Climate in Biological News

Symposium to discuss geoengineering to fight climate change at the ESA Annual Meeting

Geoengineering techniques aim to slow global warming through the use of human-made changes to the Earth's land, seas or atmosphere. But new research shows that the use of geoengineering to do environmental good may cause other environmental harm. In a symposium at the Ecological Society of America...

Rodent size linked to human population and climate change

You probably hadn't noticed -- but the head shape and overall size of rodents has been changing over the past century. A University of Illinois at Chicago ecologist has tied these changes to human population density and climate change. The finding is reported by Oliver Pergams, UIC research ass...

Douglas-fir, geoducks make strange bedfellows in studying climate change

NEWPORT, Ore. Scientists are comparing annual growth rings of the Pacific Northwest's largest bivalve and its most iconic tree for clues to how living organisms may have responded to changes in climate. Analyzed by themselves, the rings from a single tree or mollusk may sometimes reflect condi...

Warming climate threatens California fruit and nut production

Winter chill, a vital climatic trigger for many tree crops, is likely to decrease by more than 50 percent during this century as global climate warms, making California no longer suitable for growing many fruit and nut crops, according to a team of researchers from the University of California, Da...

Down Under dinosaur burrow discovery provides climate change clues

On the heels of his discovery in Montana of the first trace fossil of a dinosaur burrow, Emory University paleontologist Anthony Martin has found evidence of more dinosaur burrows this time on the other side of the world, in Victoria, Australia. The find, to be published this month in Cretaceous...

Seals quickly respond to gain and loss of habitat under climate change

Southern Elephant seals responded rapidly to climate and habitat change and established a new breeding site thousands of kilometres from existing breeding grounds, according to new research. An international research team, including post-doctorate Dr Mark de Bruyn and collaborators from the US,...

Arctic climate under greenhouse conditions in the Late Cretaceous

New evidence for ice-free summers with intermittent winter sea ice in the Arctic Ocean during the Late Cretaceous a period of greenhouse conditions - gives a glimpse of how the Arctic is likely to respond to future global warming. Records of past environmental change in the Arctic should help ...

Report shows the power of US cities to mitigate climate change and steps they need to take to adapt

U.S. municipal governments are showing leadership by voluntarily accounting for and reducing greenhouse gas emissions resulting from their operations. They also recognize the huge potential to influence long-term reductions from the residents and businesses in their communities, according to a ne...

New guide to tropical seedlings: Essential to climate change research

The enormous trees forming rainforest canopies bear little resemblance to their seedlings, many described for the first time in the new field guide, "Seedlings of Barro Colorado Island and the Neotropics," published in July 2009 by Cornell University Press. Author Nancy Garwood, professor of plant...

In the warming West, climate most significant factor in fanning wildfires' flames

The recent increase in area burned by wildfires in the Western United States is a product not of higher temperatures or longer fire seasons alone, but a complex relationship between climate and fuels that varies among different ecosystems, according to a study conducted by U.S. Forest Service and ...

West Coast needs more research on fisheries, marine science, climate change

According to a new report on regional marine research and information needs, the West Coast critically needs more research about fisheries, ocean health, coastal hazards and climate change - among other topics - to support and protect the region's annual $32-billion ocean-related economy, accordin...

Leading scientists and scholars urge action on climate issues

In an open letter addressed to President Barack Obama and the United States Congress, twenty leading scientists and scholars assert that the currently stated objectives in limiting the climatic disruption are grossly inadequate and urge the nation's leadership to take clear leadership towards meet...

Sediment yields climate record for past half-million years

COLUMBUS, Ohio Researchers here have used sediment from the deep ocean bottom to reconstruct a record of ancient climate that dates back more than the last half-million years. The record, trapped within the top 20 meters (65.6 feet) of a 400-meter (1,312-foot) sediment core drilled in 2005 in ...

Broecker: 'What we need are tougher measures against climate change'

U.S. researcher Wallace S. Broecker (Chicago, 1931), winner of the first edition of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards in the Climate Change category, published an article in Science back in 1975 with the title "Climate Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?" ...

Changing climate likely to make 'super weed' even more powerful

Researchers at the University of Delaware have discovered a new reason why the tall, tasseled reed Phragmites australis is one of the most invasive plants in the United States. The UD research team found that Phragmites delivers a one-two chemical knock-out punch to snuff out its victims, a...

Time series identify population responses to climate change

Biologists have for several years modeled how different species are likely to respond to climate change. Most such studies ignore differences between populations within a species and the interactions between species, in the interest of simplicity. An article in the June issue of BioScience , by E...

Counting sheep in climate change predictions

Climate change can have devastating effects on endangered species, but new mathematical models may be able to aid conservation of a population of bighorn sheep. The effects of a changing climate on a population of bighorn sheep can be mathematically predicted, as described in a recent paper rec...

Jeepers creepers: Climate change threatens endangered honeycreepers

As climate change causes temperatures to increase in Hawaii's mountains, deadly non-native bird diseases will likely also creep up the mountains, invading most of the last disease-free refuges for honeycreepers a group of endangered and remarkable birds. A just-published U.S. Geological Surve...

Stanford scientists find heat-tolerant coral reefs that may resist climate change

Experts say that more than half of the world's coral reefs could disappear in the next 50 years, in large part because of higher ocean temperatures caused by climate change. But now Stanford University scientists have found evidence that some coral reefs are adapting and may actually survive...

Carbon measuring system to help mitigate climate change

The $9.16m Carbon Benefits Project, which involves the Overseas Development Group at the University of East Anglia (UEA), hopes to encourage sustainable development schemes in developing countries that generate climate adaptation, mitigation and conservation benefits, as well as improve quality of...

WWF study says climate change could displace millions in Asia's Coral Triangle

Coral reefs could disappear entirely from the Coral Triangle region of the Pacific Ocean by the end of the century, threatening the food supply and livelihoods for about 100 million people, according to a new study from World Wildlife Fund. Averting catastrophe will depend on quick and effecti...

Scientists aim to bring indigenous people into climate change monitoring and policy

(ST. LOUIS): Scientists at the Missouri Botanical Garden are calling for the inclusion of indigenous peoples around the world in helping monitor the effects of global climate change and develop policy. In a special issue on traditional peoples and climate change in the May volume of " Global Env...

Aerosol: A key piece of the climate change puzzle

Fitting all the different pieces of the climate change puzzle together is one of the major challenges of our age. Aerosol is a key piece of this puzzle, but the size and shape of its effect is still unclear a fact that jeopardises the reliability of all current predictions of climate change. ...

Bowman Global Change says public engagement critical to solving climate crisis

May 1, 2009 Signal Hill, CA Tom Bowman, president of Bowman Global Change, a firm that helps organizations make sustainable transformations, has written a paper defining the adjustments to climate change communication programs required to encourage sustainable behaviors and drive society's respo...

NASA study says climate adds fuel to Asian wildfire emissions

In the last decade, Asian farmers have cleared tens of thousands of square miles of forests to accommodate the world's growing demand for palm oil, an increasingly popular food ingredient. Ancient peatlands have been drained and lush tropical forests have been cut down. As a result, the landscape ...

Fire is important part of global climate change, report scientists

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) Fire must be accounted for as an integral part of climate change, according to 22 authors of an article published in the April 24 issue of the journal Science . The authors determined that intentional deforestation fires alone contribute up to one-fifth of the human-caus...

Conference tackles technology needed to address climate change

We have the will but do we have the technology? The second Climate Change Technology Conference (CCTC 2009) is being held May 13 to 15, 2009 at McMaster University to look at developing practical engineering and administrative responses to climate change and global warming. Among the guest spe...

'Super reefs' fend off climate change, study says

NEW YORK (April 23, 2009) The Wildlife Conservation Society announced today a study showing that some coral reefs off East Africa are unusually resilient to climate change due to improved fisheries management and a combination of geophysical factors. WCS announced the results of the study at th...

Plants could override climate change effects on wildfires

The increase in warmer and drier climates predicted to occur under climate change scenarios has led many scientists to also predict a global increase in the number of wildfires. But a new study in the May issue of Ecological Monographs shows that in some cases, changes in the types of plants gro...

Indigenous peoples at world summit to share climate change observations, coping techniques

With the first climate change-related relocation of an Inuit village already underway, some 400 Indigenous People and observers from 80 nations are convening in Alaska for a UN-affiliated conference April 20-24 to discuss ways in which traditional knowledge can be used to both mitigate and adapt t...

Changing climate will lead to devastating loss of phosphorus from soil

Crop growth, drinking water and recreational water sports could all be adversely affected if predicted changes in rainfall patterns over the coming years prove true, according to research published this month in Biology and Fertility of Soils . Scientists from Biotechnology and Biological Scie...

Biofuels could hasten climate change

April 14, 2009 A new study finds that it will take more than 75 years for the carbon emissions saved through the use of biofuels to compensate for the carbon lost when biofuel plantations are established on forestlands. If the original habitat was peatland, carbon balance would take more than 600...

International climate change researchers meet, review latest findings

College Park, Md. Top international climate scientists are meeting this week at the University of Maryland to lay the groundwork for improving regionalized climate change forecasts and for developing the advanced computing models needed to make these projections, says the chair and host, UM's An...

Ecologists question effects of climate change on infectious diseases

Recent research has predicted that climate change may expand the scope of human infectious diseases. A new review, however, argues that climate change may have a negligible effect on pathogens or even reduce their ranges. The paper has sparked debate in the ecological community. In a forum in t...

Scientists find climate change to have paradoxical effects in coastal wetlands

Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide is largely responsible for recent global warming and the rise in sea levels. However, a team of scientists, including two Smithsonian ecologists, have found that this same increase in CO 2 may ironically counterbalance some of its negative effects on one of the p...

Mighty diatoms: Global climate feedback from microscopic algae

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Tiny creatures at the bottom of the food chain called diatoms suck up nearly a quarter of the atmosphere's carbon dioxide, yet research by Michigan State University scientists suggests they could become less able to "sequester" that greenhouse gas as the climate warms. The ...

Human aspects of climate change to be focus of conference at Illinois

A conference at the University of Illinois will bring together scholars from various disciplines and the news media to stimulate dialogue and share research on climate change and on humans' ever-changing relation to climate. Current reporting on climate change is overwhelmingly driven by scientifi...

Eugene-Springfield face Upper Willamette climate threats

Effects of climate change projected this century for Oregon's Upper Willamette River Basin, including Eugene-Springfield, will threaten water supplies, buildings, transportation systems, human health, forests, and fish and wildlife, according to a report produced by the University of Oregon's Clim...

Prominent climate researcher to speak at UH on global warming March 5

HOUSTON, March 3, 2009 As we move more toward renewable energy, questions persist about the Earth's climate. Is it dramatically changing? If so, are humans or natural variations in climate or other causes responsible? A leading expert in climate research and atmospheric science will address su...

Green IT not helping climate change

Richard Hawkins, Canada Research Chair in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, says there is no evidence that information technologies necessarily reduce our environmental footprint. His research will provide input into the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) initiat...