Scientists have proposed a fascinating new idea: Earth may have once possessed a ring system, akin to that of Saturn. These rings could have formed around 466 million years ago, during a tumultuous era marked by intense meteorite bombardment known as the Ordovician impact spike.



This period was characterized by significant environmental changes, and the existence of rings may provide insight into our planet's dynamics at that time and its interactions with cosmic forces.



This thought-provoking theory stems from a recent study led by Professor Andy Tomkins of <a href="https://www.monash.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Monash University</a>, who has dedicated years to investigating geological evidence and astronomical data.



This revelation could transform our understanding of Earth's geological evolution and its role within the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/saturns-rings-may-have-formed-after-two-icy-moons-collided/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">solar system</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-earth-rings-could-explain-impact-craters">Earth rings could explain impact craters</h2>



The research team based their hypothesis on the intriguing positions of 21 <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/asteroid-chicxulub-caused-dinosaurs-extinction-event-traced-to-origin-kuiper-belt/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">asteroid impact craters</a>, all located within 30 degrees of the equator. This is a peculiar finding because, typically, impact craters are randomly distributed across the globe. 



However, in this case, more than 70% of Earth's landmass was outside this equatorial region during the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/470-million-year-old-animal-fossils-discovered-in-frances-cabrieres-biota/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ordovician period</a>, making the clustered craters an anomaly that standard geological theories cannot easily explain.



The team's idea is that this unusual pattern of impacts might be the result of a large asteroid having a close encounter with Earth. 



As it neared the planet, the asteroid would have crossed Earth's Roche limit -- a point where tidal forces become so strong that they can tear a celestial body apart. 



This would have led to the formation of a debris ring around Earth, similar to the rings that we see around gas giants <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/saturns-majestic-rings-will-vanish-in-just-six-months-from-now-2025/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">like Saturn today</a>.



"Over millions of years, material from this ring gradually fell to Earth, creating the spike in meteorite impacts observed in the geological record," Tomkins noted. "We also see that layers in sedimentary rocks from this period contain extraordinary amounts of meteorite debris."



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-understanding-the-ordovician-period">Understanding the Ordovician period</h2>



<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/tiny-worms-sparked-explosive-evolutionary-period-of-life-on-earth/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Ordovician period</a> happened about 485 to 444 million years ago. It was a time when a lot changed on Earth. Many new types of sea life evolved during this time, including the first fish. 



There were also lots of animals without backbones, like trilobites and early shellfish. Consequently, the oceans were teeming with life, and coral reefs started to form, creating homes for many different sea creatures.



The Earth itself changed a lot during the Ordovician period. At first, it was warm, like the tropics, but by the end of this time, there was a big ice age, which made sea levels drop significantly, resulting in widespread extinctions.



Despite these challenges, the Ordovician period set the stage for future evolutionary developments, leaving a lasting impact on the history of life on Earth.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-connection-to-a-global-cooling-event">Connection to a global cooling event</h2>



But the implications of this discovery go beyond mere geology. The researchers speculate that this ring system might have had significant climate impacts, particularly contributing to a global cooling event known as the "Hirnantian Icehouse." 



This period, occurring near the end of the Ordovician, is recognized as one of the coldest times in the last 500 million years.



The idea is that the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/new-ring-system-found-on-the-edge-of-our-solar-system/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ring system</a> could have cast a shadow over Earth, blocking sunlight and causing temperatures to drop. 



"The idea that a ring system could have influenced global temperatures adds a new layer of complexity to our understanding of how extra-terrestrial events may have shaped Earth's climate," Professor Tomkins explained.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-the-study-was-conducted">How the study was conducted</h2>



To reach these conclusions, the team employed a Geographic Information System (GIS) to analyze the distribution of the Ordovician impact craters. 



They focused on stable, undisturbed cratons -- ancient, stable parts of the continental crust -- that were geologically capable of preserving craters from that era. 



By excluding areas that were buried under sediment, ice, or affected by tectonic activity, the researchers identified regions like Western Australia, Africa, the North American Craton, and parts of Europe as the most likely places to find these ancient craters.



Despite only 30% of the suitable land area being close to the equator, all the identified craters from this period were found in this region. 



The chances of this happening are like tossing a three-sided coin and getting the same side 21 times. This highly improbable distribution is what led the researchers to consider the possibility of an Earth ring system in the first place.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-if-earth-had-rings-why-it-matters">If Earth had rings: Why it matters</h2>



This discovery doesn't just rewrite a chapter of Earth's history -- it opens an entirely new book. 



The idea that Earth may have had a <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/new-image-of-saturn-and-its-ring-spokes-from-the-hubble-space-telescope/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Saturn-like ring system</a> raises fascinating questions about how such features might have influenced not just our planet's climate but also the development of life itself.



Could other ancient ring systems have existed at different points in Earth's history? How might they have shaped the environment in ways we are only beginning to understand?



While the notion of Earth with rings might sound like science fiction, it's rooted in meticulous research and a willingness to question established theories.



This study, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, provides a fresh perspective on the dynamic interactions between our planet and the wider cosmos.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-comes-next">What comes next?</h2>



The implications of this study extend well beyond the Ordovician period, urging us to reevaluate the broader influence of celestial events on Earth's evolutionary trajectory. 



As scientists continue to explore this new theory, they may uncover a past that is far more intricate and intertwined with cosmic phenomena than we previously thought.



Could similar rings have emerged during other pivotal moments in Earth's history, potentially influencing everything from climate patterns to the distribution of life? Only time, and science, will tell.



The full study was published in the journal <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X24004230?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Earth and Planetary Science Letters</a>.



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Study: Earth had planetary rings like Saturn 466 million years ago

Scientists have proposed a fascinating new idea: Earth may have once possessed a ring system, akin to that of Saturn. These rings could have formed around 466 million years ago, during a tumultuous era marked by intense meteorite bombardment known as the Ordovician impact spike. This period was characterized by significant environmental changes, and the existence of rings may provide insight into our planet's dynamics at that time and its interactions with cosmic forces. This thought-provoking theory stems from a recent study led by Professor Andy Tomkins...

Arctic OffShore Drilling

Shell Pauses Arctic Ocean Oil Drilling. Strong winds and high waves that pounded the northern coast of Alaska have led Royal Dutch Shell PLC to temporarily stop exploratory Arctic Ocean oil drilling.
"Due to high wind and sea states, we have paused all critical operations in the Chukchi Sea," said spokesman Curtis Smith in an email response to questions.
The eastern Chukchi Sea this week experienced gale-force winds in the range of 39 to 54 p.m., said Ed Townsend, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in <a href="http://www.earth.com/image/smoke-in-fairbanks-and-interior-alaska/">Fairbanks</a>. Winds at Point Lay on Alaska's northwest coast about 9 a.m. Friday blew steadily at 29 mph with gusts to 37 mph.
Smith said he isn't sure when drilling might resume. "We hope to resume normal operations as soon as it's safe to do so," he said. Shell Pauses <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=Arctic+Ocean&amp;cvid=cd4c84b8e43843208b312041e1523265&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">Arctic Ocean </a>Oil Drilling
The Polar Pioneer, a semi-submersible drilling unit that Shell leases from Transocean Ltd., began top-hole and drilling work July 30 and remains safely anchored at the drill site, Smith said.
Bad weather has postponed previous drilling operations, Smith said, and Shell plans for it. Bad weather affected drilling in both the Chukchi and Beaufort seas in 2012.
"It's why we use a combination of satellite images, sonar and on-site reconnaissance to inform our operations," he said. "With safety the first priority, we take a conservative approach to these weather events and make plans to curtail operations well in advance."
Arctic offshore drilling is strongly opposed by environmental groups that say oil companies have not demonstrated the ability to respond effectively to a spill in harsh conditions where floating ice could hamper cleanup operations.
"Imagine trying to respond to a spill in that kind of weather," said Pam Miller, a longtime Arctic researcher and environmental advocate in Fairbanks.
Halting drilling for severe weather or moving ice was a common occurrence for Shell drilling in 1989 and 1990, she said. Global warming's effect on sea ice, which formerly acted like a blanket over waves, adds to the risk.
"The waves may be even greater. We know they are along shore, where coastal erosion is a problem," she said.
Every time a drill rigs disconnects from a well for weather or ice moving in, she said, it adds to the risk of a spill.
The weather is also affecting operations on shore. Shell is temporarily relocating staff at its housing camp in Barrow, the northernmost city in the United States. "A road used to transport people to the camp is down to one lane due to high water and could become impassable," Smith said.
© 2015 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.

Shell Pauses Arctic Ocean Oil Drilling

Shell Pauses Arctic Ocean Oil Drilling. Strong winds and high...

With melting glaciers and rising seas as his backdrop, President Barack Obama will visit Alaska next week to press for urgent global climate action to combat climate change, even as he carefully calibrates his message in a state heavily dependent on oil.
Obama will become the first sitting president to visit the Alaska Arctic when he travels to Kotzebue - population around 3,000 - just north of the Arctic Circle at the end of his three-day trip. He'll kick off the visit Monday with a speech to a State Department-hosted conference on climate change and the Arctic.
The unambiguous goal of the president's trip is to use dramatic and alarming changes to Alaska's climate to instill fresh urgency into his global warming agenda. Sea ice is melting, critical permafrost is thawing and Alaska's cherished glaciers are liquefying - powerful visuals that Obama hopes will illustrate the threat to natural wonders and livelihoods and serve as a global call to action.
"This is all real," Obama said in his weekly address released Saturday. "This is happening to our fellow Americans right now."
Yet Obama has taken steps that show he's cautiously navigating the competing environmental and energy interests at play. A few weeks ago, his administration gave Royal Dutch Shell a final permit to drill into oil-bearing rock off Alaska's northwest coast for the first time in more than two decades.
"The president has made great strides in protecting the Arctic, but we are really disappointed with this decision," said Nicole Whittington-Evans, Alaska director for The Wilderness Society. "This is a point where we disagree."
For many Alaskans, though, the issue comes down to dollars and cents. Both the state government and its residents rely deeply on oil revenues to stay afloat, and falling oil prices have already created a serious budget deficit.
Brian Deese, Obama's senior adviser, sought to strike a balance between Alaska's economics needs and the president's goal to eventually phase out fossil fuels. "That's a transition that is not going to happen overnight," Deese said. In the meantime, he added, "oil and gas will remain important parts of our overall energy mix."
Ahead of Obama's visit, state Republican leaders emphasized the need for more energy development and urged Obama not to exploit the state's stunning scenery for political purposes. Sen. Dan Sullivan warned that any national or ocean monument designations "will go over like a lead balloon" among Alaska's Democrats and Republicans alike.
"What there's concern about is that he's going to use Alaska as some green screen for climate change, when he doesn't take the opportunity to dig into other issues that are important to Alaskans, important to the country," Sullivan said in an interview.
Obama has been investing time on an unfinished global climate treaty that nations hope to finalize in December, as he works to secure his environmental legacy before his presidency ends. The president has pledged a U.S. cut in greenhouse gas emissions of up to 28 percent by 2030, compared to 2005 levels, and plans to use the Alaska visit to build public pressure on other nations to commit to similarly ambitious measures.
After arriving in Anchorage on Monday afternoon, Obama plans to meet with Alaska Natives before addressing the Arctic climate resilience summit, dubbed GLACIER, which involves Arctic and non-Arctic leaders, scientists, environmental advocates and the energy industry. Secretary of State John Kerry, a key player in the climate treaty talks, also plans to speak.
In an unusual presidential photo-op, Obama will travel Tuesday to Seward, on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, where the Exit Glacier is retreating in what environmentalists say is a dramatic sign of warming temperatures. After hiking to the glacier, Obama is to board a U.S. Coast Guard vessel to tour Kenai Fjords National Park.
His visit continues Wednesday in Dillingham, in southwest Alaska, where Obama will meet with fishermen locked in an ongoing conflict with miners over plans to build a massive gold and copper mine in Bristol Bay, home to the world's largest salmon fishery. Then he'll fly north to Kotzebue, a regional hub in the Alaska Arctic, where Obama will focus on the plight of rural, native villages where livelihoods are threatened by encroaching climate change.
While in Alaska, Obama is likely to face calls from Democrats and environmentalists to restrict Arctic drilling and to renew his request to Congress to make more of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, off-limits as well. Republicans and energy advocates planned to urge the president to clear the way for more drilling.
Aside from brief campaign stops, few presidents have spent significant time in Alaska. President Warren Harding, shortly before his death in 1923, toured nine Alaska communities in three parts of the state.
---
Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP</a>
© 2015 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.

Obama To Press For Urgent Global Climate Action Next Week

With melting glaciers and rising seas as his backdrop, President...

Obama To Press For Urgent Global Climate Action Next Week. With melting glaciers and rising seas as his backdrop, President Barack Obama will visit Alaska next week to press for urgent global climate action to combat climate change, even as he carefully calibrates his message in a state heavily dependent on oil.
Obama will become the first sitting president to visit the Alaska Arctic when he travels to Kotzebue - population around 3,000 - just north of the Arctic Circle at the end of his three-day trip. He'll kick off the visit Monday with a speech to a State Department-hosted conference on climate change and the Arctic.
The unambiguous goal of the president's trip is to use dramatic and alarming changes to Alaska's climate to instill fresh urgency into his global warming agenda. <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/sea-stars-may-be-drowning-in-their-environment/">Sea</a> ice is melting, critical permafrost is thawing and Alaska's cherished glaciers are liquefying - powerful visuals that Obama hopes will illustrate the threat to natural wonders and livelihoods and serve as a global call to action.
"This is all real," Obama said in his weekly address released Saturday. "This is happening to our fellow Americans right now." Obama To Press For Urgent Global Climate Action Next Week
Yet Obama has taken steps that show he's cautiously navigating the competing environmental and energy interests at play. A few weeks ago, his administration gave Royal Dutch Shell a final permit to drill into oil-bearing rock off Alaska's northwest coast for the first time in more than two decades.
"The president has made great strides in protecting the Arctic, but we are really disappointed with this decision," said Nicole Whittington-Evans, Alaska director for The Wilderness Society. "This is a point where we disagree."
For many Alaskans, though, the issue comes down to dollars and cents. Both the state government and its residents rely deeply on oil revenues to stay afloat, and falling oil prices have already created a serious budget deficit.
Brian Deese, Obama's senior adviser, sought to strike a balance between Alaska's economics needs and the president's goal to eventually phase out fossil fuels. "That's a transition that is not going to happen overnight," Deese said. In the meantime, he added, "oil and gas will remain important parts of our overall energy mix."
Ahead of Obama's visit, state Republican leaders emphasized the need for more energy development and urged Obama not to exploit the state's stunning scenery for political purposes. Sen. Dan Sullivan warned that any national or ocean monument designations "will go over like a lead balloon" among Alaska's Democrats and Republicans alike.
"What there's concern about is that he's going to use Alaska as some green screen for climate change, when he doesn't take the opportunity to dig into other issues that are important to Alaskans, important to the country," Sullivan said in an interview.
Obama has been investing time on an unfinished global climate treaty that nations hope to finalize in December, as he works to secure his environmental legacy before his presidency ends. The president has pledged a U.S. cut in greenhouse gas emissions of up to 28 percent by 2030, compared to 2005 levels, and plans to use the Alaska visit to build public pressure on other nations to commit to similarly ambitious measures.
After arriving in Anchorage on Monday afternoon, Obama plans to meet with Alaska Natives before addressing the Arctic climate resilience summit, dubbed GLACIER, which involves Arctic and non-Arctic leaders, scientists, environmental advocates and the energy industry. Secretary of State John Kerry, a key player in the climate treaty talks, also plans to speak.
In an unusual presidential photo-op, Obama will travel Tuesday to Seward, on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, where the Exit Glacier is retreating in what environmentalists say is a dramatic sign of warming temperatures. After hiking to the glacier, Obama is to board a U.S. Coast Guard vessel to tour Kenai Fjords National Park.
His visit continues Wednesday in Dillingham, in southwest Alaska, where Obama will meet with fishermen locked in an ongoing conflict with miners over plans to build a massive gold and copper mine in Bristol Bay, home to the world's largest salmon fishery. Then he'll fly north to Kotzebue, a regional hub in the Alaska Arctic, where Obama will focus on the plight of rural, native villages where livelihoods are threatened by encroaching climate change.
While in Alaska, Obama is likely to face calls from Democrats and environmentalists to restrict Arctic drilling and to renew his request to Congress to make more of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, off-limits as well. Republicans and energy advocates planned to urge the president to clear the way for more drilling.
Aside from brief campaign stops, few presidents have spent significant time in Alaska. President Warren Harding, shortly before his death in 1923, toured nine Alaska communities in three parts of the state.
---
Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP</a>
© 2015 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.

Obama To Press For Urgent Global Climate Action Next Week....

Severe Weather Is Threatening The World's Temperate Forests. Longer, more severe, and hotter droughts and a myriad of other threats, including diseases and more extensive and severe wildfires, are threatening to transform some of the world's temperate forests, a new study published in Science has found. Without informed management, some forests could convert to shrublands or grasslands within the coming decades.

"While we have been trying to manage for resilience of 20th century conditions, we realize now that we must prepare for transformations and attempt to ease these conversions," said Constance Millar, lead author and forest ecologist with the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/usda-suspends-national-honey-bee-report/">USDA</a> Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station. Severe Weather Is Threatening The World's Temperate Forests

Many forests are remarkably resilient, re-growing after years of logging. Yet, the researchers note from review of the enormous body of work on the subject, climate change and rising global temperatures are giving rise to "hotter" droughts -- droughts that exhibit a level of severity beyond that witnessed in the past century. During a hotter drought, high air temperatures overheat leaves and also increase the stress on trees by drawing the moisture from their tissues at faster rates than normal. Snow that would normally act as emergency water storage for trees during the dry season instead falls as rain.

Combined, these factors may cause abnormally high levels of forest mortality during hotter droughts.

"Some temperate forests already appear to be showing chronic effects of warming temperatures, such as slow increases in tree deaths," said Nathan Stephenson, coauthor and ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. "But the emergence of megadisturbances, forest diebacks beyond the range of what we've normally seen over the last century, could be a game-changer for how we plan for the future."

Chronic stress from drought and warming temperatures also expose temperate forests to insect and disease outbreaks. And as temperatures rise in many regions, fires grow in frequency and severity causing losses in private property, natural resources and lives.

Losing temperate forests to worsening droughts, megafires and insect and disease outbreaks could lead to widespread losses of forest ecosystem services like national park recreational areas, the researchers caution. Forests also play an important role in storing atmospheric carbon dioxide and watershed protection, for example. The scientists encourage future studies identifying forests most vulnerable to the effects of mega-disturbances. In some cases, forest managers may be able to preserve ecosystem services like carbon storage as temperate forests transition to new ecological states.

---

<a href="http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">US Forest Service</a>

Severe Weather Is Threatening The World's Temperate Forests

Severe Weather Is Threatening The World's Temperate Forests. Longer, more...

Toxic Algae Driving Down Home Prices On Lake Champlain. The two cottages on the shore of Lake Champlain will someday be passed down to her children but Enid Letourneau worries the algae that turns the shoreline pea-soup green each August means they won't amount to much of an inheritance.
"Would you go swimming in that? Would you let your grandchildren go swimming in there?" Letourneau said, pointing to the water around her dock this week. Toxic Algae Driving Down Home Prices On Lake Champlain
The unsightly algae smells so bad it burns her throat, she said - forcing her to keep the windows shut on a summer afternoon.


[caption id="attachment_2384195" align="alignleft" width="150"]<a href="http://cff1.greenatom.net/uploads/2015/08/29115823/algae-lake-champlain_2big_ap.jpg"><img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-2384195" src="http://cff1.greenatom.net/uploads/2015/08/29115823/algae-lake-champlain_2big_ap-150x150.jpg" alt="Credit: AP" width="150" height="150" /></a> Credit: AP[/caption]
The algae, which can be toxic to humans and dogs, prompted the town of Georgia to reduce the property values $50,000 each on 34 mostly summer camps on St. Albans Bay, including the two Letourneau and her husband own.
Letourneau figures the town didn't have a choice after nearby St. Albans Town docked the values of some other lakefront homes - but she's not happy about it.
"I was kind of looking forward to being able to leave something for my children," she said. "Maybe they'll clean it up but I don't have a lot of hope."
The toxic algae blooms that kill aquatic life and degrade the water quality on Lake Champlain have grown, fed by phosphorus-laden runoff of rain and snowmelt from farms, roads and parking lots and discharges from municipal wastewater treatment plants.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this month set a new pollution reduction goal for the Vermont side of the Lake Champlain and state officials said they were already working on long-term plans to meet those goals by keeping pollutants from rivers and streams that feed the lake. EPA scientists have been working with state counterparts for years on the best way to reduce phosphorous runoff into the lake that has been increasing despite decades of efforts and tens of millions of dollars spent.
Algae can be a serious safety issue: Last summer, a bloom on Lake Erie left 400,000 people in Ohio and Michigan without safe tap water for two days. The toxin it produces can cause vomiting, diarrhea or liver damage in extreme cases.
On Lake Champlain, the Letourneaus have owned property on the lake for about 40 years and used to always swim the bay, Letourneau said. Owners of other properties, mostly seasonal camps ranging in price from $77,000 to around $221,000, said they'll take the tax break and deal with the algae as necessary.
Bob McGrath, of Burlington, said he hates to get into the water to move his dock around and if he has to he usually waits for the wind to blow the other direction to move the algae to the other side of the bay. If he and his wife want to swim, they'll boat to nearby islands outside of the bay.
Camp owner Martin Manahan said his children do the same, taking jet skis and a boat into the middle of the bay or open lake.
The lost tax revenue - about $8,000 - "is not going to make us or break us" because of other property valuations and a tax increase, said Assistant Select Board Chairman Matt Crawford.
But Town Administrator Michael McCarthy worries that the lost revenue could be an omen of things to come.Toxic Algae Driving Down Home Prices On Lake Champlain
"If we don't fix it and find a fix to it, there's nothing else that can happen except it will get larger," he said. "That's my worry."
© 2015 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.

Toxic Algae Driving Down Home Prices On Lake Champlain

Toxic Algae Driving Down Home Prices On Lake Champlain. The...

Obama To Press For Urgent Global Climate Action Next Week. With melting glaciers and rising seas as his backdrop, President Barack Obama will visit <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/group-of-alaskan-islands-may-belong-to-a-single-massive-volcano/">Alaska</a> next week to press for urgent global climate action to combat climate change, even as he carefully calibrates his message in a state heavily dependent on oil.
Obama will become the first sitting president to visit the Alaska Arctic when he travels to Kotzebue - population around 3,000 - just north of the Arctic Circle at the end of his three-day trip. He'll kick off the visit Monday with a speech to a State Department-hosted conference on climate change and the Arctic.
The unambiguous goal of the president's trip is to use dramatic and alarming changes to Alaska's climate to instill fresh urgency into his global warming agenda. Sea ice is melting, critical permafrost is thawing and Alaska's cherished glaciers are liquefying - powerful visuals that Obama hopes will illustrate the threat to natural wonders and livelihoods and serve as a global call to action.
"This is all real," Obama said in his weekly address released Saturday. "This is happening to our fellow Americans right now."
Yet Obama has taken steps that show he's cautiously navigating the competing environmental and energy interests at play. A few weeks ago, his administration gave Royal Dutch Shell a final permit to drill into oil-bearing rock off Alaska's northwest coast for the first time in more than two decades.
"The president has made great strides in protecting the Arctic, but we are really disappointed with this decision," said Nicole Whittington-Evans, Alaska director for The Wilderness Society. "This is a point where we disagree."
For many Alaskans, though, the issue comes down to dollars and cents. Both the state government and its residents rely deeply on oil revenues to stay afloat, and falling oil prices have already created a serious budget deficit.
Brian Deese, Obama's senior adviser, sought to strike a balance between Alaska's economics needs and the president's goal to eventually phase out fossil fuels. "That's a transition that is not going to happen overnight," Deese said. In the meantime, he added, "oil and gas will remain important parts of our overall energy mix."
Ahead of Obama's visit, state Republican leaders emphasized the need for more energy development and urged Obama not to exploit the state's stunning scenery for political purposes. Sen. Dan Sullivan warned that any national or ocean monument designations "will go over like a lead balloon" among Alaska's Democrats and Republicans alike.
"What there's concern about is that he's going to use Alaska as some green screen for climate change, when he doesn't take the opportunity to dig into other issues that are important to Alaskans, important to the country," Sullivan said in an interview.
Obama has been investing time on an unfinished global climate treaty that nations hope to finalize in December, as he works to secure his environmental legacy before his presidency ends. The president has pledged a U.S. cut in greenhouse gas emissions of up to 28 percent by 2030, compared to 2005 levels, and plans to use the Alaska visit to build public pressure on other nations to commit to similarly ambitious measures.
After arriving in Anchorage on Monday afternoon, Obama plans to meet with Alaska Natives before addressing the Arctic climate resilience summit, dubbed GLACIER, which involves Arctic and non-Arctic leaders, scientists, environmental advocates and the energy industry. Secretary of State John Kerry, a key player in the climate treaty talks, also plans to speak.
In an unusual presidential photo-op, Obama will travel Tuesday to Seward, on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, where the Exit Glacier is retreating in what environmentalists say is a dramatic sign of warming temperatures. After hiking to the glacier, Obama is to board a U.S. Coast Guard vessel to tour Kenai Fjords National Park.
His visit continues Wednesday in Dillingham, in southwest Alaska, where Obama will meet with fishermen locked in an ongoing conflict with miners over plans to build a massive gold and copper mine in Bristol Bay, home to the world's largest salmon fishery. Then he'll fly north to Kotzebue, a regional hub in the Alaska Arctic, where Obama will focus on the plight of rural, native villages where livelihoods are threatened by encroaching climate change.
While in Alaska, Obama is likely to face calls from Democrats and environmentalists to restrict Arctic drilling and to renew his request to Congress to make more of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, off-limits as well. Republicans and energy advocates planned to urge the president to clear the way for more drilling.
Aside from brief campaign stops, few presidents have spent significant time in Alaska. President Warren Harding, shortly before his death in 1923, toured nine Alaska communities in three parts of the state.
---
Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP</a>
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Toxic <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=algae&amp;cvid=3a96062a4103469cbd7f1290ce049ad3&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">Algae</a> Driving Down Home Prices On Lake Champlain. The two cottages on the shore of Lake Champlain will someday be passed down to her children but Enid Letourneau worries the algae that turns the shoreline pea-soup green each August means they won't amount to much of an inheritance.
"Would you go swimming in that? Would you let your grandchildren go swimming in there?" Letourneau said, pointing to the water around her dock this week.
The unsightly algae smells so bad it burns her throat, she said - forcing her to keep the windows shut on a summer afternoon. Toxic Algae Driving Down Home Prices On Lake Champlain


[caption id="attachment_2384195" align="alignleft" width="150"]<a href="http://cff1.greenatom.net/uploads/2015/08/29115823/algae-lake-champlain_2big_ap.jpg"><img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-2384195" src="http://cff1.greenatom.net/uploads/2015/08/29115823/algae-lake-champlain_2big_ap-150x150.jpg" alt="Credit: AP" width="150" height="150" /></a> Credit: AP[/caption]
The algae, which can be toxic to humans and dogs, prompted the town of Georgia to reduce the property values $50,000 each on 34 mostly summer camps on St. Albans Bay, including the two Letourneau and her husband own.
Letourneau figures the town didn't have a choice after nearby St. Albans Town docked the values of some other lakefront homes - but she's not happy about it.
"I was kind of looking forward to being able to leave something for my children," she said. "Maybe they'll clean it up but I don't have a lot of hope."
The toxic algae blooms that kill aquatic life and degrade the water quality on Lake Champlain have grown, fed by phosphorus-laden runoff of rain and snowmelt from <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/offshore-wind-farms-europe/">farms</a>, roads and parking lots and discharges from municipal wastewater treatment plants.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this month set a new pollution reduction goal for the Vermont side of the Lake Champlain and state officials said they were already working on long-term plans to meet those goals by keeping pollutants from rivers and streams that feed the lake. EPA scientists have been working with state counterparts for years on the best way to reduce phosphorous runoff into the lake that has been increasing despite decades of efforts and tens of millions of dollars spent.
Algae can be a serious safety issue: Last summer, a bloom on Lake Erie left 400,000 people in Ohio and Michigan without safe tap water for two days. The toxin it produces can cause vomiting, diarrhea or liver damage in extreme cases.
On Lake Champlain, the Letourneaus have owned property on the lake for about 40 years and used to always swim the bay, Letourneau said. Owners of other properties, mostly seasonal camps ranging in price from $77,000 to around $221,000, said they'll take the tax break and deal with the algae as necessary.
Bob McGrath, of Burlington, said he hates to get into the water to move his dock around and if he has to he usually waits for the wind to blow the other direction to move the algae to the other side of the bay. If he and his wife want to swim, they'll boat to nearby islands outside of the bay.
Camp owner Martin Manahan said his children do the same, taking jet skis and a boat into the middle of the bay or open lake.
The lost tax revenue - about $8,000 - "is not going to make us or break us" because of other property valuations and a tax increase, said Assistant Select Board Chairman Matt Crawford.
But Town Administrator Michael McCarthy worries that the lost revenue could be an omen of things to come.
"If we don't fix it and find a fix to it, there's nothing else that can happen except it will get larger," he said. "That's my worry."
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Global Warming Is Causing Huge Changes Into Alaskan Landscape. Global warming is carving measurable changes into Alaska, and President Barack Obama is about to see it.
Obama leaves Monday for a three-day visit to the 49th state in which he will speak at a State Department climate change conference and become the first president to visit the <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=Alaska+Arctic&amp;cvid=5aa4da07103348fa8260149bd51ed022&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">Alaska Arctic</a>. There, and in the sub-Arctic part of the state, he will see the damage caused by warming - damage that has been evident to scientists for years.
More than 3.5 trillion tons of water have melted off of Alaska's glaciers since 1959, when Alaska first became a state, studies show - enough to fill more than 1 billion <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/olympics-climbing-surfing/">Olympic</a>-sized pools. Global Warming Is Causing Huge Changes Into Alaskan Landscape
The crucial, coast-hugging sea ice that protects villages from storms and makes hunting easier is dwindling in summer and is now absent each year a month longer than it was in the 1970s, other studies find. The Army Corps of Engineers identified 26 villages where erosion linked to sea ice loss threatens the communities' very existence.
Permafrost is thawing more often as the ground warms, so as the ground oozes, roads, pipelines and houses' foundations tilt and shift - sometimes enough to cause homes to be abandoned. In far northern Barrow, the upper part of the ground is 7 degrees warmer than it was in the late 1950s and getting closer to the melt point in the summer, data shows. And scientists fear the thawing permafrost will unleash large amounts of trapped greenhouse gases and speed up worldwide warming.
So far this year, more than 5.1 million acres in Alaska - an area the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined - have burned in wildfires. In the first 10 years of statehood, Alaska averaged barely a quarter million acres of wildfires yearly. The last 10 years have averaged 1.2 million acres.
"The state is changing and changing rapidly," said Fran Ulmer, chairwoman of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission and Alaska's former lieutenant governor.
And scientists say those things are happening - at least partly and probably mostly - because of another thing they can measure: Alaska's temperature. Alaska's yearly average temperature has jumped 3.3 degrees since 1959 and the winter average has spiked 5 degrees since statehood, according to federal records. Last year was the hottest on record and so far this year Alaska is a full degree warmer than last year.
Alaska "is sort of a bellwether," said John Walsh, chief scientist of the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. "The changes are definitely happening and we're out in front of the rest of the country."
And what happens in Alaska isn't staying in Alaska, because weather changes in the Arctic trigger changes in the jet stream and reverberate down south, including the dreaded polar vortex escape that has brought sub-freezing temperatures to great expanses of North American in recent winters, said Martin Jeffries, an Arctic scientist for the U.S. Office of Naval Research.
Warming's effects seem to be speeding up. From 1959 to 1993, Alaska's glaciers lost 57 billion tons of ice a year, but that jumped to almost 83 billion tons a year since 1994, according to Anthony Arendt, who co-authored a study on the subject this July.
And while there may be many factors involved in glacier melt, all but about five of Alaska's 25,000 glaciers are shrinking, said University of Alaska Fairbanks glacier expert Regine Hock. She's adamant: "That's related to climate change."
On the ocean, sea ice in the Arctic in the summer has shrunk by about one-third over three decades, leading to a loss of habitat for walrus and a threatened species listing for polar bears and their main prey, ringed seals. But in Alaska, what really hits hard is the loss of sea ice that's connected to the coast. That's the ice that protects villages from the worst of storms and allows both people and animals to hunt more at sea. But that type of ice is disappearing two weeks earlier in the summer and returns two weeks later when compared to the 1970s, geophysicist Andy Mahoney at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Meanwhile, Alaska's wildfires are "more frequent, they're hotter and they're more severe," said Glenn Juday, a professor emeritus of forest ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Rapid and sustained warming has led to new patterns of insect outbreaks and new pest species affecting trees, he said. One of the chief problems is the spruce bark beetle, which thrive under warmer conditions. By 2006, aerial surveys had found spruce bark beetles had killed mature white spruce trees on 4.4 million acres following mild winters and hot summers. The acreage has increased since then, though not dramatically.
Wildlife has changed, too. George Divoky and others have been tracking how early the black guillemot bird lays its first egg on far north Cooper Islands. In the 1970s they used to lay their eggs around June 25. The last five years, the average has been June 15 and this year it was June 8.
The U.S. Geological Survey has found a host of other animals changing their habits with warmer weather, including pink salmon, trumpeter swans, and caribou. It's a problem because sometimes the plants and animals don't quite match up - caribou, for example, born before the plants they eat, according to the USGS.
The record warmth this spring has "turned the state into a melting pot, almost literally," said Jake Weltzin, who runs the USGS program tracking changes in plant and animal timing. "It's an enormous experiment."
---
Borenstein reported from Washington.
---
Online:
Study on melting Alaska glaciers: <a href="http://bit.ly/1LyHS7z" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://bit.ly/1LyHS7z</a>
Study on wildland fires in Alaska: <a href="http://bit.ly/1LDVxNv" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://bit.ly/1LDVxNv</a>
U.S. Geological Survey on timing changes of animals, plants: <a href="http://bit.ly/1ElpAH7" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://bit.ly/1ElpAH7</a>
---
Seth Borenstein can be followed at <a href="http://twitter.com/borenbears" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://twitter.com/borenbears</a>
© 2015 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.

Global Warming Is Causing Huge Changes Into Alaskan Landscape

Global Warming Is Causing Huge Changes Into Alaskan Landscape. Global...

Ninety Percent Of Seabirds Have Plastic In Their Guts. As many as nine out of 10 of the world's seabirds likely have pieces of plastic in their guts, a new study estimates.
Previously, scientists figured about 29 percent of seabirds had swallowed plastic, based on older studies. An Australian team of scientists who have studied birds and marine debris for decades used computer models to update those figures, calculating that far more seabirds are affected, according to a new study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"It's pretty astronomical," said study co-author Denise Hardesty, senior research scientist at the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/australian-bees-adapted-their-vision-to-forage-at-night/">Australian</a> federal science agency. She said the problem with plastics in the ocean is increasing as the world makes more of the stuff. "In the next 11 years we will make as much plastic as has been made since industrial plastic production began in the 1950s."
She combined computer simulations of locations of the garbage and the birds, as well as their eating habits, to see where the worst problems are.
Hardesty's work found that the biggest problem strangely isn't where there's the most garbage, such as the infamous garbage patch in the central north Pacific Ocean. Instead it's where there's the greatest number of different species, especially in the southern hemisphere near Australia and New Zealand.
Areas around North America and Europe are better off, she said. By reducing plastic pellets, Europe is even seeing fewer of those plastic bits in one key bird, the northern fulmar, she said. Some species of albatross and shearwaters seem to be the most prone to eating plastic pieces.
Birds mistake plastic bits for fish eggs, so "they think they're getting a proper meal but they're really getting a plastic meal," Hardesty said.
Usually it's incredibly tiny pieces of plastic, but Hardesty has seen far bigger things, such as an entire glow stick and three balloons in a single short-tailed shearwater bird.
"I have seen everything from cigarette lighters ... to bottle caps to model cars. I've found toys," Hardesty said.
And it's only likely to get worse. By 2050, 99 percent of seabirds will have plastic in them, Hardesty's computer model forecast. That prediction "seems astonishingly high, but probably not unrealistic," said American University environmental scientist Kiho Kim, who wasn't part of the study but praised it.
---
Online:
Journal: <a href="http://www.pnas.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www.pnas.org</a>
---
Seth Borenstein can be followed at <a href="http://twitter.com/borenbears" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://twitter.com/borenbears</a>
© 2015 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

Ninety Percent Of Seabirds Have Plastic In Their Guts

Ninety Percent Of Seabirds Have Plastic In Their Guts. As...

President Barack Obama is painting a doomsday scenario for the Arctic and beyond if global warming isn't dealt with fast: entire nations submerged underwater, cities abandoned and refugees fleeing in droves as conflict breaks out across the globe.
It's a harrowing image of a future that Obama insists is inevitable unless the world follows his and America's lead by making sweeping cuts to greenhouse gases. Lest his sense of urgency get lost, Obama was to drive the message home on Tuesday by hiking a melting glacier in Alaska.
Obama is counting on <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/group-of-alaskan-islands-may-belong-to-a-single-massive-volcano/">Alaska's</a> exquisite but deteriorating landscape to elicit a sense of urgency that his previous calls to action on climate change have not. He opened his three-day trip to the nation's largest state on Monday with a speech to an Arctic climate summit, calling global warming an escalating crisis already disturbing Alaskans' way of life.
"We will condemn our children to a planet beyond their capacity to repair," Obama said. Alluding ironically to the threat of rising seas, he castigated leaders who deny climate change as "increasingly alone - on their own shrinking island."
As he traverses Alaska this week, Obama will become the first sitting president to visit the Alaska Arctic. Amid concerns that the U.S. has ceded influence to Russia in strategic Arctic waters, the White House announced Tuesday that it would ask Congress to speed up construction of new icebreakers. The U.S. currently has two working icebreakers, compared to Russia's 40.
On his first day in Alaska, Obama offered no new policy prescriptions or federal efforts to slow global warming, but said the U.S. is doing its part by working to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases by up to 28 percent over the next decade. Obama set that target as the U.S. commitment to a major global climate treaty to be finalized in December, and has urged fellow leaders to make similarly ambitious pledges as works to secure a cornerstone of his environmental legacy.
Yet by turning to Alaska's majestic mountains and stirring coastlines to make his point on climate, Obama also brought fresh attention to deep and persistent divisions in the U.S. over how to balance the nation's energy and environmental needs.
Heavily dependent on energy revenues, Alaska is suffering economically due to the recent plunge in oil prices, a blow made all the more poignant by the fact that the cost of energy here is exceedingly high. Alaska leaders of all political stripes have implored Obama to open up more of the state to drilling to help alleviate a $3.5 billion budget deficit that has triggered steep cuts to state services - a critical lifeline for poor and rural Alaskans.
"For a population as small as we are, it's pretty significant," Alaska Gov. Bill Walker told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew with Obama to Anchorage.
Yet even Obama, who has elevated global warming as a rallying point in his second term, has a complicated record on energy that has muddied his clarion call on climate.
The president has struggled to explain how his dire warnings square with steps he's taken to expand energy production, even at the risk of higher emissions. Environmental groups took particular offense at the administration's move to allow expanded drilling by Royal Dutch Shell off Alaska's northwest coast - just a few weeks before Obama came to Alaska to preach on climate change.
Obama has defended those decisions by arguing that some fossil fuel development is a necessity as the U.S. undergoes a longer-term shift to clean, renewable fuels that don't cause the planet to get warmer. But that explanation rang hollow for environmental groups, who called the Shell decision a stain on his climate legacy.
"The timing of President Obama's trip to Alaska and the Arctic could not be more ironic, given that his administration just approved dangerous drilling plans that put the region's well-being in serious jeopardy," said Michael Brune, the Sierra Club's executive director.
On a presidential trip more about powerful visuals than words, the high point was to come Tuesday when Obama flies by helicopter to Seward to hike the famed Exit Glacier, a sprawling expanse of ice in Kenai Fjords National Park that's liquefying under warmer temperatures.
Some 700 square miles in the Kenai Mountains are blanketed by glacier ice, remnants of the Ice Age, when roughly a third of the Earth was covered with sheets of ice. One of nearly 40 glaciers springing out from Harding Icefield, Exit Glacier has been receding for decades at an alarming rate of 43 feet a year, according to the National Park Service. Obama Takes Hardest Stance Yet On Global Warming
After hiking the glacier, Obama planned to put his survival skills to the test while taping an episode of the NBC reality TV show "Running Wild with Bear Grylls." Then the president was to board a U.S. Coast Guard vessel to tour the national park before returning late Tuesday to Anchorage.
---
Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP</a>
© 2015 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.

Obama Takes Hardest Stance Yet On Global Warming

President Barack Obama is painting a doomsday scenario for the...

Climate Change Will Force Ocean Bacteria Into Irreversible Overdrive. Scientists demonstrate that a key organism in the ocean's foodweb will start reproducing at high speed as carbon dioxide levels rise, with no way to stop when nutrients become scarce

Imagine being in a car with the gas pedal stuck to the floor, heading toward a cliff's edge. Metaphorically speaking, that's what climate change will do to the key group of ocean bacteria known as Trichodesmium, scientists have discovered.

Trichodesmium (called "Tricho" for short by researchers) is one of the few organisms in the ocean that can "fix" atmospheric nitrogen gas, making it available to other organisms. It is crucial because all life -- from algae to whales -- needs nitrogen to grow. Climate Change Will Force Ocean Bacteria Into Irreversible Overdrive

A new study from USC and the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) shows that changing conditions due to climate change could send Tricho into overdrive with no way to stop -- reproducing faster and generating lots more nitrogen. Without the ability to slow down, however, Tricho has the potential to gobble up all its available resources, which could trigger die-offs of the microorganism and the higher organisms that depend on it.

By breeding hundreds of generations of the bacteria over the course of nearly five years in high-carbon dioxide ocean conditions predicted for the year 2100, researchers found that increased ocean acidification evolved Tricho to work harder, producing 50 percent more nitrogen, and grow faster.

The problem is that these amped-up bacteria can't turn it off even when they are placed in conditions with less carbon dioxide. Further, the adaptation can't be reversed over time -- something not seen before by evolutionary biologists, and worrisome to marine biologists, according to David Hutchins, lead author of the study.

"Losing the ability to regulate your growth rate is not a healthy thing," said Hutchins, professor at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "The last thing you want is to be stuck with these high growth rates when there aren't enough nutrients to go around. It's a losing strategy in the struggle to survive."

Tricho needs phosphorous and iron, which also exist in the ocean in limited supply. With no way to regulate its growth, the turbo-boosted Tricho could burn through all of its available nutrients too quickly and abruptly die off, which would be catastrophic for all other life forms in the ocean that need the nitrogen it would have produced to survive.

Some models predict that increasing ocean acidification will exacerbate the problem of nutrient scarcity by increasing stratification of the ocean -- locking key nutrients away from the organisms that need them to survive.

Hutchins is collaborating with Eric Webb of USC Dornsife and Mak Saito of WHOI to gain a better understanding of what the future ocean will look like, as it continues to be shaped by climate change. They were shocked by the discovery of an evolutionary change that appears to be permanent -- something Hutchins described as "unprecedented."

"Tricho has been studied for ages. Nobody expected that it could do something so bizarre," he said. "The evolutionary <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/sick-endangered-orca-whale/">biologists</a> are interested in it just to study this as a basic evolutionary principle."

The team is now studying the DNA of Tricho to try to find out how and why the irreversible evolution occurs. Earlier this year, research led by Webb found that Tricho's DNA inexplicably contains elements that are usually only seen in higher life forms.

"Our results in this and the aforementioned study are truly surprising. Furthermore, they are giving us an improved, view of how global climate change will impact Trichodesmium and the vital supplies of new nitrogen it provides to the rest of the marine food web in the future." Webb said.

---

<a href="http://www.usc.edu" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">University of Southern California</a>

Climate Change Will Force Ocean Bacteria Into Irreversible Overdrive

Climate Change Will Force Ocean Bacteria Into Irreversible Overdrive. Scientists...

Climate Change Will Force Ocean Bacteria Into Irreversible Overdrive. Scientists demonstrate that a key organism in the ocean's foodweb will start reproducing at high speed as carbon dioxide levels rise, with no way to stop when nutrients become scarce

Imagine being in a car with the gas pedal stuck to the floor, heading toward a cliff's edge. Metaphorically speaking, that's what climate change will do to the key group of ocean bacteria known as Trichodesmium, scientists have discovered.

Trichodesmium (called "Tricho" for short by researchers) is one of the few organisms in the ocean that can "fix" atmospheric nitrogen gas, making it available to other organisms. It is crucial because all life -- from algae to whales -- needs nitrogen to grow.

A new study from USC and the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) shows that changing conditions due to climate change could send Tricho into overdrive with no way to stop -- reproducing faster and generating lots more nitrogen. Without the ability to slow down, however, Tricho has the potential to gobble up all its available resources, which could trigger die-offs of the microorganism and the higher organisms that depend on it.

By breeding hundreds of generations of the bacteria over the course of nearly five years in high-carbon dioxide ocean conditions predicted for the year 2100, researchers found that increased ocean acidification evolved Tricho to work harder, producing 50 percent more nitrogen, and grow faster.

The problem is that these amped-up bacteria can't turn it off even when they are placed in conditions with less carbon dioxide. Further, the adaptation can't be reversed over time -- something not seen before by evolutionary biologists, and worrisome to marine biologists, according to David Hutchins, lead author of the study.

"Losing the ability to regulate your growth rate is not a healthy thing," said Hutchins, professor at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "The last thing you want is to be stuck with these high growth rates when there aren't enough nutrients to go around. It's a losing strategy in the struggle to survive."

Tricho needs phosphorous and iron, which also exist in the ocean in limited supply. With no way to regulate its growth, the turbo-boosted Tricho could burn through all of its available nutrients too quickly and abruptly die off, which would be catastrophic for all other life forms in the ocean that need the nitrogen it would have produced to survive. Climate Change Will Force Ocean Bacteria Into Irreversible Overdrive

Some models predict that increasing ocean acidification will exacerbate the problem of nutrient scarcity by increasing stratification of the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/antarctic-icebergs-affect-seawater-and-ocean-currents-far-from-the-continent/">ocean</a> -- locking key nutrients away from the organisms that need them to survive.

Hutchins is collaborating with Eric Webb of USC Dornsife and Mak Saito of WHOI to gain a better understanding of what the future ocean will look like, as it continues to be shaped by climate change. They were shocked by the discovery of an evolutionary change that appears to be permanent -- something Hutchins described as "unprecedented."

"Tricho has been studied for ages. Nobody expected that it could do something so bizarre," he said. "The evolutionary biologists are interested in it just to study this as a basic evolutionary principle."

The team is now studying the DNA of Tricho to try to find out how and why the irreversible evolution occurs. Earlier this year, research led by Webb found that Tricho's DNA inexplicably contains elements that are usually only seen in higher life forms.

"Our results in this and the aforementioned study are truly surprising. Furthermore, they are giving us an improved, view of how global climate change will impact Trichodesmium and the vital supplies of new nitrogen it provides to the rest of the marine food web in the future." Webb said.

---

<a href="http://www.usc.edu" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">University of Southern California</a>

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Nushagak Bay, a large estuary in southwest Alaska. Nushagak runs mainly north to south and exits in Bristol Bay, a large body of water in the Bering Sea.



"The bay is primarily fed by the Nushagak River, which begins in the Alaska Range and flows southwest approximately 450 km. The bay is also fed by several additional rivers including the Wood, Igushik, Snake and Weary rivers," says ESA.



"The dark colors of the Nushagak River are most likely due to tannins or lignins (chemical substances found in plants). Tannins and lignins from roots, leaves, seeds, bark and soil can leach into the water and give it a brown or even black colour. The sediments then flow southwards where it is mixed with the bluer waters of the bay."



Video/ Image 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

Nushagak Bay in southwest Alaska

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> (ACS) reveals that proteins on flu viruses are actually flexible, tilting and waving in a “breath-like” motion. According to the experts, these proteins could be used to better defend against the flu.



"The main antigenic targets of influenza virus are two surface glycoproteins, hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). Whereas the structural and dynamical properties of both glycoproteins have been studied previously, the understanding of their plasticity in the whole-virion context is fragmented," wrote the researchers.



To investigate, the team conducted detailed simulations of the influenza A H1N1 virion, or the swine flu. The experts concluded that the visualizations show many new vulnerable states of flu viruses, which could improve future vaccines and antiviral drugs.



Video/ Image 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.

Flu viruses are more flexible than expected

[sendtonews key="G9bUoxcjr4-2511624-12187" 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> features Lake Trasimeno, which is located west of Perugia in central Italy. It is the fourth largest lake in the country. While Trasimeno’s water level varies, it has a maximum depth of approximately six meters.&nbsp;



"In this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image, captured on 6 August 2022, the lake’s emerald green colour is likely due to the presence of phytoplankton. Streaks in the water, particularly visible in the west, indicate the presence of soil and sediments which have been stirred up by winds. Dark colored waters in the southern part of the lake indicate a presence of submerged and floating macrophytes (aquatic plants) as well as algae," says ESA.



"Surrounded by hills on three sides, Trasimeno is subject to heavy storms created by winds, especially from the north and west. There are three islets in the lake: Maggiore, Minore and Polvese (the largest). The lake’s shores are sparsely inhabited with only two popular villages: Castiglione del Lago and Passignano sul Trasimeno."



"Italy is experiencing its worst drought in 70 years which has affected drinking water supplies, hydroelectric power and agricultural production. High temperatures, hot winds and lack of rainfall are the main causes of drought in the Umbrian region which saw Lake Trasimeno’s drop 1.3 m, reaching the limit of the hydrometric zero in July 2022."



Video/Image Credit: ESA&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

Lake Trasimeno in Central Italy

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> describes a new self-powered nanosensor that can instantly detect mercury contamination with the tap of a finger.&nbsp;



The oxidized form of mercury can be harmful when it is ingested through contaminated water or food. This makes it necessary for experts to develop sensors that can quickly and accurately detect the presence of mercury.&nbsp;



Zong-Hong Lin and colleagues have now created a triboelectric nanosensor (TENS) that can detect mercury by simply by touching a sample. According to the researchers, their TENS could serve as the basis for similar devices to safely and remotely monitor other pollutants.



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.

Detecting mercury contamination with the tap of a finger

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Kainji Lake, a reservoir on the Niger River.



In 1968, Kainji Lake was created by the construction of the Kainji Dam. The Niger River, the third longest in Africa, enters the lake in the north.&nbsp;



According to <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/rivers-in-the-american-west-are-a-lifesaving-resource-for-birds/">ESA</a>, the creation of the lake submerged Foge Island and the town of Bussa and permanently flooded other riverine settlements, leaving around 50,000 people displaced.&nbsp;



Large parts of Foge Island are temporarily exposed during low water tides, and the land is often used by migrating fishermen. Kainji Dam is a dam across the Niger River in Niger State of Central Nigeria. 



Wild mammals occur at relatively low densities due to illegal hunting. Lake Kainji has suffered a dramatic decline as a fishery due to the high numbers of artisanal and subsistence fisherfolk using the lake. It has been suggested that a period of closure, together with controlled fishing rights may help improve fish stocks.



Kainji Lake National Park is the oldest of its kind in Nigeria. The park contains three distinct areas: a part of the Kainji Lake, the Borgu Game Reserve to the west of the lake, and the Zugurma Game Reserve to the southeast. The park is home to around 65 mammal species, 350 bird species, and 30 species of reptiles and amphibians. 



Video/ Image Credit: European Space Agency&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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Kainji Lake in north central Nigeria

[sendtonews key="iuA5mpp3jv-1641775-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

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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 the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> explores the ability of salt to transform the way that foods and beverages taste. Salt is known to cover up undesirable flavors, such as bitterness in coffee or beer, but how exactly does sodium chloride change the taste of other compounds?



One previous study showed that, not only does salt suppress bitterness, but also enhances sweetness and sourness. Another study revealed that bitterness reduction by salt seems to be happening at the tongue receptor level as well as in the brain.&nbsp;



While it is known that salt taste is mediated by the presence of sodium channels in the form of taste buds, experts believe that there is also an unknown receptor responsible for how we taste salt that has not yet been identified.&nbsp;



Video Credit: ACS Reactions



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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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How does salt makes things taste better?

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Santiago, the capital city of Chile. The city is located in the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Region, which has a population of about eight million people.&nbsp;



'The weather of Santiago resembles the Mediterranean climate with dry and warm summers with temperatures reaching up to 35°C (from October to March) and cool and humid winters that can drop to 0°C (from April to September)."



"The city lies in the centre of the country’s central valley around 80 km from the Pacific Ocean to the west and borders Argentina to the east. A tiny part of Argentina is visible in the top-right corner of the image where the mountain crest of the Andes Mountains acts as a divider between the two countries," says ESA.



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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Santiago, Chile in South America

[sendtonews key="JRaP49ISmm-2357509-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

Spiral,Galaxy,,Illustration,Of,Milky,Way

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Astronomers at <a href="https://www.jhu.edu/">Johns Hopkins University</a> have created an interactive map of the universe, including the actual position and real colors of 200,000 galaxies. The map allows the public to access data that was previously only available to scientists.



The map was developed using data collected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. For over two decades, a telescope in New Mexico was aimed at slightly different locations to capture the night sky.&nbsp;



"Growing up I was very inspired by astronomy pictures, stars, nebulae and galaxies, and now it's our time to create a new type of picture to inspire people," said map creator Brice Ménard, a professor at Johns Hopkins. "Astrophysicists around the world have been analyzing this data for years, leading to thousands of scientific papers and discoveries. But nobody took the time to create a map that is beautiful, scientifically accurate, and accessible to people who are not scientists. Our goal here is to show everybody what the universe really looks like."



"In this map, we are just a speck at the very bottom, just one pixel. And when I say we, I mean our galaxy, the Milky Way which has billions of stars and planets. We are used to seeing astronomical pictures showing one galaxy here, one galaxy there or perhaps a group of galaxies. But what this map shows is a very, very different scale."



"From this speck at the bottom, we are able to map out galaxies across the entire universe, and that says something about the power of science."



The <a href="https://mapoftheuniverse.net/">interactive map</a> is available online, where it can be downloaded for free.



Video Credit: Johns Hopkins&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.

Interactive map of the universe includes 200,000 galaxies

[sendtonews key="e4ZG0Jawp3-2374785-12187" type="single"] Astronomers at Johns Hopkins University have created...

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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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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Dublin, the capital and largest city of Ireland. Beyond its pub culture, Dublin is known as a modern culinary destination and a UNESCO City of Literature.



"Dublin is located near the midpoint of Ireland’s east coast in the province of Leinster. The city, which covers an area of around 115 square kilometers, is bordered by the Dublin Mountains, a low mountain range to the south, and is surrounded by flat farmland to the north and west," says ESA.



"The city straddles the River Liffey, which rises in the Wicklow Mountains and flows around 80 kilometers eastwards through the city of Dublin, in which it is canalised and bordered with quays. It then empties into Dublin Bay, an arm of the Irish Sea."



Dublin has an abundance of green spaces, including one of the largest enclosed public parks in any European capital city. Phoenix Park, which was originally formed as a royal hunting park in the 1660s, includes 707 hectares of green space.



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.

The city of Dublin on Ireland's east coast

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features the province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain. The image was captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.



"Together with the provinces of Huesca and Teruel, Zaragoza formed the old kingdom of Aragon. Its capital, also called Zaragoza (not visible in this image) is home to around half of Aragon’s population," says ESA.



"The Ebro River can be seen winding its way through the province from west to east in this image. Between its source in the Cantabrian Mountains in the northwest and its delta on the Mediterranean coast, the Ebro River is fed by more than 200 tributaries as it flows 910 km across much of northern Spain."



Since rainfall is very scarce in this region, irrigation in the Ebro basin is critically important. In the valleys surrounding the Ebro River, many fields are used for growing crops such as corn, wheat, and barley.



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



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.

The province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain

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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



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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 the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features the Pyrenees Mountains, which form a natural boundary between France and Spain in southwest Europe.



The mountain range is 430 kilometers in length. It stretches from the Mediterranean Sea on the east to the Atlantic Ocean on the west.



At an elevation of 3404 meters, Pico de Aneto is the highest mountain peak in the Pyrenees, and the third-highest peak in Spain. Pico de Aneto is located in the Posets-Maladeta Natural Park, which spans more than 82,000 acres.&nbsp;



"Geological studies have revealed that the Pyrenees Mountains have been around for longer than the Alps, with their sediments first deposited in coastal basins during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras," reports ESA.



"The entire mountain range formed due to the upwelling of large sedimentary rocks by the collision of the Iberian and the Eurasian plate around 100 to 150 million years ago, followed by intense erosion from ice and water."



The western Pyrenees receive more precipitation due to moisture blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean. The mountain range contains many lakes, several small glaciers, and some of the highest waterfalls in Europe.



Video &amp; 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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The Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

[sendtonews key="6HyfrAJTBI-1831843-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.stowers.org/">Stowers Institute for Medical Research</a> describes why experts are studying zebrafish to gain a better understanding of how the immune system responds to injury. Zebrafish have the ability to repair and regenerate organs.



“Organ regeneration offers an exciting opportunity for studying the immune system and to inquire why some species can regenerate organs like the heart or missing limbs while others like humans cannot,” explained Dr. Tatjana Piotrowski.



Zebrafish sensory organ hair cells are an ideal system to investigate the pathways and cell types involved in regeneration since they are easily destroyed with antibiotics and begin regenerating within five hours. This enabled the researchers to identify the exact timing and genetic programs for each anti-inflammatory macrophage activation state.&nbsp;



“Our hypothesis is that human macrophages do not receive the proper chemical activation 'cocktail' to instruct pro-regenerative processes,” said Dr. Nicolas Denans. “Identifying the molecular recipe of macrophage activation in zebrafish may one day enable us to design regenerative immunotherapies in humans.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“The new evidence is a valuable resource for comparative studies on the genetic programs involved in macrophage-mediated repair and regeneration. In other words, different types of injuries may induce different kinds of inflammatory responses. We want to decipher whether this 'language' is universal or if there are a variety of dialects."



Video Credit: Stowers Institute for Medical Research&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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How the immune system responds to injury

[sendtonews key="0dEcERCq61-2283382-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from Stowers...

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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...

Earth,Like,Exoplanet,3d,Render

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes two exoplanets that are orbiting a star 218 light-years away. A team of researchers led by the University of Montreal has found evidence that these planets are "water worlds."



The experts used data from NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes. They discovered that exoplanets Kepler-138 c and Kepler-138 could be composed largely of water.



"We previously thought that planets that were a bit larger than Earth were big balls of metal and rock, like scaled-up versions of Earth, and that's why we called them super-Earths," explained study co-author Björn Benneke.&nbsp;



"However, we have now shown that these two planets, Kepler-138 c and d, are quite different in nature and that a big fraction of their entire volume is likely composed of water. It is the best evidence yet for water worlds, a type of planet that was theorized by astronomers to exist for a long time."



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and Leah Hustak (STScI)



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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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Two distant planets may be "water worlds"

[sendtonews key="QIoVYJqRBi-2434608-12187" 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



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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...