Difference in water cycle intensity in the U.S., 1945-2014. Data: data from Huntington, Thomas, et al., 2018 / Journal of Hydrology. Graphic: Lauren Dauphin / NASA Earth Observatory

Water cycle speeding up over much of U.S. – “As the planet warms, we anticipate that the warmer air, which holds more moisture, will lead to more evaporation and precipitation”

By Kasha Patel 26 July 2019 (NASA) – Water is everywhere on Earth, and it is a unique molecule that is critical for life. Where, when, and how it moves—the water cycle—is equally critical. Water falls over Earth’s surface as rain, snow, or ice. From there, it evaporates and returns to the atmosphere; seeps into […]

Remote sensing imagery of discolored water and algal blooms in the Florida Bay and the Florida Keys region between 1992 and 2013 showing connectivity of the mainland and the lower Florida Keys, all outlined in red. (a) Landsat true color image on 29 May 1992 shows turbid water in western Florida Bay and discolored, black water in central Florida Bay that extends southward to the lower Florida Keys; (b) AVHRR reflectance image on 12 March 1996 shows high turbidity from the Shark River Slough plume extending beyond the lower Florida Keys towards Dry Tortugas; (c, d) VIIRS chlorophyll a anomaly images show phytoplankton blooms off Shark River Slough reaching the lower Florida Keys that were partially composed of the cyanobacterium, Synechococcus, on (c) 24 November 2013 and (d) 27 January 2014. Graphic: Lapointe, et al., 2019 / Marine Biology

Nutrient loading lowers resistance to thermal stress in Florida Keys corals – “These data make clear that this is not an ‘either temperature or nutrients’ situation, but rather a ‘both/and’ combination of multiple stressors”

By Gisele Galoustian 15 July 2019 (FAU) – Coral reefs are considered one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet and are dying at alarming rates around the world. Scientists attribute coral bleaching and ultimately massive coral death to a number of environmental stressors, in particular, warming water temperatures due to climate change. A […]

Black skimmer chick carrying a cigarette filter on a beach in Florida, 24 June 2019. Photo: Karen Mason

Image of the Day: Bird feeding chick cigarette filter

2 July 2019 (BBC News) – A wildlife photographer has captured a picture of a black skimmer bird feeding its chick a cigarette filter on a beach in Florida, USA. In a Facebook post, Karen Mason said she had happened upon the pair on St Pete beach outside Tampa last month. She urged: “If you […]

Deltoid spurge, shown here in 2005, is one of the endangered plants found only on pine rockland. The pine rockland found near Zoo Miami is the largest intact tract outside Everglades National Park. A 2015 study found 55 plant species in the tract, far more than botanists found in rockland in the park. Photo: Donna E. Natale Planas / Miami Herald

Activists lose last legal battle to protect rare Miami forest from Walmart development

By Adriana Brasileiro 19 June 2019 MIAMI (Miami Herald) – Activists fighting to preserve a slice of one of the world’s rarest forests lost what was likely the last legal battle to stop the imperiled ecosystem from turning into a Walmart-anchored development. One of the last remnants in Miami-Dade of pine rockland, a forest that […]

Exponential growth in impacts from abrupt climate change

By Nick Humphrey 2 May 2019 (Patreon) – I get asked a lot about what the future holds. I discussed the projections of global average temperature and sea level rise in an upcoming interview on Radio Ecoshock (will be posted next week). However, while trying to write an article on this, I found myself frustrated […]

Hurricane Michael: A harvest on hold for a generation

29 April 2019 (The Weather Channel) – Hurricane Michael ripped through the Southeast U.S. six months ago. The damage at the coast was unreal, but inland, another astounding loss: pecan, timber and row crops. While row crops can be planted again this year, it’ll be a decade before farmers can grow pecans and earn an […]

Puerto Rican families fled Hurricane Maria’s destruction to Panama City. Months later, Michael struck – “When we got here we had nothing”

Puerto Rican families fled Hurricane Maria’s destruction to Panama City. Months later, Michael struck – “When we got here we had nothing”

By Bianca Padró Ocasio29 March 2019 (Orlando Sentinel) – Luis Angel Santos Baez was rummaging in his apartment complex’s dumpster in the early days of January 2018 when he found what seemed like a gift from God: a plastic storage cart that held several bags filled with unused notebooks and other arts-and-crafts supplies. Santos Baez, […]

Blue-green algae causing health crisis Southwest Florida – “It is not alarmist to say that the people of Florida are being slowly poisoned by the water”

By Howard Simon 23 April 2019 (Miami Herald) – Hats off to Southwest Florida Congressman Francis Rooney for pressing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies to tell the public what it knows about the threat of toxic blue-green algae. Finally, a public official is focusing attention on our public-health crisis, […]

From ruined bridges to dirty air, EPA scientists price out the cost of climate change – “The cost of inaction is really high, and the cost of reducing emissions pales in comparison”

By Julia Rosen 8 April 2019 (Los Angeles Times) – By the end of the century, the manifold consequences of unchecked climate change will cost the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars per year, according to a new study by scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency. Those costs will come in multiple forms, including water shortages, […]

Advocates hoped U.S. census would find diversity in agriculture, but it found old white people – “We have seen a 30-year decline in almost every single metric”

By Laura Reiley and Andrew Van Dam 13 April 2019 (The Washington Post) – The Agriculture Department’s newly released 2017 Census of Agriculture is 820 pages of graphs, tables and puzzling shifts (half as many llamas but the number of minks rose toward 1 million). This census comes out every five years and is the most […]

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