By Nadia Prupis People are driving marine ecosystems to “unprecedented” mass extinction, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal Science. Large-bodied animals will be the first to go, the study says—blue whales, great white sharks and bluefin tuna, for example. Their size is part of their vulnerability, making them more susceptible to […]
Melting Antarctic ice sheets are measurably reducing the salinity of the Southern Ocean. The research, published Thursday in Nature, notes that more freshwater entering the ocean “is more important for changes in global climate than has been appreciated so far.” Ocean salinity patterns from Dec. 2011 to Dec. 2012 as seen by Argentina’s SAC-D satellite.NASA/GSFC/JPL-Caltech […]
Aerial spraying of the pesticide naled in a South Carolina county, done in an attempt to prevent Zika-infected mosquitoes from gaining a foothold in the state, resulted instead in the massacre of millions of honeybees. On one farm in Summerville, South Carolina, 46 hives were wiped out instantly, killing 2.5 million bees.Flowertown Bee Farm and […]
Researchers from the University of British Columbia say that closing the high seas to fishing could help coastal fisheries, increasing catches by 10 percent. But our waters are now more polluted than ever, threatening the entire food chain. © Australian Fisheries Management Authority / WWF Fish have responded to warming ocean waters by moving north […]
Even though glyphosate is used to control weeds in agricultural fields, the world’s most commonly used weedkiller has also been detected in streams, rivers and other aquatic systems worldwide due to runoff. As we learn more and more about the potential environmental risks of glyphosate runoff, in Brazil—where almost 188,000 tons of glyphosate was sold […]
By Nadia Prupis Another day, another dire warning about the global climate emergency. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) top climate scientist announced Tuesday that the Earth is warming at a pace not seen in at least the past 1,000 years, making it “very unlikely” that global temperatures will stay below the 1.5 C […]
By Tim Radford Scientists have recruited the elephant seal—the bruiser of the pinniped world—to explore and report back on the dynamics of ocean currents in the Antarctic winter. Elephant seal carrying satellite-linked sensor in Prydz Bay, Antarctica.University of Tasmania And the mammals have delivered a potentially ominous message: because fresh water is melting from the […]
The Himalayan Mountains and Tibetan Plateau, dubbed the “Third Pole” for having the largest ice mass on Earth after the polar regions, are rapidly losing their glaciers. Eighteen percent of China’s glaciers have vanished in the past 50 years according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Air pollution and rising air temperatures are combining to […]
By James Cook University James Cook University‘s Prof. Bill Laurance has taken part in a study to map the ecological effect of people on the planet. He said the news isn’t great. “The most species-rich parts of the planet—especially including the tropical rainforests—have been hit hardest. In total, around 97 percent of Earth’s biologically richest […]
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