As Hurricane Rita entered the Gulf of Mexico, ESA’s Envisat satellite’s radar was able to pierce through swirling clouds to directly show how the storm churns the sea surface. This image has then been used to derive Rita’s wind field speeds.

Envisat acquired this Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) image at 0344 UTC on 22 September (2345 on 21 September in US Eastern Daylight Saving Time), when Hurricane Rita was passing west of Florida and Cuba. The image

Daily multispectral observations from Envisat’s MERIS sensor are being combined with a sophisticated processing algorithm and powerful Grid computing to reveal global photosynthesis activity on land. This permits researchers to trace the state of health of terrestrial plant cover, identifying areas under stress and assessing damage from drought or fires.

An algorithm developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC) in Ispra, Italy is the basis for gl

“Coastal erosion, global sea-level rise, and the loss of sand dune plant habitats”

Researchers from Texas A&M University created a model to better understand the impacts of development and coastal erosion on plant communities, including plants that grow in the ever-shrinking strip of habitat between land and the ocean. Rusty Feagin, Douglas Sherman, and William Grant simulated varying levels of sea-level rise to understand the effects of erosion and development on sand dune p

The CryoSat validation programme took another important step forward on Wednesday with the official handover of a unique set of data that had been collected by the intrepid Dutch Polar Explorer Marc Cornelissen on behalf of ESA during his recent expedition to the North Pole.

In March this year, Marc Cornelissen left Cape Arctichesky in northern Russia to lead the Pole Track 2005 expedition on a 1,000 km ski trek to the geographic North Pole. Along the way, the expedition team depl

A gradual lengthening of the snow-free season in Alaska’s tundra, and a corresponding northward progression of the growth of shrubs and trees, may be creating a cycle of warmer and longer summers in the Alaskan Arctic according to a new study to be published in the Sept. 22, 2005, issue of Science Express.

The resulting atmospheric heating in the region of northern Alaska is equivalent to what might be observed if there was a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. C

An unusual relationship between bacteria and a newly discovered group of marine worms is the only known partnership (or symbiosis) which uses sunken marine mammals as its sole source of nutrition.

In the September issue of Environmental Microbiology, Dr Shana Goffredi and her colleagues reveal this unique partnership between bacteria and the Osedax (bone-devouring) group of marine worms.

Symbiosis, or the living together of different organisms, allows some species to live

Scientists successfully grow ’dwarf belonging to the sea’ in laboratory

Scientists are now revisiting, and perhaps revising, their thinking about how Archaea, an ancient kingdom of single-celled microorganisms, are involved in maintaining the global balance of nitrogen and carbon. Researchers have discovered the first Archaea known to oxidize ammonia for energy and metabolize carbon dioxide by successfully growing the tentatively named, Nitrosopumilus maritimus, in the lab.

New research just released in the September issue of Plant Disease suggests that weeds commonly found in California’s wine country may enable the spread of Pierce’s disease of grapes, one of the most destructive plant diseases affecting grapes.

Pierce’s disease is caused by Xylella fastidiosa, a bacterium transmitted by sharpshooters and spittlebugs. In response to outbreaks of Pierce’s disease in central California, plant pathologists studied 29 weed species commonly found in

The impact of global warming on European weather patterns has been underestimated, according to a new report published in Nature this week.

Dr Gillett, of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, compared Northern Hemisphere air pressure changes at sea level over the past 50 years with predicted changes from nine state-of-the-art climate models.

The Northern Hemisphere Circulation study found that present climate change models – computer representations of

Climate models predict warmer temperatures due to global warming and this will mean warmer seas. Cod are essentially a cold-water species so what will warmer waters mean for them?

Based on future predictions of warmer waters, stocks in the Celtic and Irish Seas are expected to disappear while those in the southern North Sea and Georges Bank will decline. Cod will probably spread northward along the coasts of Greenland and Labrador and occupy larger areas of the Barents Sea.

“Biological diversity is a widely under-appreciated resource that is essential for human existence and has a crucial role to play in sustainable development and in the eradication of poverty. Biodiversity provides millions of people with livelihoods, helps to ensure food security, and is a rich source of both traditional medicines and modern pharmaceuticals.” That is how UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan defined biodiversity at the International Day for Biological Diversity in 2003.

An advanced research weather model run by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is following Hurricane Rita to give scientists a taste of how well forecast models of the future may predict hurricane track, intensity, and important rain and wind features. Tap into the model’s daily storm projection at www.ucar.edu.

With its high-resolution grid of data points just four kilometers (about 2.5 miles) apart, the model can project the location of fine-scale rain bands

A hanging basket style device is at the heart of a plan by researchers at the University of Warwick to harness the sex drive of a major pest of fruit orchards as a weapon to spread a virus to kill that very same pest. The device allows growers to selectively target the pest with a virus that kills its larvae without killing other beneficial insects.

The researchers at Warwick HRI, the horticultural research arm of the University of Warwick, have devised a hanging basket style di

Russian researchers have literally suggested burn to ashes thorns and other vegetative admixtures in the sheep’s fleece. It should be noted that that burning to ashes is done intricately, so that the future fiber only benefited from it –becoming solid, elastic and snow-white. The information on this development is placed in the section of promising projects on the site of the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC).

An ingenious fleece cleansing technology has been de

CryoSat, a major satellite mission developed by UK scientists to help resolve climate change uncertainties at the poles, will be launched at 16:02 (BST) Saturday 8 October from the Khrunichev Space Centre, Plesetsk, in Russia.

Pre-launch press conference: 10:00am, 3 October
Venue: Earth Gallery, Natural History Museum, London

This European Space Agency mission will:

– test whether global warming is reducing sea ice.
– accurately predict sea level rise caused by

Habitat protection, captive breeding, and research to fight life-threatening disease needed to halt a catastrophic decline in populations

A summit of leading scientists have agreed to an action plan intended to save hundreds of frogs, salamanders and other amphibians facing extinction from familiar threats such as pollution and habitat destruction, as well as a little-known fungus wiping out their populations.

The Amphibian Conservation Summit held Sept. 17-19 conclude