The percent of land area experiencing exceptional drought reached record levels in August in three U.S. states – Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas – amid new concerns about how long the conditions may persist, an official with the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln said.
Recent heavy rain and flooding has increased the danger of landslides on moderate to steep slopes, according to scientists in the Bureau of Topographic and Geologic Survey in the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR).
The far-reaching field project, known as HIPPO, is enabling researchers to generate the first detailed mapping of the global distribution of gases and particles that affect Earth’s climate.
Clouds only amplify climate change, says a Texas A&M University professor in a study that rebuts recent claims that clouds are actually the root cause of climate change.
An earthquake and a hurricane, all in the same week, on the same coast. Are they related?
Measuring the emission of greenhouse gases from croplands should take into account the crops themselves, according to new research.
The earth is warming up due to rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. NWO-funded researchers have discovered that the increase in carbon dioxide can reduce the nuisance caused by toxic blue algae, a bacterium commonly found in swimming water throughout the Netherlands in the summer
With citizens’ groups seeking government regulation of foul-smelling ammonia emissions from large dairy farms, scientists reported that adding natural plant extracts to cow feed can reduce levels of the gas by one-third while reducing the need to fortify cow feed with expensive protein supplements.
Details are now emerging about a microbial metabolic pathway that helps solve the mystery of how certain bacteria capture carbon in the dark ocean, enabling a better understanding of what happens to the carbon that is fixed in the oceans every year.
Scientists in France have discovered that honeybees are at a higher risk of dying from infection by Nosema ceranae (N. ceranae) when they are exposed to low doses of insecticides
A new study of dust-like particles of soot in the air provides fresh evidence that reducing soot emissions from diesel engines and other sources could slow melting of sea ice in the Arctic faster and more economically than any other quick fix, a scientist reported.
A researcher at the Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology, an organized research unit in the University of Hawai'i at Manoa's School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology has come up with a new explanation for the effects of ocean acidification on coral reefs.
New research shows that wastewater recycling processes may generate more greenhouse gases than traditional water-treatment processes. Despite this finding, there are good reasons to continue keep wastewater recycling among the water-resource tools for urban areas
Water shortages - already forecasted to be a big problem as the world warms - could contribute to yet more warming through a positive feedback loop.
The distant region beyond Saturn is too cold for liquid water, a necessity for life as we know it. New research indicates that rocky planets far from their parent star could generate enough heat to keep water flowing - if their atmospheres were made up primarily of hydrogen.
A recent study has found that it's being damaged by human activities, and that this is only likely to get worse. Scientists are now calling for better management and conservation of entire deep-sea ecosystems.
A new study published in the current issue of Science rebuts earlier claims that drought has induced a decline in global plant productivity during the past decade and poses a threat to global food security.
Globally, irrigation increases agricultural productivity by an amount roughly equivalent to the entire agricultural output of the U.S., according to a new University of Wisconsin-Madison study.
Less than 2 percent of the October-July periods since 1895 have been drier than they are currently for all of Texas and many parts of New Mexico. These areas experienced either their driest or second driest October-July periods in the last 117 years. Less than six percent of the October-July periods have been drier than current conditions in southeastern Arizona.
The arrival of El Niño, which every three to seven years boosts temperatures and cuts rainfall, doubles the risk of civil wars across 90 affected tropical countries, and may help account for a fifth of worldwide conflicts during the past half-century, say the authors.