Senior energy executive Karl W. Miller is a major supporter in establishing a comprehensive energy plan for the U.S.
Erosion happens. But for the modern geologist a vexing question remains: how fast does this erosion happen? For more than a century, scientists have looked for ways to measure and compare erosion rates across differing landscapes around the globe—but with limited success.
After a 10,000-year absence, wildfires have returned to the Arctic tundra, and a University of Florida (UF) study shows that their impact could extend far beyond the areas blackened by flames.
If researchers can coax yeast into processing more of the sugars found in biofuel feedstocks, they can improve the efficiency of producing renewable fuels from biomass crops like corn stover or switchgrass.
As the nation grapples with a record year for storms, drought and weather-related devastation, a new report claims climate change is leaving American cities open to a range of water-related vulnerabilities –- from drought to sea level rise and increased rainfall –- regardless of region or size. The report looks at how communities facing these new extremes are trying to protect their water supplies and waterways.
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been reduced by an accumulated 5.7 million metric tonnes (mt) in Mexico City since it began implementing its Green Plan in 2008, the Mexico City government recently announced.
An increase in wildfires due to climate change could rapidly and profoundly alter the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, according to a new study authored by environmental engineering and geography Professor Anthony Westerling of the University of California, Merced.
In a paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers from CSIRO, University of Queensland and United States Geological Survey present a pragmatic decision framework for determining when, if ever, to move species in the face of climate change.
A recent increase in the abundance of particles high in the atmosphere has offset about a third of the current climate warming influence of carbon dioxide (CO2) change during the past decade, according to a new study led by NOAA and published today in the online edition of Science.
U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists have produced the first detailed data on how large-scale dairy facilities contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released final guidance on Appalachian surface coal mining, designed to ensure more consistent, effective, and timely review of surface coal mining permits under the Clean Water Act and other statutes.
Rural landscapes of the future might have pyrolysis plants instead of grain elevators on every horizon —processing centers where farmers would bring bulky crops such as switchgrass to be made into crude oil.
If regions were given hospitality rankings, the Arctic would fall somewhere between zero and below zero. Temperatures can plunge to −60 degrees Farenheit, and winds can exceed 75 mph. Half the year, skies are black, making icebergs dangerous obstacles.
Fires raging in central Africa are generating a high amount of pollution that is showing up in data from NASA's Aura Satellite, with the ominous shape of a dark red butterfly in the skies over southern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and northern Angola.
Large, marine-calving glaciers have the ability not only to shrink rapidly in response to global warming, but also to grow at a remarkable pace during periods of global cooling, according to University at Buffalo geologists working in Greenland.
Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to grow, so forests have long been proposed as a way to offset climate change.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently announced plans to improve its Integrated Risk Information System program as part of an ongoing effort initiated in 2009 to strengthen the program.
In a test project, researchers plan to inject some 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide into a coalbed methane field in southwest Virginia, at a site that is not suitable for underground mining purposes.
About 55 million years ago, the Earth burped up a massive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – an amount equivalent to burning all the petroleum and other fossil fuels that exist today.
As one of the planet’s largest single carbon absorbers, the ocean takes up roughly one-third of all human carbon emissions, reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide and its associated global changes.But whether the ocean can continue mopping up human-produced carbon at the same rate is still up in the air.