A report issued last week on the effects of global warming on storms and flooding is drawing attention in many at-risk areas.

Among the communities taking special notice of the report are Northeast Ohio, which recently experienced record storms and floods; Eastern North Dakota, which has seen the benefits of smart flood planning methods advocated by Dr. Amanda Staudt, author of the report; New England, which has endured abnormally heavy rain in recent months; Northwest Indiana, which is at an increased risk of flooding due to global warming; and Virginia, which has experienced starkly contrasting dry and wet weather periods in the last year.

“Global warming is partly to blame for these heavy rainfall events,” said Dr. Staudt. “Warmer air simply can hold more moisture, so heavier precipitation is expected in the years to come.”

America’s over-reliance on levees and other strategies for taming rivers; communities that are on the frontlines; and what must be done to confront the realities of global warming.The report focuses on how global warming has caused more heavy rainfall events;

Five nations that created a treaty almost four decades ago to protect polar bears have issued a joint statement identifying global warming as “the most important long-term threat” to the bears.

The statement was released at the end of a meeting held in Norway, with scientists and officials attending from the United States, Canada, Russia, Norway and Denmark, representing Greenland. All nations have territory that abuts the Arctic Ocean, which is prime polar bear habitat.

Experts at the meeting said the parties were committed to collaboration on programs aimed at limiting direct threats to bear populations from increasing tourism, shipping and oil and gas drilling in the warming region, The New York Times reports.

Bear experts said that the five nations who cosigned the 1973 agreement on the conservation of polar bears need worldwide cooperation to address greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

It is estimated that there are currently 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears worldwide.

Tropical trees have grown bigger over the past half century and now absorb 20 percent of global warming pollution from the atmosphere, emphasizing the urgent need to preserve threatened forests, researchers said recently.

Using data collected from 250,000 trees in the world's tropical forests over the past 40 years, their study found that tropical forests across the world remove 4.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year.

Tropical forests now make up about half of the world's "land carbon sink", the British researchers said in the journal Nature.

"To get an idea of the value of the sink, the removal of nearly 5 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by intact tropical forests, based on realistic prices for a ton of carbon, should be valued at around [$19 billion dollars] per year," study co-author Lee White, Gabon's chief climate change scientist, said in a statement.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that human activity produces 32 billion tons of carbon dioxide worldwide each year.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said recently the government is throwing out the leases of 77 parcels of federal land for oil and gas drilling in Utah's redrock country.

"In the last weeks in office, the Bush administration rushed ahead to sell oil and gas leases near some of our nation's most precious landscapes in Utah," Salazar told the Associated Press in a teleconference call.

Secretary Salazar said he had ordered the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management to not cash checks from winning bidders for parcels at issue in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups.

"We will take time and a fresh look at these 77 parcels to see if they are appropriate for oil and gas development," Secretary Salazar said.

A federal judge put the sale of the 77 parcels, totaling about 100,000 acres, on hold recently until the lawsuit was resolved. Now, Secretary Salazar is refusing to sell any of them until the new administration reviews them.

Salazar said some of the land lease parcels are too close to Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Dinosaur National Monument. He also worked to protect plateaus populated by big game atop Nine Mile Canyon, the AP reports.

California, the nation's leading agricultural producer, may be hit particularly hard by the effects of climate change and drought, with dire consequences on the industry and our food supplies, a top Obama official said recently.

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said that California's farms and vineyards could vanish by the end of the century if Americans do not act to slow the advance of global warming. The Nobel-prize-winning physicist warned of detrimental water shortages in the western United States with particularly dire results in California.

California is experiencing the worst water crisis in the state's history. “We're definitely in really bad shape,” said Elissa Lynn, chief meteorologist with the California Department of Water Resources. “People can expect to pay higher prices for produce ...We just don't have enough water.”

A recent University of California study estimates that 60,000 agricultural jobs and more than $1.6 billion in agriculture wages will be lost due to the drought. The study did not account for the loss in farm income, according to a new letter from congressmen to Governor Schwarzenegger.

“I don't think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said. “We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California.”

Warmer temperatures, different patterns of precipitation and runoff, and rising sea levels will profoundly affect the state’s ability to manage water supplies and other natural resources, according to the California Department of Water Resources. 

A consortium of groups joined forces to put the brakes on Bush-era regulations and land management plans to fast-track development of oil shale, a dirty fossil fuel that threatens water resources, communities and wildlife in the West.  Oil shale development would also contribute to climate change.

The groups filed two suits in U.S. District Court for Colorado alleging that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) under the Bush administration violated the National Environmental Policy Act in drafting regulations for a commercial oil shale program without, by their own admission, having sufficient information on the environmental impacts.

Craig Thompson, chair-elect of the National Wildlife Federation board of directors and a former oil shale worker states, “What the rush for oil shale development will bring is an impoverished landscape in which scarce water and stressed wildlife are pushed past the brink,” adding “Why the rush now, despite objections from Governors Freudenthal and Ritter, along with Senators Ken Salazar and Mark Udall?”

The suit also charges that the BLM violated federal procedure by amending 12 resource management plans in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming to allow oil shale and tar sands development on nearly two and one half million acres of land without the opportunity normally afforded the public to file an administrative appeal, or “protest,” of the decision. Furthermore, the Bush administration failed to ensure that taxpayers receive a fair return from oil shale lease royalties, in violation of Federal Lands Policy Management Act and the Energy Policy Act of 2005.      

Producing a liquid fuel from oil shale entails heating solid rock to temperatures in excess or 600°F to liquefy the kerogen inside for conversion into synthetic petroleum fuels.  Because of the large amounts of energy needed to heat and process oil shale, as many as 10 new coal power plants might be needed in the West, leading to increased emissions of greenhouse gasses that contribute to climate change.

The Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Native Ecosystems, Colorado Environmental Coalition, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, National Wildlife Federation, Red Rock Forests, Sierra Club, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Western Colorado Congress, Western Resource Advocates, The Wilderness Society and Wilderness Workshop filed the suits.

President-elect Barack Obama has introduced more cabinet selections—Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) as Secretary of the Interior and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture.

In response, Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of National Wildlife Federation, said:

"Sen. Ken Salazar has been a champion for America's public lands. He's fought to protect Western lands from costly, destructive oil shale production. He also took on the Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management over oil and gas leasing on the Roan Plateau in northwest Colorado. And as a former water rights and mining lawyer and former director of Colorado's Department of Natural Resources, Sen. Salazar brings an experienced perspective to needed mining reform.

"Gov. Tom Vilsack has supported working to improve the environmental performance of U.S. agriculture. We look forward to working with him to move our country forward to the next generation of clean, sustainable, biomass energy and improved farming practices that can store carbon and restore the fertility of our soils.

"President-elect Obama has once again shown he understands clean energy and climate must be addressed at every level of government from a wide range of policy perspectives. With this team in place, President-elect Obama has strong allies in his fight to enact a cap-and-invest plan that reduces global warming pollution and grows clean energy technologies that will recharge our economy and protect our natural resources for future generations."

President-elect Obama has also introduced his energy and environment team, naming Carol Browner to lead a new council on climate, environment and energy issues; Steven Chu as energy secretary; Lisa Jackson as EPA administrator; and Nancy Sutley as head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In addition to this strong team, the selection of Dr. John Holdren as White House science adviser is a strong indication that the president-elect will fulfill a pledge to ensure science informs policymaking.

President-elect Barack Obama has introduced his energy and environment team, naming Carol Browner to lead a new council on climate, environment and energy issues; Steven Chu as energy secretary; Lisa Jackson as EPA administrator; and Nancy Sutley as head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Larry Schweiger, President and CEO of National Wildlife Federation, said:

“President-elect Barack Obama reiterated his clean energy priorities just last week, promising to repower America and redesign how we use energy—to create jobs as we preserve our planet. Now he's put in place an experienced team that can get the job done.

“President-elect Obama has demonstrated with this team his commitment to change the course of America's energy policy; underscored by the appointment of Carol Browner to head a new council coordinating White House policy on energy, climate, and environment. Having served with her on the board of the Alliance for Climate Protection, I can tell you Carol Browner is an outstanding choice who can make up for eight years of lost opportunity by lending her proven leadership to usher in a new era of climate and energy initiatives.

“Especially in light of New Jersey's leadership on strong targets for carbon emission cuts, Lisa Jackson is exactly what this country and its precious environment needs in an EPA administrator: a practical, smart and dedicated individual who has a track record of moving sound environmental and conservation policies forward that benefit us all. We applaud the new administration's commitment to restoring protections for America's wetlands, streams, and floodplains. This will be of particular importance as global warming continues to impact the resiliency of the natural resources a strong economy depends on.

“Steven Chu's selection as energy secretary shows the White House will no longer be a battleground in the war on science. Instead, a Nobel laureate who's been a strong and powerful voice on the urgent need to confront global warming will lead our national energy policy. And if there's anyone who knows climate change must be dealt with on every level—by nations, states, and localities—it’s Nancy Sutley, who's handled environmental issues from each of those perspectives.

“President-elect Obama's team knows that the most important thing America can do in 2009 to galvanize investment in clean energy technology is to enact a cap-and-invest plan that reduces global warming pollution and grows clean energy technologies that will recharge our economy. The National Wildlife Federation looks forward to working with them to help make it happen.”

Author and naturalist Henry David Thoreau died in 1862, around the era when the industrial revolution was beginning to spew global warming pollution into the atmosphere.

Between 1852 and 1858, Thoreau meticulously recorded details about the flora that bloomed in the Concord, Massachusetts woods. Researchers recently repeated Thoreau’s measurements and compared the findings, revealing that global warming has had a degrading effect on the Walden Pond area.

Richard Primack and graduate student Abraham Miller-Rushing of Boston University surveyed the plants in the Concord woods from 2003 to 2007, Discovery News reports.

The researchers recorded the abundance of various species and about which day they flowered each season. They combined these results with data collected by Thoreau and another naturalist in the 19th century.

The researchers found that 27 percent of the species in Thoreau's surveys have disappeared from the area, and another 36 percent are now so rare they may be gone soon. Over the last 100 years, the average annual temperature in the Walden Pond area has risen by 4.3 degrees.

“Plants in Concord aren't really responding to climate change in the same way,” Charles Davis and colleagues at Harvard University told Discovery News. “Some are able to adjust their flowering time by upwards of three weeks, and others are not.”

“For the first time, it shows that climate change is not impacting these plants in a uniform or random way,” Davis added.

“I think we could go back to Walden and learn about how we could live better lives,” said Thoreau scholar Phil Cafaro of Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

Seasonal temperatures in the Arctic have reached record highs. The Arctic Ocean is becoming warmer and less salty as sea ice melts, and reindeer herds are in decline as a result of climate change, according to a new report.

“The planet is interconnected, so what happens in the Arctic does matter” to the entire planet, said Jackie Richter-Menge of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory

“There continues to be widespread and, in some cases, dramatic evidence of an overall warming of the Arctic system,” the experts said in the third annual Arctic Report Card from the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The new report, compiled by 46 scientists from 10 countries, focused on specific areas to conclude that the global region is experiencing dramatic and unprecedented seasonal changes: atmosphere, sea ice, Greenland, ocean, biology and land.

Findings from the report include information about Arctic autumn air temperatures, now at a record nine degrees above normal. Reindeer herds, which have been increasing since the 1970s, are now showing signs of stagnation or may be beginning to decline, MSNBC and the Associated Press report.