Conventional thinking on climate change holds that human emissions of carbon dioxide have been the major contributor to global warming, but an intriguing new study that examined data going back to the Industrial Revolution indicates that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) conspiring with cosmic rays are the real culprit. The research, by Professor Qing-Bin Lu at the University […]
Ocean acidification is known to negatively impacta wide variety of marine animals, but new research indicates that a huge increase in hearing sensitivity for fish could also be one of the effects. In the new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers report on the potential effects of acidification on […]
Researchers at the University of Georgia have found a way to transform carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into a variety of useful industrial products. Their discovery may soon lead to the creation of biofuels made directly from carbon dioxide in the air – one of the major driving forces of global climate change. Details about […]
Climatologists examining the relationship between sea level and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations over the last 40 million years have found that present day greenhouse gas concentrations (around 400 parts per million) have historically been associated with sea levels at least 30 feet above current levels. The study, appearing in Proceedings of the National Academy of […]
When trees are felled to create solid wood products – such as lumber for housing – the wood retains most of its locked-up carbon, say scientists who suggest that previous climate models for carbon emissions from deforestation need revision. The new study, from the University of California, Davis, provides a deeper understanding of the complex […]
Rising oceanic carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are disrupting a key brain receptor in fish, causing dramatic changes in their brain chemistry, behavior and sensory abilities, say Australian researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. Their work appears in the journal Nature Climate Change. Around 2.3 billion tons of human CO2emissions dissolve […]
Botanists from Indiana University (IU) and Utrecht University (Netherlands) have discovered that rising carbon dioxide levels over the last 150 years have reduced the density of the pores (known as stomata) that plants use to breathe by 34 percent, dramatically lowering the amount of water vapor the plants release to the atmosphere. Writing about their […]
The climate may be up to 50 percent more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide in the long term than previously thought and climate projections over the next hundreds of years will likely need to be adjusted to reflect this higher sensitivity, according to a new study in Nature Geoscience. The research team, led by the […]
Climate scientists say the link between declining CO2 levels in the Earth’s atmosphere and the formation of the Antarctic ice caps some 34 million years ago has been confirmed for the first time. The scientists, from Cardiff, Bristol and Texas A&M universities, worked in a small East African village where they measured the CO2levels in […]
University of Chicago scientists have established that as well as ocean acidification increasing much more rapidly than previously thought, there is also a strong correlation with rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. “Of the variables the study examined that are linked to changes in ocean acidity, only atmospheric carbon dioxide exhibited a corresponding steady change,” […]
