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Retreating Yukon glacier caused a river to disappear

The massive Kaskawulsh Glacier in northern Canada has retreated about a mile up its valley over the past century.

Last spring, its retreat triggered a geologic event at relatively breakneck speed. The toe of ice that was sending meltwater toward the Slims River and then north to the Bering Sea retreated so far that the water changed course, joining the Kaskawulsh River and flowing south toward the Gulf of Alaska.

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Banned industrial solvent sheds new light on methane mystery

Since 2007, scientists have been searching to find the cause of a sudden and unexpected global rise in atmospheric methane, a potent greenhouse gas, following almost a decade in which concentrations had stayed relatively constant.

Recent studies have explored a range of possible causes. Suggestions have included a rise in oil and natural gas extraction, increased emissions from tropical wetlands or increases in emissions from growing East Asian economies.

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Models, observations not so far apart on planet's response to greenhouse gas emissions

How hot our planet will become for a given amount of greenhouse gases is a key number in climate change. As the calculation of how much warming is locked in by a given amount of emissions, it is crucial for global policies to curb global warming.

It is also one of the most hotly debated numbers in climate science. Observations in the past decade seem to suggest a value that is lower than predicted by models. But a University of Washington study shows that two leading methods for calculating how hot the planet will get are not as far apart as they have appeared.

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"Bad" air may impact "good" cholesterol increasing heart disease risk

Traffic-related air pollution may increase cardiovascular disease risk by lowering levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), commonly known as “good” cholesterol, according to new research in the American Heart Association’s journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology.

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USGS Estimates 304 Trillion Cubic Feet of Natural Gas in the Bossier and Haynesville Formations of the U.S. Gulf Coast

The Bossier and Haynesville Formations of the onshore and State waters portion of the U.S. Gulf Coast contain estimated means of 4.0 billion barrels of oil, 304.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 1.9 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, according to updated assessments by the U.S. Geological Survey. These estimates, the largest continuous natural gas assessment USGS has yet conducted, include petroleum in both conventional and continuous accumulations, and consist of undiscovered, technically recoverable resources.

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Methane Seeps in the Canadian High Arctic

Cretaceous climate warming led to a significant methane release from the seafloor, indicating potential for similar destabilization of gas hydrates under modern global warming. A field campaign on the remote Ellef Ringnes Island, Canadian High Arctic, discovered an astounding number of methane seep mounds in Cretaceous age sediments.

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Device pulls water from dry air, powered only by the sun

Imagine a future in which every home has an appliance that pulls all the water the household needs out of the air, even in dry or desert climates, using only the power of the sun.

That future may be around the corner, with the demonstration this week of a water harvester that uses only ambient sunlight to pull liters of water out of the air each day in conditions as low as 20 percent humidity, a level common in arid areas.

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Prescribed Fires Consume Kansas Landscape

Most if not all the fires in this image taken by Suomi NPP satellite's VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) instrument on April 11, 2017 are controlled fires set by farmers to manage land.  Farmers in Kansas as allowed to burn grass every year to produce better grass for cattle.  The grass burning typically occurs between March and mid-April on a yearly basis.

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New Infrared-Emitting Device Could Allow Energy Harvesting from Waste Heat

A new reconfigurable device that emits patterns of thermal infrared light in a fully controllable manner could one day make it possible to collect waste heat at infrared wavelengths and turn it into usable energy.

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New study emphasizes the relative scarcity of lake water

What is the volume of water in lakes on Earth? Using a mathematical analysis, researcher David Seekell, at Umeå University, and his American collaborators now suggest that the mean depth of lakes is 30 per cent lower than previously estimated. Shallower lakes implies less fresh water and has consequences for our understanding of climate change and the carbon cycle. The results have been published in Geophysical Research Letters.

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