Thursday, September 22nd, 2011
NASA’s new Aquarius instrument has produced its first global map of the salinity of the ocean surface, providing an early glimpse of the mission’s anticipated discoveries. Aquarius, which is aboard the Aquarius/SAC-D (Satélite de Aplicaciones Científicas) observatory, is making NASA’s first space observations of ocean surface salinity variations — a key component of Earth’s climate.
Wednesday, September 21st, 2011
Ministers will meet in Astana, Kazakhstan, today to discuss water issues and greening the economy at the seventh ‘Environment for Europe’ Ministerial Conference, running from 21 – 23 September 2011. To support the Conference, the European Environment Agency (EEA) is launching an innovative Assessment of Assessments report, which recommends ways that environmental information and policy
Tuesday, September 20th, 2011
CLISP is a European project funded by the Alpine Space Programme under the European Territorial Cooperation 2007-2013. CLISP started in September 2008 and is now ending with this final conference. The Lead Partner is the Umweltbundesamt GmbH / Federal Environment Agency Austria. The partnership is composed of 14 Project Partners from Austria (6), Italy (3), Germany
Monday, September 19th, 2011
In summer 2011, the South was in the grip of severe, and in some cases exceptional, drought. This map shows the difference from normal precipitation received in the United States between October 1, 2010 (the beginning of the West’s water year) and August 21, 2011. Read More
Monday, September 19th, 2011
As the consequences of global warming grow, more policymakers are realising the value of nature’s free services, such as purifying water and air. There is also growing realisation that humanity will suffer if these ecological services – and hence biodiversity – cannot be preserved. Therefore, the world’s rich economies are more willing, these days, to
Friday, September 16th, 2011
The Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) will present a report to the Government today on the latest climate change research. The report will be used in support of Sweden s actions on climate change. In the report, SMHI indicates that the effects of climate change are expected to be more serious than previously estimated,
Thursday, September 15th, 2011
A re-modeled home might not always be better than the original. For many of the world’s tropical fauna and flora, home re-landscaping has in fact proven to be quite deleterious. An international collaboration of researchers compiled data from over 100 studies comparing the biodiversity of primary forests (forests subjected to little or no human disturbance) with
Wednesday, September 14th, 2011
Entire sets of assumptions, beliefs, and practices will need to be overturned if the United States is to build a sustainable economy in the decades ahead, according to a new report from the Worldwatch Institute, Creating Sustainable Prosperity in the United States: The Need for Innovation and Leadership. The report assesses the country’s environmental record
Wednesday, September 14th, 2011
Solar photovoltaic panels are becoming ubiquitous across the UK. Cast your eyes skywards and you’ll see the predominantly deep, blue-and-silver-veined panels winking back at you (assuming the sun’s shining) from an ever-increasing number of residential and commercial buildings’ rooftops. The government’s feed-in-tariff has largely driven the uptake. Such has been the level of interest in the tariffs that
Tuesday, September 13th, 2011
Personal interviews with Alaska Natives in the Yukon River Basin provide unique insights on climate change and its impacts, helping develop adaptation strategies for these local communities. The USGS coordinated interviews with Yup’ik hunters and elders in the villages of St. Mary’s and Pitka’s Point, Alaska, to document their observations of climate change. They expressed
