May 9, 2007, 10:27 PM CT

extreme summer warming in the future

A new study by NASA researchers suggests that greenhouse-gas warming may raise average summer temperatures in the eastern United States nearly 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the 2080s.

"There is the potential for extremely hot summertime temperatures in the future, particularly during summers with less-than-average frequent rainfall," said lead author Barry Lynn of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University, New York.

The research observed that eastern U.S. summer daily high temperatures that currently average in the low-to-mid-80s (degrees Fahrenheit) will most likely soar into the low-to-mid-90s during typical summers by the 2080s. In extreme seasons when precipitation falls infrequently July and August daily high temperatures could average between 100 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit in cities such as Chicago, Washington, and Atlanta.

To reach their conclusions, the scientists analyzed nearly 30 years of observational temperature and precipitation data and also used computer model simulations that considered soil, atmospheric, and oceanic conditions and projected changes in greenhouse gases. The simulations were produced using a widely-used weather prediction model coupled to a global model developed by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

April 30, 2007, 9:17 PM CT

Case Study In Emissions

The Chinese government's restrictions on Beijing motorists during a three-day conference last November -- widely viewed as a dress rehearsal for efforts to slash smog and airborne pollutants during the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing -- succeeded in cutting the city's emissions of one important class of atmospheric gases by an impressive 40 percent.

That's the conclusion of Harvard University scientists Michael B. McElroy, Yuxuan Wang, and K. Folkert Boersma, who used data from the Dutch-Finnish Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) to assess the drop in emissions. The researchers detail their work this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

"I don't think a proper analysis has ever been made before of such a remarkable shift of environmental policy in such a short period of time," says McElroy, the Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

China's restrictions on Beijing drivers coincided with the Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation from Nov. 4-6, 2006, during which an estimated 800,000 of Beijing's 2.82 million vehicles were taken off the road. The OMI -- aboard NASA's Aura satellite, launched in 2004 -- documented a 40 percent reduction in NOx, a class of nitrogen oxides formed during combustion, while the restrictions were in place. These greenhouse gas emissions are thought to contribute, in part, to global warming......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

April 24, 2007, 10:33 PM CT

Satellites offer sunny outlook

Far beyond signaling the days weather, clouds play a key role in regulating and understanding climate. A team of researchers recently completed a project to confirm what NASA satellites are telling us about how changes in clouds can affect climate in the coldest regions on Earth.

Clouds and their traits their temperature, depth, size and shape of their droplets play a significant role in how much of the sun's radiation reaches Earth's surface and what amount of heat energy Earth reflects back into the atmosphere. In 2006, NASA simultaneously launched a pair of satellites, CloudSat and the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO), which together use state-of-the-art instruments as they orbit the globe to reveal detailed information about clouds and their effect on climate.

Scientists predict that certain changes in cloud properties can accelerate climate change. "The polar regions are very sensitive indicators of climate change," said Deborah Vane, project manager and deputy principal investigator for the CloudSat mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "It's been well reported now that the polar ice caps are undergoing net melting. There's a complicated interaction between clouds and climate in polar regions that can contribute to temperature changes, and, in turn, speed the rate at which ice melts"......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

April 23, 2007, 10:24 PM CT

Managing Forests in Hurricane Impact Zones

Forest Service scientists have developed an adaptive strategy to help natural resource managers in the southeastern United States both prepare for and respond to disturbance from major hurricanes. In an article reported in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, John Stanturf, Scott Goodrick, and Ken Outcalt from the Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) unit in Athens, GA, report the results of a case study based on the effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The past 10 hurricane seasons have been the most active on record, with climatologists predicting that heightened activity could continue for another 10 to 40 years. In early April, Colorado State University meteorologists predicted a very active 2007 hurricane season for the Atlantic coast, with 17 named storms, including 5 major Hurricanes. The analysis included a 74 percent probability of a major hurricane hitting the U.S. coast before the season ends on November 30.

"Coastal areas in the southern United States are adapted to disturbance from both fire and high wind," says Stanturf, project leader of the SRS disturbance ecology unit based in Athens, GA. "But those adaptations only go so far in the face of a major hurricane. Forest owners and natural resource managers need strategies to deal with hurricane damage to coastal forests"......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

April 23, 2007, 5:36 PM CT

First Seafloor Vents On Ultraslow-spreading Ridge

Researchers have found one of the largest fields of seafloor vents gushing super-hot, mineral-rich fluids on a mid-ocean ridge that, until now, remained elusive to the ten-year hunt to find them.

"The discovery of the first active vents ever found on an ultraslow-spreading ridge is a significant milestone event," said Jian Lin, leader of a team of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) researchers who participated in a Chinese expedition to the remote Southwest Indian Ridge in the Indian Ocean in February and March.

Since deep-sea hydrothermal vents were first discovered 30 years ago in the Pacific Ocean, researchers have studied them all along the Mid-Ocean Ridge, a 40,000-mile-long mountain range that zigzags through the middle of the world's ocean basins like a giant zipper. The ridge marks the area where the Earth's giant tectonic plates spreads apart and new ocean crust forms from hot lava rising from deep within Earth's mantle.

Most studies of the chimney-like vent structures have taken place along ridges in the "fast-spreading" East Pacific Rise (100 to 200 millimeters per year) and the "slow-spreading" Mid-Atlantic Ridge (20 to 40 millimeters per year). Only in recent years have researchers explored "ultraslow-spreading ridges" (less than 20 millimeters per year) in the Arctic and Indian Oceans-remote areas tough to get to, and therefore the least studied......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

April 21, 2007, 7:32 AM CT

Pamper Your Planet!

Enjoy mud baths and sea-salt scrubs? This Earth Day, help us give the planet a little spa therapy of its own. Whether you want to nurture the birds and bugs that share your backyard or help heal rain forests and oceans across the globe, you can protect wildlife and wild places with your everyday actions. Join the Wildlife Conservation Society in our commitment to making the world a greener place by practicing these Earth-friendly suggestions.

Support green legislation.

By voicing your support for the Bigger Better Bottle Bill-a win-win solution for New York and its environment that would save tax dollars, reduce greenhouse emissions, and help keep our communities clean-you'll become part of the WCS community of planet Earth activists.

Cell phones don't grow on trees. But recycling them helps trees grow!

Deposit your old cell phones in the EcoCell bins located at the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo, Queens Zoo, and New York Aquarium. The coltan contained in the batteries will be recycled, reducing the demand to mine this element in the forests of Congo, where a number of endangered wildlife species live.

Transform your trash!

Help reduce our waste stream by finding creative ways to recycle your trash. Grow a plant in an empty milk carton, use old magazine pages for gift wrapping, or turn a coffee can into a canister for crayons and brushes. Get inspired by participating in recycled crafts activities at the zoos' and aquarium's Earth Day parties......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

April 19, 2007, 7:46 PM CT

Global Earth Day broadcast to feature South Pole

Air quality research and ozone monitoring at the National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott South Pole will be showcased as part of a global Earth Day telecast scheduled for April 20, 2007, on various ABC-television's news programs.

Stephen Padin, the South Pole station science leader, will be featured on the network's broadcast "Planet Earth 2007: Seven Ways to Help Save the World." Padin is spending the southern winter at the world's most remote scientific observatory.

Padin is expected to discuss what it is like to spend eight months of darkness at the Pole and what researchers are doing there. He will also talk about long-range scientific research to track levels of carbon-dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere since men first wintered at the Pole 50 years ago. The condition of the Earth's protective ozone layer also is monitored at the Pole.

The various reports in the daylong broadcast will air on "Good Morning America," "World News with Charles Gibson," an hour-long "20/20" anchored by Diane Sawyer and "Nightline".

The South Pole has the most pristine air on the Earth and the record of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere derived from measurements at the Pole, which has shown steady growth for 50 years, is one of the oldest and most comprehensive in existence......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

April 17, 2007, 4:50 AM CT

Climate change could lead to extinction

Climate change could trigger "boom and bust" population cycles that make animal species more vulnerable to extinction. , as per Christopher C. Wilmers, an assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Favorable environmental conditions that produce abundant supplies of food and stimulate population booms appear to set the stage for population crashes that occur when several "good years" in a row are followed by a bad year. "It's almost paradoxical, because you'd think a large population would be better off, but it turns out they're more vulnerable to a drop in resources," says Wilmers.

Understanding how environmental changes influence fluctuations in animal populations is crucial to predicting and mitigating the influence of global climate change. In a paper that appears in the recent issue of The American Naturalist, Wilmers describes a powerful new mathematical model that evaluates how climate and resources interact with populations, including a fine-grained analysis of impacts on juveniles, reproducing adults, and adults.

In areas where climate change leads to more "good years," with the occasional poor year still occurring, populations will fluctuate dramatically and be more prone to extinction as a result, said Wilmers. Highly prolific species will be especially vulnerable to such fluctuations because their populations will build up most rapidly, noted Wilmers, a vertebrate conservation ecologist. Dramatic population fluctuations make species more vulnerable to extinction due to disease, inbreeding, and other causes; in addition, each crash reduces the genetic diversity of a species, lowering its ability to adapt and making it more prone to extinction......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

April 16, 2007, 8:36 PM CT

Examining Arctic Changes from Under the Ice

Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) are venturing this month to the North Pole to deploy instruments that will make year-round observations of the water beneath the Arctic ice cap. Researchers will investigate how the waters in the upper layers of the Arctic Ocean-which insulate surface ice from warmer, deeper waters-are changing from season to season and year to year as global climate fluctuates.

The Arctic expedition is part of a multi-year, multi-institutional program to establish a real-time, autonomous Arctic Observing Network. The WHOI scientists will work out of the North Pole Environmental Observatory, a yearly research camp on the ice that is organized and led by the University of Washington's Polar Science Center.

Arctic research specialist Rick Krishfield and engineering assistant Kris Newhall will lead the WHOI expedition this spring, deploying two autonomous ice-based observatories between 88 degree and 90 degree North. The observatories are similar in design to moored, open-ocean buoys, though they will be anchored to the ice instead of the seafloor. The instruments will slowly drift with the natural movement of the ice while observing water properties in the top 800 meters of the Arctic Ocean. The buoys are designed to last three years, about the same lifespan as the ice floes that support them......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

April 12, 2007, 6:46 PM CT

Forecasts Disappearance of Existing Climate Zones

new climate modeling study forecasts the complete disappearance of several existing climates in tropical highlands and regions near the poles, while large swaths of the tropics and subtropics may develop new climates unlike any seen today.

In general, the models show that existing climate zones will shift toward higher latitudes and higher elevations, squeezing out the climates at the extremes--tropical mountaintops and the poles--and leaving room for unfamiliar climes and new ecological niches around the equator.

The work, by scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Wyoming, appears online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) during the week of March 26. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the research.

The most severely affected parts of the world span both heavily populated regions, including the southeastern United States, southeastern Asia, and parts of Africa, and known hotspots of biodiversity, such as the Amazonian rainforest and African and South American mountain ranges.

The patterns of change foreshadow significant impacts on ecosystems and conservation. "There is a close correspondence between disappearing climates and areas of biodiversity," says University of Wisconsin at Madison geographer Jack Williams, primary author of the paper, which could increase risk of extinction in the affected areas......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source