Unlikely fan of global warming: Poison ivy. Global warming may spell bad times for polar bears but it seems to be a boon to poison ivy. [News Source]

Westly paints green vision. If elected governor, Steve Westly says he'll extend a dinner invitation to Chinese President Hu Jintao so the two of them can set out to cut the world's oil dependence and work to save the planet from dangerous greenhouse gases. [News Source]

Tropics are expanding, says satellite study team. The belt of tropical climate around the planet appears to be widening, expanding the world's driest regions and reducing alpine snowfall. [News Source]

Track the lilacs, help researchers. A program funded in part by the National Science Foundation is recruiting citizen scientists to note when lilacs, honeysuckles and other plants first leaf out and bloom. [News Source]

Global warming seen in Alaska’s greening. A forest ecologist in Alaska is warning that the state is losing its forests to global warming and could soon turn out to be a state of grasslands. [News Source]

Britain’s food under threat: Buy now while stocks last. Fishermen blame over-fishing, but it is also feared that offshore dredging and changes in sea temperature caused by global warming could be disrupting breeding patterns. [News Source]

Sea-surface warming linked to worse tropical storms activity. Climate researchers said Tuesday they may have found a connection between rising sea-surface temperatures over the past 40 years and more intense tropical storm activity across the globe. [News Source]

Worry flows from Arctic ice to tropical waters. There's no question that rising temperatures are poised to change life as we know it. The changes have already begun, according to the United Nations Environment Program. [News Source]

It happens like a boat tipping. All of the current climate models and climate sensitivity findings rely on the weather operating in the future much as it has in the past, with small tilts. A few big things going wrong could throw comfortable assumptions out the window: [News Source]

Netherlands must boost flood defences. Dutch authorities will have to boost their already significant flood protection measures to cope with increasingly warmer, wetter winters and summer droughts, according to forecasts released Tuesday. [News Source]

As hurricane season looms, states aim to scare. Convinced that tough tactics are needed, officials in hurricane-prone states are trumpeting dire warnings about the storm season that starts Thursday, preaching self-reliance and prodding people to prepare early and well. [News Source]