The burning of fossil fuels emits some 35 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. That has already begun to change the fundamental chemistry of the world’s oceans, steadily increasing their level of acidity. Projections from a new high-resolution computer model show that over the next 4 decades, the combination of deep-water…
Coral reefs may be able to recover from disaster, according to a study that provides a bit of reassurance about the future of these endangered ecosystems. Coral reefs around the world are at risk as the ocean’s temperature continues to rise. Those trends could kill not only coral but also the fish and other species…
If you want a glimpse of some of the worst of global warming, scientists suggest taking a look at U.S. weather in recent weeks. Horrendous wildfires. Oppressive heat waves. Devastating droughts. Flooding from giant deluges. And a powerful freak wind storm called a derecho. These are the kinds of extremes climate scientists have predicted will…
Early dinosaurs probably looked a lot more like Big Bird than scientists once suspected. A newly discovered, nearly complete fossilized skeleton hints that all dinosaurs may have sported feathers. Researchers have found feathered dinosaurs before, but this one is more distantly related to birds than any previously discovered. Called Sciurumimus albersdoerferi, it belongs to a…
Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) reported in the journal Nature Climate Change encouraging new findings that some fish may be less vulnerable to high CO2 and an acidifying ocean than previously feared. “Human activity is expected to increase the acidity of the world’s oceans by 0.3 to 0.4…
Tiny molecules called microRNAs are tearing apart traditional ideas about the animal family tree.
A rare and highly reactive iron mineral called green rust appears to have played an important role in ancient oceans, suggest new findings, which may have implications for the formation of Earth’s early atmosphere. The research team identified green rust in an Indonesian lake where conditions mimic those of the ancient oceans, and found the…
Andrew Revkin reflects on the end of the “Rio+20” United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in his Dot Earth blog from the New York Times. Ilan Safit, a colleague of mine at Pace University who teaches philosophy and religious studies with a focus on the environment, sees the focus of Rio and related discussions as…
Cities from North Carolina to Massachusetts see waters rising more rapidly
The sandy dunes of the Sahara may seem an unlikely place for a dairy farm, but about 7,000 years ago, herders tended and milked cattle in what is now desolate desert, new research shows. About 10,000 years ago, the Sahara desert went through a phase called the Holocene African Humid Period. Fossilized bones show that…