Bolivia’s Tacana indigenous council has been awarded the Equator Prize for its efforts to reduce deforestation. For 14 years, the group has worked in the Madidi landscape to implement a community-based land-use vision for their ancestral territory.
New research from the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources and the Environment at the S.J. Quinney College of Law explores the issue of mineral resources under the Utah’s Transfer of Public Lands Act, or TPLA, which demands that the federal government transfer title to more than 31 million acres of federal public lands within Utah to the state.
As world leaders hold climate talks in Paris, research shows that land surface temperatures may rise by an average of almost 8C by 2100, if significant efforts are not made to counteract climate change.
An animation of satellite imagery over the course of 10 days shows a series of low pressure areas pummeling the Pacific Northwest. The video, created by the NASA/NOAA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland combined visible and infrared imagery from NOAA's GOES-West satellite.
Every city has abandoned industrial sites. Encouraging life to return to these barren areas is a challenge. It requires a healthy topsoil for plants and animals to flourish. Cities, with their heavily compacted and often contaminated soils, often struggle to restore blighted spaces. Quality soil is necessary—but not abundant in cities. Enter biosolids.
Emissions controls on coal-fired power plants are making a difference in reducing exposure of mercury to people, especially in the western Maryland community. A study of air quality from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science found that levels of mercury in the air from power plant emissions dropped more than half over a 10-year period, coinciding with stricter pollution controls.
Another reason to worry about climate change: Expanding areas of arid land, air pollution, and greater exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation all present potential health hazards to your eyes, according to Sheila West, Ph.D., vice chair for research at the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University. In October, West discussed these hazards at a symposium on the health consequences of climate change.
The faulted alluvial fans near Badwater in Death Valley are amongst the most visited and classic landforms in the U.S. New mapping and dating of these landforms, presented in this open-access study by Kurt Frankel and colleagues, help to determine the timing of past earthquakes and how tectonic deformation is distributed across the western U.S.
At the beginning of week two of the Paris climate talks, an international group of scientists is calling on the world’s industrial powers to aggressively and immediately reduce greenhouse gas emissions, stressing that overreliance on so-called negative emissions technologies may prove too costly and disruptive to keep Earth from overheating.
Researchers at Umeå University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences have discovered that increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have shifted photosynthetic metabolism in plants over the 20th century. This is the first study worldwide that deduces biochemical regulation of plant metabolism from historical specimens. The findings are now published in the leading journal PNAS and will have an impact on new models of future CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
Scientists were able to deploy ruggidized seismometers that could withstand intense cold in Antarctica only recently. A line of seismometers strung across the West Antarctic Rift Valley and the Marie Byrd Land have given geologists their first good look at the mantle beneath the ice and rocks, revealing areas of hot rock that might affect the behavior of the overlying ice sheet.
In this week’s Journal of Chemical Physics, Bo Persson, a scientist at the Jülich Research Center, discusses his new theory that describes how slippery ice gets when a hard material like a ski slides across it. The theory agrees well with experimental data and could help design better sliding systems, as well as contribute to a fundamental understanding of ice friction that could help explain the movement of glaciers and other natural processes.
Climate scientists at NCAR present evidence in a new study that they can predict whether the Arctic sea ice that forms in the winter will grow, shrink, or hold its own over the next several years.
The goal of the research project is to investigate human-natural feedbacks in freshwater systems by examining the linkages between land-use decision-making, water quality, and collective action taken by the public to protect water quality.
For years, many scientists thought we had a secret weapon to protect coral reefs from nutrients flushed into the seas by human activity. Experiments suggested that herbivores such as fish, urchins and sea turtles could keep corals and their ecosystems healthy by eating up extra algae that grew in the presence of these nutrients. But a new University of Florida study sheds doubt on that idea, underscoring the importance of sustainable growth in coastal areas.
Americans' attitudes about environmental issues aren't simply polarized into pro- and anti-environment, but rather are spread across a diverse spectrum. A new study from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and The Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies finds that attitudes about environmental issues are influenced by a combination of experience, interaction with natural environments, and religious and political views about the responsibilities of humankind as a whole, and government in particular.
Including plants' acclimation to changes in temperature could significantly improve the accuracy of climate models, a Purdue University study shows.
When it comes to helping coastal communities be more resilient to weather hazards, ideas don’t need to be sandbagged, experts say. That’s why the Federal Emergency Management Agency has granted $750,000 to a program that already is experienced in working with city leaders along the Texas coast and other Gulf states.
Two studies by Dartmouth researchers and their colleagues shed new light on mercury pollution in the waters of the northeastern United States.
Swarthmore College is well-represented at what many are calling the most significant climate meeting in history. Five students and two faculty members are part of an interdisciplinary delegation attending the 21st United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP21) in Paris, which began Nov. 30 and concludes on Dec. 11.
By examining rocks at the bottom of ancient oceans, an international group of researchers have revealed that arsenic concentrations in the oceans have varied greatly over time. But also that in the very early oceans, arsenic co-varied with the rise of atmospheric oxygen and coincided with the coming and going of global glaciations. The study was recently published in the Nature Group Journal, Scientific Reports.
Old Weather is a citizen-science project that is mining historic ship logs to get a unique peek at the history of Arctic climate. Now volunteers will transcribe logbooks from hundreds of whaling ships that recorded Arctic conditions in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The connection of meat consumption to climate change is not garnering the serious attention it deserves at the Paris climate talks. Representatives from 15 Meatless Monday countries including USA, Israel, Korea, Denmark, France, Italy, Nigeria, Jamaica and Kuwait, will join leading scientists, politicians and chefs at a session at COP21. Their goal: To underline the link between meat and climate change, and the impact that simple changes in our diet, like going meatless one day a week, can make in slowing global warming. http://www.meatlessmonday.com/paris/
Global Temperature Report: November 2015
What is the climate waiting for Russia and Europe in 15-20 years? Will be there weather abnormalities in the coming decades? Will some areas experience more severe winter, while the others will have hot summer? It all depends on how much the climate will be affected by the dynamics of the possible onset of minimum solar magnetic activity. The Sun's behaviour in future cycles is the main theme of a publication on the forecast and explanation of the minima of solar activity.
The GCOOS-RA today released a new plan that will help protect humans and marine life from the negative impacts caused by harmful algal blooms, or HABs.
A new international report warns that climate change will likely have far-reaching impacts on food security worldwide, especially for the poor and those in tropical regions. The report, issued today at the Paris climate talks, finds that warmer temperatures and altered precipitation patterns can affect food production, transportation, and safety.
Making our homes more energy efficient should be the first choice to mitigate climate change, says an Iowa State University researcher. Yu Wang says energy efficiency is cheap, easy and effective when compared to other options, such as renewable energy sources.
Article about a proposed plasma-based method for treating nuclear waste.
In a study recently published in the Annals of Global Health researchers review the links between climate change, the processes leading to greenhouse gas emissions and health outcomes.
Current El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean have created high water temperatures that are seriously damaging coral reefs, including those on Christmas Island, which may be the epicenter for what could become a global coral bleaching event.
Researchers for the first time have attempted to measure all the material leaving and entering a mountain range over more than a million years and discovered that erosion caused by glaciation during ice ages can, in the right circumstances, wear down mountains faster than plate tectonics can build them.
Soil gives us artistic beauty and cultural richness
NASA-funded researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are tapping information found in the cells of all life on Earth, and using it to trace life’s evolution.
n sub-Saharan Africa, dozens of major 'development corridors,' including roads, railroads, pipelines, and port facilities, are in the works to increase agricultural production, mineral exports, and economic integration. And, if all goes according to plan, it's going to be a disaster, say researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on Nov. 25.
A camera so advanced that it can photograph and film methane in the air around us is now presented by a team of researchers from Linköping and Stockholm Universities. It can be an important part of the efforts to measure and monitor greenhouse gases.
What do mercury levels in dolphins say about mercury levels in humans? Quite a bit, according to a new study by scientists at FAU Harbor Branch, which sheds light on the potential dangers of consuming locally caught seafood. This is the first time that researchers have closed the loop between marine mammal and human health, by taking findings from their research and applying them to explore the potential risks facing humans living in the same region.
A larger portion of Africa is currently at high risk for malaria transmission than previously predicted, according to a new University of Florida mapping study.
A new Report from Wildlife Conservation Society Canada (WCS Canada) warns of the potential for major negative impacts on fish and fish habitat caused by large hydroelectric dams, like that currently under evaluation through the Next Generation Hydro initiative. The Report, which focuses on north-western Canada, notes that substantial destruction of fish habitats caused by such a dam, along with additional threats and effects will be either very expensive or impossible to mitigate.
While Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in Paris hammering out the details of the global fight against climate change, a new study out of the University of Montreal and the Trottier Energy Institute shows that Canadian attitudes are somewhat ambivalent.
Women’s equality is essential for the health of the environment and our future wellbeing, according to a new book launched by Friends of the Earth on 24th November.
In a study published in Science today, PNNL scientists and their colleagues show that nations’ pledges to reduce greenhouse gases have the potential to reduce the probability of the highest levels of warming, and increase the probability of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.
A microscopic marine alga is thriving in the North Atlantic to an extent that defies scientific predictions, suggesting swift environmental change as a result of increased carbon dioxide in the ocean.
The World Meteorological Organization, the weather agency of the United Nations announced on Wednesday that 2015 is the hottest year on record, breaching the symbolic and significant milestone of 1 degree Celsius above the pre-industrial era. The report comes the week before world leaders assemble in Paris to try to negotiate an agreement to fight climate change. Records go back to 1880.
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