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Environment

Kelp dredging proposal criticised by Scottish conservationists

Use of mechanical device to pull kelp plants from beds would destroy local ecosystem, say campaigners

A proposal to mechanically dredge kelp forests off the coast of Scotland has led to an outcry from conservationists, who say it would destroy local ecosystems.

Ayr-based company Marine Biopolymers has approached Marine Scotland to apply for a licence to use a comb-like device that pulls entire kelp plants from the bed. In order to inform the environmental appraisal required by Marine Scotland, Marine Biopolymers has published a report describing the potential environmental impacts to be researched further for a full assessment.

Rake used to harvest L. hyperborea The harvesting technique proposed by MBL is similar to that used in Norway for L. hyperborea. It comprises use of a comb-like harvesting head (3-4 m wide) that is situated within a curved frame . It is deployed from a vessel, and trawled through the kelp bed at approximately 0.5 m above the rock substrate at a speed of around 3 knots. Photograph: Steen, H., Moy, F.E., Bodvin, T./Institute of Marine Research

Public comment on this report is open until Friday 24 August, and various stakeholders have expressed concern over the proposals. “Kelp habitats are vital ecosystems that absorb the power of waves along stormy coasts, lock up millions of tonnes of carbon every year and provide shelter for hundreds of species,” said Calum Duncan of the Marine Conservation Society.

“This scoping report is only the first stage of an extensive consultation process,” said a statement issued by Marine Biopolymers. “The next stage is the full environmental survey, which will be carried out by internationally renowned scientists.”

The report describes plans to harvest up to 34,000 tonnes of kelp per year, an estimated 0.15% of the kelp in Scotland. Proposed sustainability measures include plans to avoid harvesting young kelp, and to leave harvested beds to recover for five years before returning.

However, these proposals may not be truly sustainable, according to Dan Smale, an ecologist at the Marine Biological Association. “I’m not opposed to wild kelp harvesting if it’s managed appropriately, and it’s been shown from both Norway and France that to an extent it can be done sustainably,” he said. “My problem here is that we don’t have enough baseline ecological information or understanding of how our systems work [in Scotland].” The recovery rate of five years may be insufficient not only for the kelp itself to recover, but also for associated animal communities to return, he explained.

Shetland scallop fishery retains eco label despite dredging protests

Ailsa McLellan, who harvests kelp by hand, is concerned about the precedent set by granting a licence to Marine Biopolymers, given the lack of legislation protecting wild seaweed from unsustainable harvesting: “Even if they’re the most careful company in the world, there’s no pressure on anyone else to do it that way.” There is also a conflict with the strict rules applied to hand harvesters, she added: “I have to record every single invertebrate bycatch. It can’t be one rule for us tiny operators and they’re allowed to go at it with a dredge.”

The Marine Conservation Society supports the exploration of more sustainable alternatives to dredging. “Mechanically stripping swaths of pristine kelp forest clean from the reef at the scale proposed simply cannot be considered sustainable,” said Duncan. “We would urge a complete rethink and lower impact alternatives, such as managed hand-gathering and seaweed culture, to be explored instead.”

Kelp forests grow predominantly on the Pacific Coast, from Alaska and Canada to the waters of Baja California. Tiered like a terrestrial rainforest with a canopy and several layers below, the kelp forests of the eastern Pacific coast are dominated by two canopy-forming, brown macroalgae species, giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) and bull kelp (Nereocystis leutkeana).

A host of invertebrates, fish, marine mammals, and birds exist in kelp forest environs. From the holdfasts to the surface mats of kelp fronds, the array of habitats on the kelp itself may support thousands of invertebrate individuals, including polychaetes, amphipods, decapods, and ophiuroids.

California sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters, and whales may feed in the kelp or escape storms or predators in the shelter of kelp. On rare occasions gray whales have been spotted seeking refuge in kelp forests from predatory killer whales. All larger marine life, including birds and mammals, may retreat to kelp during storms or high-energy regimes because the kelp helps to weaken currents and waves.

Cathleen O’Grady @cathleenogrady, The Guardian

August 27, 2018 by BrahmaFeed

Environment

Assam, Arunachal Pradesh to lose massive forest cover by 2028, says IIRS

GUWAHATI: Assam and Arunachal Pradesh will lose massive forest cover by 2028 even affecting the ecology of neighboring country Bhutan.
Predicting such loss, the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS) has identified increasing human population and subsequent demand on land for cultivation as the major reasons for forest cover depletion in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

A study carried out by the IIRS has predicted a depletion of 9,007.14 square km (2.94 percent) of forests in parts of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh by 2028. It says deforestation and loss of wildlife habitat in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh will not only affect both the States but also adjoining Bhutan.

Scientists involved in the study said they monitored the depletion of forest cover in parts of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh over 42,375 square km in an elephant landscape falling in the Lesser Himalaya region in the North East.
“More districts of Assam than Arunachal Pradesh and more plains than hills faced deforestation. We have identified increasing human population and subsequent demand on land for cultivation as major reasons for forest cover depletion. With the highest rate of deforestation (in the Assam-Arunachal area) in India, the study area can also be addressed as the deforestation hotspot of India,” the study says.

According to the study the annual rate of deforestation was found to be higher in Assam than Arunachal Pradesh primarily due to the latter’s inhospitable mountainous terrain. Barpeta district in lower Assam has witnessed the highest deforestation followed by Dhemaji, Tinsukia, Lakhimpur, Darrang, Dibrugarh and Sonitpur during the study period.
Area-wise, the largest amount of forest cover loss was noticed in Dhemaji (1,419.99 square km) followed by Sonitpur (825.85 square km), Lohit in Arunachal (820.61 square km), Tinsukia (662.28 square km) and Lakhimpur (635.15 square km).

Wildlife activists said lack of forest cover will bring further chaos from food and water security point of view in Assam. (Source: The Sentinel)

August 25, 2018 by BrahmaFeed

Environment

Made in China: A global environmental threat .

This photo taken on 23 August, 2017 shows Chinese workers on a power transmission tower built at an attitude of 5,548 metres on Mengdala mountain in Luozha in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. (STR / AFP Photo)

by Brahma Chellaney :

Asia’s future is inextricably tied to the Himalayas, the world’s tallest mountain range and the source of the water-stressed continent’s major river systems. Yet reckless national projects are straining the region’s fragile ecosystems, resulting in a mounting security threat that extends beyond Asia. With elevations rising dramatically from less than 500 metres (1,640 feet) to over 8,000 metres, the Himalayas are home to ecosystems ranging from high-altitude alluvial grasslands and subtropical broadleaf forests to conifer forests and alpine meadows. Stretching from Myanmar to the Hindu-Kush watershed of Central Asia, the Himalayas play a central role in driving Asia’s hydrological cycle and weather and climate patterns, including triggering the annual summer monsoons. Its 18,000 high-altitude glaciers store massive amounts of freshwater and serve in winter as the world’s second-largest heat sink after Antarctica, thus helping to moderate the global climate. In summer, however, the Himalayas turn into a heat source that draws the monsoonal currents from the oceans into the Asian hinterland. The Himalayas are now subject to accelerated glacial thaw, climatic instability, and biodiversity loss. Five rivers originating on the Great Himalayan Massif – the Yangtze, the Indus, the Mekong, the Salween, and the Ganges – rank among the world’s 10 most endangered rivers. From large-scale dam construction to the unbridled exploitation of natural resources, human activity is clearly to blame for these potentially devastating changes to the Himalayan ecosystems. While all the countries in the region are culpable to some extent, none is doing as much harm as China. Unconstrained by the kinds of grassroots activism seen in, say, democratic India, China has used massive, but often opaque, construction projects to bend nature to its will and trumpet its rise as a great power. This includes a globally unmatched inter-river and inter-basin water-transfer infrastructure with the capacity to move over 10 billion cubic metres (13 billion cubic yards) through 16,000 kilometres (9,940 miles) of canals. China’s reengineering of natural river flows through damming – one-fifth of the country’s rivers now have less water flowing through them each year than is diverted to reservoirs – has already degraded riparian ecosystems and caused 350 large lakes to disappear. With these water-diverting projects increasingly focused on international, rather than internal, rivers – in particular those in the Tibetan Plateau, which covers nearly three-quarters of the Himalayan glacier area – the environmental threat extends far beyond China’s borders. And dams are just the beginning. The Tibetan Plateau is also the subject of Chinese geo-engineering experiments, which aim to induce rain in its arid north and northwest. (Rain in Tibet is concentrated in its Himalayan region.) Such activities threaten to suck moisture from other regions, potentially affecting Asia’s monsoons. Ominously, such experiments are an extension of the Chinese military’s weather-modification program. Moreover, as if to substantiate the Chinese name for Tibet, Xizang (“Western Treasure Land”), China is draining mineral resources from this ecologically fragile but resource-rich plateau, without regard for the consequences. Already, copper mine tailings are polluting waters in a Himalayan region sacred to Tibetans, which they call Pemako (“Hidden Lotus Land”), where the world’s highest-altitude major river, the Brahmaputra (Yarlung Tsangpo to Tibetans), curves around the Himalayas before entering India. Last fall, the once-pristine Siang – the Brahmaputra’s main artery – suddenly turned blackish grey as it entered India, potentially because of China’s upstream tunnelling, mining, or damming activity. To be sure, the Chinese government claimed that an earthquake that struck south-eastern Tibet in mid-November “might have led to the turbidity” in the river waters. But the water had become unfit for human consumption long before the quake. In any case, China is not letting up. It has, for example, eagerly launched large-scale operations to mine precious minerals like gold and silver in a disputed area of the eastern Himalayas that it seized from India in a 1959 armed clash. Meanwhile, China’s bottled-water industry – the world’s largest – is siphoning “premium drinking water” from the Himalayas’ already-stressed glaciers, particularly those in the eastern Himalayas, where accelerated melting of snow and ice fields is already conspicuous. Unsurprisingly, this is causing biodiversity loss and impairment of ecosystem services. Across the Himalayas, scientists report large-scale deforestation, high rates of loss of genetic variability, and species extinction in the highlands. The Tibetan Plateau, for its part, is warming at almost three times the average global rate. This holds environmental implications that extend far beyond Asia. The towering Himalayan Highlands, particularly Tibet, influence the Northern Hemisphere’s atmospheric-circulation system, which helps to transport warm air from the equator toward the poles, sustaining a variety of climate zones along the way. In other words, Himalayan ecosystem impairment will likely affect European and North American climatic patterns. Halting rampant environmental degradation in the Himalayas is now urgent, and it is possible only through cooperation among all members of the Himalayan basin community, from the lower Mekong River region and China to the countries of southern Asia. To bring about such cooperation, however, the entire international community will have to apply pressure to rein in China’s reckless environmental impairment, which is by far the greatest source of risk. Brahma Chellaney, Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research and Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, is the author of nine books, including Asian Juggernaut, Water: Asia’s New Battleground, and Water, Peace, and War: Confronting the Global Water Crisis

August 25, 2018 by BrahmaFeed

Environment

Fighting Desertification along the Brahmaputra river

by Chandan Kr Duworah

This growing desertification has become a big threat to the ecosystem along the Brahmaputra. It is assumed that moraine carried by water may create problems in paddy fields in India and dams in Tibet.

Stone, mud and sand have been deposited along the river the Brahmaputra from Tibet to Assam. The areas covered by moraine and sand along the river are expanding every year. Flash floods and Glacier melting and glacial lakes causes Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) carry moraines to the lower part of the river and the river bed becomes shallow.

The changing landscape of the Brahmaputra River is clearly evident in the state of Assam in India. The river banks on both sides are inundated with large deposits of sand – an indication of desertification spreading throughout the region. Once famous for its abundant run off the flow of the Brahmaputra is now reduced to a shallow level particularly in winter.

Located on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Tibet has an average elevation of more than 13,125ft above sea level, meaning its ecological system is vulnerable and sensitive. Moreover, the plateau, home to a number of lakes and rivers that are the source of major bodies of water including the Yangtze and Yarlung Zangbo River, has a crucial impact on global climate.

Fortunately, over the past four decades, the Shannan people have made achievements in desert control by building a 1.8-kilometer-wide “green Great Wall” that stretches 160 kilometers. More than 30,000 hectares of desert land in the middle reaches of Yarlung Zangbo River has been reclaimed.

The Tibet Autonomous Region in Southwest China has been making great success in preserving its environment and pursuing sustainable development in recent years. The autonomous region’s environmental protection efforts have won great support from the central government.

Tibet should safeguard its ecological security and maintain its role as the country’s water tower, President Xi Jinping said at a seminar in January 2015, when he was talking to Nan Pei, Party chief of Tibet’s Shuanghu county. With a longsighted vision he said – “Ecological damage cannot be compensated with economic gains.”

Shannan, Xigaze and other prefectures along the Yarlung Zangbo River used to suffer from severe sandstorms in winter and spring. In 2006, the autonomous region launched afforestation projects to deal with the issue. As a result, the number of days with disastrous sandstorms in the area has been reduced from 85 days in 2000 to 32 days in 2014.

Local residents with economic difficulties have been benefited from the environmental protection efforts. The regional government has hired more than 300,000 farmers and herdsmen as security staff to protect wild animals, with each of the residents earning about 2,000 yuan per month.

Photos taken on July 23, 2018 shows the scenes of desert control measures along the Yarlung Zanbo river in Zhanang County of Shannan, southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region.

Aerial photo taken on July 23, 2018 shows a shelterbelt forest along Yarlung Zangbo River in Naidong District of Shannan, southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region.

A villager works at a shelterbelt forest in Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, July 23, 2018.

Villagers plant saplings at a nursery base in Zhanang County of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, July 23, 2018.

Aerial photo taken on July 23, 2018 shows a nursery base in Zhanang County of Shannan

Rangers patrol at a shelterbelt forest in Shannan, July 23, 2018.

Photo taken on July 23, 2018 shows the scenery of a shelterbelt forest in Zhanang County of Shannan (Liu Dongjun)

Yang Yong , a Geologist from China said desertification had already started in the source of many rivers including Yarlung Tsangpo. The sand carried by the Tsangpo has turned many downstream stretches into sandy patches. The river has also become shallow and narrower at certain stretches.
The primary source of the mighty Brahmaputra river, the Jima Yangzong and Angsi glacier, are retreating in Tibet, China, at an alarming pace.
In an interview Yang Yong, who is an adventurer also, said that if global warming continues at the current rate, the source glaciers as well as other glaciers located at the same height will disappear within few decades. The Jima Yangzong and Angsi glaciers give birth to the Yarlung Zangbo (Tsangpo)) and when it enters India it is called the Brahmaputra.
Under such a circumstance, Yang Yong said the Yarlung Tsangpo could become a seasonal river severely affecting the water flow or it could see a lean water flow in winter.
The melting of Himalayan glaciers threatens 1.3 billion Asians living downstream. It could bring drought and disease to large swathes of the continent. It is a matter of grave concern that almost 1,000 sq km area of Himalayan glaciers has disappeared from total area of about 5,000 sq km.
Yong, a scientist from Hengduan Mountain Research Institute and Deputy Director of Expert Committee of China Foundation for Desertification Control said the Jima Yangzong area at 5,500 meters has decreased substantially within last few years.
Like the Angsi and Jima Yangzong glacier, other glaciers which feed water to the Yarlung Zangbo are also melting and retreating rapidly.
It has been noted that the Himalayan region is warming about three times the global average with temperature increase of an average of 0.3 degree Celsius measured for the past half century.
The Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), which has conducted research on Himalayan glaciers for 30 years, warns of an urgent need for more research on the impact of climate change.
With changing temperatures, current trends in glacial melt suggest flows in major Asian rivers will be substantially reduced in the coming decades.The Siang ( The main source of Brahmaputra) and other Himalayan rivers flowing through Assam likely to become dry in winter within another five decades if nothing is done about the soaring global temperature.
The Siang ( The main source of Brahmaputra) and other Himalayan rivers flowing through Assam likely to become dry in winter within another five decades if nothing is done about the soaring global temperature.

(C K Duarah, an Assamese Journalist, former Robert Bosch Fellow (Germany) and ) is an independent researcher too.

August 25, 2018 by BrahmaFeed

Environment

Northeast India’s millennial farmers are sowing the seeds of a new culinary culture

From Assam to Nagaland to Meghalaya, an army of 100 ‘green commandos’ — between the ages 18-30 — are going from village-to-village and school-to-school to spread knowledge about local foodisms, bust myths about organic farming, and revolutionalise the way the region eats.

The first time Ittisha Sarah — a 25-year-old resident of Guwahati — used a koor (a heavy-duty spade), she did it effortlessly. She was with a group of 20, in a hill in Sonapur, about 15 km from Guwahati, planting saplings. “Digging and planting in silence — that was the mandate,” she says. Now when she looks back, she realises that it was probably “a sense of zeal” — instilled by “just being in nature”— that made the process of wearing gum boots, using a koor, digging a pit and planting saplings so “effortless.” “Of course, it is hard work, but somehow when you are there you don’t feel it is,” she says.

Since May 2018, Sarah is a certified “Green Commando” — a new-age farmer, if you will, whose primary aim is to bring back to the plates of the population, healthy, wholesome, indigenous local food. Prerona Probor Gogoi, a 27-year-old technical officer at the National Food Security Mission in Dibrugarh, devotes his second and fourth Saturdays “to the community.” He, too, is a Green Commando, and has adopted a local school where he teaches kids how to make make vermicompost beds, rustle up bio-pesticides, and grow vegetable patches at home.

XFrom January 2017, the organisation has been holding three-day farming camps that gives youngsters hands-on training in organic farming.

Both Sarah and Gogoi are products of Spread NE (Society for Promotion of Rural Economy & Agricultural Development, Northeast), an NGO started by Samir Bordoloi, that has one, basic aim: to get local people to eat local food from local resources. From January 2017, the organisation has been holding three-day camps that gives youngsters hands-on training in organic farming up on a hill in Sonapur. Called the Farm Learning Centre, complete with a fishery and a food forest, this is one of six model organic farms created by Bordoloi in the Northeast. The others are at Jorhat and Tinsukia in Assam, Dimapur and Jaluki in Nagaland, and Imphal in Manipur.

Spread NE is working in Nagaland, Meghalaya, Manipur and Assam.

Bordoloi, who won the Agri-preneur Of The Country award in 2017 conferred by MANAGE Hyderabad and the Government of India, feels that when it comes to indigenous food, a region like the Northeast has great potential. “Take Assam for example, you just need to cast a fishing net, and there will be delicious fish on your plate. Step into your backyard and you will get yummy, healthy herbs. Here, nature feeds us,” says Bordoloi. The “agripreneur” or “agriculture-entrepreneur” (who insists on calling himself a ‘farmer’) is of the opinion that this is the region’s biggest advantage and the only way farmers can become “independent self-sustaining entities” again. “Food is the biggest industry in India with farmers as the main stakeholders. And yet they are the poorest,” he says.

Spread NE, Assam, Organic farming, Samir Bordoloi

The founder of Spread NE Samir Bordoloi won the Agri-preneur of the Country award in 2017.

While Spread NE, which started in 2014, looks into revitalising the indigenous food habits of the local populace, its ramifications are larger: farmer independence, alternative livelihood skills, youth employment etc.

Today the NGO is working in Nagaland, Meghalaya, Manipur and Assam and has created three farmer cooperatives, adopted 60 schools, deployed 110 active Green Commandos, and has more than 1500 women members working under it.

The Green Commandos of Spread NE has adopted local schools across the region.

Spread NE has its roots in 2005 when Bordoloi started a plant health clinic in Jorhat — a one-roomed establishment to give “prescriptions to people about their plants”. “No one showed up!” he says. Bordoloi then started taking his bike, his backpack filled with organic inputs, to the remotest villages of Upper Assam. “I started giving them (unsolicited!) advice about sustainable organic ways of farming. Slowly when they saw the benefits of my methods, they started warming up,” he says. Within a year, the farmers would be waiting for Bordoloi’s bike.

Later, Bordoloi forayed into rural schools. “The kids were enthusiastic learners. They came from very poor families,” he says, “My stint with one of the schools there became so successful that we ended up launching a vermicompost brand named after the school: Chitralekha. From this little project, the children started earning. Very soon, their mothers wanted to learn. The kids had become an agent of change!” he says.

Even today, Bordoloi’s focus group remains children and young people. “Our organisation is working toward getting commerce into agriculture — to convince youngsters that the sector is as remunerative as and comparable to any government job,” says Bordoloi.

Spread NE’s three-day farming schools — which Gogoi and Sarah were a part of — aim at producing agents of changes who bridge urban-rural gap, connect farmers to consumers and teach younger children and women the benefits of setting up organic nutrition gardens in individual homes as well as schools.

“When an Assamese child goes to school, he learns about celery and lettuce, but he wont’ know what manimuni (a popular indigenous herb in Assam) is,” he says, “You can teach kids the value of what they are eating by teaching them how to grow it. The feeling you get when you eat a tomato you have grown with your hands is something else.”

Three-day farming camps are held for youngsters from across the country.

In Dibrugarh, when Green Commando Gogoi, goes to different schools, he makes it a point to impart practical knowledge. “Lectures have a limited scope, but what we really teach children is how to get their hands dirty,” says Gogoi.

Many times, Gogoi, finds the villagers are afraid to switch to a fully organic practice. “They are game to do it in smaller areas, but afraid to experiment,” says Gogoi, “Sikkim is a fully organic state, and so can the rest of Northeast but it cannot happen overnight.” Adds Bordoloi, “Organic is perceived to be expensive but it does not have to be if you know how to use the local materials (already available to us) well.”

Recently, Spread NE has been working in Bandorgok — a village in Kamrup district which primarily comprises a Karbi population. Earlier in June, when two Guwahati youths Nilotpal Das and Abhijeet Nath were lynched by a Karbi mob, it unleashed widespread anti-Karbi feeling, especially among the Assamese.

Volunteers working at the Bandorgok Prathmik Vidyalaya in Bandorgok village.

Green Commando Sarah, who was very close to Nilotpal and justifiably disturbed by the incident, felt that it would be positive step to to work in Bandorgok. “I wanted to get to the root of this hatred. I also wanted to emphasise that there was no point in ostracising the entire Karbi tribe for what had happened,” she says.

Right from day one, Spread NE’s work in Bandorgok has had a positive impact. “We started with the kids at the Bandorgok Prathmik Vidyalaya and got a great response,” she says. Next week Sarah and another friend, Gaurab Das, will be talking to 88 households in her locality in Guwahati, about buying produce directly Bandorgok farmers. “We are trying to connect individual rural farmers to individual urban families by eliminating the middlemen,” she says. This is another one of Spread NE’s objectives: connecting consumer and farmer directly by bypassing the middlemen. “The farmers earn a better profit, and the consumers get better food,” says Bordoloi.

Green Commandos at Spread NE’s Sonapur centre.

Just a few weeks backs, about 10 Karbi youths came to Spread’s Sonapur Centre to learn farming. “When we were building the nutrition garden at the Bandorgok school, they were extremely cooperative. They hosted us, they fed us and they were extremely warm,” says Sarah, adding that the children especially, were extremely receptive. The conventional school curriculum might teach a lot but they don’t teach qualities like love, compassion and empathy. “Apart from everything else, we are using farming as a means to teach those qualities as well,” says Sarah.

by Tora Agarwalla, The story first published in The Indian Express

August 16, 2018 by BrahmaFeed

Environment

World will be warmer by 0.01 degree Celsius between 2018 and 2022

47,000 to 59,000

What is it? The number of people probably exposed to the dengue virus in Pune each year, according to a new study.
Why is it important? It suggests that the risk of the vector-borne disease is higher than indicated by the reported cases. The study, published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases journal, looked at the presence of antibodies against the dengue virus, an indicator of past exposure to the infection.
Tell me more: The number of dengue cases shoots up in the monsoon season. There were 525 recorded cases of dengue in July in Pune, up from 209 a month before.

0.01 degree Celsius

What is it? The degree by which the world will be warmer between 2018 and 2022, in addition to regular climate change, according to a new study.

Why is it important? While such variations don’t affect the long-term trend of global warming, these predictions of warm and cool phases can help the world prepare itself better for heat waves or cold snaps.

Tell me more: The study uses a new mathematical model that analyses a large quantum of climate data to find situations comparable with the present, and use them to make predictions. The number is statistical, and should be taken to mean “that warm years are more likely than cold years for the period 2018-2022”.

August 15, 2018 by BrahmaFeed

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