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New Antarctic ice discovery aids future climate predictions

Science Daily - Tue, 08/16/2016 - 07:47
A team of scientists has discovered a 65 percent reduction in sea ice during the last interglacial period around 128,000 years ago.

Managing climate change refugia to protect wildlife

Science Daily - Wed, 08/10/2016 - 17:09
Natural and cultural areas that will remain similar to what they are today -- despite climate change -- need to be identified, managed and conserved as 'refugia' for at-risk species, according to a new study. The study sets out, for the first time, specific steps to help identify and manage these more resilient and climate-stable havens for plants, animals and fishes.

Climate change already accelerating sea level rise, study finds

Science Daily - Wed, 08/10/2016 - 07:46
Greenhouse gases are already having an accelerating effect on sea level rise, but the impact has so far been masked by the cataclysmic 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, according to a new study.

Strategies needed for light-duty vehicle greenhouse gas reduction

Science Daily - Tue, 08/09/2016 - 13:44
Solutions including electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, vehicle connectivity, and automation are examined.

Lake Tanganyika fisheries declining from global warming

Science Daily - Mon, 08/08/2016 - 15:34
The decrease in fishery productivity in Lake Tanganyika since the 1950s is a consequence of global warming rather than just overfishing, according to a new report. The lake was becoming warmer at the same time in the 1800s that the abundance of fish began declining and the lake's algae started decreasing. Large-scale commercial fishing did not begin on Lake Tanganyika until the 1950s.

Melting ice sheet could expose frozen Cold War-era hazardous waste

Science Daily - Thu, 08/04/2016 - 13:12
Climate change is threatening to expose hazardous waste at an abandoned camp thought to be buried forever in the Greenland Ice Sheet, new research has found. Camp Century, a United States military base built within the Greenland ice sheet in 1959, doubled as a top-secret site for testing the feasibility of deploying nuclear missiles during the Cold War. When the camp was decommissioned in 1967, its infrastructure and waste were abandoned.

Whales' ultrasonic hearing has surprisingly ancient history, fossilized ear shows

Science Daily - Thu, 08/04/2016 - 12:59
All living toothed whales rely upon echoes of their own calls to navigate and hunt underwater, a skill that works best in conjunction with high-frequency hearing. Now, researchers who studied one of the best-preserved ears of any ancient whale ever discovered find that whales' high-frequency hearing abilities arose earlier than anticipated.

Stone Age hunter-gatherers experimented with farming in Turkey before migrating to Europe

Science Daily - Thu, 08/04/2016 - 12:59
Clusters of hunter-gatherers spent much of the late Stone Age working out the basics of farming on the fertile lands of Turkey before taking this knowledge to Europe. In an analysis of ancient genomes, researchers report that two waves of early European settlers belonged to the same gene pool as farmers in Turkey -- genealogy that can be traced back to some of the first people to cultivate crops outside of Mesopotamia.

New genome reveals how Arctic microbes survive in cold extreme habitats

Science Daily - Wed, 08/03/2016 - 09:39
Scientists have revealed how a tiny Arctic microbe, crucial to shaping the surface of glaciers, survives in such extreme conditions.

Warm ocean current reaches surprisingly far south in the Antarctic Weddell Sea

Science Daily - Tue, 08/02/2016 - 09:39
New observations show that warm deep water reaches the large Filchner ice shelf in the southern Weddell Sea.

Mountain environments more vulnerable to climate change than previously reported

Science Daily - Tue, 08/02/2016 - 09:37
New research by a forest landscape ecology professor shows that organisms will face more hardships as they relocate when climate change makes their current homes uninhabitable.

Flooding and drought in opposing mountain ranges

Science Daily - Mon, 08/01/2016 - 15:38
In the future, people in the Himalayas will have to contend with flooding, while those in the Andes will have longer dry spells and less water. These are the conclusions drawn by researchers, who have used measurement data and climate models to closely examine water balance in both of these mountain ranges.

Antarctic sea ice may be a source of mercury in southern ocean fish and birds

Science Daily - Mon, 08/01/2016 - 10:38
New research has found methylmercury -- a potent neurotoxin - in sea ice in the Southern Ocean. The results are the first to show that sea-ice bacteria can change mercury into methylmercury, a more toxic form that can contaminate the marine environment, including fish and birds.

Researchers pinpoint abrupt onset of modern day Indian Ocean monsoon system

Science Daily - Fri, 07/29/2016 - 10:08
A new study by an international team of scientists reveals the exact timing of the onset of the modern monsoon pattern in the Maldives 12.9 million years ago, and its connection to past climate changes and coral reefs in the region. The analysis of sediment cores provides direct physical evidence of the environmental conditions that sparked the monsoon conditions that exist today around the low-lying island nation and the Indian subcontinent.

Monsoon intensity enhanced by heat captured by desert dust

Science Daily - Thu, 07/28/2016 - 09:09
Variations in the ability of sand particles kicked into the atmosphere from deserts in the Middle East to absorb heat can change the intensity of the Indian Summer Monsoon, according to new research.

Historical records miss a fifth of global warming: NASA

Science Daily - Thu, 07/21/2016 - 15:42
A new NASA-led study finds that almost one-fifth of the global warming that has occurred in the past 150 years has been missed by historical records due to quirks in how global temperatures were recorded. The study explains why projections of future climate based solely on historical records estimate lower rates of warming than predictions from climate models.

We're lucky climate change didn't happen sooner

Science Daily - Thu, 07/21/2016 - 13:34
There is some consolation in how the fossil fuel-induced climatic changes we increasingly experience through droughts and storm surges are playing out. It could have happened sooner, and therefore already have been much worse.

Protecting ice memory

Science Daily - Thu, 07/21/2016 - 09:55
The project’s first mission to protect the world’s ice memory will be launched in France on 15 August, in the Mont Blanc massif. Researchers from the CNRS, the IRD and the Université Grenoble Alpes will be extracting ice samples from the Col du Dôme, ultimately for storage in Antarctica.

Groundwater discharge to upper Colorado River Basin varies in response to drought

Science Daily - Wed, 07/20/2016 - 15:48
Groundwater discharge that flows into the Upper Colorado River Basin varies in response to drought, which is likely due to aquifer systems that contain relatively young groundwater, according to a new study.

A recent pause in Antarctic Peninsula warming

Science Daily - Wed, 07/20/2016 - 12:56
The rapid warming of the Antarctic Peninsula, which occurred from the early-1950s to the late 1990s, has paused. Stabilization of the ozone hole along with natural climate variability were significant in bringing about the change. Together these influences have now caused the peninsula to enter a temporary cooling phase. Temperatures remain higher than measured during the middle of the 20th Century and glacial retreat is still taking place.

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