By Tim Radford16 June 2015 LONDON (Climate News Network) – Scientists in California have identified a cold-blooded killer as global warming brings new hazards for ectotherms − creatures that cannot regulate their own body heat. The suggestion may seem counter-intuitive, as vipers, lizards, fish and frogs all depend on ambient warmth to keep their metabolisms […]
By Glenn Farley26 June 2015 NEAR BLEWETT PASS, Washington (KING 5 News) – From the crest of the Cascade Mountains running east to the sagebrush and desert country along the Columbia River, a map shows years of damage from the Western Spruce Budworm, which is killing trees by the thousands. The state’s worst patch of […]
By Nathaniel Rich13 May 2015 (Vice) – Allison Gong is a marine biologist, so she knows perfectly well that a sea star has no blood, brain, or central nervous system. Still, she can’t help thinking of the stars in her lab as pets. “Because of my weird personality,” she told me, “I form an emotional […]
By Felicity Capon 24 June 2015 (Newsweek) – Two activist ships are racing to the Faroe Islands, in the North Atlantic to attempt to stop the “barbaric” annual slaughter of hundreds of whales and dolphins currently taking place in the autonomous Danish province. Two vessels, the Sam Simon and the Bob Barker, which are owned […]
By Robert Scribbler5 May 2015 (RobertScribbler.wordpress.com) – The world ocean is now a region of expanding oxygen-deprived dead zones. It’s an upshot of a human-warmed ocean system filled with high nutrient run-off from mass, industrialized farming, rising atmospheric nitrogen levels, and increasing dust from wildfires, dust storms, and industrial aerosol emissions. Warming seas hold less […]
São Paulo, 16 June 2015 (Associated Press) – Construction of a massive hydroelectric dam is endangering the livelihoods of at least 2,000 families in Brazil’s Amazon jungle state of Pará, according to federal prosecutors who recommend that efforts to move the residents be suspended. The federal prosecutors’ office said in a statement Monday that the […]
11 June 2015 (WHOI) – A couple of unexplained large scale changes in the waters off the northeast coast of the U.S. have oceanographers perplexed: an accelerated rate of sea level rise compared to most other parts of the world; and the disturbing signs of collapsing fisheries in the region. A new study by physical […]
17 June 2015 (WBUR) – Drought is creating problems in river systems all around the Northwest. Nowhere is this more evident than on the Klamath River in Southern Oregon and Northern California. Scientists there say there’s not enough cool water flowing, and a massive die-off of young Chinook salmon could happen anytime now. Releasing more […]
By Sandi Doughton15 June 2015 (Seattle Times) – A team of federal biologists set out from Oregon Monday to survey what could be the largest toxic algae bloom ever recorded off the West Coast. The effects stretch from Central California to British Columbia, and possibly as far north as Alaska. Dangerous levels of the natural […]
10 June 2015 (The Marine Mammal Center) – California sea lions aren’t the only pinnipeds in crisis this year. Guadalupe fur seals, a threatened species, seem to be struggling with the same food availability issues and have stranded along our coast at five times the record yearly rate. With their diminutive snouts, extra-long front flippers […]
