Daily Popular
- Enhancer RNA (eRNA): More powerful than previously thought
- lincRNA: A recently discovered RNA organizes stem cell differentiation
- Histones: DNA packaging and much more
- Four-letter codons: A new synthetic biology playground
- Hoogsteen base pairs: An alternate structure in DNA
- Back to the Future: Cars with hub motors
- New for epigenetics: Active pseudogenes and RNA as gene regulator
- Promising new material: Electronic and optically active photonic crystals
- Biogeology: A deep subject
- Sci-Fi movie review: Splice
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Tag Archives: climate change
State of the oceans: Degrading faster
International Programme on the State of the Ocean expert panel…Credit: IPSO The ocean big and wide and mighty…is damaged, seriously damaged. How to get that message across in an era when so much propaganda is directed toward destroying the credibility of science? For years scientists have been warning that the oceans are degrading – acidification, [...]
Posted in News: Degrading Oceans Also tagged acidification, degrading oceans, IPSO, IUCN, overfishing, pollution, State of the Ocean Leave a comment
Mapping the impact of climate change
Climate change vulnerability: Red=high, Blue=low, White=few people….Credit: McGill University Researcher Jason Samson at McGill University (Ontario, Canada) used sampling and statistical techniques originally designed to study animal migration due to climate change. He reasoned that human populations will also be forced to move (emigration/immigration) for many of the same factors, especially those relating to scarcity [...]
Posted in News: Climate Change Also tagged Africa, Arabian Peninsula, climate vulnerability, global warming, Samson Leave a comment
Global warming: The climatology of resignation
Second in a series of posts discussing the impact of ten topics framed by ‘Insights of the Decade’ from the December 17, 2010 special issue of Science Magazine. The topics are: Inflammation, climatology, tricks of light, alien planets, the microbiome, cell development, Martian water, the DNA time machine, cosmology and epigenetics. This post reads more [...]
Posted in Impact: Climate Change Also tagged AAAS, AGW, climatology, consensus, global warming, Media, paleoclimatology, politics 2 Comments
New evidence: Change in North Atlantic currents
The Labrador Current……..Credit: Wikipedia Along the Eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada, at the bottom of the ocean shelves live a deep-sea coral known as a gorgonian or sea fan. The often intricate fan shape of these corals is used to filter food from the prevailing sea current. In the cold waters of [...]
Posted in News: Climate Change Also tagged AGW, coral, global warming, gorgonian, Labrador Current, nitrogen signature, North Atlantic Oscillation, rings Leave a comment
Addressing the climate change information gap(s)
As most people who follow science and technology are aware, climate change as an issue has lately become the victim of bad vibes. That’s not how you’d describe it? Okay. Point is: while the evidence for a changing global climate continues to roll in, the public seems to become less impressed. Depending on where you [...]
Posted in Impact: Climate Change Also tagged climateprediction.net, climatology, glacier melting, global warming, met. U.K., sea level, weather at home Leave a comment
Water shortage = Business problem
There is at least one global environmental issue that appears to have the business world’s attention: water shortage. For evidence, this is the text on the cover page of a new report (November, 2010) by the Carbon Disclosure Project, a non-profit based in London that holds the largest corporation oriented climate change information in the [...]
Posted in News: Water Shortage Also tagged Carbon Disclosure Project, CDP, corporate, ERM, water risk, water shortage Leave a comment
New projections: Drought increasing worldwide
Drought regions by 2099……Credit: National Center for Atmospheric Research (USA) According to Aiguo Dai, lead climatologist for a new study released by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) [Drought under global warming: a review] the signs of increasing drought are already visible. They will become obvious and severe by 2030. By 2099 some areas [...]
Posted in News: Climate Change Also tagged climate, climatology, drought, global warming, IPCC, NCAR, NSF, Palmer Scale, PDSI 1 Comment
New light on solar cycle and Earth’s climate
Occasionally a piece of news comes along to which you can point and say “Now that’s science.” Here’s one: Scientists at Imperial College London (UK) and the University of Colorado (USA), publishing in Nature [October 7, 2010: An influence of solar spectral variations on radiative forcing of climate] have examined the Sun’s radiation data for [...]
Posted in Impact: Climate Change Also tagged climate model, science, solar cycle, solar radiation, visible light 1 Comment
A first for the Earth: The Census of Marine Life
From 5,400 meters deep, the copepod ceratonotus steiningeri…credit: Jan Michels Creature pictures like the one above get our attention. There will be many such pictures popping up in the popular media for a few days. Let’s call them heralds for a major scientific achievement: the first global Census of Marine Life. The census is the [...]
Posted in News: Degrading Oceans Also tagged biodiversity, Census of Marine Life, GEOS, OBIS, oceans, species loss Leave a comment
New study: Potential U.S. water shortage by 2050
Water index (short of demand) 2050, United States…Credit: NRDC In a study conducted by Tetra Tech, Inc. for the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a major U.S. conservation group, more than 1,100 counties in the United States will face water shortages by 2050. Over 400 counties will experience extreme water shortage conditions. These findings are [...]
Posted in News: Water Shortage Also tagged NRDC, sustainability index, U.S., water shortage Leave a comment
Possible Tipping Point: Arctic approaches Pliocene conditions
Scientists have known for decades that the Arctic is a belle-weather for climate change. If evidence is needed for something happening (or not happening) to the climate, the Arctic is just about the best place to find it. Another piece of evidence from Arctic has just been reported in the journal Geology led by a [...]
Posted in News: Climate Change Also tagged Arctic, Beaver Pond, CO2 levels, Ellesmere Island, global warming, ice-free, Pliocene Leave a comment
New publication: Atlas of Biodiversity Risk
Combining the results of 366 authors from 43 countries, the Atlas of Biodiversity Risk is the first publication of its kind – a geographical summary of the major factors that lead to loss of biological diversity (also sometimes referred to as species loss). The atlas is available only in printed form at 99Euro + Shipping [...]
Posted in News: Species Loss Also tagged biodiversity, biological invasion, environmental pollution, habitat loss, policy, pollinator loss, species loss Leave a comment
Climate change consensus: An open letter from 255 Scientists
Sometimes…often…many of the scientific rebuttals to climate change deniers amount to pep-talking the base (an Americanism for rallying those who are already loyal to the cause). Well, sometimes the base needs a good pep-talk. Like now, when the voices of global warming denialism are being orchestrated into a general anti-science chorus. That’s what 255 members [...]
Posted in Spun Also tagged anti-science, Big Bang, evolution, global warming, science, scientific method, theory Comments closed
James Lovelock: A climate change pessimist
“I don’t think we’re yet evolved to the point where we’re clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change,” said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. “The inertia of humans is so huge that you can’t really do anything meaningful.” [Source: The Guardian] [...]
Posted in Spun Also tagged acidification, Gaia, Gaia Hypothesis, global warming, IPCC, James Lovelock Leave a comment
A framework for thinking about a healthy planet
We should be angry when information that must be widely available – something with real public impact – is sequestered behind a paywall. This is by way of putting some emotional steam into an important article in the eminent Scientific American, April 2010, titled Boundaries for a Healthy Planet. Why is this article important? The [...]
Posted in Impact: Climate Change Also tagged acid oceans, AGW, biodiversity loss, boundaries, global warming, healthy planet, land use, nine environmental boundaries, nitrogen, overpopulation, ozone depletion, phosphorous, planetary boundaries, pollution, tipping points, water shortage Leave a comment
Species Loss: It is statistics but not a game
Most biologists will tell you that the Earth is losing species faster than it is replacing them. One prominent biologist, Simon Stuart, chair of the Species Survival Commission for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), has said about two new reports coming out in March (2010): “Measuring the rate at which new [...]
Posted in Impact: Species Loss Also tagged background rate, extinction, habitat loss, human encroachment, species loss 1 Comment
Climate Change: Madness in their methane?
A few years ago the whole ‘cow farts are global climate threat’ thing seemed more than a bit overblown. (Cow and other farts being mostly methane, dontcha know.) It became difficult to mention methane in connection with global warming without raising images of bovine herds worldwide in a massive chorus of postprandial flatulence. Besides, CO2 [...]
Posted in Impact: Climate Change Also tagged Arctic Sea, global warming, methane, methane hydrate, peat, permafrost, Siberian shelf Leave a comment
Radical thinking in agriculture needed
A new report, published online in the journal Science, titled “Radically Rethinking Agriculture for the 21st Century” was prepared by sixteen top specialists in population, climate, agriculture, and food genetics. They represented a mixture of academics, corporations (Monsanto, DuPont), and government scientists. The report was first presented to the U.S. State Department in 2009. Three [...]
Posted in News: Genetic Modification Also tagged agriculture, food shortage, genetic modification, global warming, GM, overpopulation, USDA Leave a comment
Global warming may have unforeseen (and nasty) tipping points
Similar to the financial crisis of 2008, or the over-fishing of the seas, the dynamics of the global warming problem are pretty well known. What is not known are all the possible ‘tipping points,’ those events (big or small) that can push the dynamic forces into crisis, and how rapidly crises can develop. That’s the [...]
Posted in Impact: Climate Change Also tagged AGW, ecology, ecosystems, global warming, tipping point Leave a comment
New study: Stratospheric water vapor affects global warming
It’s time to re-examine the climate change models – water-vapor is more important than previously thought. That’s the message from a new study by U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which analyzed the effects of water-vapor in the stratosphere on global climate. In particular the study noted that the recent slow-down in global warming, [...]
Posted in News: Climate Change Also tagged climate models, NOAA, stratosphere, water vapor 1 Comment
Also tracking: Science and tech disappointments
Turning the year to a new decade is bound to produce a wide variety of retrospectives. Lists are always popular. I came across an interesting list the other day at the Scientific American site: 10 Science Letdowns of the New Millennium by Katherine Harmon. The original is presented as a slide show. Why, I’m not [...]
Posted in Impact: General Also tagged alternative energy, anti-science, brain, cancer, cars, electric cars, evolution, exobiology, genetics, global warming, HIV, neurology, paleontology, power grid, science, space, technology 1 Comment
New study: Sea rise underestimated
It seems the more details we get about global warming, the more pessimistic the predictions. This is not strictly true, for example some studies show that the oceans have greater capacity than we thought to absorb carbon-dioxide and buffer the greenhouse effect. Still, the overall impression is that with each new study, the possibility for [...]
Posted in News: Climate Change Also tagged global warming, ice-cap melting, IPCC, sea rise Leave a comment
The Copenhagen Diagnosis – a new global warming report
The last United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report was based on data collected by 2006. A new report, labeled ‘The Copenhagen Diagnosis’ updates that report with data and analysis since that time. The Copenhagen Diagnosis is the work of 26 scientists and consists of material already peer-reviewed and published, so there isn’t [...]
The Global Warming controversy is ended…