Science Daily: Climate News

In an effort to protect the planet and preserve its natural treasures for future generations, another contraception revolution that provides options for populations not currently being served by modern contraception may be the answer according to the author of a new article.

Getting reliable precipitation data from the past has proven difficult, as is predicting regional changes for climate models in the present. A combination of isotope techniques may help resolve both.

When it comes to choosing which other species to hang out with, wild animals quite literally change their minds with the weather, a new study reveals. The findings could help conservationists better predict the risk of extinction faced by endangered species.

Stories of mass poisoning incidents of livestock due to toxic grasses made headlines especially overseas. Animal ecologists have studied whether this hazard is also lurking on German pastures.

Scientists are predicting that warmer winters in the Chesapeake Bay will likely lead to longer and more productive seasons for Maryland's favorite summer crustacean, the blue crab.

The rise in temperature and precipitation levels in summer in northern Japan has negatively affected the growth of conifers and resulted in their gradual decline, according to a 38-year-long study in which mixed forests of conifers and broad-leaved trees were monitored.

West Coast forest landowners are expected to adapt to climate change by gradually switching from Douglas-fir to other types of trees such as hardwoods and ponderosa pine.

A new study of seabirds that had ingested plastic debris has revealed a range of non-lethal impacts on their health and physiology. While seabird deaths due to swallowing plastic debris or becoming entangled in it have received global attention, the non-lethal effects on seabirds that survive plastic ingestion are less well-known.

Making the shift to renewable energy sources requires biomass, too.

A new study found that smoke from fires in Africa may be the most important source of a key nutrient -- phosphorus -- that acts as a fertilizer in the Amazon rainforest, Tropical Atlantic and Southern oceans.

A new study generated improved annual maps of tropical forest cover in the Brazilian Amazon in 2000-2017 and provided better characterization on the spatio-temporal dynamics of forest area, loss and gain in this region. The Amazon basin has the largest tropical forests in the world. Rapid changes in land use, climate and other human activities have resulted in substantial deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon over the past several decades.

Researchers are connecting climate change to stormwater management, with the goal of increasing resiliency to major storm events. In a new case study, researchers examine two distinct watersheds and demonstrate that even small decentralized stormwater management practices like rain gardens can make a big cumulative difference to the resiliency of a watershed, using predictive modeling to assess what climate change will demand of our future stormwater management systems.

Climate change affects not only the growth and survival of marine animals, but also their senses. A new study synthesizes the results of sensory change studies -- revealing both broad patterns and intriguing outliers -- and provides a conceptual framework to help guide future research in this emerging field.

Scientists have recently discovered a new mechanism determining how carbon is stored in soils that could improve the climate resilience of cropping systems and also reduce their carbon footprints.

Soon we will be able to replace fossil fuels with a carbon-neutral product created from solar energy, carbon dioxide and water. Researchers have successfully produced microorganisms that can efficiently produce the alcohol butanol using carbon dioxide and solar energy, without needing to use solar cells.