Monitoring our health is becoming easier and easier as the days go by and the smart-phone apps multiply. Some are probably to our detriment, convincing us we’ve all of a sudden contracted lupus, but there are those that are genuinely beneficial. One such might be ‘OzoneMap‘ which has recently been released to “Houstonians” and is
Climate change deniers are often want to pronounce the current trends in our climate as being part of a larger cycle of warming. Despite the overwhelming lack of evidence for such a claim, it is always important to look at climate cycles to see where and how they might play a part. New research published in
Understanding the carbon cycle is a vital part of understanding how our planet will react to a continually warming planet, especially because that warming is caused by increasingly high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. One tantalisingly elusive aspect of the carbon cycle is the carbon stored deep in the Earth’s mantle. “We are
The loss of ozone over Antarctica in the southern hemisphere is relatively well documented and popularly known, especially within Australia where for residents of southern states (like the island state of Tasmania) venturing out into the sun during summer is downright dangerous. Simply put, conditions in the Arctic — on the other side of the
The World Meteorological Association (WMO) announced on Monday that the El Niño and La Niña climate patterns are unlikely to show themselves during the first half of 2013. Currently, neutral conditions continue in the tropical Pacific, and model forecasts and expert opinions currently predict the chance of El Niño and La Niña developing during the first half
More data is good data, and more data pertaining to the temperature-history of our planet is definitely good data. A recent study that took data from 73 sites around the world has allowed scientists to reconstruct Earth’s temperature back to the end of the last ice age, which climaxed 11,300 years ago. Their findings show
The world of climate modelling has to be a tricky one, to be sure. There can never be enough data to input and, to create models that are at all helpful you actually end up needing masses of data so large that it starts to boggle the mind. However, scientists from Brown University believe that
Often, understanding what the planet’s climate will do and why requires study into fields that we as laymen might consider irrelevant. Thankfully, there are those out there who have dedicated their lives to the sciences and are not so quick to discuss a particular field or aspect of science as irrelevant. So when geoscientists from the University
Often any ship news that ends up on a site like Planetsave inevitably refers to a ship crashing into a coral reef or spilling massive amounts of oil into the ocean. However, today, we have a story that is likely to terrify you right out of your pants. According to Agence France-Presse (AFP) the Russian ship Lyubov
A team of scientists from Britain, Russia, Mongolia, and Switzerland have released a report which finds that evidence obtained from Siberian caves suggest that a global temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius could result in permanently frozen ground end up thawing across a massive swathe of Siberia, threatening a release of carbon dioxide. Such a
Understanding the implications of climate change is a tricky business at best, as each year we see how far and wide it’s scope has grown as we continue researching: the further we study and investigate, the more we begin to realise just how little we know and how complex our planet’s climate really is. However,
The National Science Foundation recently noted that the researchers working on the Pine Island Glacier project are one of three Antarctic science initiatives that have achieved technological milestones with innovative approaches to drilling. Specifically, in an attempt to map the cavity beneath the 37 mile long Pine Island Glacier ice shelf, Penn State graduate student
Turn the clock back a decade and we had all sorts of grand plans for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions levels, hoping that by 2020 we would be on the path to saving our planet. Welcome to 2013 and … not so much. Unsurprisingly, scientists at Stanford University have recently come out and said that
Deadly storms strike the coast, snow blankets the interior, drought cripples rural communities, and flooding inundates the poor. Scientists expect natural disasters such as these — and worse — to grow in magnitude and increase in regularity as global warming takes its toll on the planet, and in many situations there is not much we
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) has released their latest State of the Climate, “a collection of monthly summaries recapping climate-related occurrences on both a global and national scale.” The title for the January 2013 summary reads “Contiugous US warmer and wetter than average for January”, noting that
Republicans don’t want taxes at all, whereas Democrats want to tax everything. It might be an oversimple explanation but it’s definitely going to be right more than it’s wrong. It’s also a good indicator of your allegiance when you hear that US Senators Barbara Boxer and Bernie Sanders have proposed a tax on carbon emissions. The
New research on trees in the continental United States has found that new spring leaves might start to bud up to 17 days earlier in the coming century then they did prior to the current anthropogenic climate change. The research is behind a new study by Princeton University researchers who used a new model that
An Antarctic research team has accomplished what no other team has ever accomplished previously by drilling through 800 metres (2,600 feet) of Antarctic ice to reach an isolated subglacial lake and taking water and sediment samples. Isolated from our atmosphere for thousands of years, the samples taken from the subglacial lake may have evolved in
A new report authored by leading scientists and experts explains that the effects of climate change are going to continue threatening the health of coastal communities throughout the United States. The report emphasises the need for increased coordination and planning to protect US coastal communities in the face of a continually changing climate. “[Hurricane] Sandy
The long-term warming trend so many of us have been concerned about received further confirmation in the eyes of NASA scientists who noted that 2012 was the ninth warmest of any year since 1880 and another in the long-term warming trend. The nine warmest years in the 132-year record — with the exception of 1988
New research into the continued decline of glaciers around the planet is not new, yet nevertheless these studies remain critically important to understanding our impact upon the environment and the sort of world we will be living in ten years from now. The most comprehensive review of Andean glacier observations to date was conducted by
There have been two types of volcanic eruptions for some time now – explosive or effusive. An explosive eruption is marked by a violent and explosive eruption, such as the Mount St. Helens eruption of 1980. An effusive eruption is marked by the outpouring of lava onto the ground. However, new research has uncovered a previously undocumented type of eruption
Talk of flooding to an Australian these days and you’ll discover just how affected we all were by the 2010–2011 Queensland floods. Nearly forty people lost their lives and $30 billion AUD was racked up in damages. New geologic evidence should similarly concern residents of California according to an article in Scientific American entitled ‘California Megaflood:
Using observations from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn, researchers from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center have discovered that Titan — Saturn’s largest moon — has dunes of hydrocarbon sand which are slowly but steadily filling the impact craters left on the moon’s surface, giving it a deceptively younger appearance than its brothers and
Understanding the future of sea-level rise has been at the forefront of climate scientists’ minds for years now, and new research studying fossilised marine animals found in Antarctica’s seabed sediments are providing new clues as to what we might expect from a melting Antarctica. The immediate conclusion of the research is that the melting changes
Adding to the growing evidence that ‘things are not as they once were’, a new dendrochronological study has found that socio-cultural disruptions in Eastern Europe during the past millennium coincided with periods of decreased temperature, and recent temperature in the region is warmer than at any previous time over the past thousand years. Oh, dendrochronological is the
That temperature records are being broken at an all-time high is probably not ground breaking news to anyone who has been paying a modicum of attention to the news lately. However the rate at which we have been breaking records is frighteningly distressing. According to new research, monthly temperature extremes have become much more frequent,
Climate changes poses a problem for many species of animal on our planet. As environments shift, animals will need to follow their preferred climate. New research points out that the current rate of climate change up until 2080 will actually benefit most mammals that currently live in northern Europe’s Arctic and sub-Arctic land areas, but
Plate tectonics utterly fascinate me, and this new news out of Caltech University just proves that this particular field of science is one of the most interesting out there. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology, aka Caltech, along with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) have found that previous assumptions about
New research results from a team led by geologist Rajdeep Dasgupta of Rice University have shown that magma forms much deeper than geologists had previously thought. The scientists put minute samples of peridotite – a rock derived from Earth’s mantle – under very high pressures in a laboratory and found that the rock can and does liquify
With the close of the year these days we can generally expect to see any number of climate institutions across the planet report on just what the year gone provided us. 2012 is no different and according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 2012 was the warmest and second most extreme year on
Science is awesome! A team of scientists made up from nine separate countries and led by Victoria University have successfully drilled through 760 metres of ice to reach bedrock on the Antarctic island of Roosevelt Island in the Ross Sea. The project was led by Dr. Nancy Bertler of Victoria University’s Antarctic Research Centre and
The natural conclusion is that as global warming gets worse so too will the droughts. We’ve even had evidence of it, right? Droughts in Australia, the US, and horribly dry conditions throughout Europe. However, new research from Princeton University and the Australian National University in Canberra suggest things may not be as cut and dried
Here’s a scientific dilemma for you to put your mind to for a moment: what do you do when you need specific readings from locations all-but impossible to reach by any traditional human means? Turns out, if you are David Holland, a professor at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, you recruit
Residents of the Himalayas could be at great risk of a massive earthquake according to new research which shows that two massive earthquake over the past millennia have left visible ground scars. Such a finding is of critical importance to the region, a region which has a similar population density to that of New York
New research from Penn State and Rutgers University has reshaped the idea of what drove human evolution 2 million years ago, pointing the finger at a series of rapid environmental changes in East Africa rather than one single environmental change. “The landscape early humans were inhabiting transitioned rapidly back and forth between a closed
A new climate diagnostic tool has revealed gale-force winds whipping around the Greenland coast are driving ocean circulation by affecting ocean waters, deep sea currents and sea ice behaviour. “We now have a more complete understanding of the complexity of the climate system,” says Moore, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Physical
Researchers from the James Cook University in Australia have come across a huge slab of sea floor near the Great Barrier Reef that is in the early stages of collapse. When the one cubic kilometre slab finally breaks away, it will fall one kilometre into the adjacent basin causing a localised tsunami along the Queensland
Never let it be said that size matters. Small but physically intense storms at the poles could make a huge difference in climate predictions according to new research, but the problem is they are missing from most current climate models. The research from the University of East Anglia and the University of Massachusetts and published in
NASA announced the birth of Tropical Storm Evan on the 12th of December maybe not knowing just how damaging this storm would end up being. The Samoan government has declared a state of disaster after now-Cyclone Evan ravaged the small South Pacific nation, leaving an unknown death toll and massive damages in its wake. Cyclone
A new analysis of sediments from the island of Bonaire in the Caribbean makes a convincing case for a tsunami dating back 3,300 years, one that had a massive impact on the island’s ecosystem. Scientists studied sediments that suggested the tsunami had entirely changed the coastal ecosystem and sedimentation patterns in the area. The
Here’s one of those science stories that seem to make no sense on the surface: according to new research Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) increased snowfall over Antarctica as a result of climate change is actually countered by an increase in ice-flow to the ocean, up to three times. Thus, Antarctica’s contribution
The Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University released their initial outlook for the 2013 Atlantic basin hurricane season last Friday, providing four scenarios for how the season may unfurl. The four scenarios are; THC circulation becomes unusually strong in 2013 and no El Nino event occurs (resulting in a seasonal average net tropical
Just to add to the worries you’ll have for New Year 2013, scientists are growing ever-more concerned with the possibility that corals could retreat from equatorial seas and oceans due to the continual warming of our planet. An international team of marine researchers warned Tuesday that, based on the fossil coral record from the
It might sound counter-intuitive, but a new study has shown that removing sea defences and allowing natural erosion may in fact in times of rising sea level flooding. Robert Nicholls, Professor of Coastal Engineering at the University of Southampton and co-author of this study, says the research shows that protecting our coastline from erosion simply
With each year that passes us by the carbon dioxide emission reductions required to limit global warming to a 2°C increase are becoming more and more difficult to reach according to new figures reported today in the latest Global Carbon Project calculations published today in the advanced online edition of the journal Nature Climate Change. “A
Communism in the Soviet Union was responsible for a lot of heartache, but one of the lesser known problems that arose out of the closed boundaries of Russia during the middle portion of the last century is the restriction to scientific locations. The Kamchatka Peninsula and Kuril Islands lie off the east coast of continental
Permafrost covers almost a quarter of the northern hemisphere, and according to recent calculations contains 1,700 gigatonnes of carbon – that’s an amount twice what is currently in our atmosphere. A new report released by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) entitled ‘Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost’ warns that the release of this permafrost carbon could seriously amplify
