Category: Warming Effects

Although scientists continue to amass data and tease out the details, all signs in the search for a cause point to stronger winds associated with a warming planet.

If this theory holds up, it means that global warming and the build-up of heat-trapping gases are bringing about oceanic changes beyond those previously documented: a rise in sea level, more acidic ocean water and the bleaching of coral reefs.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-deadzone15feb15,0,3979313.story 

Global warming is setting the stage for an invasion of predators on the sea floor around Antarctica, the likes of which have not been there for more than 40 million years.Back in the late Eocene epoch, predatory animals such as sharks and crabs were driven away from Antarctic depths when the continent and its surrounding waters turned into an icebox, said researchers on Friday at a symposium at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.

The result was a virtually predator-free zone on the seafloor and a paradise for worms, sea lilies, clams, brittle stars and other bottom-dwelling animals.

All that is about to end, however. Global warming is now raising water temperatures to the point where, very soon, those long-exiled predators could return and wreak havoc on the ocean floor, say biologists.

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http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/15/antarctica-predators.html 

BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) — Champagne produced in southern England? Bordeaux in the Loire Valley?

Climate change is threatening to redraw the world’s wine-producing map, and the effects are already being seen in earlier harvests and coarser wines, experts told an international conference Friday.

“The consequences of global warming are already being felt. Harvests are already coming 10 days earlier than before in almost all wine-growing regions,” said Bernard Seguin, the head of climate studies at France’s INRA agricultural research institute.

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http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gDZNTcXc39AhLTDTzUUiUHs5RpmQ