Vicious circle of drought and forest loss in the Amazon – “Frequent extreme drought events have the potential to destabilize large parts of the Amazon forest”

13 March 2017 (Potsdam Institute) – Logging that happens today and potential future rainfall reductions in the Amazon could push the region into a vicious dieback circle. If dry seasons intensify with human-caused climate change, the risk for self-amplified forest loss would increase even more, an international team of scientists finds. If however there is […]

Deep oceans face starvation by end of century – “The rate of change underway in our oceans is faster than at any point we know of in geological history”

23 February 2017 (Heriot-Watt University) – New research from Heriot-Watt, published on open-access journal Elementa today, shows that food supply to some areas of the Earth’s deep oceans will decline by up to half by 2100. Dr Andrew Sweetman, associate professor at the Lyell Centre for Earth and Marine Science, and colleagues from 20 of […]

Image of the Day: Map of protected Amazon forest and encroaching deforestation, February 2017

24 February 2017 (Imazon) – This map of protected areas in the south of the Amazon shows the deforestation pressure that already happens around conservation units that will be reduced, if the Provisional Measure is adopted. [Translation by Facebook.] Original text: Mapa de Áreas Protegidas do Sul do Amazonas aponta a pressão (desmatamento) que já […]

How disappearing sea ice has put Arctic ecosystem under threat

By Robin McKie4 March 2017 (The Guardian) – In a few days the Arctic’s beleaguered sea ice cover is likely to set another grim record. Its coverage is on course to be the lowest winter maximum extent ever observed since satellite records began. These show that more than 2 million square kilometres of midwinter sea […]

Reduction in Brazil’s Jamanxim Forest protection benefits recent squatters, study says

By Eduardo Pegurier20 February 2017 (o Eco) – [Translation by Google.] A new analysis published by the NGO Imazon, based in Belém do Pará, rekindles the accusations against the reduction of the Jamanxim National Forest (Flona), made by the government through a Provisional Measure at the end of December 2016. Created only ten years ago, […]

Fish affected by Deepwater Horizon oil spill give clues to air pollution and human heart disease

16 February 2017 (The University of Manchester) – A study by Manchester and Stanford scientists into the effects on fish of a 2010 oil disaster could shed new light on how air pollution affects humans’ hearts. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster resulted in a major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, an area of […]

Fearing “feral hog apocalypse,” Texas approves mass poisoning

By Andrea Lucia 21 February 2017 NORTH TEXAS (CBS News) – Announcing the “feral hog apocalypse” is within reach, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller has approved of the first pesticide targeting wild pigs. The move has upset hunters, who’ve gathered more than 1,200 signatures in opposition within two days. “We don’t think poison is the […]

New research shows how rapid growth in resource use, land use, emissions, and pollution makes humans the dominant driver of changes in Earth’s natural systems

COLLEGE PARK, Maryland, 9 February 2017 (University of Maryland) – A new scientific paper by a University of Maryland-led international team of distinguished scientists, including five members of the National Academies, argues that there are critical two-way feedbacks missing from current climate models that are used to inform environmental, climate, and economic policies. The most […]

Global ocean de-oxygenation quantified – “The oxygen losses in the ocean can have far-reaching consequences”

KIEL, 15 February 2017 (Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel) – The ongoing global change causes rising ocean temperatures and changes the ocean circulation. Therefore less oxygen is dissolved in surface waters and less oxygen is transported into the deep sea. This reduction of oceanic oxygen supply has major consequences for the organisms in the […]

Florida’s Coastal Everglades, deprived of fresh water, near unhealthy “tipping point”

By Jenny Staletovich13 February 2017 SHARK RIVER (Miami Herald) – At the bottom of the Everglades along the mouth of the Shark River, a towering mangrove forest stands in a place few people outside anglers and researchers ever see: at the edge of a vast shallow bay where the salty sea and freshwater marshes conspired […]

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