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A huge pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean is expanding and could lower the temperature of Europe by causing an ocean current to slow down, British scientists said on Sunday.
 The Beaufort Gyre ("rotating pattern") slowly swirls the surface waters of the Arctic basin, turning the Polar Ice Cap along with it. It makes one complete rotation about every 4 years Using satellites to measure sea surface height from 1995 to 2010, scientists from University College London and Britain’s National Oceanography Centre found that the western Arctic’s sea surface has risen by about 150mm since 2002.
The volume of fresh water has increased by at least 8 000km³, or about 10% of all the fresh water in the Arctic Ocean. The fresh water comes from melting ice and river run-off.
The rise could be due to strong Arctic winds increasing an ocean current called the Beaufort Gyre, making the sea surface bulge upwards.
The Beaufort Gyre is one of the least understood bodies of water on the planet. It is a slowly swirling body of ice and water north of Alaska, about 10 times bigger than Lake Michigan in the United States.
Some scientists believe the natural rhythms of the gyre could be affected by global warming which could have serious implications for the ocean’s circulation and rising sea levels.
Climate models have suggested that wind blowing on the surface of the sea has formed a raised dome in the middle of the Beaufort Gyre, but there have been few in-depth studies to confirm this. Continue reading Beaufort Gyre could cool Europe
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 31 May 2011
Oxfam called on Tuesday for an overhaul of the world’s food system, warning that in a couple of decades, millions more people would be gripped by hunger due to population growth and climate-hit harvests.
 The price of staple foods will more than double in the next 20 years A “broken food system” means that the price of some staples will more than double by 2030, battering the world’s poorest people, who spend up to 80% of their income on food, the British-based aid group predicted.
“The food system is buckling under intense pressure from climate change, ecological degradation, population growth, rising energy prices, rising demand for meat and dairy products and competition for land from biofuels, industry, and urbanisation,” Oxfam said in a report.
“The international community is sleepwalking into an unprecedented and avoidable human development reversal,” it added.
Noting that some 900 million people experience hunger today, Oxfam said the tally of misery could rise still further when a “perfect storm” struck a few decades from now. Continue reading World food supply warning
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 22 April 2011
South African cities need to prepare for rapidly increasing oil prices, unpredictable rainfall patterns and fresh water demand, according to a State of the Cities Report released on Wednesday.
Cape Town needs to [...]
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 23 March 2011
“South Africa needs to be more sensible about the use and management of land and water resources. The more we reduce the ecosystems’ ability to deliver clean fresh water, the less water secure we will be and the greater the cost we will have to pay for our water,” says Mark Botha, Head of WWF’s conservation programmes.
 We need to concentrate more of our efforts on catchment security. Photo by: Peter Chadwick This week (20-27 March) marks South Africa’s National Water Week 2011, and the theme for this year is, “Water for cities: addressing the urban water challenge.”
“Many South Africans, especially those living in urban areas do not have a full understanding of where the water that flows from their taps really comes from, and the key role clean catchments play in providing it,” says Botha.
“Cape Town has run out of water many times in the last century. Each time an expensive “supply side” solution was found to buy us more time, but always at a cost. Now, with augmentation (further water supply) options rapidly diminishing, we’re finding that the biggest cost of dams is the complacency that they leave us with as ratepayers.”
“At some point, we need to realise that we cannot only continue building more dams and other water infrastructure, but that it is imperative to invest in the natural resources that we already have. We need to concentrate more of our efforts on catchment security,” says Botha. Continue reading Where does our water come from?
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 29 January 2011
Source: Life on the vlei
Decades after conservationists called for the Verlorenvlei near Elands Bay on South Africa’s West Coast to be afforded formal conservation protection to preserve its biodiversity, this Ramsar site is still under threat. A local authority, Bergriver Municipality, has now taken action which could turn the years of environmental neglect around.
 Will Verlorenvlei receive the legal environmental protection it deserves? Twenty-five years ago conservationists called for private individuals, private enterprise, and relevant official bodies to ensure that Verlorenvlei and its multiple resources are given formal conservation status protection as soon as possible.
This was in response to the first full-scale study of the wetland system which was published by the CSIR in 1986. The report quotes Prof. John Parkington, who points out that archaeological artifacts suggest that humans have been in the Verlorenvlei area, more or less continuously, for more than 100 000 years. With few situations in sub-Saharan Africa where the potential for prehistoric reconstruction over such a period is so promising, and no other locality along the Western Cape coast with such potential, he states that it is imperative the promise is not squandered by the lack of conservation measures.
Fresh water is the biggest concern
Now, a quarter of a century later, the Verlorenvlei is decidedly under threat. Its unique archaeological treasures, its populations of fish, birds, animals and plants and its function as water purification filter and breeding ground for a significant number of species, are battling the impacts which human populations bring.
Perhaps more significantly, the Vlei is incontrovertibly linked to the Sandveld’s complex network of aquifers. Consequently, the environmental neglect of the Vlei is also posing a hazard to the availability of potable water. Experts in freshwater studies have been expressing concern about the quality and quantity of water in Verlorenvlei since the first full-scale study of the Verlorenvlei estuary was published in 1986.
Despite its status as an internationally recognised Ramsar wetland, it is an anomaly that this recognition of its significance as a biodiversity hotspot still affords it no formal legal conservation status under South African law. Continue reading It’s time to save Verlorenvlei
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