New evidence from satellites, models, and ground observations reveal urban areas, with all their asphalt, buildings, and aerosols, are impacting local and possibly global climate processes. This is according to some of the world’s top scientists convening in a special session at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

To study urban impact on local rainfall, Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., and Steve Burian of the

Coral reef health may be accurately estimated from sensors on airplanes and satellites in the future, according to a NASA scientist who is the principal investigator in a collaborative project to develop a method to remotely sense coral health.

Sometimes called the “bellwether of the seas,” coral reefs can give first indications of marine ecosystem health. “Scientists can use coral health as a sensitive indicator of the health of the marine environment,” said Liane Guild, a scientist at NASA

Southern vacation resorts encroaching on key winter habitats crucial to success of migratory birds: Queen’s researchers

(Kingston, ON) – The destruction of tropical forests to create vacation resorts for human “snowbirds” who fly south from Canada and the northern U.S. every winter is creating serious breeding problems for real migratory birds, say Queen’s University biologists.

A new study, headed by Ph.D. student Ryan Norris and his advisor, Professor Laurene Ratcliffe, sh

CSIRO Plant Industry has developed a simple high-throughput testing system that accurately identifies wheat and barley varieties.

“Accurate identification of wheat and barley varieties provides assurance of quality for products that require different grain characteristics, like bread, noodles and beer,” says Dr Kevin Gale, CSIRO Plant Industry. “This is vital in maintaining Australia’s export reputation in product standards.” The variety ID system tests leaf or grain samples using a panel o

Tiny ground movements that occur too gradually to be seen by the human eye can nevertheless be detected by ESA satellites looking down to Earth from 800 km away.

At a workshop in Italy last week, researchers explained how they are using this ability to monitor volcanoes and earthquake zones, aid oil and gas prospecting, observe urban subsidence and measure the slow flow of glaciers.

Data from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instruments like those flown aboard the ERS spacecra

Comparing ecological impacts of fishing gears

Sea turtles, starfish, dolphins, and seabirds are routinely caught and killed or injured in fishing gears aiming to catch other marine life bound for human consumption. This so-called bycatch can outweigh the actual target species by as much as 20 times. In addition, fishing gears inflict damage to corals and other seafloor habitats. “Shifting gears: assessing collateral impacts of fishing methods in US waters,” which appears in this month

An analysis of ground water and stream pollution 30 years after an agricultural study of nitrate began suggests that nitrate fertilizer can influence the watershed for decades.

Nitrate pollution from agricultural fertilizers can make water unsafe to drink, and may be causing a “dead zone” near the outlet of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico. For these reasons, farmers are being encouraged to alter their practices to use nitrogen more efficiently, but environmental improvemen

Four scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) are studying the chemistry of sulfur and nitrogen in the air above Antarctica. The investigation will help them understand the continent’s chemical processes better, as well as refine scientists’ interpretations of ice cores, which provide information on past climates.

The expedition, which runs through January 4, is part of the Antarctic Tropospheric Chemistry Investigation (ANTCI), a four-year program funde

Scientists have found that, despite a vast difference in precipitation between the north and south sides of the Himalaya Mountains, rates of erosion are indistinguishable across these mountains.

Douglas Burbank, professor of geology and director of the Institute for Crustal Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the first author of the article, “Decoupling of erosion and precipitation in the Himalayas,” to be published Thursday, December 11, in the international scientif

The pattern of rainfall in the Washington Cascades strongly affects long-term erosion rates in the mountain range and may cause bedrock to be pulled up towards the Earth’s surface faster in some places than others, according to a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded study published in this week’s issue of the journal Nature. The results are the first convincing evidence of such effects, on mountain-range scales.

“The data strongly suggest that precipitation controls erosion ra

The world’s tropical rain forests are under increasing threats from clearing for agriculture, massive slaughter of wildlife, global climate change and the reduction of forests to ever-smaller fragments.

Studying the effects of these changes on the keystone structural elements of these forests, canopy trees, has up to now been difficult, expensive and in some cases even dangerous. Now a tri-national group of researchers lead by Dr. David B. Clark of the University of Missouri-St. Louis

The invasion of Europe by an American cherry tree is helped along by Europeans’ own dirt, according to a new study by scientists at Indiana University Bloomington and the Centre for Terrestrial Ecology in the Netherlands.

Their report, in the December issue of Ecology Letters, suggests it’s what’s in European soils — or more specifically, what isn’t in them — that makes it possible for the American black cherry tree to have invaded the continent.

“We’re se

A research team led by Dr. David Coltman of the University of Sheffield has discovered that hunting may permanently change the physical characteristics of the targeted species.

Dr. Coltman, of the University’s Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, is part of a team investigating effects of thirty years of trophy hunting bighorn rams at Ram Mountain in Alberta, Canada. Trophy rams are heavy, with rapidly growing horns, and are a valuable commodity.

Trophy hunting at Ram Mountain

Scientists have developed a new “intelligent” reliable soil moisture sensor that is set to ensure horticulturists accurately irrigate staple crops such as potatoes and fruit, and enhance environmentally friendly farming practices. A collaboration between the University of Warwick and Herefordshire based McBurney Scientific led to the development of the new product that harnesses enhanced sensor technology for measuring soil moisture with wireless communication and the processing power and convenience

Recent studies suggest that an atmospheric compound derived primarily from coal combustion may have contradictory effects on the earth’s climate.

Under many conditions, sulfuric acid may cool the earth’s atmosphere. Sulfuric acid particles seem to scatter ultraviolet light back into space before it has a change to enter the troposphere – the bottom layer of earth’s atmosphere. But if conditions are right, this same chemical can warm the earth by combining with other compounds

One of the world’s fastest-moving glaciers is speeding up and retreating rapidly, a recent study has revealed.

The finding has surprised scientists, because while the margins of the Jakobshavn (pronounced “yah-cub-SAH-ven”) Glacier had been slowly retreating from the southwest coast of Greenland since before 1900, this retreat appeared to have stopped by the early 1990s when the first accurate measurements were made. Now the glacier is accelerating.

The glacier, one of the m