China Has Met Its 2020 Carbon Target Three Years Early

China met its 2020 carbon intensity target — the amount of carbon dioxide it produces per unit of economic growth — three years ahead of schedule, according to the country’s top climate official, Xie Zhenhua. In 2017, China cut its carbon intensity by 46 percent from 2005 levels, a drop of 5.1 percent from the previous year, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

Xie announced the milestone at the country’s Green Carbon Summit on Monday.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s an electric airship!

A proposal for an electric cargo airship has made it to the second round of a national contest to come up with “the next big thing” that will transform Canada. The brainchild of Dr. Barry Prentice, the proposal pitches the development of a cargo airship transport network that would do for the Canadian North what the railway did for Western Canada 140 years ago.

Tapping into the next generation of groundwater scientists

As many of Hawaiʻi‘s leading water professionals near retirement, there’s an urgent need to train a new local workforce of scientists. That’s happening at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa thanks to ʻIke Wai, a large five-year project funded by the National Science Foundation that aims to understand how water moves and is captured and stored underground in Hawaiʻi. Its main study sites include the Kona and Pearl Harbor aquifer systems.

Satellite Finds Southerly Wind Shear Affecting Tropical Depression Jelawat

Satellite imagery showed that Tropical Depression Jelawat was still dealing with southerly vertical wind shear that was pushing the bulk of its clouds north of its center.

On March 27, Jelawat was centered over 100 miles from Yap State in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. Yap State is one of four states in the Federated States of Micronesia. The other states are Chuuk State, Kosrae State and Pohnpei State.

Saharan Dust Makes Orange Snow

Maybe this is what it would be like to ski on Mars.

In late March 2018, the people of Eastern Europe and Russia found their snow cover had a distinctly orange tint. The color came from vast quantities of Saharan dust that was picked up by strong winds, lofted over the Mediterranean Sea, and deposited on Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, and Russia. Skiers in the Caucasus Mountains snapped photos that looked like they could have come from the Red Planet.

Virginia Tech 'Fog Harp' Increases Collection Capacity for Clean Water

Fog harvesting may look like whimsical work.

After all, installing giant nets along hillsides and mountaintops to catch water out of thin air sounds more like folly than science. However, the practice has become an important avenue to clean water for many who live in arid and semi-arid climates around the world.

Plants, Fungi and Bacteria Work Together to Clean Polluted Land

Highly complex interactions among roots, fungi and bacteria underlie the ability of some trees to clean polluted land, according to a novel study by bioinformatics and plant-biology experts from McGill University and Université de Montréal.

Weather Phenomena Such as El Niño Affect up to Two-Thirds of the World’s Harvests

According to researchers at Aalto University, Finland, large-scale weather cycles, such as the one related to the El Niño phenomenon, affect two-thirds of the world’s cropland. In these so called climate oscillations, air pressure, sea level temperature or other similar factors fluctuate regularly in areas far apart in a way that causes rain and temperature patterns to shift significantly.

UNH Research Finds Dramatic Increase in Flooding on Coastal Roads

High tide floods, or so-called “nuisance flooding,” that happen along shore roadways during seasonal high tides or minor wind events are occurring far more frequently than ever before. Researchers at the University of New Hampshire have found that in the past 20 years roads along the East Coast have experienced a 90 percent increase in flooding – often making the roads in these communities impassable, causing delays, as well as stress, and impacting transportation of goods and services.

Genes in Songbirds Hold Clues About Human Speech Disorders, UCLA Biologists Report

Insights into how songbirds learn to sing provide promising clues about human speech disorders and may lead to new ways of treating them, according to new research published in the journal eLife.