Word: terme
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...century. Though warmer winters in blustery Scotland might sound nice - especially if you're a sheep on the small side - the changes due to global warming are likely to be far from positive in most parts of the world. Evolution will help species adapt, but there's a term for what happens when the pace of evolution can't match the pace of climate change: extinction...
...western Atlantic coast. Climatologists led by Peter Webster at Georgia Tech found that in some El Niño years, the ocean warming associated with the event is moving thousands of miles west, to the center of the Pacific Ocean. Called El Niño Modoki (after the Japanese term meaning "similar, but different"), the new El Niño seems to shift Atlantic cyclones to the west, resulting in more frequent storms and more hurricanes making landfall on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and Central America. Because many climatologists believe that climate change is also strengthening...
...clear why the Pacific warming seen in El Niño events is shifting west. It's possibly part of a long-term but natural oscillation, like the decades-long cycles that already affect hurricanes. "The second possibility is that it's an impact of global warming," says Webster, who will continue exploring the question at Georgia Tech. Either way, with the climate warming and El Niño changing, the future is likely to be stormy for the western Atlantic - which is bad news for everyone but hurricane researchers with a new puzzle to solve. "Those are the games...
...implicit threat of coercive action," says Daniel Korski, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Noting that Iran's economy is struggling - oil is now below $68 a barrel and the recent turmoil will further deter foreign investment - Korski says the government has a long-term interest in repairing its relationship with the E.U. "Iran may rant and rage, but that doesn't mean the E.U. is being kicked around," he says. "As long as the Iranian economy is as decrepit as it is, Iran will need to engage...
...longer term, the question could be less about how Europe responds to Iran, and more about how Iran tries to woo back Europe. "Iran is lashing out and fabricating various allegations. But this will harm Iran more than it harms the E.U.," says Sir Richard Dalton, associate fellow at the international-affairs institute Chatham House in London. Dalton believes that behind Iran's prickly attitude is insecurity about the country's relative weakness compared to the E.U. "Iran needs Europe - it needs the trade, it needs support in international organizations and it needs to maintain a strong image...