While global-warming-induced coastal flooding moves populations inland, the changes in sea level will affect the salinity of estuaries, which influences aquatic life, fishing and recreation. Researchers from Penn State and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science are studying the Chesapeake Bay to see how changes in sea level may have affected the salinity of various parts of the estuary.

The November issue of Ecology is a special issue devoted to the efforts of the Coordinating Research on the North Atlantic (CORONA) network. The group, which includes ecologists, geneticists, paleontologists and oceanographers, among others, met on five separate occasions with the goal of expanding the scope of work performed across the North Atlantic, both geographically and scientifically. The resulting papers are comprehensive reviews of the field that cover topics including ecology, climate change and evolution, from both a geographical and historical perspective.

Water vapor is known to be Earth's most abundant greenhouse gas, but the extent of its contribution to global warming has been debated. Using recent NASA satellite data, researchers have estimated more precisely than ever the heat-trapping effect of water in the air, validating the role of the gas as a critical component of climate change. Andrew Dessler and colleagues from Texas A&M University in College Station confirmed that the heat-amplifying effect of water vapor is potent enough to double the climate warming caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Scientists may have overcome a major hurdle to calculating how much carbon dioxide (CO2) is absorbed and released by plants, vital information for understanding how the biosphere responds to stress and for determining the amount of carbon that can be safely emitted by human activities. The problem is that ecosystems simultaneously take up and release CO2. The key finding is that the compound carbonyl sulfide, which plants consume in tandem with CO2, can be used to quantify gas flow into the plants during photosynthesis. The research is published in the November 14, issue of Science.

The U. S. Geological Survey is joining with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Environment Canada (EC) in jointly operating and calibrating high-tech climate monitoring stations. NOAA recently installed a U.S. Climate Reference Network sensor in Egbert, Ontario, while EC set up a Canadian Reference Climate Station at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center near Sioux Falls, S.D.

Evidence that global warming is causing the worldwide declines of amphibians may not be as conclusive as previously thought, according to biologists. The findings, which contradict two widely held views, could help reveal what is killing the frogs and toads and aid in their conservation.

Ecologists and oceanographers are attempting to predict the future impacts of climate change by reconstructing the past behavior of Arctic climate and ocean circulation. In a November special issue of the journal Ecology, a group of scientists report that if current patterns of change in the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans continue, alterations of ocean circulation could occur on a global scale, with potentially dramatic implications for the world's climate and biosphere.

University of Minnesota geology and geophysics researchers, along with their colleagues from China, have uncovered surprising effects of climate patterns on social upheaval and the fall of dynasties in ancient China. Their research identifies a natural phenomenon that may have been the last straw for some Chinese dynasties: a weakening of the summer Asian Monsoons. Such weakening accompanied the fall of three dynasties and now could be lessening precipitation in northern China.

Extreme weather events have a greater effect on flora than previously presumed. A one-month drought postpones the time of flowering of grassland and heathland plants in Central Europe by an average of 4 days. With this a so-called 100-year drought event equates to approx. a decade of global warming. The flowering period of an important early flowerer, the common Birds-foot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) was even shortened by more than a month due to heavy rain and started flowering early by almost one month. In a study conducted by the University of Bayreuth and the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) researchers came to this conclusion.

The fight against climate warming has an unexpected ally: mushrooms growing in the dry spruce forests covering Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia and other northern regions. When soil in these forests is warmed, a UC Irvine study found, fungi that feed on dead plant material dry out and produce significantly less climate-warming carbon dioxide than fungi in cooler, wetter soil. This surprised scientists who had expected warmer soil to emit larger amounts of carbon dioxide because extreme cold is believed to slow the process by which fungi convert soil carbon into carbon dioxide.

Past Earth Science and Climate Change News

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