#Nearly 600 Years of Tree Rings Show Altered Ocean Habitat Ocean currents that deliver important nutrients to shallow coastal waters have become weaker and more variable over the last half-century
when winter winds lift deep nutrient-rich waters up to the shallow layers of the sea.
The Wonders of the Deep Sea But the weather pattern that causes the coastal upwelling also blocks storms from coming ashore.
and the well-being of the marine ecosystem Black explained. The winters we see robust growth in the trees we see poor growth in the marine ecosystem Black said.
Coastal upwelling happens during the winter when a strong high-pressure weather system develops along the west coast of the continent.
The system spins clockwise and brings in winds from the north. That spin combines with the rotation of the Earth to move the waters off shore
and stir up clouds of nutrients. Phytoplankton at the surface rely on this seasonal influx of nutrients.
These organisms are the backbone of the marine ecosystem and support huge populations of fish and seabirds.
Some variation in coastal upwelling from year to year is normal but most direct data records don't go back more than 70 years.
if climate change is causing the recent high variation in coastal upwelling. California climate can be very extreme Black said.
The 20th century is particularly variable in the context of the last few centuries but it's not necessarily unique to history.
and climate records have shown El Niã o to be unusually variable over the past century.
The researchers hope to use climate models to predict future variability in coastal upwelling. Details of the study were published online today (Sept. 18) in the journal Science.
but changes in climate or water levels in their breeding areas will cause them to relocate according to Sea world. Flamingos eat larva small insects blue-green
and thrive in cold environments as long as they have access to plenty of water and food.
and grow more so as environmental conditions evolve. The average wildfire season has stretched from five months in the 1970s to seven months today according to the report Playing With Fire from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
However ecologists and economists point out that the preventative methods of mitigating fire also equate to huge cost savings.
The RPI estimated that property values in the neighborhoods closest to the fire& depreciated by $60 million and post-fire flooding cost homeowners an additional $8 million.
How prevention treatments help economically According to the Ecological Restoration Institute (ERI) at NAU forest treatments in Arizona typically thin 30 percent of an area at a cost of between $500 and $1000 per acre.
The Anzu bones were found in an environment that was once a swampy floodplain. The dinosaur lived during the Late Cretaceous between about 100 million and 66 million years ago.
or climate change they're battling it's coffee rust a microscopic fungus that's wreaking havoc on coffee crops in Central america.
when during the rainy season (the fungus spreads best in rainy weather). First discovered in East Africa in the 1800s coffee rust has a nasty legacy.
When olive oil and vegetables are digested together the conditions in the stomach provide an environment for the fatty acids to react with nitrogen compounds in the veggies
There was not enough rainfall for barley to grow by itself but it would have flourished with irrigation Stein told Live Science.
Instead she discovered that the pint-size pikas survived the fire providing new insight into their resiliency to environmental change.
The World's 5 Smallest Mammals Because of their temperature sensitivity pikas are bellwethers of climate change.
but inside the crevices where pikas live the heat never exceeded temperatures recorded in the summer days before the fire she reported Thursday (Aug 14) here at the Ecological Society of America's annual meeting.
whether a pika population already stressed by climate change would bounce back as quickly. The take-home message is that pikas may be more flexible in their habitat than we thought Varner told Live Science.
Big Sky, Shrinking Glaciers, Fading Wildlife (Op-Ed) Elliott Negin is the director of news and commentary at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS.
I set foot in Big Sky Country was 10 years ago when I attended a grizzly bear conference at a ranch just outside of Yellowstone national park.
From a climate perspective things there have gotten worse. The glaciers I marveled at on my backpacking trip have shrunk considerably
and even then they were a pale approximation of what they once were. The U s. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that there were approximately 150 glaciers in the area in 1850 and most of them were still there in 1910
when the park was established. In 1979 when I was fending off mosquitoes at the Continental divide the official National park service estimate was down to 75 glaciers
and now according to the USGS there are only 25 glaciers larger than 25 acres. At that 2004 conference I learned that global warming is making it harder to keep a key item in the grizzly bear pantry in stock.
The bears like to feast on high-protein seeds from whitebark pine cones in the fall to fatten up before hibernation time
and Wildlife Service (FWS) to determine in 2011 that the whitebark pine is in imminent risk of extinction due to among other things global warming the first time the federal government identified climate change as a contributing factor in a tree species
Regardless the FWS is again considering delisting the roughly 700 bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem contending they are supplementing their diet with more meat.
If anyone gets climate in Montana it's scientists. During my recent visit I picked up a copy of the Missoulian Missoula's daily newspaper
and came across an op-ed titled Climate change is a scientific reality. Written by University of Montana entomologist Diana Six and five other Montana-based scientists the July 30 column was essentially a public version of a letter they
Some of Montana's political leaders continue to ignore the most basic scientific findings about climate change they wrote.
The scientific evidence that Earth's climate is warming is overwhelming. We need to move from debate to solutions.
One solution the scientists support is the U s. Environmental protection agency (EPA)' s recent proposal to limit power-plant carbon pollution.
Their responses ranged from praising the EPA for a responsible flexible plan to condemning the agency for making war on coal and Montana jobs.
and climate change is taking a toll on both. Droughts and wildfires are a growing problem for farmers
and the District of columbia Montana has a standard in place promoting renewable energy such as wind and solar.
and the fact that Montana has the third best wind resources in the country that could meet more than 240 times the state's current electricity demand the legislative committee recommended that the renewable requirement remain at 15 percent.
While Colorado Minnesota and other states blessed with tremendous wind potential are forging ahead and ramping up their renewable energy targets Montana is missing a golden opportunity to build on
which allows them to thrive in a range of environments. Across the world scientists are currently exploring a range of strategies to increase wheat yield.
Climate change continues to wreak havoc with weather systems. More than ever we need crops that can resist fluctuating environmental conditions
and maintain their yield. Rajaram s work has generated wheat varieties which maintain their yield under environmental and biological stresses.
This will be the key to safeguarding our wheat crop in the years ahead. Angela White does not work for consult to own shares in
Nevertheless public concerns over health and ecology have led to GMO bans in some nations and a few localities in the United states most recently on the island of Hawaii.
#History Repeating Itself at Antarctica's Fastest-Melting Glacier It's no instant replay but West Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier one of the continent's fastest-changing ice streams looks to be recreating 8000-year-old history as it melts away a new study suggests.
Melting from Pine Island Glacier contributes 25 percent of Antarctica's total ice loss. Scientists think the shrinking glacier could raise global sea level by up to 0. 4 inches (10 millimeters) in the next few decades.
Since the 1990s Pine Island Glacier has thinned by about 5 feet (1. 6 meters) per year
and its flow to the sea has sped up. The glacier's grounding line the point at
which it detaches from land to become floating ice has retreated also by more than 0. 6 miles (1 kilometer) each year.
The same rapid thinning took place about 8000 years ago according to an analysis of rocks left behind by the shrinking glacier scientists report today (Feb 20) in the journal Science.
The researchers collected erratics boulders left behind by receding ice and determined how long they were exposed at the surface instead of being shielded by ice or sediment.
The history recorded by the rocks shows Pine Island Glacier's surface started dropping 3. 3 feet (1 m) per year about 8000 years ago the study reports.
The glacier thinned by at least 325 feet (100 m) in all during that ancient melt event.
Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier Our results show that rapid thinning was sustained for at least 25 years
The likely culprit for Pine Island Glacier's disappearing ice is the same in both the past and the present:
warm ocean water melting the ice shelf that holds the glacier back like a buttress. Ice shelves are the portions of glaciers that float on the water.
Collapse of modern ice shelves shows that glaciers thin speed up and retreat when these dams disappear such as after the Larsen B Ice shelf dramatically fell apart in 2002.
Pine Island Glacier's ice shelf spawned a massive iceberg in 2013 which was part of its natural cycle of ice breaking.
Video: Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier Is Rifting Before Pine Island Glacier starting shrinking about 8000 years ago there was a large ice shelf in the Amundsen Sea Embayment.
The Embayment is a divot in the Antarctic coastline that is the end of the line for one of West Antarctica's three major ice drainages.
The same scenario plays out today with warm ocean currents melting the bottom of Antarctic ice shelves studies show.
which provide the first detailed look at Pine Island Glacier's history of surface thinning offer valuable information about past ice sheet behavior said Claire Todd a glacial geologist at Pacific Lutheran
Understanding how Pine Island Glacier changed in the past will help ice sheet modelers better predict how Antarctica will respond to future climate change
Understanding how Pine Island Glacier behaved in the past gives us more of an idea of how it is likely to behave in the future.
#Lava Bombs and Tsunamis! How Accurate Is'Pompeii'Movie? As flaming balls of lava and ash rain down on the streets of Pompeii the renegade gladiator Milo gallops on horseback after a chariot ridden by his beloved Cassia who has been kidnapped by an evil Roman senator.
Meanwhile a massive tsunami floods the harbor sending a ship careering through the city's streets.
and titanic tsunami raging in Pompeii's harbor the dramatic depiction of the historic and horrific disaster stays relatively true to reality scientists say.
The movie also depicts a giant tsunami surging into Pompeii's harbor carrying a ship through the streets on a torrent of water.
Studies suggest there may have been a small tsunami Lopes said but there is no evidence it was powerful enough to bring ships into the city.
and today more than a million people live in the vicinity of the volcano. Although the movie is fictional it humanizes the disaster in a way that historical accounts don't said Yeomans.
#New Website Tracks Deforestation in Near Real-time Forests around the world are disappearing at an astonishing rate.
and companies combat deforestation and save protected areas. More than half a billion people depend on forests for their jobs their food their clean water said Andrew Steer the CEO of the World Resources Institute (WRI) which launched the website today (Feb 20.
But humans are failing to preserve these crucial ecosystems Steer told reporters before the launch.
See Images of the New Deforestation Map Monitoring forests Until now there has been no good way to keep track of this rapid forest loss leaving governments
which committed to a zero-deforestation policy in 2010. The company pledged not to buy supplies such as palm oil from companies that clear-cut forested areas.
Monitoring Forests in Near Real-time Mapping deforestation The fine-grained map comes from the work of Matt Hansen a geographer at the University of Maryland
and his colleagues who published the first Landsat map of global deforestation last year. The WRI and about 40 other partners including Google then got on board to turn Hansen's map into something interactive and public.
Evolutionary Comparative and Ecological Perspectives (Cambridge 1998) edited by John Byers and myself (the above data come from Byers's chapter in this book) Gordon Burghardt's The Genesis of Animal Play (Bradford 2006
In 2005 a single storm killed half a billion trees in the Amazon forest. Amazon Photos:
And the big storms that blow down millions of trees at once barely budge the forest's carbon output the study found.
or deforestation the researchers said. The Amazon river basin is home to the largest rainforest On earth covering about 2. 67 million square miles (6. 9 million square kilometers) in seven countries.
but also environmental pollutants; and genetics. Although I talk a lot about NCDS -or noncommunicable diseases-some cancers are caused actually by infections.
The occurrence of such patterning in nature is rather unusual study researcher Stephan Getzin of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig Germany said in a statement.
Geologists mostly think these form due to erosion from wind and water as well as from the weathering effects of salt and frost.
and his colleagues did not think erosion and weathering alone could explain how many of these natural sculptures arose.
Experiments and numerical models revealed that once a critical weight from the higher parts of the sandstone was reached the downward force locked the lower grains of sand together more tightly increasing their resistance to erosion.
In contrast other parts of sandstone bearing less weight stayed vulnerable to erosion and washed away.
After enough models and experiments you know what it will carve you have full control of erosion like a magician Bruthans told Live Science.
which by magic controls the erosion to carve the ugly rock into right great shape.
In fact it is the interaction of hundreds of billions of sand grains gravity and erosion nothing more.
What can achieve the intensification of food supply we require but in a way that is also sustainable and less harmful to the environment?
hydroponics or aeroponics and environmental controls that regulate temperature humidity and light to produce vegetables fruits and other crops year-round.
and wind turbines with greenhouses to provide self-generated renewable electricity on-site. But the single technology that will be key to making vertical farms possible is lighting.
or even dictating important aspects of sloth behavior especially their ritualized behavior of descending the tree to defecate wildlife ecologist Jonathan Pauli of the University of Wisconsin-Madison leader of the study published today (Jan 21) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society
We hypothesized that this behavior sustains an ecosystem in the fur of sloths which confers cryptic nutritional benefits to sloths the researchers wrote in their journal article.
Fungi in the sloths'environment may be decomposing dead moths fostering the growth of algae. Or the moths may be directly transferring nutrients from the sloth dung to their fur where algae can grow.
The symbiotic relationship among sloths moths and algae could explain why it's hard to keep three-toed sloths well nourished in the highly sanitized environments in captivity.
The ruminants Americans eat mainly cows pose the biggest threat to the climate according to an article in this month's edition of the journal Nature Climate Change.
which are associated mostly with beef production could make a big contribution to preventing the worst impacts of global warming said Doug Boucher director of climate research
and analysis at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a co-author of the Nature Climate Change article.
when it comes to addressing climate change at least on the diet front but we have a long way to go.
Negin's most recent op-ed was Who's to Blame for Climate Change? This article was adapted from A New year's Resolution That Saves Money Improves Health
These findings highlight the way the environment can shift drastically over the course of just a few human lifetimes the researchers said.
A great deal of controversy exists regarding the origins of this cold the prevailing theory is that it was triggered by a giant flood of Arctic meltwater
There was a substantial change in climate said study co-author Dirk Sachse a paleoclimatologist and organic geochemist at the University of Potsdam in Germany.
Ice cores are cylinders of ice drilled from glaciers and ice sheets that allow scientists to examine the layers of ice deposited over hundreds and thousands of years akin to tree rings that record
when environments are drier. On the other hand aquatic plants do not lose water via evaporation because they are surrounded by water so the ratio between heavy and regular water stays relatively unchanged in their systems.
The researchers discovered that about 170 years after temperatures fell in Europe land-plant remains had greater levels of deuterium than aquatic plant molecules did suggesting the environment became much drier.
The results detailed online Jan 19 in the journal Nature Geoscience show that changes in climate can happen rapidly
In just a few human lifetimes the environment can change abruptly and quite significantly Sachse said.
Changes in the water cycle can really amplify the environmental effects of changes in temperature.
This makes this work relevant for better understanding future climate change. Follow us@livescience Facebook & Google+.
When the weather finally warms expand your observations to the great outdoors! Related: Science Experiments for Kids Cool Science Experiments for Hot Summer Days Frozen Fun:
Try These Cold-weather Science Experiment t
#Black mamba Facts The black mamba has quite a reputation. It is one of the world s deadliest snakes;
As part of a current CSIRO project we are fitting tiny micro-sensors to 5000 bees in Tasmania as part of a world-first research program to monitor their movements and their environment.
Any change in their behaviour indicates a change in their environment. So when we model their movements we will be able to recognise very quickly
Among other things we also want to understand insect behaviour under different weather conditions. That would truly represent a game-changing opportunity allowing us to track and record thousands of insects in their natural habitats in relatively remote areas.
if it's the climate change. It may be. Some doctors also contend that people have more allergies today perhaps
On top of the rain and humidity melting of the recent snow is also contributing to mold growth
With the warmer weather can come a host of pathogens that are less common during winter's frigid conditions.
They live in shady and humid environments and are often found at ground level clinging to grass.
By drawing on genetic archaeological linguistic and ecological evidence the researchers found that chili farming was born in central-east Mexico.
and ecological predictions of where the plant might have grown in climates of the past. They even looked at which ancient vocabularies included words for chili peppers.
It is a good thing they live in a tropical climate and are covered in fur. There are times of cold in the forest though.
Zamora watched the high tides make the final link between river and sea last week via a pilot channel dug by the Sonoran Institute to increase freshwater flow into the Gulf of california.
Colorado river Connects With Sea The reunion is the end of a 53-day journey for the long-planned Colorado river pulse flow an artificial flood meant to restore the river's parched delta.
The plan allocates about 1 percent of the river's flow to a five-year experiment that will mimic spring floods in the delta.
The flood was timed for the spring seed release from these trees to provide moist ground for seedlings.
To stay hydrated in these grueling environments gazelles shrink their heart and liver according to a study published in the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology.
#Your Cheeseburger Is Leaving a Giant Environmental Footprint Beef production takes a big toll on the environment according to one of the most comprehensive studies to date on livestock management in the United states. To make one steak 28 times
and his colleagues collected data on the environmental costs per calorie of dairy poultry pork eggs and beef foods that account for 96 percent of the calories Americans get from animals.
The environmental costs of dairy poultry pork and eggs are fairly similar the researchers found.
In contrast the same number of calories from beef is much more taxing on the environment requiring 160 times more land eight times more irrigation water 11 times more greenhouse-gas emissions and 19 times more fertilizer
Other studies have identified beef as a major drain on environmental resources but this is one of the largest investigations on the environmental costs of livestock in the United states said Nathan Pelletier president of the Global Ecologic Environmental Consulting and Management Services in British columbia Canada.
It's a good message to reiterate Pelletier told Live Science. What remains to be seen is to what extent this information will influence policymaking.
#Is Climate Change Ruining Wine Corks? Wine lovers might treasure the oaky full-bodied taste of a cabernet sauvignon or the light and fruity aroma of a pinot grigio.
More and more low-quality cork trees with thin bark are sprouting up. 6 Unexpected Effects of Climate Change Now scientists think rising temperatures
and increased exposure to ultraviolet or UV light brought on by climate change may be behind chemical changes in the bark of cork oaks.
There are several factors like climate change landscape changes and the dry seasons getting longer that could be causing the decline Rita Teixeira from the University of Lisbon told Live Science.
Most climate scientists don't think this hiatus means global warming went kaput but the reason (or reasons) for the slowdown has flummoxed scientists.
Now a study published today (Aug 21) in the journal Science suggests a natural climate cycle in the North Atlantic ocean gobbled Earth's extra heat.
when the present hiatus in surface warming was starting said Matthew England a climate scientist at the University of New south wales in Australia who was involved not in the study.
The likely culprit is a natural climate cycle linked to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) current Tung said.
An Aug 3 study in the journal Nature Climate Change found that faster trade winds over the Pacific bring up cold water and cool the atmosphere.
An Aug 17 study also in Nature Climate Change suggested the Pacific Decadal Oscillation climate cycle might be responsible for the hiatus. That cycle flips every 20 to 30 years.
and Southern Oceans said England who co-authored the Aug 3 Nature Climate Change study. Email Becky Oskin or follow her@beckyoskin. Follow us@livescience Facebook & Google+.
As a result hummingbirds have been able to carve out a distinct environmental niche. The birds can now be found throughout North
Climate, Animals & Plants The Devonian period occurred from 416 million to 358 million years ago.
Rapid erosion of these mountains contributed large amounts of sediment to lowlands and shallow ocean basins.
Climate of the continental interior regions was very warm during the Devonian period and generally quite dry.
Reef ecosystems contained numerous brachiopods still numerous trilobites tabulate and horn corals. Placoderms (the armored fishes) underwent wide diversification
This may have contributed to the cooling climate and the extinction event at the end of the Devonian. Arthropod fossils are concurrent with the earliest plant fossils of the Silurian.
Early tetrapods probably evolved from Lobe-finned fishes able to use their muscular fins to take advantage of the predator-free and food-rich environment of the new wetland ecosystems.
but its hind limbs were larger and stronger than those in front suggesting it was able to propel itself outside of an aquatic environment.
but may be related to cooling climate from CO2 depletion caused by the first forests. Although up to 70 percent of invertebrate species died terrestrial plants
and therefore monopolize key resources needed to maintain the earth's fragile ecosystems. This research project received funding from the National Science Foundation.
The excitement of sunshine and warm weather that comes with the approaching summer is tempered for some by the sneezing itchy eyes
which has resulted in theories that this allergy epidemic has been driven by environmental changes: fewer infections in childhood living away from environments such as farms
which seem to inhibit the development of allergies and modern changes in diet and lifestyle (for example overheated poorly ventilated homes).
because the prevailing winds tend to carry pollen away. The amount of pollen produced in any year depends on the severity of the preceding winter:
The weather during the pollen season also affects symptoms: wet summers with a lot of rain keep the pollen down.
Long dry summers prolong its mobility and abundance. The lightning in thunderstorms can break pollen grains into smaller particles
which can lead to acute outbreaks of hay fever. The curious thing about hay fever is that it s a disease that some people seem to grow out of
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