Feature Channels: Environmental Science

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Global Temperature Report: August 2016

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Late Wednesday night (Aug. 31), a shiny white aircraft with a wingspan of roughly 120 feet soared aloft from Wallops Island, Virginia. Following takeoff, the aircraft — a high-altitude drone known as a Global Hawk — flew patterns off the east coast of the U.S., tracing two big loops as it headed south toward Florida’s west coast. Its destination: Tropical Storm Hermine in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Less than one year after President Barack Obama announced a White House Arctic Initiative that included better mapping of the area, a team of researchers led by the University of Minnesota Polar Geospatial Center released the first-ever publicly available set of high-resolution, three-dimensional topographic maps of the entire state of Alaska.

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New research from the University of Notre Dame suggests that Africa has gradually become wetter over the past 1.3 million years — instead of drier as was thought previously.

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What is the first color that comes to mind when you envision soil? Is it brown, black, yellow, or red? How about white, gray, green, or blue? The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) September 1 Soils Matter blog post explains that of these answers are correct depending on where you are from! It is true; soils come in an incredible range of colors.

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A Saint Louis University commentary urges taking a multipronged approach to improve the mental health of medical school students, which ultimately impacts physician burnout and the care patients receive.

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The illegal hunting of Madagascar’s sea turtles is reaching a crisis level as a result of organized trafficking networks says a team of WCS conservationists.

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"Taking Chances: The Coast After Hurricane Sandy" investigates whether Sandy was “a transformational event, just another storm or something in between.” Topics include the meteorology and climatology of Sandy, efforts to “Restore the Shore,” and impacts on water, wastewater and electrical utilities.

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The National Science Foundation awarded University of Arkansas computer engineering professor Jia Di $349,198 to advance his design of microcontrollers that can operate in extreme environmental conditions, such as space.

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New research, led by the University of Southampton, suggests that the release of methane from the seafloor was much slower than previously thought during a rapid global warming event 56 million years ago.

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The National Association of County Agricultural Agents (NACAA) has recognized Mace Bauer, agriculture agent with University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension Columbia County, for excellence in sustainability education aimed at young, beginning or small-scale producers.

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A modest but versatile crop, cowpeas may provide an answer to demands on grower resources—and international appetites.

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Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Inc. today announced the results of the $7 million, three-year Great Elephant Census, the first-ever pan-African survey of savanna elephants using standardized data collection and validation methods. The researchers report that the current rate of species decline is 8 percent per year, primarily due to poaching.

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In a new study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, Assistant Professor of Meteorology Christopher Holmes writes that thunderstorms have 50 percent higher concentrations of mercury than other rain events.

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Historic changes to Antarctic sea ice could be unravelled using a new technique pioneered by scientists at Plymouth University.

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John Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health and Whiting School of Engineering have created a new academic department devoted to tackling environmental issues and their impact on public health

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Having built their nest over the vertical ventilation pipe of an old nuclear weapon bunker in Poland, every year a large number of wood ants fall down the pipe to never return back to their colony.

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Because forest elephants are one the slowest reproducing mammals in the world, it will take almost a century for them to recover from the intense poaching they have suffered since 2002.

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Researchers including a University of Guelph scientist have recorded the only known example of prehistoric pollen caught in explosive mid-discharge from a fossil flower. The team describes this “freeze-frame” fossilized pollen release – preserved in amber more than 20 million years ago — in a paper describing a new genus of fossil nettle plants.

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Research shows the diversity of soil bacteria, fungi and nitrogen-fixing bacteria all are better predicted by variation in environmental temperature rather than pH.

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Plants – even relatively small ones – played a crucial role in establishing a beachhead for life on land, according to recent work by an international team from China, the U.S., the U.K., and the University of Saskatchewan. The team found that early in the history of Earth’s terrestrial biosphere, a small plant called Drepanophycus, similar to modern club mosses, was already deeply rooted. This kept soils from washing away and even allowed build up as the resilient above-ground parts of the plants caught silt during floods. These plants – typically a metre long at most – helped form deep, stable soils where other plants could thrive.

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According to NAU Scientists, and their new study, global warming began in the Arctic and tropical oceans before thermometers were widespread enough to record the early signal.

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A recent discovery in the study of landslides, using annular shear cell measurements of granular flows, confirms that two flow regimes – an “elastic régime” and an “inertial régime” exist. The researchers discuss their findings in this week’s Physics of Fluids.

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A new study has found that plants regulate their leaf temperature with some independence from the surrounding air temperature, a trait that increases carbon uptake through photosynthesis.

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Agronomists, and crop and soil scientists to meet in Phoenix this November

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Many popular long-term drought estimates ignore the fact that plants will be less thirsty as carbon dioxide goes up. Plants’ lower water use could roughly halve some current estimates for the extent of future drought, especially in central Africa and temperate Asia.

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The University of Washington and The Nature Conservancy have created an animated map showing where mammals, birds and amphibians are projected to move in the Western Hemisphere in response to climate change.

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The University of Saskatchewan marked the official launch of its unique Plant Phenotyping and Imaging Research Centre (P2IRC) today with an international symposium and demonstration of new drone technology to be used in novel crop development approaches.

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The We Energies Foundation and the Wisconsin Public Service Foundation have donated money to establish the Judith H. and Gale E. Klappa Endowed Professorship of Marketing at UWM’s Lubar School of Business.

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UF/IFAS Extension and researchers help farmers in the Hastings agricultural area explore sweet potatoes as an alternative crop.

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A Virginia Tech scientist who has alerted world policymakers to the pest that destroyed 80 percent of Nigeria's tomatoes continues his outreach while UCDavis scientists warn that the pest may reach California, "where it is likely to become a serious threat to tomato production."

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A new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will help researchers understand the ways that marine animal larvae use sound as a cue to settle on coral reefs. The study, published on August 23rd in the online journal Scientific Reports, has determined that sounds created by adult fish and invertebrates may not travel far enough for larvae --which hatch in open ocean--to hear them, meaning that the larvae might rely on other means to home in on a reef system.

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Scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have made new updates to old technology that will enable weather forecasters to make improved predictions of severe weather.

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Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans 11 years ago, but the storm’s legacy may have a silver lining: reduced levels of lead in soil across the city.

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University of Oklahoma Professor David A. Sabatini is the recipient of a national award for outstanding contributions and demonstrated leadership through involvement in environmental engineering and science outreach activities to the global community. Sabatini will receive the Steven K. Dentel Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors Award for Global Outreach at the Water Environment Federation’s Annual Technical Exhibition and Conference in New Orleans on Sept. 26.

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With millions of motorists set to hit the road for the bank holiday weekend, drivers have been urged to close windows and turn off fans while in traffic jams to avoid breathing in dangerously high levels of air pollution. Latest research from the University of Surrey has shown that simple adjustment to your car's ventilation system while sitting in traffic jams can greatly affect your exposure to toxic fumes by up to 76%.

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Click here to go directly to the Environment News Source.

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Carolyn Finney, University of Kentucky assistant professor of geography, is part of a national effort to assure that all people — regardless of race, religion, gender identification or national origin — are welcome in America’s national parks and all public lands. A significant portion of Americans say they simply don’t feel welcome in national parks. A 2008-09 survey by the University of Wyoming and NPS quantifies this feeling of unease among minorities. Non-Hispanic whites accounted for approximately 78 percent of the visitors to national parks; Hispanics, 9 percent; African Americans, 7 percent; Asian Americans, 3 percent; and Native Americans/Alaskans, 1 percent. Some minorities say they don’t see themselves among park employees and guests.

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It is easy to study what you can see. Researchers know a lot about how plants work aboveground, but what happens out of sight under the surface may control more than we once thought.

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A new study from University of Michigan researchers challenges the widely held assumption that biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel are inherently carbon neutral.

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Large swarms of these jellyfish reach the coast when the sea temperature ranges between 28.2 and 30 degrees Celsius and during the full moon, according to a new study from the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management at the University of Haifa. The study reveals, for the first time, the link between sea temperature and the lunar cycle and the arrival of swarms of Jellyfish s along the coast of Israel.

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New research suggests that Pennsylvania residents with the highest exposure to active natural gas wells operated by the hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) industry are nearly twice as likely to suffer from a combination of migraine headaches, chronic nasal and sinus symptoms and severe fatigue.

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Two dogs trained to detect ivory by scent recently made their first bust by helping government authorities seize four elephant tusks in a village outside Tanzania’s Ruaha National Park, according to WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society).

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Two Wichita State University professors are conducting research on an invasive plant species to assist Kansas ranchers in their practices.

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LLNL researchers measure how forces move through 3D granular materials, such as sand and soil, which has applications in fracking and in identifying underground explosives.

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Pulses, and in this case dry peas, are a flexible crop with many benefits. They work well for growers when rotated with other crops, delivering long-term benefits to the soil. They are wide adaptable for various rainfall zones. And, this new research shows they can even be planted in fall, a time when growers often have time for field work.

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