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Can improved agricultural practices help combat climate change?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 18th, 2016
ScienceDaily: Did you know that over half of global non-carbon dioxide (non-CO2) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are accountable to agriculture? According to new a research study recently published in the Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences, this figure is set to rise substantially in the next two decades, especially in developing countries. However, by analysing US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) data and models, the authors have projected that there is significant potential for the agricultural...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Can improved agricultural practices help combat climate change?Drones revolutionize ecological monitoring
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 18th, 2016
ScienceDaily: New Monash University research has paved the way for drones to revolutionise ecological monitoring.
Published today in the journal Scientific Reports, the research found that drones are much more precise at monitoring the size of seabird colonies in tropical and polar environments than more traditional ground counts. Carried out on Ashmore Reef (tropical) and Macquarie Island (Sub-Antarctic), the research found that the ever-increasing precision provided by drones, along with the ability to survey...
Adaptation to increasing flood risk in Europe should aim to reduce impact
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 18th, 2016
ScienceDaily: A JRC-led research published in Climatic Change investigated the benefits of four adaptation measures to reduce the increasing flood risk in Europe under state-of-the-art global warming projections under a high-end climate scenario. Adaptation measures include the rise of flood protections, reduction of the peak flows through water retention, reduction of vulnerability and relocation to safer areas. Under the projected increase in frequency and magnitude of river floods in the current century, traditional...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Adaptation to increasing flood risk in Europe should aim to reduce impactThe legacy of mercury in Lake Superior
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 18th, 2016
ScienceDaily: The northern Great Lakes are praised for being clean, but these aquatic systems don't exist in a vacuum. Contaminants still find their way into lake water and sediments. Mercury is of particular interest because of its toxicity and persistence. In a new study published in the Journal of Great Lakes Research in February, an interdisciplinary team from Michigan Technological University examined the legacy of mercury in Lake Superior. Currently, the National Atmospheric Deposition Program reports...
Water flow in Mediterranean rivers will fall 34 percent by the end of the century
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 18th, 2016
PhysOrg: The rising global average temperature induced by climate change will cause regions such as the Mediterranean Basin to become drier and more arid, in turn directly affecting the availability of water. A study has revealed that river flows in this zone will decrease in headwaters, on average, by as much as 34 percent by the year 2100-a figure that will reach 50 percent during the autumn months.
2015 was the warmest year on record: The global...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Water flow in Mediterranean rivers will fall 34 percent by the end of the centuryHow much are trees feeling heat of climate change?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 17th, 2016
Christian Science Monitor: Rising temperatures might not stress trees as much as previously thought. And that means they may continue to be efficient at scrubbing carbon from the atmosphere, even as the planet warms.
As a result, some equations in our climate models will likely have to be tweaked.
Forests are known for being massive carbon warehouses, drawing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Most of that carbon remains locked in trees' roots, trunks, branches, and leaves but a bit of it is...
So … was that climate change?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 17th, 2016
CNN: Like any good detective, Park Williams asks good questions. As a third-grader, for instance, the now-34-year-old's family took him on a road trip across the Rocky Mountains. He had to know: Why did the trees stop growing at a certain elevation? Why were there plants on one side of a mountain and desert on the other? In fifth grade, he heard a radio broadcast. A weatherman predicted that a drought in Northern California, where he grew up, would last for five more years. How did he know that? What...
China to push Myanmar’s new government on stalled dam
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 17th, 2016
Reuters: China signaled on Thursday that it will push Myanmar's new government to resume a controversial stalled dam project in the Southeast Asian country, saying the contract was still valid.
Outgoing Myanmar President Thein Sein angered Beijing in 2011 by suspending the $3.6 billion, Chinese-invested Myitsone dam project, some 90 percent of whose power would have gone to China.
Other Chinese projects in the former Burma have proved controversial too, including the Letpadaung copper mine, against...
‘Hottest month’ records don’t always matter – but February 2016 does
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 16th, 2016
Christian Science Monitor: Not only was it the hottest February on record, but it showed the biggest spike in temperature since scientists starting keeping track more than a century ago, according to NASA data.
On Saturday, the Administration's Goddard Institute for Space Studies released a report showing February 2016 to be not just the hottest February on record, but the hottest seasonally-adjusted month since 1880.
In other words, NASA tracks not only monthly temperatures, but how they compare to that month's long-term...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on ‘Hottest month’ records don’t always matter – but February 2016 doesOn world water day, 650 million people can’t get a safe drink
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 16th, 2016
Reuters: Some 650 million people, or one in 10 of the world's population, do not have access to safe water, putting them at risk of infectious diseases and premature death.
Dirty water and poor sanitation can cause severe diarrheal diseases in children, killing 900 under-fives a day across the world, according to United Nations estimates - or one child every two minutes.
Among newborn babies, the World Health Organization says infections caused by a lack of safe water and an unclean environment cause...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on On world water day, 650 million people can’t get a safe drink