(RENO): The Arctic is the most rapidly warming region of the globe, but warming has not been uniform and the drivers behind this warming not fully understood even during the 20th century.
Earth
Washington, D.C.—Hydrocarbons from the Earth make up the oil and gas that heat our homes and fuel our cars. The study of the various phases of molecules formed from carbon and hydrogen under high pressures and temperatures, like those found in the Earth's interior, helps scientists understand the chemical processes occurring deep within planets, including Earth.
The worst impacts of climate change on the world's poorest fishing communities can likely be avoided by careful management of the local environment and investing in the diversification of options for local people, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society and James Cook University.
DURHAM, N.C. -- To meet current U.S. coal demand through surface mining, an area of the Central Appalachians the size of Washington, D.C., would need to be mined every 81 days.
That's about 68 square miles -- or roughly an area equal to 10 city blocks mined every hour.
A one-year supply of coal would require converting about 310 square miles of the region's mountains into surface mines, according to a new analysis by scientists at Duke University, Kent State University and the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies.
LA JOLLA, CA – September 11, 2013 – Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found a way to apply a "foundational reaction" of organic chemistry to a stubborn class of chemicals, in a transformation that has been thought impossible for a century.
Some of the hottest days and coldest nights in parts of Europe have warmed more than four times the global average change since 1950, according to a new paper by researchers from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of Warwick, which is published today (11 September 2013) in the journal 'Environmental Research Letters'.
The London borough of Newham is famed for producing talents such as Idris Elba, Plan B and Mo Farrah, whilst also playing host to the Olympic Stadium and West Ham United Football Club.
Now an international group of researchers have found that its residents have the smallest carbon footprint in the UK.
Boulder, Colo., USA – New Geology studies posted online ahead of print on 6 Sept. 2013 cover faulting and strain; mineralogy; tsunamigenic earthquakes; the formation of banded iron formations by microbial processes; stalagmites in Vanuatu; garnets; the world's largest saltpan complex and one of the world's largest inland deltas; estuaries beneath ice sheets; volcanism; erosion; mirror-like faults; the Baltic Sea dead zone; and the first real-time record of a turbidity current associated with the 2011 Mw 9.0 Tohoku-Oki tsunami.
For 30 years, a large near-Earth asteroid wandered its lone, intrepid path, passing before the scrutinizing eyes of scientists while keeping something to itself: (3552) Don Quixote, whose journey stretches to the orbit of Jupiter, now appears to be a comet.
The discovery resulted from an ongoing project coordinated by researchers at Northern Arizona University using the Spitzer Space Telescope. Through a lot of focused attention and a little bit of luck, they found evidence of cometary activity that had evaded detection for three decades.
RICHLAND, Wash. -- The newest catalytic converters in diesel engines blast away a pollutant from combustion with the help of ammonia. Common in European cars, the engines exhaust harmless nitrogen and water. How they do this hasn't been entirely clear. Now, new research shows that the catalyst attacks its target pollutant in an unusual way, providing insight into how to make the best catalytic converters.
CORAL GABLES, FL (Sept. 10, 2013)--Social media is changing the way that scientists are interacting with each other and with the global community. One example is the way that researchers use Twitter to increase the impact of their research. David Shiffman, a Ph.D. student at the University of Miami's Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy, describes the advantages of tweeting during the development of scientific publications.
The new study, published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics by researchers at IIASA and in Norway, Finland, and Russia, finds that gas flaring from oil extraction in the Arctic accounts for 42% of the black carbon concentrations in the Arctic, with even higher levels during certain times of the year. In the month of March for example, the study showed that flaring accounts for more than half of black carbon concentrations near the surface. Globally, in contrast, gas flaring accounts for only 3% of black carbon emissions.
Dingoes have been unjustly blamed for the extinctions on the Australian mainland of the Tasmanian tiger (or thylacine) and the Tasmanian devil, a University of Adelaide study has found.
In a paper published in the journal Ecology, the researchers say that despite popular belief that the Australian dingo was to blame for the demise of thylacines and devils on the mainland about 3000 years ago, in fact Aboriginal populations and a shift in climate were more likely responsible.
Some symbiotic bacteria living inside Colorado potato beetles can trick plants into reacting to a microbial attack rather than that of a chewing herbivore, according to a team of Penn State researchers who found that the beetles with bacteria were healthier and grew better.
"For the last couple of decades, my lab has focused on induced defenses in plants," said Gary W. Felton, professor and head of entomology. "We had some clues that oral secretions of beetles suppressed defenses, but no one had followed up on that research."
INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 9, 2013 — Chemists who are members of the American Chemical Society (ACS), collaborating with scientists from other fields through the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment (CAICE), have discovered disturbing climate trends close to Earth's surface.