Blogging the End of the World™
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.comFebruary 11, 2010 A new study in Science shows that farming practices in China are acidifying the nation’s soils and threatening long term productivity at a time when food concerns worldwide have never been higher. The culprit is the increasing use of nitrogen fertilizer. “Chinese agriculture has intensified greatly since the early […]
CHICAGO, Illinois, February 11, 2010 (ENS) – For the first time, genetic material from invasive Asian carp has been detected within Lake Michigan, scientists with the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Biological Sciences reported Wednesday. Researchers said samples taken last fall showed carp DNA in the Calumet Harbor on the southwest shore of Lake […]
By Matthew McDermott, New York, NY on 02.12.10 What’s dzud you ask? Well, it’s the Mongolian word for the sort of weather they are now experiencing. Roughly translated by Shambala Sun, it’s an unusually dry summer where there isn’t enough grass growth to allow herd animals to grow strong, followed by an unusually cold winter […]
ScienceDaily (Feb. 12, 2010) — Depicting a cause-and-effect scenario that spans thousands of miles, a scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and his collaborators discovered that ocean waves originating along the Pacific coasts of North and South America impact Antarctic ice shelves and could play a role in their catastrophic collapse. […]
RIO DE JANEIRO — The worst heatwave to hit Rio de Janeiro in 50 years turned the city into a pre-Carnival furnace Wednesday, and killed 32 elderly people further south, officials said. According to the Inmet national weather service, recorded temperatures in Rio were well above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees) — and felt more […]
There has been a steady increase in the number of years in a given 10-year period when Lake Champlain failed to freeze over. A warming climate can bring about physical, chemical, and biological changes in Lake Champlain. While some of the physical and chemical changes are fairly straightforward, others are speculative. Potential biological changes are […]
ScienceDaily (Feb. 11, 2010) — Yields from some of the most important crops begin to decline sharply when average temperatures exceed about 30 degrees Celsius, or 86 Fahrenheit. Projections are that by the end of this century much of the tropics and subtropics will regularly see growing season temperatures above that level, hotter than […]
ScienceDaily (Feb. 11, 2010) — Some animals, it seems, are going on a diet, while others have expanding waistlines. It’s likely these are reactions to rapidly rising temperatures due to global climate change, speculates Prof. Yoram Yom-Tov of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Zoology, who has been measuring the evolving body sizes of birds and […]
By Martin Mittelstaedt From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail Published on Tuesday, Feb. 09, 2010 10:11PM EST Last updated on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010 3:11AM EST Scientists studying burbot in the Mackenzie River, one of the country’s most pristine rivers, have been surprised to discover that mercury, PCBs and DDT in the fish are rising rapidly, […]
By Staff Writers Soysambu Conservancy, Kenya (AFP) Feb 10, 2010 Kenyan game rangers on Wednesday began rounding up thousands of zebras to be moved to a reserve where starving lions have been attacking livestock. … “Some herders lost as high as 80 percent of their stock due to the drought and the few that were […]
