As the Summer Olympics in Beijing kicks off this week, the event is giving scientists a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe how the atmosphere responds when a heavily populated region substantially curbs everyday industrial emissions.
The National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded "Cheju ABC Plume-Monsoon Experiment" (CAPMEX) will include a series of flights by specially equipped unmanned aircraft known as autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (AUAVs).
As the Summer Olympics in Beijing kicks off today, the event is affording scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe how the atmosphere responds when a heavily populated region substantially curbs everyday industrial emissions.
As the Arctic Ocean warms this century, shellfish, snails and other animals from the Pacific Ocean will resume an invasion of the northern Atlantic that was interrupted by cooling conditions three million years ago, predict Geerat Vermeij, professor of geology at the University of California, Davis, and Peter Roopnarine at the California Academy of Sciences.
TEMPE, Ariz. – Arizona State University researchers have made a breakthrough in understanding the effect on climate change of a key component of urban pollution. The discovery could lead to more accurate forecasting of possible global-warming activity, say Peter Crozier and James Anderson.
"Ye canna change the laws of physics!" Scotty warned Captain Kirk on "Star Trek", but he also said every fix would take 12 hours and got it done in 2. He may also be wrong on changing those laws, say engineers and physicists at the University of Maryland who claim they may be rewriting one of them soon.
1. Recent African drought heralds drier conditions to come
The journal "Science" has published in the issue of the 1st of August the results of a detailed research work about the evolution of marine diversity all through the last 50 million years. The study has been carried out with the participation of scientists from Australia, Spain, USA, UK, Holland, Malaysia and Panama.
Among the hundreds of species of woody vines that University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee ecologist Stefan Schnitzer has encountered in the tropical forests of Panama, the largest has a stalk nearly 20 inches in circumference.
"That's like a large tree," says Schnitzer. "And because it winds itself up to the forest canopy and spreads, it can cover as much canopy area as a community of trees."
Researchers at Durham University have drawn up the first ever 'Arctic Map' to show the disputed territories that states might lay claim to in the future.
The new map design follows a series of historical and ongoing arguments about ownership, and the race for resources, in the frozen lands and seas of the Arctic.
The potential for conflicts is increasing as the search for new oil, gas and minerals intensifies.
MADISON, WI, AUGUST 4, 2008– A research team from the University of Tennessee (UT) has completed a study on an East Tennessee river to determine the connection between watershed hydrology and fecal bacteria statistical time series analysis. Shesh Koirala and colleagues report their findings in the July-August issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality. The article presents a study of the temporal patterns and statistical persistence of total coliform based on data gathered from the Little River near an intake at a public water supply plant.
A new study, co-funded by NASA, has identified a link between a warming Indian Ocean and less rainfall in eastern and southern Africa. Computer models and observations show a decline in rainfall, with implications for the region's food security.
National Science Foundation-funded scientists working in an ice-free region of Antarctica have discovered the last traces of tundra--in the form of fossilized plants and insects--on the interior of the southernmost continent before temperatures began a relentless drop millions of years ago.
Environmental conservation efforts have traditionally focused on protecting individual species or natural resources. Scientists are discovering, however, that preserving the benefits that whole ecosystems provide to people is more economically and environmentally valuable. At the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), ecologists will explore the application of ecosystem services approaches to conservation.
A better understanding of climate variations at planetary scale is one of climate scientists' crucial concerns. Stable water isotope analysis, the chemistry of ice cores taken from the Arctic and Antarctic polar ice caps and of air bubbles trapped in them now allow a chronology to be drawn up of the climate changes that took place over the past 800 000 years. However, those data, collected at extreme latitudes, are not enough for understanding climatic interactions operating at the scale of the whole Earth or of the most densely populated regions.
Scientists have long pointed to physical changes in the Earth and its atmosphere, such as melting polar ice caps, sea level rise and violent storms, as indicators of global climate change. But changes in climate can wreak havoc in more subtle ways, such as the loss of habitat for plant and animal species. In a series of talks at the Ecological Society of America (ESA) 93rd Annual Meeting, climate change scientists will discuss how temperature-induced habitat loss can spell disaster for many living things.