asia
Call for Colleagues: Mongolian ice-sheets
03/11/10 13:08
Dear Colleagues,
We are based in Mongolia and would like to share with you some novel research we are undertaking.
We are investigating ice shields that form in winter, and are called naleds (Russian) = aufeis (German) = taryn (Yakutian) = icing (English). We have detected thousands in Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, around Beijing, Tibet and across parts of Central Asia. Many are far from permafrost and are even found in scorching hot deserts provided the winters are severe enough to freeze water easily.
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We are based in Mongolia and would like to share with you some novel research we are undertaking.
We are investigating ice shields that form in winter, and are called naleds (Russian) = aufeis (German) = taryn (Yakutian) = icing (English). We have detected thousands in Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, around Beijing, Tibet and across parts of Central Asia. Many are far from permafrost and are even found in scorching hot deserts provided the winters are severe enough to freeze water easily.
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Guest Blog: Pakistan Flooding: Impacts, Attribution, & Adaptation Solutions
21/08/10 08:03
by Hammad Naqi Khan, WWF-Pakistan Programs Director
We cannot attribute these floods in Pakistan solely to climate change but labeling them as an extreme weather event that probably has a climate change component is logical; the current seasonal monsoon rains and flows in the Indus river and a few of its tributaries are a 1 in 100 year event. The signature of climate change will take some time to quantify, but 2010 has a confluence of weird weather that probably has a link to human-induced climate change. Consider: 2010 is the globally warmest year on record to date, the record high temperatures and wildfires in Russia, the exceptionally high rainfall and mudslides in China, the below average rainfalls in Bangladesh and most of India, and extremely high rainfall and flows in northern Pakistan rivers (which carry snow/glacier melt).
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We cannot attribute these floods in Pakistan solely to climate change but labeling them as an extreme weather event that probably has a climate change component is logical; the current seasonal monsoon rains and flows in the Indus river and a few of its tributaries are a 1 in 100 year event. The signature of climate change will take some time to quantify, but 2010 has a confluence of weird weather that probably has a link to human-induced climate change. Consider: 2010 is the globally warmest year on record to date, the record high temperatures and wildfires in Russia, the exceptionally high rainfall and mudslides in China, the below average rainfalls in Bangladesh and most of India, and extremely high rainfall and flows in northern Pakistan rivers (which carry snow/glacier melt).
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Pakistan flooding: live webcast from the Asia Society
18/08/10 11:28
The Asia Society invites you to participate in our upcoming Pakistan Flood Response, scheduled for this Thursday, August 19th, 2010 at 8:30 am ET via live webcast. Online viewers are encouraged to submit their questions to moderator@asiasociety.org before and during the webcast. We would also appreciate your help in getting the word out about this event to your networks. Thank you!
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Madonna and Child, with Climate Change
02/08/10 09:02
This is a story about what fear for the climate of the future looks like, on a personal level. I usually try to be optimistic in these entries. This one is less so.
We had been touring the eastern plateau in Qinghai province, western China, for over a week, slowly making our way up to the headwaters of the Mekong river. Each day was sunny and clear, but every evening clouds would gather rapidly. A wall of blustery rain would approach, pushing us to set up our little tents quickly under cover and have a wet meal under plastic.
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We had been touring the eastern plateau in Qinghai province, western China, for over a week, slowly making our way up to the headwaters of the Mekong river. Each day was sunny and clear, but every evening clouds would gather rapidly. A wall of blustery rain would approach, pushing us to set up our little tents quickly under cover and have a wet meal under plastic.
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Green Glaciers: The Melting Grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau
31/07/10 12:18
An enormous amount of attention has been paid to the loss of the ancient glaciers in the Himalayas and across the Tibetan plateau. Their retreat and the loss of glacial mass have been tied to rising air temperatures, longer warm seasons, and shifting precipitation patterns. But while dramatic and newsworthy, the loss of glaciers does not have an 
immediate impact on most people and ecosystems in the region beyond dry-season flows. Glaciers represent old reservoirs of water that build up over decades, centuries, and even millennia. However, most of the liquid water resources in the Himalayas and plateau come from seasonally frozen rain, groundwater, and snow, which accumulate each winter and melt over the following spring and summer to enter the rivers, groundwater, and lakes of south and central Asia.
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Beyond the Photos: Looking Closer at Impacts and Disaster Risk Reduction Plans for the Sundarbans
15/07/09 22:19
What does a village in the Sundarbans look like? We have already posted some photos of the village of Tipligheri that show how the residents here been affected by Tropical Storm Alia in May 2009 — and by extension how vulnerable such villages are to other tropical storms, which are strengthening in intensity as a result of climate change. My report here is in continuation of myupdate (ED: Anurag Danda’s) of 22 June profiling the impacts of Tropical Storm Alia on one village in the Sundarbans and the necessary recovery steps we are envisaging as part of the disaster risk reduction work of the Sundarbans Climate Adaptation Center. For those not familiar with the Sundarbans, Tipligheri stands in for many other villages in the region and is typical in many ways for the millions of people living in the Sundarbans.
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Guest Blog: Reflections from the Sundarbans: Short-Term Progress, Long-Term Strategies?
23/06/09 11:57
New Sundarbans Adaptation Center & Disaster Risk Reduction
04/04/09 08:14
A significant number of the hits to this blog are from South Asia, mostly directed at a 2008 entry on the Sundarbans islands that sit on the coast of Bangladesh and northeastern India. These islands are home to millions of very poor people, have one of the largest coastal mangrove forests in the world, and are the major refuge for the remaining Bengal tigers. These island exist in a balance between accruing sediment flowing down the Brahmaputra-Ganges rivers, the ability of the mangroves to capture the sediment, and the erosive action of the Indian ocean. A 1970s-era sediment-capturing dam upstream in combination with rising sea levels have caught the islands in a dangerous vice: sediments are no longer accumulating at sustainable levels, while tropical storm frequency and severity seem to be increasing — on top of accelerating sea-level rise. According to Arjan Berkhuysen, an expert on climate adaptation in river deltas and estuaries with WWF-Netherlands, “These problems are similar in deltas all over the world.... [We’re] looking for natural solutions that respect the dynamics of the system while helping people towards sustainable development in the face of climate change.” Happily, we have some good news about the Sundarbans: a regional Climate Adaptation Center has just been founded on Mousuni island on the Indian side on 29 March 2009.
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My Conventional Intervention at Ramsar
31/03/09 09:19
I speak frequently in public. After a year and a half in this job, I estimate I’ve given something like seventy talks, whether as a formal presentations, running workshops, or sitting on panels. I am fortunate in that I do not get easily nervous, especially since I seem to have experienced everything from hecklers to total equipment failure in mid-speech — mic, projector, support staff. But the occasional fit of anxiety does hit, and then I comfort myself: this talk is not that important. Nothing really critical depends on the outcomes of my delivery. But this rationalization has its limits.
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Istanbullish on Water
31/03/09 06:36
World Water Forum must be one of the largest conferences on the planet. Occurring every three years, the venue shifts through the developing world. Two weeks ago, the fifth Forum occurred in Istanbul, Turkey, couched between Europe, Africa, and Asia. I heard estimates of between 20,000 and 30,000 attendees for the week. Though we were all there nominally in the name of “water,” I’m not sure how unified or clear the focus the meeting is or even can be. Our conservation booth was located near the massive and predictably colorful “Italy” booth but also near a cluster of dam builders. On one adaptation panel, I sat between the representative of professional organization for water engineering and policy consultants and a labor union representative for water supply and sanitation workers. The conference had the coherence of a river that has reached its floodplain, spreading out and slowing down. Nonetheless, there were some interesting trends in water with climate change and climate adaptation. Read More...
