This post is by Sheryl Canter, an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense Fund.
A huge Antarctic ice berg – seven times the size of Manhattan – is close to breaking off, supported only by a thin strip of ice hanging between two islands.
Part of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, the berg was captured in satellite and video images by British Antarctic Survey (BAS), which said, “It is another identifiable impact of climate change on the Antarctic environment.”
This post is by Scott Anderson, an attorney and senior policy advisor at the Environmental Defense Fund. It’s the second in a three-part series on carbon sequestration – storing carbon or carbon dioxide (CO2) in soils, trees, geological formations, and oceans.
1. Biological Sequestration
2. Geological Sequestration
3. Ocean Sequestration
To stop global warming, the U.S. must substantially move away from carbon-emitting fossil fuels to clean renewable energy. But a transition of this magnitude takes time. Right now this country is heavily dependent on coal for electricity, and traditional coal plants are none too clean.
How do we stop global warming while renewable technologies to meet our energy needs are still under development? Part of the answer may lie in an emerging transition technology called Carbon dioxide (CO2) Capture and Storage (CCS). The idea behind CCS is to capture the CO2 from industrial processes like coal plants, and then store it in deep geological formations.
This post is by Lisa Moore, Ph.D., a scientist in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense.
Scientists use some technical terms in discussing climate change that can cause confusion. Two that are especially useful to know are "forcing" and "feedback".
You’ll hear these terms a lot in discussions of how human activity impacts climate – and especially when the topic turns to the melting Arctic. If you know what they mean, you’ll have a much better understanding of the dynamics behind climate change.
This post is by Lisa Moore, Ph.D., a scientist in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense.
Yesterday, an unusually ferocious winter tornado system killed at least 55 people in five Southern states, and destroyed over a thousand homes and businesses. Usually tornadoes touch down for 20 minutes then come back up, but these were rare "long-track" tornadoes that stayed on the ground for 30 to 50 miles.
Lots of recent research indicates that global warming increases the intensity of hurricanes. Could it also affect tornadoes? It’s too early to tell, but scientists are starting to look.
This post is by Lisa Moore, Ph.D., a scientist in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense.
Last week, scientists published a study about global warming and hurricanes in the U.S. The authors found a weak downward trend in the number of landfalling U.S. hurricanes, but concluded that future trends will depend on the spatial distribution of ocean warming.
In its coverage of the study, the Miami Herald said that "global warming actually is diminishing the number of hurricanes that strike Florida and the rest of the United States – and the phenomenon is likely to continue." This is not exactly what the study said. Here’s the full scoop.
This post is by Lisa Moore, Ph.D., a scientist in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense.
On January 13, Nature Geoscience published an article that reports large increases in ice loss from West Antarctica over the past 10 years. It’s a sobering result that’s in line with earlier, independent studies.
But then why do some people say that Antarctic ice is growing?
