Global Warming New York | Search results for "increased"

Climate change is warming the tropics, too. Average temperatures have increased by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.78 degree Celsius) in the last 30 years, making them as warm as at any point in the past 2 million years. That increased warmth, however, is not good news for tropical plants and insects, according to a new study in Science. [More] Using Math to Explain How Life on Earth Began Back in March the press went crazy for Martin A. Nowak’s study on the value of punishment. A Harvard University mathematician and biologist, Nowak had signed up some 100 students to play a computer game in which they used dimes to punish and reward one another. The popular belief was that costly punishment would promote cooperation between two equals, but Nowak and his colleagues proved the theory wrong. Instead they found that punishment often triggers a spiral of retaliation, making it detrimental and destructive rather than beneficial. Far from gaining, people who punish tend to escalate conflict, worsen their fortunes and eventually lose out. “Nice guys finish first,” headlines cheered. It wasn’t the first time Nowak’s computer simulations and mathematics forced a rethinking of a complex phenomenon. In 2002 he worked out equations that can predict the way cancer evolves and spreads, such as when mutations emerge in a metastasis and chromosomes become unstable. And in the early 1990s his model of disease progression demonstrated that HIV develops into AIDS only when the virus replicates fast enough so that the diversity of strains reaches a critical level, one that overwhelms the immune system. Immunologists later found out he had the mechanism right [see “How HIV Defeats the Immune System,” by Martin A. Nowak and Andrew J. McMichael; Scientific American, August 1995]. Now Nowak is out to do it again, this time by modeling the origin of life. Specifically, he is trying to capture “the transition from no life to life,” he says. [More]

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The baiji dolphin is functionally extinct, orangutans are disappearing and even some species of bats--the most numerous of mammals--are dying out. A new survey of the world's 5,487 mammal species--from rodents to humans--reveals that one in four are facing imminent extinction. [More] Climate change may be sparking new and bigger "dead zones" “Wasteland” conjures up visions of dusty desolation where life is fleeting and harsh--if it exists at all. Oceans, too, have their inhospitable pockets. Scientists are discovering that climate change--and not just fertilizer from farm use--may be spurring the emergence of barren underwater landscapes in coastal waters. Expanding dead zones not only spell trouble for biodiversity, but they also threaten the commercial fisheries of many nations. Dead zones are not new; they form seasonally in economically vital ecoystems worldwide, including the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay. Agricultural runoff sparks many of these die-offs; increased use of nitrogen fertilizers has doubled the number of lifeless pockets every decade since the 1960s, resulting in 405 dead zones now dotting coastlines globally. [More]

Tags: dead, zones, mammal, climate, fertilizer

Climate change is warming the tropics, too. Average temperatures have increased by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.78 degree Celsius) in the last 30 years, making them as warm as at any point in the past 2 million years. That increased warmth, however, is not good news for tropical plants and insects, according to a new study in Science. [More] Deadly by the Dozen: 12 Diseases Climate Change May Worsen Bird flu, cholera, Ebola, plague and tuberculosis are just a few of the diseases likely to spread and get worse as a result of climate change, according to a report released yesterday by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). To prevent such ailments from becoming as destructive as the "black death" (which wiped out a third of Europe's population in the 14th century) or the flu pandemic of 1918 (which killed an estimated 20 million to 40 million people worldwide, including between 500,000 and 675,000 people in the U.S.), WCS suggests monitoring wildlife to detect signs of these pathogens before a major outbreak. [More]

Tags: climate, million, change, years, degree

Climate change is warming the tropics, too. Average temperatures have increased by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.78 degree Celsius) in the last 30 years, making them as warm as at any point in the past 2 million years. That increased warmth, however, is not good news for tropical plants and insects, according to a new study in Science. [More] Deadly by the Dozen: 12 Diseases Climate Change May Worsen Bird flu, cholera, Ebola, plague and tuberculosis are just a few of the diseases likely to spread and get worse as a result of change, according to a report released yesterday by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). To prevent such ailments from becoming as destructive as the "black death" (which wiped out a third of Europe's population in the 14th century) or the flu pandemic of 1918 (which killed an estimated 20 million to 40 million people worldwide, including between 500,000 and 675,000 people in the U.S.), WCS suggests monitoring wildlife to detect signs of these pathogens before a major outbreak. [More]

Tags: climate, million, change, years, degree

Climate change is warming the tropics, too. Average temperatures have increased by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.78 degree Celsius) in the last 30 years, making them as warm as at any point in the past 2 million years. That increased warmth, however, is not good news for tropical plants and insects, according to a new study in Science. [More] Deadly by the Dozen: 12 Diseases Climate Change May Worsen Bird flu, cholera, Ebola, plague and tuberculosis are just a few of the diseases likely to spread and get worse as a result of climate change, according to a report released yesterday by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). To prevent such ailments from becoming as destructive as the "black death" (which wiped out a third of Europe's population in the 14th century) or the flu pandemic of 1918 (which killed an estimated 20 million to 40 million people worldwide, including between 500,000 and 675,000 people in the U.S.), WCS suggests monitoring wildlife to detect signs of these pathogens before a major outbreak. [More]

Tags: climate, million, change, years, degree

Climate change is warming the tropics, too. Average temperatures have increased by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.78 degree Celsius) in the last 30 years, making them as warm as at any point in the past 2 million years. That increased warmth, however, is not good news for tropical plants and insects, according to a new study in Science. [More] Deadly by the Dozen: 12 Diseases Climate Change May Worsen Bird flu, cholera, Ebola, plague and tuberculosis are just a few of the diseases likely to spread and get worse as a result of change, according to a report released yesterday by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). To prevent such ailments from becoming as destructive as the "black death" (which wiped out a third of Europe's population in the 14th century) or the flu pandemic of 1918 (which killed an estimated 20 million to 40 million people worldwide, including between 500,000 and 675,000 people in the U.S.), WCS suggests monitoring wildlife to detect signs of these pathogens before a major outbreak. [More]

Tags: climate, million, change, years, degree

[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.] If you're worried about news reports of West Nile virus, you might want to go take a census of the birds in your backyard. Because certain species of birds actually help the virus thrive. And they're not exactly exotic jungle fowl. In fact, they’re our more familiar feathered friends. [More] Sultry to Scorching: Rising Temps May Be Too Hot for Tropical Species Climate change is warming the tropics, too. Average temperatures have increased by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.78 degree Celsius) in the last 30 years, making them as warm as at any point in the past 2 million years. That increased warmth, however, is not good news for tropical plants and insects, according to a new study in Science. [More]

Tags: species, virus, years, degree, tropical

Venus is similar in size and chemical makeup when compared with Earth--and the pair formed about the same time, more than four billion years ago. But that is apparently where the similarities end. According to a year's worth of data sent back from the European Space Agency's Venus Express orbiter launched in November 2005, the second planet from the sun is nothing like Earth--from its torrid surface to the upper reaches of its acid-laced atmosphere. The bottom line: just be glad you live here. Here's some reasons why: Venus's surface temperature hovers around a sweltering 870 degrees Fahrenheit (465 degrees Celsius), its surface pressure is about 90 times that of Earth (which is akin to the pressure a kilometer, or 0.6 mile, below the ocean's surface), and there are no seasons there. The planet--Earth's closest neighbor--takes 243 days to turn on its own axis (and in the opposite direction) compared with Earth's swift 24-hour turnaround time. From the new data, scientists now know its atmosphere consists mostly of carbon dioxide, providing a glimpse of what global warming run amok may yield. Because of the extreme heat, water is only present in its atmosphere, so there are no oceans (and thus, no beaches). There are gale-force winds whipping about the planet, its smoglike clouds are composed of droplets of sulfuric acid (rather than water) and, contrary to previous belief, there is lightning on Venus. In other words, not only is it hot enough to evaporate an igloo on Venus in milliseconds, but you could also get struck by a bolt from the not-so-blue skies. [More] State of the Science: Beyond the Worst Case Climate Change Scenario Climate change is "unequivocal" and it is 90 percent certain that the "net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming," the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) --a panel of more than 2,500 scientists and other experts--wrote in its first report on the physical science of global warming earlier this year. In its second assessment, the IPCC stated that human-induced warming is having a discernible influence on the planet, from species migration to thawing permafrost. Despite these findings, emissions of the greenhouse gases driving this process continue to rise thanks to increased burning of fossil fuels while cost-effective options for decreasing them have not been adopted, the panel found in its third report. The IPCC's fourth and final assessment of the climate change problem--known as the Synthesis Report--combines all of these reports and adds that "warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible, depending upon the rate and magnitude of the climate change." Although countries continue to debate the best way to address this finding, 130 nations, including the U.S., China, Australia, Canada and even Saudi Arabia, have concurred with it. [More]

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“Wasteland” conjures up visions of dusty desolation where life is fleeting and harsh--if it exists at all. Oceans, too, have their inhospitable pockets. Scientists are discovering that climate change--and not just fertilizer from farm use--may be spurring the emergence of barren underwater landscapes in coastal waters. Expanding dead zones not only spell trouble for biodiversity, but they also threaten the commercial fisheries of many nations. Dead zones are not new; they form seasonally in economically vital ecoystems worldwide, including the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay. Agricultural runoff sparks many of these die-offs; increased use of nitrogen fertilizers has doubled the number of lifeless pockets every decade since the 1960s, resulting in 405 dead zones now dotting coastlines globally. [More] Bar Code of Life: DNA Tags Help Classify Animals Wandering the aisles of a supermarket several years ago, one of us (Hebert) marveled at how the store could keep track of the array of merchandise simply by examining the varying order of thick and thin lines that make up a product’s barcode. Why, he mused, couldn’t the unique ordering of the four nucleic acids in a short strand of DNA be mined in a similar way to identify the legions of species on earth? Ever since Carl Linnaeus began systematically classifying all living things 250 years ago, biologists have looked at various features--color, shape, even behavior--to identify animals and plants. In the past few decades, researchers have begun to apply the genetic information in DNA to the task. But both classical and modern genetic methods demand great expertise and eat up huge amounts of time. Using just a small section of the DNA--something more akin to the 12-digit barcode on products--would require far less time and skill. [More]

Tags: dna, dead, zones, pockets, identify

The basic proposition behind the science of climate change is so firmly rooted in the laws of physics that no reasonable person can dispute it. All other things being equal, adding carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere--by, for example, burning millions of tons of oil, coal and natural gas--will make it warm up. That, as the Nobel Prize–winning chemist Svante Arrhenius first explained in 1896, is because CO2 is relatively transparent to visible light from the sun, which heats the planet during the day. But it is relatively opaque to infrared, which the earth tries to reradiate back into space at night. If the planet were a featureless, monochromatic billiard ball without mountains, oceans, vegetation and polar ice caps, a steadily rising concentration of CO2 would mean a steadily warming earth. Period. But the earth is not a billiard ball. It is an extraordinarily complex, messy geophysical system with dozens of variables, most of which change in response to one another. Oceans absorb vast amounts of heat, slowing the warm-up of the atmosphere, yet they also absorb excess CO2. Vegetation soaks up CO2 as well but eventually re­releases the gas as plants rot or burn--or, in a much longer-term scenario--drift to the bottom of the ocean to form sedimentary rock such as limestone. Warmer temperatures drive more evaporation from the oceans; the water vapor itself is a heat-trapping gas, whereas the clouds it forms block some of the sun’s warming rays. Volcanoes belch CO2, but they also spew particulates that diffuse the sun’s rays. And that’s just a partial list. [More] Climate change may be sparking new and bigger "dead zones" “Wasteland” conjures up visions of dusty desolation where life is fleeting and harsh--if it exists at all. Oceans, too, have their inhospitable pockets. Scientists are discovering that climate change--and not just fertilizer from farm use--may be spurring the emergence of barren underwater landscapes in coastal waters. Expanding dead zones not only spell trouble for biodiversity, but they also threaten the commercial fisheries of many nations. Dead zones are not new; they form seasonally in economically vital ecoystems worldwide, including the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay. Agricultural runoff sparks many of these die-offs; increased use of nitrogen fertilizers has doubled the number of lifeless pockets every decade since the 1960s, resulting in 405 dead zones now dotting coastlines globally. [More]

Tags: ocean, dead, change, zones, earth

Scientists are not sure why sunspot activity is so minimal, and the episode is even playing into the global warming debate. Heat-Trapping Emissions Rise Globally Worldwide emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide increased by 3.5 percent per year from 2000 to 2007, nearly four times the growth rate in the 1990s.

Tags: trapping, emissions, sunspot, heat, dioxide

Scientists are not sure why sunspot activity is so minimal, and the episode is even playing into the global warming debate. Heat-Trapping Emissions Rise Globally Worldwide emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide increased by 3.5 percent per year from 2000 to 2007, nearly four times the growth rate in the 1990s.

Tags: trapping, emissions, sunspot, heat, dioxide

Worldwide emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide increased by 3.5 percent per year from 2000 to 2007, nearly four times the growth rate in the 1990s. First Auction of Pollution Rights The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an effort by 10 Northeastern states to combat climate change, held its first auction of rights on Thursday.

Tags: pollution, rights, heat, auction, emissions

Worldwide emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide increased by 3.5 percent per year from 2000 to 2007, nearly four times the growth rate in the 1990s. First Auction of Pollution Rights The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an effort by 10 Northeastern states to combat climate change, held its first auction of rights on Thursday.

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Worldwide emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide increased by 3.5 percent per year from 2000 to 2007, nearly four times the growth rate in the 1990s. First Auction of Pollution Rights The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an effort by 10 Northeastern states to combat climate change, held its first auction of pollution rights on Thursday.

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Worldwide emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide increased by 3.5 percent per year from 2000 to 2007, nearly four times the growth rate in the 1990s. First Auction of Pollution Rights The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an effort by 10 Northeastern states to combat climate change, held its first auction of rights on Thursday.

Tags:

Worldwide emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide increased by 3.5 percent per year from 2000 to 2007, nearly four times the growth rate in the 1990s. First Auction of Pollution Rights The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an effort by 10 Northeastern states to combat climate change, held its first auction of rights on Thursday.

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A new study suggests that the impact of increased temperatures on permafrost may not be as bad as forecast. Lehman?s Chance to Raise Funds: EBay When a big Wall Street firm goes belly up, one bet you can take to the bank is that memorabilia will be offered for auction on eBay within hours.

Tags: ebay, permafrost, firm, street, big

A new study suggests that the impact of increased temperatures on permafrost may not be as bad as forecast. Lehman?s Chance to Raise Funds: EBay When a big Wall Street firm goes belly up, one bet you can take to the bank is that memorabilia will be offered for auction on eBay within hours.

Tags: ebay, permafrost, firm, street, big

A new study suggests that the impact of increased temperatures on permafrost may not be as bad as forecast. Lehman?s Chance to Raise Funds: EBay When a big Wall Street firm goes belly up, one bet you can take to the bank is that memorabilia will be offered for auction on eBay within hours.

Tags: ebay, permafrost, firm, street, big