climate change – Page 20 – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

Study of Patagonian Glacier’s Rise and Fall Adds to Understanding of Global Climate Change

By Guest PostMarch 24, 2012Environment17th century, andes, antonio de vea, chilean glacier, climate, climate change, climate system, earth, fernando torrejon, fluctuation, glacial environment, glacial melt, glacier, glacier fluctuation, glaciomarine sediment, global temperature, golfo elefantes, gualas glacier, holocene glacier, icebreaker, marine environment, nathaniel b palmer, neoglacial fluctuation, northern patagonian icefield, past temperature, patagonia, patagonias fjords, rainfall data, san rafael, sebastien bertrand, sediment record, spanish explorers, university of ghent, voyages, whoi

Glaciers play a vital role in Earth’s climate system, and it’s critical to understand what contributes to their fluctuation.

Increased global temperatures are frequently viewed as the cause of glacial melt, but a new study of Patagonia’s Gualas Glacier highlights the role of precipitation in the glacier’s fluctuation. The study, conducted by Sébastien Bertrand of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and his colleagues, reconstructs a 5,400 year-record of the region’s glacial environment and climate, comparing past temperature and rainfall data with sediment records of glacier fluctuations and the historical observations of early Spanish explorers. (more…)

Early Spring Drives Butterfly Population Declines

By Guest PostMarch 18, 2012Environment, Naturebutterfly population, carol boggs, caterpillars, climate change, colorado rocky mountains, david inouye, flower, life cycle, mormon fritillary butterfly, national science foundation, nectar, population, saran twombly, snowmelt, species, speyeria mormonia, university of maryland

“Ahead-of-time” snowmelt triggers chains of events in the Mormon Fritillary butterfly

Early snowmelt caused by climate change in the Colorado Rocky Mountains snowballs into two chains of events: a decrease in the number of flowers, which, in turn, decreases available nectar. The result is decline in a population of the Mormon Fritillary butterfly, Speyeria mormonia.

Using long-term data on date of snowmelt, butterfly population sizes and flower numbers at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Carol Boggs, a biologist at Stanford University, and colleagues uncovered multiple effects of early snowmelt on the growth rate of an insect population. (more…)

Science Outreach : Getting Started is Easy!

By Guest PostMarch 17, 2012Media, Scienceblogs, climate change, debate, Facebook, hypothesis, information pyramid, knowledge, marie lambert chan, Media, methodology, scientific knowledge, scientists, traditional media, Twitter, university life, william raillant clark

Sharing scientific knowledge is a fundamental part of university life. Regardless of whether you’re an undergraduate or a tenured professor, everyone has the responsibility of spreading their knowledge as widely as possible.

Why would you want to, though? “For a variety of reasons,” answers William Raillant-Clark, Press attaché at Université de Montréal’s Office of Communications and Public Relations. “The media is an excellent vehicle for communicating your ideas or your discoveries to the general public, and it can also draw the attention of your research peers to your work. This is one of the reasons why funding partners and potential research directors take into consideration science outreach work.” (more…)

Study Links Past Changes in Monsoon to Major Shifts in Indian Civilizations

By Guest PostMarch 15, 2012Environmentasia, band of heavy rain, bay of bengal, camilo ponton, civilizations, climate change, cmz, core monsoon zone, dorian fuller, drilling vessel, drought, equator, eth, global warming, godavari river, harappan civilization, humid monsoon, India, indian monsoon, indian peninsula, insolation, inter tropical convergence zone, itcz, joides resolution, liviu giosan, modern agriculture, monsoon, northern hemisphere, ocean, paleo climatic information, plankton fossil, sahara desert, sediment core, solar radiation, tim eglinton, tropical forest, vegetation, whoi, zurich

A fundamental shift in the Indian monsoon has occurred over the last few millennia, from a steady humid monsoon that favored lush vegetation to extended periods of drought, reports a new study led by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). The study has implications for our understanding of the monsoon’s response to climate change.

The Indian peninsula sustains over a billion people, yet it lies at the same latitude as the Sahara Desert. Without a monsoon, most of India would be dry and uninhabitable. The ability to predict the timing and amount of the next year’s monsoon is vital, yet even our knowledge of the monsoon’s past variability remains incomplete. (more…)

What Makes Ticks Tick?

By Guest PostMarch 11, 2012Healthanaplasmosis, antibiotic therapy, apple, arthritis, babesiosis, bacterium, climate change, dengue fever, disease, durland fish, european ancestry, evolution, infectious diseases, iPhone, lyme disease, maine, malaria, michigan, minnesota, neurological problems, North America, Pennsylvania, placebo, ticks, united states, virginia, west nile virus, wisconsin

Durland Fish has researched ticks and their associated diseases for decades. A professor in the Division of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at the Yale School of Public Health, he has, among other things, contributed to the discovery that the bacterium that causes Lyme disease has European ancestry and that the disease, once nearly eradicated in North America, roared back with reforestation. More recently he helped develop a Lyme disease “app” for the iPhone and other Apple devices that provides users with detailed information about tick populations in any given area in the United States and even comes with a video on how to safely remove a tick. He has also worked on mosquito-borne West Nile virus and dengue fever. Students selected Fish as the school’s mentor of the year in 2010. (more…)

Mapping Tool Analyzes How Climate Change, Conflict and Aid Intersect in Africa

By Guest PostMarch 3, 2012Environmentafrica, aiddata, austin, brigham young university, ccaps data, climate change, dynamic mapping tool, dynamics, francis j gavin, ken lipenga, malawi, minerva initiative, patterns of conflict, policymakers, stability in africa, university of texas, world bank

AUSTIN, Texas — Researchers have developed a new dynamic mapping tool that will help policymakers and other groups determine a country’s vulnerabilities to climate change and conflicts and show how these two issues intersect in Africa.

The pilot version of the tool was released this month by the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at The University of Texas at Austin and additional data tools are expected to come online starting this spring. (more…)

NASA Map Sees Earth’s Trees in a New Light

By Guest PostFebruary 19, 2012Environment, Scienceaustralia, caltech, carbon, carbon cycle, climate change, cloud, data, earth, effects of topography, eucalyptus, flowering plants, forest, forest canopy, forest habitat, global map of forest height, height, high resolution map, icesat, laser pulse measurements, lidar, light detection and ranging, marc simard, modis, monitor, NASA, new zealand, satellites, south latitude, southern tropical forests, Space, spatial modeling, spatial resolution, trmm sensors, vegetation, worldclim database

PASADENA, Calif. – A NASA-led science team has created an accurate, high-resolution map of the height of Earth’s forests. The map will help scientists better understand the role forests play in climate change and how their heights influence wildlife habitats within them, while also helping them quantify the carbon stored in Earth’s vegetation.

Scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; the University of Maryland, College Park; and Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, Mass., created the map using 2.5 million carefully screened, globally distributed laser pulse measurements from space. The light detection and ranging (lidar) data were collected in 2005 by the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System instrument on NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat). (more…)

Fish of Antarctica Threatened by Climate Change

By Guest PostFebruary 16, 2012Environment, Natureantarctic fish, antarctic fish lineage, anti freeze proteins, antifreeze glycoproteins, climate change, evolution of antifreeze, polar conditions

A Yale-led study of the evolutionary history of Antarctic fish and their “anti-freeze” proteins illustrates how tens of millions of years ago a lineage of fish adapted to newly formed polar conditions – and how today they are endangered by a rapid rise in ocean temperatures. (more…)

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