Showing posts with the label Climate Change

'We're sleepwalking into a mass extinction' say scientists

Species that live in symbiosis with others, which often occur in the most delicately balanced and threatened marine ecosystems such as coral reefs, are the slowest to recover their diversity if damag…

Amazon deforestation is close to tipping point

Deforestation of the Amazon is about to reach a threshold beyond which the region's tropical rainforest may undergo irreversible changes that transform the landscape into degraded savanna with sp…

Glacier mass loss passes the point of no return, researchers report

Researchers show in a recent study that the further melting of glaciers cannot be prevented in the current century -- even if all emissions were stopped now. However, due to the slow reaction of glac…

Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland's conversion to Christianity

Memories of the largest lava flood in the history of Iceland, recorded in an apocalyptic medieval poem, were used to drive the island's conversion to Christianity, new research suggests. Part of …

Thawing permafrost produces more methane than expected

Methane (CH4) is a potent greenhouse gas, which is roughly 30 times more harmful to the climate than carbon dioxide (CO2). Both gases are produced in thawing permafrost as dead animal and plant remai…

Historians to climate researchers: Let's talk

History can tell us a lot about environmental upheaval, say Princeton University historians John Haldon and Lee Mordechai. What is missing in today's debate about climate change is using what we …

Climate change threatens world's largest seagrass carbon stores

In the summer of 2010-2011 Western Australia experienced an unprecedented marine heat wave that elevated water temperatures 2-4°C above average for more than 2 months. The heat wave resulted in defol…

Global biodiversity 'crisis' to be assessed at major summit

Earth is enduring a mass species extinction, scientists say -- the first since the demise of the dinosaurs and only the sixth in half-a-billion years. Orangutans in Borneo are just one of the world&#…

Eastern Mediterranean summer will be two months longer by end of 21st century

The eastern Mediterranean -- an area that covers Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and southern Turkey -- is experiencing monumental climate changes poised to significantly affect regional ecosys…

Tree-ring research helps analyze droughts in Mongolia

The extreme wet and dry periods Mongolia has experienced in the late 20th and early 21st centuries are rare but not unprecedented and future droughts may be no worse, according to an international re…

Coral reef experiment shows acidification from carbon dioxide slows growth

Ocean acidification will severely impair coral reef growth before the end of the century if carbon dioxide emissions continue unchecked, according to new research on Australia's Great Barrier Ree…

Chain reaction of fast-draining lakes poses new risk for Greenland ice sheet

A growing network of lakes on the Greenland ice sheet has been found to drain in a chain reaction that speeds up the flow of the ice sheet, threatening its stability. Melting of Greenland ice sheet f…

Key biological mechanism is disrupted by ocean acidification

A team led by scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego and the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) has demonstrated that the excess carbon dioxide ad…

A cold case on Greenland’s glaciers warms up with new evidence

It may not rank among the all-time greatest dramas, but the history of ice on Greenland has been a source of scientific controversy for more than a decade. Iceberg off the coast of Greenland [Credit:…
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