Evidence from fossilized raindrop impressions from 2.7 billion years ago indicates that an abundance of greenhouse gases most likely caused the warm temperatures on ancient Earth.
Delicate wetland ecosystems that offer important wildlife habitats are threatened from multiple sources. One is the rapid expansion of nonnative, invasive plants that choke out natural species and alter the wetlands. Perennial pepperweed poses such a threat to seasonal wetlands in California and other western states.
Specialists agree that environmental intelligence must be a national priority, as it is essential to protecting our citizens, economy, and national security. Lack of information – particularly from Earth-orbiting sensors and systems -- could have devastating consequences, chiefly in the area of risk management.
Wildlife does not respect property boundaries. Therefore, protecting endangered species cannot be accomplished on government-owned lands alone. The cooperation and assistance of private landowners is essential. However, some landowners see government biodiversity programs, such as the Endangered Species Act, as a threat to independent management of their property.
The Wildlife Conservation Society and partners signed an agreement this month that will safeguard some 80,000 acres of intact forest in Guatemala in the heart of the sprawling Maya Biosphere Reserve.
The Great Rift Valley of East Africa—the birthplace of the human species—may have taken much longer to develop than previously believed, according to a new study published this week in Nature Geoscience that was led by scientists from James Cook University and Ohio University.
The American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society, today documented significant progress toward conserving energy and water, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and waste generation at its internationally known annual meetings during 2011.
A new method to make better use of vast amounts of data related to global geography, population and climate may help determine the relative importance of population increases vs. climate change.
A PNNL biosensor made of fluorescent proteins embedded in the shell of microscopic marine algae called diatoms could help detect chemicals in water samples. The same research could also lead to new, diatom-inspired nanomaterials.
UC Merced Professor Lara Kueppers is attempting to learn how tree species acclimated to cold weather will respond to the higher temperatures predicted by climate change experts
Professor Robert Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science is a co-editor of “Valuing the Ocean” a major new study by an international team of scientists and economists that attempts to measure the ocean’s monetary value and to tally the costs and savings associated with human decisions affecting ocean health.
The water flowing through Venice’s famous canals laps at buildings a little higher every year – and not only because of a rising sea level. Although previous studies had found that Venice has stabilized, new measurements indicate that the historic city continues to slowly sink, and even to tilt slightly to the east.
Three penguin species that share the Western Antarctic Peninsula for breeding grounds have been affected in different ways by the higher temperatures brought on by global warming, according to Stony Brook University Ecology and Evolution Assistant Professor Heather Lynch and colleagues.
The future of the oceans, poverty alleviation, global trade, biodiversity and food security are among research areas that will be at the core of the “Planet under Pressure” (PUP) conference this month with more than 2,500 participants, including several scientists from Arizona State University’s Global Institute of Sustainability.
A vulnerable ethic minority village in Cambodia received a collective land title today, which will help villagers fend off threats to their land and culture while also strengthening conservation goals.
Reintroduction of the American Chestnut tree after billions died due to blight could be accomplished more effectively thanks to a software tool developed and recently tested by the University of Cincinnati.
Some 32 social scientists and researchers from around the world, including a Senior Sustainability Scholar at Arizona State University, have concluded that fundamental reforms of global environmental governance are needed to avoid dangerous changes in the Earth system. The scientists argued in the March 16 edition of the journal Science that the time is now for a “constitutional moment” in world politics.
Cleaner! Faster! Cheaper! is a rallying cry for chemists working to limit the impact of their work on the environment. Here are a few examples of how chemists funded by NIH are going green by improving the chemical processes used to make medicines, plastics and other products.
Commencement at Michigan Technological University is going green. Michigan Tech will use caps and gowns made from recycled plastic water bottles at its April 28, 2012, commencement ceremony. Twenty-seven bottles make one gown.
A rapid increase in shipping in the formerly ice-choked waterways of the Arctic poses a significant increase in risk to the region’s marine mammals and the local communities that rely on them for food security and cultural identity, according to an Alaska Native groups and the Wildlife Conservation Society who convened at a recent workshop.
Wild orangutans that have come into contact with eco-tourists over a period of years show an immediate stress response but no signs of chronic stress, unlike other species in which permanent alterations in stress responses have been documented, new research from an Indiana University anthropologist has found.
People in the US may be at higher risk for Chagas disease than previously understood. A new study finds that 38% of kissing bugs collected in Arizona and California contained human blood and that more than 50% of the bugs also carried the parasite that causes this life-threatening disease. This upends the view that US kissing bug species don’t regularly feed on people and suggests that Chagas could spread, driven north by climate change.
New research has found that one type of pavement sealcoat, common on driveways and parking lots throughout the nation, has significant health and ecosystem implications.
Researchers from the University of New Hampshire have found that many African farmers inaccurately perceive changes in climate and rainfall when compared with scientific data, highlighting the need for better climate information to assist them to improve farming practices.
A team of researchers has just published a new paper, lead authored by Boston University Professor of Earth Sciences Richard W. Murray, that provides compelling evidence from marine sediment that supports the theory that iron in the Earth’s oceans has a direct impact on biological productivity, potentially affecting the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and, in turn, atmospheric temperature. These findings have been published in the March 11, 2012 online edition of the journal Nature Geoscience.
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) joined officials from the Republic of South Sudan and U.S. Government on March 8th to inaugurate Boma National Park Headquarters in Jonglei State in South Sudan, home to some of the world’s most spectacular wildlife migrations and vast intact ecosystems.
McGill engineering professor has been working for years on ways to better understand patterns in the seemingly chaotic motion of oceans and air. Working with geophysicist Josefina Olascoaga in Miami he has developed methods of predicting the movement of oil and ash following environmental disasters.
During some winters a significant amount of snow falls on parts of California. During other winters — like this one (so far) — there is much less snow. But more than 130 years of snow data show that over time snowfall in California is neither increasing nor decreasing.
A large band of cooler than normal air girdled the globe from South America across the Pacific and from South America northeast across North Africa, Europe and central Asia during February.
Greenroads, a rating system developed at the University of Washington, has awarded the first official certification for a sustainably built road. It presented the award to a Washington project that incorporated porcelain from discarded toilets in its sidewalks.
Among the many intriguing aspects of the deep sea, Earth’s largest ecosystem, exist environments known as hydrothermal vent systems where hot water surges out from the seafloor. On the flipside the deep sea also features cold areas where methane rises from “seeps” on the ocean bottom.
Fifteen years of studying two experimental wetlands has convinced Bill Mitsch that turning the reins over to Mother Nature makes the most sense when it comes to this area of ecological restoration.
Determining with precision the carbon balance of North America is complicated, but researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have devised a method that considerably advances the science.
"The Roads from Rio: Lessons Learned from Twenty Years of Multilateral Environmental Negotiation" reviews 20 years of multilateral environmental negotiations (1992-2012) by IISD's Earth Negotiations Bulletin team.
Elevated carbon dioxide concentrations can increase carbon storage in the soil, according to results from a 12-year carbon dioxide-enrichment experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
IISD publishes the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, providing valuable reports and analysis from UN negotiations on climate change, biodiversity and other key sustainable development and environmental issues.
Cladophora is back. The alga that fouled Great Lakes shorelines 50 years ago is again thriving, thanks to the zebra mussel invasion. Now scientists from the Michigan Tech Research Institute are using remote sensing to help resource managers get their arms around the Cladophora problem.
A healthy ranch can be a benefit to all. Sustaining an economically and ecologically successful ranch also preserves Western rural landscapes, lifestyles, and livelihoods. Business planning that incorporates resource monitoring offers the rancher measurable indicators of the health of a ranch.
Fifty million years ago, India slammed into Eurasia, a collision that gave rise to the tallest landforms on the planet, the Himalaya Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau.
In a modern iteration of the great age of Antarctic exploration of the 19th and 20th centuries, three teams of scientists are rushing to reach not the South Pole like Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton, but lakes deep below the surface of the Frozen Continent believed to hold scientific treasures. That quest by Russian, British and American scientific teams for water samples is the topic of an article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society.
Now under active discussion in Europe is the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security – or GMES program. It is a project to establish a European capacity for Earth observation services. Secure World Foundation (SWF) recently brought together leading experts to participate in a thought-provoking panel discussion on the GMES.
Virgin Oceanic is aiming its experimental, cutting-edge sub straight to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
"Understanding the Park" blends physical and social science, ethics and leadership in a course taught at ESF's campus in the forest preserve.
Scripps researchers, NOAA and TE SubCom agree to pursue science ports on transcontinental fiber optic cable lines to help monitor earthquakes, tsunamis and other forces.
Catastrophic wildfires are on the rise in the western United States and a set of conditions may be contributing to a perfect storm for more fires, according to NAU’s Scott Anderson, professor in the School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability.
A new study led by Georgia Tech provides further evidence of a relationship between melting ice in the Arctic regions and widespread cold outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere. The study’s findings could improve seasonal forecasting of snow and temperature anomalies across northern continents.
A new study uses a scientific methodology for establishing marine protected areas in Madagascar that offers a “diversified portfolio” of management options – from strict no-take zones to areas that would allow fishing.
A seagrass restoration project in the coastal bays of Virginia's Eastern Shore is demonstrating remarkable success. In a series of papers published Feb. 23 in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, researchers report that after 10 years of seeding vast and once barren stretches of bay bottom and monitoring the growth of eelgrass from these plantings, about 10.5 square miles are now carpeted with lush, healthy seagrass meadows.
Sharks are among the most threatened of marine species worldwide due to unsustainable overfishing. They are primarily killed for their fins to fuel the growing demand for shark fin soup, which is an Asia delicacy. A new study by University of Miami (UM) scientists in the journal Marine Drugs has discovered high concentrations of BMAA in shark fins, a neurotoxin linked to neurodegenerative diseases in humans including Alzheimer’s and Lou Gehrig Disease (ALS). The study suggests that consumption of shark fin soup and cartilage pills may pose a significant health risk for degenerative brain diseases.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- As scientists continue developing climate change projection models, paleontologists studying an extreme short-term global warming event have discovered direct evidence about how mammals respond to rising temperatures.
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