciers on the plateau had lost 989 million cubic metres over the past 40 years and were continuing to melt at a "worrying speed". They added that ice fields had shrunk by 196 sq kilometres, equivalent to a quarter of New York city.

plans 59 reservoirs to collect meltwater from its shrinking glaciers | Environment | The Guardian

Worldometers - real time world statistics

 

Statistics on Population ,Economy, Society and Media, Environment, Food, Water, Energy, Health,

Worldometers - real time world statistics

Ageing UK

• Every hour life expectancy in Britain rises by another 16 minutes.
• A man of 60 can expect to live for another 20.5 years and a woman of teh same age for 23.6 years.
• The percentage of the population aged under 16 bhas been declining since 1995 and for the first time ever, has dropped below the percentage of the population of state pensionable age.
• There were more then 11 million people over state pension age in 2005.
• The fastest growing group are those aged 80 years and over and constitute 4.5 % of the total population. This age group increased by over 1.1 million between 1981 and 2007.
• The mortality rate for the population aged over 75 has fallen from 137 deaths per thousand in 1911 - 1915, to 83 deaths per thousand in 2006 - 2007.
• There are around 9,000 centenarians in the UK, a 90 fold increase since 1911.
• At the currrent rate of expansion teh UK's centenarian population could reach over 40,000 by 2031.
• The annual number of deaths fell to 571,000 in 2007 from 599,000 in 2001.
• In 2007 the UK,s total fertility rate was 1.9 children per woman below the replacement rate of 2.10.

Coastal processes

Erosion

The sea changes and shapes the coastal landscape. Erosion is the wearing away and breaking up of rock and beach material found along the coast. Destructive waves will erode the coastline in the following four ways.

1. The constant force of waves crashing on the shore damages it. This is called hydraulic action.
2. Waves bring with them bits of rock and sand. These help to grind down cliffs. This is called abrasion.
3. Waves cause rocks and pebbles on the shore to smash into each other and break down. This is called attrition.
4. Acids contained in sea water will slowly dissolve certain types of rock. This is called corrosion or solution.

BBC - GCSE Bitesize - Coastal processes

Storm Hydrographs

BBC - Scotland Higher Bitesize Revision - Hydrosphere

Desktop Wallpapers

 

Desktop Wallpapers | Vladstudio.com - free desktop wallpapers, widescreen, dual monitors, iPhone wallpapers, backgrounds for mobile phones, wallpaper clocks, e-cards

CO2 emissions, birth & death rates by country, simulated real-time

The Breathing Earth simulation

Welcome to Breathing Earth. This real-time simulation displays the CO2 emissions of every country in the world, as well as their birth and death rates.

Please remember that this real time simulation is just that: a simulation. Although the co2 emission, birth rate and death rate data used in Breathing Earth comes from reputable sources, data that measures things on such a massive scale can never be 100% accurate. Please note however that the co2 emission levels shown here are much more likely to be too low than they are to be too high.

CO2 emissions, birth & death rates by country, simulated real-time

Living Geography

Find more videos like this on Geography Teaching Cumbria
Thanks to Kevin Cooper

Online Interactive ELearning Teaching Resource Library

Great ANIMATIONS

Cliffs and Wave cut platforms; Depressions; Long shore drift; Earthquake Hurricane Tornado; Tsunami; Volcano; Rainfall; Waterfalls

Online Interactive ELearning Teaching Resource Library. List of Teaching Resources.

Oxfam's Cool Tsunami in Asia - Index page

Tsunami in Asia brings together educational materials from Cool Planet, and information from the main Oxfam website and external sites, to enable teaching around the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Asia

Oxfam's Cool Planet for teachers - Tsunami in Asia - Index page

Interactive. Indian Ocean tsunami

 

Interactive map and access to Guardian special report

30.12.04 Interactive. Indian Ocean tsunami - how it happened | guardian.co.uk | guardian.co.uk

FEMA: Are You Ready?

You may need to survive on your own after a disaster. This means having your own food, water, and other supplies in sufficient quantity to last for at least three days. Local officials and relief workers will be on the scene after a disaster, but they cannot reach everyone immediately. You could get help in hours, or it might take days.

Basic services such as electricity, gas, water, sewage treatment, and telephones may be cut off for days, or even a week or longer. Or, you may have to evacuate at a moment’s notice and take essentials with you. You probably will not have the opportunity to shop or search for the supplies you need.

A disaster supplies kit is a collection of basic items that members of a household may need in the event of a disaster

FEMA: Are You Ready?

Asian Tsunami

An earthquake on Boxing day, December 26, sent huge waves crashing into 11 Asian countries, wiping out entire communities. It's estimated that 5 million people have been made homeless by the disaster. British people have so far donated £76m to the fund to help the survivors. Students learn how the tsunami started, how people have been affected and what they can do to help.

CBBC Newsround | Teachers | Citizenship 11 14 | Subject areas | Globalisation Environmental | Asian Tsunami

Tsunami links

BBC “Asia quake disaster – in depth” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/2004/asia_quake_disaster/default.stm

Home page for BBC News reports on the 26/12/04 earthquake and subsequent Tsunami damage. BBC Asia Earthquake Disaster

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/specials/2004/asia_earthquake_disaster/default.stm

BBC home page for reports aimed more at children.

BBC “Tsunami among world's worst disasters”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4128509.stm

Article with brief descriptions comparing effects of various natural disasters since 1500s.

CNN “Waves of Destruction”

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2004/tsunami.disaster/

Home page for CNN reports.

ABC News Tsunami page

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Tsunami/

Home page for ABC News reports.

Guardian Unlimited – Special Report

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tsunami/0,15671,1380306,00.html

Links to features and resources. Animations very useful. (May be slow to load.)

Earth Observatory – Natural Hazards

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=12640

Map of epicentre, immediate plate boundaries and aftershocks.

BBC animated guide

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4136289.stm

Slides with (limited) animation showing affected area, formation of tsunami and results.

BBC “How the quake unfolded”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/04/asia_pac_asia_earthquake_explained/html/1.stm

Illustrated description of the event. (7 “slides”)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration animation

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/video/tsunami-indonesia2004.mov

5.8Mb QuickTime animation showing shockwaves spreading across complete Indian Ocean area.

AIST animation

http://staff.aist.go.jp/kenji.satake/animation.gif

1.1Mb animated GIF. (Plays in browser but can also be downloaded for more “controlled” viewing in a graphics package that supports this type of file.) Shows time after initial quake.

Discovery Channel animation of Indonesian tsunami

http://media.dsc.discovery.com/news/media/tsunami_wmp.html

PBS “Savage Earth – waves of destruction”

http://www.thirteen.org/savageearth/animations/tsunami/index.html

3 Flash slides with description.

US Geological Survey http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/tsunami/stoch_low.html

2.2Mb QuickTime movie of theoretical tsunami off US Pacific coast.

Federal Emergency Management Agency tsunami “Fact Sheet”

http://www.fema.gov/hazards/tsunamis/tsunamif.shtm

A variety of useful resources including information on past tsunamis, FAQs and “Great Waves” brochure.

ITIC “Great Waves” brochure

http://www.prh.noaa.gov/pr/itic/library/pubs/great_waves/tsunami_great_waves.html

Excellent resource for download (large Acrobat file – 9.8Mb) or online viewing. Photos and diagrams useful for all ages.

Federal Emergency Management Agency “Tsunami for Kids”

http://www.fema.gov/kids/tsunami.htm

Limited information but interesting “Tsunami Warning” storybook. (See link on left of page.)

 

The tsunami in the Indian Ocean

The tsunami in the Indian Ocean has touched the lives of many people around the world. The GA offers its condolences to all those who have been affected by the tragedy. We also recognise that in events like this, it is the role of geography to help young people understand and make sense of what has happened.

Geographical Association - Past Themes - The tsunami in the Indian Ocean

Tsunami

Tsunami