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While doing this project, I came across many different articles that opened my eyes to environmental issues i didn’t know existed, as well as interesting articles that taught me something new. Three articles that stood out to me while completing my scrapbook were Surprising resurgence of red spruce likely result of cleaner air and warmer winters, Record-breaking ocean heat fueled Hurricane Harvey, and an article about Imminent extinction of northern white rhinoceros motivates genetic recovery efforts.

To begin, the comeback of the red spruce is interesting because researchers have determined two things that contributed to the tree’s miraculous recovery. The study consisted of 658 trees in 52 different plots and discovered that more than seventy-five percent of red spruce trees and more that ninety percent of the plots studied showed growth from 2001. The two factors that scientists are saying contributed to the growth are reduced inputs of acid rain and warmer fall, winter and spring temperatures. I found this interesting because the small reductions in acid rain are really making a difference regarding the extinction of red spruce trees. While warmer temperatures might hurt rather than help some species, the red spruce trees are benefitting as of right now but they could be vulnerable to change in the future. The scientists are also confident that their research reflects the state of red spruce trees in the whole region, not just the small area they studied.

The second article that I found interesting was the article about Hurricane Harvey. I’m sure everyone knows of its destruction to the environment and people’s lives and homes, but why did it happen? Record-hot Gulf of Mexico waters which supercharged hurricane harvey and fueled it with vast stores which set the stage for the flooding that took over and destroyed Houston, Texas. The volume of rain over land directly corresponds to the amount of water evaporated from the unusually warm ocean water. Scientists have said that as long as the temperature rises and continues to heat the ocean water, we can expect more supercharged storms like harvey, unfortunately. If we can’t stop these crazy storms, in order to cope and prepare for events such as these, scientists say we need to increase resilience with better building codes, flood protection, and water management, and we need to prepare for contingencies, including planning evacuation routes and how to deal with power cuts.

Last but not least, the third article i found to be interesting was the probable extinction of the northern white rhinoceros is motivating scientist to increase their genetic recovery efforts. The last remaining male white rhinoceros died in captivity, nearly sealing fate for these animals to go extinct. Continuous threats of threats of poaching, habitat destruction, and small population size have contributed to the rhinos' status as critically endangered. Scientists believe that they may have discovered valuable pools of genetic material for genetic rescue of these animals. This might help recover the white rhinos and set them on a path of repopulation.

To conclude, this project has educated me in terms of what to look for when deciding which environmental issues are more important than others. This also taught me how small things can have a huge impact on the environment.

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180605120811.htm

Fifty years ago, red spruce was the equivalent of a canary in the coalmine signaling the effects of acid rain on forests. Researchers have identified two factors behind the tree's surprising recovery: reduced inputs of acid rain and warmer fall, winter and spring temperatures.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180605112113.htmBy using satellite data from different major land-based ecosystems around the globe, researchers have found that the photosynthesis glow is the same across all vegetation, no matter the location.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180605112129.htm
Understanding the thermal conditions of the ground in the Arctic is of utmost importance in order to assess the effects of climate change on the occurrence of permafrost, on the ecosystems and societies of the Arctic, and the global climate system.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180605103439.htmNew research shows that three major 'switches' affecting wildfire -- fuel, aridity, and ignition -- were either flipped on and/or kept on longer than expected last year, triggering one of the largest and costliest US wildfire seasons in recent decades.

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180424112906.htmSevere winters combined with heat waves and droughts during summer in Europe. Those were the consequences as the Atlantic Ocean heat transport nearly collapsed 12,000 years ago. The same situation might occur today.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180424083901.htmStudy reveals average winter wave heights along the Atlantic coast of Western Europe have been rising for almost seven decades.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180328120055.htmLarge-scale weather cycles, such as the one related to the El Niño phenomenon, affect two-thirds of the world's cropland. In these so called climate oscillations, air pressure, sea level temperature or other similar factors fluctuate regularly in areas far apart in a way that causes rain and temperature patterns to shift significantly.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180510133045.htm
Record-hot Gulf of Mexico waters supercharged Hurricane Harvey, fueling it with vast stores of water and setting the stage for devastating flooding after it stalled near Houston.

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180523131239.htmYoung elephants who have lost either their mothers or the matriarchs of the herd are affected dramatically, and change where they live, according to new research.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180522123327.htmIn November 2017 under a biodiversity monitoring and assessment activity supported by the US Agency for International Development -- scientists and conservationists captured photographs of one of the rarest and most threatened mammal species of Southeast Asia, the large-antlered muntjac.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180521131832.htm
The critically endangered Chinese giant salamander is well known as the world's largest amphibian. But researchers now find that those giant salamanders aren't one species, but five, and possibly as many as eight. The bad news is that all of the salamanders now face the imminent threat of extinction in the wild

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180523091256.htm
Eastern hemlock forests have been declining due to a non-native insect pest. A new study presents some of the best data showing how the decline of a single tree species leads to the disappearance of birds specialized to them.

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180530133024.htm
Sea life was present a few years after the impact and a thriving ecosystem within 30,000 years.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180530105328.htm
New global data of invertebrate distributions suggests time holds key to species diversity.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524141736.htm
An asteroid crashed to Earth with a force one million times larger than the largest atomic bomb, causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. But dinosaurs weren't the only ones that got hit hard -- in a new study, scientists learned that the planet's forests were decimated, leading to the extinction of tree-dwelling birds

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524141725.htm
Earlier this year, the last remaining male northern white rhinoceros (NWR) died in captivity, nearly cementing the fate of this subspecies for extinction. Yet, novel conservation efforts that make use of cryopreserved genetic material could save the NWR, and other threatened species, from extinction.

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180515081712.htmOrangutans, already critically endangered due to habitat loss from logging and farming, may face another threat in the form of smoke from natural and human-caused fires, a new study finds

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180514151913.htmScientists, historians and economists have used ice samples from the North Greenland Ice Core Project to measure, date and analyze European lead emissions that were captured in Greenland ice between 1100 BC and AD 800. Their results provide new insight for historians about how European civilizations and their economies fared over time.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180514083951.htmChildren who were exposed to higher levels air pollution while in the womb had a higher risk of elevated blood pressure in childhood.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180509121552.htmBeavers could help clean up polluted rivers and stem the loss of valuable soils from farms, new research shows