A team of European scientists reports that climate change estimates for the next century may have substantially underestimated the potential magnitude of global warming. They say that actual warming due to human fossil fuel emissions may be 15-to-78 percent higher than warming estimates that do not take into account the feedback mechanism involving carbon dioxide and Earth’s temperature. In a paper to be published on 26 May in Geophysical Research Letters, Marten Scheffer of Wageningen

Scientists at The University of Manchester are to create the first 3D model of the maze-like crystals known as Zeolites.

Professor Michael Anderson of the University’s Centre for Microporous Materials will lead an international research team in a bid to create the first 3D ‘map’ of the material.

Zeolites are porous crystals commonly known as molecular sieves. They are made up of a complex maze of tunnels which can be used to purify or filter materials such as

Discovery Shows Some Species Can Survive Fungus Decimating Amphibians

Researchers exploring a Colombian mountain range found surviving members of a species of Harlequin frog believed extinct due to a killer fungus wiping out amphibian populations in Central and South America.

The discovery of what could be the last population of the painted frog (Atelopus ebenoides marinkellei) indicates the species has survived the fungus, providing hope that other species also might a

What do month-to-month changes in temperature have to do with century-to-century changes in temperature? At first it might seem like not much. But in a report published in this week’s Nature, scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have found some unifying themes in the global variations of temperature at time scales ranging from a single season to hundreds of thousands of years. These findings help place climate observed at individual places and times into a larger glo

It’s designed to explore the depths of large bodies of water—and one recent weekend, that’s exactly where it was found: searching the depths of the deep end of Judson Pool in Rochester Institute of Technology’s Gordon Field House and Activities Center. (As the adage goes, every journey begins with a single step.)

A team of RIT engineering majors built the explorer, an underwater remote-operated vehicle, or ROV—and it has been described as one of the most ambitious student project

ESA’s Cluster satellites have flown through regions of the Earth’s magnetic field that accelerate electrons to approximately one hundredth the speed of light. The observations present Cluster scientists with their first detection of these events and give them a look at the details of a universal process known as magnetic reconnection.

On 25 January 2005, the four Cluster spacecraft found themselves in the right place at the right time: a region of space known as an electron diffu

Using time series analyses of a 22-year record of satellite observations across the northern circumpolar high latitudes, scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center are assessing trends in vegetation photosynthetic activity. The results indicate that tundra areas consistently and predominantly show greening trends while forested areas show browning, indicating that the boreal forest biome might be responding to climate change in previously unexpected ways. This research is highlighted in the

For many, sea-level rise is a remote and distant threat faced by people like the residents of the Tuvalu Islands in the South Pacific, where the highest point of land is only 5 meters (15 feet) above sea level and tidal floods occasionally cover their crops in seawater.

Now, however, a recently published study by researchers from The Earth Institute at Columbia University and the International Institute for Environment and Development suggests that as much as 10 percent of the

Academy-funded biosciences and environmental research projects have many different kinds of scientific and social impacts. Basic research in these fields promotes not only the advancement of science, but also many social objectives. This is clear from a report published by the Academy of Finland on 17 May on the impact of biosciences and environmental research. The report is one of the Academy’s SIGHT2006 publications on the state, level and impact of Finnish scientific research published thi

At least three people have been killed and an estimated 25 000 people have been displaced in Suriname as a result of flooding caused by torrential rains since 1 May. Approximately 25 000-30 000 square kilometres are currently under water, and the government has declared the southwest and central lowlands disaster zones.

In response to the crisis, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has called for helicopters to deliver relief supplies. According to media r

Scientists at NASA are finding that with hurricanes, they can look at the cloud tops for clues about the behavior of winds below the hurricane on the Earth’s surface.

By looking at how high up the rain is forming within clouds, scientists can estimate whether the hurricane’s surface winds will strengthen or weaken. They have found that if rain is falling from clouds that extend up to 9 miles high, and that rain continues for at least one out of three hours, a hurricane&

The mountains skipped like rams…
– Psalm 114

“Moving mountains” has come to mean doing the impossible. Yet at least once in the past, one mountain relocated a fair distance away. This feat took place around 50 million years ago, in the area of the present-day border between Montana and Wyoming. Heart Mountain was part of a larger mountain range when the 100 km (62 mile) long ridge somehow became detached from its position and shifted about 100 km to the southwest. This “

Halfway to the center of the Earth, at the boundary between the core and the mantle, lies a massive folded slab of rock that once formed the ocean floor and sank beneath North America some 50 million years ago. A team of seismologists led by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, detected the slab by analyzing seismic waves reflected from the deepest layer of the mantle beneath an area off the west coast of Central America.

“If you imagine cold honey pouring onto a plat

ESA has for the first time acquired and processed images sent by ALOS – Japan’s four-tonne satellite dedicated to land-based Earth Observation – including views of Italy, The Netherlands and Norway.

ESA is supporting ALOS as a ’Third Party Mission’, which means the agency is utilising its multi-mission ground segment of existing European facilities and expertise to acquire, process and distribute data from the satellite.

“We have received high-quality data

Pile driving and industrial noise may adversely affect dolphin behaviour, communication and breeding, according to a scientific paper in CIWEM’s Water and Environment Journal.

Bottlenose dolphins that reside in designated Special Areas of Conservation throughout the UK, including Dorset, Anglesey and Cornwall, might be at risk from pile driving. The frequency range of pile driving noise could interfere with their ability to communicate, find food and avoid predators. This has the

In time for the 22 May 2006, which is the International Day for Biological Diversity, GreenFacts has published a popularised version of the Millennium Assessment Report on Biodiversity. It is available at www.greenfacts.org/biodiversity/ in English, and soon also in French, Dutch and Spanish. The summary was produced in partnership with IUCN (the World Conservation Union), Countdown 2010 and UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre.

This year’s International Day for Biological Divers