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One article that I found most interesting was the one that discussed how global warming is transforming the Great Barrier Reef. It is absolutely insane how in only 9 months, they lost 30% of the corals. For some time, the scientists monitored and measured the corals, and actually found that the death was due to bleaching and the level of heat exposure. The northern area of the reefs were most affected. Because of the loss of so much of this reef, the reefs were not able to properly function ecologically anymore. So now, a billion corals are left. Although this seems like a big number, in comparison to what there originally was, it can be seen how fast it actually is declining. They only plus that the scientists found was that even though there are few coral left, the coral that is left is extremely strong and will be able to withstand a lot more than the coral that had previously died off. They believe that if they deal with the greenhouse gas emissions as fast as they can, that the reefs aren’t necessarily doomed, and can be saved. How they will deal with this they aren’t quite sure yet, but they are continuously looking for solutions. It needs to be brought to people's’ attentions how much of an affect these reefs have on their lives. They aren’t just pretty ocean decorations, they actually hold purpose. They are home to millions of marine life species, and if these reefs die off, they will too. This just interests me so much because I find it absurd that animals should be suffering for things that we as humans do. Something has to be changed.

Another interesting article was about the volcano that just very recently erupted in Hawaii. In the article it states that more than 1,700 people were forced to evacuate their homes for this state of emergency. They are said to happen frequently in Kilauea, but never to this magnitude. It didn’t come completely out of nowhere though. There were warning signs such as when the magma caused a vent to inflate in size. Also on April 30th, this vent’s crater floor completely collapsed. Preceding these eruptions, a 5.0 and 6.9 magnitude earthquakes occured. This all leaving Hawaii constantly covered in lava, and an extremely dangerous place to be. It is just so sad how tragedies like this cannot be controlled or prevented. So many innocent people lost their homes and had to leave their entire livelihoods behind to burn in the lava. Scientists actually believe that the earthquakes will now continue for some time, which can lead to another small explosion. Surprisingly, the most dangerous thing about these volcanoes isn’t even the burning hot lava, but it's the effect it has on the air. It actually can cause people to suffocate because it removes all oxygen from the air and pollutes it with ash. The only way that Hawaii will be able to recover from this natural disaster is if all the surrounding states lend a helping hand. This is undoubtedly not something that they can do alone, and ANY help they can get will be one step to returning the land to its natural beautiful state. Having been to Hawaii before, I find this extremely fascinating because when I was there we saw a volcano that was erupting, that they say has been erupting for years, and you could see the lava coming down it. It’s just so crazy how fast they can escalate.

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December 2017- Continental Drift: Theory and Definition

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December 2017- Continental Drift: Theory and Definition

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This article discusses what continental drift is, and why they think it is/has happening/happened. It also talks about how they use fossils to assist them in gaining knowledge on this topic.

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(Image credit: Getty Images)

Continental drift was a revolutionary theory explaining that continents shift position on Earth's surface. The theory was proposed by geophysicist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener in 1912, but was rejected by mainstream science at the time. Scientists confirmed some of Wegener's ideas decades later, which are now part of the widely accepted theory of plate tectonics.

Wegener's continental drift theory introduced the idea of moving continents to geoscience. He proposed that Earth must have once been a single supercontinent before breaking up to form several different continents. This explained how similar rock formations and plant and animal fossils could exist on separated continents. Modern science recognizes this ancient supercontinent called Pangaea did exist before breaking up about 200 million years ago, as Wegener theorized.

Related: Massive supercontinent will form hundreds of millions of years from now

Why did scientists reject Wegener's continental drift theory?

Geologists roundly denounced Wegener's continental drift theory after he published the details in a 1915 book called " The Origin of Continents and Oceans." Part of the opposition was because Wegener didn't have a good model to explain how the continents moved, something scientists later explained under the umbrella of plate tectonics - the theory that Earth's crust is fractured into plates that move over a rocky inner layer called the mantle.

"There's an irony that the key objection to continent drift was that there is no mechanism, and plate tectonics was accepted without a mechanism," to move the continents, Henry Frankel (1944-2019), an emeritus professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and author of the four volume " The Continental Drift Controversy" (Cambridge University Press, 2012) previously told Live Science.

Though most of Wegener's observations about fossils and rocks were correct, he was outlandishly wrong on a couple of key points. For instance, Wegener thought the continents might have plowed through the ocean crust like icebreakers smashing through ice.

Evolving theories

When Wegener proposed continental drift, many geologists were contractionists. They thought Earth's incredible mountains were created because our planet had been cooling and shrinking since its formation, Frankel said. And to account for the identical fossils discovered on continents such as South America and Africa, scientists invoked ancient land bridges, now vanished beneath the sea.

Researchers argued over the land bridges right up until the plate tectonics theory was developed from the 1950s to the 1970s, Frankel said. For instance, as geophysicists began to realize that continental rocks were too light to sink down to the ocean floor, prominent paleontologists instead wrongly suggested that the similarities between fossils had been overestimated, Frankel said.

Plate tectonics is like a modern update to continental drift. In the 1960s, scientists discovered plate edges through magnetic surveys of the ocean floor and through the seismic listening networks built to monitor nuclear testing, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. Alternating patterns of magnetic anomalies on the ocean floor indicated seafloor spreading, where new plate material is born. Magnetic minerals aligned in ancient rocks on continents also showed that the continents have shifted relative to one another.

Related: Plate tectonics are 3.6 billion years old, oldest minerals on Earth reveal

What evidence is there for continental drift?

(Image credit: USGS)

A map of the continents inspired Wegener's quest to explain Earth's geologic history. He was intrigued by the interlocking fit of Africa's and South America's shorelines. Wegener then assembled an impressive amount of continental drift evidence to show that Earth's continents were once connected in a single supercontinent.

Wegener knew that fossil plants and animals such as mesosaurs, a freshwater reptile found only in South America and Africa during the Permian period, could be found on many continents. He also matched up rock formations on either side of the Atlantic Ocean like puzzle pieces. For example, the Appalachian Mountains (United States) and Caledonian Mountains (Scotland) fit together, as do the Karoo strata in South Africa and Santa Catarina rocks in Brazil.

In fact, plates moving together created the highest mountains in the world, the Himalayans, and the mountains are still growing due to the plates pushing together, even now, according to National Geographic. Despite his incredible continental drift evidence, Wegener never lived to see his theory gain wider acceptance. He died in 1930 at age 50 just two days after his birthday while on a scientific expedition in Greenland, according to the University of Berkeley.

Additional resources

This article was updated on Dec. 14, 2021, by Live Science Staff Writer Patrick Pester. Additional reporting by Alina Bradford, Live Science contributor.

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Continental drift was Alfred Wegener's theory proposing continents move position on the Earth's surface.

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February 2018- Freakishly Warm Weather in the Arctic

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February 2018- Freakishly Warm Weather in the Arctic

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It defines what the recent average temperatures in the arctic have been, and why they are shocking to scientists.

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Melting sea ice in the Arctic creates a feedback loop that promotes even more warming.

Credit: NOAA

During the Arctic winter, when the sun hides from October to March, the average temperature in the frozen north typically hovers around a bone-chilling minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 20 degrees Celsius). But this year, the Arctic is experiencing a highly unusual heat wave.

On Feb. 20, the temperature in Greenland not only climbed above freezing - 32 degrees F (0 degrees C) - it stayed there for over 24 hours, according to data from the Danish Meteorological Institute. And on Saturday (Feb. 24) the temperature on Greenland's northern tip reached 43 degrees F (6 degrees C), leading climate scientists to describe the phenomenon on Twitter as " crazy," " weird," " scary stuff" and " simply shocking."

Weather conditions that drive this bizarre temperature surge have visited the Arctic before, typically appearing about once in a decade, experts told Live Science. However, the last such spike in Arctic winter warmth took place in February 2016 - much more recently than a decade ago, according to the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). And climbing Arctic temperatures combined with rapid sea-ice loss are creating a new type of climate feedback loop that could accelerate Arctic warming, melting all summer Arctic sea ice decades earlier than scientists once thought. [ Images of Melt: Earth's Vanishing Ice]

The "remarkable event" of persistent high temperatures in the Arctic was documented on Feb. 23 in a tweet by climate scientist Zack Labe, a doctoral candidate at the Department of Earth System Science (ESS) at the University of California, Irvine. Recent Arctic temperatures, represented on a graph by a red line, hovered "well above" those of previous years during February, Labe wrote on Twitter.

Wow... truly a remarkable event ongoing right now in the #Arctic.

Current temperatures well above previous years in February (>80°N latitude)! Average temperature is the bright blue line ( https://t.co/kO5ufUWrKq). pic.twitter.com/BuseG4hQPE
- Zack Labe (@ZLabe) February 23, 2018

On Feb. 24, with reports of the temperature in northern Greenland reaching 43 degrees F (6 degrees C), it was warmer in the Arctic than it was in much of Europe, physicist Robert Rohde, a researcher at Berkeley Earth, a nonprofit that investigates climate change, wrote in a tweet.

Cape Morris Jesup at the northern tip of Greenland just registered a temperature of +6 C (43 F).

Here is a map of the parts of Europe that are currently colder than the northernmost weather station on Earth. pic.twitter.com/8LoJjSxGxL
- Robert Rohde (@rarohde) February 24, 2018

In 2018, as of today (Feb. 26), "there have already been 61 hours above freezing at Cape Morris Jesup, Greenland," with the previous record - 16 hours - set in 2011, Rohde wrote on Twitter.

In 2018, there have already been 61 hours above freezing at Cape Morris Jesup, Greenland.

The previous record was 16 hours before the end of April in 2011. pic.twitter.com/BCgcxAtKng
- Robert Rohde (@rarohde) February 26, 2018

High temperatures such as these occur in the Arctic when amplified, wavy patterns in the jet stream - conveyer belts of wind that carry heat and water vapor around the planet - interact with strong storms in the northern Atlantic Ocean, James Overland, an oceanographer with PMEL, told Live Science.

"They're bringing warm air and moisture from the south into the central Arctic," he said.

"We've seen something like this once every ten years in the past, but this is the second major example of this happening in the last couple of years. What's different this time is that we have less ice and thinner ice in the Arctic. When you bring warmer air north, it doesn't cool off as fast as it used to," Overland explained.

Sea-ice cover in the Arctic is thinning faster than expected and reached record lows in recent years. By 2017, it had declined so much that NOAA scientists declared in the agency's annual Arctic Report Card that the region would likely never again return to its "reliably frozen" status of the past. Without those masses of cooling sea ice, warm air brought to the Arctic can penetrate further inland than it ever did before and can stay warmer longer - which drives additional melting, according to Overland.

"We may be losing ice in the Arctic faster than we thought," he said.

The scope of sea-ice loss over time emerges in an animation that Labe tweeted in November 2016 visualizing how thicker and usually older sea ice has declined since 1979.

A look at the loss of thicker (usually older) #Arctic sea ice in Octobers from 1979-2016 (PIOMAS, ice < 1.5 meters masked black) pic.twitter.com/BtHCwVUdKk
- Zack Labe (@ZLabe) November 14, 2016

Overall, Earth is warming at a rapid pace - 2014 through 2017 rank as the hottest years on record - and the Arctic is warming twice as fast as anyplace else on Earth, NOAA recently reported on its website. This raises unique challenges for not only Arctic wildlife but also indigenous people who depend on Arctic ecosystems to survive, including more than 40,000 people who inhabit the Alaska coastline, according to the NOAA report.

"My biggest concern is that these warm air intrusions seem to be becoming both more common and more intense," Rohde told Live Science in an email.

"This suggests that the warming in the Arctic may have passed a threshold where we can no longer count on the polar jet stream to maintain the historical weather patterns in the northern latitudes," Rohde said. "A destabilization of the dynamics around the North Pole may lead to more extreme winter weather variations in the northern mid-latitudes and further accelerate the decline of Arctic sea ice."

Previously, climate forecasts predicted that Arctic summer ice would disappear entirely by around 2060, Overland told Live Science. But based on what scientists are seeing now, the Arctic may be facing ice-free summers decades sooner than expected.

"We're looking at sea-ice loss within 20 years, rather than 40 years," Overland said.

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Freakishly Warm Weather in the Arctic Has Climate Scientists 'Stunned'

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During the Arctic winter, when the sun hides from October to March, the average temperature in the frozen north typically hovers around a bone-chilling minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 20 degrees Celsius). But this year, the Arctic is experiencing a highly unusual heat wave. On Feb.

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January 2018- Scorcher! 2017 Ranked Among 3 Hottest Years Ever

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January 2018- Scorcher! 2017 Ranked Among 3 Hottest Years Ever

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It discusses as debate that occurred between NASA and NOAA regarding whether it is the 2nd hottest or 3rd hottest year ever. It also talks about why it is getting warmer, and how global warming contributes.

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Scorcher! 2017 Ranked Among Three Hottest Years Ever

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Earth's long-term warming trend continues, and 2017 now ranks as one of the top three hottest years on record, according to a report released today (Jan. 18) by NASA and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

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March 2018- Great Pacific Garbage Patch Growing

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March 2018- Great Pacific Garbage Patch Growing

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This discusses how the great Pacific garbage patch may be 16 times as massive as they had originally thought. It gives exact numbers of how many tons of garbage are actually present.

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We're going to need a bigger trash can.

A pooling of plastic waste floating in the ocean between California and Hawaii contains at least 79,000 tons of material spread over 1.6 million square kilometers, researchers report March 22 in Scientific Reports. That's the equivalent to the mass of more than 6,500 school buses. Known as the great Pacific garbage patch, the hoard is four to 16 times as heavy as past estimates.

About 1.8 trillion plastic pieces make up the garbage patch, the scientists estimate. Particles smaller than half a centimeter, called microplastics, account for 94 percent of the pieces, but only 8 percent of the overall mass. In contrast, large (5 to 50 centimeters) and extra-large (bigger than 50 centimeters) pieces made up 25 percent and 53 percent of the estimated patch mass.

Much of the plastic in the patch comes from humans' ocean activities, such as fishing and shipping, the researchers found. Almost half of the total mass, for example, is from discarded fishing nets. A lot of that litter contains especially durable plastics, such as polyethylene and polypropylene, which are designed to survive in marine environments.

To get the new size and mass estimates, Laurent Lebreton of the Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit foundation in Delft, the Netherlands, and his colleagues trawled samples from the ocean surface, took aerial images and simulated particle pathways based on plastic sources and ocean circulation.

Aerial images provided more accurate tallies and measurements of the larger plastic pieces, the researchers write. That could account for the increase in mass over past estimates, which relied on trawling data and images taken from boats, in addition to computer simulations. Another possible explanation: The patch grew - perhaps driven by an influx of debris from the 2011 tsunami that hit Japan and washed trash out to sea ( SN: 10/28/17, p. 32).

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The great Pacific garbage patch may be 16 times as massive as we thought

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We're going to need a bigger trash can. A pooling of plastic waste floating in the ocean between California and Hawaii contains at least 79,000 tons of material spread over 1.6 million square kilometers, researchers report March 22 in Scientific Reports. That's the equivalent to the mass of more than 6,500 school buses.

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March 2018- How Bees Defend Against Some Controversial Insecticides

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March 2018- How Bees Defend Against Some Controversial Insecticides

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This talks about how honeybees and bumblebees have a way to resist toxic compounds in some widely used insecticides. This enzyme they can break down is called thiacloprid.

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Honeybees and bumblebees have a way to resist toxic compounds in some widely used insecticides.

These bees make enzymes that help the insects break down a type of neonicotinoid called thiacloprid, scientists report March 22 in Current Biology. Neonicotinoids have been linked to negative effects on bee health, such as difficulty reproducing in honeybees ( SN: 7/26/16, p 16). But bees respond to different types of the insecticides in various ways. This finding could help scientists design versions of neonicotinoids that are less harmful to bees, the researchers say.

Such work could have broad ramifications, says study coauthor Chris Bass, an applied entomologist at the University of Exeter in England. "Bees are hugely important to the pollination of crops and wild flowers and biodiversity in general."

Neonicotinoids are typically coated on seeds such as corn and sometimes sprayed on crops to protect the plants from insect pests. The chemicals are effective, but their use has been suspected to be involved in worrisome declines in numbers of wild pollinators ( SN Online: 4/5/12).

Maj Rundlöf of Lund University in Sweden helped raise the alarm about the insecticides. In 2015, she reported that neonicotinoid-treated crops reduced the populations of bees that fed from the plants. Rundlöf, who was not involved with the new study, says the new research is important because it clarifies differences between the insecticides. "All neonicotinoids are not the same," she says. "It's a bit unrealistic to damn a whole group of pesticides."

Bass and his colleagues, which include scientists from Bayer, one of the main producers of neonicotinoids, investigated resistance to thiacloprid by looking at bees' defense systems. The team focused on enzymes known as P450s, which can metabolize toxic chemicals, breaking them down before they affect the bee nervous system. The researchers used drugs to inhibit groups of P450 enzymes. When the family enzymes called CYP9Q was inhibited, bees became 170 times as sensitive to thiacloprid, dying from a much smaller dose, the researchers found. Discovering the enzymes' protective power could lead to more effective ways to simultaneously avoid harming bees and help crops.

"We live in an era that uses pesticides," Rundlöf says. "We need to figure out the ones that are safest."

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How bees defend against some controversial insecticides

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Honeybees and bumblebees have a way to resist toxic compounds in some widely used insecticides. These bees make enzymes that help the insects break down a type of neonicotinoid called thiacloprid, scientists report March 22 in Current Biology. Neonicotinoids have been linked to negative effects on bee health, such as difficulty reproducing in honeybees ( SN: 7/26/16, p 16).

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December 2017- Marine Turtles Dying After Becoming Enangled in Plastic Rubbish

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December 2017- Marine Turtles Dying After Becoming Enangled in Plastic Rubbish

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Hundreds of marine turtles are dying on beaches after becoming entangled in fishing gear that was discarded and plastic six pack holders. It discusses prevention tactics and shocking facts of how many marine turtles we actually are killing.

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Hundreds of marine turtles die every year after becoming entangled in rubbish in the oceans and on beaches, including plastic 'six pack' holders and discarded fishing gear.

The rise in plastic refuse in the ocean and on beaches is killing turtles of all species, with a disproportionate impact on hatchlings and young turtles, research by the University of Exeter shows.

A world-wide survey covering the major oceans where turtles live discovered that 91 per cent of the entangled turtles were found dead. They also suffered serious wounds from entanglement, leading to maiming, amputation or choking. Others that survived were forced to drag discarded rubbish or debris with them.

The survey found turtles are being tangled up in lost fishing nets, plastic twine and nylon fishing line, as well as six pack rings from canned drinks, plastic packaging straps, plastic balloon string, kite string, plastic packaging and discarded anchor line and seismic cable. Turtles were also discovered entangled in discarded plastic chairs, wooden crates, weather balloons and boat mooring line.

The research, published in Endangered Species Research, sheds light on the true threat of plastic pollution to marine turtles, which, other research has shown, also eat plastic rubbish, and marine creatures caught up in it.

Professor Brendan Godley. Professor of Conservation Science and Director of the Centre for Ecology & Conservation at the University of Exeter's Penryn campus and the lead author warned that as plastic pollution increases more and more turtles are likely to become entangled.

Mortality from entanglement has increased substantially over the last century, as with marine mammals and birds.

84 per cent of the 106 experts surveyed on the Atlantic, Pacific Caribbean, Mediterranean and Indian ocean coast, who responded said they had found turtles tangled in rubbish, including plastic debris and lost or discarded fishing gear.

The report concluded that, based on the survey results, that more than 1000 turtles are likely to die due to entanglement. But the figure is likely to be a 'gross underestimation' of the scale of the threat to turtles. Not all dead turtles strand on beaches, especially young animals, and some decay at sea. Some of the experts surveyed said that not all stranded turtles are found and that some are removed by local people to eat.

Hatchlings and young sea turtles are particularly susceptible to getting tangled up in lost or discarded fishing gear or floating debris. Juvenile turtles ride on ocean currents to zones where floating rubbish and debris is concentrated creating an 'ecological trap'. They also 'set up home' near floating debris and can remain there for years.

Professor Godley, the lead author, said the mortality rate from becoming tangled up in human refuse was, in practice, likely to be far higher than 1,000 turtles a year estimated by the limited survey.

"Plastic rubbish in the oceans, including lost or discarded fishing gear which is not biodegradable, is a major threat to marine turtles. We found, based on beach strandings, that more than 1000 turtles are dying a year after becoming tangled up, but this is almost certainly a gross underestimate. Young turtles and hatchings are particularly vulnerable to entanglement," he said. "Experts we surveyed found that entanglement in plastic and other pollution could pose a long term impact on the survival of some turtle populations and is a greater threat to them than oil spills. We need to cut the level of plastic waste and purse biodegradable alternatives if we are to tackle this grave threat to turtles' welfare."

The Exeter University research team, which included two research students Emily Duncan and Zara Botterell who work in conjunction with Plymouth Marine Laboratory, surveyed experts who rescue and rehabilitate stranded turtles in 43 countries, to find out if they had discovered turtles which had been tangled up. They also found 23 reports of entangled turtles in peer-reviewed publications, magazines, newspapers and reports.

All species of turtle were found entangled, but Olive Ridley turtles are the most likely species to get tangled up. The species nests in the hundreds of thousands. It forages in areas where marine debris can aggregate. It may also be attracted to feeding on marine rubbish, including discarded fishing tackle.

Most entanglements recorded were in lost or discarded fishing gear known as 'ghost fishing' rope, nets and lines. Since the 1950s the fishing industry has replaced natural fibres such as cotton, jute and hemp with synthetic plastic materials such as nylon, polyethylene and polypropylene which doesn't biodegrade in water.

The report concludes: "Entanglement with anthropogenic plastic materials, such as discarded fishing gear, as well as land based sources, is an under reported and under researched threat to marine turtles."

But it points out some communities are actively working to rescue turtles that get tangled up. Fishermen in Sicily volunteer to take part in the rescue of turtles in difficulty at sea and on beaches, and are trained to transfer them to rescue centres.

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fish; sea life; marine biology; endangered animals; environmental awareness; oceanography; pollution; recycling and waste

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Marine turtles dying after becoming entangled in plastic rubbish

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Hundreds of marine turtles die every year after becoming entangled in rubbish in the oceans and on beaches, including plastic 'six pack' holders and discarded fishing gear. The rise in plastic refuse in the ocean and on beaches is killing turtles of all species, with a disproportionate impact on hatchlings and young turtles, research by the University of Exeter shows.

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April 2018- Global Warming is Transforming the Great Barrier Reef

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April 2018- Global Warming is Transforming the Great Barrier Reef

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This discusses how a new study shows that corals on the northern Great Barrier Reef experienced a catastrophic die-off following the extended marine heatwave of 2016.

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A new study published online today in Nature shows that corals on the northern Great Barrier Reef experienced a catastrophic die-off following the extended marine heatwave of 2016.

"When corals bleach from a heatwave, they can either survive and regain their colour slowly as the temperature drops, or they can die. Averaged across the whole Great Barrier Reef, we lost 30 per cent of the corals in the nine month period between March and November 2016," said Prof Terry Hughes, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE).

The scientists mapped the geographical pattern of heat exposure from satellites, and measured coral survival along the 2,300-km length of the Great Barrier Reef following the extreme marine heatwave of 2016.

The amount of coral death they measured was closely linked to the amount of bleaching and level of heat exposure, with the northern third of the Great Barrier Reef being the most severely affected. The study found that 29 per cent of the 3,863 reefs comprising the world's largest reef system lost two-thirds or more of their corals, transforming the ability of these reefs to sustain full ecological functioning.

"The coral die-off has caused radical changes in the mix of coral species on hundreds of individual reefs, where mature and diverse reef communities are being transformed into more degraded systems, with just a few tough species remaining," said co-author Prof Andrew Baird of Coral CoE at James Cook University.

"As part of a global heat and coral bleaching event spanning 2014-2017, the Great Barrier Reef experienced severe heat stress and bleaching again in 2017, this time affecting the central region of the Great Barrier Reef," said co-author Dr Mark Eakin of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"We're now at a point where we've lost close to half of the corals in shallow-water habitats across the northern two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef due to back-to-back bleaching over two consecutive years," said Prof Sean Connolly of Coral CoE at James Cook University.

"But, that still leaves a billion or so corals alive, and on average, they are tougher than the ones that died. We need to focus urgently on protecting the glass that's still half full, by helping these survivors to recover," said Prof Hughes.

The scientists say these findings reinforce the need for assessing the risk of a wide-scale collapse of reef ecosystems, especially if global action on climate change fails to limit warming to 1.5?2 °C above pre-industrial levels.

The study is unique because it tests the emerging framework for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Ecosystems, which seeks to classify vulnerable ecosystems as 'safe,' 'threatened' or 'endangered.'

"The Great Barrier Reef is certainly threatened by climate change, but it is not doomed if we deal very quickly with greenhouse gas emissions. Our study shows that coral reefs are already shifting radically in response to unprecedented heatwaves," said Prof Hughes.

The researchers warn that failure to curb climate change, causing global temperatures to rise far above 2 °C, will radically alter tropical reef ecosystems and undermine the benefits they provide to hundreds of millions of people, mostly in poor, rapidly-developing countries."

Journal Reference:

Terry P. Hughes, James T. Kerry, Andrew H. Baird, Sean R. Connolly, Andreas Dietzel, C. Mark Eakin, Scott F. Heron, Andrew S. Hoey, Mia O. Hoogenboom, Gang Liu, Michael J. McWilliam, Rachel J. Pears, Morgan S. Pratchett, William J. Skirving, Jessica S. Stella, Gergely Torda. Global warming transforms coral reef assemblages. Nature, 2018; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0041-2

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ecology research; marine biology; sea life; nature; coral reefs; ecology; global warming; climate

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Global warming is transforming the Great Barrier Reef

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A new study published online today in Nature shows that corals on the northern Great Barrier Reef experienced a catastrophic die-off following the extended marine heatwave of 2016. "When corals bleach from a heatwave, they can either survive and regain their colour slowly as the temperature drops, or they can die.

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April 2018- Chemical Sleuthing Leads to Detection of Little-Known Flame Retardant in the Environment

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April 2018- Chemical Sleuthing Leads to Detection of Little-Known Flame Retardant in the Environment

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This discusses how chemists have published research findings on their discovery of a new and relatively unknown flame retardant in the environment. Their study is the first to detect the potentially toxic chemical in North America

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Chemists at Indiana University have published research findings on their discovery of a new and relatively unknown flame retardant in the environment. Their study is the first to detect the potentially toxic chemical in North America.

The chemical, called TTBP-TAX, is part of a new class of triazine-based "alternative" compounds that have been introduced as substitutes for earlier generations of flame retardants that were banned or removed from the market because of health and environmental concerns.

The researchers found the chemical not only in an electronic waste facility, where it would be expected, but in the bedrooms and living rooms of homes in Bloomington, Indiana.

"We don't know much about these compounds," said Marta Venier, a scientist in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington and the study's lead author. "This research shows they are in the environment and we come into contact with them, but we don't know much about their effects."

The study was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. Additional authors are Jiehong Guo, William Stubbings and Kevin Romanak from the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs; Linh Nguyen, Liisa Jantunen, Victoria Arrandale and Miriam Diamond from the University of Toronto; and Lisa Melymuk from the Research Center for Toxic Compounds in the Environment in the Czech Republic.

Flame-retardant chemicals have been widely used in consumer products and building materials. They often escape into the environment, where they may persist for years, and have been linked to a variety of human health issues and environmental problems.

The IU researchers' discovery came about by accident and involved chemical detective work led by Guo, the paper's first author. They were analyzing samples from an electronics recycling facility in Canada, measuring known flame retardants. During the analysis, they noticed that the mass spectrometer produced a peak indicating the presence of a chemical they didn't recognize.

By analyzing the structure of the chemical, they guessed it was TTBP-TAX, which had been previously reported in the environment in a 2014 study from the Netherlands. They obtained lab standards and confirmed their hypothesis. Then they decided to look for it in additional samples.

They found significant concentrations of the chemical in all of the dust and air samples from the Canadian e-waste recycling facility. They also found it in 70 percent of household dust samples collected from 20 homes near where the IU researchers live in Bloomington, Indiana. They did not find the compound, or found only trace amounts, in outdoor air, water and sediment samples.

TTBP-TAX, also known as 2,4,6-tris(2,4,6-tribromophnoxy)-1,3,5-triazine, has been manufactured in Asia and imported to the U.S. by several companies, primarily for use in plastic casings for electronics products. Manufacturers say the product is safe, but it can easily degrade to the compound 2,4,6-TBP, which is linked to acute toxicity in fish and to reproductive and developmental toxicity in rodents.

"For most of these compounds, we don't know their effects and toxicity," Venier said, "and until we know they are safe, we shouldn't be coming into contact with them."

She said it is likely that other triazine-based flame retardants are in the environment but haven't been detected because scientists don't know about them or lack the analytical tools to measure them.

Journal Reference:

Jiehong Guo, William A. Stubbings, Kevin Romanak, Linh V. Nguyen, Liisa Jantunen, Lisa Melymuk, Victoria Arrandale, Miriam L. Diamond, Marta Venier. Alternative Flame Retardant, 2,4,6-Tris(2,4,6-tribromophenoxy)-1,3,5-triazine, in an E-waste Recycling Facility and House Dust in North America. Environmental Science & Technology, 2018; 52 (6): 3599 DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.7b06139

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genes; pharmacology; workplace health; today's healthcare; environmental issues; geochemistry; environmental awareness; environmental science

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Chemical sleuthing leads to detection of little-known flame retardant in the environment

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Chemists at Indiana University have published research findings on their discovery of a new and relatively unknown flame retardant in the environment. Their study is the first to detect the potentially toxic chemical in North America.

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This article discusses the discovery of Neptunium and it gives facts about the element like density, melting point, boiling point, and atomic weight.

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Properties, sources and uses of the element neptunium.

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May 2018- Streams May Emit More Carbon Dioxide in a Warmer Climate

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May 2018- Streams May Emit More Carbon Dioxide in a Warmer Climate

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The article discusses how streams and rivers could pump carbon dioxide into the air at increasing rates if they continue to warm, potentially compounding the effects of global warming, a new worldwide analysis has shown.

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Streams and rivers could pump carbon dioxide into the air at increasing rates if they continue to warm, potentially compounding the effects of global warming, a new worldwide analysis has shown.

To reach that conclusion, an international research team conducted the first continental-scale study of carbon flows into and out of streams across six major climatic zones. They collected data in watersheds from Puerto Rico and Oregon to Australia and Alaska. In each one, scientists analyzed the balance between photosynthesis -- which uses atmospheric CO ₂ to generate plant material such as roots and leaves -- and respiration, which pumps CO ₂ back into the air.

The scientists published their results this week in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The issue is important because the world's rivers and streams exchange carbon with the atmosphere at rates that are comparable with land-based ecosystems and the oceans. If global warming continues, an increase in stream-based carbon emissions could add to the concentration of heat-trapping CO ₂ in the atmosphere.

"This paper is the first to look at the effects of climate change on stream metabolism at the continental scale using field observations," said Alba Argerich, co-author who monitored McRae Creek and Lookout Creek in the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest east of Eugene, Oregon. "This approach takes into consideration the complexity of an ecosystem, as opposed to controlled experiments where you recreate simplified versions of an ecosystem."

Argerich and other scientists monitored streams for water temperature, dissolved oxygen and sunlight at the water surface. The researchers also simulated the balance between net primary production (the product of photosynthesis by all organisms in the stream) and respiration under a 1-degree Celsius rise in stream temperature.

The net result of the simulations, they reported, was a 24 percent shift toward more respiration and CO ₂ emissions. However, not all streams are projected to respond in the same manner. The shift toward more CO ₂ emissions appears to be more pronounced in warmer streams, the scientists found, while colder streams might actually see an increase in net primary production. Carbon cycling in streams can also be affected by other factors such as the plants and microbes in the stream ecosystem and nutrients flowing into the water from surrounding lands.

Argerich conducted her work as a researcher in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University. She is now an assistant professor in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Missouri.

In previous work at the H.J. Andrews Forest, Argerich showed that small streams can export surprising amounts of carbon both downstream and to the atmosphere. "This paper confirms the role of streams as an active source of CO ₂ to the atmosphere, which can be even become more important as global temperatures increase," she said.

Journal Reference:

Chao Song, Walter K. Dodds, Janine Rüegg, Alba Argerich, Christina L. Baker, William B. Bowden, Michael M. Douglas, Kaitlin J. Farrell, Michael B. Flinn, Erica A. Garcia, Ashley M. Helton, Tamara K. Harms, Shufang Jia, Jeremy B. Jones, Lauren E. Koenig, John S. Kominoski, William H. McDowell, Damien McMaster, Samuel P. Parker, Amy D. Rosemond, Claire M. Ruffing, Ken R. Sheehan, Matt T. Trentman, Matt R. Whiles, Wilfred M. Wollheim, Ford Ballantyne. Continental-scale decrease in net primary productivity in streams due to climate warming. Nature Geoscience, 2018; DOI: 10.1038/s41561-018-0125-5

Cite This Page:

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nature; ecology research; endangered plants; botany; climate; global warming; air quality; environmental issues

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Streams may emit more carbon dioxide in a warmer climate

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Streams and rivers could pump carbon dioxide into the air at increasing rates if they continue to warm, potentially compounding the effects of global warming, a new worldwide analysis has shown. To reach that conclusion, an international research team conducted the first continental-scale study of carbon flows into and out of streams across six major climatic zones.

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This article discusses Hurricane Maria's path as it damages Turks and Caicos and heads for the Bahamas. It also discusses the numbers of injuries and deaths that this natural disaster has caused.

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This visible light image of Hurricane Maria was taken from NOAA's GOES East satellite on Sept. 20, 2017, at 10:45 a.m. EDT, just as the Category 4 hurricane was moving across Puerto Rico.

Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project

Hurricane Maria is heading toward the Turks and Caicos Islands after passing near the northern coast of the Dominican Republic earlier this morning (Sept. 21) and wreaking complete havoc across Puerto Rico yesterday.

As of 11 a.m. ET, the hurricane, packing Category-3-force winds of 115 mph (185 km/h), was still pounding the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico with heavy rainfall and flooding, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The storm was about 105 miles (175 km) east-northeast of Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, and about 155 miles (255 km) southeast of the Grand Turk Island, the NHC said.

The storm is now moving northwest at 9 mph (15 km/h), with the NHC forecasting that it will turn toward the north-northwest early Friday (Sept. 22). The NHC expects Maria's eye to continue passing offshore of the northern coast of the Dominican Republic, before moving near or just east of the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas tonight and Friday.

The NHC said the Category 3 hurricane could strengthen a bit over the next day or so. That's because Maria first weakened after moving over a remnant cold wake left over from Hurricane Irma (which passed through the same area just last week); but the storm should reach warmer water (fuel for a hurricane) over the next day, and so its winds could whip up again. [ In Photos: Hurricane Maria Seen from Space]

An instrument aboard NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured this thermal image of Hurricane Maria on Sept. 20, 2017, at 2:12 a.m. EDT, when the storm's eye was just east of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Credit: NASA Goddard Rapid Response Team

Over just 18 hours on Monday (Sept. 18), Hurricane Maria transformed from a Category 1 storm to a major Category 5 hurricane, something that is partly due to its so-called pinhole eye, scientists said. Though it has since been downgraded to a Category 3 storm, Hurricane Maria was at Category 4 status when it made landfall in Puerto Rico - the first Category 4 hurricane to smack into Puerto Rico since 1932, according to news reports.

Seven people were reported dead in Dominica due to the then-Category-5 Hurricane Maria, which passed over the island nation of Dominica Tuesday night (Sept. 18). The island nation's prime minister Roosevelt Skerrit described the devastation in a series of Facebook posts, saying in one: "Initial reports are of widespread devastation. So far we have lost all [t]hat money can buy and replace. My greatest fear for the morning is that we will wake to news of serious physical injury and possible deaths as a result of likely landslides triggered by persistent rains."

Puerto Rico is still reeling from the wrath of Hurricane Irma, which battered the island's coastline with 30-foot-high (9 meters) waves earlier this month, downing power lines and trees. Flooding and destruction to buildings and homes - roofs torn off houses and doors flying off their hinges - in Puerto Rico were reported by multiple news outlets. The storm cut power to the entire island.

"This is total devastation," said Carlos Mercader, a spokesman for Puerto Rico's governor, as reported by CNN. "Puerto Rico, in terms of the infrastructure, will not be the same. ... This is something of historic proportions."

Residents and search-and-rescue workers in Puerto Rico are still taking stock of the devastation wrought by Maria, the Washington Post reported today.

As of 11 a.m. ET, hurricane-force winds extended 60 miles (95 km) from the eye of Hurricane Maria, while tropical-storm-force winds extended 150 miles (240 km) from the center, the NHC reported.

A Hurricane Warning is in effect for:

Dominican Republic from Cabo Engano to Puerto Plata

Turks and Caicos Islands

Southeastern Bahamas

Originally published on Live Science.

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Hurricane Maria Could Strengthen As It Takes Aim at Turks and Caicos

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Hurricane Maria is heading toward the Turks and Caicos Islands after passing near the northern coast of the Dominican Republic earlier this morning (Sept. 21) and wreaking complete havoc across Puerto Rico yesterday. As of 11 a.m.

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October 2017- California's Spreading Wildfires: What are Katabatic Winds

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October 2017- California's Spreading Wildfires: What are Katabatic Winds

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The article talks about what katabatic winds are, and how the make bad fires worse. It also explains how they are hurricane-force winds.

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A wildfire sweeps through the forest, down the south side of Dry Creek Canyon, at the Partrick Fire on Oct. 12, 2017, west of Napa, California.

Credit: David McNew/Getty Images

While the cause of 21 separate wildfires blazing across eight counties in northern California remains unknown, their rapid spread is tragically familiar. Many of California's fiercest wildfires occur in September and October, owed in part to a powerful seasonal weather pattern known as katabatic winds - an annual threat that creates the ideal conditions for making bad fires even worse.

Wind doesn't start fires, but it can fan the flames, often with catastrophic results. Katabatic winds take their name from the Greek word "katabasis," which means "descending." True to their name, katabatic winds' main distinction is that they fall; they begin at high, relatively cool elevations before plunging downslope. As the air whooshes downslope, it gets compressed, which causes it to become warmer and drier, and to move even faster, according to Brenda Belongie, lead meteorologist for the Predictive Services unit at the Northern California Service Center in Redding, California.

"When you take air from a higher elevation and bring it to a lower elevation, you're compressing it," Belongie told Live Science. "Anyone who has ever worked a bicycle pump is aware of what happens to the temperature of the air as you compress it: It warms up. That's why lower elevations are warmer than higher elevations. It's called the adiabatic process." [ Wildfires Blaze in Northern California (Photos)]

Katabatic winds' swift drop in elevation results in waves of hot, dry air capable of reaching hurricane wind speeds. The strongest winds observed during the current northern California fires so far blew through Sonoma at 79 mph (127 km/h), though sustained katabatic winds tend to blow between 15 to 20 mph (24 to 32 km/h) on average, Belongie said. (A tropical storm becomes classified as a hurricane when its maximum sustained winds reach 74 mph, or 119 km/h.)

The speed at which katabatic winds fly off the hills can be detrimental to wildfire suppression efforts, especially at a time of year when natural fuels - like dried grass, brush and tree roots - cover more area in the valleys of California. According to Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant, strong winds can throw burning embers half a mile forward, potentially sparking new fires and making existing ones unmanageable, reported KQED Science, a Bay Area news agency.

Perhaps just as dangerous is katabatic winds' utter lack of moisture."If the air is dry to begin with, its humidity gets ridiculously low when the winds sweep in," Belongie said. "We're talking single-digit-percentage low - and that has a very drying effect on the fuels." Without the ability to regain their moisture, ground fuels burn as the fires continue to spread, she added.

The most infamous katabatic-wind events in North America are likely the Santa Ana winds, which blow westward out of the Great Basin every fall and pour hot, dry air over the mountain ranges of southern California. The Great Basin is a region bordered by the Wasatch Mountains to the east, the Sierra Nevada mountains to the west and the Snake River Plain to the north.

The Santa Ana winds are notorious for fanning regional wildfires, including a series of blazes in October 2007 that scorched more than 500,000 acres and killed 10 people, according to Cal Fire.

In northern California, seasonal katabatic winds are colloquially called Diablo winds, likely named for the Diablo Valley east of the Bay Area through which the winds tend to pass. (The valley itself is named after the Spanish word for " devil.") Unlike the Santa Anas, Diablo winds generally originate from high-pressure systems in the Pacific Northwest and then flow south and southwest over California's Coast Ranges and other nearby peaks.

The National Weather Service predicts that the strongest winds in the ongoing crisis will hit the region late tonight (Oct. 13) and Saturday (Oct. 14), before tapering off on Sunday.

"As soon as the wind quits, the fires will quit moving," Belongie said. "Flame heights drop, the intensity drops way off, and firefighters can move in and keep it from going much further."

Original article on Live Science.

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California's Spreading Wildfires: What Are Katabatic Winds?

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While the cause of 21 separate wildfires blazing across eight counties in northern California remains unknown, their rapid spread is tragically familiar. Many of California's fiercest wildfires occur in September and October, owed in part to a powerful seasonal weather pattern known as katabatic winds - an annual threat that creates the ideal conditions for making bad fires even worse.

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November 2017- Mount Agung Eruption Imminent

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November 2017- Mount Agung Eruption Imminent

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Black smoke and red light are seen at the peak of erupting Mount Agung, from Rendang village of Karangasem, Bali, Indonesia, on early morning of November 28, 2017. The government increased the volcano alert to highest level in 7 kilometer radius range of Mount Agung and extend the closure of I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport, Bali.

Credit: Credit: Mahendra Moonstar/Anadolu Agency/Getty

A Balinese volcano that has been spewing huge columns of ash in tiny eruptions over the past week could be facing the "big one" very soon, experts now say.

"The potential for a larger eruption is imminent," Indonesia's Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center, said in a statement.

Gede Suantika, a senior volcanologist with the state's Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center, said the major eruption could be coming within hours, although it's impossible to say for sure, the the New Zealand Herald reported.

Mount Agung, on the Indonesian island of Bali, has been rocked by small eruptions that rained ash clouds. But in the last week, Mount Agung blew steam, a sign volcanologists say means that the magma is heating and instantaneously vaporizing groundwater, Live Science previously reported. Yesterday, a sludgy, cold form of lava known as lahar appeared - a hint that a magmatic eruption was imminent, the New Zealand Herald reported. And late Monday (Nov. 27), a glowing red arc of magma shot across the sky above the towering volcano, reaching nearly two miles (3 kilometers) in height, the Guardian reported. The glowing magma show increases the chances that a major magmatic eruption is imminent, volcanologists told The Guardian.

The 10,305-foot-tall (3,140 meters) volcano began rumbling to life in September. On Sunday, the country's Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center raised Indonesia's aviation threat level to red, the highest possible level, and the Denpasar International Airport in Bali was closed.

The government has urged more than 100,000 people within a six-mile (9.6 km) radius to evacuate.

If Mount Agung does blow, it could send fast-moving clouds of rocky debris and poisonous gas down the mountainsides, known as pyroclastic flows. The last time the mountain erupted, in 1963 and 1964, more than 1,000 people in surrounding villages died.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Mount Agung Eruption: The 'Big One' Could Come in Hours

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A Balinese volcano that has been spewing huge columns of ash in tiny eruptions over the past week could be facing the "big one" very soon, experts now say. "The potential for a larger eruption is imminent," Indonesia's Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center, said in a statement.

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January 2018- Mayon Volcano Imminent Eruption

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January 2018- Mayon Volcano Imminent Eruption

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This discusses the lava fountains that were shot from a Mayon volcano, and how that means a violent eruption is underway.

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(Image credit: Gregorio B. Dantes Jr./Pacific Press/LightRocket/Getty)
Update: Jan. 24, 10:35 a.m. EST - Between yesterday morning and this morning (Jan. 24), the Mayon volcano has launched five intense lava fountains from the summit crater, with these events lasting from 7 minutes to an hour and 24 minutes, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS). The fountains shot up 1,640 to 2,000 feet (500 to 600 meters) above the crater and generated ash plumes that were up to 3 miles (3 to 5 kilometers) high. Alert Level 4 remains in effect over the volcano. "The public is strongly advised to be vigilant and desist from entering the eight (8) kilometer-radius [5 miles] danger zone, and to be additionally vigilant against pyroclastic density currents, lahars [fast-moving volcanic flows] and sediment-laden streamflows along channels draining the edifice. Civil aviation authorities must also advise pilots to avoid flying close to the volcano's summit as ash from any sudden eruption can be hazardous to aircraft."
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Explosions shook the Mayon volcano, while fountains of lava spewed from its summit today (Jan. 22), causing the Philippines government to raise the hazard level from 3 to 4, indicating a violent eruption is imminent.

"Because of this, the Danger Zone is extended to an 8-kilometer [5 miles] radius from the summit vent. The public is strongly advised to be vigilant and desist from entering this danger zone," the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) said in a statement. "Civil aviation authorities must also advise pilots to avoid flying close to the volcano's summit as ash from eruptions can be hazardous to aircraft."

(Image credit: AFP/Getty)

The ground around the summit has also been shaking, PHIVOLCS said. [ 5 Colossal Cones: Biggest Volcanoes on Earth]

Renato Solidum of PHIVOLCS and other officials said that the explosion, which occurred around noon local time, "sent superheated lava, molten rocks and steam cascading down Mount Mayon's slopes and shrouded nearby villages in darkness," the Guardian reported.

More than 27,000 residents in Albay Province have fled since Mayon began erupting a few weeks ago, according to the Guardian report. Just last week, an eruption sent red-hot lava from the volcano's mouth, so much that it gave the mountain a face-lift of sorts - the lava repaired damage to the southern side of the volcano from previous eruptions, restoring its iconic cone shape.

The Mayon volcano - which rises some 8,077 feet (2,462 meters) above the Albay Gulf - is the Philippines most active volcano, according to the U.S. Geological Society (USGS). Its steep upper slopes make it a popular, albeit dangerous, climbing spot.

In 2013, with no warning, the volcano burst to life in a so-called phreatic explosion, due to water seeping into the volcano's magma chamber and blasting out as steam. The explosion killed five climbers and injured seven. After several climbing fatalities on Mayon in the 1990s, the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior crafted safety guidelines for individuals on active volcanoes, Live Science previously reported.

Pyroclastic flows, or fast-moving surges of lava and other molten material, have commonly raced down Mayon's flanks from its summit, often devastating populations below, according to the Smithsonian Institution Global Volcanism Program. Its most violent eruption, in 1814, killed more than 1,200 people.
Original article on Live Science.

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Philippines' Mayon Volcano Shoots Out Lava Fountains, Violent Eruption Imminent

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(Image credit: Gregorio B. Dantes Jr./Pacific Press/LightRocket/Getty) Update: Jan. 24, 10:35 a.m. EST - Between yesterday morning and this morning (Jan. 24), the Mayon volcano has launched five intense lava fountains from the summit crater, with these events lasting from 7 minutes to an hour and 24 minutes, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS).

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February 2018- Earthquake Swarm Hits Yellowstone

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February 2018- Earthquake Swarm Hits Yellowstone

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They discuss that just because over 200 earthquakes doesn't mean that there is a big earthquake coming. It also discusses what all of these little earthquakes mean.

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Geothermal activity at Yellowstone, a supervolcano in Wyoming.

Credit: robert cicchetti/Shutterstock

A swarm of more than 200 earthquakes struck Yellowstone National Park over the past two weeks, but that probably doesn't mean the "big one" is coming anytime soon, according to geologists from the park.

The 200 temblors began on Feb. 8 and ramped up on Feb. 15 in an area about 8 miles (13 kilometers) northeast of West Yellowstone, Montana, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). In reality, many more tiny quakes hit the region but were simply too small for seismometers to pick them up, according to the USGS.

But while the swarm is bigger than the everyday seismicity in the park, it's not a sign of a major quake, said Michael Poland, scientist-in-charge of the USGS Yellowstone Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington.

"This is what Yellowstone does; this is Yellowstone being Yellowstone," Poland told Live Science. "It experiences swarms all the time."

In fact, the same area saw an even bigger swarm between June and September of 2017, when 2,400 temblors hit the same approximate region. The current swarm may actually be the continuation of that earlier swarm, Poland said. [ Yellowstone and Yosemite: Photos of Two of the World's Oldest National Parks]

An earthquake swarm is usually defined as a higher-than-average number of earthquakes striking an area over a relatively short period of time, typically without a single main shock, according to the University of Utah Seismograph Stations, which measure seismic activity in Yellowstone National Park. These swarms occur when stress levels shift along smaller faults in an earthquake region, according to the USGS.

Swarms typically have two ultimate causes: shifting at major tectonic plates; or movements of water, gas or magma under the surface. As the abundance of hot springs and mud pots reveals, Yellowstone has plenty of fluid and gas just beneath the ground's surface. Yellowstone is also in a region that is being stretched and pulled apart, according to the USGS.

As a result, small quakes are the norm in Yellowstone, which is typically hit by 1,000 to 3,000 quakes a year, according to the National Park Service. The biggest quake on record there was the magnitude-7.3 Hebgen Lake quake, in 1959.

The earthquakes recorded during the current swarm in Yellowstone National Park (shown in red), along with the location of earthquakes during the summer 2017 swarm (shown in gray).

Credit: USGS

So does the new earthquake swarm mean that Yellowstone is at greater risk for "the big one?" Probably not. Scientists still don't know exactly how swarms up the odds of major quakes, but a region's seismic history can provide some clues, Poland said.

In this instance, the area, which is near Norris Geyser Basin, is usually extra "swarmy," he added.

"This particular area, especially, is a hotbed of swarm seismicity, and it has been for quite a while," Poland told Live Science. What's more, the biggest shaking recorded in this swarm topped out at magnitude 2.9, which isn't particularly strong. In contrast, the swarm last summer had quakes as strong as magnitude 4.4, according to the USGS.

The new swarm isn't quite business as usual, but it's close, he added. And it may be a response to decades-old seismic activity.

"One of the potential explanations for why this area is so swarmy is that the whole crust in the area is still adjusting to the big earthquake in 1959," Poland said.

That said, a large earthquake is an underappreciated risk at Yellowstone, Poland said. Aside from the 1959 quake, a magnitude-6.1 quake struck the Yellowstone region in 1975, according to the University of Utah Seismograph Stations.

"People tend to focus on the possibility of a huge eruption, which is vanishingly small," but magnitude-7 earthquakes could happen comparatively more often, Poland said.

"When they do happen, they're going to shake the region pretty severely, so people should be prepared for that," Poland said.

If the Yellowstone supervolcano were to blow, and if the eruption resembled the big ones that occurred hundreds of thousands of years ago, the resulting far-flung ash spewing out could devastate the United States, Live Science previously reported.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Swarm of 200 Earthquakes Hits Yellowstone - Here's What That Means

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A swarm of more than 200 earthquakes struck Yellowstone National Park over the past two weeks, but that probably doesn't mean the "big one" is coming anytime soon, according to geologists from the park. The 200 temblors began on Feb. 8 and ramped up on Feb.

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This article discusses how the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season is on the way. It then discusses the most recent hurricanes that have occurred, and how they will be in relation to the ones to come.

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I'm actually participating in a team put together by an organization called the World Meteorological Organization. It's a branch of the United Nations. We're doing an assessment of where this whole question stands. There are several areas where there's a strong scientific consensus. One is that a given hurricane is going to produce a lot more rain as the climate warms, and we're beginning to see signs of that happening. That's for a very simple reason - that a warmer atmosphere has more water vapor in it. There's really no controversy about that. We expect to see more [Hurricane] Harvey-type events as we go forward.

Another indisputable thing is that the sea level is going up, and it's almost certainly going to continue to go up. The largest killer in hurricanes is something called the storm surge, which was what flooded New Orleans during [Hurricane] Katrina and New York during [Superstorm] Sandy. Even if the storms themselves don't change, the surges are riding on an elevated sea level, and that makes them more dangerous.

There's also a reasonably strong consensus that we're going to see more intense hurricanes. That's because the theory that ties the sort of maximum speed limit that you can have on hurricanes is very clear. As you warm up the system, the speed limit goes up. We're going to see more intense hurricanes, and we are seeing signs of that in the data.

Within science, it's very controversial about whether the number of storms overall is going to go up or go down. We don't see any signs one way or the other yet. And we don't expect to - the data aren't good enough to tell us that.
Even if hurricanes aren't necessarily becoming more frequent, are they doing more damage now than in the past?
It's really hard to tell. There's another big factor in tropical cyclone damage in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, and it's simply the fact that people are moving in droves to the coastline and building more and more stuff. That's producing a huge increase in damage from hurricanes. But if there's a climate change signal in there, it'd be really hard to tease it out. It's mostly because more and more people are living in dangerous places. It's not much more complicated than that.
What keeps you up at night?
A lot of things. One is that we know from studying paleoclimate, or climates of the distant prehistoric past, that the climate system can change suddenly in ways that our models don't predict and that we don't understand. When we talk about global warming, the possibility that the system could suddenly jump to a different state does keep me and many of my colleagues awake at night. We have no way of knowing whether that will happen or predicting when or whether it will happen, but we know it happened in the past, and we know we don't understand it. That keeps me awake.
What do you mean by the system jumping to a different state?
We know that in the middle of these ice ages - like the last one we had - that suddenly, it would warm up for maybe 1,000 years and then go right back down to its state before. You had these sort of really sudden thaws in the ice age that didn't last long, on a geological timescale. Things went back to cold in maybe just a few hundred years. We don't understand those.

There are other things that happened in the past. During a period when it was extremely warm on the planet, more than 50 million years ago, when there was no ice anywhere on the planet except maybe on the peaks of very high mountains, there was a spike in temperature. It rocketed up very quickly, and then rocketed back down again. It was called the Eocene-Paleocene Thermal Maximum. We don't know why that happened, and so when we look at the record, there's certain things we do understand about it. But these other things that go on, like these big spikes, we don't understand, and it compromises our ability to predict what will happen in the future.
What else worries you?
The other scenario that keeps me awake at night, and a lot of hurricane forecasters, is something that happened in the 1950s. Let's say you have a weak tropical depression in the Western Gulf of Mexico. You go to bed in the evening and it's intensifying but it looks like it might make landfall in two days, as maybe a weak hurricane, so you don't worry much about it. You wake up the next morning, and it's a category 3 storm intensifying rapidly, about to hit a populated place later that day. That happened. It was called Hurricane Audrey.

Most people don't remember it now because it was in the '50s, but it killed 600 people. The forecasters just couldn't get the warning out in time. You don't have time to evacuate people. Sudden intensification of hurricanes before a landfall is a scary scenario, and I wrote a paper last year that global warming actually makes that somewhat more likely than it has been in the past.

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Hurricane season is here. Extreme weather expert explains what's in store.

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I'm actually participating in a team put together by an organization called the World Meteorological Organization. It's a branch of the United Nations. We're doing an assessment of where this whole question stands. There are several areas where there's a strong scientific consensus.

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This discusses the science behind the very recent Hawaii volcano eruption. The fissure also had a volcanic tornado the week previous and it discusses that as well.

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A weak ash plume rises from the Overlook vent in Halema'uma'u crater on May 11. This plume was likely caused by rocks falling into the deepening vent, which contains a lava lake.

Credit: U.S Geological Survey

Kilauea volcano is spewing lava and belching hazardous gases on Hawaii's Big Island, forcing more than 1,700 people to evacuate their homes.

Eruptions aren't anything new on Kilauea. In particular, the Pu'u 'Ō'ō vent, where lava is exposed, has erupted almost continuously since January 1983. But the latest eruption took volcanologists by surprise when it invaded Leilani Estates, a residential area near Kilauea.

Signs of trouble began in mid-March, when increased magma in the system prompted the Pu'u 'Ō'ō vent to inflate in size, like when a chef pumps cream into a cream puff, Janet Babb, a geologist and Hawaiian Volcano Observatory spokesperson, previously told Live Science. This surge of magma ultimately caused Pu'u 'Ō'ō's crater floor to collapse on April 30. After this, the excess magma traveled southeast toward the residential Puna District, Babb said. [ Kilauea Volcano: Facts About the 30-Year Eruption]

Small earthquakes had shaken the region all that week, but residents were taken aback by 5.0- and 6.9-magnitude earthquakes on May 3 and 4, respectively, which preceded lava eruptions. Now, newly opened fissures are bubbling with lava almost daily, and Hawaii County Civil Defense has warned sightseers to stay away for safety's sake.

The lava isn't taking a break. A "moderate-level" of lava continues to erupt from the active fissure system in the residential Puna District, which sits next to Kilauea volcano, according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO).

There is spattering (airborne chunks of lava) from fissures 15, 17, 18, 20, 21 and 22, as well as pahoehoe lava - smooth undulating or ropy masses of lava - flowing from fissures 17, 18 and 20, the HVO said.

Volcanic gas levels are still high, and weak winds today mean that other areas on the Big Island might be affected. Click here for forecast information. Moreover, lava moving underground (where it's called magma) continues to cause small earthquakes in the area.

The summit is somewhat calmer than yesterday, when an explosion sent ash 5.6 miles (9.1 kilometers) into the sky. But there is some activity: A "robust plume of gas and steam is billowing out of the Overlook vent and drifting generally southwest," the HVO reported.

The summit at Kilauea exploded today as boulders and a volcanic cloud, more than 5 miles high, spewed out of the Overlook vent at the top of the volcano.

The explosion happened shortly after 4 a.m. Hawaii Standard time, and sent a plume about 30,000 feet (5.6 miles, or 9.1 kilometers) into the sky, an altitude where commercial airplanes fly, according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

There are no reports of injuries, but the National Weather Service issued an ashfall advisory. Also, due to high levels of sulfur dioxide, several local schools are closed. [Read more: Kilauea Spews Boulders in 5-Mile-High Eruption]

Lava flows escaping from Fissure 17 are slowing down, only advancing about 100 yards (91 meters) in the last 24 hours, according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO). Meanwhile, high levels of volcanic gas are being emitted downwind of the volcanic vents, and trade winds hitting Hawaii today may bring these hazardous gasses to other parts of the island, the HVO said.

At the summit of Kilauea, enormous ash plumes - some reaching as high as 10,000 feet (3,000 m) above sea level - astonished onlookers yesterday (May 15). These plumes came from the Overlook vent, where the lava lake Halema'uma'u sits. It's likely that rockfall into the lava lake led to these plumes, the HVO said. The ash from these clouds dusted communities from Pahala to Discovery Harbor with ash and made it hazardous to operate aircraft in the area.

The surprises didn't end there. Two-foot-wide (60 centimeters) ballistic blocks were found in the parking lot, just a few hundred yards from Halema'uma'u.

"These reflect the most energetic explosions yet observed and could reflect the onset of steam-driven explosive activity," the HVO said. "Additional such explosions are expected and could be more powerful."

Lava continues to pour from several active fissures. Lava flows crept forward at about 20 yards per hour (0.01 kilometer per hour) from Fissure 17 last night, according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

Meanwhile, a new fissure opened this morning in the Lanipuna Gardens subdivision, northeast of Fissure 19. And volcanic gas emissions are still high, especially in areas downwind of the volcanic vents. Little earthquakes, many of them magnitude 2 to 4, continue to shake the region as magma roils underground.

At Kilauea's summit, a plume from the Overlook vent - where the lava lake Halema'uma'u is housed - is "steady and gray" because of volcanic ash, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said. This plume is enormous - it's rising several thousand feet above ground and drifting southeast. Ashfall is already falling down to earth in the upper Ka'u Desert and downwind of the summit.

There was a stupendous lava show this morning from Fissure 17 (the cracks that have opened up during this eruption are numbered, starting with No. 1), with lava fountaining and explosions of spatter that are being hurled more than 100 feet (30 meters) into the air. Fissure 17 also had lava flowing from it. Meanwhile, Fissure 18, which opened yesterday, is only weakly active now and Fissure 19 is emitting a sluggish lava flow, according to the Hawaii Volcano Observatory. [ Photos: Fiery Lava from Kilauea Volcano Erupts on Hawaii's Big Island]

Although Pu'u 'Ō'ō is getting much of the public's attention, geologists have also been monitoring the lava lake at Kilauea's summit. This lava lake - called Halema'uma'u - is dropping dramatically, and if it goes below the water table, there could be a steamy and rocky explosion, geologists said. [Read more: Kilauea Volcano Could Launch 10-Ton Ballistic Boulders in a Dramatic Explosion]

A total of 10 volcanic fissures have opened, pouring lava into the residential area of Leilani Estates. Fires from the lava have burned down 35 structures - mostly homes. Volcanic air pollution known as "vog" has prompted authorities to caution that people with breathing problems should stay inside and use air purifiers if needed. [Read more: Incredible Video Shows the Fiery Toll of Kilauea on Hawaii's Big Island]

A magnitude-5.0 earthquake that struck the Big Island on May 3 was followed by lava eruptions that sounded as loud as a jet engine. This prompted mandatory evacuations of the Leilani Estates and Lanipuna Gardens subdivisions. [Read more: Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano Erupts Dramatically After a 5.0-Magnitude Quake]

More than 600 earthquakes have rattled Hawaii's Big Island over the past four days as magma from Kilauea volcano moves toward the residential area of Leilani Estates. [Read more: Do Hundreds of Earthquakes in Hawaii Mean Kilauea Could Blow?]

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The Science Behind Hawaii's Surprising 2018 Volcanic Eruption

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Kilauea volcano is spewing lava and belching hazardous gases on Hawaii's Big Island, forcing more than 1,700 people to evacuate their homes. Eruptions aren't anything new on Kilauea. In particular, the Pu'u 'Ō'ō vent, where lava is exposed, has erupted almost continuously since January 1983.

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September 2017- Castaway Critters Rated to US Shores Aboard Japan Tsunami Debris

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September 2017- Castaway Critters Rated to US Shores Aboard Japan Tsunami Debris

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This discusses how the 2011 devastating tsunami that hit Japan still to this day continues to wash up critters catching rides on debris.

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The 2011 tsunami that devastated Japan's coast cast an enormous amount of debris out to sea - way out. Japanese marine life took advantage of the new floating real estate and booked a one-way trip to America. From 2012 to 2017, at least 289 living Japanese marine species washed up on the shores of North America and Hawaii, hitching rides on fishing boats, docks, buoys, crates and other nonbiodegradable objects, a team of U.S. researchers report in the Sept. 29 Science.

Organisms that surprisingly survived the harsh 7,000-kilometer journey across the Pacific Ocean on 634 items of tsunami debris ranged from 52-centimeter-long fish (a Western Pacific yellowtail amberjack) to microscopic single-celled protists. About 65 percent of the species have never been seen in North America's Pacific waters. If these newcomers become established, they have the potential to become invasive, disrupting native marine habitats, says study coauthor James Carlton, a marine scientist at Williams College in Mystic, Conn.

Meet some of the slimiest, strangest and potentially most invasive marine castaways that took this incredible journey:

The Northern Pacific sea star ( Asterias amurensis) is among the world's most invasive species. Though this purple and yellow sea star is normally found in shallow habitats, it can live as deep as 200 meters.

Skeleton shrimp ( Caprella cristibrachium and C. mutica (shown)) grasp onto algae with their strong rear claws, earning them the nickname "praying mantis of the sea." These lanky amphipods can grow up to about 5 centimeters long and are found in the Sea of Japan.

A white, brittle Bryozoan ( Biflustra grandicella) that can grow as big as a basketball is already invasive in Australia. The tiny swimming larvae of these sea creatures, also known as moss animals, may live up to a week, long enough to settle in to a new habitat.

Most of the wooden Japanese debris items collected carried at least one of seven species of large wormlike mollusks called Japanese shipworms ( Psiloteredo sp.). Some of the more monstrous shipworms found, which bore into everything from wooden pilings to docks, had grown to about 50 centimeters long.

Five Japanese barred knifejaw fish ( Oplegnathus fasciatus), also known as striped beakfish, were found trapped in the stern well of a Japanese fishing boat found beached in 2013 in Washington. These black-and-white striped fish are native to the Northwest Pacific Ocean and Hawaii. The well acted as a tide pool of sorts, sustaining the fish during their two-year journey.

The wavy-shelled slipper snail ( Crepidula onyx), also known as a slipper limpet, has essentially come full circle in its journey around the Pacific Ocean. Native to the U.S. West Coast, the well-traveled snail became an invasive species in Japan, and now has returned to America on Japanese debris.

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Castaway critters rafted to U.S. shores aboard Japan tsunami debris

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The 2011 tsunami that devastated Japan's coast cast an enormous amount of debris out to sea - way out. Japanese marine life took advantage of the new floating real estate and booked a one-way trip to America.

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May 2018- Phosphorous Nutrition Can Hasten Plant and Microbe Growth in Arid, High Elevation Sites

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May 2018- Phosphorous Nutrition Can Hasten Plant and Microbe Growth in Arid, High Elevation Sites

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This discusses how glacial retreat in cold, high-altitude ecosystems exposes environments that are extremely sensitive to phosphorus input, new research shows. The finding upends previous ecological assumptions, helps scientists understand plant and microbe responses to climate change and could expand scientists' understanding of the limits to life on Earth.

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from research organizations
Credit: Steve Schmidt / University of Colorado Boulder
Glacial retreat in cold, high-altitude ecosystems exposes environments that are extremely sensitive to phosphorus input, new University of Colorado Boulder-led research shows. The finding upends previous ecological assumptions, helps scientists understand plant and microbe responses to climate change and could expand scientists' understanding of the limits to life on Earth.

The study, which was recently published in the journal Science Advances, found that even in mountainous terrain above 17,000 feet above sea level, where soils freeze every night of the year, the addition of phosphorus resulted in rapid growth of plants and photosynthetic microbes, allowing them to overcome the chilly, arid climate.

"Life is more resourceful than we might have previously suspected," said Steven Schmidt, a professor in CU Boulder's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EBIO) and a co-author of the research. "Phosphorus allows microbes to react quickly and grow in these sites."

Nitrogen and phosphorus are both essential nutrients for vegetation and microbes, but plants are slower to re-grow in dry, high-elevation sites than in wet, temperate areas. Based on classical experiments, researchers had suspected that this sluggish regeneration was primarily due to the harsh climate and the relative lack of the nitrogen, limiting the potential for organic life.

"The thought has always been that nitrogen is most important to these newly-uncovered soils," said John Darcy, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Hawaii who co-authored the study while at CU Boulder. "But previous research has been concentrated in coastal and island landscapes. No one had looked at these cold, dry high-altitude systems before."

Researchers from CU Boulder, Duke University, the University of Montana and the University of Minnesota drew upon six years' worth of field data from arid sites in the central Alaska Range and the Andes Mountains of southern Peru. Both areas have experienced significant glacial retreat in recent decades due to climate change.

Post-glacial landscapes have been observed to remain largely un-vegetated for up to 150 years, leaving behind expanses of potentially unstable lakes and land that could result in floods, mudslides and potential water shortages.

The previously unappreciated importance of phosphorus for vegetation and microbes adds new context to long-held ecological theories and could inform future astrobiology studies as well as further research into agricultural runoff pollution.

"We're expanding the boundaries of what we know about the limits to life on Earth," Schmidt said.

Additional study co-authors include Joey Knelman of CU Boulder's Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR); Cory Cleveland of the University of Montana; Sarah Castle of the University of Minnesota; and Diana Nemergut of Duke University. The National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society provided funding for the research.

Journal Reference:

John L. Darcy, Steven K. Schmidt, Joey E. Knelman, Cory C. Cleveland, Sarah C. Castle, Diana R. Nemergut. Phosphorus, not nitrogen, limits plants and microbial primary producers following glacial retreat. Science Advances, 2018; 4 (5): eaaq0942 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaq0942

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organic; biology; endangered plants; soil types; environmental issues; environmental awareness; earth science; climate

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Phosphorus nutrition can hasten plant and microbe growth in arid, high elevation sites: New study of post-glacial environments sheds light on the limits to life on Earth

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Glacial retreat in cold, high-altitude ecosystems exposes environments that are extremely sensitive to phosphorus input, new research shows. The finding upends previous ecological assumptions, helps scientists understand plant and microbe responses to climate change and could expand scientists' understanding of the limits to life on Earth.

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November 2017- Evidence Disputes Climate Change Hiatus

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November 2017- Evidence Disputes Climate Change Hiatus

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This discusses the misconceptions surrounding the reasons why global temperatures have stopped rising as drastically as they had before.

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A seasonal ice beacon collects temperature data in the Arctic.

Credit: Ignatius Rigor/Polar Science Center, Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington

Evidence is mounting against the so-called climate change hiatus - a period lasting from 1998 to 2012 - when global temperatures allegedly stopped rising as sharply as they had before. This misconception can be explained, in part, by missing temperature data from the Arctic, a new study finds.

That seeming pause in rising global temperatures had been used as evidence by climate skeptics to suggest that the Earth wasn't really warming at an unnatural pace.

To get around the data gap, researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and China created the first global data set of surface temperatures. They filled in the missing puzzle piece with data taken from buoys drifting in the Arctic Ocean during the so-called global warming hiatus, the researchers said. [ 6 Unexpected Effects of Climate Change]

"We recalculated the average global temperatures from 1998 to 2012 and found that the rate of global warming had continued to rise at 0.112 degrees Celsius [0.2 degrees Fahrenheit] per decade, instead of slowing down to 0.05 degrees C [0.09 degrees F] per decade as previously thought," study co-researcher Xiangdong Zhang, an atmospheric scientist with UAF's International Arctic Research Center, said in a statement.

The new estimates reveal that the Arctic heated up rapidly during this period - more than six times the global average, said Zhang, who is also a professor with UAF's College of Natural Science and Mathematics.

The researchers used the newly reconstructed surface air temperature data to make this graphic, which shows the spatial distribution of the Arctic annual warming rate from 1998 to 2012.

Credit: Figure courtesy of Xiangdong Zhang

The reason for the data gap is simple: The remote Arctic doesn't have a robust network of instruments that collect air temperature data, the researchers said.

To fill in the gap, the team used temperature data collected from the University of Washington's International Arctic Buoy Programme, which allowed them to reconstruct Arctic surface air temperatures from 1900 to 2014, the researchers wrote in the study. The researchers also used newly corrected worldwide sea-surface temperature data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (Government temperature datasets are corrected, that is, vetted, before their official release, Live Science previously reported.)

The researchers incorporated the Arctic information with the global data. Then, they re-estimated average global temperatures from 1998 to 2012 with more accurate and representative data, Zhang said.

A research team deploys an ice beacon - a tool with sensors that measure GPS position, ice thickness, temperatures and other parameters - on sea ice in northern Alaska.

Credit: Ignatius Rigor/Polar Science Center, Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington

The hiatus is a controversial topic among climate scientists. At the time and following the hiatus, many researchers acknowledged that temperature data indicated that the Earth was still warming, but not as rapidly as it had prior to that 14-year stint. Climate change doubters seized on these findings, using the pause as evidence to show that man-made climate change wasn't real, Live Science previously reported.

Over the past century, Earth's average temperature has increased as human-made technologies emitted more greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, that linger in the atmosphere and trap heat.

That's why the so-called global-warming hiatus confounded scientists. Some researchers suggested that the unusually warm 1997 to 1998 El Niño, and a long period afterward without an El Nino in the tropical Pacific Ocean might have diminished the rate of global warming.

However, the new findings show that this pause didn't happen after all, the researchers said. Moreover, the study shows that Arctic temperature data is key when calculating climate change. Until recently, many scientists didn't think that the Arctic was large enough to greatly influence average global temperatures, Zhang said.

"The Arctic is remote only in terms of physical distance," he said. "In terms of science, it's close to every one of us. It's a necessary part of the equation and the answer affects us all."

Another 2017 study, published in the journal Science Advances, also recently cast doubt on the so-called hiatus. That study showed that inconsistent water measurements helped lead to the hiatus misconception, Live Science reported.

The new study was published online Monday (Nov. 20) in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Original article on Live Science.

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Evidence Mounts Against So-Called Climate Change Hiatus

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Evidence is mounting against the so-called climate change hiatus - a period lasting from 1998 to 2012 - when global temperatures allegedly stopped rising as sharply as they had before. This misconception can be explained, in part, by missing temperature data from the Arctic, a new study finds.