Environmental News Network

NASA releases global warming map
NASA has released a new analysis of temperature change. The map shows temperature anomalies for 2000-2009 and 1970-1979 relative to a 1951-1980 baseline. >> Read the Full Article
EarthTalk: What is Global Dimming?
Global dimming is a less well-known but real phenomenon resulting from atmospheric pollution. The burning of fossil fuels by industry and internal combustion engines, in addition to releasing the carbon dioxide that collects and traps the sun's heat within our atmosphere, causes the emission of so-called particulate pollutionâ€”composed primarily of sulphur dioxide, soot and ash. When these particulates enter the atmosphere they absorb solar energy and reflect sunlight otherwise bound for the Earthâ€™s surface back into space. >> Read the Full Article
Climate change affects toads, salamanders
Climate change is affecting the breeding cycles of toads and salamanders, researchers reported on Tuesday, in the first published evidence of such changes on amphibians. They documented that two species were breeding later in the autumn than in years past, and two others were breeding earlier in the winter. Their study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, adds to a growing body of evidence that climate change is affecting animals. Other studies have shown some birds in North America and Europe are moving northwards as temperatures rise. >> Read the Full Article
Court Denies Stay of EPA Climate Rules
EPA can enforce its climate change regulations while litigation challenging those regulations is pending, a federal appeals court ruled last Friday. The denial of a motion to stay the implementation of EPA's rules removed one of the final barriers to implementation of the Agency's first-ever stationary source greenhouse gas ("GHG") limits, which are scheduled to begin phasing in on January 2, 2011. >> Read the Full Article
Climate talks end with modest steps
The world's governments agreed on Saturday to modest steps to combat climate change and to give more money to poor countries, but they put off until next year tough decisions on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The deal includes a Green Climate Fund that would give $100 billion a year in aid to poor nations by 2020, measures to protect tropical forests and ways to share clean energy technologies. Ending a marathon session of talks in the Mexican beach resort of Cancun, almost 200 countries also set a target of limiting a rise in average world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) over pre-industrial times. >> Read the Full Article
Cold weather killing Florida's manatees
Unusually cold weather last winter killed Florida's endangered manatees at a record rate, a report said on Friday. During 2010, a record 699 manatees have died in Florida, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Research Institute. Of those, 244 were attributed to cold weather and many of the 271 undetermined deaths were also likely caused by weather. In most years, the leading cause of manatee deaths is from collisions with power boats. The latest surveys estimate there are only about 5,000 of the chubby marine mammals left in Florida waters. >> Read the Full Article
Greenland Ice Sheet Flow Driven by Short-Term Weather Extremes, Not Gradual Warming, Research Reveals
Sudden changes in the volume of meltwater contribute more to the acceleration -- and eventual loss -- of the Greenland ice sheet than the gradual increase of temperature, according to a University of British Columbia study. >> Read the Full Article
U.N. talks on knife edge, Mexico urges agreement
Talks on a 190-nation deal to slow global warming were on a "knife edge" early on Friday as Brazil and Japan expressed guarded hopes of ending a dispute between rich and poor about curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Negotiators were set to work well into the early hours of the morning seeking to end a standoff over the future of the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, which binds almost 40 rich nations to curb emissions until 2012, before the final day of the two-week talks on Friday. >> Read the Full Article
'Greener' Climate Prediction Shows Plants Slow Warming
ScienceDaily (Dec. 8, 2010) â€” A new NASA computer modeling effort has found that additional growth of plants and trees in a world with doubled atmospheric carbon dioxide levels would create a new negative feedback -- a cooling effect -- in the Earth's climate system that could work to reduce future global warming. >> Read the Full Article
U.N.'s Ban urges climate deal, short of perfect
Saying the health of the planet is at stake, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged 190 nations meeting in Mexico on Tuesday to agree to steps to fight climate change that fall short of a perfect deal. "We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good," Ban told a first session of environment ministers at the November 29 to December 10 talks in the Caribbean resort of Cancun where rich and poor nations are split over cutting greenhouse gas emissions. After U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders failed to work out a U.N. climate treaty at a 2009 summit in Copenhagen, Ban repeatedly stressed lower ambitions for the Cancun talks despite calls by some nations for radical action. >> Read the Full Article