Category Archives: Environment

NASA Scientist: Climate Just One Factor in Wildfires

By Guest PostJuly 4, 2012Environment2002 hayman fire, ash creek fire, bill patzert, climate, climate change, colorado, factor, fiery summer, forests, grasslands, horse creek fire, jpl climatologist, la niña, los angeles county, misr, nasa scientist, new mexico, southeastern montana, southern california, united states, us wildfire season, wildfire

It’s shaping up to be a fiery summer across the United States. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, as of July 3, 45 large active wildfires are currently burning in 15 states. Combined, these fires have scorched nearly three-quarters of a million acres. Since January 1, wildfires have burned nearly 2.2 million acres across the country, including devastating blazes in Colorado and New Mexico. We asked JPL Climatologist Bill Patzert to discuss the recent wildfire outbreak and whether climate change is playing a role.

Q: The U.S. wildfire season is off to an active start. What factors have contributed to the recent rash of blazes?

Patzert: Across the West, out-of-control wildfires this summer have left a heartbreaking path of destruction. The primary condition that triggered these fires was an unusually dry and warm La Nina winter and spring. These conditions primed the Western U.S. for an incendiary summer. The arrival of a persistent, scorching high-pressure system over the Western and Central U.S. just exacerbated already dangerous conditions, which reached a tipping point when strong, gusty winds sent these fires rampaging across the landscape. From New Mexico to Colorado and many other states, out-of-control wildfires are still burning through forests, grasslands and destroying neighborhoods. (more…)

Weevils and Weeds

By Guest PostJuly 3, 2012Environmentamanda stout, chester county, China, coverdale farm preserve, creek state park, dave pro, delaware, doug tallamy, judy hough goldstein, margo mcdonough, mile a minute, pea patch island, photosynthesize, rhinoncomimus latipes, shrubs, weed, weeds, weevil, weevils, white clay, yard

UD researchers use weevils to check spread of prolific mile-a-minute weed

Mile-a-minute weed has declared war on Doug Tallamy’s yard. This non-native, invasive vine is growing up his trees, scrambling over shrubs and smothering tree seedlings. By blocking sunlight, it weakens a plant by reducing its ability to photosynthesize.

Mile-a-minute doesn’t care one whit that Tallamy, professor and chair of the University of Delaware’s Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology, is a highly respected proponent of native gardening who doesn’t believe in planting any non-natives, let alone a highly invasive non-native.

“The deer brought mile-a-minute from our neighbor’s yard three years after we moved in,” says Tallamy. “We had just a few plants the first year, a few hundred the second year, and 20 trillion the third year.” (more…)

Despite Efforts for Change, Bangladeshi Women Prefer to Use Pollution-Causing Cookstoves

By Guest PostJuly 2, 2012Environment, Generalanimal dung, bangladeshi district, bangladeshi household, bangladeshi women, biomass, black carbon, cooking, cookstove, environmental impact, flooding, greenhouse gas, hatiya, health risk, jamlpur, mushfiq mobarak, pollution causing, puneet dwivedi, robert bailis, rural bangladesh, traditional stove, women, yale study, yale university

Women in rural Bangladesh prefer inexpensive, traditional stoves for cooking over modern ones — despite significant health risks, according to a Yale study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A large majority of respondents (94%) believed that indoor smoke from the traditional stoves is harmful. Still, Bangladeshi women opted for traditional cookstove technology so they could afford basic needs.

“Non-traditional cookstoves might be more successful if they were designed with features valued more highly by users, such as reducing operating costs even if they might not reduce environmental impact,” said Mushfiq Mobarak, a co-author and associate professor of economics at the Yale School of Management. (more…)

Melting Sea Ice Threatens Emperor Penguins, Study Finds

By Guest PostJuly 1, 2012Environment, Natureantarctic peninsula, antarctic sea ice, Antarctica, christophe barbraud, climate models, climate variable, demographic model, dion islets, east antarctica, emperor penguins, food web, global temperature, happy feet, henri weimerskirch, ipev, krill, life cycle, marika holland, mark serreze, melting sea ice, nutrient cycle, organism, penguin colony, penguin population, sea bird, sea ice forecasts, shrimplike animal, squid, stephanie jenouvrier, terre adelie, warming temperature, whoi

At nearly four feet tall, the Emperor penguin is Antarctica’s largest sea bird—and thanks to films like “March of the Penguins” and “Happy Feet,” it’s also one of the continent’s most iconic. If global temperatures continue to rise, however, the Emperor penguins in Terre Adélie, in East Antarctica may eventually disappear, according to a new study by led by researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). The study was published in the June 20th edition of the journal Global Change Biology.

“Over the last century, we have already observed the disappearance of the Dion Islets penguin colony, close to the West Antarctic Peninsula,” says Stephanie Jenouvrier, WHOI biologist and lead author of the new study. “In 1948 and the 1970s, scientists recorded more than 150 breeding pairs there. By 1999, the population was down to just 20 pairs, and in 2009, it had vanished entirely.” Like in Terre Adélie, Jenouvrier thinks the decline of those penguins might be connected to a simultaneous decline in Antarctic sea ice due to warming temperatures in the region. (more…)

UW Deploying Seismic Sensors in Hope of Getting to Bottom of Spokane Quakes

By Guest PostJune 29, 2012Environmentautomated earthquake, bill steele, cascades, detector, douglas gibbons, echoes, fault, geological structure, internet access, mild earthquake, motion sensor, netquakes, ocean shores, oregon, project, puget sound region, seismic network, seismometer, spokane, spokane area, university of washington, Washington, yakima

It’s been a decade since a swarm of relatively mild earthquakes shook up parts of Spokane. Now, armed with the right tools, scientists want to find out what was at fault.

“It was always something not as well understood as we thought it should be,” said Douglas Gibbons, a University of Washington researcher in Earth and space sciences, who is guiding installation of strong-motion sensors as part of a project called NetQuakes.

NetQuakes will install a half-dozen seismometers in the Spokane area by the end of June, mostly in volunteers’ homes, to help improve understanding of what lies beneath the city. (more…)

UMD-Led Research Yields Key to Better Predictions of El Nino

By Guest PostJune 28, 2012Environmentcyclical climate event, economic impacts, el niño

COLLEGE PARK, Md. –– A University of Maryland scientist and an undergraduate Indian student he mentored in India have uncovered a major new finding about El Nino — the cyclical climate event that appears every 2-7 years, sometimes with major global weather impacts such as massive flooding in some regions and severe droughts in others and resulting major economic impacts. (more…)

New Findings of Endangered Birds at Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge Give Hope to Recovery Efforts

By Guest PostJune 27, 2012Environment, Natureakiapolaau, american people, avian disease, avian malaria, awehi stream, carter t atkinson, climate change, endangered birds, endangered species, extinction, forest bird survey, forest habitat, hakalau forest, hawaii akepa, hawaii creeper, hawaii island, hawaiian forest birds, high elevation rainforest, marcia mcnutt, mauna kea, mosquito, pacific island ecosystems, plants, pox virus, robyn thorson, steve kendall, U.S. Geological Survey, usgs, wildlife, wildlife refuge

HAWAI’I ISLAND, Hawai‘’— Three of Hawai’i Island’s rarest endangered forest birds have been detected at lower elevations of Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge for the first time in 30 years.

The rediscovery of the three endangered species at lower elevations than expected was part of a joint U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Geological Survey project on the potential impact of climate change on avian disease. All three species are believed to be highly susceptible to mosquito-transmitted diseases, limiting their distribution to the cooler, higher elevations of the refuge. These new observations significantly extend the current known range of these species at the refuge. (more…)

Humans Have Love-Hate Relationship With the Environment

By Guest PostJune 26, 2012Environmentanthropologist, canal irrigation, climate changes, Environment, environmental change, environmental trend, geomorphological characteristics, global warming, hominid ancestors, human pollution, humans, industrial revolution, interaction, irrigation agriculture, james watson, la playa site, local landscape, love hate, methane, mother nature, natural disaster, North America, northern mexico, northern sonora, relationship, soil deposition, sonoran desert, southern arizona, steep slope, toxic gases, village settlement

James Watson, a UA anthropologist, has published chapters describing how long-term environmental trends encourage stable adaptations within local environments.

Human/environment interactions have a history as long as the existence of our species on the planet.

Hominid ancestors began polluting their environment nearly 700,000 years ago with the control of fire, and humans have not looked back since.

The modern phenomenon of global warming is very likely the direct result of human pollution and destruction of the environment, said James Watson, a University of Arizona assistant professor in the School of Anthropology. (more…)