Until now, scientists had a limited understanding of what happens under the water at the point where land-based glaciers meet the sea. Using a combination of radar, sonar and time-lapse photography, a team of researchers has now provided the first detailed measurements of the underwater changes over time. Their findings suggest that the theories currently used to gauge glacier change are underestimating glaciers' ice loss.
Chemical Soup - Really It Is
BPA is a chemical that has been extensively used to line almost all canned food and drink. BPA has been linked to reproductive problems for women. BPA is derived from phenol, which is derived from benzene, which is a major component of crude oil and gasoline. The use of BPA is being phased out, but the two chemical that are replacing BPA: BPF and BPS appear to cause health problems in children. Two chemicals used as substitutes for bisphenol A (BPA) may contribute to childhood weight gain and obesity, according to a study published today in the Journal of the Endocrine Society.
Bisphenol S (BPS) and bisphenol F (BPF) are chemicals similar to BPA, which has been used for decades in plastic and metal food packaging, receipts, and electronics.
While BPA use in products has declined due to increased awareness about its role as an endocrine disrupting chemical, BPS and BPF are increasingly used as replacements but, as structurally similar chemicals to BPA, they seem to have similar health effects — a phenomenon researchers refer to as "regrettable substitutions."
The study adds to mounting evidence that bisphenol chemicals are associated with an increased body mass index in children and teens. It will continue to be an issue "given that human exposure to these compounds is likely to continue to increase in the future," said the study's authors.
The Boys From Brazil
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Brazilian president Bolsonaro has already declared that Brazil owns the Amazon and will do with the vast area called the “lungs of the planet” as he (Bolsonaro) pleases. After years of dedicated conservation efforts and routine battles with farming and mining interests, the Amazon rain forest has been turning over to industrial development by an administration that believes that they are doing God’s work. Every minutes an area of rain forest equal to three football fields is being destroyed.
A transition on that scale could have significant implications for global warming since the rain forest absorbs vast amounts of atmospheric carbon. Recent research has shown the potential for massive tree plantings to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere.
"It's very important to keep repeating these concerns. There are a number of tipping points which are not far away," said Philip Fearnside, a professor at Brazil's National Institute of Amazonian Research, as the Guardian reported. "We can't see exactly where they are, but we know they are very close. It means we have to do things right away. Unfortunately that is not what is happening. There are people denying we even have a problem."
After years of conservation, Brazil's environmental track record has nose-dived in the first seven months of Bolsonaro's administration. He has given environmental oversight to the agriculture minister, who is the leader of a farming lobby. His foreign minister called climate science a part of a global Marxist plot.The boys from Brazil are using the Trump environmental template.
100 Year Droughts
Global ocean temperature extremes cause weather extremes thousands of miles away. Centuries ago these extremes caused prolonged droughts in the southwest. Climate change is likely to bring them back.
In medieval times, the US Southwest was routinely struck by decades-long droughts. Those megadroughts stopped around 1600, but climate change could bring them back.Mountaineering Mice
In a study published on Wednesday in Science Advances, researchers from Columbia’s Earth Institute used climate models to study what caused the megadroughts. Using historical climate data, they determined that two things were to blame: changing ocean temperatures and excess energy trapped inside the Earth’s atmosphere (called radiative forcing).
Now, with similar trends on the rise again thanks to climate change, the researchers say that the US Southwest (which includes California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and parts of other states) is likely to experience medieval megadroughts again—and soon.
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While climbing the world second highest volcano, Llullaillaco, in 2013 an American climber thought he might be suffering from lack of oxygen when, at an altitude of 20,340 feet, he thought he saw a mouse scurrying along in the frozen landscape.
A later expedition revealed the animal to be a yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse (Phyllotis xanthopygus), a known species that lives in the foothills and mountains of the Andes, but can be found as low as sea level.
That means the mouse has an unprecedented elevation range of more than 20,000 feet. “That wide of a range,” says Scott Steppan, a mouse expert and biology professor at Florida State University, “is extraordinary.”
“No other species does that,” says Steppan, who presented the unpublished finding in late June at the annual meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists in Washington D.C.
The discovery raises many questions. Why do the mice live at such a high elevation, where there is half the oxygen found at sea level? How do they survive in such conditions, where it also dips down to temperatures of minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter? And what do they eat?
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