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| U of Minnesota study: Destroying native ecosystems for biofuel crops worsens global warming |
| Findings have major implications for climate change policy
Turning native ecosystems into “farms” for biofuel crops causes major carbon emissions that worsen the global warming that biofuels are meant to mitigate, according to a new study by the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy. |
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| SPECIALLY DESIGNED SOILS COULD HELP COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE |
| Could part of the answer to saving the Earth from global warming lie in the earth beneath our feet?
A team from Newcastle University aims to design soils that can remove carbon from the atmosphere, permanently and cost-effectively. This has never previously been attempted anywhere in the world. The research is being funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. |
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| LOOK FORWARD TO A DARKER WORLD |
| It's official: the world is getting darker. Scientists now agree that as cloud cover and particles in the atmosphere increase, the amount of radiation reaching us from the Sun is falling. And although they are nervous about raising the idea, they think the effect may help protect us from global warming. |
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| CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS BLOW SKY HIGH |
| An increase in global greenhouse gas emissions over the past two years, due almost entirely to the burning of fossil fuels, has been reported by Australian researchers. |
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| AMAZON RAINFOREST DRUNK ON CARBON DIOXIDE |
| Strange things are happening in lush Amazonian rainforests and rising levels of carbon dioxide could be the cause, scientists announced today. |
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| CLIMATE CHANGE COULD RELEASE OLD CARBON LOCKED IN ARCTIC SOILS, RESEARCHERS SAY. |
| The Arctic Ocean receives about ten percent of Earth's river water and with it some 25 teragrams [28 million tons] per year of dissolved organic carbon that had been held in far northern bogs and other soils. Scientists had not known the age of the carbon that reaches the ocean: was it recently derived from contemporary plant material, or had it been locked in soils for hundreds or thousands of years and therefore not part of Earth's recent carbon cycle? |
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| GREAT BARRIER REEF DOOMED BY 2050, STUDY |
| The brightly-coloured corals that make Australia's Great Barrier Reef will be largely dead by 2050 because of rising sea temperatures, according to a new report. |
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| CARBON DIOXIDE FERTILIZATION IS NEITHER BOON NOR BUST |
| Trees absorb more carbon dioxide when the amount in the atmosphere is higher, but the increase is unlikely to offset the higher levels of CO2, according to results from large-scale experiments conducted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and elsewhere. |
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| ARE CITIES CHANGING LOCAL AND GLOBAL CLIMATES? |
| New evidence from satellites, models, and ground observations reveal urban areas, with all their asphalt, buildings, and aerosols, are impacting local and possibly global climate processes. This is according to some of the world's top scientists convening in a special session at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. |
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| WHAT CAN THE GENOMICS REVOLUTION TEACH US ABOUT GLOBAL CHANGE? |
| While the scientific community has made tremendous investments in sequencing and interpreting animal and plant genes for biomedical applications, many researchers are looking at genomics to help solve problems in agriculture, such as impacts of global change. |
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| SOLAR CONTRIBUTION TO 'GLOBAL WARMING' PREDICTED TO DECREASE |
| Vascular disease pertains to the disorders that affect our arteries and veins. For the three most common types of vascular disease --carotid, aortic and peripheral – aging is a major risk factor. Recent studies suggest that pathological changes not only predispose the vasculature to disease but also impair compensatory adaptations to various stimuli including shear force and injury. Other studies have demonstrated a progressive increase in oxidative stress, activation of inflammatory mediators, and increasing endothelial dysfunction in both humans and animals. |
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| OCEAN PLANT LIFE SLOWS DOWN AND ABSORBS LESS CARBON |
| Plant life in the world's oceans has become less productive since the early 1980s, absorbing less carbon, which may in turn impact the Earth's carbon cycle, according to a study that combines NASA satellite data with NOAA surface observations of marine plants. |
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| HUNGARY'S SHRINKING LAKE FUELS CLIMATE FEARS |
| Lake Balaton, central Europe's biggest freshwater lake and one of Hungary's biggest tourist attractions, is shrinking - prompting warnings of an ecological and economic catastrophe that may be linked to global warming. |
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| GLOBAL WARMING A 'WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION' |
| Global climate change induced by humans is a 'weapon of mass destruction' at least as dangerous as nuclear, chemical or biological arms, a leading climate scientist has said. |
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| GLOBAL GARDEN GROWS GREENER |
| A NASA-Department of Energy jointly funded study concludes the Earth has been greening over the past 20 years. As climate changed, plants found it easier to grow. |
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| SINKING ATOLLS TRIGGER PAPUAN EVACUATION PLANS |
| Papua New Guinean authorities are trying to convince thousands of Polynesians to abandon their homes on two atolls that appear to be sinking into the Pacific Ocean. |
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| CLIMATE CHANGE LINKED TO MIGRATORY BIRD DECREASE |
| Biologists believe that climate change is affecting living things worldwide, and the latest evidence suggests that warmer winters may mean fewer migratory birds. New research shows that as winter temperatures have risen in central Europe, the number of migratory birds has dropped. Ultimately, this may also decrease the number of migratory bird species there. |
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| GLOBAL WARMING COULD TRIGGER CASCADE OF CLIMATIC CHANGES |
| Global warming and the partial melting of polar ice sheets can dramatically affect not only sea levels but also Earth's climate, in ways that may be complex, rapid and difficult to adjust to, scientists say in a new study to be published Friday in the journal Science. |
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| GLOBAL WARMING TRIGGERS CHANGE IN SQUIRREL GENES |
| Animals have been observed changing their genetic make-up in response to global warming for the first time, according to Canadian researchers. |
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| LONG-LOST RECORDS CONFIRM RISING SEA LEVEL |
| The discovery of 160 year old records in the archives of the Royal Society, London, has given scientists further evidence that Australian sea levels are rising. |
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| PHYTOPLANKTON IMPLICATED IN GLOBAL WARMING |
| The ubiquitous one-celled ocean organisms, phytoplankton, play a significant and previously unknown role in warming the planet by capturing and absorbing the Sun's radiation, American researchers have found. |
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| THE ARCTIC PERENNIAL SEA ICE COULD BE GONE BY END OF THE CENTURY |
| A NASA study finds that perennial sea ice in the Arctic is melting faster than previously thought--at a rate of 9 percent per decade. If these melting rates continue for a few more decades, the perennial sea ice will likely disappear entirely within this century, due to rising temperatures and interactions between ice, ocean and the atmosphere that accelerate the melting process. |
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| DESPITE LOWER CO2 EMISSIONS, DIESEL CARS MAY PROMOTE MORE GLOBAL WARMING THAN GASOLINE CARS |
| Laws that favor the use of diesel, rather than gasoline, engines in cars may actually encourage global warming, according to a new study. Although diesel cars obtain 25 to 35 percent better mileage and emit less carbon dioxide than similar gasoline cars, they can emit 25 to 400 times more mass of particulate black carbon and associated organic matter ("soot") per kilometer [mile]. The warming due to soot may more than offset the cooling due to reduced carbon dioxide emissions over several decades, according to Mark Z. Jacobson, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. |
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| AIR POLLUTION CLEANSED THROUGH OCEAN CLOUD PROCESSES, SAY HEBREW UNIVERSITY SCIENTISTS |
| Scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have demonstrated that sea spray over the oceans contributes to cleansing air that has been polluted overland. The air pollution is washed down by rain, which occurs because the rain-suppressing effect of such pollution is significantly neutralized. An article on this research appears in the online magazine Science Express, published today. |
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| SATELLITES SEE BIG CHANGES SINCE 1980S IN KEY ELEMENT OF OCEAN'S FOOD CHAIN |
| Since the early 1980s, ocean phytoplankton concentrations that drive the marine food chain have declined substantially in many areas of open water in Northern oceans, according to a comparison of two datasets taken from satellites. At the same time, phytoplankton levels in open water areas near the equator have increased significantly. Since phytoplankton are especially concentrated in the North, the study found an overall annual decrease in phytoplankton globally. |
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| SCIENTISTS FIND CAUSE OF DEAD CRABS, FISH OFF COAST. |
| An unusual combination of oceanic and atmospheric events may be to blame for a mysterious and sudden die-off of numerous crabs, fish and invertebrate animals off the central Oregon coast during the past two weeks. |
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| COSMIC RAYS LINKED TO GLOBAL WARMING |
| Researchers studying global warming have often been confounded by the differences between observed increases in surface-level temperatures and unchanging low-atmosphere temperatures. Because of this discrepancy, some have argued that global warming is unproven, suggesting instead that true warming should show uniformly elevated temperatures from the surface through the atmosphere. Researchers have proposed a theory that changes in cloud cover could help explain the puzzling phenomenon, but none-until now-have come up with an argument that could account for the varying heat profiles. |
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| WARMER WORLD WILL BE A SICKER WORLD, SAY SCIENTISTS |
| Rising tide of wildlife epidemics linked to climate change: Unprecedented numbers of disease outbreaks in marine and terrestrial populations have ecologists and epidemiologists on alert. |
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| NEW STUDY SHEDS LIGHT ON FROG MALFORMATIONS |
| The emergence of mutant frogs with extra arms and legs may smack of a low-budget sci-fi script. But it is a reality, and a new study provides more evidence that ultraviolet radiation could be responsible. The findings are reported in three consecutive papers in the July 1 print issue of Environmental Science & Technology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. |
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| INSECT PEST OF POTATOES TECIA SOLANIVORA HITS CROPS IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CANARY ISLANDS |
| International Symposium on Guatemalan moth in Quito, Ecuador
Lepidopteran Tecia solanivora, an insect pest, is currently devastating potato crops in Latin and Central America. Equador is particularly badly hit. |
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| I'LL HAVE DOUBLE THE ICE WITH THAT |
| The Amery Ice Shelf in Antarctica is nearly twice as large as previously thought.
A study by a team at the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre and Australian Antarctic Division found that the shelf's grounding zone, where floating ice connects to the land, is further upstream than expected. |
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| THUNDERSTORMS ARE AFFECTED BY POLLUTION |
| A NASA-funded researcher has discovered that tiny airborne particles of pollution may modify developing thunderclouds by increasing the quantity and reducing the size of ice crystals within them. These modifications may affect the cloud’s impact on the "radiation budget," the amount of radiation that enters and leaves the Earth. |
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| WARM AND GETTING WARMER... |
| The Arctic ice cap is shrinking… that much is known with certainty. Over the past century, the extent of the winter pack ice in the Nordic Seas has decreased by about 25%. Last winter the Bering Sea was effectively ice-free, which is unprecedented, and if this big melt continues, some say the formerly ice-locked Arctic will have open sea lanes as soon as 2015. By 2050, the summertime ice cap could disappear entirely. |
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| GLOBAL WARMING LENGTHENS DAY |
| Global warming caused by increasing manmade carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will lengthen the day, according to a study to be published this month by the journal, Geophysical Research Letters. Researchers at Belgium’s Royal Observatory and the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, lead by Olivier de Viron, used computer models to analyze the effect of adding one percent more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year, in order to reach a doubling of the carbon dioxide concentration after 70 years. |
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| METHANE EXPLOSION WARMED THE PREHISTORIC EARTH, POSSIBLE AGAIN |
| A tremendous release of methane gas frozen beneath the sea floor heated the Earth by up to 13 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius) 55 million years ago, a new NASA study confirms. NASA scientists used data from a computer simulation of the paleo-climate to better understand the role of methane in climate change. While most greenhouse gas studies focus on carbon dioxide, methane is 20 times more potent as a heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere. |
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| THE SUN'S CHILLY IMPACT ON EARTH |
| A new NASA computer climate model reinforces the long-standing theory that low solar activity could have changed the atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere from the 1400s to the 1700s and triggered a "Little Ice Age" in several regions including North America and Europe. Changes in the sun's energy was one of the biggest factors influencing climate change during this period, but have since been superceded by greenhouse gases due to the industrial revolution. |
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| EARTH LIKELY TO WARM 4-7 DEGREES BY 2100 |
| There's a nine out of ten chance that global average temperatures will rise 3-9 degrees Fahrenheit over the coming century, with
a 4-7 degree increase most likely, according to a new probability analysis by scientists in the United States and England. |
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| CLIMATE CHANGE IN ATLANTIC LARGER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT |
| A NASA satellite confirms that overturning in the North Atlantic Ocean - a process where surface water sinks and deep water rises due to varying water densities - speeds up and slows down by 20 to 30 percent over 12 to 14 year cycles. Scientists previously believed that a change of this magnitude would take hundreds of years, rather than close to a decade. |
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| A NEW GREAT ARCTIC NAVIGABLE ROUTE |
| Scientists are concerned that, due to global warming, the Arctic coastal area will start thawing. At the same time, a new navigable route between Europe and Asia could be established.
Amazed tourists, cruising exactly to the North Pole (90° of latitude north of the equator), didn’t see any ice during their trip in August. Instead of giant white glaziers, the North Pole showed them only oceanic waters. |
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| WILL WARMING CAUSE GLACIERS TO GROW? |
| It would seem obvious that in the process of global warming the Antarctic ice will begin to melt at its frontiers, and its total area will decrease. However, the glaciological processes are not as simple as that. |
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| DIMINISHING OF ARCTIC ICE CAP WILL EVENTUALLY RESULT IN ITS CONSIDERABLE BUILDUP IN THE COURSE OF TIME |
| After a team of Swedish climatologists and oceanographers led by E.Bjorgo analyzed the 1978-1995 satellite data to determine the condition of sea ice in the Arctic, it established that the total area of floating ice in the Arctic Ocean had diminished during those years by approximately 610 thousand square kilometers, which is 5.7 percent. |
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