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New research from scientists at the University of Rochester, the US Geological Survey, and the University of California Irvine is the first to directly show that methane released from decomposing hydrates is not reaching the atmosphere. The researchers, including John Kessler, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and DongJoo Joung, a …

Ancient ocean methane not an immediate climate change threat Read More »

“Ancient trees are unique habitats for the conservation of threatened species because they can resist and buffer climate warming,” write the authors, including Gianluca Piovesan (@Dendrocene) and Charles H. Cannon (@ruminatus). Some of these trees, such as bristlecone pines in the White Mountains, USA, can live up to 5,000 years and act as massive carbon …

Protecting very old trees can help mitigate climate change Read More »

Last year, a team led by Jill Banfield discovered DNA structures within a methane-consuming microbe called Methanoperedens that appear to supercharge the organism’s metabolic rate. They named the genetic elements “Borgs” because the DNA within them contains genes assimilated from many organisms. In a study published today as the cover item in Nature, the researchers …

Methane-eating ‘borgs’ have been assimilating earth’s microbes Read More »

But that’s only one possible future for the vast stores of carbon locked in the formerly perennially frozen but now-thawing ground in the Arctic. Using over a decade of synthesis science and region-based models, a new study led by Northern Arizona University and the international Permafrost Carbon Network and published in Annual Review of Environment …

Future emissions from ‘country of permafrost’ significant, must be factored into global climate targets Read More »

“Tropical cyclones draw their energy from ocean surface heat. Also, warmer air can hold more water which eventually can get released in heavy rains and flooding that often occur when a hurricane makes landfall,” says Robin Middelanis from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Potsdam University, lead author of the study. “It’s …

Economic losses from hurricanes become too big to be offset by the US if warming continues Read More »

In the latest issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest, an interdisciplinary team of researchers reports on how social norms — “patterns of behaviors or values that depend on expectations about what others do and/or think should be done” — can be harnessed to bring about collective climate action and policy change. They emphasize …

Can shifting social norms help mitigate climate change? Read More »

“Rainforests, for instance, are wet by definition, which makes them resistent to fire. But when they are disturbed by cyclones, it can allow fire to spread into those ecosystems. To have a fire, we need three things: fuel to burn, dry enough micro-climate, and a source of ignition,” says lead author Thomas Ibanez, a plant …

Land in a cyclone’s wake becomes more vulnerable to forest fires Read More »

A new study led by Graham Taylor, a PhD student in Portland State’s Earth, Environment, and Society program and Paul Loikith, associate professor of geography at PSU, tested how well climate models represent large-scale weather patterns over the Pacific Northwest. Researchers from Oregon State University and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory also contributed to the study, …

Climate models accurately simulate Pacific Northwest weather patterns Read More »

The findings, published Oct. 12 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, indicate that a high number of plant species in today’s Atlantic Forest rely on endangered frugivores — the scientific term for animals that eat primarily fruit — to help disperse their seeds throughout the forest. As a result, losing those endangered frugivores …

Endangered fruit-eating animals play an outsized role in a tropical forest; losing them could have dire consequences Read More »

The extensive collaboration includes the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which comprises about 1400 member organisations, including countries; the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management; the PLuS Alliance — Arizona State University, King’s College London and UNSW Sydney; and more than 100 specialist ecosystem scientists around the world. The study, published today in Nature, …

The entire planet’s ecosystems classified Read More »