April 25th
10:38 AM
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oldowan: Diversity aided mammals’ survival over deep time When it comes to adapting to climate change, diversity is the mammal’s best defense. That is one of the conclusions of the first study of how mammals in North Americaadapted to climate change in “deep time” – a period of 56 million years beginning with the Eocene and ending 12,000 years ago with the terminal Pleistocene extinction when mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, giant sloths and most of the other “megafauna” on the continent disappeared. “Before we can predict how mammals will respond to climate change in the future, we need to understand how they responded to climate change in the past,” said Larisa R. G. DeSantis, the assistant professor of earth and environmental studies at Vanderbilt who directed the study. “It is particularly important to establish a baseline that shows how they adapted before humans came on the scene to complicate the picture.” Establishing such a baseline is particularly important for mammals because their ability to adapt to environmental changes makes it difficult to predict how they will respond. For example, mammals have demonstrated the ability to dramatically alter their size and completely change their diet when their environment is altered. In addition, mammals have the mobility to move as the environment shifts. And their ability to internally regulate their temperature gives them more flexibility than cold-blooded organisms like reptiles.

oldowan:

Diversity aided mammals’ survival over deep time

When it comes to adapting to climate change, diversity is the mammal’s best defense.

That is one of the conclusions of the first study of how  in adapted to  in “deep time” – a period of 56 million years beginning with the Eocene and ending 12,000 years ago with the terminal Pleistocene extinction when mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, giant sloths and most of the other “megafauna” on the continent disappeared.

“Before we can predict how mammals will respond to climate change in the future, we need to understand how they responded to climate change in the past,” said Larisa R. G. DeSantis, the assistant professor of earth and environmental studies at Vanderbilt who directed the study. “It is particularly important to establish a baseline that shows how they adapted before humans came on the scene to complicate the picture.”

Establishing such a baseline is particularly important for mammals because their ability to adapt to environmental changes makes it difficult to predict how they will respond. For example, mammals have demonstrated the ability to dramatically alter their size and completely change their diet when their environment is altered. In addition, mammals have the mobility to move as the environment shifts. And their ability to internally regulate their temperature gives them more flexibility than cold-blooded organisms like reptiles.

#zoology      #science      #adaptation      #climatology      #mammals      #north america      #palaeontology      #paleontology      #zooarchaeology      #climate change     
April 18th
9:01 AM
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97% of cable news coverage of climate change is about politics, not science

sugarazor:

Our study finds that the Sunday shows consulted political and media figures on climate change, but left scientists out of the discussion. Of those hosted or interviewed on climate change, 50% were political figures — including elected officials, strategists and advisers — 45% were media figures, and none were scientists. By comparison, 32% of those interviewed or quoted on the nightly news programs were political figures, and 20% were scientists.

Almost Every Mention Of Climate Change Was About Politics. Our results show that on the Sunday shows, 97% of stories mentioning climate change in the past three years were about politics in Washington, DC or on the campaign trail. One story — on Fox News Sunday — was driven by extreme weather, and none were driven by scientific findings.

Disgraceful. 

#politics      #global warming      #climate change      #news     
October 7th
9:27 PM
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"To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed."
Theodore Roosevelt, seventh annual message, 3 December 1907 (via fightingfortheworld)
#quote      #environment      #nature      #conservation      #global warming      #climate change      #change      #roosevelt      #message     
October 3rd
1:22 PM
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mothernaturenetwork: Arctic ozone hole detected for the first timeCold temperatures this year and still-circulating pollutants contributed to the development of the new ozone hole.

mothernaturenetwork:

Arctic ozone hole detected for the first time
Cold temperatures this year and still-circulating pollutants contributed to the development of the new ozone hole.

#ozone      #Arctic      #climate change      #environment      #science     
October 2nd
11:11 AM
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Cornell University report: Keystone XL Pipeline could kill more jobs than it creates"

#Keystone XL pipeline      #oil      #oil and gas      #candada      #pipeline      #climate change      #economic development      #environment      #protest      #ecosystems      #engineering      #energy     
September 21st
1:11 PM
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Russia to up arctic military due to climate change

climateadaptation:

“Our northern border used to be closed because of ice and a severe climate,” said Anton Vasilev, a special ambassador for Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“But the ice is going away we cannot leave 20,000 kilometres unwatched. We can’t leave ourselves in a position where we are undefended,” Vasilev said, in an interview with the Interfax news agency.

Global warming and demand for new energy sources make necessary new and clearer international agreements on the division of Arctic region’s resources and usage he said.

Source: Times Live SA

#russia      #northwest passage      #climate change      #military      #arctic      #transportation      #federalism      #border disputes      #borders      #foreign affairs     
September 7th
6:34 PM
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take-nothing-but-photos: Giant crabs make Antarctic leap Up to a million king crabs are discovered on the edge of Antarctica, probably carried by warm water, raising fears for the local ecosystem. The researchers sent the Genesis, a submersible remotely operated vehicle (ROV) from the University of Ghent in Belgium, into the Palmer Deep in March last year. The idea was to look at what life was down there, rather than specifically to look for crabs; and the team was somewhat surprised by how many they found. Judging by the density of the crabs and their tracks, the scientists estimate there may be 1.5 million crabs in the basin. A female crab retrieved from the area was found to be carrying mature eggs and larvae. “Our best guess is there was an event, or maybe more than one, where warmer water flushed up across the shelf and carried some of the larvae into the basin,” said project leader Craig Smith from the University of Hawaii.

take-nothing-but-photos:

Giant crabs make Antarctic leap

Up to a million king crabs are discovered on the edge of Antarctica, probably carried by warm water, raising fears for the local ecosystem.

The researchers sent the Genesis, a submersible remotely operated vehicle (ROV) from the University of Ghent in Belgium, into the Palmer Deep in March last year.

The idea was to look at what life was down there, rather than specifically to look for crabs; and the team was somewhat surprised by how many they found.

Judging by the density of the crabs and their tracks, the scientists estimate there may be 1.5 million crabs in the basin.

A female crab retrieved from the area was found to be carrying mature eggs and larvae.

“Our best guess is there was an event, or maybe more than one, where warmer water flushed up across the shelf and carried some of the larvae into the basin,” said project leader Craig Smith from the University of Hawaii.


#conservation      #crabs      #climate change      #oceans      #antarctic      #science      #research      #study      #deep ocean     
August 26th
12:38 PM
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Close to 300 White House Protesters Treated Cruelly, Jailed under Unreasonably Harsh Conditions, Detained for Inexcusable Amounts of Time for Trying to Protect The Planet from Big Oil's Greedy Hands

leftish:

After being arrested protesting the Keystone XL pipeline, activist Bill McKibben shares what he learned.

“As I headed to jail as part of the first wave of what is turning into the biggest civil disobedience action in the environmental movement for many years, I had the vague idea that I would write something. Not an epic like King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” but at least, you know, a blog post. Or a tweet.

But frankly, I wasn’t up to it. The police, surprised by how many people turned out on the first day of two weeks of protests at the White House, decided to teach us a lesson. As they told our legal team, they wanted to deter anyone else from coming — and so with our first crew they were… kind of harsh.

We spent three days in D.C.’s Central Cell Block, which is exactly as much fun as it sounds like it might be. You lie on a metal rack with no mattress or bedding and sweat in the high heat; the din is incessant; there’s one baloney sandwich with a cup of water every 12 hours.

I didn’t have a pencil — they wouldn’t even let me keep my wedding ring — but more important, I didn’t have the peace of mind to write something. It’s only now, out 12 hours and with a good night’s sleep under my belt, that I’m able to think straight. And so, as I said, I’ll go to this weekend’s big celebrations for the opening of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial on the Washington Mall with even more respect for his calm power.

Will we do the same to the boreal forests of Canada. As NASA climatologist James Hansen has made all too clear, if we do so it’s “essentially game over for the climate.” That message is getting through.  Witness the incredibly strong New York Times editorial opposing the building of the pipeline that I was handed on our release from jail.

…Second, being arrested in front of the White House helped make it clearer that President Obama should be the focus of anti-pipeline activism. For once Congress isn’t in the picture.  The situation couldn’t be simpler: the president, and the president alone, has the power either to sign the permit that would take the pipeline through the Midwest and down to Texas (with the usual set of disastrous oil spills to come) or block it.

…Barack Obama has the power to stop it and no one in Congress or elsewhere can prevent him from doing so.  That means — and again, it couldn’t be simpler — that the Keystone XL decision is the biggest environmental test for him between now and the next election. If he decides to stand up to the power of big oil, it will send a jolt through his political base, reminding the presently discouraged exactly why they were so enthused in 2008.”

Read entire article…

#KEYSTONE PIPELINE      #KEYSTONE XL      #TAR SANDS      #TAR SANDS PIPELINE      #WHITE HOUSE PROTEST      #UNREASONABLE DETENTION      #DETAINED      #PROTEST      #ACTIVISM      #ACTIVIST      #ENVIRONMENT      #GLOBAL WARMING      #CLIMATE CHANGE      #BIG OIL      #CORPORATE GREED     
August 24th
9:27 PM
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mothernaturenetwork: 7 lakes and rivers that are drying up

mothernaturenetwork:

7 lakes and rivers that are drying up

#science      #water      #climate change      #conservation      #environment     
August 21st
8:53 PM
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cwnl: Rivers of Melting Ice Mapped in Antarctica The first-ever map of how Antarctica’s ice is moving across that continent has been created by researchers at the University of California, Irvine. The map, along with an associated animation developed by NASA, reveals that ice is flowing fastest in coastal ice shelves and their tributaries, shown in this illustration in bright purple and blue. Though it’s ice that’s moving, not water, “you can imagine it like a river system,” says Bernd Scheuchl, one of the map’s creators. The fastest ice flows out to sea at a rate of a few kilometers a year. Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers on the west coast are the most active. The team was surprised by how far inland they found fast-moving ice, Scheuchl says. So, if Antarctica loses a great deal of its coastal ice to climate change in the coming decades, large quantities of interior ice could follow. “That’s critical knowledge for predicting future sea level rise,” NASA polar scientist Thomas Wagner said in a prepared statement. To create this view of Antarctic ice flow, the UC Irvine researchers relied on data from satellites operated by Canada, Japan and the European Space Agency. Flow was tracked from 2007 to 2009 during a period of intense scientific monitoring of Earth’s poles that researchers all over the world had agreed to do. A report on the map was published online August 18 in Science. Journal Reference: Science

cwnl:

Rivers of Melting Ice Mapped in Antarctica

The first-ever map of how Antarctica’s ice is moving across that continent has been created by researchers at the University of California, Irvine.

The map, along with an associated animation developed by NASA, reveals that ice is flowing fastest in coastal ice shelves and their tributaries, shown in this illustration in bright purple and blue. Though it’s ice that’s moving, not water, “you can imagine it like a river system,” says Bernd Scheuchl, one of the map’s creators. The fastest ice flows out to sea at a rate of a few kilometers a year. Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers on the west coast are the most active.

The team was surprised by how far inland they found fast-moving ice, Scheuchl says. So, if Antarctica loses a great deal of its coastal ice to climate change in the coming decades, large quantities of interior ice could follow. “That’s critical knowledge for predicting future sea level rise,” NASA polar scientist Thomas Wagner said in a prepared statement.

To create this view of Antarctic ice flow, the UC Irvine researchers relied on data from satellites operated by Canada, Japan and the European Space Agency. Flow was tracked from 2007 to 2009 during a period of intense scientific monitoring of Earth’s poles that researchers all over the world had agreed to do. A report on the map was published online August 18 in Science.

Journal Reference: Science

#Antarctica      #Environment      #Global warming      #Maps      #NASA      #Nature      #Pollution      #Research      #Science      #Climate change