Warming Causing Rockies, Everest to Lose Ice and Snow
Around 20 percent of the snow cover in North America’s greatest mountain range has been lost – because of warmer springs in the last three decades. Scientists from the American Geophysical Union and the U.S. Geological Survey report that they had established a pattern of snowfall in the northern and southern Rockies: when the snowpack was large in… Read More
Rising Temperatures in Europe Leave Ducks Grounded
Most birds are acutely sensitive to changes in temperature. Scientists now say that changes in climate and warmer temperatures in parts of Europe have resulted in the migration patterns of certain birds being radically altered. A study looking at the migration patterns of three species of duck – the goldeneye, goosander and tufted duck – has found… Read More
Clouds ‘Cool Earth Less Than Once Thought’
Extra cloud cover caused by emissions of industrial pollutants is known to reduce the effects of global warming, but its impact in reducing temperatures has been over-estimated in the climate models, new research has found. This is particularly significant for China and India, because it has been believed that these two giant countries would be pa… Read More
Amid Rapid Arctic Warming, U.S. Releases New Strategy
With ministers from the eight Arctic states meeting this week in Kiruna, Sweden, for the 2013 ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council, the Obama administration has laid out a broad new U.S. Arctic policy that sets strategic goals for how the U.S. will cope with a rapidly changing Arctic region.… Read More
Warming Could Slash Species’ Habitat Ranges in Half
Vast numbers of plant and animal species could see their ranges slashed in half later this century as a result of climate change, according to a study in Nature Climate Change. The result, say the authors, could be serious ecosystem disruptions along with the loss of so-called “ecosystem services,” such as the purification of air and water; erosion… Read More
Amazon May Lose 65 Percent of Land Biomass by 2060
There will be no winners if agriculture made possible by widespread felling in the Amazon continues to expand, say researchers from Brazil and the U.S. They calculate that the large-scale expansion of agriculture at the expense of the forest could entail the loss of almost two-thirds of the Amazon’s terrestrial biomass by later this century … Read More
China ‘Moving to Lead on Climate Change,’ Says Report
Both China and the U.S., the world’s two principal emitters of greenhouse gases, have been making significant recent progress on tackling climate change, a report by an influential Australian advisory group says. Its report, The Critical Decade: Global Action Building on Climate Change, has particular praise for China, saying its efforts “demonstra… Read More
Warming Temps Cause Trees to Limit Warming—a Little
Trees may provide the Earth with a little shade from global warming – indirectly. European and Canadian researchers report that they have found what engineers like to call a negative feedback loop above the forests of Europe and North America. It works like this. Trees – those natural chemical factories that routinely deliver complex aromatic compo… Read More
