NASA sponsored scientists have discovered by knowing the salt content of the ocean’s surface, they may be able to improve the ability to predict El Nino events. Scientists, studying the western Pacific Ocean, find regional changes in the saltiness of surface ocean water correspond to changes in upper ocean heat content in the months preceding an El Nino event. Knowing the distribution of surface salinity may help predict events.

Salinity and temperature combine to dictate the ocean’s dens

NASA and two Japanese government agencies are collaborating on a snowfall study over Wakasa Bay, Japan. Using NASA’s Earth Observing System Aqua satellite, research aircraft and coastal radars to gather data, the joint effort is expanding scientific knowledge about where precipitation falls.

Until now, the north Pacific’s contributions to the global hydrologic cycle have been difficult to quantify. Precipitation measurements by satellite over open water are very important, because

Sopow and colleagues report in the February issue of Ecology Letters that a chemical stimulus from a galling insect changes the morphology and physiology of its host to benefit these specialized plant feeders.

Galls are atypical plant growths that provide nourishment and shelter for gall-inducing insects. Previous studies could not determine whether insect galls are induced by mechanical or chemical stimuli because gall formation occurred at the sites where the insects were active.

Whilst experimenting with nanospheres and perfluorodecalin, a liquid used in the production of synthetic blood, researchers at Germany’s University of Ulm have stumbled across a phenomenon that could ultimately help remove ozone-harming chemicals from the atmosphere. The perfluorodecalin, against all expectations, was taken up by a water-based suspension of 60 nm diameter polystyrene particles.

The scientists believe that this occurred because nanoscopic perfluorodecalin droplets became

The key role of multidisciplinary research in developing a landmark intergovernmental strategy to combat air pollution across Europe will be considered by Professor Helen ApSimon of Imperial College London in her inaugural lecture, A lot of Hot Air – Transboundary Air Pollution Over Europe.

The new Professor of Air Pollution Studies will focus on how her research using computer modelling of air pollution contributed to the formulation of the Gothenburg protocol under the United Nations’ Con

As Rebecca Brown kayaked down the Nolichucky River in North Carolina one summer, she followed a path similar to many of her own study subjects. Seeds and other propagules often float downstream before settling along riverbanks. Rampant with change, these areas offer a nutrient-rich location for new plants, yet pose the danger of sweeping vegetation away in a flood. It is this high volatility that makes the area resource rich and perfect for invasive and native plants to put down their roots. In a stu

A long-standing debate in ecology has been the effect of diversity on the temporal stability of biological systems.

Ecological theory predicts that the stability of populations should decline as community diversity increases, in part, because population size is assumed to decline with community richness.

In the February issue of Ecology Letters, Valone and Hoffman, using an 11-year dataset, have shown that the temporal stability of 17 species of annual plants in natural communitie

A study led by a Duke University scientist suggests that the current emphasis on controlling upstream nitrogen pollution fails to adequately address the impacts on water quality of another potential contaminant, phosphorus. Thus, according to the scientists, current strategies used by environmental managers to control excessive nutrients in coastal wetlands may not achieve their intended goals.

The finding was published in a report in the Friday, Jan. 24, 2003, issue of the journal Science b

Since the end of the 1960s West Africa has continuously been suffering hard drought. The rainfall deficit for the 1970s and 1980s, calculated to compare with the 1950s and 1960s, thus reached as high as 50% over the northern part of the Sahel. The hydrological cycle as a whole is affected by this drought, which results in serious consequences for agriculture and food security.

IRD researchers, aiming to understand the mechanisms behind this situation, examined rainfall data from 1950 to 1990

Analysis of Martian volcanoes will help determine when Hesperian epoch began

Research by a University at Buffalo planetary geologist suggests that generally accepted estimates about the geologic age of surfaces on Mars — which influence theories about its history and whether or not it once sustained life — could be way off.

Funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the research eventually could overturn principles about the relative ages of different are

Understanding how mountains form is critically important — from volcanic eruptions to earthquakes to catastrophic mudslides, the geologic processes active in mountain belts affect human societies every day. Yet, even though mountains are on all continents and in all ocean basins, scientists still understand relatively little about the forces that interact to form and destroy mountains, how mountains change over time, and the relationship between mountains and Earth’s climate.

To better

With measures aimed at reducing the emission of pollutants such as ammonia, policy makers pay too little attention to the consequences for the emission of other substances. This is revealed in a computer model constructed by Corjan Brink from Wageningen University during his doctoral research. For example, the model shows that reducing the amount of ammonia emitted leads to an increase in the emission of nitrous oxide (laughing gas).

The computer model developed by the environmental economis

Global Positioning Systems prepare a digital map for precise soil acidity identification

A study conducted by Iowa State University soil scientists suggests Global Positioning Systems (GPS) available to corn and soybean producers can markedly improve the management of soil acidity and lime application. The research is published in the January/February 2003 issue of Agronomy Journal.

Soil acidity can limit plant growth, and due to soil formation processes and management pract

Voluntary Initiative, Born Out of WSSD, Set to Deliver Major Health and Environmental Benefits to Continent’s 800 Million Citizens

UNEP’s Governing Council 3 to 7 February: Environment for Development

An international effort to phase out lead, the health-hazardous heavy metal, from petrol is accelerating as increasing numbers of African countries switch to unleaded fuel.

Research, to be presented to environment ministers attending a key conference organized by the Un

An immense grassland in Mongolia – an area likened to the long-gone prairies of the American West, complete with staggering migrations of hundreds of thousands of animals – is threatened by a proposal to build a road through its center, according to scientists with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society.

The road proposal is part of the “Millennium Highway,” which plans to connect Mongolia to China and the Russian Far East. The current version of the plan calls for de-gazetteing al

The discovery of 160 year old records in the archives of the Royal Society, London, has given scientists further evidence that Australian sea levels are rising.

Observations taken at Tasmania’s Port Arthur convict settlement 160 years ago by an amateur meteorologist have been compared with data from a modern tide gauge.

“There is a rate of sea level rise of about 1mm a year, consistent with other Australian observations,” says Dr David Pugh, from the UK’s Southampton Ocean