Renata created a petition that helped save a rape victim facing prison in Dubai for ‘extramarital sex.’ “When I found out she was free, I just ran around the house yelling, ‘she’s out! she’s out!” I was shaking and giggling like a little kid.” Now we can all bring huge change to our communities with a few minutes and the Avaaz community petition site. Click below to get started:

I just got off the phone with Renata and I have to share this with you!

She told me, “When I found out she was free, I just ran around the house yelling, ‘she’s out! she’s out!’ I was shaking and giggling like a little kid. I yelled for my husband, grabbed him and started dancing around. I had no idea how much change just one person can bring!”

Renata was talking about Hannah*, an Austrian woman who was facing prison in Dubai for extramarital sex, after reporting her brutal rape to the police!! When Renata read about her in the newspaper, she was “horrified and angry. Then I thought of Avaaz. I thought I can ignite a fire, get others to join.”

Her petition to Austria’s foreign minister got over 150,000 signatures in one day and was quickly at the center of a media firestorm in Austria and around the world. Suddenly, after six weeks of inaction, the Minister scrambled a crisis team with high level negotiators who flew to Dubai, and three days after the petition was launched Hannah’s horrible ordeal was over and she was free!

Any of us can use Avaaz’s petition site to do the same thing, and now Avaaz is going to provide $10,000 for each of the top 10 petitions to help them win. Click below to get started, and let’s get more shaking and giggling happening in the world 🙂

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/start_a_petition/?cl=3915723073&v=37613&source=recruit

The difference between reading about the worst news stories and actually being able to do something to change them can feel like a huge chasm — but it’s not. The internet is bringing people together in powerful ways faster than ever before, and by simply starting a petition, countless members of our community are literally saving lives.

Renata’s petition is just one story — petitions started by people just like her have protected a vital park space in Italy, helped bring us inches away from ending a corrupt secret voting practice in Brazil and helped get the national government to move to protect habitat for orangutans in Indonesia. The potential of this tool to change the world is why Avaaz is now offering up to $10,000 in support of the best petitions started by our members to make the biggest impact possible. Imagine not only getting thousands of people behind a cause, but also having $10,000 to fund the best way to win – anything from dozens of radio ads to funding a rally to building a giant billboard or float.

It only takes a couple of minutes to get started, and there are tonnes of tips and advice to help you along the way. Click below to start a petition now:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/start_a_petition/?cl=3915723073&v=37613&source=recruit

We’re winning every day, but the world is full of opportunities for impact. With almost 35 million of us, we can spread our power like wildfire and bring justice across the globe. Let’s get started changing the future for all of us.

With hope for all we will achieve together,

Christoph, Jeremy, Patri, Ari, Alice, Ricken and the whole Avaaz team

*Hannah is a pseudonym used to respect this woman’s request for anonymity

SOURCES:

Austria brings home rape case woman from Dubai (Reuters)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/01/31/us-austria-dubai-idUKBREA0U0PR20140131

Sebastian Kurz under pressure to secure release of Austrian woman in Dubai (Austrian Times)
http://austriantimes.at/news/General_News/2014-01-30/50406/Sebastian_Kurz_under_pressure_to_secure_release_of_Austrian_woman_in_Dubai_

Nude protest against Brazil secret vote (IOL)
http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/nude-protest-against-brazil-secret-vote-1.1579620#.UyoOSeddVpw

Brazil’s lower house approves end to secret voting in congress; reform now goes to senate (Fox News)
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/09/04/brazil-lower-house-approves-end-to-secret-voting-in-congress-reform-now-goes-to/

176.000 signatures save Abruzzo’s Regional Park, in italian only, (Gaia News)
http://gaianews.it/ambiente/il-popolo-del-web-salva-il-parco-regionale-in-abruzzo-49587.html#.UyrFFK1dW80

Global calls to save Aceh Forest, (The Jakarta Post)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/05/19/global-calls-save-aceh-forest.html

The CarbonClix Daily

Share This

• Email to a friend
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google+
• Print this page
• More options

Now, a team of climatologists, led by researchers at the University of California, Riverside, posits that the recent widening of the tropical belt is primarily caused by multi-decadal sea surface temperature variability in the Pacific Ocean. This variability includes the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), a long-lived El Niño-like pattern of Pacific climate variability that works like a switch every 30 years or so between two different circulation patterns in the North Pacific Ocean. It also includes, the researchers say, anthropogenic pollutants, which act to modify the PDO.

Study results appear March 16 in Nature Geoscience.

“Prior analyses have found that climate models underestimate the observed rate of tropical widening, leading to questions on possible model deficiencies, possible errors in the observations, and lack of confidence in future projections,” said Robert J. Allen, an assistant professor of climatology in UC Riverside’s Department of Earth Sciences, who led the study. “Furthermore, there has been no clear explanation for what is driving the widening.”

Now Allen’s team has found that the recent tropical widening is largely driven by the PDO.

“Although this widening is considered a ‘natural’ mode of climate variability, implying tropical widening is primarily driven by internal dynamics of the climate system, we also show that anthropogenic pollutants have driven trends in the PDO,” Allen said. “Thus, tropical widening is related to both the PDO and anthropogenic pollutants.”

Widening concerns

Tropical widening is associated with several significant changes in our climate, including shifts in large-scale atmospheric circulation, like storm tracks, and major climate zones. For example, in Southern California, tropical widening may be associated with less precipitation.

Of particular concern are the semi-arid regions poleward of the subtropical dry belts, including the Mediterranean, the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, southern Australia, southern Africa, and parts of South America. A poleward expansion of the tropics is likely to bring even drier conditions to these heavily populated regions, but may bring increased moisture to other areas.

Widening of the tropics would also probably be associated with poleward movement of major extratropical climate zones due to changes in the position of jet streams, storm tracks, mean position of high and low pressure systems, and associated precipitation regimes. An increase in the width of the tropics could increase the area affected by tropical storms (hurricanes), or could change climatological tropical cyclone development regions and tracks.

Belt contraction

Allen’s research team also showed that prior to the recent (since ~1980 onwards) tropical widening, the tropical belt actually contracted for several decades, consistent with the reversal of the PDO during this earlier time period.

“The reversal of the PDO, in turn, may be related to the global increase in anthropogenic pollutant emissions prior to the ~ early 1980s,” Allen said.

Analysis

Allen’s team analyzed IPCC AR5 (5th Assessment Report) climate models, several observational and reanalysis data sets, and conducted their own climate model experiments to quantify tropical widening, and to isolate the main cause.

“When we analyzed IPCC climate model experiments driven with the time-evolution of observed sea surface temperatures, we found much larger rates of tropical widening, in better agreement to the observed rate–particularly in the Northern Hemisphere,” Allen said. “This immediately pointed to the importance of sea surface temperatures, and also suggested that models are capable of reproducing the observed rate of tropical widening, that is, they were not ‘deficient’ in some way.”

Encouraged by their findings, the researchers then asked the question, “What aspect of the SSTs is driving the expansion?” They found the answer in the leading pattern of sea surface temperature variability in the North Pacific: the PDO.

They supported their argument by re-analyzing the models with PDO-variability statistically removed.

“In this case, we found tropical widening — particularly in the Northern Hemisphere — is completely eliminated,” Allen said. “This is true for both types of models–those driven with observed sea surface temperatures, and the coupled climate models that simulate evolution of both the atmosphere and ocean and are thus not expected to yield the real-world evolution of the PDO.

“If we stratify the rate of tropical widening in the coupled models by their respective PDO evolution,” Allen added, “we find a statistically significant relationship: coupled models that simulate a larger PDO trend have larger tropical widening, and vice versa. Thus, even coupled models can simulate the observed rate of tropical widening, but only if they simulate the real-world evolution of the PDO.”

Future work

Next, the researchers will be looking at how anthropogenic pollutants, by modifying the PDO and large scale weather systems, have affected precipitation in the Southwest United States, including Southern California.

“Future emissions pathways show decreased pollutant emissions through the 21st century, implying pollutants may continue to drive a positive PDO and tropical widening,” Allen said.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by University of California – Riverside. The original article was written by Iqbal Pittalwala. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:

1. Robert J. Allen, Joel R. Norris, Mahesh Kovilakam. Influence of anthropogenic aerosols and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation on tropical belt width. Nature Geoscience, 2014; DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2091

Cite This Page: