According to Alain-Ricahrd Donwahi, the president of last year’s United Nations’ COP15 conference on desertification and a former defense minister from the Ivory Coast, it is likely that the planet will experience a major food supply disruption long before temperatures reach the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This is due to the […]
Tropical forests are the most biologically diverse land-based ecosystems on the planet, sometimes nurturing hundreds of tree species within one square mile. The concentration of diversity is astounding, even to scientists. In a new study conducted in a Panamanian forest, researchers from The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) discovered that adult trees were […]
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef extends 1,429 miles over an approximate area of 133,000 square miles and is the largest coral reef system in the world. The magnificent reef is home to thousands of marine species, but for years has been under threat from pollution and climate change. The warming ocean has caused coral bleaching, and […]
Stargazing used to mean staring at the sky and consulting a guidebook to decipher the stars, or acquiring an expensive telescope to see them more clearly. Now, dozens of stargazing smartphone apps make it easy for anyone to enjoy and learn about the cosmos. Generally, they entail holding your smartphone up to the sky, and […]
Some long summer nights are accompanied by an enormous, magical-looking moon rising slowly over the horizon. This August we will be treated to two supermoons, and the second will be a blue moon. According to NASA, a supermoon is when the moon is full at the same time its orbit is closest to Earth, while […]
Weeks of meetings and negotiations by the 168-member International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Jamaica regarding the deep-sea mining of minerals has ended without approval of or regulations for the controversial practice. ISA member countries Palau, Vanuatu, France, Costa Rica and Chile proposed that the next meeting of the Assembly in mid-2024 discuss the protection of […]
Seagrass meadows are found all over the planet, from the Arctic circle to the tropics, and are vitally important as habitats for fish and for absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Seagrasses are becoming increasingly threatened by nutrient pollution and overfishing. Every half an hour a football field-sized area of seagrass is lost, reported the UK’s Natural […]
The Gulf Stream is a strong current of warm water that flows from the Gulf of Mexico into the Atlantic Ocean, and runs from the East Coast of the United States across the Atlantic and north past Western Europe. Without the Gulf Stream, which is part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a system […]
Earlier this week, south Florida saw sea surface temperatures equivalent to a normal hot tub. At Manatee Bay, inside Everglades National Park, a water temperature buoy about five feet underwater showed a temperature of 101.19 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday afternoon, with other buoys in the vicinity reaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit, reported AFP and Reuters. Manatee […]