Victorian Fires Release Huge Amount of CO2
February 27, 2009Bushfires that scorched Victoria, Australia, have released millions of tons of carbon dioxide and a top scientist says bushfires could become a growing source of carbon pollution as the planet warms. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) more...
Researchers Fear Hotter Temperatures Threaten Sea Turtles
February 27, 2009Marine researchers monitoring green sea turtle hatchlings at Heron Island off Gladstone in central Queensland say hot weather could see the threatened species become extinct. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) more...
Greenland Warming Lags, but Bound to Catch Up
February 27, 2009A new study suggests that Greenland is lagging behind rest of the northern hemisphere's warming trend, but that it's bound to catch up soon. (Discovery News) more...
Polar Ice Melting Faster Than Expected
February 26, 2009Icecaps around the North and South poles are melting faster and in a more widespread manner than expected, raising sea levels and fuelling climate change, a major scientific survey has shown. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) more...
Polar Year 'Hailed as a Success'
February 25, 2009Scientists and policymakers marked the official end of the International Polar Year on Wednesday at the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva. (BBC News) more...
'Ghost Peaks' Mapped Under Ice
February 25, 2009Scientists have completed their mission to map one of the most extraordinary mountain ranges on Earth, deep under the ice in the middle of the Antarctic continent, and data gathered by the team will help resolve the mystery of why the range exists at all. (BBC News) more...
Wildfires Could Curb Climate Change
February 25, 2009Two of the most destructive consequences of climate change, drought and wildfires, may have an upside—over the course of many centuries, they conspire to suck greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, according to a new study. (Discovery News) more...
Ocean Circulation Triggers 'Seesaw' Climate Change
February 24, 2009Big changes in the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean probably have an impact around the globe, according to a study published Wednesday that touches on a key aspect of climate change. (Discovery News) more...
Climate Change Panel Issues New Warning
February 24, 2009The Earth won't have to warm up as much as had been thought to cause serious consequences of global warming, including more extreme weather and increasing threats to plants and animals, says an international team of climate experts. (Discovery News) more...
Ice-Free Arctic Summers within a Decade?
February 24, 2009Some scientists say that Arctic summers might be ice-free within the next decade— oceanographer Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Post-Graduate School spoke to EarthSky about an accelerating melting of 'multi-year' ice. (Earth & Sky Radio) more...
Ocean's Vital Plankton Sheets Form by 'Mishap'
February 23, 2009Single-celled phytoplankton form massive sheets that stretch for miles through the ocean, and those sheets are likely accidents of ocean circulation, according to a new study that found the tiny swimmers get tumbled and trapped between layered currents of water. (Discovery News) more...
High-Speed Video Captures the Nuts and Bolts of Lightning
February 22, 2009New high-speed video cameras are helping reveal the structure of lightning, allowing scientists to study these deadly bolts of electricity in much greater detail than ever before. (USA Today) more...
Red Tide Sent Seabirds to Their Deaths
February 21, 2009In November 2007, hundreds of dead and bedraggled seabirds washed up on the shores of Monterey Bay in California, and it now appears that it was killer foam that sent them to their deaths. (New Scientist) more...
Arctic Diary: Explorers' Ice Quest
February 20, 2009A team of polar explorers has travelled to the Arctic in a bid to discover how quickly the ice cap is melting and how long it may be before the Arctic summer becomes ice free. (BBC News) more...
Photos: Pygmy Reptile, Rare Orchid Found in "Lost Forest"
February 20, 2009The first scientific expedition into the "lost" forests of Mozambique's Mount Mabu—found using Google Earth—revealed rare animals and plants. (National Geographic News) more...
Arctic Ice to Melt Each Summer
February 19, 2009A group of Russian climate experts claims that ice in the Arctic could completely melt each summer by the end of this century. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) more...
Does Cloud Seeding Work?
February 19, 2009Cloud seeding and other weather-modification schemes have been around for years, but scientists seek to know how they work and if they can really claim that cloud seeding caused a particular storm. (Scientific American) more...
Ancient Black Sea Flood: Nuisance or Calamity?
February 19, 2009One theory follows that along the shores of the Black Sea about 9,500 years ago, a huge flood suddenly drowned the landscape, forcing some of the planet's first farmers to move elsewhere. A new study paints a different picture. (Discovery News) more...
Earth's Cracks May Contribute to Global Warming
February 19, 2009Earth's surface is riddled with fractures, whether they be devastating faults, dank caves or mud cracks on a drying desert plain, and now a new study has found that the cracks exhale large quantities of gas—perhaps enough to affect global warming. (Discovery News) more...
Scientists Dig Deep for In-Depth Look at Earthquakes
February 19, 2009With the help of some new tools, a few groups of scientists are getting a more in-depth (literally, in some cases) view of earthquake faults and the motions they produce. (Live Science) more...
Erosion Rate Doubles on Stretch of Alaskan Coast
February 18, 2009Erosion of a stretch of Alaska's coast surged in recent years to more than double the average historical rate. (Live Science) more...
Mass Extinctions May Follow One-Two Punch
February 17, 2009According to a new theory about how mass die-offs work, cosmic collisions generally aren't enough to cause a major extinction event. To be truly devastating, they must be accompanied by another event that inflicts long-term suffering, like runaway climate change due to massive volcanic eruptions. (Discovery/MSNBC) more...
Survey Shows 'Astonishing Richness' in Ocean Species
February 16, 2009A marine census released Monday documented 7,500 species in the Antarctic and 5,500 in the Arctic, including several hundred that researchers believe could be new to science. (ABC News) more...
Climate Warming Gases Rising Faster than Expected
February 16, 2009Despite widespread concern over global warming, humans are adding carbon to the atmosphere even faster than in the 1990s, researchers warned Saturday. (USA Today) more...
Global Warming Worse than Predicted, Top Scientist Says
February 16, 2009One of the world's leading experts on climate change says a Nobel Prize-winning panel of scientists seriously underestimated the reality of global warming when it published its report just over a year ago. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) more...
Alien Life May Exist Among Us
February 16, 2009Never mind Mars, alien life may be thriving right here on Earth, researchers at a major science conference have announced. (BBC News) more...
Amazon Dieback Overstated
February 16, 2009A study by a group of U.K.-based scientists suggests that the Amazon rainforest may be less vulnerable to severe drying as a result of global warming than previously thought. (BBC News) more...
Climate Models Predicted Australian Bushfires
February 15, 2009Even early warning couldn't stop last weekend's bush fires in Victoria claiming 170 lives and over 700 homes, providing Australia with what may have been a horrifying preview of what climate change has in store for its people. (New Scientist) more...
Satellite Collision Threatens Space Assets
February 14, 2009A Russian and a US satellite crashed into each other in an unprecedented collision unleashing clouds of space debris that could threaten orbiting spacecraft, officials said Thursday. (AFP) more...
Penguins Showing Strain under Climate Change
February 14, 2009Argentina's Magellanic penguins are moving north, laying their eggs later than they used to, and struggling – often unsuccessfully -- to feed their chicks, all as a result of climate change. (Discovery News) more...
Satellite Collision Adds to “Space Junk” Problem
February 14, 2009Space is now polluted with the flotsam and jetsam of a satellite-dependent civilization. (Washington Post) more...
Tsunamis Still Unpredictable, But You Can Watch for Signs
February 13, 2009Oceanographer Eddie Bernard said progress has been made in understanding tsunamis but the science of predicting earthquakes, the disturbance that causes 90 percent of tsunamis, is still unreliable. (Earth & Sky Radio) more...
Humans Could Provide Spark That Ignites Amazon
February 12, 2009In one of the most extreme climate change scenarios, a blistering drought will dry up the Amazon forest, which will ignite and burn away, leaving the world's rain patterns disrupted. (New Scientist) more...
Cold Winter Doesn't Mean Global Warming is Over
February 12, 2009Though the snow and chilly temps this winter almost convinced us that global warming isn't happening, after all, recent climate data shows that it's still hotter than it used to be. (Scientific American) more...
Explorers to Measure Ice Loss at Arctic Circle
February 11, 2009Explorer Pen Hadow is to embark on an expedition to the North Pole to measure the thickness of the melting ice cap, to help scientists predict how long before it disappears altogether. (Discovery News) more...
The Origin of the Ocean Floor
February 9, 2009Scientists have solved the mystery of how lava that spewed from submarine volcanoes and solidified, carpeting deep basins under the oceans, reaches the seafloor. (Scientific American) more...
Cooperation Necessary for Polar Research
February 7, 2009Hear polar scientist Larry Hinzman talk about the technical challenges—and vital importance—of doing research at Earth's poles. (Earth & Sky Radio) more...
Antarctic Shelf Collapse Could Tilt Earth's Axis
February 6, 2009A new study in Canada suggests that the collapse of a large portion of the Antarctic ice shelf would shift the very axis of the planet. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) more...
Climate Change May Reshuffle Western Weeds
February 6, 2009Climate change will likely shuffle some of the West's most troublesome invasive weeds, adding to the burden faced by farms and ranchers in some areas and providing opportunities for native plant restoration in others, according to a new study. (Discovery News) more...
“Noah's Flood" Not Rooted in Reality, After All?
February 6, 2009The ancient flood that some scientists think gave rise to the Noah story may not have been quite so biblical in proportion, a new study says. (National Geographic News) more...
Antarctic Bulge Could Flood Washington, D.C.
February 5, 2009Rather than spreading out evenly across all the oceans, water from melted Antarctic ice sheets will gather around North America and the Indian Ocean and possibly inundate Washington, D.C., a new study shows. (New Scientist) more...
Ocean Acidification From CO2 Is Happening Faster Than Thought
February 5, 2009A lesser-known consequence of having a lot of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air is the acidification of water, say scientists from the University of Chicago. (Scientific American) more...
Google Earth Dives Under the Sea
February 2, 2009Google has lifted the lid on its first major upgrade to its global mapping software, Google Earth. Google Ocean expands this map to include large swathes of the ocean floor and abyssal plain. (BBC News) more...
Melting Glacier Shows Heat Under Alaskan Volcano
February 2, 2009Geologists monitoring Mount Redoubt for signs of a possible eruption spotted a growing hole in one of its glaciers. (Discovery News) more...
No More Glaciers in Glacier National Park by 2020
February 2, 2009It's an oft-repeated statistic that the glaciers at Montana's Glacier National Park will disappear by the year 2030, but a U.S. Geological Survey ecologist says the park's namesakes will be gone about ten years ahead of schedule. (National Geographic News) more...