Shipping Markets Eye El Nino Threat

Shipping Markets Eye El Nino Threat                       

 
 
 

A potential El Nino weather phenomenon, which could wreak havoc on global crops, is set to disrupt shipping patterns and raise freight costs, leaving suppliers and importers to cover their food needs from longer-haul destinations.

El Nino, a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific, can trigger floods and drought in different regions, hitting production of key foods such as rice, wheat and sugar. Weather forecasters are increasingly predicting it will return in 2014 for the first time in five years.

During previous El Nino patterns, the main sea freight index at London's Baltic Exchange has risen significantly. In February 2009 when El Nino appeared, the BDI was at 1,099 and it reached 2,998 in March 2010

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Climate Change: Pioneering Radar Technology Discovers Refrozen Water at Base of Greenland Ice Sheet

By Esther Tanquintic-Misa | June 16, 2014 2:31 PM EST       

Ice-penetrating radar technology inserted aboard Nasa survey flights has discovered frozen forms of ice blocks at the very bottom of the Greenland ice sheet which are as tall as city skyscrapers and as wide as the island of Manhattan.

The Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is seen in this undated NASA image. Vast glaciers in West Antarctica seem to be locked in an irreversible thaw linked to global warming that may push up sea levels for centuries, scientists said on May 12, 2014. Six glaciers including the Thwaites Glacier, eaten away from below by a warming of sea waters around the frozen continent, were flowing fast into the Amundsen Sea, according to the report based partly

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Los arrantzales esperan una reapertura de la pesca de anchoa

 

ONDARROA. 

 

La orden del Gobierno sirvió para certificar el cierre de la costera. Los pescadores podían pescar la especie hasta el día 30 de junio, con lo que finaliza la campaña con casi veinte días de antelación. Para este año se disponía una cuota muy amplia, de  15.390 toneladas, con lo que el margen de rentabilidad que podían obtener los pescadores era amplio, pero las fuertes capturas han hecho que la costera finalice con dos semanas de antelación. Para tratar de estirar más la campaña, los arrantzales fueron regulando también el tope de capturas por día, reduciendo las capturas desde los 10.000 kilos iniciales a los 6.000.

Lo cierto es que  la campaña ha resultando

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NZ to Deploy Deep-Sea Balls to Monitor Ocean Floor And Understand Climate Change

 
 By Reissa Su | June 16, 2014 5:10 PM EST       

New Zealand scientists will be deploying deep-sea monitors to the ocean floor to find out more about global climate change. Using modern echnology, New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) said it will put two plastic-encased glass balls measuring 35 cm in diameter.

REUTERS/Handout . A picture of brightly coloured coralline, bryozoans and sponges on ocean floor on Antarctic continental shelf. February 8, 2011. REUTERS

Scientists will send the deep-sea balls in the Kermadec Trench located northeast of the North Island. The balls contain sensors to measure the salinity and temperature between the surface and about 6,000 meters deep. The balls' sensors will then transmit the data to

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Bigger Storm Waves of Climate Change Bust Up and Melt Sea Ice

 

Bigger ocean waves might be more common nowadays as climate change alters wind patterns
 
 


The sun sets over a field of broken sea ice. Credit: Rob Johnson

Big ocean waves whipped up by storms hundreds or even thousands of miles away from Earth’s poles could play a bigger role in breaking up polar sea ice and thus contributing to its melt more than had been thought, a new study suggests.

The study, detailed in the May 29 issue of the journal Nature, found that these waves penetrate further into the fields of sea ice around Antarcticathan current models would suggest, breaking up the ice well away from the edge of the ice. And previous studies have suggested that bigger

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