March 28, 2016 A study in Nature Geoscience compared the ongoing anthropogenic increase in carbon emissions with previous similar episodes. The only known analogous event –the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM- happened 56 million years ago during the Cenozoic era, when the Earth’s average temperature shot up by about 5 … Continue reading
Category Archives: Environment
Highly Efficient Solar Cells
March 27, 2016 A new study published on March 24, 2016 in the journal Science demonstrates that hybrid lead halide provskites, solar cells that can be produced cheaply with easily synthesized materials, have an astonishing ability: not only do they absorb energy from the sun to generate electricity as all … Continue reading
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef At Greater Risk Than Previously Believed
February 23, 2016 According to an article published in Nature Communications, the prognosis for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is in much worse than previously thought. Excerpt “The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is founded on reef-building corals. Corals build their exoskeleton with aragonite, but ocean acidification is lowering the aragonite saturation … Continue reading
Water Crisis
06/05/2021 A comprehensive research article published in Science Advances found that water scarcity is actually worse than first thought. The authors found that fully two-thirds of the global population suffer severe water scarcity at least 1 month per year, and nearly half of them live in India and China. In … Continue reading
2015 Hottest Year -NOAA & NASA
January 20, 2016 Reports from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and NASA found that the globally averaged temperature, over land and ocean surfaces for 2015, was the highest since record keeping began in 1880, according to scientists. During the final month, the December combined global land and ocean average … Continue reading
Anthropogenic Heat In Oceans Doubles Since 1997
January 18, 2016 This image provided by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory shows Pacific and Atlantic meridional sections showing upper-ocean warming for the past six decades (1955-2011). Red colors indicate a warming (positive) anomaly and blue colors indicate a cooling (negative) anomaly. … Continue reading
Biodegradable Hydrogen Catalyst 150 Times More Efficient
January 6, 2016 Scientists at Indiana University Bloomington have created a biodegradable, easy to mass-produce catalyst called P22-Hyd consisting of a modified enzyme (hydrogenase) protected within the protein shell of a bacterial virus. The material forms a nano-reactor that catalyzes hydrogen formation 150 times more efficiently than the enzyme would … Continue reading
Global Electricity Output May Drop Due To Climate Change
January 4, 2016 Climate change impacts on rivers and streams may substantially reduce electricity production capacity around the world. Particularly vulnerable are the United States, southern South America, southern Africa, central and southern Europe, Southeast Asia and southern Australia. A new study by the International Institute For Applied Systems Analysis in … Continue reading
COP21 And Nuclear War
January 3, 2016 The Doomsday ClockLast year, on January 22, 2015 to be precise, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the Doomsday Clock to 3 minutes before midnight, a metaphor to indicate how close our species is to extinction. Among other things, the scientists are (correctly) concerned with climate … Continue reading
Making COP21 Work
December 15, 2015 President Obama and Secretary Kerry have made the case that developing nations account for 65% of carbon emissions, and that consequently even if industrialized countries were to stop using fossil fuels instantly, now, that would not bring global warming under control. Statistically they are correct, but that’s … Continue reading