ECOLOGY

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VAULT TO PROTECT SEEDS FROM CLIMATE CHANGE TO OPEN

REUTERS - A $37.5 million seed storage plan will help safeguard crops
vital for developing nations from global warming and other threats, the
head of a U.N.-backed scheme said. The cash, $30 million from the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation and $7.5 million from Norway's government,
would preserve genes of crops grown in Africa, Asia and Latin America
such as cassava, yams, bananas and rice. . . The project would help
collect and save thousands of different varieties of each of 21 key
world food crops, also including wheat, maize and sorghum, he said.

Seeds now poorly stored might have genes enabling them to resist
drought, flooding or heatwaves -- qualities that may be in demand
because of global warming widely blamed on human burning of fossil
fuels.

The trust is also building a "doomsday vault" in the Norwegian Arctic to
safeguard millions of seeds. The new funding would allow developing
countries and research groups to send 450,000 seed samples to the vault,
due to open in March 2008.

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=12606

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NEW SCIENTIST - Hurricane activity in the Atlantic may not increase as a result of global warming, according to a new study focusing on changes

in tropical wind patterns. The findings appear to contradict a number of
recent studies linking warming waters in the region to an increase in
hurricane intensity and frequency. The new study suggests that increases
in vertical wind sheer - differences in wind direction and speed between
the upper and lower levels of the atmosphere - caused by climate change
could counter-balance the affects of warming waters. "Based on this
study, there is no evidence for a strong increase in hurricane activity
in the Atlantic over the next century due to global warming," says Brian
Soden at the University of Miami in Florida, US, who carried out the
research with colleagues. Hurricane forecasters have long known that
increases in vertical wind shear make it harder for tropical storms to
form and to increase in intensity. After examining 18 different climate
models, Soden's team predict a "robust increase" in vertical sheer over
the Atlantic as result of climate change.

http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn11633-wind-shear-
may-cancel-climates-effect-on-hurricanes.html


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