Latest science news in Earth & Climate
Greenhouse Gas Fluoroform May Become Reagent For Producing Pharmaceuticals
Teflon is popular, used on everything from cooking pans to armor-piercing bullets, but it has a waste byproduct, fluoroform, which has to be stored by chemical companies because it has...
UN conference adopts extension of Kyoto accord
(AP)—A U.N. climate conference agreed Saturday to extend the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that limits the greenhouse gas output of some rich countries but which will only cover about 15...
Biologist treks across southwestern China to answer the "killer mushroom" question
McMaster University biologist Jianping Xu trekked over 30 kilometers a day through mountainous terrain and inclement weather in southwestern China to discover that a wild mushroom wasn't at the root...
Op-Ed Contributors: Going Beyond Carbon Dioxide
A short-term strategy to slow global warming is to reduce emissions of other pollutants.
Migrating Great Lakes salmon carry contaminants upstream
Salmon, as they travel upstream to spawn and die, carry industrial pollutants into Great Lakes streams and tributaries.
Dead Sea nearly dried up once before
The Dead Sea, the saltiest sea in the world, almost completely dried up roughly 100,000 years ago, which may be ominous news for the future of the water in the...
Harmful greenhouse gas turned into tool for making pharmaceuticals: New technique finds use for ozone-destroying chemical waste product
Chemists have developed a way to transform a hitherto useless ozone-destroying greenhouse gas that is the byproduct of Teflon manufacture and transform it into reagents for producing pharmaceuticals.
Gigantic tsunamis threaten Hawaii
It's almost unimaginable: a tsunami more than 1,000 feet (300 meters) high bearing down on the island of Hawaii.
How cold will a winter be in two years? Climate models still struggle with medium-term climate forecasts
How well are the most important climate models able to predict the weather conditions for the coming year or even the next decade? Scientists have evaluated 23 climate models. Their...
How the IPCC Underestimated Climate Change
Scientists will tell you: There are no perfect computer models. All are incomplete representations of nature, with uncertainty built into them. But one thing is certain: Several fundamental projections found...
Climate—the hot topic in Doha
ESA joined international delegates in Doha, Qatar, to discuss how satellite observations show our planet's most sensitive areas reacting to climate change – and how this information is useful to...
Bloomberg: Post-Sandy NYC will lead climate change battle
New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg says city can "lead the way" to solving problems of a changing climate
Lake Tahoe overdue for an earthquake
A tsunami-producing fault in Lake Tahoe is overdue for another earthquake, scientists said here Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Warm Sea Water Toward Antarctic Glaciers Is Constant, Not Seasonal
A large problem in making predictions about Antarctic melting is that we currently have insufficient knowledge about the ocean circulation near large glaciers in West Antarctica. This means that researchers...
Climate Science Predictions Prove Too Conservative
Across two decades and thousands of pages of reports, the world's most authoritative voice on climate science has consistently understated the rate and intensity of climate change and the danger...
Pulverized rocks used to strip CO2 from large emitting plants
Researchers in Quebec are developing a process that would see steel, coal and cement plants as well as oil and gas facilities remove most of the carbon dioxide (CO2) from...
Psychic Sued for Police Hoax About Massacre
A couple is suing a self-proclaimed psychic for lying to police about a massacre at their Texas ranch in 2011
How Scientists Turn The Ocean Into A Controlled Laboratory
Reef In A Box Copyright David Kline 2010Manipulating the acidity where a reef lives gives us a window into the effects of climate change. When marine biologist David Kline, of Australia's University of...
Arctic's record melt worries scientists
Arctic glaciers retreated at record levels in 2012, while summer snow melted in the region much more rapidly than it has in the past
FOI exemptions for unpublished research
UK government agrees to amend the Freedom of Information Act so that universities are not compelled to release unpublished data
Research yields understanding of Darwin’s ‘abominable mystery’
Research by Indiana University paleobotanist David L. Dilcher and colleagues in Europe sheds new light on what Charles Darwin famously [...]
Map depicts link between climate change and dengue
A map combining date on climate change and on the prevalence of dengue infections estimates how the risk of dengue fever will change in Latin America.
London's clue to stubborn ozone
Scientists think they have identified one key reason why levels of the ground-level pollutant ozone remain stubbornly high in Europe's big cities.
Illegal immigration drops after decade-long rise
(AP)—New census data released Thursday affirm a clear and sustained drop in illegal immigration, ending more than a decade of increases.
Building better barley
(Phys.org)—As one of the top 10 barley producers in the world, Canada faces a problem of adapting to the new normal of a warmer, drier climate.
What happened to Lake Champlain's native trout?
Scientists identify it as Salvelinus namaycush. Other names include mackinaw, lake char, touladi, togue, siscowet, and paperbelly. Lots of people call it, simply, a lake trout. It's a freshwater fish...
UK study highlights action needed to maximise economic recovery
(Phys.org)—A new study from the University of Aberdeen published today highlights the substantial remaining potential from the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) but concludes that, if long term economic recovery is...
Sir Ranulph Fiennes 'coldest journey' begins
Explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes' sets sails for trek across Antarctica