Large blooms of tiny marine plants called phytoplankton are flourishing in areas of open water left exposed by the recent and rapid melting of ice shelves and glaciers around the Antarctic Peninsula. This remarkable colonisation is having a beneficial impact on climate change. As the blooms die back phytoplankton sinks to the sea-bed where it can store carbon for thousands or millions of years. Re...

The seriousness of current global warming is underlined by a reconstruction of climate at Maxwell Bay in the South Shetland Islands of the Antarctic Peninsula over approximately the last 14,000 years, which appears to show that the current warming and widespread loss of glacial ice are unprecedented. "At no time during the last 14 thousand years was there a period of climate warming and loss ...

Climate models that predict heavy rainfall don`t give the whole picture, according to the results of a study by NWO scientist Martin Ziegler. He examined climate changes that have taken place over the past 800,000 years, and discovered that the melting icebergs in the North Atlantic and changes in the El Niño Southern Oscillation have a great influence on the intensity of monsoon rains. He ...

Deep under the sea, a fossil the size of a sand grain is nestled among a billion of its closest dead relatives. Known as foraminifera, these complex little shells of calcium carbonate can tell you the sea level, temperature, and ocean conditions of Earth millions of years ago. That is, if you know what to look for. Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic I...

Europe’s southern-most skeletal remains of Mammuthus primigenius were unearthed in a moor on the 37°N latitude. This is considerably south of the inhospitable habitat than one usually imagines for mammoths, and for the characteristically dry and cold climate that prevailed during the ice ages in the north of Eurasia. The remains of the ice age giants from Padul were examined in a joint s...

Thirty million years ago, before Ethiopia`s mountainous highlands split and the Great Rift Valley formed, the tropical zone had warmer soil temperatures, higher rainfall and different atmospheric circulation patterns than it does today, according to new research of fossil soils found in the central African nation. Neil J. Tabor, associate professor of Earth Sciences at SMU and an expert in sedimen...

An international team of top climate scientists has found a critical, but fixable, error in the accounting method used to measure compliance with carbon limits. The flaw, which centers on the measurement of CO2 emissions from the use of bioenergy, could undermine greenhouse gas reduction goals if not addressed. Current carbon accounting, used in the Kyoto Protocol and other climate legislation inc...

CSIRO scientists have produced the first preliminary predictions of the potential impact of climate change on the Australian seabed. The results of the five-year study predict potential high-risk areas due to seabed movement, erosion and changes in reef growth. According to CSIRO Wealth from Oceans Flagship project leader Dr Cedric Griffiths, the interaction between the ocean and the seabed is poo...

Once-in-a-lifetime floods in the Philippines, India’s delayed monsoon, and extensive drought in Australia are taking their toll on this year’s rice crops, demonstrating the vulnerability of rice to extreme weather. Rice Today’s October-December 2009 edition focuses on climate change and its potential impact on rice. It reveals that it is difficult to prove climate change is respo...

Oxygen deficiency in the Baltic Sea has never been greater than it is now. But it is not an effect of climate change but rather of increased inputs of nutrients and fertilisers. This is the finding of researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, who have analysed the ocean climate of the Baltic Sea since the 16th century. 85 million people live in the drainage basin of the Baltic Sea. This...