Conversation topic Nov. 17

Global Warming Could Reduce Snowpack, Cutting Off Major Water Supplies Across The Planet

The gradual melting of winter snow helps deliver water to both farmland and cities, but new research suggests declines in snowpacks will severely deplete water supply to many regions of the globe. 

A team of scientists looked at snow-dependent drainage basins in the northern hemisphere, which currently provide water to over two billion people, the Earth Institute at Columbia University reported. Snowpack water is an important resource for people across American West, southern Europe, the Mideast and central Asia. Water from snowpacks is especially relied on in mountainous regions, where the snowmelt slowly runs down the mountain during the growing seasons. Global warming appears to be disrupting this process, causing more winter precipitation to fall as rain instead of snow, washing away immediately.

"Snow is important because it forms its own reservoir. But the consequences of reduced snowpack are not the same for all places--it is also a function of where and when people demand water," said lead author Justin Mankin, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University's Earth Institute based jointly at the institute's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and its affiliated NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "Water managers in a lot of places may need to prepare for a world where the snow reservoir no longer exists." 

As the world has been warming, once-permanent snowfields have been vanishing in the Rocky Mountains from Colorado to northern Montana and even the Himalayas. Snowpack in California has reached its lowest point in about 500 years as a result of the devastating drought.

To make their findings, the researchers looked at 421 drainage basins spanning the northern hemisphere and combined this data with multiple climate models. The team identified 97 basins serving about two billion people that rely on snowmelt and have at least a two-thirds chance of declines. The most sensitive and heavily relied on basins were found to exist in: northern and central California, which is a major provider of U.S. produce; the basins of the Colorado and Rio Grande rivers, which provide for the American west and Mexico; the Atlas basin of Morocco; the Ebro-Duero basin, which provides water for Portugal, Spain, and France; and a series of basins across Italy and Turkey.

The researchers noted across most of North America, northern Europe, Russia, China and southeast Asia, rainfall is expected to continue to meet human demands for the foreseeable future, but reduced snowpacks could lead to forest fires and loss of valuable ecosystems including bird nesting habitats. Accelerated melting of  glaciers in the Himalayas could also cause increases in water supplies to regions such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

"Managers need to be prepared for the possibility of multi-decadal decreases in snow water supply," Mankin said. "But at the same time, they could have large multi-decadal increases. Both of those outcomes are entirely consistent with a world with global warming."

The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal Environmental Research Letters. 

Conversation topic for Nov. 17th

Paris attacks: The investigation so far 

As French investigators continue to examine the events of Friday night, what do we know so far about what they have established? 

How many attackers were there?

 The Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said that seven gunmen died in the course of the attacks. The attackers appear to have worked in "three co-ordinated teams", Mr Molins said, using the same type of assault rifles, and wearing the same type of suicide vests.

 Three attackers blew themselves up outside the Stade de France

One attacker died after detonating his bombs at the restaurant Le Comptoir Voltaire on the Boulevard Voltaire

 Three men wearing suicide vests were involved in the deadliest attack of the night, at the Bataclan concert venue, in which 89 people were killed.

Two of the gunmen died after detonating their vests, the third was shot by police.

How the attacks in Paris unfolded on Friday night Did any of the attackers survive?

The discovery of a black Seat car, found abandoned in the eastern suburb of Montreuil with several Kalashnikovs inside, suggests that at least one of the attackers may have got away.

Witnesses to the gun attacks on the bars and restaurants of the 10th district of Paris said that the gunmen were travelling in a black Seat.

The gunmen who carried out the Bataclan attack were linked to a Volkswagen Polo with Belgian number plates found outside the venue. Investigators said the car had been hired by a Frenchman living in Belgium. He and two other people were spot checked by police as they crossed into Belgium in a different car on Saturday, Mr Molins said.

That car was later found near Brussels. What is happening in Belgium?

Belgian prosecutors said on Sunday that two of the attackers who died were French nationals living in Belgium. The focus of the investigation is now reportedly on three brothers living there.

Belgian authorities detained seven people in the Brussels area on Saturday. Initially, it was believed that the man who rented the Polo had been among them.

But investigators now say he is still on the run, and that his brother was detained on Sunday. The BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris says investigators are working on the following possible scenario:

Of the three brothers, two were among the attackers. They are also are believed to have rented the two cars. One of these two was killed in the attacks, and the other may be the missing suspect - though they cannot rule out the possibility that he died in the attacks as well. The third brother was detained in Brussels.

Belgian police guard a street in Brussels on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2015, where arrests were made linked to the attacks in Paris. Do we know the names of any of the attackers? The only attacker to be formally identified so far is Ismael Omar Mostefai, 29, a Frenchman born in the town of Courcouronnes, 25km (15 miles) south of Paris.

In recent years he had lived in the city of Chartres, south-west of Paris, and attended a mosque in nearby Luce.

The president of the mosque said he did not know Mostefai. "We expel people who do not respect our rules or behave strangely, and we report them to the authorities," he told AFP news agency. Mostefai had a criminal record but had never served time in prison.

He was identified after his finger was found at the Bataclan and matched fingerprints the police had on file, according to reports.

French authorities believed he was radicalised in 2010, and there are reports that he had spent time in Syria.

French police have taken six people close to Mostefai into custody, including his father and brother. The homes of the father and brother have been searched.

Mostefai's older brother reported to a police station voluntarily. He said he had not had contact with his younger brother for several years, following family disputes, but said he was surprised to hear he had been radicalised.

Mostefai was one of six children in the family and had travelled to Algeria with his family and young daughter, the brother said. Is there a Syrian link?

At the Stade de France, where three suicide bombers blew themselves up, a Syrian passport was found next to one of the bombers.

The holder of the passport crossed into the European Union through the Greek island of Leros on 3 October, a Greek government minister has said. Serbian authorities say the passport holder, described as AA, crossed into Serbia from Macedonia at the Presevo border crossing on 7 October, where he formally sought asylum.

It is not clear whether investigators believe the passport holder, born in 1990, was involved in the attack. Syrian passports attract value on the black market. An Egyptian passport was also found at the Stade de France, according to reports.

However, the Egyptian ambassador to France told Egyptian media that the holder was a victim of the attack. What about Germany?

Police in Bavaria stopped a car with a Montenegro number plate on 5 November, which was carrying extensive weapons, ammunition and explosives. The car's satellite navigation system was set to an address in Paris. The 51-year-old Montenegrin driver told officials he wanted to visit the Eiffel Tower, then return home. He knew nothing of the various weapons, he said, according to Bavarian authorities. Investigations into whether there is any link to Friday's attacks in the French capital are continuing. The driver is currently in custody. An investigation is continuing.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34822265