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Humans Cross Another Danger Line for Planet
Posted by Scientific American: Mark Fischetti on January 15th, 2015
Scientific American: Five years go an impressive, international group of scientists unveiled nine biological and environmental “boundaries” that humankind should not cross in order to keep the earth a livable place. To its peril, the world had already crossed three of those safe limits: too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, too rapid a rate of species loss and too much pouring of nitrogen into rivers and oceans—primarily in the form of fertilizer runoff. Now we have succeeded in transgressing a fourth limit: the...
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Hurricane Sandy Animations Could Improve Flood Forecasts
Posted by Scientific American: Mark Fischetti on October 29th, 2013
Scientific American: Soon after superstorm Sandy struck New York and New Jersey a year ago today, the public became aware that a half-dozen U.S. weather models had incorrectly predicted that the storm coming up the coast would veer northeast out to sea. Only the so-called European model predicted that Sandy would "turn left' and threaten the coast of the nation's most populous city and the surrounding metropolitan area. Less was heard about another set of models that had attempted to predict how high the storm surge...
NYC and the U.S. East Coast Must Take Drastic Actions to Prevent Ocean Flooding
Posted by Scientific American: Mark Fischetti on May 28th, 2013
Scientific American: Thomas Abdallah has seen a lot of water in his 26 years of work for New York City's transit system. In December 1992 a nor'easter storm killed the subway's power, forcing rescue crews to evacuate passengers from flooding tunnels. In August 2007 a five-inch deluge that meteorologists called an “extreme climate event” shut down the system again. So did Hurricane Irene in August 2011. Then came Hurricane Sandy.
As Sandy's storm surge began to flood downtown Manhattan last October, dozens of New York...
Extended Forecast: Northern Hemisphere Could Be in for Extreme Winters
Posted by Scientific American: Mark Fischetti on June 12th, 2012
Scientific American: Meteorological summer has begun in the Northern Hemisphere, but what is happening right now in the arctic could dramatically affect the weather you confront come December. This past winter was the warmest in U.S. history whereas eastern Europe was stuck in a deadly deep freeze with snow piled up to the rooftops. The winter before, however, it was the U.S. that got clobbered. What's going on? What will happen this year? We may finally have some answers. A new analysis published today in Oceanography...
Fracking Would Emit Large Quantities of Greenhouse Gases
Posted by Scientific American: Mark Fischetti on January 20th, 2012
Scientific American: Add methane emissions to the growing list of environmental risks posed by fracking.
Opposition to the hydraulic fracturing of deep shales to release natural gas rose sharply last year over worries that the large volumes of chemical-laden water used in the operations could contaminate drinking water. Then, in early January, earthquakes in Ohio were blamed on the disposal of that water in deep underground structures. Yesterday, two Cornell University professors said at a press conference that fracking...