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Forests may lose the ability to protect against extremes of climate change
Kimberley Davis is a University of Montana postdoctoral research associate and the lead author of the study that suggests some forests will lose their capacity to buffer climate extremes as water becomes limited at many sites.
“Changes in water balance, combined with accelerating canopy losses due to increases in the frequency and severity of disturbance, will create many changes in the microclimate conditions of western U.S. forests,” Davis said…
Climate change is making it harder to revive damaged land
In the early 1980s, ecological restoration was much like cleaning up after a rowdy house party: trying to return a degraded habitat to its former pristine condition… “I’ve always been taught that restoration is about taking a degraded site and restoring it back to what it was before the disturbance,” Campbell said.
But increasingly, scientists who study ecosystems, as well as land managers who do restoration work, are questioning that model of ecological restoration, which relies on the idea of a stable “climax community,” even though many ecosystems are always changing…
California is turning farms into carbon-sucking factories
In a grand experiment, California switched on a fleet of high-tech greenhouse gas removal machines last month. Funded by the state’s cap-and-trade program, they’re designed to reverse climate change by sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. These wonderfully complex machines are more high-tech than anything humans have designed. They’re called plants.
Seriously though…
Brilliant teen’s invention to remove all plastic from ocean is finally becoming a reality
A solution to the catastrophic plastic pollution in the ocean, now a problem even in the Great Lakes, is getting a major boost. When Boyan Slat was 16 years old, he found himself coming across more plastic than fish while diving in Greece. It was then that he decided to dedicate a high school project to investigating ocean plastic pollution and how he could make a difference.
Check out what’s about to happen off the coast of California this summer…
Is there plastic in your beer? Probably
Love beer? How about water? According to a new study published in the Public Library of Science’s open access journal, micro-plastics found in the Great Lakes are making their way into the region’s beer. That’s not a good thing for your health…
Ticks devastate Maine, N.H. moose populations
An insidious pest is killing about 70 percent of moose calves across Maine and New Hampshire, and their deadly work is being aided by warming temperatures and shorter winters that allow the parasites to survive longer, scientists believe…
Climate change: Giant hail set to batter North America
Research is documenting that extreme weather is on the rise that will wreak havoc on farms and ranches. As a result, it is likely there will be increased need to cover crops and provide animals shelter to avoid critical damage from hail. That will likely mean drafting long-term conservation agreements (conservation easements) that want farming and ranching to succeed to allow for structures beyond the farmstead areas (building envelopes).
To get a sense of what we are talking about, check out the video or you can read the short article…
Audubon’s Birds and Climate Change Report
“The National Audubon Society has completed a continental analysis of how North America’s birds may respond to future climate change. Using extensive citizen science data and detailed climate layers, we developed models that characterize the relationship between the distribution of each species and climate…”
How is climate change impacting birds?
National Audubon’s 2014 Report is relevant, although there is growing concern that the predictions are understated given new research of an acceleration of climate change.
Off-shore wind farms less harmful to seabirds than first thought
Researchers used radar and video to monitor seabirds flying near the Vattenfall’s Thanet offshore wind farm in the English Channel over a two-year period.
They found that birds were present near the turbines in just two per cent of the 600,000 videos shot during the period, and they recorded just six collisions—an average of one every four months…