The retreat of Antarctic ice shelves is not new according to research published this week (24 Feb) in the journal Geology by scientists from Universities of Durham, Edinburgh and British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

A study of George VI Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula is the first to show that this currently ‘healthy’ ice shelf experienced an extensive retreat about 9500 years ago, more than anything seen in recent years. The retreat coincided with a shift in ocean currents t

UNU book details formula for alleviating international conflict over water

A new study by United Nations University reveals the limits of international environmental law, and the potential for scientific methods to help resolve disputes between countries that share water resources.

After the collapse of communism in the 1990s, a dispute arose between Hungary and Slovakia over a project to dam the Danube River. It was the first of its type heard by the International Court

In a few days, a three-man scientific expedition called Pole Track is to embark upon a gruelling 1000 km trek across the frozen Arctic to collect valuable data for climate-change research. Throughout the demanding two-month expedition, the team will also take thousands of snow depth measurements in support of ESA’s CryoSat mission.

The international Pole Track team is led by the Dutch professional explorer Marc Cornelissen who is passionate about the polar environment and de

An Agricultural Mechanisation team from the Department of Rural Projects and Engineering at the Public University of Navarre have designed a new anti-rollover structure for pre-1980 registered tractors. It involves a double arch protection system located at both the front and behind the driver’s seat and anchored to the chassis of a Massey Ferguson 178 Ebro tractor, the model for which the basic safety structure was designed and that can also be fitted, with adaptations, to the other makes an

A reconstruction of land movements and changes in sea levels for three massive historic earthquakes in Alaska gives clues that may help scientists forecast future earthquakes and earthquake-triggered tsunami. To be published in this week’s Journal of Quaternary Science¹ the findings should help reduce losses from future catastrophic events.

Investigators Sarah Hamilton and Ian Shennan from the University of Durham, England, studied three earthquakes that occurred around 1400-15

It will be possible to forecast any natural or social cataclysm by attentively observing the speed of the Earth’s rotation and shift of its poles.

The Earth rotates non-uniformly, its poles move, and the rotation axis fluctuates in space. According to the opinion of N.S. Sidorenkov, Doctor of Science (Physics&Mathematics), knowledge of reasons and regularities of our planet’s movement gives the opportunity to forecast with high precision the weather, earthquakes, convulsion of

Although predicting el Nino events months before they begin has become a major success story in climate prediction, a Duke University oceanographer who did early research in the field believes more could be done with the computer and satellite technology underlying these advances.

Richard Barber, who is Harvey W. Smith Professor of Biological Oceanography at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, will outline additional uses of el Nino forecasting at a

The destruction of habitat by human activity and the extinction of species around the world is more than a looming environmental catastrophe, warns a Canadian zoologist. This ecological damage also endangers human health by turning parasites into “evolutionary land mines.”

Dr. Daniel (Dan) Brooks, a parasitologist at the University of Toronto, says the decline of global biodiversity is linked to the emergence of new human and wildlife diseases such as West Nile Virus and avian fl

Surrounded by winter snow and ice, melting seems like a good thing, but, on a global scale, the melting of ice sheets and glaciers is a sign of global warming, according to a Penn State glaciologist.

“The really big picture shows change in the ice and those changes look like what we get is a world that is a little warmer,” says Dr. Richard B. Alley, the Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences. “We currently do not include all these processes in the models that predict the global future.

Harvard researcher to report at AAAS meeting on projected decline in cleansing summer winds

While science’s conventional wisdom holds that pollution feeds global warming, new research suggests that the reverse could also occur: A warming globe could stifle summer’s cleansing winds over the Northeast and Midwest over the next 50 years, significantly worsening air pollution in these regions.

Loretta J. Mickley, a research associate at Harvard University’s Divi

Scientists find undersea mountains, discover new species, and spy on fish

Scientists can now visualize the ocean floor in remote areas of the Arctic, observe rockfish hideouts, and see live images of coral cities thousands of meters under the sea’s surface. Soon their robots will be able to “live” on the bottom of the ocean – monitoring everything from signs of tsunamis to the effects of deep sea drilling. “We have very complex problems in the ocean, but we’ve been looking at

A Canadian seismologist is arguing that our understanding of the structure of the Earth’s interior is based on the equivalent of fuzzy ultrasound images that leave room for improvement.

Once seismic images are fine-tuned to remove background noise, they may tell a very different story of the world below, says Dr. Felix Herrmann, a seismologist at the University of British Columbia. And oil companies are already lining up to cash in on his clearer view of the Earth’s un

Volcanic eruptions in Siberia 251 million years ago may have started a cascade of events leading to high hydrogen sulfide levels in the oceans and atmosphere and precipitating the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history, according to a Penn State geoscientist.

“The recent dating of the Siberian trap volcanoes to be contemporaneous with the end-Permian extinction suggests that they were the trigger for the environmental events that caused the extinctions,” says Dr. Lee R.

Typical economic analysis applied to global warming may be biased because they neglect climate thresholds, according to Penn State researchers.

“Economic models of climate change typically assume that changes occur gradually and reversibly,” says Dr. Klaus Keller, assistant professor of geoscience, Penn State. “However, some environmental effects are not smooth and show a threshold response. For a long time nothing or very little happens and then suddenly a large change occurs.”

The next big way to clean up toxic sites may be coaxing plants to become janitors, a Michigan State University scientist says.

Clayton Rugh, an assistant professor of crop and soil sciences, explains that phytoremediation – using plants to remove contaminants from the soil – is evolving.

In the early stages of this technology, plants were used like sponges, soaking up toxic substances so they can be safely discarded. The next step, Rugh says, is plants that act like a g

Researchers have discovered that marine seaweeds have a remarkable and previously unknown capacity to detoxify serious organic pollutants such as TNT or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and they may therefore be able to play an important role in protecting the ecological health of marine life.

The studies, conducted by scientists from the College of Engineering at Oregon State University and the Marine Science Center at Northeastern University, were presented today at the annual m