Globally, irrigation increases agricultural productivity by an amount roughly equivalent to the entire agricultural output of the U.S., according to a new University of Wisconsin-Madison study.
Geologists recently descended into caves on a small island in the middle of the South Pacific to try and gain a better understanding of weather patterns occurring as far back as 10,000 years ago.
New University of Washington research indicates that even if Earth warmed enough to melt all polar sea ice, the ice could recover if the planet cooled again.
The cisco, a key forage fish found in Wisconsin’s deepest and coldest bodies of water, could become a climate change casualty and disappear from most of the Wisconsin lakes it now inhabits by the year 2100, according to a new study.
Tennessee Tech University civil engineering professor Faisal Hossain recently went to Washington, D.C. to present his research about dams' effects on local climate. He went at the invitation of policymakers who were looking to learn about the need for more flexibility when building large dams.
Marine researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups have created a map of the world’s corals and their exposure to stress factors, including high temperatures, ultra-violet radiation, weather systems, sedimentation, as well as stress-reducing factors such as temperature variability and tidal dynamics.
Although Arctic sea ice appears fated to melt as the climate continues to warm, the ice may temporarily stabilize or somewhat expand at times over the next few decades, new research indicates.
According to a new analysis of plants in grasslands around the world, 84 percent of plant species are important to their ecosystem. Brian Wilsey and Stanley Harpole, both in Iowa State University's Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, are authors of a study on plant diversity published in today's issue of the journal Nature. The study's lead author, Forest Isbell, is a former graduate student of Wilsey who now works at McGill University, Canada.
The aging forests of the Upper Great Lakes could be considered the baby boomers of the region’s ecosystem.
American University’s Matthew Nisbet featured in American Journal of Public Health.
New computer modeling work shows that by 2100, if society wants to limit carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to less than 40 percent higher than it is today, the lowest cost option is to use every available means of reducing emissions.
Aerosol particles, including soot and sulfur dioxide from burning fossil fuels, essentially mask the effects of greenhouse gases and are at the heart of the biggest uncertainty in climate change prediction. New research from the University of Michigan shows that satellite-based projections of aerosols' effect on Earth's climate significantly underestimate their impacts.
Scientists are descending into caves on a small island in the middle of the South Pacific to try and gain a better understanding of weather patterns occurring as far back as 10,000 years ago.
Data from NASA's Terra satellite shows that when the climate warms, Earth's atmosphere is apparently more efficient at releasing energy to space than models used to forecast climate change have been programmed to "believe."
University of Wisconsin-Madison geoscience assistant professor Anders Carlson’s new results, published July 29 in Science, reveal surprising patterns of melting during the last interglacial period that suggest that Greenland’s ice may be more stable – and Antarctica’s less stable – than many thought.
Excessive heat, flooding in Midwest have culminated in dangerous air quality alert for a mold count high of more than 50,000, says Loyola University Health System allergist, Dr. Joseph Leija.
Two Vermont geologists have created the first-ever standardized view of pre-human erosion rates for the whole planet. Their study is part of an effort to create a model that can predict global patterns of erosion—and how these patterns will respond to climate change.
After a 10,000-year absence, wildfires have returned to the Arctic tundra, and a University of Florida study shows that their impact could extend far beyond the areas blackened by flames.
Research by UC Merced Professor Anthony Westerling shows large fires could become annual events by 2050, transforming the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in fundamental ways
Climate is changing fire patterns in the west in a way that could markedly change the face of Yellowstone National Park, according to new research.
A mathematical formula that describes predator-prey population dynamics has been used by the Weizmann Institute and NOAA to model the relationship between cloud systems, rain, and aerosols. This model may help climate scientists understand, among other things, how human-produced aerosols affect rainfall patterns.
A new Baylor University study has found that some bird species in the desert southwest are less affected, and in some cases positively influenced, by widespread fire through their habitat. In fact, the Baylor researchers say that fire actually helps some bird species because of the habitat that is formed after a fire is positive for the bird’s prey needs.
Loyola University Health System primary care physician offer ways to stay healthy in the heat.
Large, marine-calving glaciers have the ability not only to shrink rapidly in response to global warming, but to grow at a remarkable pace during periods of global cooling, according to University at Buffalo geologists working in Greenland.
The amount of carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere by forests could be quadrupled in 100 years by harvesting regularly and using the wood in place of steel and concrete that devour fossil fuels during manufacturing, producing carbon dioxide.
Preliminary temperatures taken from satellite measurements of the Earth's atmosphere reveal that global temperatures continue to rise.
This month, scientists from 11 institutions will drill cores into the stratified layers of Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin to search for clues to a massive release of carbon dioxide from 55 million years ago. The pioneering study may yield a better understanding of current and future global climate change.
How deep is the ocean’s capacity to buffer against climate change? As one of the planet’s largest single carbon absorbers, the ocean takes up roughly one-third of all human carbon emissions, reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide and its associated global changes.
Summers on the Great Plains are usually characterized by a lack of water. But flooding in several states has reversed that trend -- and it might not be the last of the high waters for 2011, according to a Kansas State University geography expert.
The prospect of rising temperatures in Iowa and the Midwest is predicted to lead to a dramatic decline in corn yield. With a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Iowa State University researchers Alan Myers and Tracie Hennen-Bierwagen are looking to develop a corn variety that maintains the region's high yields even as temperatures rise. The study is part of the response within the scientific community to challenges issued by the National Research Council in their report, "New Biology for the 21st Century: Ensuring the United States Lead the Coming Revolution."
More North Dakota State University students will receive the opportunity to conduct research in Antarctica. The National Science Foundation has awarded a $292,568 grant to geology professors Adam R. Lewis and Ken Lepper of North Dakota State University, Fargo, and an additional $287,416 to Jane Willenbring, assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The grant funding will be used to conduct field research in Antarctica in late 2011 and to support as many as seven graduate and undergraduate students as research continues through 2014.
Some areas of the southern United States are suffering from the longest dry spell since 1887 and a new Baylor University study shows that could prove problematic for aquatic organisms.
This season’s massive Arizona fires making headlines around the globe have destroyed dozens of structures and burned nearly three-quarters of a million acres. They also are contributing to global warming, scientists say, by upsetting the carbon balance while they are burning and for years to come.
A new report by the Wildlife Conservation Society highlights the critical importance of 1.3 million acres of roadless, public lands in Montana’s spectacular Crown of the Continent Ecosystem. The report recommends that most of these lands be preserved to protect wolverines, bighorn sheep, westslope cutthroat and bull trout, grizzly bears and other vulnerable species in the face of climate change and other threats.
The economic impacts of routine weather events can add up to 3.4% of the nation's GDP.
A University of Arkansas researcher and her colleagues studied core sediments from a shallow boreal lake and found that storm activity has increased substantially over the past 150 years. The rise in storm frequency appears to be linked to solar activity, but also may be linked to higher global temperatures resulting from increased amounts of greenhouse gases.
New research lends support to recent studies that suggest abrupt climate change is the result of alterations in ocean circulation uniquely associated with ice ages, not from atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Crop Science Society of America releases a position statement that calls for research programs to understand crops’ adaptation to drought, heat, and biological stresses from climate change
The 10,000-plus members of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America develop a position statement on climate change.
A Baylor University expert is available to journalists for interviews about how climate change in the desert southwest will decrease the likelihood of widespread and intense wildfires, such as the one in Arizona, over the next 50 years.
Pacific cooling fades, temperatures rise
New research focusing on the Houston area suggests that widespread urban development alters wind patterns in a way that can make it easier for pollutants to build up during warm summer weather instead of being blown out to sea.
Dr. Sara Iverson from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia is able to determine what predators at the top of the food chain are eating, and by extension, how their diet has changed due to changes in ecosystems.
A new study has found that an emerging tool for combating climate change may cause less harm to some soil animals than initial studies suggested.
A Kansas State University climate expert attributes the increase in the number and severity of tornadoes and severe storms in 2011 to a change in weather patterns.
Estimates that are based on current, static population data can greatly misrepresent the true extent – and the pronounced variability – of the human toll of climate change, say University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers.
New research published in the journal Science, led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute scientist Miriam Katz, is providing some of the strongest evidence to date that the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) played a key role in the major shift in the global climate that began approximately 38 million years ago. The research provides the first evidence that early ACC formation played a vital role in the formation of the modern ocean structure.
A network of high-frequency radar systems designed for mapping ocean surface currents now provides detail of coastal ocean dynamics along the U.S. West Coast never before available.
A new study aimed at refining the way scientists measure ice loss in Greenland is providing a “high-definition picture” of climate-caused changes on the island. And the picture isn’t pretty.
The mass extinction of marine life in our oceans during prehistoric times is a warning that the Earth will see such an extinction again because of high levels of greenhouse gases, according to new research by geologists.
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