EarthScape

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, has released its State of the Climate Global Analysis for May 2012. This analysis looks at weather recordings from monitoring points all around the world. Temperatures from the last month were compared to baseline levels which is the average taken from 1961-1990. For most of the planet, both…

As the world warms, temperate forests could become a source of carbon dioxide emission rather than a sink according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Scientists found that two forest sites in the U.S. (Wisconsin and North Carolina) emitted long-stored carbon from their soils when confronted with…

Installing green roofs and cool roofs in southern California could save consumers more than $211 million in energy bills and reduce emissions equivalent to removing 91,000 cars from the road each year, according to a new study from the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Emmett Center on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA…

New clues in a mass murder that took place 252 million years ago points to a suspect: Ocean acidification may have driven the largest extinction of animals the world has ever seen. Carbon dioxide belched out by volcanic eruptions during the Permian period could have caused the oceans’ chemistry to change. That’s worrisome because CO2…

Studies of continental Antarctica typically described broad bioregions, with the Antarctic Peninsula usually identified as biologically distinct from continental Antarctica. To many Antarctica is one vast singular frozen place. Later studies suggested a more complex biogeography. In a new study published in “Diversity and Distributions” 15 distinct, ice-free, Antarctic Conservation Biogeographic Regions have been identified,…

Stuff is constantly falling down on the Earth from outside its atmosphere. This might be very large rocks that we will notice to specks of dust that fall and float down. Currently, estimates of the Earth’s intake of space dust vary from around five tons to as much as 300 tons every day. The Cosmic…

The Younger Dryas, also referred to as the Big Freeze, was a geologically brief (about 1,300 years) period of cold climatic conditions and drought which occurred about 12,000 years ago. The Younger Dryas stadial is thought to have been caused by the collapse of the North American ice sheets, although rival theories have been proposed.…

Night owls often wake up for work or school with a scowl on their faces and wishing for an IV drip of coffee, while morning people come skipping in 15 minutes early. However, morning people aren’t chipper just as the sun is coming up; they are happier and more satisfied with life overall, a new…

Algal biofuels, like crops, demand land, water, fertilisers, pesticides and inputs that are costly for India, says Hoysall Chanakya

The oceans have warmed in the past 50 years, but not by natural events alone. New research by a team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and international collaborators shows that the observed ocean warming over the last 50 years is consistent with climate models only if the models include the impacts of observed increases…