What A Wonderful World With David Attenborough

 A celebration of Natural History on BBC One with David Attenborough.

... what a lad!

Chile Ash Cloud

Chile Ash Cloud

The picture below shows a cloud of lightning topped ash rising into the sky during a June eruption of the  Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcano complex, southern Chile. The summer eruption grounded flights in Chile and neighboring Argentina.

Officials began evacuating people from the immediate vicinity of the Hudson Volcano, 470 miles (756 kilometers) south of Puyehue-Cordón Caulle. Recent releases of steam and ash from the volcano have had authorities in Chile and Argentina on high alert.


"Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/10/pictures/111031-best-news-pictures-lightning-volcano-beluga-bubble/?source=hp_dl1_news_pictures20111102#/best-news-pictures-10-2011-volcano-lightning_42814_600x450.jpg"

Matt?

Haha!

National Geographic

Justt another follow-on post to the numberous ones about world population and im sure this will be the last one! Its the second video from National Geographic aboutt the worlds most typical person, very well put together and full of current relevent information, have a watch...

What do you think?...



POPULATION STATISTICS

Population - Past, Present and Future

In response to my last blog, i have just read, courtersy of the guardian, that the worlds population has indeed now reached 7000000. Along with this article, i have foundd an intersting UN population graphic which illustrates (pretty well) the growing population of different countries and other relevent demographic information... enjoy?

UN population graphic

Panet Earth... population of 7 billion...

WORLD POPULATION

As you may already know, this year - in 2011 the population of our planet is due to reach 7000000. An absolutly absurd number i know, but after watching this video, thats not the only alarming fact or number about our worlds population... Have a watch:

Some of these facts are just crazy... I think the western world and society as a whole should watch this video and take some kind of action.

Graysia

The economic impact of demographics in Asia

Investors are often lured to countries like India and Vietnam by their demographic promise—by their fast-growing population of workers and consumers. Likewise, investors in China often worry that it “will grow old before it grows rich”. Demographics are not destiny, but they are a noteworthy determinant of economic potential. Youngsters and retirees do not work, which harms growth directly. And because these dependants make a claim on a country’s income without adding to it, they also depress savings, thereby slowing the accumulation of capital and the growth of productivity. In its latest Asian Development Outlook, the Asian Development Bank calculates the contribution of Asia’s youthful demographics to its economic success over the past decade. The bank also projects the impact of a greying population on Asia’s growth from now until 2030.

Extreme Summertime Temperatures to Become a Regular Occurrence, Researcher Predicts

ScienceDaily (Sep. 9, 2011)
In an article in the current issue of the journal Climate Change Letters, a Boston University researcher has estimated the impact near-term increases in global-mean temperatures will have on summertime temperatures in the U.S. and around the globe.
The "2°C global warming target" is in reference to the current international efforts to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases and limit human-induced global-mean near-surface temperature increases to 2°C (3.5°F) relative to the pre-industrial era, three-fifths of which has already occurred.
"We wanted to determine the impact such a temperature increase might have upon the frequency of seasonal-mean temperature extremes in various regions of the world, even if we were to avoid this target" said Bruce Anderson, associate professor of geography and environment and the study's author. "In particular, we wanted to determine if preventing the global-mean temperature increase from reaching this threshold would prevent extreme temperature values from becoming a normal occurrence in these regions."
Anderson's research indicates that if the 2°C increase were to come to pass, 70-80% of the land surface will experience summertime temperature values that exceed observed historical extremes (equivalent to the top 5% of summertime temperatures experienced during the second half of the 20th century) in at least half of all years. In other words, even if an increase in the global mean temperature is limited to 2°C, current historical extreme values will still effectively become the norm for 70-80% of Earth's land surface.
"Many regions of the globe -- including much of Africa, the southeastern and central portions of Asia, Indonesia, and the Amazon -- are already committed to reaching this point, given current amounts of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere," said Anderson. Global-mean temperatures are expected to increase an additional 0.6°C (1°F) over the coming decades even if no more carbon dioxide, methane, or other heat-trapping gases are added to the atmosphere.

In the United States, the impacts are expected to be most severe over the western third of the country. "In these regions, if the 2°C threshold is passed, it is more likely than not that every summer will be an extreme summer compared with today," said Anderson. Further, the region is expected to follow soon after Africa, Asia, and the Amazon as one in which summertime temperature extremes will become the norm. "While the western third of the U.S. is not committed to reaching such a situation, it is certainly on the brink," said Anderson.
"While previous work, including our own and that of researchers at Stanford, has highlighted that summertime temperature extremes, and how frequently they occur, will change significantly even in response to relatively small increases in global-mean temperatures, the extent and immediacy of the results really caught us off guard," said Anderson. "Because these results are referenced to increases in global-mean temperatures, and not some particular time or change in amount of heat-trapping gases, they hold whether we reach this global-mean temperature increase in the next 40-50 years as currently projected, or the next century. They really are telling us that this is a temperature threshold that poses significant risks to our lives and livelihoods."

Extreme summertime temperatures killed tens of thousands in Europe in 2003 and Russia in 2010 and produced over $50 billion in agriculture losses across the central and eastern U.S. in 1988. In addition, at least 18 states, including much of the southern and south-eastern U.S., suffered through these types of extreme conditions this past summer.
"We find that the results are sensitive to both the observational dataset used to determine the range of historical variability and the numerical model data used to determine the grid-point increases in future temperatures," said Anderson. Despite these caveats, the findings suggest that substantial fractions of the globe could experience seasonal-mean temperature extremes with high regularity well before the 2°C global-warming target is reached.
(http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110909111449.htm)

Now fair enough, this is an American artical but some things dont change depending on the location and this is one of them. This artical gives raw data for the increasingly contraversial topic of clobal warming and, i believe accurate and valuable predictions. Even with all this global warming and calculated forsights into the future, the results are yet to be seen in some parts of the world (England) but as i believe they are visible just not in the usual way, for example our recent record snowfalls...
 But at the end of the day, im just hoping that, this artical atleast speaks for the world and we end up with a decent summer for once!
(i prefer to use the word climate 'change' anyway)