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A look at our changing environment.

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Global Climate Or Local Weather?

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We don’t experience climate; we experience weather.  And a new study has found that what Americans believe about the changing climate often depends more on their personal experience than what is going on around the world.

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Climate Change And Reindeer

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Hundreds of thousands of reindeer roam Russia’s Yamal Peninsula, which is located in northwestern Siberia, and are herded by the indigenous Nenets people, reportedly among the Arctic’s last truly nomadic reindeer herders.  Reindeer provide these indigenous people with transportation, food, clothes, and even tools made from their bones.  Reindeer are well suited for the freezing temperatures and thick snow of this climate.  But they are not well suited for climate change. 

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The Ocean As A Heat Sink

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From 1998 until 2013, scientists observed a slowing in the rate of global mean surface warming.   In other words, global temperatures were not rising as quickly as before.  This quickly became known as the “global warming hiatus.”

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Climate-Induced Relocation

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One of the thorniest problems arising from the changing climate is the degradation of inhabited areas that forces entire communities to relocate permanently.  Basically, we don’t really have the infrastructure in place to deal with such occurrences.

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Climate Change And Buzzards Bay

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The effects of climate change are being felt around the world, including in some well-known places in the Northeast.  Buzzards Bay is a popular destination for fishing, boating, and tourism adjacent to Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

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The World’s Lakes Are Heating Up

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Climate change is causing the world’s lakes to warm, with repercussions for fisheries and freshwater supplies. So reports an ambitious new study, funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation, and recently published in Geophysical Research Letters.

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Climate Change And The Global Food System

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One of the most troubling aspects of global climate change is its potential impact on the production, distribution and quality of food.   A report issued at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference focused on identifying climate change impacts on global food security.  Food security is the ability of people to obtain and use sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food.  Even without the impact of climate change, food security is a challenge because of increasing population, poverty, and changing eating habits.

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Cod And Global Warming

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Atlantic cod has been the basis of a major fishing industry in the Gulf of Maine for centuries and is a key species in the local ecosystem.  Overfishing decimated the population of cod and in 2010, fisheries managers imposed a series of restrictions on harvesting the fish in order to try to help the species to rebound.

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Snowpack Loss

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A recent study showed that this year the snowpack in California, which is suffering an ongoing drought as well as long-term warming, reached its lowest point in 500 years.   Snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada mountains fills reservoirs that provide a third of all of the drinking water for the state of California, as well as water used to fight fires and generate electricity.

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WAMC Northeast Public Radio

WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is a regional public radio network serving parts of seven northeastern states (more...)