Dead mussels ‘as far as the eye can see’ on Long Island Sound beach – ‘They’ve been hit with these consecutive heat waves that are just too hot for them’

By Grant Parpan24 August 2016 (Riverhead News Review) – David Gruner has been visiting the same private beach on the Long Island Sound in Jamesport for more than 50 years. On Wednesday afternoon, he witnessed something he’d never seen before. When Mr. Gruner walked down to the beach he found the shoreline covered in mussels […]

The Anthropocene is here: Scientists recommend naming a new geological epoch as humans ‘permanently reconfigure Earth’s biological trajectory’

29 August 2016 (AFP) – The human impact on Earth’s chemistry and climate has cut short the 11,700-year-old geological epoch known as the Holocene and ushered in a new one, scientists said Monday. The Anthropocene, or “new age of man,” would start from the mid-20th century if their recommendation—submitted Monday to the International Geological Congress […]

Climate change pledges not nearly enough to save tropical ecosystems

By Jeremy Hance16 August 2016 (mongabay.com) – The Paris Agreement marked the biggest political milestone to combat climate change since scientists first introduced us in the late 1980s to perhaps humanity’s greatest existential crisis. Last December, 178 nations pledged to do their part to keep global average temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius […]

Is natural gas a viable bridge fuel?

[cf. Our leaders thought fracking would save our climate – ‘Methane emissions are substantially higher than we’ve understood’] By Zeke Hausfather23 August 2016 (Yale Climate Connections) – For the past century, coal has been king, providing the majority of U.S. energy for electricity generation. But a combination of new federal and state environmental policies and […]

Permafrost carbon: Catalyst for deglaciation

By Andrew H. MacDougall22 August 2016 (Nature Geoscience) – Between 17,500 and 14,500 years ago, a period sometimes referred to as the Mystery Interval1, atmospheric CO2 concentrations began their post-glacial rise from about 190 ppm in glacial times to approximately 270 ppm by the beginning of the Holocene. The rise in CO2 during the Mystery […]

Image of the Day: Satellite view of California’s Blue Cut fire at night

By Pola Lem18 August 2016 (NASA) – California’s Blue Cut fire has burned homes, caused power outages, and prompted more than 82,000 evacuations in San Bernardino County. The extent of the damage, however, remains unclear. Firefighters have been focused on containing the fire’s perimeter, The Los Angeles Times reported. The image above shows the Blue […]

Global warming to increase health risks from wildfires in U.S. West – ‘Smoke waves are likely to be longer, more intense, and more frequent under climate change’

By Kevin Dennehy15 August 2016 (Yale News) – A surge in major wildfire events in the western United States as a consequence of climate change will expose tens of millions of Americans to high levels of air pollution in the coming decades, according to a new Yale-led study conducted with collaborators from Harvard. The researchers […]

Wildlife dying en masse as South American river runs dry

By Aaron Sidder22 July 2016 (National Geographic) – Vultures rest in the tree’s upper branches, their black bodies in stark contrast to the blanched wood beneath their feet. Below them, caimans and capybaras crawl in sucking mud through the Agropil lagoon, seeking water that is unlikely to arrive for many months. The river has dried […]

Hundreds dead, six million affected as Indian floods force villagers into camps

23 August 2016 (Reuters) – At least 300 people have died in eastern and central India and more than 6 million others have been affected by floods that have submerged villages, washed away crops, destroyed roads, and disrupted power and phone lines, officials said Tuesday. Heavy monsoon rains have caused rivers, including the mighty Ganges […]

‘The blob’: how marine heatwaves are causing unprecedented chaos in ocean ecosystems

By Michael Slezak14 August 2016 (Guardian) – First seabirds started falling out of the sky, washing up on beaches from California to Canada. Then emaciated and dehydrated sea lion pups began showing up, stranded and on the brink of death. A surge in dead whales was reported in the same region, and that was followed […]

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