Category Archives: Global Warming
Succulent plants waited for cool, dry Earth to make their mark
ScienceDaily (May 6, 2011) — The cactus, stalwart of the desert, has quite a story to tell about the evolution of plant communities found the world over.In a paper published in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Brown University biologists and colleagues have discovered that the rapid speciation of … Continue reading
Do bacteria play role in weather events? High concentration of bacteria in center of hailstones, researchers report
ScienceDaily (May 25, 2011) — Researchers have discovered a high concentration of bacteria in the center of hailstones, suggesting that airborne microorganisms may be responsible for that and other weather events.They reported their findings May 24, 2011 at the 111th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans.“Bacteria have been found within … Continue reading
Melting glaciers may affect ocean currents
ScienceDaily (June 1, 2011) — A team of scientists from the University of Sheffield and Bangor University have used a computer climate model to study how freshwater entering the oceans at the end of the penultimate Ice Age 140,000 years ago affected the parts of the ocean currents that control climate.A paper based on the … Continue reading
First habitable exoplanet? Climate simulation reveals new candidate that could support Earth-like life
ScienceDaily (May 16, 2011) — The planetary system around the red dwarf Gliese 581, one of the closest stars to the Sun in the galaxy, has been the subject of several studies aiming to detect the first potentially habitable exoplanet. Two candidates have already been discarded, but a third planet, Gliese 581d, can be considered … Continue reading
New map reveals giant fjords beneath East Antarctic ice sheet
ScienceDaily (June 1, 2011) — Scientists from the U.S., U.K. and Australia have used ice-penetrating radar to create the first high- resolution topographic map of one of the last uncharted regions of Earth, the Aurora Subglacial Basin, an immense ice-buried lowland in East Antarctica larger than Texas.The map reveals some of the largest fjords or … Continue reading
Dating an ancient episode of severe global warming
ScienceDaily (June 16, 2011) — Using sophisticated methods of dating rocks, a team including University of Southampton researchers based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, have pinned down the timing of the start of an episode of an ancient global warming known as the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM), with implications for the triggering mechanism.The early … Continue reading
Global warming may increase the capacity of trees to store carbon
ScienceDaily (May 31, 2011) — One helpful action anyone can take in response to global warming is to plant trees and preserve forests. Trees and plants capture carbon dioxide during photosynthesis, thereby removing the most abundant greenhouse gas from the atmosphere and storing some of it in their woody tissue.Yet global warming may affect the … Continue reading
Long reach of the deep sea: Oceanographers document effect of equatorial deep currents on West African rainfall
ScienceDaily (May 20, 2011) — Our climate is affected by the ocean in many ways. The most prominent example is the El Niño phenomenon in the Pacific, a well-documented interannual climate signal. Oceanographers from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel (IFM-GEOMAR) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI, USA) have recently documented the effect … Continue reading
Human impacts of rising oceans will extend well beyond coasts
ScienceDaily (May 28, 2011) — Identifying the human impact of rising sea levels is far more complex than just looking at coastal cities on a map. Rather, estimates that are based on current, static population data can greatly misrepresent the true extent — and the pronounced variability — of the human toll of climate change, … Continue reading
Climate change psychology: Coping and creating solutions
ScienceDaily (Apr. 18, 2011) — Psychologists are offering new insight and solutions to help counter climate change, while helping people cope with the environmental, economic and health impacts already taking a toll on people’s lives, according to a special issue of American Psychologist, the American Psychological Association’s flagship journal.Climate change “poses significant risks for — … Continue reading