Hurricanes are one of those forces of nature that can only fully be captured by satellite imagery. For Hurricane Frances, currently thundering towards the United States coast, ESA’s Envisat is going one better, peering through the hurricane from top to bottom, even helping to ’see’ under the waves to map hidden forces powering the storm.
As its 235-km-per-hour winds passed the Bahamas, Frances was heading for landfall on the Florida coast some time on Saturday, and three quarters
The first green accounts for a public sector body are published today.
A pioneering set of Environmental Cost Accounts are contained in the latest annual report from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). They focus on the environmental impacts and costs of its staff, facilities and operations. Using the latest scientific information available, Forum for the Future, a leading sustainable development charity, put an estimated price of £2.1 million on avoiding or restoring N
If not for humans, the number of woodland caribou in northern Alberta would be seven times greater than it is now, a new study from the University of Alberta shows. Since 1987, woodland caribou in Alberta have been classified as threatened under the Alberta Wildlife Act.
“Caribou feed mostly on lichens that are typical for old-growth forest stands,” said Piotr Weclaw a PhD student at the U of A. “They need a pristine ecological environment with large areas of old-growth forests in or
Veterinarians from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have confirmed the first-known case of canine distemper in a wild Siberian tiger in the Russian Far East, further threatening populations of this highly endangered big cat.
Kathy Quigley, veterinarian for the WCS Siberian Tiger Project, confirmed that an adult female tigress that wandered into a Russian town exhibiting abnormal behavior had the disease, which is fatal in cats. It is suspected that the tiger
The Directors of the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC)signed a Cooperation Agreement providing the JRC with real-time access to ECMWF weather forecast products for use in the European Flood Alert System (EFAS). Both organisations will work together to develop a system for early flood warnings up to 10 days in advance. An increased warning time could help to avoid casualties and reduce flood damages.
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Minute amounts of organic pollutants—including oestrone—can now be detected in river water as a result of a new optical sensing instrument realised in a project funded by the EU’s Environment Programme.
Pollution in water sources has been identified as a major source of environmental hazard, most recently associated with gender changes in fish, and implicated in falling levels of male fertility. Monitoring water quality and identifying pollution sources is therefore crucially impo
The area burned by wildfires in 11 Western states could double by the end of the century if summer climate warms by slightly more than a degree and a half, say researchers with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and Pacific Northwest Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington.
Montana, Wyoming and New Mexico appear acutely sensitive, especially to temperature changes, and fire seasons there may respond more dramatically to global warming than in states suc
Hedges on farms that are part of an agri-environment scheme contain more berry-producing species than those not in schemes, ecologists have found. Speaking at the British Ecological Society’s Annual Meeting taking place at Lancaster University on 7-9 September 2004, ecologists from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Lancaster will report that fruit from certain hedgerow species can remain an important food source for birds until Christmas if hedges remain unmanaged, and that agri-enviro
Conservationists follow six-weeks old wild tigers for first time
Scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and their Russian colleagues from the Sikhote-Alin Reserve have fitted three wild Siberian tiger cubs under six weeks old with tiny radio-collars, marking the youngest wild tigers to be tracked by scientists. The collars-made with an elastic designed to expand and eventually break and fall off of the growing cubs-weigh just over five ounces and would fit well on a
Although the world in which we live in is non-linear, or multi-dimensional, engineers and scientists have long used linear mathematical formulas to create models to predict physical phenomena such as the infiltration of water through soils or flooding.
But existing theories based on linear models do not accurately portray what actually occurs in nature, claims Temple University civil and environmental engineering professor Sergio Serrano, Ph.D.
In the September issue o
Materials made from particles one-millionth the size of a fine-point pen tip are touted daily for their current uses and dreamed of possibilities, but a pressing question remains as to the environmental impact of manufactured nano-sized materials.
Purdue University scientists are investigating the interactions between these tiny, many-sided structures and the environment. To further this research, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have
A breakthrough in sustainable office and house design – invented in Sydney.
“Silenceair looks like a transparent brick but it’s a high-tech solution to one of the biggest problems of city living,” says Dr Chris Field, one of 16 early-career innovators who have presented their work to the Australian public and media as part of Fresh Innovators. The winner will win a study tour to the UK courtesy of British Council.
“Cities are noisy. When we block the noise from our offices
More than 20,000 Western lowland gorillas could die within months if outbreak confirmed
Scientists fear that emerging evidence may suggest a new outbreak of the Ebola virus, which, in addition to threatening human lives, would threaten tens of thousands of great apes – in this case gorillas and chimpanzees – in the Republic of Congo. The announcement was made by the International Primatological Society (IPS) and Great Ape Survival Project (GRASP) at the IPS’s 20th Congress, being
A few NASA satellites designed to study heights of Earth’s ocean surfaces are now also coming in handy for tracking water levels of inland lakes and reservoirs.
When analysts at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS) learned that NASA satellites could be used for measuring lake water heights, they saw a chance to get vital information for managing irrigation and forecasting crop production in out-of-the way places.
Since early
Earth has entered the “Anthropocene”, a new geological era in which humans rival nature in their impact on the global environment, say scientists speaking at the EuroScience Forum in Stockholm today.
“Mankind’s use of Earth’s resources has grown so much that it seems justified to denominate the past two centuries and into the future as a new geological era,” says Professor Paul Crutzen, the Nobel prize-winning atmospheric chemist who first coined the term.
Speaking at a Eur
Large, nutrient-poor expanses of the open ocean are getting a substantial nitrogen influx from an abundant group of unicellular organisms that “fix,” or chemically alter, nitrogen into a form usable for biological productivity.
First identified about five years ago, these organisms – about 7 microns in diameter – are fixing nitrogen at rates up to three times higher than previously reported for the Pacific Ocean, according to research published in the Aug. 26, 2004 edition of the jo
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