Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017
According to authors of a new study from the American Geophysical Union, it is “extremely unlikely” that 2014, 2015 and 2016 would have been the warmest consecutive years on record without the influence of human-caused climate change. Temperature records were first broken in 2014, when that year became the hottest year since global temperature records
Tuesday, August 15th, 2017
Sustainability data company Ecometrica called on countries and governments to adopt modern direct methods to measure climate-change emissions, following revelations by the BBC that official figures for emissions of climate-warming gases often are flawed, allowing some countries to underreport the level of pollution. “The time has come to move to direct monitoring of emissions and
Tuesday, August 8th, 2017
NASA and the Norwegian Mapping Authority are partnering to develop a satellite laser-ranging station 650 miles from the North Pole that will produce high-precision locations of orbiting satellites, help track changes in ice sheets, and improve the efficiency of marine transportation and agriculture. The Arctic station will be the latest addition to a global network
Tuesday, August 8th, 2017
The signing of a new joint partnership between the Wyland Foundation and the United Nations Environment Program to protect the global marine environment through the Wyland World Water Pledge, a 10-year outreach program to inspire and engage every person on earth about the sustainable use of the planet’s ocean, lakes, rivers, streams, and wetlands. The
Tuesday, August 1st, 2017
According to a new study published by USC scientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, rock and soil breakdown in glaciers generates more acidity and releases more carbon than other forms of natural weathering. Perhaps most interestingly, it is the elevated oxidation of pyrite, popularly known as “fool’s gold,” in the glacial
Tuesday, July 25th, 2017
In the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, far from the urban, developed world, there’s a small, lush, green island with white sand beaches. However, this uninhabited, remote corner of the tropics—Henderson Island—also has a trash problem. The beaches of Henderson Island have the highest density of plastic waste in the world, according to a
Monday, July 17th, 2017
Land-cover mapping is a critical part of conservation planning, but current methods for collecting detailed geographic data are highly labor-intensive. Advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) can help, but they’re not yet widely accessible to those on the front lines of conservation and mapping. To improve this situation, Esri is collaborating with Microsoft to
Tuesday, July 11th, 2017
MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. announced that its subsidiary Space Systems Loral (SSL) was selected to provide a next-generation satellite constellation for high-resolution Earth imaging to DigitalGlobe. Called WorldView Legion, the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites will more than double DigitalGlobe’s high-resolution capacity in important regions. The contract is valued at several hundred million
Tuesday, June 27th, 2017
Satellites are helping to predict favorable conditions for desert locusts to swarm, which poses a threat to agricultural production and, subsequently, livelihoods and food security. Desert locusts are a type of grasshopper found primarily in the Sahara, across the Arabian Peninsula and into India. The insect is usually harmless, but when they swarm they can
Tuesday, June 20th, 2017
Loggerhead turtles are particularly susceptible to climate change as the risk of nest flooding increases and the health of hatchlings declines. Florida holds the world’s largest nesting population of loggerheads, yet little is known about the species’ activity in nearby Cuba. A recent article published in Chelonian Conservation and Biology suggests changing climate may
