by Bea Kylene Jumarang These days, words like protocell belong in biology laboratories. Even words like carbon cycle confuse the majority of people. Still, you may be asking, why is protocell being described in relation to architecture? In biology, and as Biology-Online puts it, a protocell is a large, ordered structure enclosed by a membrane, […]
Environmental News
Role of Phytoplankton in Atmospheric Regulation
June 19, 2012
By Penny Paugh Scientists have been examining the self-regulating factors of climate and the oceans. A study conducted at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, WA, has been looking at the role of the tiny organisms and the planet’s atmosphere. “For many years, we thought that chemical emissions from phytoplankton was the major player in […]
A Study of the Good and Bad Effects of Volcanic Ash
June 10, 2012
By Pennell Paugh A study that has been conducted for the past six years by Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at University of Miami is revealing a link between large dust storms on Iceland and glacial melting. While the dust is accelerating glacial melting it also is contributing important nutrients to the […]
On the way to Rio+20: Adaptation Futures
June 7, 2012
By Luisa Cristini, PhD, University of Hawaii at Manoa. In a couple of weeks, on June 20-22, 2012, the countries of the United Nations (UN) will gather in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the Conference on Sustainable Development: Rio+20. The conference is an historic opportunity to define a safer, cleaner, greener and more prosperous future […]
Climate and Famine: Two Examples
June 4, 2012
By Jason Klein, IEDRO’s Environmental Writer and Editor We have all witnessed the effects of famine – malnourished children, dead herds of cattle, the plaintive appeals of Sally Struthers. But what if a famine could be predicted, and then we could work to prevent it? The good news is that by delving into past instances […]
Historical Climatic Data and Infectious Disease: Messages from the Past Help Forecast Epidemics of the Future
May 26, 2012
By Jason Klein, Environmental Writer and Editor The connections between climate change and infectious diseases are far more complex and numerous than the scope of this article can entail, as a search on your favorite search engine will tell you. Our specific question is: can an analysis of historical climatic data help us to understand […]
Capacity Building Workshop on Data Rescue and Climate Change Indices: A Contribution to the Implementation of the Global Framework for Climate Services in the Caribbean
May 23, 2012
By Teddy Allen, IEDRO Science Applications Manager May 7-10, 2012 –The University of the West Indies, Mona, Kingston, Jamaica. IEDRO recently participated in the Capacity Building Workshop on Data Rescue and Climate Change Indices as part of the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI). The remaining ETCCDI members supporting the workshop represented NOAA, […]
Tree Rings: A Type of Weather Data
May 8, 2012
By Penny Paugh Trees grow on every continent except Antarctica, and the rings they contain embody a record of climate change going back thousands of years. Each ring represents a single year’s growth, so not only can a ring count tell us how old a tree is, but they can also help reconstruct climatic history […]
The Economic Impact of Extreme Weather in the US
May 4, 2012
A team of social scientists and economists from Colorado and California recently completed a study on the United States economy’s sensitivity to weather variability: extreme heat, extreme cold, droughts, and floods. This study marked the first time that US economic susceptibility to extreme weather had been explicitly quantified. Seventy years of atmospheric data were used […]
Recent Solar Storm Floods Earth’s Upper Atmosphere
April 17, 2012
By Pennell Paugh Though the Earth is constantly bombarded by charged particles from the Sun, which emits material in all directions in a process known as the solar wind, sometimes the Sun ramps up magnetic activity on its surface, triggering huge flares of insidious plasma. NASA Science News announced that a huge solar storm occurred […]