The worst isn't over": More rain expected as Thailand flood death toll rises to 40

A woman walks by an overflowing lake on
 Koh Samui, Thailand earlier in January, 2017. 

Thailand faces more hardship from unseasonable floods that have killed 40 people in its south, with more rain expected in the major rubber-producing and tourist region in coming days, a top disaster agency official said on Sunday.

Persistent heavy rain well into what should be the dry season has triggered floods across the south, cutting road and rail links, threatening crops and affecting about 1.6 million people, said Chatchai Promlert, head of the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department.

"The worst isn't over. We're expecting more rain this week while clean-up efforts are underway in places where the waters have subsided," Chatchai told Reuters.

The Meteorological Department said on its website more rain was expected on Monday.

Read the Melbourne Age story - "The worst isn't over": More rain expected as Thailand flood death toll rises to 40.”

Some see climate change as 'crap', some see it as reason to move

Nick Glaetzer - now
growing grapes in
Tasmania.

Some consider climate change “crap”, but many have a counter view; a view that is being reinforced by measurable and understandable changes to their livelihood.

Reuters reports: ”Climate change signals the end of Australian shiraz as we know it”, telling the story of Nick Glaetzer who moved from the famous Barossa Valley in South Australia to Tasmania.

Glaetzer's winemaking-steeped family thought he was crazy when he abandoned the Barossa Valley - the hot, dry region that is home to the country's world-famous big, brassy Shiraz.

The young Australian vintner headed south the island state of Tasmania to both strike out on his own and prove to the naysayers that there was a successful future in cooler climate wines.

El Nino returning this year - BOM

El Nino worsened Australia’s recent decade-long drought and now the Australian Bureau of Meteorology is predicting its return this year.

The likelihood of the return of this weather changing event is noted in a Reuters story headed: “El Nino likely in 2014, says Australian Bureau of Meteorology”.

The bureau has said the El Nino could occur during the southern hemisphere winter, May-July, and Australian cattle and grain farmers are already struggling with drought which has cut production.

Climafe change alerting the life of our plants and with that, ours too

Reuters reports that scientists are finding that plants are flowering much earlier because of climate change.

That change, Reuters reports in a story headed: “Plant study flags dangers of warming world” will have a “knock-on” effect for food chains and eco systems.

Global warming is having a significant impact on hundreds of plant and animal species around the world, changing some breeding, migration and feeding patterns, scientists say.

Increased carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels can affect how plants produce oxygen, while higher temperatures and variable rainfall patterns can change their behaviour.

"Predicting species' response to climate change is a major challenge in ecology," said researchers at the University of California San Diego and several other U.S. institutions, according to Reuters.