Under elevated carbon dioxide levels, wetland plants can absorb up to 32 percent more carbon than they do at current levels, according to a 19-year study published in Global Change Biology from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md. With atmospheric CO2 passing the 400 parts-per-million milestone this year, the findings offer hope that wetlands could help soften the blow of climate change.
A new report by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Disease Ecology Laboratory of Instituto de Ciencias Veterinarias del Litoral, Argentina (ICIVET LITORAL, UNL-CONICET) shows that increases in precipitation and changes in vegetative structure in Argentine forests – factors driven by climate change and deforestation in the region – are leading to increased parasitism of young nesting birds by fly larvae (botflies) of the species Philornis torquans.
Swarms of small earthquakes can precede a volcanic eruption, sometimes resulting in "harmonic tremor" resembling sound from some musical instruments. A new analysis shows tremor during a 2009 sequence at Alaska's Redoubt Volcano glided to substantially higher frequencies, then stopped abruptly just before six of the eruptions.
Recent research documents a dramatic, 40-year drop in a number of key fish species and a change in their community structure, according to a new study led by Eric Miller of MBC Applied Environmental Sciences (Costa Mesa, Calif.) and John McGowan of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
Global Temperature Report: June 2013.
University of Adelaide researchers have developed a new nanomaterial that could help reduce carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power stations.
A new study led by Florida State University researcher Stephanie Pau shows that tropical forests are producing more flowers in response to only slight increases in temperature.
A University of Michigan researcher and colleagues at the University of Georgia and elsewhere have identified the most underfunded countries in the world for biodiversity conservation. They found that 40 of the most poorly funded countries harbor 32 percent of all threatened mammalian biodiversity.
We rely on our physical environment for many things – clean water, land for crops or pastures, storm water absorption, and recreation, among others. Yet it has been challenging to figure out how to sustain the many benefits people obtain from nature — so-called “ecosystem services” — in any given landscape because an improvement in one may come at the cost of another.
Locally, changes in coastal ocean temperatures may be much more extreme than global averages imply. New research published in the June 18 edition of Public Library of Science (PLoS ONE) entitled “Decadal Changes in the World's Coastal Latitudinal Temperature Gradients,” is highlighting some of the distinct regional implications associated with global climate-change.
A project funded by NASA will make use of existing satellite imagery to produce the first-ever global survey of croplands.
Ocean experts had predicted a large “dead zone” area in the Gulf of Mexico this year, and according to the results from a Texas A&M University researcher just back from studying the region, those predictions appear to be right on target.
Arizona State University researchers have discovered for the first time that temperature determines where key soil microbes can thrive — microbes that are critical to forming topsoil crusts in arid lands. And of concern, the scientists predict that in as little as 50 years, global warming may push some of these microbes out of their present stronghold with unknown consequences to soil fertility and erosion.
A hardy algae species is showing promise in both reducing power plant pollution and making biofuel, based on new research at the University of Delaware.
University of Adelaide researchers are developing a new type of laser system that will monitor methane, the main component of natural gas, levels across large areas. This will provide a useful tool for monitoring greenhouse gas emissions.
America’s beaches experienced over 20,000 closing and advisory days for the third consecutive year because of polluted water or threatened contamination, according to the 23rd annual beachwater quality report released today by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Over 80 percent of the closings and advisories were issued because testing revealed bacteria levels in the water violated public health standards, confirming that serious water pollution persists at many U.S. shores. The primary known cause of this pollution is massive stormwater runoff and sewage.
Leading experts on water issues in the Western U.S. have come together to establish what is known about the future of Colorado River water, and to understand the wide range of estimates for future flows.
Resurrecting ancient proteins in the lab, researchers discover just two mutations set the stage for the evolution of modern hormone signaling.
Some open-minded people can be swayed to support government intervention on climate change – but only if they are presented with both the benefits and the costs, a new study suggests.
The goal of restoring or creating wetlands on agricultural lands is almost always to remove nutrients and improve water quality. But new research shows that constructed marshes also excel at pulling carbon dioxide from the air and holding it long-term in soil, suggesting that farmers and landowners may also want to build wetlands to "farm" carbon.
A Kansas State University researcher finds that during the next 50 years, future generations of bison will be smaller in size and weigh less. Climate is likely to reduce the nutritional quality of grasses, causing the animals to grow more slowly.
Collecting sediment spanning the past 30,000 years, Dal’s Markus Kienast and an international team of scientists have presented the first global synopsis of available sedimentary nitrogen isotope records from throughout the world’s oceans. Their research provides a bigger picture on the interplay between climate change and ocean biogeochemistry.
Taking part in the largest U.S. air quality field project in decades, the National Center for Atmospheric Research is working with partners to study pollution in the Southeast. The study looks at the impact of chemical reactions occurring between human-related pollution and volatile organic compounds emitted from vegetation.
The ongoing global growth in the human population will inevitably crowd out mammals and birds and has the potential to threaten hundreds of species with extinction within 40 years, new research shows.
Spring floods across the Midwest are expected to contribute to a very large and potentially record-setting 2013 Gulf of Mexico "dead zone," according to a University of Michigan ecologist and colleagues who released their annual forecast today, along with one for the Chesapeake Bay.
Half a dozen regions could provide some of the Western Hemisphere's more heavily used thoroughfares for mammals, birds and amphibians seeking cooler environments in a warming world. This is the first broad-scale study to consider how animals might travel when confronted with barriers like cities.
New research from wildlife ecologists at Michigan Technological University indicates that white-tailed deer may be making the soil in their preferred winter homes unfit to grow the very trees that protect them there.
A McGill-led international research team has now completed the first global study of changes that occurred in a crucial component of ocean chemistry, the nitrogen cycle, at the end of the last ice age. The results of their study confirm that oceans are good at balancing the nitrogen cycle on a global scale. But the data also shows that it is a slow process that may take many centuries, or even millennia, raising worries about the effects of the scale and speed of current changes in the ocean.
Arizona State University scientists are joining global stakeholders and researchers investigating sustainable sources of phosphorus--a nutrient that is getting harder to find and is the basis of our global food system. In developing nations, farmers are unable to afford increasing phosphorus prices while in industrialized nations, phosphorus waste pollutes drinking water and kills marine life. At the first meeting in Washington, D.C., scientists identified sustainable solutions that provide a secure food supply, protect fisheries, and maintain clean drinking water.
A new United Nations analysis, using statistical methods developed at the University of Washington, shows the world population could reach nearly 11 billion by the end of the century, about 800 million more people than the previous projection issued in 2011.
There’s nothing more frustrating for gardeners than discovering that their well-planned plots or rolling lawns have been infiltrated by invasive plant species, the perennial marauders of the back yard set. While many people panic and immediately start yanking or mowing the intruders when they first make their appearance, gardening expert Karen Snetselaar, Ph.D., chair and professor of biology at Saint Joseph’s University, advises that it’s best to investigate the plant that’s choking your columbines or blighting your lawn before complicating the problem with an errant course of action.
Georgia Tech research published online Monday in Nature Communications indicates that diatoms stuff more iron into their silica shells than they actually need. As a result, there’s not enough iron to go around, and the added iron during fertilization experiments may stimulate less productivity than expected. The study also says that the removal of iron through incorporation into diatom silica may be a profound factor controlling the Southern Ocean’s bioavailable pool of iron, adversely affecting the ecosystem.
The five-year anniversary of Hurricane Ike is still several months away, but the effects of what the historic storm did to the Texas coastline have been relentless, especially when it comes to beach erosion in the Galveston area, says a Texas A&M University at Galveston professor.
Presence of new ocean inlet in Great South Bay may help keep brown tide in check.
Air pollution in the Northern Hemisphere in the mid-20th century cooled the upper half of the planet and pushed rain bands south, contributing to the prolonged and worsening drought in Africa's Sahel region. Clean air legislation in the 1980s reversed the trend and the drought lessened.
A new set of long-term climate records based on cave stalagmites collected from tropical Borneo shows that the western tropical Pacific responded very differently than other regions of the globe to abrupt climate change events.
It is a long-held assumption that large cities benefit from economies of scale. New research by Boise State University visiting professor of economics Michail Fragkias questioning this assumption could help shape how major cities are built and managed in the coming decades.
An international team of scientists use advanced space-borne radar to reveal how water flowed through the Sinai Desert five to ten thousand years ago, opening the possibility of capturing water from seasonal downpours for sustainable agriculture.
Global Temperature Report: May 2013.
Kamran Mohseni envisions a day when the unmanned vehicles in his laboratory at the University of Florida will swarm over, under and through hurricanes to help predict the strength and path of the storms.
Researchers at the University of Adelaide have found that a lake on an island off the coast of Queensland, Australia, has been relatively untouched by changes in climate for the past 7000 years, and has so far also resisted the impact of humans.
Preparing for Climate Change is the theme of New York Institute of Technology's eighth annual energy conference on June 13. Experts in energy storage, emergency services, and resilient infrastructure are scheduled to discuss several aspects of emergency preparation.
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