Global warming accounts for tripling of extreme West African Sahel storms, study shows

The UK-based Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) has led an international team of scientists who reveal global warming is responsible for a tripling in the frequency of extreme West African Sahel storms observed in just the last 35 years.

Professor Christopher Taylor, a Meteorologist at CEH, and researchers from partner institutions including Universite? Grenoble Alpes in France, also suggest that climate change will see the Sahel experience many more instances of extreme rain in future.

Mystery of the missing mercury at the great Salt Lake

Around 2010, the deep waters of Utah’s Great Salt Lake contained high levels of toxic methylmercury. Mercury measurements in waterfowl surrounding the lake led to a rare human consumption advisory for ducks.

But by 2015, 90 percent of the deep mercury was gone.

The disappearance of the mercury was not due to aggressive environmental policies or a wide-ranging cleanup effort. Instead, it’s part of a story involving a large-scale unplanned chemistry experiment, a sometimes-stinky lake, and ducks – in which the mercury did not disappear. The story is told in a paper published in Environmental Science & Technology.

Asian Carp Would Have Adequate Food to Survive in Lake Michigan

If invasive bighead carp and silver carp spread into Lake Michigan, there would be enough food available for these particular species of Asian carp to survive, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey.

March and year to date were 2nd warmest on record for world

Hot on the heels of the second warmest winter in the 138-year record, March continued the global warm trend that could last well into this year — especially with increasing chances for the arrival of El Nino by late summer or fall.  

Extinction Risk for Many Species Vastly Underestimated, Study Suggests

The study appears in the journal Biological Conservation.

The maps describing species’ geographic ranges, which are used by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to determine threat status, appear to systematically overestimate the size of the habitat in which species can thrive, said Don Melnick, senior investigator on the study and the Thomas Hunt Morgan Professor of Conservation Biology in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology (E3B).

Stanford scientists test links between extreme weather and climate change

After an unusually intense heat wave, downpour or drought, Noah Diffenbaugh and his research group inevitably receive phone calls and emails asking whether human-caused climate change played a role.

“The question is being asked by the general public and by people trying to make decisions about how to manage the risks of a changing climate,” said Diffenbaugh, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. “Getting an accurate answer is important for everything from farming to insurance premiums, to international supply chains, to infrastructure planning.”

UTHealth School of Public Health researchers find cold weather linked to mortality risks in Texas

Cold weather increases the risk of mortality in Texas residents, according to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health. The findings were recently published in the journal Environmental Pollution.

Heavy Precipitation Speeds Carbon Exchange in Tropics

New research by the University of Montana and its partner institutions gives insight into how forests globally will respond to long-term climate change.

Cory Cleveland, a UM professor of terrestrial ecosystem ecology, said that previous research in the wet tropics – where much of global forest productivity occurs – indicates that the increased rainfall that may occur with climate change would cause declines in plant growth.

As government delays pollution plan, study shows how killer nanoparticles cause heart disease

A new study explains for the first time how nanoparticles like those in diesel exhaust fumes cause heart disease by lodging in inflamed blood vessels, writes Oliver Tickell. The study, published as the UK government is ordered before the High Court to justify its refusal to publish plans to tackle illegal air pollution which afflicts 38 million people, also raises wider fears about 'engineered nanoparticles' in the environment.

Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlements: Where the money went

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the Gulf Coast, killing 11 people and injuring 17. So began an 87-day oil spill that spewed 3.19 million barrels, or nearly 134 million gallons, into the Gulf of Mexico. It fouled the coasts of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas and launched a six-year long environmental and legal battle.