Hard-to-detect clouds and water vapor, hidden until now from most atmospheric sensors, could be helping to shape global climate. An instrument package developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has detected layers of moisture, indicative of high-level cirrus clouds, that were missed by standard weather balloons and other instruments. The findings are being presented by NCAR scientist Junhong Wang on Tuesday, February 11, in Long Beach, California, at the annual meeting of the Am

Scientists are studying water tables in the Southwest with an eye towards conservation

Scientists have discovered an unusual way to measure how fast water moves from the ground surface to the water table: they analyze the ground temperature.

Research in Vadose Zone Journal, published by the Soil Science Society of America, describes the methodology behind using temperature to analyze how much water is recharging the ground water at a specific location. The research describes

Action on Chemicals Pollution and Support for Africa Agreed at End of Global Environment Ministers Meeting

UNEP’s 22nd Governing Council Starts Making Johannesburg Plan of Implementation Operational

A global crackdown on mercury pollution, an agreement to help rescue the environment of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and assistance for small island states to reduce their vulnerability to climate change, were among the key agreements made at the end of an international en

The danger of a future Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska’s Prince William Sound has declined substantially since the State of Alaska, environmentalists, oil companies, and the fishing industry brought together a risk management team, according to a study in a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).

Measures taken before the formation of the risk management team had brought down the risk by 75%. Actions taken based on the late 1990’s r

Genetically modified (GM) pest-resistant cotton may provide yields up to 80 per cent higher than traditional types. This has been observed by scientists from the University of Bonn and the University of California at Berkeley in field trials in India. Their conclusion: peasants in the tropics and sub-tropics can benefit substantially from GM plants. These findings are surprising, since it has hitherto only been possible to detect very minor increases in yield, if any, in similar studies in temperate

Scientists study the affects of nitrogen fertilizer applied to corn hybrids

Scientists at the USDA-ARS, Jamie Whitten, Delta States Research Center in Stoneville, MS, have found that Bt concentrations in young corn plants are directly influenced by the amount of nitrogen fertilizer applied at planting. The research is published in the January-February 2003 issue of Agronomy Journal.

Hybrid corn cultivars genetically modified to have the Bt-producing gene synthesize special p

A visualization of satellite data captured and processed January 1–20, 2003, by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) shows heavy pollution from China and Southeast Asia blowing out over the Pacific Ocean. The near-real time capability represented by the image is a breakthrough for NCAR team members working with the Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument aboard NASA’s Terra satellite.

The image shows levels of carbon monoxide (CO) in a

A largely overlooked but significant factor in marine ecology concerns the effects of variable pH on the growth rate and abundance of coastal marine phytoplankton, the base of the marine food chain in productive coastal waters. The pH of the open ocean varies very little. This has led to the common, but faulty, assumption that the pH of coastal waters also varies little and is unimportant.

In an article in a recent issue of the scientific journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, URI Graduate

The unique capabilities of a NASA earth-observing satellite have allowed researchers to view the effects of a major earthquake that occurred in 2001 in Northern India near the border of Pakistan.

Lead author Bernard Pinty of the Institute for Environment and Sustainability in the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Ispra, Italy, and colleagues from the U.S., France and Germany, used the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite to o

Researchers trace flow over long distances

Researchers have discovered a pair of seamounts on the ocean floor that serve as inflow and outflow points for a vast plumbing system that circulates water through the seafloor. The seamounts are separated by more than 30 miles (52 kilometers).
“One big underwater volcano is sucking in seawater, and the water flows north through the rocks of the seafloor and comes out through another seamount,” said Andrew Fisher, an associate professor

Globalization of commerce, especially by ships and air traffic, transports hitchhiking plants and animals around the world and in many cases they become pests in the new location –– according to an article in the February 6 issue of the journal Nature. One advantage that could explain their success is that the invaders often arrive without the parasites that hold them in check at home.

First author Mark E. Torchin, assistant research biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara,

The face of Europe’s mountains is changing and could be altered forever if declining agricultural trends continue, warn scientists behind a major new EU research project announced today.

The Euro3.2 million “BioScene” project co-ordinated by the Wye campus of Imperial College London and sponsored by the European Union will evaluate the threats and the opportunities for wildlife conservation resulting from declining agriculture and seek ways of reconciling conservation of biodiversity wi

Scientists from the University of Aarhus, Denmark, have developed a technique that could improve the commercial processes used to remove environmentally harmful sulphur from fossil fuels. This is currently done using a catalyst, which binds the harmful sulphur molecules to it, in much the same way as a car’s catalytic converter works.

In a paper published today in the Institute of Physics journal Nanotechnology the Danish team explain how they have studied the chemical reactions which

Groundbreaking research released on the economics of marine protected areas

For the first time anywhere, the analysis of leading economists and ecologists worldwide has been brought together in one place, to examine the economics of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Two special issues of the international research journal Natural Resource Modeling (Vol. 15 Nos. 3 &4) have just been published, within which the editors, Ussif Rashid Sumaila (University of British Columbia) and Anthony Char

Psychologists and human behaviorists are being enlisted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in a pioneering new initiative to save the planet.

Experts believe that the traditional messages from governments and green groups, urging the public to adopt environmentally-friendly life-styles and purchasing habitats, need to be overhauled.

There is concern that many of these messages are too ‘guilt-laden’ and disapproving and instead of ‘turning people on’ to the env

Using organic waste presents a win-win situation for municipalities, agriculture

Sewage sludge has the potential to boost production for certain crops while addressing the increase in the amount of waste and the growing scarcity of landfills, according to scientists at the University of Florida.

Using organic waste as fertilizer is not a new concept. Before the 1940s, when synthetic nitrogen fertilizer became widely available, animal manure and human waste were commonly used