February 21, 2011 (World Meteorological Organization) — Since November, East African countries have registered serious drought conditions that are likely to worsen in coming months. According to data recently released by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the La Niña weather effect is largely responsible. WMO said the phenomenon might last up to four more months […]
By Michael RicciardiMarch 3, 2011 Over the past decade, the Arctic’s annual “bloom” of phytoplankton has been arriving earlier each year. The trend in earlier blooms of this crucial, primary producer of the Arctic’s food web is occurring largely along coastal and ice edge areas within the Arctic circle, with the exception of large patches […]
ScienceDaily (Mar. 4, 2011) — As carbon dioxide levels have risen during the last 150 years, the density of pores that allow plants to breathe has dwindled by 34 percent, restricting the amount of water vapor the plants release to the atmosphere, report scientists from Indiana University Bloomington and Utrecht University in the Netherlands in […]
By Renee Schoof, McClatchy Newspapers28 February 2011 WASHINGTON — Global warming took a toll on coral reefs in 2010, endangering one of the world’s key ecosystems that benefit people in countless ways. Coral reefs are habitat for almost 100,000 known marine species, including about 40 percent of all fish species. They feed millions of people, […]
By Christine Dell’Amore, National Geographic NewsPublished February 28, 2011 “Crazy green” pools teeming with life have been found among remote Antarctic sea ice, scientists say—and they may be a global warming boon. Observed in the little-studied Amundsen Sea (see map), the brilliant blooms owe their colors to chlorophyll, a pigment in various types of phytoplankton, […]
Wet Desert Expeditions7 February 2011 Every year around this time I start to hear comments along the lines of “I heard the lake is supposed to go up 20 feet this winter” or “I was at the lake this weekend and it was up 10 feet!” I call this period the Winter Bump, where for […]
By Staff WritersFeb 24, 2011 Sacramento (UPI) – Scientists say the water situation in California is “bleak” and the state needs to act to bolster its entire aquatic ecosystem. “Our assessment of the current water situation [in California] is bleak,” says Ellen Hanak, a Public Policy Institute of California economist. “California has essentially run out […]
ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2011) — Lodgepole pine, a hardy tree species that can thrive in cold temperatures and plays a key role in many western ecosystems, is already shrinking in range as a result of climate change — and may almost disappear from most of the Pacific Northwest by 2080, a new study concludes. Including […]
By Chris Buckley; Editing by Ken Wills and David Fogarty28 February 2011 BEIJING (Reuters) – China faces acute environmental and resource strains that threaten to choke growth unless the world’s second-biggest economy cleans up, the nation’s environment minister said in an unusually blunt warning. In an essay published on Monday, Zhou Shengxian also said his […]
Caption by Holli Riebeek24 February 2011 How could melting ice thousands of miles away possibly affect you? A recent study published in Nature Geoscience provides one answer to that question. Mark Flanner at the University of Michigan and his collaborators used satellite data to measure how much changes in snow and ice in the Northern […]
