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(AP) -- Germany is considering pushing for EU compensation for Spanish farmers after it erroneously blamed its vegetable produce for starting the E. coli outbreak that has killed 18 people, says Spain.
The Climate, Community & Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA) announced that the first two carbon forestry projects have reached verification status against the Climate, Community & Biodiversity (CCB) Standards, meaning that the projects have been implemented using best practices for community engagement and have generated benefits for local communities and biodiversity as well as for the climate. In addition, both projects will add the newly established 'CCB Label' to their carbon credits, which is a permanent marker added to each credit's unique carbon registry identification code that that will make it easier for investors and offset buyers to identify a project that has met the CCB Standards.
A new study has matched future climate change "hotspots" with regions already suffering chronic food problems to identify highly-vulnerable populations, chiefly in Africa and South Asia, but potentially in China and Latin America as well, where in fewer than 40 years, the prospect of shorter, hotter or drier growing seasons could imperil hundreds of millions of already-impoverished people.
The pristine state of unpolluted waterways may be their downfall, according to research results published in a paper this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Preparing for a natural disaster like a hurricane is critical in minimizing damage, but what motivates individuals to listen to warnings and act is largely unexplored territory.
(PhysOrg.com) -- New computer simulations show that the light from massive stars is, by itself, enough to blow apart the nebula where the stars are born. While this 'radiation pressure' was by and large overlooked in the past, these new results show how, even before a single star explodes as a supernova, massive stars carve out huge bubbles and limit the star formation rates in galaxies.
A researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics believes that a new kind of supernova is at work in recent observations of bright but short-lasting stellar explosions that don’t appear to fit known categories.
A recent study reports that the geographical range of some agricultural crops -- such as corn and beans -- may be greatly reduced if temperatures continue to rise. While some farmers may be able to readjust what they grow, others may have to give up, producing a disaster.
Atmospheric aerosols may be small, ranging in size from a few nanometers to a few microns, but they have a big impact on climate. At the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, capabilities developed through the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program are delivering new insights into the formation, aging and transport of aerosol particles, whether they are created by nature or human activity. Two computational advances: the Aerosol Modeling Testbed and a computational approach, known as the particle resolved model, are bringing into sharper focus the effects of aerosols on climate change.
Salt is essential to human life. Most people don't know, however, that salt -- in a form nearly the same as the simple table variety -- is just as essential to Earth's ocean, serving as a critical driver of key ocean processes. While ancient Greek soothsayers believed they could foretell the future by reading the patterns in sprinkled salt, today's scientists have learned that they can indeed harness this invaluable mineral to foresee the future -- of Earth's climate.
Turns out, polluted air from San Francisco is not the culprit. It's a thermal trough pushing north from Arizona. In a surprise result, scientists found that this weather pattern significantly affects the chemistry of fog and clouds over Point Reyes National Seashore. Scientists from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Washington State University, the University of Colorado, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found very high amounts of ammonia and organic material in aerosol particles and cloud droplets during a large-scale weather pattern originating in Arizona. Their results also show the interactions between these small airborne particles and the cloud water chemistry during clear and foggy conditions.
An unusual signal detected by the seismic monitoring station at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's research facility on Barro Colorado Island results from waves in Lake Gatun, the reservoir that forms the Panama Canal channel, scientists report. Understanding seismic background signals leads to improved earthquake and tsunami detection in the Caribbean region where 100 tsunamis have been reported in the past 500 years.
Thirty-eight million years ago, tropical jungles thrived in what are now the cornfields of the American Midwest and furry marsupials wandered temperate forests in what is now the frozen Antarctic. The temperature differences of that era, known as the late Eocene, between the equator and Antarctica were only half of what they are today. A debate has long been raging in the scientific community on what changes in our global climate system led to such a major shift from the more tropical, greenhouse climate of the Eocene to the modern and much cooler climates of today.
A home-made rocket built by two Danes successfully blasted off from a floating launch pad off the Danish Baltic island of Bornholm Friday, nine months after its first test flight failed due to a defective hair drier.
Provided by PhysOrg.com
