Birds could signal mass extinction
University of Oxford: The first detailed measurements of current extinction rates for a specific region have shown that birds are the best group to use to track the losses. The study also reveals Britain may be losing species over ten times faster than records suggest, and the speed of loss is probably increasing: the losses from England alone may exceed one species every two weeks.
The study, by Oxford University researchers, shows that many types of obscure organism in Britain are going extinct at the same rate as the birds – evidence supporting fears of a global mass extinction. A report of the research is published in an upcoming issue of the journal Biological Conservation as countries prepare to meet in Japan 18-29 October to discuss biodiversity conservation targets.
‘Biodiversity loss is arguably much more serious and more permanent than climate change,’ said Clive Hambler of Oxford University’s Department of Zoology, lead author of the research. ‘But it’s impossible to know if policy targets to reduce the loss are being met without accurate measures of extinction rates. Until now, we had only crude estimates for a very few types of organism. Now we’ve got evidence that many groups of living things – lichens, bugs, moths, fish, plants and so on – are going extinct at a very similar rate to the birds.’
Continue reading »
Report casts world’s rivers in ‘crisis state’
University of Wisconsin-Madison: The world’s rivers, the single largest renewable water resource for humans and a crucible of aquatic biodiversity, are in a crisis of ominous proportions, according to a new global analysis. The report, published today (Sept. 30) in the journal Nature, is the first to simultaneously account for the effects of such things as pollution, dam building, agricultural runoff, the conversion of wetlands and the introduction of exotic species on the health of the world’s rivers.
The resulting portrait of the global riverine environment, according to the scientists who conducted the analysis, is grim. It reveals that nearly 80 percent of the world’s human population lives in areas where river waters are highly threatened posing a major threat to human water security and resulting in aquatic environments where thousands of species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction.
“Rivers around the world really are in a crisis state,” says Peter B. McIntyre, a senior author of the new study and a professor of zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Limnology.
Continue reading »
Land ‘evapotranspiration’ taking unexpected turn: huge parts of world are drying up
Oregon State University: The soils in large areas of the Southern Hemisphere, including major portions of Australia, Africa and South America, have been drying up in the past decade, a group of researchers conclude in the first major study to ever examine “evapotranspiration” on a global basis.
Most climate models have suggested that evapotranspiration, which is the movement of water from the land to the atmosphere, would increase with global warming. The new research, published online this week in the journal Nature, found that’s exactly what was happening from 1982 to the late 1990s.
But in 1998, this significant increase in evapotranspiration – which had been seven millimeters per year – slowed dramatically or stopped. In large portions of the world, soils are now becoming drier than they used to be, releasing less water and offsetting some moisture increases elsewhere.
Continue reading »
Study sheds new light on how the sun affects the Earth’s climate
Imperial College London: The sun’s activity has recently affected the Earth’s atmosphere and climate in unexpected ways, according to a new study published today in the journal Nature
The Sun’s activity has recently affected the Earth’s atmosphere and climate in unexpected ways, according to a new study published today in the journal Nature. The study, by researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Colorado, shows that a decline in the Sun’s activity does not always mean that the Earth becomes cooler.
It is well established that the Sun’s activity waxes and wanes over an 11-year cycle and that as its activity wanes, the overall amount of radiation reaching the Earth decreases. Today’s study looked at the Sun’s activity over the period 2004-2007, when it was in a declining part of its 11-year activity cycle.
Continue reading »
Crop failures set to increase under climate change
University of Leeds: Large-scale crop failures like the one that caused the recent Russian wheat crisis are likely to become more common under climate change due to an increased frequency of extreme weather events, a new study shows.
However, the worst effects of these events on agriculture could be mitigated by improved farming and the development of new crops, according to the research by the University of Leeds, the Met Office Hadley Centre and University of Exeter.
The unpredictability of the weather is one of the biggest challenges faced by farmers struggling to adapt to a changing climate. Some areas of the world are becoming hotter and drier, and more intense monsoon rains carry a risk of flooding and crop damage.
Continue reading »
Acidification of oceans may contribute to global declines of shellfish
Stonybrook University: The acidification of the Earth’s oceans due to rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) may be contributing to a global decline of clams, scallops and other shellfish by interfering with the development of shellfish larvae, according to two Stony Brook University scientists, whose findings are published online and in the current issue of PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America) entitled, “Effects of past, present, and future ocean carbon dioxide concentrations on the growth and survival of larval shellfish.”
Continue reading »
How Warm Was This Summer?
This map shows temperature anomalies relative to 1951-1980 for the summer of 2010; that is, how temperatures in June through August 2010 differed from the mean temperatures from 1951-1980. A NASA visualizer created it based on data from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. For more information about this image, visit the Earth Observatory site. Credit: NASA/Goddard/Earth Observatory
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies: An unparalleled heat wave in eastern Europe, coupled with intense droughts and fires around Moscow, put Earth’s temperatures in the headlines this summer. Likewise, a string of exceptionally warm days in July in the eastern United States strained power grids, forced nursing home evacuations, and slowed transit systems. Both high-profile events reinvigorated questions about humanity’s role in climate change.
Continue reading »