Science Daily: Climate News

The new open source data set can be used for epidemiological research on tropical cyclones.

Climate change is leaving its mark on the bog complexes of the German Black Forest. Due to rising temperatures and longer dry periods, two plant species have gone extinct over the last 40 years. The populations of many others have decreased by one third. According to a new study, more species could become extinct in the next couple of decades.

Ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet has accelerated significantly over the past two decades, transforming the shape of the ice sheet edge and therefore coastal Greenland.

Hurricanes, the United States' deadliest and most destructive weather disasters, are notoriously difficult to predict. With the average storm intensity as well as the proportion of storms that reach category 4 or 5 likely to increase, more accurate predictions of future hurricane impacts could help emergency officials and coastal populations better prepare for such storms -- and ultimately, save lives.

An international team of coastal scientists has dismissed suggestions that half the world's beaches could become extinct over the course of the 21st century.

To meet the Paris Agreement's goal of preventing Earth's average temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial level, one of the best options for the energy economy will involve a shift to 100% renewable energy using solar energy and other clean energy sources. Researchers describe a model developed to predict what is necessary for the solar industry to meet Paris Agreement targets.

Hot and humid: Using minerals from ancient soils, researchers are reconstructing the climate that prevailed on Earth some 55 million years ago. Their findings will help them to better assess how our climate might look in the future.

Blue mussels in the Baltic Sea are getting smaller with time but bigger in numbers, according to a new study. Analyzing data from the last 24 years, the main reason for this appears to be changes in food quality. The type of phytoplankton that is available for blue mussels to eat can in turn be linked to our changing climate.

Although the link may not be obvious, healthcare and climate change -- two issues that pose major challenges around the world -- are in fact more connected than society may realize. So say researchers, who are increasingly proving this to be true.

A researcher proposes a new approach to monitoring global sea-level rise. Using the existing NOAA Global Drifter Program array of roughly 1,200 buoys that drift freely with ocean currents, he suggests adding additional instruments to record their height, or the 'level of the sea' they ride on, to collect long-term data on the average sea levels across the world's oceans.

With the tropical storm season in the Atlantic Ocean underway and already well into the Greek alphabet for naming, better storm track prediction has allowed timely evacuations and preparations. However, the formation and intensification of these storms remains challenging to predict, according to an international team of researchers who are studying the origin of tropical cyclones.

New management approaches and technology have allowed the US. Corn Belt to increase yields despite some changes in climate. However, soil sensitivity to drought has increased significantly, according to a new study that could help identify ways to reverse the trend.

Intensive land-use reduces beneficial effects of biodiversity on ecosystem services. It assessed the effects of land management on the links between biodiversity, ecosystem functions and ecosystem services, identified thresholds of management intensity, most important species groups for driving services, and the ecosystem services at risk.

Marine food webs and biogeochemical cycles react very sensitively to the increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) - but the effects are far more complex than previously thought. Data were combined from five large-scale field experiments, which investigated how the carbon cycle within plankton communities reacts to the increase of CO2.

A researcher has now discovered that the irregular appearance of interglacials has been more frequent than previously thought. His study makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Earth's fundamental climate changes.

A research group has discovered that insects have a decisive influence on the biodiversity and flowering phases of plants. If there is a lack of insects where the plants are growing, their flowering behavior changes. This can result in the lifecycles of the insects and the flowering periods of the plants no longer coinciding. If the insects seek nectar, some plants will no longer be pollinated.

The first large-scale study of the risks that countries face from dependence on water, energy and land resources has found that globalisation may be decreasing, rather than increasing, the security of global supply chains.

What do you have on your 2020 Bingo Card? Wildfire, heat wave, global pandemic, or flooding? If it's flooding, then it's a good bet it will happen in many places in the U.S. sometime during the year.

Emissions from coal-fired power plants in China are fertilizing the North Pacific Ocean with a metal nutrient important for marine life, according to new findings from a research team. The researchers believe these metals could change the ocean ecosystem, though it's unclear whether it would be for better or worse.

Research has found permafrost to be mostly absent throughout the shallow seafloor along a coastal field site in northeastern Alaska. That means carbon can be released from coastline sources much more easily than previously thought.