General Awareness

ENVIRONMENT - October 2015

Oct 2015

Jan 06, 2016

Climate Change Altering Greenland Ice Sheet

Greenland's ice sheet has traditionally been pictured as a bit of a sponge for glacier meltwater, but new research has found that climate change is changing its structure, thereby reducing its ability to buffer its contribution to rising sea levels.
The researchers analysed data from three expeditions to the Greenland ice sheet in 2012, 2013 and 2015.
The team set up several camps and drilled a series of shallow firn cores about 20 metres deep during their time on the ice sheet.
They were surprised by what they found. An extreme melt that occurred in 2012 caused a layer of solid ice, several metres thick, to form on top of the porous firn in the low elevation areas of the ice sheet.
In subsequent years, meltwater could not penetrate vertically through the solid ice layer, and instead drained along the ice sheet surface toward the ocean.
It overturned the idea that firn can behave as a nearly bottomless sponge to absorb meltwater. Instead, we found that the meltwater storage capacity of the firn could be capped off relatively quickly.

Jan 05, 2016

Methane Emissions from Northern Lakes

The release of methane from northern lakes and ponds needs to be taken seriously. These waters are significant, contemporary sources because they cover large parts of the landscape. They are also likely to emit even more methane in the future.
With climate warming, particularly at high northern latitudes, longer ice-free seasons in combination with permafrost thaw is likely to fuel methane release from lakes, potentially causing their emissions to increase 20-50 precent before the end of this century. Such a change would likely generate a positive feedback on future warming, causing emissions to increase even further.

Jan 04, 2016

Volcano Momotombo Spews Gas and Lava

A volcano in Nicaragua that has been dormant for 110 years spewed gas and lava for the second time in a month.
The volcano known as Momotombo in the west of the Central American country rumbled into activity before dawn, but then calmed down again.
Its last big eruption dates back to 1905. In 1980, the volcano emitted lava, but there was no eruptive explosion. In 2006 it emitted gases only.

Dec 28, 2015

Fresh Water at Puerto Williams the Purest

A new scientific study has reached the conclusion that the fresh water found in Puerto Williams town in southern Chile's Magallanes region is the purest in the world.
Samples were taken from a number of rivers and other sources of fresh water in the area.
Our results confirm that these waters are the cleanest on this planet.
The instruments we used to study the samples can detect two parts of chemicals per every million parts of water, and here they detected nothing.

Dec 23, 2015

Wild Bees on the Decline in the US

Wild bees, which are crucial pollinators for many crops, are on the decline in some of the main agricultural regions of the United States.
Researchers have cited 139 counties as especially worrisome, with wild bee numbers decreasing while farmland for crops dependent on such pollinators is increasing.
The counties included agricultural regions of California, as well as the Pacific northwest, the upper midwest and the Great Plains, west Texas and the southern Mississippi river valley.
The counties grew crops such as almonds, pumpkins, squashes, blueberries, watermelons, peaches and apples that are highly dependent on pollinators, or had large amounts of less-pollinator-dependent crops including soybeans, canola and cotton.

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