Feature Channels: Environmental Science

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A study published in the journal Science Advances explains how the decline in animal populations in tropical forests may play a role in accelerating climate change.

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Frank Incropera. former dean of the University of Notre Dame’s College of Engineering, acknowledges that it’s somewhat unusual for an engineer to delve deeply into the topic of climate change. Scientists, not engineers, have played the most prominent roles in the climate change debate to date. However, Incropera believes solving the problem going forward will require a joint effort from the two specialties.

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The designation of marine protected areas in the coral reefs of East Africa may not be the only solution to overfishing. A URI scientist says that’s because broad protections like the establishment of no-fishing zones often do not target the species critical for promoting healthy ecosystems.

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Estimates of future global temperatures based on recent observations must account for the differing characteristics of each important driver of recent climate change, according to a new NASA study published Dec. 14 in the journal Nature Climate Change.

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Scientists from James Cook University have discovered two critically endangered species of sea snakes, previously thought to be extinct, off the coast of Western Australia.

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In new Nature Climate Change article, researchers estimate widespread tree death in Southwestern forests during the next century as temperatures rise under global warming scenarios.

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Ongoing studies of a massive volcanic field in the Andes mountains show that the rapid uplift which has raised the surface more than six feet in eight years has occurred many times during the past 10,000 years.

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37-Year Global Temperature Report: 12/1978 through 11/2015

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An international group of biologists say that policies regulating the hunting of large carnivores do not always align with basic scientific data, which can undermine conservation efforts.

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Two types of bacteria found in the soil have enabled scientists at Texas A&M AgriLife Research to get the dirt on how resistance to antibiotics develops along with a separate survival strategy. The study, published in the journal PLoS Genetics this month, identifies an atypical antibiotic molecule and the way in which the resistance to that molecule arises, including the identity of the genes that are responsible, according to Dr. Paul Straight, AgriLife Research biochemist.

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Accelerating rates of sea-level rise linked to climate change pose a major threat to coastal marshes and the vital carbon capturing they perform. But a new Duke University study finds marshes may be more resilient than previously believed.

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The ARM West Antarctic Radiation Experiment (AWARE) is a long-overdue effort to collect fundamental data in a challenging and remote region where changes in climate have worldwide implications. AWARE principal investigators from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility technical director, will discuss the field campaign, which launched in November, at a special workshop at the AGU Fall Meeting: 5 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 16 at the Fall Meeting Press Conference Room (Room 3000, Moscone West).

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There’s more to an ecosystem than the visible plants and animals. The soil underneath is alive with vital microbes. They make sure nutrients from dead plant and animal material are broken down and made useable by other plants. This completes the process of nutrient cycling and carbon storage. Scientists are learning more about how important these microbes are. But how do changes in temperature and precipitation levels affect microbes? And will that affect carbon storage?

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By the latter half of this century, toxic algal blooms like the one that cut off drinking water to the city of Toledo in 2014 will no longer be the exception, but the norm, a study suggests. The findings hold implications for hundreds of coastal regions around the world where nutrient runoff and climate change intersect to make toxic algae a problem.

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Scientists still have a lot of questions about how much and how quickly sea levels will rise in coming years, says University at Buffalo geologist Beata Csatho. That holds true even if the Paris climate deal's ambitious targets are met.

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A study published today finds a surprising and very recent shift away from the steady relationship among species that prevailed for more than 300 million years. The study, published in the journal Nature, offers the first long-term view of how species associated with each other for half of the existence of multicellular life on Earth.

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University of Arkansas researchers have simulated the effect of a series of retention ponds in the West Fork of the White River Watershed and found that construction of 22 one-acre ponds, with an average flood-pool depth of 8.2 feet, in sub-basin areas can decrease peak-flow runoff by about 15 percent. Such a retention pond system would have the potential to significantly decrease water loss from runoff in watersheds of at least 75,000 acres.

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When you think of wildfires, you may not think of wetlands. But the seldom-seen blazes may help some endangered species, according to a newly published study by a former UF/IFAS researcher. Severe wetland fires -- so rare they occur only a few times per century – also can change vegetation and patterns of water movement.

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The ability of baby fish to find a home, or other safe haven, to grow into adulthood will be severely impacted under predicted ocean acidification, University of Adelaide research has found.

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On Dec. 3, the legislature for Argentina's Chubut province established a new marine protected area off Punta Tombo, which would help preserve the feeding grounds for about 500,000 Magellanic penguins that make their home along this rocky stretch of Argentine coast.

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According to a new analysis in the journal Ecological Monographs, by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues, the world’s rivers and streams pump about 10 times more methane into our atmosphere than scientists estimated in previous studies.

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Mountain pine beetle populations have exploded over the past decade, and these insects have infected and killed thousands of acres of western pine forests. Researchers predicted that as trees died, streamflow would increase, but a new study disproved this hypothesis.

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Scientists are learning more about how the upper atmosphere and ionosphere affect space satellites as well as communications and navigation here on Earth, thanks to new data from a U.S. Air Force satellite that recently completed a more than seven-year mission.

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Researchers are proposing a new "hydricity" concept aimed at creating a sustainable economy by not only generating electricity with solar energy but also producing and storing hydrogen from superheated water for round-the-clock power production.

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An analysis of fossil corals and mollusk shells from the Pacific Ocean reveals there is no link between the strength of seasonal differences and El Niño, a complex but irregular climate pattern with large impacts on weather, agriculture, fisheries, tourism, and air quality worldwide.

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Scientists uncover secrets behind hurricanes, monsoons, and polar vortexes.

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While some dream of the day that aerial drones deliver their online purchases, scientists are using the technology today to deliver data that was never available before. About 5,000 meters high in the Peruvian Andes, the scientists are mapping glaciers and wetlands in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range with 10-centimeter precision to gauge how climate change will affect the half-million local residents who rely in part on those glaciers for their water supply.

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Scientists have discovered enhanced weathering of rock could counter man-made fossil fuel CO2 emissions and help to protect our oceans.

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As Typhoon Melor approached a landfall in the central Philippines, NASA's RapidScat instrument identified the strongest winds north of the center. As the storm was making landfall in the eastern Visayas and Bicol regions of the Philippines early on Dec. 14, 2015 NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided a visible image that showed the extend of the storm.

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LSU paleoclimatologist Kristine DeLong contributed to an international research breakthrough that sheds new light on how the tilt of the Earth affects the world's heaviest rainbelt. DeLong analyzed data from the past 282,000 years that shows, for the first time, a connection between the Earth's tilt called obliquity that shifts every 41,000 years, and the movement of a low pressure band of clouds that is the Earth's largest source of heat and moisture -- the Intertropical Convergence Zone, or ITCZ.

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A team of chemists from ITMO University, in collaboration with research company SOPOT, has developed a novel type of firefighting foam based on inorganic silica nanoparticles. The new foam beats existing analogues in fire extinguishing capacity, thermal and mechanical stability and biocompatibility. The results of the study were published in ACS Advanced Materials & Interfaces.

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More than 100 industry executives, association leaders, elected local and state policy makers, private and public sector economists, and other allied professionals are expected to attend. Five speakers will address critical issues in relation to agribusiness

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The function and behavior of microbial marine systems will determine how the global ocean responds to broader environmental changes, according to a new review article published in the journal Science by University of Georgia marine scientist Mary Ann Moran.

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Two University of Washington researchers have uncovered details of the radically divergent strategies that two common tree species employ to cope with drought in southwestern Colorado. As they report in a new paper in the journal Global Change Biology, one tree species shuts down production and conserves water, while the other alters its physiology to continue growing and using water.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.