Contact: Benjamin Gilbert, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 416-978-4065 (office), 647-778-0900 (cell) benjamin.gilbert@utoronto.ca TORONTO, ONTARIO (University of Toronto) – Ecologists at the University of Toronto and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) have found that, given time, invading exotic plants will likely eliminate native plants growing in the […]
By Andy Coghlan9 January 2013 Canada’s push to exploit oil-rich sandy rock formations is certainly controversial, but does it pose a health threat? A first analysis has found an increase in carcinogens in sediment from lakes near to the Athabasca oil sands in Alberta but it is not yet clear if the pollution could make […]
By DAVID JOLLY7 January 2013 PARIS (The New York Times) – About five years ago, Alain Lenoir, a researcher at François Rabelais University in Tours, France, was studying the biochemical process by which ants differentiate between friends and foes. Scientists had come to understand that the insects used their antennae to sense the makeup of […]
By Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent 9 January 2013(guardian.co.uk) – Barack Obama may intervene directly on climate change by hosting a summit at the White House early in his second term, environmental groups say. They say the White House has given encouraging signals to a proposal for Obama to use the broad-based and bipartisan summit […]
By Peter Hannam, Carbon economy editor8 January 2013 (Sydney Morning Herald) – Australia’s exposure to natural risks is on the increase and governments at all levels should step up joint efforts to limit the losses and prevent insurance costs from spiralling higher, one of the country’s biggest insurers says. Modest investments in flood or fire […]
By Susan Osborne and Jake Crouch8 January 2013 (ClimateWatch Magazine) – According to the latest statistics from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, the average temperature for the contiguous United States for 2012 was 55.3° Fahrenheit, which was 3.2° Fahrenheit above the twentieth-century average and 1.0° Fahrenheit above the previous record from 1998. The year consisted […]
By Peter Hannam, Carbon economy editor9 January 2013 (Sydney Morning Herald) – Australia’s “dome of heat” has become so intense that the temperatures are rising off the charts – literally. The Bureau of Meteorology’s interactive weather forecasting chart has added new colours – deep purple and pink – to extend its previous temperature range that […]
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer8 January 2013 WASHINGTON (AP) – America set an off-the-charts heat record in 2012. A brutal combination of a widespread drought and a mostly absent winter pushed the average annual U.S. temperature last year up to 55.32 degrees Fahrenheit, the government announced Tuesday. That’s a full degree warmer than the […]
By Jeremy Hance2 January 2013 (mongabay.com) – In the western U.S., few trees generally grow in higher altitudes than the whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis). Providing shelter and food for bears, squirrels and birds, the whitebark pine ecosystems also help regulate water flow from snowmelt. But, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the […]
By Peter Hannam, Carbon economy editor8 January 2013 Australia’s “exceptional” heatwave has produced record-breaking temperatures, with at least six of the first seven days of 2013 among the top 20 hottest days in the past century. The extreme January heat has prompted the Bureau of Meteorology to issue a special climate statement, with further updates […]
