Feature Channels: Environmental Science

• share
• favorite_border

Dylan Schwilk can discuss the anatomy of the Springs Fire north of Los Angeles.

• share
• favorite_border

Boise State graduate students Gabriel Trisca, computer science, and Mark Robertson, geophysics, leave Friday to spend a full month at Summit Camp at Greenland’s highest point, where they will help test the capabilities of a unique NASA robot and gather radar data to help scientists better understand the extent of summer 2012’s unusual ice melt.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

IISD analysis -- Regulating Carbon Emissions in Canada-- Oil and Gas Greenhouse Gas Regulations: The implications of alternative proposals.

• share
• favorite_border

Two researchers affiliated with the Virginia Tech College of Engineering have published a paper which reports that hot water recirculating systems touted as “green,” actually use both more energy and water than their standard counterparts. The research found that the “so-called green” hot water recirculation systems used more net water than the conventional systems after accounting for water needed to produce the extra energy.

• share
• favorite_border

In the spring following a forest fire, trees that survived the blaze explode in new growth and plants sprout in abundance from the scorched earth. For centuries, it was a mystery how seeds, some long dormant in the soil, knew to push through the ashes to regenerate the burned forest.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Washington engineers have found that using a grocery delivery service can cut carbon dioxide emissions by at least half when compared with individual household trips to the store.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Florida State University have developed a new metric to measure seasonal Atlantic tropical cyclone activity that focuses on the size of storms in addition to the duration and intensity, a measure that may prove important when considering a hurricane’s potential for death and destruction. Just ask the survivors of Hurricane Sandy.

• share
• favorite_border

Virginia Tech researchers working in Botswana discovered that humans are passing antibiotic resistance to wildlife, especially in protected areas where numbers of humans are limited.

• share
• favorite_border

Potential for method to be used within a network of wetland monitoring programmes in Southeast Asia and globally for assessing shoreline security and stability.

• share
• favorite_border

Wood-burning cookstoves, used by millions of people worldwide, cause air pollution, disease and death. A team of university students studied the problem and came up with a simple, low-cost solution: better ventilation

• share
• favorite_border

It’s well known that wildfires can leave surface soil burned and barren. But a new team's fiery test found that the hotter the fire — and the denser the vegetation feeding the flames — the less the underlying soil heated up, an inverse effect which runs contrary to previous studies and conventional wisdom.

• share
• favorite_border

Since 1997, a shrubby perennial found only in East Texas has been on a waiting list to be officially declared by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as threatened. A ruling on the fate of the Neches River rose-mallow is expected by 2016, but the future of the white-petaled, ruby-throated hibiscus may hinge on its past: The jury is still out on whether the showy plant is actually its very own species. Researchers will present their most recent findings on the matter on Tuesday, April 23, at the Experimental Biology 2013 conference in Boston.

• share
• favorite_border

For much of Asia, the pace of life is tuned to rhythms of monsoons. The summer rainy season is especially important for securing the water and food supplies for more than a billion people. Its variations can mean the difference between drought and flood. Now a Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego-led study reports on a crucial connection that could drastically improve the ability of forecasters to reliably predict the monsoon a few months in advance.

• share
• favorite_border

In celebration of Earth Day, the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) today released several resources that highlight the contributions of food science to a sustainable earth.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers found pronounced regional differences in past temperature changes while assembling the most comprehensive study to date of temperature change of Earth's continents over the past 1,000 to 2,000 years.

• share
• favorite_border

A professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry has put aside nearly a century and a half of conventional wisdom with the rediscovery of a species of giant Amazonian fish.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Using a new laboratory technique to analyze fossil snail shells, scientists have gained insights into an abrupt climate shift that transformed the planet nearly 34 million years ago.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists have identified subtle increases in the levels of industrial and domestic pollutants across the Central Appalachians, according to Steve Stephenson in his new book.