Throughout the 20th century and into the first decade of the 21st, America had not been impacted by global warming. This was an 'anomaly' according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and climate scientists. Finally, in summer of 2012, the American midwest had a drought and that was proof of global warming.
It seems independent voters believed - in both cases. Their acceptance changes with the weather.
Magma forms far deeper than geologists previously thought, according to new research results.
A team led by geologist Rajdeep Dasgupta of Rice University put very small samples of peridotite, rock derived from Earth's mantle, under high pressures in a laboratory.
The scientists found that the rock can and does liquify, at least in small amounts, at pressures equivalent to those found as deep as 250 kilometers down in the mantle beneath the ocean floor.
Dasgupta said that this answers several questions about Earth's inner workings.
A new study by an international team of scientists analyzing ice cores from the Greenland ice sheet going back in time more than 100,000 years indicates the last interglacial period may be a good analog for where the planet is headed in terms of increasing greenhouse gases and rising temperatures.
In a demonstration of the power of green chemistry, scientists are reporting development of a new and more efficient process for making one of the most costly and widely used medications for severe mental illness. Described in a report in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, it produces larger amounts of the medication than the existing commercial process while reducing the use of solvents and other potentially toxic substances.
Plastics have transformed modern society, providing attractive benefits but also befouling waterways and aquifers, depleting petroleum supplies and disrupting human health.
With climate change sparking concern about an increased risk of wildfires, scientists are reporting development of a way to detect grapes exposed to smoke from those fires, which otherwise could be vented into bad-tasting wine. Their report on the method for detecting smoke taint in both grapes and wine appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
CORVALLIS, Ore. – The massive Tohoku, Japan, earthquake in 2011 and Sumatra-Andaman superquake in 2004 stunned scientists because neither region was thought to be capable of producing a megathrust earthquake with a magnitude exceeding 8.4.
Now earthquake scientists are going back to the proverbial drawing board and admitting that existing predictive models looking at maximum earthquake size are no longer valid.
An increase in temperatures due to climate change could mean that the Andorran ski resorts have a shorter season in the future, especially in lower areas. A study undertaken by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and the Andorran Sustainability Observatory has analysed the specific case of the Pyrenean country and predicted that financial losses could come close to 50 million euros.
SINC. 22 de enero de 2013
Treated wastewater solids called biosolids are sometimes used by farmers to boost soil nutrient levels. Now research by a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientist provides new information about how long those plant nutrients remain after biosolids have been applied to the soil.
This work was conducted by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) agronomist Eton Codling, and supports the USDA priority of promoting international food security. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency.
Scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, and their partners have determined that water demand by many plant communities can fluctuate in response to water availability, indicating a capacity for resilience even when changing climate patterns produce periodic droughts or floods.
But their research also suggests that a limit to this resilience ultimately could threaten the survival of these plant communities. Sensitive environments such as the arid grasslands in the Southwestern U.S. already are approaching this limit.
We invited some Chinese experts and researchers in the field of spintronics to write a series of review articles in this special issue, in order to assist undergraduate, master's and doctoral students, as well as young researchers to understand this fast growing field. This issue was published in Science China Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy, 2013, 56(1): 1-246
The amount of rainfall and number of tropical storms during the summer monsoon season greatly impact the agriculture, economy, and people in Asia. Though meteorologists and climate scientists have worked for years to develop helpful prediction systems, seasonal predictions of these two types of weather phenomena are still poor.
WASHINGTON, January 22, 2012—Plants can adapt to extreme shifts in water availability, such as drought and flooding, but their ability to withstand these extreme patterns will be tested by future climate change, according to a study by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and their cooperators.
The western Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest warming regions on the planet, and the fastest warming part of the Southern Hemisphere.
Scientists have debated the causes of this warming, particularly in light of recent instrumental records of both atmospheric and oceanic warming from the region. As the atmosphere and ocean warm, so the ice sheet (holding an equivalent of 5 metres of global sea level rise, locked up in ice) becomes vulnerable to collapse.
The strong binding of gold on electronically modified calcium oxide can now be understood in detail. In a computational study, researchers Jenni Andersin, Janne Nevalaita, Karoliina Honkala and Hannu Häkkinen at the University of Jyväskylä Nanoscience Center have shown how redox chemistry entirely determines the adsorption strength of gold on the modified oxide where one metal atom is replaced with molybdenum. The study was funded by the Academy of Finland.