Friday (16 September) is International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer. This year scientists at British Antarctic Survey (BAS) commemorate their discovery of the Antarctic ‘ozone hole’ 20 years ago and commend the historic international agreement (the Montreal Protocol 1987) that will lead to its eventual recovery.

Jonathan Shanklin, one of the researchers who made the discovery says, “The 2005 hole is larger and deeper than the holes that formed when the discover

For the third time in as many years, glaciologist Lonnie Thompson has returned from an Andean ice field in Peru with samples from beds of ancient plants exposed for the first time in perhaps as much as 6,500 years.

In 2002, he first stumbled across some non-fossilized plants exposed by the steadily retreating Quelccaya ice cap. Carbon dating showed that plant material was at least 5,000 years old.

Then in 2004, Thompson found additional plant beds revealed by the co

As Hurricane Ophelia is set to make landfall on the North Carolina coast on Wednesday or Thursday (Sept. 14 or 15), analysis techniques developed by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Tropical Cyclones group in the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies are helping to predict the anticipated path of the storm.

Since 1982, the Tropical Cyclones group has been developing specialized tools used by forecasters with weather satellite data using i

Researchers at the Botany Department of the University of Navarra, Ana María de Miguel y Miriam de Román, have undertaken a study on the use of mycorrhizzae-introduced plants (colonised with the “Tuber melanosporum” fungus or black Perigord truffle), on surface land areas affected by fires.

Taking advantage of reforestation work carried out by Viveros y Repoblaciones de Navarra in the recovery of the Nazar kermes oak forest (Estella-Lizarra region), a typical Mediterranean-type

The Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI) and Uppsala University have shown that a method previously used to warn about mining quakes can be used to predict where and when earthquakes are going to take place.

“Using this method, major quakes like the one that caused the tsunami could be predicted better, both in terms of time and geographic area,” says Leif Persson, a researcher at FOI.

Seismology researchers at FOI and Uppsala University have retrospectively examined

Scientists in Global Drifter Program deploy ceremonial 1,250th buoy

An ambitious idea spawned more than 20 years ago to develop a new way to watch the world change has come to fruition.

The Global Drifter Program (GDP), largely led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and Scripps Distinguished Professor Peter Niiler, will meet its lofty goal of blanketing the globe on Sept. 18 when the program’s 1,250th instrument is

Summertime in northern Australia means monsoon storms — and plenty of them. Tall, turbulent clouds associated with these storm systems form rapidly, release their energy in the form of rain, then tail away, leaving in their wake a surplus of moisture to feed the next system. This lifecycle–the formation of tropical convective clouds, their outflow into cirrus clouds, and eventual dissipation into water vapor–is a key component of tropical climate. However, the cloud properties and the exte

Today, scientists estimate that between one-third and one-half of our planet’s land surfaces have been transformed by human development

Now, a new study is offering insight into the long-term impacts of these changes, particularly the effects of large-scale deforestation in tropical regions on the global climate. Researchers from Duke University, Durham, N.C., analyzed multiple years of data using the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies General Circulation Computer Model

A new European Project named AWARE (A tool for monitoring and forecasting Available WAter REsource in mountain environment) has just started its activities.

AWARE is funded with the contribution of the European Commission – Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry – under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6 Aerospace).

The Project involves research institutes, universities and private companies from 5 European countries (Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerlan

A fossil record of the Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum) shows population-wide changes in body size and morphology in response to climate change over the last 3,000 years. The observed changes offer predictions about the response of the species to future climate change, and the impact on the ecosystem. The research is published in the open access journal, BMC Ecology.

Researchers analysed a late-Holocene fossil record to track morphological traits in the Tiger Salamander through

Pioneering research by scientists at the University of Surrey (UniS) is proving to be a big hit in Asia when it comes to monitoring land contamination. The Rapid On-Site Toxicity Audit System (ROTAS), a patented technology developed and owned by UniS and licensed to Cybersense Biosystems Ltd, has proved such a success with Hitachi Chemicals in Japan, that the company is now working closely with Cybersense to distribute the product exclusively throughout South East Asia and is also helping to d

DFO’s maps aid flood analysis, providing insight into river and coastal flooding due to storm surge

Researchers with the Dartmouth Flood Observatory at Dartmouth College have been working with state and federal officials, along with representatives from NGOs, to help map and analyze the flooding that has occurred as a result of Hurricane Katrina. The maps not only provide an overview of the impact and enormity of the flooding, they also preserve a day-to-day record of this

The Amazon, a vast tropical forest stretching across South America, is so large that is virtually impossible to study the evolving landscapes within the basin without the use of satellites. Scientists have used satellite imagery of the Amazon for more than 30 years to seek answers about this diverse ecosystem and the patterns and processes of land cover change. This technology continues to advance and a new study shows that NASA satellite images can allow scientists to more quickly and accurate

Scientists at the University of Abertay Dundee are part of a £1-million project investigating the basis for all life on earth – soil.

Professor Iain Young, Director of the University’s SIMBIOS centre, is heading a team of Abertay specialists collaborating with the Institute of Arable Crop Research and ADAS a private research company based in England.

The research, funded by a grant of more than £988,000 from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Competence Center for Energy and Mobility (CCE)

The ETH Board is building up a Competence Center for Energy and Mobility (CCE), under the lead management of the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Villigen, Switzerland. The CCE will contribute significantly to sustainable energy solutions and strengthen the Swiss technical employment market. The new center combines research competence of Swiss technical universities and research institutes, namely the PSI, the two Swiss Federa

Humans have been tinkering with greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere for at least 2,000 years and probably longer, according to a surprising new study of methane trapped in Antarctic ice cores conducted by an international research team.

The study showed wild gyrations of methane from biomass burning from about 1 A.D. to present, said Dominic Ferretti, lead study author and a University of Colorado at Boulder researcher with a joint appointment at the National Instit