Large quantities of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane are trapped within and beneath polar permafrost, the layer of frozen ground that has not thawed for millennia. But this ground is now becoming destabilized as warmer temperatures due to a changing climate are causing the permafrost to melt, releasing the trapped greenhouse gases. If the melting is uneven it can cause … Continue reading Craters in Siberia – A Cause for Concern?
From Snails Are Dissolving in Pacific Ocean (original article here) Image courtesy of Arctic Exploration 2002, Russ Hopcroft, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, NOAA/OER Recent findings show that CO2 emissions are increasingly acidifying oceans, causing snail shells in the Pacific Ocean to dissolve! This may have far reaching impacts on ocean life, affecting a variety of organisms, especially those within the same food chain. The world’s … Continue reading Increasingly Acidic Oceans Are Dissolving Snail Shells
While there’s been much debate in the media about the causes and effects of climate change, many scientists agree that changes in climate will impact our lives. However, demonstrating such impact is scientifically challenging because of the many different factors that are involved and the difficulty of making predictions about the future, as well as politically charged because of the implications any findings will have … Continue reading Malaria in a warming world: How high will it go?
The UN has released a report reiterating that sufficient data exists to conclude that not only is climate change occurring, but that human use of coal, oil, and natural gas is the primary cause. This report highlights the stark fact that poorer populations disproportionally live in regions most vulnerable to climate change. Developed areas will be affected too. New York City, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, is already focusing on “climate-proofing” its electrical system. Read on to learn more! Continue reading UN reaffirms man-made climate change. What’s next?
Should the discovery of an infectious virus in the permafrost worry us? Scientists have uncovered a so-called ‘giant virus’ in permafrost that has melted as a result of progressive climate change. The virus, Pithovirus sibericum, was isolated from melted samples of Siberian permafrost and was able to infect amoebas even after being frozen for thousands of years. Could ancient human pathogens also be uncovered and … Continue reading Killer viruses lurking in permafrost? Probably not, but here’s what they can teach us…
Presented by Ethan Butler, Karen McKinnon, Andy Rhines Extreme weather events, from hurricanes to heat waves, seem to be in the news with increasing regularity.But are extreme events actually increasing in frequency? And do they have a connection to our changing climate? Ethan will begin the lecture with an overview of some recent extreme weather events, and their impact on humans, whether due to flooding, … Continue reading Extreme Weather: Causes, Effects, and Connections With Climate
Presented by Jessica Kunke, Lei Zhu, Stephen Portillo The natural world is so complex and unpredictable that it might seem math could never be a sufficient tool to understand it. Our lecture aims to widen this view of math and explore how mathematical models and chaos theory give us insights into nature. The first part of our lecture introduces the concepts of math models and … Continue reading Math in Nature: Finding order in chaos
— Less than three weeks ago, the Northeast US was slammed by the largest blizzard in years: winter storm Nemo. Swarms of people ran to the grocery stores and gas stations to stock up on food, batteries, flashlights, clean water supplies, and gas in preparation for the storm. Fortunately, being able to stay within the comfort and warmth of their homes, most people didn’t have to be concerned about one of the greatest threats that comes with winter weather: cold weather injury. This month, the Science in the News Flash got in touch with Dr. Murray Hamlet, an expert on cold weather physiology and retired director of the Cold Research Division for the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine (Natick MA), to learn more about this fascinating, yet frightening, topic. Continue reading Keeping Warm: A discussion with Dr. Murray Hamlet on cold weather physiology
The degree to which we use energy has far-reaching consequences. For example, the simple act of driving to work uses fuel that is ultimately tied to both international conflict and global climate change. The success of modern civilization is fundamentally linked to our ability to harness energy, primarily in the form of fossil fuels like oil, coal, and natural gas. As shown in Figure 1, … Continue reading Why We Need Sustainable Energy
Presented by Diego Munoz, Michael Long, and Amanda Peters Randles Scientific evidence indicates that the laws of physics are the same in systems throughout the entire Universe – whether those systems be microscopic, or intergalactic. Thus, the same principles apply here on Earth as in distant galaxies. Our understanding of, for example, fluid dynamics or gravity can be applied across boundaries that otherwise make different … Continue reading The Universe in a (Pretty Big) Box: From Cells to Galaxies Using Supercomputers