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Amphibians, Reptiles, & Natural History
Amphibians, Reptiles, & Natural History
A new IIASA-led study finds that expanding street green space can reduce urban heat stress in cities worldwide, but even ambitious greening efforts are unlikely to offset a significant share of the additional heat expected under climate change. Instead, the research shows that street greenery should be part of a broader portfolio of urban adaptation measures.
Microbial methane leaking from non-producing oil and gas wells is being emitted at rates about 1,000 times higher than previously estimated, according to a new study led by McGill University researchers. “Origins of Subsurface Methane Leaking from Nonproducing Oil and Gas Wells in Canada,” by Gianni Micucci and Mary Kang, is published in Environmental Science and Technology.
The world’s oceans may be quietly amplifying climate change in ways scientists are only beginning to understand. In a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of Rochester scientists—including Thomas Weber, an associate professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and graduate student Shengyu Wang and postdoctoral research associate Hairong Xu in Weber’s lab—uncovered a key mechanism behind methane production in the open ocean. Their research indicates that this mechanism could intensify as the planet warms, providing an alarming feedback loop for global warming.
Deadly heat wave events are occurring at temperatures and humidity levels previously thought to be survivable, according to a new paper by a team of international researchers, including from The Australian National University (ANU) and the University of Sydney. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications.
Svalbard reindeer live in a place so remote they have actually evolved to become a subspecies. But that remoteness isn’t enough to protect them from contaminants from the industrial world.
A global study by the University of Basel, Switzerland, reveals a surprising picture: While 42% of treelines worldwide are shifting upslope, 25% are retreating. This seemingly contradictory trend involves more than just warming. Climate change and human land use are interacting.
A shutdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) could trigger a substantial release of stored ocean carbon into the atmosphere over hundreds of years, according to a new study that simulated such a collapse under stable climate conditions. This would add 0.2°C of extra global warming. The new paper from researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), published in Communications Earth & Environment, highlights the AMOC’s role as a key regulator of the global climate.
From space, Earth’s populated areas glow on the otherwise “black marble” of the planet at night. For decades, scientists assumed this glow was steadily increasing as the world developed. However, a new study published in Nature flips this narrative.
A new study reveals that most fatal landslides occur in human-transformed environments. Conducted by an international team of researchers from the University of Vienna, Ankara University, Istanbul Technical University, Bursa Uludag University, and the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, the study provides a global overview of how human pressure modulates landslide occurrences. The paper is published in the journal Science Advances.
Glaciers in High Mountain Asia—a region encompassing the Tibetan Plateau and its surrounding mountain ranges—are shrinking rapidly, endangering water resources for millions of people, suggests a new study. Using satellite data from NASA’s GRACE missions, results show that these extensive glacier systems, often called the “water towers of Asia,” experienced significant losses in mass between 2002 and 2023. These findings reveal that if the extreme conditions that led to this decline continue, enhanced glacier melt could intensify short-term flood risks and substantially reduce long-term meltwater availability. The researchers say the findings underscore the need for reduced greenhouse gas emissions to stave off glacier melt and preserve a larger fraction of the region’s cryospheric water storage.
Penguins living along the Patagonian coast of Argentina can serve as living monitors of their environment by using small, chemical-detecting leg bands, according to a study from the University of California, Davis, and the State University of New York at Buffalo. For the proof-of-concept study, published in the journal Earth: Environmental Sustainability, UC Davis scientists outfitted 54 Magellanic penguins with silicone passive samplers placed gently around their legs for a few days during the 2022-24 breeding seasons. The sensors safely absorbed chemicals from the water, air, and surfaces the penguins encountered while the unwitting “toxicologists” foraged to feed their chicks.
Summer weather is arriving earlier, lasting longer and packing more heat than it used to—and it’s happening faster than scientists had previously measured. A new study by UBC researchers has found that between 1990 and 2023, the average summer between the tropics and the polar circles grew about six days longer per decade. That’s up from roughly four days per decade found in past research investigations up until the early 2010s.
A new study published in Science Advances reveals that sinking land—not just rising oceans alone—will be the main cause of future coastal flooding along Indonesia’s densely populated Java Island, putting millions at risk sooner than expected.
A new University at Buffalo study finds that people in the United States generate similar amounts of plastic packaging waste regardless of income, education level or where they live. Yet wealthier and more college-educated communities are much more likely to recycle soda bottles, takeout containers and other plastic packaging. Why? It’s complicated, but the study, published in Communications Sustainability, suggests that unequal access to recycling infrastructure plays a key role.
In their current state, climate policies around the world could leave a significant chunk of the global population exposed to simultaneous extreme heat and drought over five times more often by the end of this century than during the mid-to-late 20th century.
Even after one of the largest environmental remediation efforts in California history, dangerous levels of lead persist in residential neighborhoods surrounding a former battery smelter in Southeast Los Angeles, according to a new study from the University of California, Irvine’s Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health. The research is published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. The findings reveal a serious public health failure while also highlighting the power of community-driven research to hold institutions accountable and drive meaningful change.
Researchers at the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo and George Mason University’s College of Science have developed a new method that improves air temperature forecasts one to five weeks in advance—without requiring additional model simulations. The methodology, detailed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides a dual benefit, not requiring significant increase in computational cost while improving predictions.
In Puerto Rico, drought doesn’t always arrive slowly. Sometimes, it appears in days. That speed can leave producers scrambling, reservoirs dropping, and communities facing water restrictions before they can react. In a place often associated with heavy rain and hurricanes, drought is often overlooked, but very much a reality. New research from Virginia Tech is helping explain why.
An understanding of community resilience and risk analysis is vital when it comes to protecting civilians and infrastructure from natural hazards, such as hurricanes or earthquakes. Artificial intelligence is an efficient way to rate a community’s resilience and vulnerability. However, factors that affect community resilience—like power grids and communications systems—are ranked independently by current assessment methods based on the assumed impact of each factor.
It transports far more than 100 times as much water as all of the Earth’s rivers combined: The Antarctic Circumpolar Current rushes around the southern continent unhindered by land masses and is therefore a fundamental component of the climate system. In a recent study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a research team led by the Alfred Wegener Institute describes how and when this mighty ring current developed in Earth’s history.
Scientists have found a new way to detect subtle chemical signatures in seawater, revealing previously invisible details about the ocean’s chemistry from data continuously collected by thousands of autonomous robotic floats drifting across the seas.
Wildfires are becoming more frequent and are ravaging new parts of the world due to global warming. A study led by researchers from the University of Gothenburg shows that this change is increasing the vulnerability of thousands of plants, animals and fungi.
Imagine a dump truck dropping 13 tons of dirt into the waters of Brush Creek, a waterway that feeds northwest Arkansas’ primary drinking water source, Beaver Lake. That’s how much soil and sediment researchers measured going into the stream as runoff due to a single large storm event.
Mangrove forests are natural wonders that protect coastal areas, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions. They are able to dissipate wave energy and limit flooding, which can even mitigate tsunamis and coastal inundations during tropical cyclones. For this reason, mangroves are attracting attention as Nature-based Solutions, or NbS: natural infrastructure with the potential to enhance coastal resilience in an environmentally friendly way.
A United Nations-backed framework for protecting tropical forests could allow governments to collect income from carbon credits without advancing forest conservation. The weakness lies in how the program calculates baselines, which is the expected rate of deforestation without intervention. There is no evidence that enrolled jurisdictions—countries, states, and provinces—have acted on that opportunity, but the incentive structure favors those who do, according to a study by Yale researchers appearing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The framework also penalizes the jurisdictions that are in most need of intervention.
Some newly published findings from an Idaho State University professor and his colleagues point out how changes to currents an ocean away can impact climates on the other side of the globe. The new paper published in Nature Communications explains how Bruce Finney, professor in the departments of biological sciences and geosciences at ISU, and his collaborators, Lesleigh Anderson, research geologist with the United States Geological Survey, and W. Brad Baxter, Idaho State alum, came to understand how shifts in currents in the Atlantic Ocean led the climate of Alaska to cool, especially in winter, roughly 13,000 years ago.
Reducing aircraft soot emissions may not reduce contrail clouds, according to in-flight observations of emissions from a passenger jet with modern “lean-burn” engines, reported in Nature. Contrails from aircraft contribute to the climate-warming impacts of aviation. The findings demonstrate that more work is needed to understand and reduce the climate impact of jet engine emissions.