Environment

The warming of an Arctic current over the last 30 years has triggered the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from methane hydrate stored in the sediment beneath the seabed.
Scientists at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton working in collaboration with researchers from the University of Birmingham, Royal Holloway London and IFM-Geomar in Germany have [...]

When it comes to using climate models to assess the causes of the increased amount of moisture in the atmosphere, it doesn’t much matter if one model is better than the other.
They all come to the same conclusion: Humans are warming the planet, and this warming is increasing the amount of water vapor in the [...]

A previously unrecognized player in the process by which gases produced by trees and other plants become aerosols — microscopically small particles in the atmosphere — has been discovered by a research team led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Their research on the creation and effects of these chemicals, called epoxides, is [...]

Some people who are serious about wanting to reduce their “carbon footprint” on the Earth have one choice available to them that may yield a large long-term benefit — have one less child.
A study by statisticians at Oregon State University concluded that in the United States, the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an [...]

Could straw houses be the buildings of the future?
That’s what researchers at the University of Bath will be testing this summer by constructing a “BaleHaus” made of prefabricated straw bale and hemp cladding panels on campus.
And people around the world will be able to watch its progress online via “Strawcam” from Monday 20 July. The [...]

The air in Beijing during the 2008 Olympics was cleaner than the previous year’s, due to aggressive efforts by the Chinese government to curtail traffic, increase emissions standards and halt construction in preparation for the games, according to a Cornell study.
Led by Max Zhang, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, the study indicates that [...]

A study by five university researchers — including four from the University of Hawai’i at Ma-noa — concludes that existing shark cage diving enterprises in Hawai’i have a negligible effect on public safety.
The paper, “Seasonal cycles and long-term trends in abundance and species composition of sharks associated with cage diving ecotourism activities in Hawai’i,” is [...]

No one knows exactly how much Earth’s climate will warm due to carbon emissions, but a new study this week suggests scientists’ best predictions about global warming might be incorrect.
The study, which appears in Nature Geoscience, found that climate models explain only about half of the heating that occurred during a well-documented period of rapid [...]

A team of researchers has discovered an unexpected concentration of a certain isotopic molecule in parts of the stratosphere that could have implications for understanding the carbon cycle and its response to climate change.
By analyzing samples of air taken from the stratosphere — the layer of Earth’s atmosphere that sits between six and 30 miles [...]

Coastal marine ecosystems are at risk worldwide as a result of human activities, according to scientists at UC Santa Barbara who have recently published a study in the Journal of Conservation Letters. The authors have performed the first integrated analysis of all coastal areas of the world.
“Resource management and conservation in coastal waters must address [...]

Milder winters are causing Scotland’s wild breed of Soay sheep to get smaller, despite the evolutionary benefits of possessing a large body, according to new research published in this week’s Science Express.
The new study provides evidence for climate change as the cause of the mysterious decrease in the size of wild sheep on the Scottish [...]

Fast and green. That’s what it takes to get to the winner’s circle in a new type of auto racing.
Called green racing, it’s a meshing of the fast and furious world of auto racing with the quest for cleaner-burning fuels and more energy efficient engines. But make no mistake about it, being green does not [...]

With millions of people in the United States eagerly awaiting those July 4 fireworks displays — and our Canadian neighbors doing likewise for their July 1 Canada Day celebrations — here’s a prospect for those light shows of the future likely to ignite a smile on Mother Nature’s face: A new generation of “green” fireworks [...]

Modern glaciers, such as those making up the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, are capable of undergoing periods of rapid shrinkage or retreat, according to new findings by paleoclimatologists at the University at Buffalo.
The paper, published on June 21 in Nature Geoscience, describes fieldwork demonstrating that a prehistoric glacier in the Canadian Arctic rapidly retreated [...]

Clearing the Amazon rainforest increases Brazilian communities’ wealth and quality of life, but these improvements are short-lived, according to new research published this month in Science. The study, by an international team including researchers at the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London, shows that levels of development revert back to well below national average [...]

More and more, scientists are getting a better grip on the nitrogen cycle. They are learning about sources of nitrogen and how this element changes as it loops from the nonliving, such as the atmosphere, soil or water, to the living, whether plants or animals. Scientists have determined that humans are disrupting the nitrogen cycle [...]

A species of bacteria, isolated from sediments deep under the Pacific Ocean, could provide a powerful clean-up tool for heavy metal pollution. Writing in the current issue of the journal, Microbiology, Professor Gejiao Wang and his colleagues from Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan, PR China describe how a particular strain of Brachybacterium, strain Mn32, proved [...]

Trains, planes, buses and automobiles do not only effect the environment via their exhaust pipes. There is a full life-cycle of processes associated with getting from a to b that we rarely acknowledge.
Published today in IOP Publishing’s Environmental Research Letters, Monday, June 8, 2009, researchers from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the [...]

The secret of a successful sandcastle could aid the revival of an ancient eco-friendly building technique, according to research led by Durham University.
Researchers, led by experts at Durham’s School of Engineering, have carried out a study into the strength of rammed earth, which is growing in popularity as a sustainable building method.
Just as a sandcastle [...]

Author and democracy activist Frances Moore Lappe says we already know how to solve the pressing issues of our time, such as climate change and world hunger.
But she says our own pre-conceived ideas about how things should work — our mental map of the world — is actually preventing us from taking action.
In a speech [...]