Climate
- Climate
Soil’s Hidden Secrets
Shocking discoveries from the underground may shake up climate science.
- Humans
Insurance payouts point to climate change
Natural disasters in 2011 exerted the costliest toll in history — a whopping $380 billion worth of losses from earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, tsunamis and more. Only a third of those costs were covered by insurance. And the tally ignores completely any expenses associated with sickness or injuries triggered by the disasters. And except for quake-related events, climate change appears to have played a role in the growing cost of disasters, insurers said.
- Climate
Matt Crenson, Reconstructions
In ancient Southwest droughts, a warning of dry times to come.
- Humans
Contrasting the concerns over climate and ozone loss
On November 7, ozone and climate scientists met in Washington, D.C., to discuss whether the history of stratospheric ozone protection offered a useful case study about how to catalyze global action on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The simple answer that emerged: No.
- Humans
Sarah’s tale of Arctic warming
Over a half-century or so, Sarah James' town of some 150 Athabascan Indians has watched as the formerly extreme but fairly predictable climate in this amazingly remote region of inland Alaska has become warmer and more erratic. Overall, that’s definitely not been a change for the better, she says. James ventured to South Florida this week — and the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual meeting — to describe what it’s like to weather life on the frontlines of climate change.
- Humans
Really bad year for Arctic sea ice
On October 4, the National Snow and Ice Data Center posted information on its website indicating that the summer melt of sea ice in the Arctic, this year, approached — but did not quite match — the record set four years ago. A team of European scientists now concludes NSIDC underestimated those Arctic losses.
- Humans
Study recalibrates trees’ carbon uptake
Photosynthesis appears to be somewhat speedier than conventional wisdom had suggested, a new study finds. If true, this suggests computer projections are at risk of overestimating the potential for trees to sop up carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas.
- Earth
Summer Arctic melt among worst ever
With no obvious weather pattern to explain this year’s near-record annual ice retreat, generally warming climate appears to be the culprit.
- Chemistry
HIPPO reveals climate surprises
A major pollution-mapping program that ends September 9 has turned up startling trends in climate-warming gases and soot.
- Climate
El Niños may inflame civil unrest
Weather extremes associated with this climate phenomenon appear to double the risk that conflict will erupt in any given year.
- Tech
Growing need for space trash collectors
On April 2, for the fifth time in less than three years, the International Space Station fired its engines to dodge a piece of orbital debris that appeared on a collision path. Other spacecraft also regularly scoot out of the way of rocket and satellite debris. Such evasive action will be needed increasingly frequently, a new study finds.
- Earth
Marine microbes prove potent greenhouse gas emitters
Earth’s oceans emit an estimated 30 percent of the nitrous oxide, or N2O, entering the atmosphere. Yet the source of this potent greenhouse gas has puzzled scientists for years. Bacteria — long the leading candidate — can generate nitrous oxide, but the seas don’t seem to contain enough to account for all of the nitrous oxide that the marine world has been coughing up. Now researchers offer a better candidate.
