Krill may be small, but their role in carbon storage is monumental. Beneath Antarctica's icy waters, these tiny crustaceans are emerging as unexpected heroes in the fight against atmospheric carbon.



While the significance of blue carbon habitats like mangroves, seagrasses, and saltmarshes is well-known, recent research highlights the vital contribution of Antarctic krill and their impressive carbon storage capacity.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-unsung-heroes-of-carbon-capture">The unsung heroes of carbon capture</h2>



When we think of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/mountains-both-carbon-sinks-and-carbon-sources/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">carbon sinks</a> - the vital natural systems that absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere - we might not consider the role of small crustaceans.



The new findings reveal that Antarctic krill store amounts of carbon that are comparable to critical blue carbon habitats like mangroves, seagrasses, and saltmarshes.



Despite <a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/antarctic-krill_store-huge-amounts-carbon_credit-Imperial-College_1m.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">their minute size</a>, these krill contribute significantly to carbon cycling, thanks to their enormous combined populations.



"A key player in the biological carbon pump is the Antarctic krill,&nbsp;Euphausia superba, whose faecal pellets, moults and carcasses can completely dominate Southern Ocean carbon fluxes to the ocean’s interior in the Austral growth season," wrote the researchers.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-role-of-krill-in-carbon-cycling">The role of krill in carbon cycling</h2>



Krill are often viewed as merely being food for larger animals. Whales, seals, and penguins relish these <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/new-deep-sea-crustacean-species-discovered-in-the-bahamas/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">crustaceans</a>, and humans also fish them for bait, aquaculture, and dietary supplements. 



However, the value of krill extends far beyond the food chain.



“For the past decade we have been piecing together the role krill have in carbon cycling, finally resulting in this amazing finding that krill, and their poo, store similar amounts of carbon as some coastal marine plants," explained Dr. Emma Cavan, one of the lead authors from <a href="https://www.imperial.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Imperial College London</a>.



Protection for these vital creatures is an urgent matter. 



"I hope this means we can now work towards conserving krill and their valuable Southern Ocean ecosystem with the same gumption as we are seagrasses and mangroves," Cavan continued.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-carbon-storage-in-ocean-systems">Carbon storage in ocean systems</h2>



<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-change-is-impacting-marine-life-more-than-we-realized/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Marine life</a> plays a pivotal role in locking carbon away from the atmosphere in ocean systems. The term "blue carbon" was coined over a decade ago to describe the crucial role <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/native-aquatic-plants-could-help-clean-coastal-waters/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">coastal marine plants</a> play in this process. 



Yet, the ocean has other storage methods far from the coast through animals like krill. These creatures feed on phytoplankton - microscopic <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/good-news-plants-are-absorbing-more-human-produced-co2-than-expected/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">plants that absorb carbon</a> during photosynthesis.



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/antarctic-krill_store-huge-amounts-carbon_illustration_credit-Imperial-College_1m.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><img src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/antarctic-krill_store-huge-amounts-carbon_illustration_credit-Imperial-College_1s.webp" alt="Illustration of Antarctic krill in the Southern Ocean ecosystem. Credit: Glynn Gorick/Imperial College" class="wp-image-1945051"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Illustration of Antarctic krill in the Southern Ocean ecosystem. Credit: Glynn Gorick/Imperial College</figcaption></figure>



When krill excrete or shed their exoskeletons, the carbon they've consumed sinks to the ocean depths, where it remains for a long time. 



This process could lock away at least 20 million tons of carbon annually, which is the equivalent of up to $46 billion worth of carbon storage.



“Antarctic krill are well known for being at the center of the unique Southern Ocean ecosystem and supporting an important fishery. But this study paints another picture of krill -- on their key role in storing carbon," noted study co-author Professor Angus Atkinson from <a href="https://pml.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Plymouth Marine Laboratory</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-power-of-krill-swarms">The power of krill swarms</h2>



The massive populations of krill make them effective carbon storers. Swarms can contain up to 30 trillion individuals, producing a deluge of carbon-rich waste products.



“One of the amazing things about krill is that they form massive swarms, which can be over a kilometer in length," said Dr. Anna Belcher, a co-author from the <a href="https://www.ceh.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">UK Centre for Ecology &amp; Hydrology</a>. 



"This drives a huge 'rain' of krill poo after feeding, making krill globally important for locking carbon away from the atmosphere."



The study also reveals that the depth needed to secure carbon storage effectively is surprisingly shallow, with an average of 381 meters.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-protecting-krill-for-carbon-storage">Protecting krill for carbon storage </h2>



Antarctic krill are under increasing threat from rapid polar climate change, which is drastically altering their habitat. These krill are also targeted by an expanding fishery that further depletes their populations.



The combined pressures make the carbon storage capacity of krill an urgent and vital area for protection. 



Preserving this crucial carbon sink is essential for maintaining the delicate balance of the Southern Ocean ecosystem, and for meeting global climate goals.



The research highlights the need to integrate carbon considerations into broader conservation policies.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52135-6" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nature Communications</a>.



-----



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Tiny Antarctic krill store enormous amounts of carbon

Krill may be small, but their role in carbon storage is monumental. Beneath Antarctica's icy waters, these tiny crustaceans are emerging as unexpected heroes in the fight against atmospheric carbon. While the significance of blue carbon habitats like mangroves, seagrasses, and saltmarshes is well-known, recent research highlights the vital contribution of Antarctic krill and their impressive carbon storage capacity. The unsung heroes of carbon capture When we think of carbon sinks - the vital natural systems that absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere - we might...

As Hermine worked its way up the East Coast, scientists deployed several underwater drones they say will help them better understand what sustains and strengthens hurricanes and tropical storms - and ultimately better protect life and property.
The ocean gliders, as they are called, resemble yellow-winged torpedoes. They were released into the ocean roughly 100 miles offshore at the continental shelf, where at depths of 100 to 300 feet they measured water temperatures, salinity and density before, during and even after the storm.
Traditional research aircraft that are flown into the eye of a hurricane to take measurements can't get a read on any of that.
"One reason hurricanes are so hard to forecast is that intensity depends on conditions ahead of and below the storm," said Glen Gawarkiewicz, an oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, Massachusetts.
The robotic gliders, which are remotely controlled from the shore, can delve into the heart of the storm where it's too dangerous or impractical to send people, and then feed real-time information via satellite to scientists safe on land.
The gliders have been in use for several years now, but this is the third year of the coordinated program funded by the NOAA office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. Gawarkiewicz said the latest deployments will give a "look at the continental shelf system in a more holistic manner."
Woods Hole works on the federally funded program in conjunction with the University of Maine, the University of Maryland, Rutgers University and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.
The most important thing the gliders collect is water temperature, an important tool in predicting storm intensity, Gawarkiewicz said.
If the storm churns up colder water from the deep ocean, it will decrease in intensity.
The data will help forecasters better predict future storms, and perhaps better warn coastal residents when a monster hurricane is about to hit.
Scientists hit the jackpot with Hermine. Although it was a relatively weak hurricane and had been downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it reached waters off the Northeast, it moved slowly and lingered in the Atlantic off the New York/New England coast for a few days, giving scientists a wider window in which to gather data.
The gliders are still out there, collecting post-storm data that will give scientists a picture of what happens weeks after a hurricane or tropical storm passes through, which can affect future weather.
It may take months to fully analyze the Hermine data, but there have already been some surprises, Gawarkiewicz said. For example, the storm drifted farther west than originally predicted, and the data collected may help explain why.
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Scientists use undersea ocean gliders to predict hurricanes

As Hermine worked its way up the East Coast, scientists...

<div>An extinct reptile related to crocodiles that lived 212 million years ago in present day New Mexico has been named as a new species, Vivaron haydeni, in a paper published this week by Virginia Tech's <a href="http://www.geos.vt.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Department of Geosciences</a> researchers.</div>
<div>

Leading the paper that names the previously unknown animal is undergraduate researcher Emily Lessner of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, a double major in the departments of Geosciences and Biological Sciences, both in the Virginia Tech College of Science. Lessner's paper detailing the fossil of the animal - jawbones, other skull fragments, and hip-bones - appears in this week's open science journal, <a href="https://peerj.com/articles/2336.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PeerJ</a>.

Vivaron haydeni was found in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, in 2009 during an excavation co-led by Sterling Nesbitt, then a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, and now an assistant professor of geosciences at Virginia Tech. Some of the fossils remained sealed in protective plaster jackets until 2014, when they were transported to Blacksburg for study. That's where Lessner enters.

At the time a sophomore majoring in Biological Sciences with a minor in Geosciences, she was seeking an independent research experience that piqued her interest and provided a challenge. She found it with the Paleobiology Research Group in Derring Hall.

Nesbitt had not arrived on campus yet and was looking for students interested in conducting research projects. When Lessner heard of the opportunity and the chance to work with Nesbitt and Michelle Stocker, also a newly arriving paleontologist in the college, Lessner jumped at the chance.

"Initially, I cleaned fossils in the lab and worked on a project reconstructing soft tissue structures using computed tomographic, or CT, scans on the computer," said Lessner, now a senior. "I began looking at Vivaron pretty soon after."

The name of the new species came from Lessner. Vivaron haydeni is named for a famed, monstrous snake - 30 feet long - of Ghost Ranch lore, a story passed around campfires more than a century ago, and John Hayden, a hiker who in 2002 discovered the New Mexico quarry from which the fossils were collected.

The fossil represents the sixth species of rauisuchid found thus far, and the second found in what is now the American Southwest, but was once part of the western portion of the supercontinent Pangea.

Vivaron was a carnivorous archosaur - a large set of animals that includes crocodilians and dinosaurs, as mammals includes humans and dogs. Vivaron itself measured 12 to 18 feet long, and walked on four legs. Thus far, three jaw bones, other skull fragments, and hip-bones from at least three individuals - two large, one smaller - have been found.

"These were some of the biggest predators at the time, all dinosaurs were much smaller," added Nesbitt, speaking of the Triassic Period, more than 200 million years ago.

Vivaron is distinguishable by its upper jaw bone, which is smoother in appearance than other rauisuchid species. Other features of the animal must be inferred from close relatives. The New Mexico location in which it was found is a hot spot for paleontology research. Other parts of Vivaron may still be there.

"It is possible that other bones were not preserved, were previously collected, or are still in the ground," said Lessner, who added geosciences as a second major soon after beginning work on Vivaron.

Bones of Vivaron that Lessner took apart, cleaned, and are on hand in the paleontology lab, some kept in protective sleeves and plaster jackets as they are thin and incredibly fragile. The detailed cleaning process was as much a learning process as any part of Lessner's work with the lab. "When you look at anything so long, so close, you realize extra details and patterns you would not otherwise notice," she added.

Lessner said her undergraduate research experience has greatly enriched her college experience.

"It has given me opportunities that simply attending class never has and has opened up doors for my future. I have been able to gain first-hand experience in the field," said Lessner.

She has learned to write scientifically, met paleontologists from around the world, and participated in digs in Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming with both Stocker and Nesbitt. She has presented her findings to the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology; the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology; the Southeastern Association of Vertebrate Paleontology; and will speak before the 2016 Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.

All this in addition to being published in a journal by the age 22.

She credits Nesbitt and Stocker for setting her undergraduate education on a new course. "They got here just as I was looking for them," Lessner said of her sophomore year looking for a new direction.

Nesbitt said he is "paying it forward" when working with undergraduate students in the paleontology lab, as he himself began his career as a paleontologist via independent undergraduate research projects at University of California Berkeley. "These experiences are what really made me understand what it is like to think as a scientist and how to take on complex scientific problems one step at a time," he said.

"Emily embodies a key characteristic all undergraduate researchers need, bravery,"said Nesbitt. "You constantly are in situations that you have never been in, from fieldwork in the middle of a desert to presenting research in front of 200 professionals."

Added Stocker: "Emily has become an important member of our research group. She's taken on an increasing amount of responsibility since she first started with us, and she's now a leader among our students. She's ready to tackle the next steps of her career."

Among her career plans, Lessner wants to enter a graduate program upon completion of her undergraduate degree and she wants to one day investigate the Triassic fossil quarries of her native southeastern Pennsylvania.

"There is something for everyone, whether it be within your major or outside it, as mine was," she said of the variety of research projects and methods across Virginia Tech. "Contact and even work with multiple people, especially if you are unsure of your interests; do not be afraid to reach out to professors. Find something you really like and it will turn into something meaningful."
###
Lessner's New Mexico fieldwork experience and research at Virginia Tech was supported by a National Science Foundation grant to a collaborative research team consisting of scientists from Virginia Tech, the University of Utah, Stony Brook University, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.

Additional resources are available at <a href="http://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2016/09/science-EmilyLessnerVivaronHaydeni.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Virginia Tech News</a>.

</div>

Vivaron haydeni: New species of reptile from 212 million years ago

An extinct reptile related to crocodiles that lived 212 million...

Gov. Jerry Brown is set to extend the nation's most ambitious climate change law by another 10 years on Thursday as California charts a new goal to reduce carbon pollution.
The Democratic governor chose an urban natural park on the edge of downtown Los Angeles as the setting to sign the legislation, SB32, into law.
The bill expands on California's landmark 2006 law, which set the goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The state is set to meet or exceed that benchmark, Brown said, with steps including restricting the carbon content of gasoline and diesel fuel, encouraging sales of zero-emission vehicles and imposing a tax on pollution.
The new measure by Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, sets a new goal of reducing emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, which Brown called the most aggressive target enacted by any government in North America.
He says the ultimate goal is to cut climate-warming pollution by 80 percent under 1990 levels by 2050, though legislation that would have enacted that target was watered down.
Supporters overcame strong opposition from oil companies and other industry interests to pass the bill a year after business-friendly Democrats in the Assembly derailed an even more ambitious proposal to limit the use of oil in the state. Republicans say California's efforts have raised consumer costs without noticeably affecting global emissions.
Brown told a gathering a day earlier in Sacramento that critics have long tried to scuttle reforms by saying they aren't feasible.
"It wasn't too many years ago that our electric utilities said they could not get to 20 percent renewable electricity," Brown told a meeting hosted by the California Independent System Operator, which oversees the state's power grid. "Well, this month it's been over 26 percent. They said they couldn't get there by 2020. Now, they're all saying - all the major privately owned utilities - they can get to 50 percent by 2030."
Brown also plans to sign another bill, AB197, by Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, that provides more legislative oversight of the appointed Air Resources Board, which is responsible for implementing the law, and gives aid to poorer areas that lawmakers say have suffered the most harm from climate change.
The governor, who has traveled the world promoting greenhouse-gas reduction efforts, issued an executive order last year setting the 2030 goals contained in SB32.
But his signing leaves in jeopardy the state's best-known emissions reduction measure. The California Chamber of Commerce has a pending legal challenge to the tax on carbon known as cap-and-trade, which requires polluters to buy permits to emit greenhouse gases. The last two permit sales also have fizzled.
The chamber warned that SB32 will require severe new restrictions that could make the state's energy supply less affordable.
---
Associated Press writers Don Thompson and Juliet Williams in Sacramento contributed to this report.
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California to extend climate change law by 10 years

Gov. Jerry Brown is set to extend the nation's most...

APTOPIX Mine Waste Leak

A historic Colorado mountain town is on the threshold of a transformation after the federal government announced it will embark on an ambitious campaign to stanch the flow of acidic wastewater cascading from abandoned mines.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday designated an area north of Silverton as a Superfund site, clearing the way for a multimillion-dollar cleanup that could last years.
"I think we're all in for one heck of an adventure," said Mark Esper, editor of the Silverton Standard newspaper.
Tainted wastewater has been flowing from idle mines in the San Juan Mountains for years, but some of Silverton's 600-plus residents resisted a Superfund designation, worried it would discourage tourists and skiers. Silverton is best known for the steam-powered Durango &amp; Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad and the Silverton Mountain ski area.
But when the EPA accidentally triggered a 3-million-gallon wastewater spill from the Gold King Mine in August 2015, contaminating rivers in three states, public opinion shifted. Silverton and surrounding San Juan County got behind the Superfund listing.
"It has been a stunning turnaround," Esper said. He said he wasn't sure of all the reasons for the reversal, but others have said residents recognized that a long-term solution was urgent and only the federal government could afford it.
"People I thought never would be supporting Superfund totally reversed," he said.
Silverton Town Administrator Bill Gardner said he was "tremendously happy" with the Superfund listing.
"What a great benchmark for this community and for our downstream partners," he said.
He praised the EPA for listening to the town's concerns.
"I think the EPA deserves a lot of credit," he said. "I think they've worked very hard with the voice of the community."
The agency calls the project the Bonita Peak Mining District Superfund Site. It includes 47 other sites besides the Gold King, most of them mining-related.
The EPA has already been at work in the area, building a temporary treatment plant to clean up water still flowing from the Gold King, sampling water and sediment and assessing fish and wildlife habitat.
That process will probably end next year, said Rebecca Thomas, EPA's manager for the project.
The agency will then study different cleanup methods, choose a preferred option and ask for public comment. Work would then start on designing and implementing the cleanup.
Fixes could include water treatment plants for acidic waste draining from the site, plugging abandoned mines that are leaking and moving mine waste piles away from streams, Thomas said.
It's too early to say how long the cleanup will take or what it will cost, Thomas said.
The EPA estimated that the Gold King blowout sent 880,000 pounds of metals into the Animas River in Colorado, including arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel and zinc.
Utilities and farmers temporarily stopped drawing water from the rivers for drinking and irrigation. The EPA said water quality quickly returned to pre-spill levels.
Public pressure on the EPA has been intense.
An investigation last year by the Interior Department, which is independent of the EPA, said the cleanup crew could have avoided the spill but rushed its work.
Interior officials said they found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. A separate criminal investigation is still underway, along with an internal EPA inquiry.
Congress has conducted multiple hearings.
New Mexico has sued both the EPA and Colorado over the spill, while the Navajo Nation sued the federal government. Utah officials say they also plan to sue.
Acting New Mexico Environment Secretary Butch Tongate said his state and other downstream jurisdictions were excluded from some of the Superfund planning. "We will persist in our fight to protect New Mexicans and to hold EPA fully accountable," he said in a written statement.
Esper said Silverton could become a research center for cleaning up leaking mines across the nation. The Government Accountability Office estimates that at least 33,000 abandoned mines across the West and in Alaska are contaminating water or causing other environmental problems.
The Colorado cleanup might also improve the town's finances, which have been in decline since a mine and mill closed in 1991, Esper said.
"I think people are really optimistic in the future of Silverton. I don't think we see Superfund as being a hindrance to that," he said.
---
Follow Dan Elliott at <a href="http://twitter.com/DanElliottAP.">http://twitter.com/DanElliottAP.</a> His work can be found at<a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/content/dan-elliott.">http://bigstory.ap.org/content/dan-elliott.</a>
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Silverton, Colorado preps for big changes from Superfund cleanup

A historic Colorado mountain town is on the threshold of...

The U.S. government was wrong to exclude large areas of the Rocky Mountains when it designated almost 40,000 square miles of habitat as critical to the survival of imperiled Canadian lynx, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen in Montana ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to consider adding more habitat for the wild cats in several states.
The judge cited the presence of a reproducing lynx population in the southern Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Agency officials had earlier concluded that area was "not essential" for the recovery of the species, pointing in part to low population densities of snowshoe hares that lynx eat.
"The (Fish and Wildlife) Service's own representations suggest that parts of Colorado constitute suitable critical habitat," Christensen wrote. He added that snowshoe hares are "certainly present" in the southern Rockies at densities "at or near" the level needed to support lynx.
"In such a close call....the (Endangered Species Act) demands that the tie go to the species," the judge said.
Lynx are elusive, forest-dwelling animals. There is no reliable population estimate for the species. It was listed as threatened in 2000, but a dispute lingers as to where lynx should receive the strongest protections.
Christensen also ruled that officials had failed to analyze the potential for lynx to thrive in portions of Montana and Idaho when they made their critical habitat designation in 2014.
But the judge agreed with the government that a critical habitat designation wasn't needed in Oregon and the Kettle mountain range in Washington state, where there has been little evidence of lynx.
That means lynx in those areas will be protected from hunting and trapping, but there will be less stringent reviews of human activities that could affect the dense forests they need to survive.
Wildlife advocates sued the government following the 2014 habitat designation. They said Wednesday's ruling could mark a "turning point" in lynx recovery.
"The species really now has a fighting chance," said attorney Matt Bishop with the Western Environmental Law Center, who represented some of the plaintiffs in the case. "The feds can no longer discard the southern Rockies or its importance for lynx."
Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Serena Baker said the agency was disappointed with the ruling on the southern Rockies, Montana and Idaho - but pleased that aspects of the 2014 habitat designation were left in place.
She declined to say if the agency would appeal Christensen's ruling or how long it would take to comply.
The American Petroleum Institute and Washington State Snowmobile Association sided with the government in the case. They had asked Christensen to reject the lawsuits from Wildearth Guardians, Cascadia Wildlands and the other plaintiffs.
---
Follow Matthew Brown on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/matthewbrownap">https://twitter.com/matthewbrownap</a>
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Judge: US should reconsider Canadian lynx habitat

The U.S. government was wrong to exclude large areas of...

<div>The effects of man-made climate change can hamper scientific projections of how key global weather patterns will act in the future, a new study has revealed.</div>
<div>

The pivotal study, carried out by a team of international researchers, has shown that 'multiple' environmental influences can stymie predictions of how mid-latitude storms could behave.

Professor Mark Baldwin, Head of Mathematics at the University of Exeter and co-author of the paper said: "The study frames the important problem of what factors influence the paths of storms, and explores the possible future changes to storms and precipitation as climate changes."

Specifically, the study looks at how a series of environmental forces such as enhanced surface warming in the Arctic - known as Arctic amplification - will impact the position of storm tracks. These are regions where storms travel from west to east across oceans and continents, driven by the prevailing jet stream.

The study suggests that there is a 'tug of war' between how these different environmental forces could change the position of the storm tracks.

Crucially, such major changes could significantly impact many of the most iconic cities worldwide - including New York, Chicago, London, Tokyo, Cape Town and Melbourne - because they shape temperature, precipitation and extreme weather.

The study, a review of the latest research in the field, is published in leading scientific journal Nature Geoscience.

In idealized and comprehensive climate model simulations, warming due to increased carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere leads the clouds in high latitudes to reflect more solar radiation - thereby cooling the earth's surface in those regions and increasing the temperature gradient between the equator and the poles. In isolation (the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth's surface) this would lead to a poleward shift of the storm tracks.

Meanwhile, those same clouds tend to enhance the greenhouse effect, thereby warming the Earth's surface in those same regions and decreasing the temperature gradient between the equator and the poles, producing an opposite shift (also, in isolation).

Dr Tiffany S. Shaw, assistant professor in geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago and lead author of the paper added: "Changes in the position of storm tracks in response to anthropogenic climate change depend on how the equator-to-pole temperature gradient will change, and among the various factors affecting this gradient, cloud changes stand out as one of the important pieces of the puzzle.

The study found many examples of opposing influences affecting the position of storm tracks. These included the opposing influence of warming in the tropical upper atmosphere and Arctic amplification (enhanced surface warming in the Arctic), both of which occur in models in response to climate change.

Ultimately, any major changes in the position of storm tracks will have a significant impact on society because storm tracks shape temperature, precipitation, and extreme weather.

"The opposing cloud influences on the equator-to-pole gradient should be studied in more detail to understand the ultimate outcome of this 'tug of war' as it relates to the future position of the storm tracks," Shaw said.

The researchers have now called for expanding observational efforts and the hierarchy of computer simulations used to understand how storm tracks will shift in response to the increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Such shifts in position have the potential to significantly change patterns of rain, snow, heat waves and cold outbreaks. For example, if storm tracks shift poleward, New York and Chicago will likely experience warmer weather and less snow. And there's already evidence that the shift of the austral storm track southward - which was caused by the ozone hole at the South Pole -has impacted rain in Australia and South America.
###
The Nature Geoscience review article, titled Storm track processes and the opposing influences of climate change, grew out of a conference held last year in Grindelwald, Switzerland, that was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and The World Climate Research Program.

</div>

Man-made climate change can hamper weather forecasts

The effects of man-made climate change can hamper scientific projections...

<div>Researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology show catastrophic declines in wilderness areas around the world over the last 20 years. They demonstrate alarming losses comprising a tenth of global wilderness since the 1990s - an area twice the size of Alaska and half the size of the Amazon. The Amazon and Central Africa have been hardest hit.</div>
<div>

The findings underscore an immediate need for international policies to recognize the value of wilderness areas and to address the unprecedented threats they face, the researchers say.

"Globally important wilderness areas--despite being strongholds for endangered biodiversity, for buffering and regulating local climates, and for supporting many of the world's most politically and economically marginalized communities--are completely ignored in environmental policy," says Dr James Watson of the University of Queensland in Australia and the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York. "Without any policies to protect these areas, they are falling victim to widespread development. We probably have one to two decades to turn this around. International policy mechanisms must recognize the actions needed to maintain wilderness areas before it is too late. We probably have one to two decades to turn this around."

Watson says much policy attention has been paid to the loss of species, but comparatively little was known about larger-scale losses of entire ecosystems, especially wilderness areas which tend to be relatively understudied. To fill that gap, the researchers mapped wilderness areas around the globe, with "wilderness" being defined as biologically and ecologically intact landscapes free of any significant human disturbance. The researchers then compared their current map of wilderness to one produced by the same methods in the early 1990s.

This comparison showed that a total of 30.1 million km2 (around 20 percent of the world's land area) now remains as wilderness, with the majority being located in North America, North Asia, North Africa, and the Australian continent. However, comparisons between the two maps show that an estimated 3.3 million km2 (almost 10 percent) of wilderness area has been lost in the intervening years. Those losses have occurred primarily in South America, which has experienced a 30 percent decline in wilderness, and Africa, which has experienced a 14 percent loss.

"The amount of wilderness loss in just two decades is staggering" Dr Oscar Venter of the University of Northern British Colombia. "We need to recognize that wilderness areas, which we've foolishly considered to be de-facto protected due to their remoteness, is actually being dramatically lost around the world. Without proactive global interventions we could lose the last jewels in nature's crown. You cannot restore wilderness, once it is gone, and the ecological process that underpin these ecosystems are gone, and it never comes back to the state it was. The only option is to proactively protect what is left".

Watson says that the United Nations and others have ignored globally significant wilderness areas in key multilateral environmental agreements and this must change.

"If we don't act soon, there will only be tiny remnants of wilderness around the planet, and this is a disaster for conservation, for climate change, and for some of the most vulnerable human communities on the planet," Watson says. "We have a duty to act for our children and their children."
###
Watson et al.: "Catastrophic Declines in Wilderness Areas Undermine Global Environment Targets" <a href="http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(16)30993-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(16)30993-9</a>

WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society)

MISSION: WCS saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature. To achieve our mission, WCS, based at the Bronx Zoo, harnesses the power of its Global Conservation Program in nearly 60 nations and in all the world's oceans and its five wildlife parks in New York City, visited by 4 million people annually. WCS combines its expertise in the field, zoos, and aquarium to achieve its conservation mission. Visit: <a href="http://newsroom.wcs.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">newsroom.wcs.org</a> Follow: <a href="http://www.twitter.com/WCSNewsroom" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@WCSNewsroom</a>. For more information: 347-840-1242.

</div>

Study: 10 percent of global wilderness has been lost since 1990

Researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology show catastrophic declines...

<div>
<div class="img-wrapper">As global temperatures rise, how will lake ecosystems respond? As they warm, will lakes -- which make up only 3 percent of the landscape, but bury more carbon than the world's oceans combined -- release more of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane? And might that create a feedback loop that leads to further warming?</div>
To predict the effects of rising air temperatures on the carbon cycle of lakes, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers will link computer models of changing weather, water temperature, and emissions of carbon dioxide and methane for 2,000 lakes across the United States, including Lake George, through 2105. The project is supported with a $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, and led by Kevin Rose, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Rensselaer and the Frederic R. Kolleck '52 Career Development Chair in Freshwater Ecology.

"We know lakes are important in the global carbon cycle -- absorbing and emitting carbon- - and that's critical to regulating global air temperatures. But we don't know how the role of lakes will change as a result of rising air temperatures," said Rose. "Right now, we can model changes for an individual lake -- using characteristics like surface area, depth, water clarity, and temperature profile -- but to be useful as a planning and research tool, we need to work on a much larger scale."

Carbon enters a lake as organic matter (such as falling leaves or soil suspended in runoff) and is cycled through the food chain, feeding plants and then animals. Some carbon settles to the lake bottom and is buried in sediment, but some is released back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane. As with all biological processes, lake emissions are temperature dependent, rising and falling along a temperature gradient. The challenge in predicting lake emissions for thousands of lakes across the country lies in the enormous variety of characteristics from lake to lake.

To tackle that challenge, the project will forecast future weather conditions for 2,000 lakes over the next 90 years using high-resolution weather forecasting models and projections of climate change provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In the second phase of the project, the team will draw upon the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Lakes Assessment, a statistical survey that tracks chemical, biological, and physical characteristics of the target lakes. By feeding those characteristics and the forecasted weather data into an existing open source hydrodynamic model, the team will generate predicted changes in lake thermal characteristics such as the temperature profile (mapping temperature according to depth), depth of temperature stratification, and ice cover.

The team is able to calibrate and validate the model by running the model back through time, as far back as 1979, and comparing their results with recorded weather and lake temperature data available from the North American Land Data Assimilation System and the EPA National Lakes Assessment.

The team will then use the resulting lake temperature data to estimate changes in lake metabolism -- the absorption versus emission of carbon--and seek to draw conclusions based on those estimates, such as differences based on region or specific characteristics of lakes.

"The goal is to close the loop between long-term changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide, leading to global temperature increases, leading to changes in lake water temperature, leading to changes in the role of lakes in the global carbon cycle," Rose said. "In other words, how much carbon dioxide is going to come out of lakes with more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere -- is there going to be positive feedback?"

Rose's research fulfills the vision of The New Polytechnic, an emerging paradigm for higher education which recognizes that global challenges and opportunities are so great they cannot be adequately addressed by even the most talented person working alone. Rensselaer serves as a crossroads for collaboration--working with partners across disciplines, sectors, and geographic regions -- to address complex global challenges, using the most advanced tools and technologies, many of which are developed at Rensselaer. Research at Rensselaer addresses some of the world's most pressing technological challenges -- from energy security and sustainable development to biotechnology and human health. The New Polytechnic is transformative in the global impact of research, in its innovative pedagogy, and in the lives of students at Rensselaer.
###
About Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1824, is America's first technological research university. The university offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in engineering; the sciences; information technology and web sciences; architecture; management; and the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Rensselaer faculty advance research in a wide range of fields, with an emphasis on biotechnology, nanotechnology, computational science and engineering, data science, and the media arts and technology. The Institute has an established record of success in the transfer of technology from the laboratory to the marketplace, fulfilling its founding mission of applying science "to the common purposes of life." For more information, please visit <a href="http://www.rpi.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.rpi.edu</a>.

</div>

How do lakes impact global warming?

As global temperatures rise, how will lake ecosystems respond? As...

Study: Typhoons are getting much stronger. Typhoons that slam into land in the northwestern Pacific - especially the biggest tropical cyclones of the bunch - have gotten considerably stronger since the 1970s, a new study concludes.
Overall, landfalling Asian typhoon intensity has increased by about 12 percent in nearly four decades. But the change is most noticeable for <a href="http://www.earth.com/image/thunderstorms-and-dust-invade-the-bahamas/">storms</a> with winds of 209 kilometers per hour or more (130 mph), those in categories 4 and 5. Since 1977, they've gone from a once-a-year occurrence to four times a year, according to a study Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience. Study: Typhoons are getting much stronger
These are storms like Lionrock that in August killed at least 17 people, about half of them elderly residents of a Japanese nursing home, and Haiyan - one of the strongest storms on record, killing more than 6,000 people in the Philippines in 2013.
Study lead author Wei Mei, a climate scientist at the University of North Carolina, connects the strengthening of these storms to warmer seawater near the coasts. That provides more fuel for the typhoons. Along much of the Asian coast, water has warmed by nearly 0.8 degrees (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) since the late 1970s. Mei didn't study why the water is warming, but says it is probably due to a combination of natural local weather phenomena and warming from the burning of fossil fuels.
Mei and two other outside scientists say it is too early to say precisely that the increased intensity is from man-made climate change.
But as the world warms more in the future, stronger storms are likely to get even more intense, especially north of 20 degrees North latitude, where eastern China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan are located, Mei says.
Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach says the study makes sense and raises interesting questions, but adds that some of the storms before 1987 might have had their wind speeds under-estimated. Mei said he thinks that time period actually had better measurements because planes were then flying into storms to gauge their strength.
Mei didn't study tropical cyclone intensification in other parts of the world.
---
Online:
Nature Geoscience: <a href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/index.html">http://www.nature.com/ngeo/index.html</a>
---
Follow Seth Borenstein at <a href="http://twitter.com/borenbears">http://twitter.com/borenbears</a> and his work can be found at<a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/content/seth-borenstein">http://bigstory.ap.org/content/seth-borenstein</a>
© 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Study: Typhoons are getting much stronger

Study: Typhoons are getting much stronger. Typhoons that slam into...

<div><img class="ff-og-image-inserted" src="http://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/media.eurekalert.orgmultimedia_prodpubweb123323_web-9bfc26009ea1bc2a375496dc2c1668b17f0494d3.jpg" /></div>
IMAGE: Seasonality of bird migration is shifting in response to climate change. <a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/123323.php">view more </a>
<div>

A University of Oklahoma study demonstrates for the first time that remote sensing data from weather surveillance radar and on-the-ground data from the eBird citizen science database both yield robust indices of migration timing, also known as migration phenology. These indices can now be used to address the critical gap in our knowledge regarding the cues that migrants use for fine tuning their migration timing in response to climate.

"These scientists combined citizen science observations with data from radar, satellites and weather predictions to understand the cues birds use in their migrations across continents," said Liz Blood, program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research through NSF's MacroSystems Biology Program. "The results show that birds migrate in time with warming temperatures in spring and with seasonal changes in the surface of the land, like the leafing-out of trees."

Seasonality of bird migration is shifting in response to climate change and, as a result, birds are arriving at their northern breeding grounds earlier in the spring. The OU study conducted in the eastern United States uses two novel data sources, weather surveillance radar and eBird citizen science data, to build indices of bird migration timing. These indices are innovative and reflect timing of migration of millions of birds of many species over large regions, expanding on more traditional measures of migration timing based on a few individuals of a particular species.

OU researchers compared these new measures of migration with environmental cues that are thought to be used by birds to adjust migration timing. They found that temperature is likely to be useful to migrants in making adjustments in timing in route, however, they dispute the notion that a commonly used index of vegetation greenness is a useful cue for migration timing in the study region.

OU Professors Jeffrey F. Kelly, Todd Fagin and Eli S. Bridge, Oklahoma Biological Survey, and graduate student Kyle G. Horton, Department of Biology, OU College of Arts and Sciences; in collaboration with OU Professors Phillip B. Chilson, School of Meteorology, and Kirsten de Beurs, Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability, OU College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences; and Phillip M. Stepanian, formerly with the Advanced Radar Research Center, worked together to demonstrate how migration timing relates to land surface phenology and temperature changes.

"Understanding which environmental cues link migration timing to patterns of global change is key to forecasting future responses of migration systems," said Kelly. "Novel data sources from the weather surveillance radar network and the eBird citizen science database enable development of a migration phenology index that can be used to answer this question in future studies."
###
A paper describing this study, "Novel measures of continental-scale avian migration phenology related to proximate environmental cues," was published online Sept. 6 by Ecosphere at <a href="http://www.esajournals.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.esajournals.org</a>. Funding for this project was provided by the National Science Foundation grant EF-1340921 and by the National Institute for Food and Agriculture of the U.S. Department of Agriculture award 2013-67009-20369.

For more information about eBird, jointly coordinated by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, visit <a href="http://www.birds.cornell.edu/citscitoolkit/projects/clo/eBird/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.birds.cornell.edu/citscitoolkit/projects/clo/eBird/</a>. Contact Jeffrey F. Kelly at <a href="mailto:jkelly@ou.edu">jkelly@ou.edu</a> for more information about this project and other related OU

</div>
<div>

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

</div>

OU study demonstrates seasonality of bird migration in response to environmental cues

IMAGE: Seasonality of bird migration is shifting in response to climate...

<div>Ocean warming is affecting humans in direct ways and the impacts are already being felt, including effects on fish stocks and crop yields, more extreme weather events and increased risk from water-borne diseases, according to what has been called the most comprehensive review available on the issue, launched today by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Hawai'i. Ocean warming is already impacting humans</div>
<div>

The report, Explaining ocean warming: Causes, scale, effects and consequences, reviews the effects of ocean warming on species, ecosystems and on the benefits oceans provide to humans. Compiled by 80 scientists from 12 countries, it highlights detectable scientific evidence of impacts on marine life, from microorganisms to mammals, which are likely to increase significantly even under a low emissions scenario.

"Ocean warming is one of this generation's greatest hidden challenges - and one for which we are completely unprepared," says IUCN Director General Inger Andersen. "The only way to preserve the rich diversity of marine life, and to safeguard the protection and resources the ocean provides us with, is to cut greenhouse gas emissions rapidly and substantially."

Ocean warming is already affecting ecosystems from polar to tropical regions, driving entire groups of species such as plankton, jellyfish, turtles and seabirds up to 10 degrees of latitude towards the poles, causing the loss of breeding grounds for turtles and seabirds, and affecting the breeding success of marine mammals, according to the report.

By damaging fish habitats and causing fish species to move to cooler waters, warming oceans are affecting fish stocks in some areas and are expected to lead to reduced catches in tropical regions, the report states.

In East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean, for example, ocean warming has reduced the abundance of some fish species by killing parts of the coral reefs they depend on, adding to losses caused by overfishing and destructive fishing techniques. In South-East Asia, harvests from marine fisheries are expected to fall by between 10% and 30% by 2050 relative to 1970-2000, as the distributions of fish species shift, under a high 'business as usual' greenhouse gas emission scenario, the report states.

"Most of the heat from human-induced warming since the 1970s - a staggering 93% - has been absorbed by the ocean, which acts as a buffer against climate change, but this comes at a price. We were astounded by the scale and extent of ocean warming effects on entire ecosystems made clear by this report," says Dan Laffoley, Marine Vice Chair of the World Commission on Protected Areas at IUCN, and one of the lead authors.

The report also highlights evidence that ocean warming is causing increased disease in plant and animal populations, and impacting human health as pathogens spread more easily in warmer waters, including cholera-bearing bacteria and harmful algal blooms that cause neurological diseases like ciguatera.

Warming oceans are also affecting the weather, with a range of knock-on effects on humans. The number of severe hurricanes has increased at a rate of around 25-30% per degree of global warming, the report states.

Ocean warming has led to increased rainfall in mid-latitudes and monsoon areas, and less rain in various sub-tropical regions. These changes will have impacts on crop yields in important food-producing regions such as North America and India, according to the report.

The protection against climate change offered to us by oceans and their ecosystems - such as absorbing large amounts of CO2 and sheltering us from storms and erosion - is also likely to reduce as the ocean warms, according to the report.

The report's recommendations include recognising the severity of ocean warming impacts on ocean ecosystems and the benefits they provide to humans, expanding marine protected areas, introducing legal protection for the high seas, better evaluating the social and economic risks associated with warming oceans and continuing to fill gaps in scientific knowledge, as well as cutting greenhouse gas emissions rapidly and substantially.

Ocean conservation is one of the major themes addressed by the ongoing IUCN Congress, where IUCN Members will vote on motions related to protecting the high seas and protected areas in Antarctica among many others.
###
For more information, please contact:

(In Hawaii) Ewa Magiera, IUCN Media Relations, m +1 8086751459 / m +41 76 505 33 78, e-mail <a href="mailto:ewa.magiera@iucn.org">ewa.magiera@iucn.org</a>
IUCN Congress Media Team, e-mail: <a href="mailto:congressmedia@iucn.org">congressmedia@iucn.org</a>

About IUCN

IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature, helps the world find pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges. IUCN's work focusses on valuing and conserving nature, ensuring effective and equitable governance of its use, and deploying nature-based solutions to global challenges in climate, food and development. IUCN supports scientific research, manages field projects all over the world, and brings governments, NGOs, the UN and companies together to develop policy, laws and best practice. IUCN is the world's oldest and largest global environmental organisation, with almost 1,300 government and NGO Members and more than 15,000 volunteer experts in 185 countries. IUCN's work is supported by almost 1,000 staff in 45 offices and hundreds of partners in public, NGO and private sectors around the world. <a href="http://www.iucn.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www.iucn.org</a>

</div>

Ocean warming is already impacting humans

Ocean warming is affecting humans in direct ways and the...

Obama has quietly transformed US energy policy. Mostly unnoticed amid the political brawl over climate change, the United States has undergone a quiet transformation in how and where it gets its energy during Barack Obama's presidency, slicing the nation's output of polluting gases that are warming Earth.
As politicians tangled in the U.S. and on the world stage, the U.S. slowly but surely moved its energy policy away from emissions-spewing coal and toward cleaner fuels like natural gas, nuclear, wind and solar. The shift has put the U.S. closer to achieving the goal Obama set to cut emissions by more than a quarter over the next 15 years, but experts say it is nowhere near enough to prevent the worst effects of global warming.
The overlooked changes took center stage Saturday in China. Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping entered the world's two worst polluters into a historic agreement to ratchet down heat-trapping pollution. Obama hailed "the investments that we made to allow for incredible innovation in clean energy."
U.S. Department of Energy statistics show jolts in where America gets its volts:
-In 2008, 48 percent of America's electricity came from coal, the dirtiest power source; now it's about 30 percent. That's less than the combined U.S. output of carbon-free nuclear and renewable energy.
-There are now more than three solar power jobs in the U.S. for every job mining coal.
-In just the first five months of 2016, more solar power was generated than 2006 through 2012.
-In 2008, the U.S. imported about two-thirds of its oil, and politicians spoke longingly of energy independence. Now, America imports less than half its oil.
-U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide - the main greenhouse gas - are down more than 10 percent, and this year is on pace to be the lowest in about a quarter-century.
"There were gigantic changes happening in the energy world, gigantic tectonic changes," said Peter Fox-Penner of the Boston University Institute for Sustainable Energy. "It's a sea change. There is no question."
Facing steep obstacles in Congress, Obama never aggressively pursued new emissions-curbing legislation, aside from a half-hearted attempt at cap-and-trade in his first term that was politically disastrous for Democrats. Instead, he relied on executive authority and regulations at home while largely going above lawmakers' heads by focusing on brokering global deals to curb carbon and other greenhouse gases.
So how much credit does Obama deserve? And how much was completely outside his control? That debate is playing out in Obama's final months in office, as the president tries to go out with a bang on climate and the environment.
Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas lobby, pointed out that Obama pitched his sweeping pollution limits on coal-fired power plants as the main driver of lower future emissions - but the courts have put those rules indefinitely on hold. Meanwhile, emissions have fallen due to a dramatic increase in cleaner-burning natural gas, which Obama was slow to try to regulate.
"We are leading the world in carbon reductions today, and it's driven primarily by cleaner-burning, affordable natural gas that was brought to you by innovation and technological advances in the oil and natural gas industry," Gerard said.
But Brian Deese, Obama's senior adviser, said the seeds of the fracking technology that enabled the natural gas revolution were found in federal Energy Department research conducted in the 1970s. He noted that the people who warned Obama's policies - like his "Clean Power Plan" emissions limits - would be disastrous are the same people now celebrating the natural gas revolution.
"You can't on the one hand argue that the Clean Power Plan is an overarching regulation that's going to impose all these costs, enforce all these changes in the industry, and on the other hand argue that change is happening independent of what government is doing and therefore these regulations are meaningless," Deese said in an interview.
The advent of fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, produced much more natural gas, which became much cheaper and elbowed out coal as America's fuel of choice. That has surprised all sorts of experts.
In 2000, Dana Fisher, director of the University of Maryland's Program for Society and the Environment, predicted the U.S. was unlikely to wean itself off coal because it was cheap and plentiful. And John Reilly of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, predicted heat-trapping gas emissions would grow.
Both admit they were wrong, with an embarrassed Reilly calling the subsequent decline "a dramatic turnaround from what everyone has expected."
<a href="http://www.earth.com/news/coal-plants-closed-trump/">Obama</a> had little to do with the fracking boom, except to not get in the way with regulations, energy experts said. But Obama pushed through 2009's stimulus package that goosed spending and research in renewables, like solar, wind and hydro. His administration also increased fuel mileage requirements for cars and trucks and ratcheted up appliance and building energy efficiency standards.
"His war is against fossil fuels, and natural gas is a fossil fuel," said Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., the Senate's most prominent climate change doubter. "You can't separate that out and say it's somehow different than other fossil fuels. It's not."
Natural gas is a "bridge fuel" from coal, which spews about twice as much heat-trapping carbon dioxide, but America still needs to wean itself from that fossil fuel too, said Granger Morgan, Carnegie Mellon University engineering and public policy professor.
And there are some downsides to these significant changes - like higher power bills in a few places - said Jeff Holmstead, a Bush-era environmental official who lobbies for utilities that depend on coal.
"It's a shame that we've shut down a lot of plants that were continuing to provide low-cost power," Holmstead said.
The change in America's energy supply is still too slow and pollution cuts are not enough to prevent dangerous global warming, Morgan said, adding "but it's certainly better than the alternative, which is continuing to sail on as if we weren't heading into the big storm."
---
Borenstein reported from Washington.
---
Follow Seth Borenstein at <a href="http://twitter.com/borenbears">http://twitter.com/borenbears</a> and Josh Lederman at<a href="http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP">http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP</a>
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Obama has quietly transformed US energy policy

Obama has quietly transformed US energy policy. Mostly unnoticed amid...

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.igb.illinois.edu/">Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology</a> reveals how scientists can modify common crops like soybean, rice, and wheat to protect them from heat stress.



“We need to double crop production by 2050 to feed a growing global population, and not only are we not on track to do that, but climate change is further complicating things,” said Amanda Cavanagh, a lecturer at the University of Essex. 



The study is part of Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE), an international research project that aims to develop food crops that turn the sun’s energy into food more efficiently.



“Using an engineering approach we designed multiple alternative metabolic pathways to photorespiration. Testing them in the field showed increases in productivity which led Amanda to significantly move the project forward by showing our engineered plants can withstand pretty extreme temperature stress,” said study co-author and RIPE researcher Paul South.&nbsp;



“As the climate changes and temperature stresses increase the pressure on our global food supply, farmers will need every tool available including engineering approaches like the synthetic biology used here to maintain safe and productive harvests.”



The experts tested plants modified to have more efficient photorespiration to see if they were better adapted to warmer temperatures.&nbsp;



The team found that the engineered plants produced 26 percent more biomass than the wild-type plants exposed to the same temperatures, and had 15 percent less yield loss under the higher temperatures.



Video Credit: Amanda Nguyen/University of Illinois



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Designing crops that can beat the heat

[sendtonews key="QGPzYnXEtN-1712599-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from Carl...

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes the first comprehensive estimate of carbon density in the Saharan, Sahel, and Sudanian zones of Africa. In an effort to measure the amount of carbon stored across these drylands, a team of scientists used high-resolution satellite images and artificial intelligence to map nearly 10 billion individual trees. 



"The high spatial resolution (50 cm) combined with AI and field measurements used in this study is key to improving tree inventories in drylands," said Pierre Hiernaux, a French researcher working for NASA. "The ever-increasing availability of very high-resolution satellite imagery will make it possible to assess carbon pools and their dynamics at the individual tree level on a global scale."



"This study is exceptional because it is pioneering a type of approach that will revolutionize the monitoring of trees and forests on a global scale: in the short term, it will be possible to map the world's trees from the centre of the Amazon to our schoolyards," said <a href="https://www.inrae.fr/en">INRAE</a> researcher Jean-Pierre Wigneron.



"Many fields of application will become much more efficient and accurate, such as tracking carbon stocks, biodiversity, monitoring logging and protection against illegal forest degradation, in near real time.”



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Remote sensing will revolutionize the way we monitor trees

[sendtonews key="EjmSP20gQK-2593093-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

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Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky" Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features northwest Lesotho in South Africa.



According to ESA, Lesotho is the only nation in the world that lies completely above 1,000 m in elevation. The country is famous for its tall mountains and narrow valleys, and is known as Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky."



Out of a population of around two million people, about 80 percent live in rural areas. More than 75 percent of these people are engaged in <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-change-will-have-a-global-impact-on-agriculture/">agriculture</a>, including rainfed cereal production and animal grazing.&nbsp;



ESA reports that the country’s agricultural system faces a growing number of issues, with climate-related vulnerabilities such as drought, floods and extreme temperatures occurring more frequently. 



Diamonds are amongst the minerals found in the mountains. Indeed, Lesotho can truly be called the Kingdom in the Sky. Beautiful, culturally rich, safe, affordable, and easily accessible from Durban and Johannesburg, mountainous Lesotho is a vastly underrated travel destination. the Kingdom of Lesotho (Sotho: 'Muso oa Lesotho) is an enclaved country in southern Africa. It is just over 30,000 km2 (11,583 sq mi) in size and has a population of around 2 million.



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky"

[sendtonews key="uV9Lh2fQbV-1760058-12187" type="single"] Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky" Today’s...

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> features a visual dataset of.methane emissions from wetlands across the globe. Atmospheric methane levels have reached record highs in recent years, and wetlands are a major source of these emissions.&nbsp;



"Methane is an important greenhouse gas that contributes substantially to global warming. On a molecule by molecule basis, methane is much more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, the main driver of warming," says NASA.



"Though human activities, including agriculture, oil and natural gas production and use, and waste disposal, collectively contribute the majority of methane to the atmosphere, about a third of total methane emissions comes from wetlands."&nbsp;



According to NASA, understanding methane emissions from wetlands and other natural sources is critically important for scientists and policymakers who are working to combat climate change by reducing emissions from human activities.



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Wetlands are a major source of methane emissions

[sendtonews key="f8fukm28Vz-2491833-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> reveals the evolution of the Columbia Glacier in southeastern Alaska. Columbia is among the fastest shrinking glaciers in the world, and the video documents its rapid retreat over the years.&nbsp;



Columbia Glacier is a large, multi-branched calving glacier that flows out of the Chugach Mountains to the Prince William Sound.&nbsp;



According to USGS, Columbia had a long history of stability prior to 1980, with a length 41 miles, and small, short-lived advances or retreats.



In the years since 1980, however, satellite images have captured Columbia’s alarming retreat. By using false-color images, scientists can distinguish between snow and ice, open water, vegetation, and rocky debris on the glacier’s surface.



The series of false-color images featured in today's video were acquired over the span of 35 years. You can see that by 2021, the glacier’s main branch had retreated about 15 miles from its initial position.



The Columbia Glacier has also lost more than 50 percent of its volume, mostly due to calving. <a href="https://www.earth.com/video/nasa-reveals-3d-visual-of-an-atmospheric-river/">NASA</a> reports that while climate change likely started the retreat, mechanical processes kept the disintegration going.



The NASA images are provided by Jesse Allen, Robert Simmon, Joshua Stevens, and Lauren Dauphin using data from Landsat satellites, from the U.S. Geological Survey, and data from MODIS on NASA’s Terra satellite. The structure of Columbia’s moraine played a large role in the stability of the glacier before 1980. 



Like other tidewater glaciers, the Columbia built up a moraine over time, and the mixture of ice and rock functioned like a dam keeping out the sea. It was supported on one end by the shoreline and by the underwater terminal moraine at the other.



Video Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/&nbsp; NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

[sendtonews key="0879czfG3k-1785905-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from NASA...

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes how record-breaking heat expressed itself around the world in 2022.



Scientists have determined that 2022 was the 5th warmest year since 1880. Furthermore, the last nine consecutive years have been the warmest on record.



From devastating floods and wildfires to natural disasters like Hurricane Ian, 2022 showed us yet again how a warming climate affects people across the globe.&nbsp;



"As we look back at 20:22 and years past, we see that each year we better understand the challenges we face and how important it is to meet them," says NASA.



Video/ Image Credit: NASA Goddard



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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2022 illustrated the consequences of a warming climate

[sendtonews key="3UUsNkFOuS-2487333-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

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Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes Earth’s interconnected systems, and how this network is affected by rising temperatures.&nbsp;



During 2020, average global temperatures matched the hottest year on record. The hurricane season was also record-breaking, with many of the storms intensifying at extraordinary speeds. Hot water in the ocean is fuel for hurricanes. The satellite data shows that it's all one interconnected system showing how Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected.



According to NASA, dust swept up from Northern Africa plays a major role in the formation of hurricanes, and is also a key source of fertilization in the Amazon rainforest. As a result of<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/seagrass-wasting-disease-is-fueled-by-climate-change/"> climate</a> change, dust plumes are expected to decline, which will have an effect on vegetation far away.&nbsp;



Images from Earth-observing satellites show how the world’s plant life is affected by natural disasters, fires, and deforestation. Satellites also reveal how widespread changes in vegetation impact waterways,&nbsp; the climate, air quality. Satellites communicate by using radio waves to send signals to the antennas on the Earth. "Earth From Space" is a groundbreaking two-hour special that reveals a spectacular new space-based vision of our planet. 



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

[sendtonews key="JbW4VsY53O-1632195-12187" type="single"] Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected...

Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://welcome.miami.edu/">University of Miami</a> Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science explores how changes in water temperatures have affected tiger shark habitats and movements in the North Atlantic Ocean. The study reveals that rising temperatures have caused the sharks to shift toward the poles over the past 40 years.



“Tiger shark annual migrations have expanded poleward, paralleling rising water temperatures,” explained study lead author Neil Hammerschlag. “These results have consequences for tiger shark conservation, since shifts in their movements outside of marine protected areas may leave them more vulnerable to commercial fishing.”



The researchers analyzed nine years of tracking data from satellite-tagged tiger sharks, combined with four decades of conventional tag and recapture data provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Cooperative Shark Tagging Program.



The experts found that during the last decade of record heat, for every one-degree Celsius increase in water temperatures, tiger sharks migrated further poleward by over 400 kilometers. They also migrated two weeks earlier than usual to waters off the northeastern coast of the United States.



“Given their role as apex predators, these changes to tiger shark movements may alter predator-prey interactions, leading to ecological imbalances, and more frequent encounters with humans,” concluded Professor Hammerschlag.



Video Credit: University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Tiger sharks are shifting poleward as temperatures rise

Today’s Video of the Day from the University of Miami...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> is focused on the melt ponds that emerge during the spring and summer on the Greenland Ice Sheet, which is the largest ice mass in the northern hemisphere.



"Melt ponds are vast pools of open water that form on both sea ice and ice sheets and are visible as turquoise-blue pools of water in this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image," says ESA.



"When snow and ice melts atop glaciers, water flows in channels and streams and collects in depressions on the surface. These melt ponds can speed up the melting of the surrounding ice since they greatly reduce the ice’s ability to reflect sunlight."



"This can create a positive feedback where an increasing number of melt ponds absorb more heat which causes ice cover to melt even faster."



According to ESA, Greenland has been hit with a late-season heatwave that began in early September. This caused the type of melt event that usually occurs in the middle of summer.



"In a recent paper published in Nature Climate Change, scientists found that major sea-level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice cap is now ‘inevitable’ even if the burning of fossil fuels were to halt overnight," says ESA. "Using satellite observations of Greenland ice loss and ice cap from 2000 to 2019, the team found the losses will lead to a minimum rise of 27 cm regardless of climate change."



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Melt ponds on the Greenland Ice Sheet

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes how Earth is unique in our solar system for its ability to sustain liquid water on its surface. But now, the water cycle is shifting as the climate warms, and scientists must find ways to predict how these changes will affect water availability.



Overall, 96 percent of Earth's water is saltwater, and nearly all of freshwater is found in ice and groundwater. These sources of water are linked as it passes through solid, liquid and gas phases.



In a warmer climate, the water cycle will be transformed. It will be easier for water to evaporate and form clouds, and storms will become more frequent and intense. Some regions will get too much water, while others will be left without enough water. In addition, soil moisture will be lost - which threatens food security.



Scientists are using satellite data from over the last 40 years to track changes that are happening in the water cycle. This will ultimately help us prepare for extreme events and better manage our water resources, according to ESA.



Video Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Tracking changes in Earth's water cycle

[sendtonews key="fxH3eJHEkQ-2010196-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

Saturn,-,High,Resolution,3d,Images,Presents,Planets,Of,The

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> features images of Saturn from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The photographs capture the start of the mysterious "spoke season" on Saturn - when unexplained features appear on its rings. 



According to NASA, both the cause of the spokes and their seasonal variability have yet to be fully explained by planetary scientists.



"Like Earth, Saturn is tilted on its axis and therefore has four seasons, though because of Saturn's much larger orbit, each season lasts approximately seven Earth years. Equinox occurs when the rings are tilted edge-on to the Sun," explains NASA.



"The spokes disappear when it is near summer or winter solstice on Saturn. (When the Sun appears to reach either its highest or lowest latitude in the northern or southern hemisphere of a planet.) As the autumnal equinox of Saturn's northern hemisphere on May 6, 2025, draws near, the spokes are expected to become increasingly prominent and observable."



Experts believe that the spokes may be a product of the planet's variable magnetic field. When magnetic fields interact with solar wind, an electrically charged environment is created. This phenomenon is visible on Earth as the northern lights.&nbsp;



"Scientists think that the smallest, dust-sized icy ring particles can become charged as well, which temporarily levitates those particles above the rest of the larger icy particles and boulders in the rings," says NASA.



The spokes were first observed in the early 1980s by NASA's Voyager mission. Depending on the angle of the rings, the spokes can appear dark or light.



"Thanks to Hubble's OPAL program, which is building an archive of data on the outer solar system planets, we will have longer dedicated time to study Saturn’s spokes this season than ever before," said NASA senior planetary scientist Amy Simon, head of the Hubble Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program.



"Despite years of excellent observations by the Cassini mission, the precise beginning and duration of the spoke season is still unpredictable, rather like predicting the first storm during hurricane season."



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Mysterious "spoke season" captured on Saturn

[sendtonews key="Ccjk8KEMzv-2550719-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

Closeup,Of,Fresh,Green,The,Napier,Bush,Grass,As,Animal

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="http://www.ntu.edu.sg/">NTU Singapore</a> reveals that some plants can remove toxic heavy metals from soil.&nbsp;



The researchers analyzed samples of various tropical plant species to test for levels of heavy metals and metalloids. The study showed that there are existing plants with high levels of these contaminants, which means that these species are great candidates for drawing pollutants out of the soil.&nbsp;



Among the plants examined in the study, 12 species had accumulated several types of heavy metals and metalloids. These plants are widely available, including species that are native to Singapore.



“In a small nation like Singapore, land may be repurposed to support new development plans, so it is important that we have a green and sustainable way to remediate land that is contaminated," said Professor Lam Yeng Ming.



"We set out to uncover how to better make use of tropical plants to do phytoremediation and through advanced characterization techniques, we showed how some of these tropical plant species can be an environmentally friendly and literally a 'green' way to remove contaminants in soil."&nbsp;



"Phytoremediation also has benefits of cost effectiveness, simplicity of management, aesthetic advantages, and long-term applicability and sustainability. The strategy prevents erosion and metal leaching by stabilizing or accumulating heavy metals, so that helps reduce the risk of contaminant spread.”



Video Credit: NTU Singapore



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Plants help remove heavy metals from contaminated soil

[sendtonews key="6SdlLLbt0t-1988946-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from NTU...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> describes why herbicides are not as effective in killing weeds anymore. In the 20th century, chemical companies developed thousands of herbicides. The most commonly used herbicide was glyphosate, which was introduced in 1974.



Over the past few decades, dozens of species of weeds have evolved resistance to glyphosate. Depending on the site of action, the part of the plant that an herbicide interacts with, weeds may even be resistant to herbicides that have not been developed yet.&nbsp;



With increasing resistance to glyphosate and other herbicides, weeds are - once again - becoming a major concern for farmers.&nbsp;



Video Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Weeds are becoming increasingly resistant to herbicides

[sendtonews key="gRpsplpwpe-2251464-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/">NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory</a> (JPL) describes a dust storm on Mars that was nearly twice the size of the United States. As the storm covered the southern hemisphere of the planet, some of NASA’s explorers had to delay their normal activities.



NASA’s Insight lander put itself in a "safe mode" for 11 days to conserve battery power because solar power was disrupted by the dust. The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter postponed flights until conditions improved.



"A fleet of NASA orbiters monitor Martian dust storms like this one and serve as lifelines to Earth by relaying data from the rovers and lander on the ground back to the team. This includes the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, and Odyssey," reports JPL.



"Dust storms like this recent one start close to the ground and are spread by wind as they rise – warming the cold Martian atmosphere."



The images in the video were captured by NASA’s Curiosity as the dust rolled in. A fleet of orbiters monitored the dust storm from above, relaying data from Mars’ explorers back to scientists on Earth.



Video &amp; Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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NASA monitors giant dust storms on Mars

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="http://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz. This strait provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean.



Qeshm is separated from the Iranian coast by the Clarence Strait, also known as Khuran.&nbsp;The Hara Forest Protected Area is a network of shallow waterways and forest located between the island and the mainland. This protected region is home to sea turtles, snakes, and more than 150 species of migrating birds.



Qeshm is famous for its wide range of&nbsp;ecotourist&nbsp;attractions, such as the&nbsp;Hara marine forests. According to environmentalists, about 1.5 percent of the world birds and 25 percent of Iran's native <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/female-hummingbirds-avoid-sexual-harassment-by-looking-like-males/">birds</a> annually migrate to the forests, which are the first national geo park in Iran.



Tourists are also drawn to the island to see an age-old Portuguese&nbsp;fort, historic mosques, the&nbsp;Seyyed Mozaffar&nbsp;and&nbsp;Bibi Maryam&nbsp;shrines, and the "Valley of Stars."



The average temperature on the island is 81 degress and the region is often hot and humid. From June to August, the island is described as being oppressively hot. The ideal time to visit is during the winter season. 



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Inhambane Bay in southeast Mozambique.&nbsp;



"Inhambane Bay is a deep inlet into which the small Mutamba River flows," says ESA. "On one side of the bay lies the historical city of Inhambane, capital of the Inhambane Province, while the sister city of Maxixe, the economic capital of Inhambane, sits across from it. The province is the second largest grower of cashews, after Nampula, and it also produces coconut and citrus fruits."



The beaches of Barra and Tofo are popular with tourists. There are also coral reefs along the long coastline of Inhambane, making it an ideal destination for scuba diving and snorkeling.



"Mozambique’s extensive coastline heightens the country’s vulnerability to tropical cyclones that develop in the Indian Ocean as well as storm surge flooding," says ESA.



"More than half of the population lives in low lying coastal areas, putting communities at risk. Inhambane Bay was dangerously close to where Cyclone Idai made landfall in 2019 causing widespread destruction to the country."



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Inhambane Bay in southeast Mozambique

[sendtonews key="yPSXGZek1I-2312529-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency </a>&nbsp;features the Kangerlussuaq Glacier, one of the largest tidewater outlet glaciers in Greenland. The glacier is located on the east coast of the Greenland ice sheet.



As human-induced climate change continues to drive up temperatures, global ice loss is accelerating at an alarming rate. ESA reports that, over the past decade alone, 3.5 trillion tons of ice have melted from the Greenland ice sheet. This is enough to cover the UK with meltwater 15 meters deep.



Based on satellite imagery, researchers determined that Kangerlussuaq entered a new phase of rapid retreat and acceleration in 2017. In their study, published in <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2019.00123/full">Frontiers in Earth Science</a>,&nbsp; the experts report that the glacier's ice front is now at its most retreated position since the early 20th century.



"Given Kangerlussuaq’s previous impacts on both the magnitude and pattern of ice sheet wide mass loss, we predict that its new phase of retreat, acceleration and thinning will markedly enhance the south-east region’s contribution to increasing discharge from the ice sheet," wrote the study authors.&nbsp;&nbsp;



"More broadly, accurate forecasting of the ice sheet’s contribution to sea level rise will require a deeper understanding of, and responses to, these non-linear ice dynamic processes."



Video Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Kangerlussuaq Glacier on the Greenland ice sheet

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes the complex relationship between ocean and climate. ESA's Climate Change Initiative will help us understand how oceans influence the climate and how climate change is impacting the oceans.&nbsp;



"Earth’s oceans are huge heat stores, soaking up 93% of the excess heat from human activity over the past 70 years. Ocean currents redistribute heat around the planet, from the Equator to the poles. Where this ocean heat goes influences weather patterns and regional climate," explains ESA.



"As well as absorbing heat, oceans are a natural carbon sink, absorbing a quarter of carbon dioxide emissions from human activity. This has led to the acidification of ocean water, threating marine life."



The amount of heat and carbon dioxide soaked up by the ocean depends on specific variables, including phytoplankton, temperatures, waves, salinity, and ice cover. Satellites can be used to measure these variables from space.



"From their unique vantage point, satellites provide key information for understanding the complexities of our planet and monitoring environmental issues," says ESA.



Video Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Ocean heat influences regional climate

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes the importance of monitoring the shape of the sea surface, which is constantly changing. These observations have many applications, such as ship routing, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/the-modem-ocean-is-a-tough-place-for-whales-to-survive/">ocean</a> current forecasting, and debris tracking.



"A project supported by the Discovery element of ESA’s Basic Activities recently investigated a new technique to measure sea surface topography very precisely," reports ESA.



"The technique involves looking at satellite navigation (GNSS) signals that have been reflected off of the sea surface at very low angles. At these so-called grazing angles, waves and surface roughness have very little impact on the reflection process; the sea surface acts as a very smooth mirror."



Estel Cardellach is the principal investigator at the Institute for Space Studies of Catalonia, who first submitted the idea for the project.



“In a mirror-like reflection the phase of the signal can be tracked – it is continuous," said Cardellach. "Different surface heights result in different phase measurements. It gives a very precise measurement of the surface altitude at a few centimetres’ precision.”



The researchers developed a GNSS receiver and set up an experiment in the Balaeric Islands to collect signals from the receiver that were reflected off the sea surface. Ultimately, these signals will provide improved measurements of the shape of the sea surface.



Image/ Video Credit: ESA



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Monitoring the dynamic shape of the sea surface

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Aerial,Photo,Of,River,In,Amazon,Rainforest,Jungle,In,Peru

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center</a> describes how scientists are using autonomous sound sensors to monitor deforestation in the Amazon. By recording soundscapes, the experts can determine which animals are present through their distinct sounds.&nbsp;



Using this method, sounds can be used as scientific measurements to analyze the effects of deforestation. The researchers will gain a better understanding of how the acoustics of a forest can be used to measure its health.&nbsp;



"From space, parts of the Amazon rainforest that have previously been logged or burned may look lush and green, like a place buzzing with activity and full of sounds. But inside the rainforest, the animal life may tell a different story, of a harsh environment and a quieter soundscape," says NASA.



Video Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center&nbsp;



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Monitoring deforestation in the Amazon through sounds

[sendtonews key="u0TYxxqfF7-2186404-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from NASA’s...