Climate
- Tech
Election projections for science investments
The November 2, mid-term election results are in (mostly) and pundits are billing it as a historic turnabout. With a divided Congress, passing legislation — never an easy task — risks becoming harder still. And with fiscal austerity having been a leading campaign issue for the newbies, R&D is unlikely to see a major boost in federal funding during the next two years.
By Janet Raloff - Earth
Arctic lake yields climate record
A Siberian drilling project goes to great lengths to capture an ancient climate record in a 3.6 million-year-old crater.
- Humans
When to welcome ‘invading’ species
As climate changes, some environments are becoming hostile to the flora and fauna that long nurtured them. Species that can migrate have begun to move into regions where temperatures and humidity are more hospitable. And that can prove a conundrum for officials charged with halting the invasion of non-native species, notes Jon Jarvis, a biologist who for the past year has headed the National Park Service.
By Janet Raloff - Humans
GNP’s glaciers: Going, going . . .
Climate warming will eliminate them within a generation, data indicate.
By Janet Raloff - Animals
Wolverine: Climate warming threatens comeback
BLOG: New data point to unexpected sociability and filial behavior in carnivore.
By Janet Raloff - Earth
Warming is accelerating global water cycle
Fresh water evaporates from the oceans, rains out over land and then runs back into the seas. A new study finds evidence that global warming has been speeding up this hydrological cycle recently, a change that could lead to more violent storms. It could also alter where precipitation falls — drying temperate areas, those places where most people now live.
By Janet Raloff - Climate
Annual Arctic ice minimum reached
Melt isn’t as bad as 2007, but still reaches number three in the record books.
- Climate
Annual Arctic ice minimum reached
Melt isn’t as bad as 2007, but still reaches number three in the record books.
- Ecosystems
Climate’s link to plague
Scientists have correlated changes in long-term Pacific Ocean temperature patterns with the incidence of a deadly bacterial pestilence, one spread by fleas living on and around mice and other rodents.
By Janet Raloff - Climate
Academies recommend that IPCC make changes
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an authoritative scientific organization set up in 1989 to assess climate science, took some heat today from a group that it commissioned to investigate its credibility. The oversight group reported findings procedural weaknesses that preclude IPCC from responding nimbly to events — or from reliably identifying errors in its assessments.
By Janet Raloff - Planetary Science
Worldwide slowdown in plant carbon uptake
A decade of droughts has stifled the increasing growth of terrestrial vegetation.
By Sid Perkins - Climate
EPA rejects climate-change deniers’ petitions
A number of people challenge that climate change is real, that it's due to greenhouse gases released by human activities and that it's a threat to human health and the environment. On July 29, the Environmental Protection Agency formally rejected those claims as it turned down 10 petitions asking the Obama administration to reconsider EPA’s “endangerment finding.”
By Janet Raloff