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Study Shows Protected Areas Preserve Mangrove Habitats, Prevent Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Protected areas not only keep significant swaths of Indonesia's shrinking mangrove habitats intact, but also prevent emissions of carbon dioxide that would have been released had these mangroves been cleared, according to a study in the journal Ecological Economics.

15 Sep 2015

Agriculture and Tree Planting Could Harm Nonforest Ecosystems

The world's grassy biomes are key contributors to biodiversity and ecosystem services, and are under immense pressure from conversion to agriculture and tree planting, report Joseph W. Veldman, of Iowa State University, and his colleagues in an article for the October issue of BioScience.

10 Sep 2015

Study Shows Molting Elephant Seals Shed Large Amounts of Mercury in Coastal Seawater

As fish-eating predators at the top of the marine food chain, elephant seals accumulate high concentrations of mercury in their bodies. A new study by scientists at UC Santa Cruz shows that elephant seals shed significant amounts of mercury during molting, resulting in elevated concentrations of the toxic metal in coastal waters near the elephant seal rookery at Año Nuevo State Reserve.

8 Sep 2015

CNAP Team Unravels Mechanism of TNT Toxicity in Plants Enabling Novel Approach to Explosives Remediation Technology

Biologists at the University of York have taken an important step in making it possible to clean millions of hectares of land contaminated by explosives.

4 Sep 2015

Biomass of Fish Plays an Important Role in Protecting Coral Reef Ecosystems

A new study by WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) has found that coral reef diversity 'hotspots' in the southwestern Indian Ocean rely more on the biomass of fish than where they are located, a conclusion that has major implications for management decisions to protect coral reef ecosystems.

3 Sep 2015

Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate (CAGE) Deployed Two Observatories at Site of Methane Seeps in Arctic Ocean

Mysteries still abound about methane release from the ocean floor. Two state of the art observatories have been deployed offshore Svalbard this summer, to try and unveil the secrets of natural release of the climate gas.

2 Sep 2015

High-Resolution Atmospheric Model to Help Understand Deforestation Impact and Climate Change on Amazon Basin

With the rise of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere, understanding the climate of tropical forests--the Amazon in particular--has become a critical research area. A recent NASA study showed that these regions are the biggest terrestrial carbon dioxide sinks on our planet, absorbing 1.4 billion metric tons of CO2 out of a total global terrestrial absorption of 2.5 billion.

1 Sep 2015

University of Exeter Research Observes Strange and Abrupt Ecosystem Shifts in the North Pacific

Longer, less frequent climate fluctuations may be contributing to abrupt and unexplained ecosystem shifts in the North Pacific, according to a study by the University of Exeter.

1 Sep 2015

Developing the Lynx Separator for Cleaning Ship Emissions

The world shipbuilding industry is facing drastically stricter requirements for emissions starting this year, and by 2020 emissions will need to be cut even more. Currently, as many as 60 per cent of the world's ports have voluntarily joined forces and agreed that they will refuse access to ships that fail to comply with the emission standards. By 2020, this restriction will apply to all ports.

1 Sep 2015

Researchers Develop Method to Precisely Measure Induced Temperature Drop During Large Vocanic Eruptions

Large volcanic eruptions inject considerable amounts of sulphur in the stratosphere which, once converted into aerosols, block sun rays and tend to cool the surface of the Earth down for several years. An international team of researchers has just developed a method, published in Nature Geoscience, to accurately measure and simulate the induced drop in temperature.

1 Sep 2015