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http://www.livescience.com/55912-microbursts.html

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160826084034.htm

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study the sustainability of enviromental science because sustainability ensures life in the future and makes sure enviroment grows.
http://latincorrespondent.com/2016/08/study-sustainability-environmental-sciences/

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Preliminary findings already show microplastic in the top 1000 meters of water at the Porcupine Abyssal Plain. In October and November scientists will go out to measure the amount of microplastics in the water.

Microplastics discovered in the deep, open ocean. (2016). ScienceDaily. Retrieved 29 August 2016, from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160826084034.htm

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Since concern about widespread honey bee colony losses began ten years ago, there have been surveys carried out to assess winter losses in North America and many European countries. So far, the picture in China, the largest beekeeping country in the world, has been unclear. Now for the first time, information about winter losses from a large-scale survey carried out from 2010-13 has been published.

In a new paper published in Journal of Apicultural Research, official journal of the International Bee Research Association (IBRA), Zhiguang Liu and Wei Shi from the Institute of Apicultural Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing and colleagues, report on a three-year survey using standard questionnaires developed by the international COLOSS Association. In total, they received 3,090 responses, including 485 from part-time beekeepers, 2,216 from sideline beekeepers, and 389 from commercial beekeepers. Between them these beekeepers managed some 140,000 colonies, that is about 2.4 % of China's six million colonies.

The results showed that colony losses were generally low (on average 10.1%), compared to published results from Europe and the USA. There were however variations between years (ranging from 8.5 to 12.0 %), between provinces (ranging from 2.5 to 19.0%), and between different sizes of beekeeping operation (ranging from 7.6 to 12.1%).

The authors speculate that reasons for the lower losses compared to those of other countries may be due to a high genetic diversity in their honey bees, regular replacement of queen bees by the beekeepers, and because the average size of beekeeping operation is small, meaning that beekeepers can pay close attention to their hives, in particular to the way they control the parasitic varroa mite. The authors also discuss why losses may be consistently higher in certain regions.

IBRA Science Director Norman Carreck says: "For the first time we now have a good picture of honey bee colony losses in China, the world's biggest beekeeping country. Further studies of why losses there appear to be relatively low may assist our understanding of widespread colony losses elsewhere."

Journal Reference:

Zhiguang Liu, Chao Chen, Qingsheng Niu, Wenzhong Qi, Chunying Yuan, Songkun Su, Shidong Liu, Yingsheng Zhang, Xuewen Zhang, Ting Ji, Rongguo Dai, Zhongyin Zhang, Shunhai Wang, Fuchao Gao, Haikun Guo, Liping Lv, Guiling Ding, Wei Shi. Survey results of honey bee (Apis mellifera) colony losses in China (2010-2013). Journal of Apicultural Research, 2016; 1 DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2016.1193375

Cite This Page:

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insects (including butterflies); agriculture and food; invasive species; extreme survival; biology; evolutionary biology; mating and breeding; monkeys

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China's honey bee losses are low compared with West

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Since concern about widespread honey bee colony losses began ten years ago, there have been surveys carried out to assess winter losses in North America and many European countries. So far, the picture in China, the largest beekeeping country in the world, has been unclear.

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Comparing  the losses of honey bees in china to the West.  The loss of honey bees in China is lower.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160824084647.htm
China's honey bee losses are low compared with West

China's honey bee losses are low compared with West. (2016). ScienceDaily. Retrieved 29 August 2016, from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20

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A James Cook University scientist says a new map of the ecological footprint of humankind shows 97 per cent of the most species-rich places on Earth have been seriously altered.

JCU's Professor Bill Laurance has taken part in a study to map the ecological effect of people on the planet. He said the news isn't great.

"The most species-rich parts of the planet -- especially including the tropical rainforests -- have been hit hardest. In total, around 97 per cent of Earth's biologically richest real estate has been seriously altered by humans," he said.

The scientists found environmental pressures are widespread, with only a few very remote areas escaping damage.

"Humans are the most voracious consumers planet Earth has ever seen. With our land-use, hunting and other exploitative activities, we are now directly impacting three-quarters of the Earth's land surface," said Professor Laurance.

Researchers combined data garnered from unprecedented advances in remote sensing with information collected via surveys on the ground.

They compared data from the first survey in 1993 to the last available information set from 2009.

Professor Laurance said that 71 per cent of global ecoregions saw a marked increase in their human footprints.

But he said the news was not all bad.

"While the global human footprint expanded by nine per cent from 1993 to 2009, it didn't increase as fast as the human population -- which rose by a quarter -- or economic growth -- which exploded by over 150 percent -- during the same period."

Professor Laurance said wealthy nations and those with strong control of corruption showed some signs of improvement.

"In broad terms, industrial nations and those with lower corruption appear to be doing a better job of slowing the expansion of their human footprint than poorer countries with weak governance. But the wealthy countries have a much higher per-capita footprint, so each person there is consuming a lot more than those in poorer nations."

Professor Laurance said the suitability of lands for agriculture appears to be a major determinant in where ecological pressures appeared around the globe.

"The bottom line is that we need to slow rampant population growth, especially in Africa and parts of Asia, and demand that people in wealthy nations consume less," he said.

The updated and temporally intercomparable global terrestrial human footprint maps and the data behind have been published in Nature Communications and Nature Scientific Data. Oscar Venter at the University of Northern British Colombia led this effort with support from the Wildlife Conservation Society, James Cook University, CIESEN at Colombia University and the Green Fire Science lab at the University of Queensland.

Journal References:

1. Oscar Venter, Eric W. Sanderson, Ainhoa Magrach, James R. Allan, Jutta Beher, Kendall R. Jones, Hugh P. Possingham, William F. Laurance, Peter Wood, Balázs M. Fekete, Marc A. Levy, James E. M. Watson. Sixteen years of change in the global terrestrial human footprint and implications for biodiversity conservation. Nature Communications, 2016; 7: 12558 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12558

2. Oscar Venter, Eric W. Sanderson, Ainhoa Magrach, James R. Allan, Jutta Beher, Kendall R. Jones, Hugh P. Possingham, William F. Laurance, Peter Wood, Balázs M. Fekete, Marc A. Levy, James E. M. Watson. Sixteen years of change in the global terrestrial human footprint and implications for biodiversity conservation. Nature Communications, 2016; 7: 12558 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12558

Cite This Page:

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nature; biology; soil types; endangered animals; environmental issues; sustainability; earth science; geography

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
New map shows alarming growth of the human footprint

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A James Cook University scientist says a new map of the ecological footprint of humankind shows 97 per cent of the most species-rich places on Earth have been seriously altered. JCU's Professor Bill Laurance has taken part in a study to map the ecological effect of people on the planet.

# data[].attributes.body
New map shows alarming growth of the human footprint

New map shows alarming growth of the human footprint. (2016). ScienceDaily. Retrieved 29 August 2016, from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160824212227.htm

A scientist from James Cook University took part in a study where a new map of an ecological footprint that shows 97% of the most species-rich places on Earth have been altered.

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https://www.sciencenews.org/article/clean-inside-those-bagpipes-trumpets-clarinets
Rosen, M.

Rosen, M. (2016). Clean inside those bagpipes — and trumpets and clarinets.Science News. Retrieved 29 August 2016, from https://www.sciencenews.org/article/clean-inside-those-bagpipes-trumpets-clarinets

No cleaning them can cause a mold or dew to grow in a warm environment can cause lung disease

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https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/toxic-chemicals-drinking-water/

Drinking water samples near industrial sites, military fire training areas, and wastewater treatment plants have high levels of fluorinated compounds

Unsafe levels of toxic chemicals found in drinking water for six million Americans | News | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Unsafe levels of toxic chemicals found in drinking water for six million Americans | News | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (2016).Hsph.harvard.edu. Retrieved 26 August 2016, from https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/toxic-chemicals-drinking-water/
9

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160630214505.htm
A new study has found that air pollution can lead to kidney disease, along with cardiovascular diseases. It shows that it is mainly in urban areas in China is where this occurs.

Air pollution linked to increased rates of kidney disease: Regions in China with high levels of fine particulate air pollution have elevated rates of membranous nephropathy. (2016).ScienceDaily. Retrieved 26 August 2016, from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20

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Federal regulators are proposing to ban swimming with dolphins in Hawaii, a move that could imperil one of the Aloha State's most popular tourist activities and the industry that has sprung up around it.

The National Marine Fisheries Service says spinner dolphins - the playful nocturnal species that humans in Hawaii routinely frolic with - are being deprived of rest during the day and becoming stressed out.

Swimming with dolphins is popular with visitors and some locals, with dozens of companies on Kauai, Oahu, Maui and the Big Island operating dolphin tours daily.
Read More: Dolphins to Leave National Aquarium
The proposed rule could shut down or greatly disrupt the industry as it now operates. That's because the ban would cover waters out to two nautical miles, which is where 98 percent of Hawaii's spinner dolphins rest after they've spent the night feeding. Tour companies take customers to these close-to-shore waters to find dolphins.

There has to be a middle ground between the dolphin tour operators and what federal regulators are proposing, said Richard Holland, CEO of Dolphins and You, which takes about 80 customers on tours to waters off Oahu's Waianae Coast each day. Customer reviews of his business on social media and other online sites often mention how their lives have been changed by going on a tour, he said.

"If you're doing work that helps people- that enlightens them, inspires them, makes them feel good - that's a good thing. There's no need to take that away," Holland said.

Ann Garrett, assistant regional administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service's protected resources division for the Pacific Islands, said dolphins have been found to be burning calories at a higher rate because they are forced to be vigilant as people approach their pods.

"All of these things can contribute to a reduction of fitness over time - this kind of chronic level of stress. That's what we're concerned about," Garrett said.
Read More: Russia's Military Just Bought Five Bottlenose Dolphins and It Won't Say Why
Scientists have not done any studies on how frolicking with humans has affected the dolphins' numbers. But they fear the stress will harm the animals' ability to reproduce.

The federal agency plans to hold public meetings on the regulations next month and expects to make a final decision next year.

Garrett said Tuesday that the agency aims to require swimmers, snorkelers and others in the water to stay at least 50 yards from the animals.

She said tour operators can follow this rule and still make a living. She said some already do so voluntarily.

Under the proposed rules, "those that are putting their people in the water to interact with dolphins, this would change the nature of what they're doing," she said. "They could still do snorkeling for other reasons - it's just not setting their people within a pod of dolphins or within 50 yards of a dolphin."

Cynthia Weber, a visitor from Santa Cruz, California, said she thinks the regulators should go even further and require people stay 200 yards away from dolphins. The writer and artist said intentionally going into wildlife areas jeopardizes the animals.

Hawaii's spinner dolphins get their name from their habit of leaping in the air and spinning around. Some scientists say such behavior is not always playfulness and can instead be an attempt by a dolphin to alert others to danger.
Read More: Appeals Court Says Navy Sonar Must Better Protect Whales
Spinner dolphins eat fish and small crustaceans that surface from the ocean depths at night. At daybreak, they gather in shallow bays to hide from tiger sharks and other predators.

When they sleep, they rest half their brains and keep the other half awake so that they can surface and breathe. As a result, they can look awake and active even when asleep.

Unlike the better-known bottlenose and other dolphin species in Hawaii waters, they are highly predictable in their behavior, returning to the same general area every day. That makes them easy for tour groups to find.

The prohibitions would cover waters up to 2 miles off the main Hawaiian Islands. It would also apply farther from shore in certain waters between Maui, Lanai and Kahoolawe islands.

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Federal regulators want to shut down swimming with dolphins in Hawaii

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Federal regulators are proposing to ban swimming with dolphins in Hawaii, a move that could imperil one of the Aloha State's most popular tourist activities and the industry that has sprung up around it.

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Capping a week of 100 th anniversary celebrations for the National Park Service, President Barack Obama on Friday turned to the ocean to create the largest protected area anywhere on Earth-a half-million-square-mile arc of remote Pacific waters known for both exceptional marine life and importance to native Hawaiian culture.

The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, established in 2006 by President George W. Bush, already covered 140,000 square miles of ocean around the uninhabited northwestern islands of Hawaii, Obama's home state. ( Learn about the name and how to pronounce it.)

Obama more than quadrupled Papahānaumokuākea's size, to 582,578 square miles, an area larger than all the national parks combined. Using his executive authority under the U.S. Antiquities Act, he extended most of the monument's boundary-and its prohibition of commercial fishing-out to the 200-mile limit of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ).( Read about a monument established this week in the Maine woods.)

Hawaii governor David Ige remarked on the "tremendous" debate within Hawaii over the monument and its fishing exclusion. But in the end, he said, the expansion "strikes the right balance at this time for the waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands, and it can be a model for sustainability in the other oceans of planet Earth."

Papahānaumokuākea is a sanctuary for endangered species, including blue whales, short-tailed albatrosses, sea turtles, and the last Hawaiian monk seals. It contains some of the world's northernmost and healthiest coral reefs, considered among the most likely to survive in an ocean warmed by climate change. The seamounts and sunken islands of its deeper waters are inhabited by more than 7,000 species, including the oldest animals on Earth-black corals that have lived for more than 4,000 years.

In all, a quarter of the creatures living in the monument are found nowhere else. Many more have not yet been identified-such as a ghostly little white octopus, recently discovered, that scientists have dubbed Casper.

Marine biologist Sylvia Earle, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, said Obama's announcement buoys hope that the United States can lead the way to a global network of marine-protected areas large enough to save and restore the oceans. These "blue parks," as Earle calls them, "are not a luxury - a place to go and have a good time," she said. "Resilience to climate change is dependent upon having significant areas of natural protection-for biodiversity and for all the things that hold the planet steady. This is vitally important to protect our life-support system."

This announcement came on the eve of the World Conservation Congress, when leaders will meet to discuss preserving the planet.

An Intense Fight Over Fishing

Some marine scientists and conservationists argue that fishing, mining, and other types of exploitation should be prohibited in at least 30 percent of the oceans to protect sea life and the benefits it provides humanity. With the expansion, the U.S. now has some 1,200 marine protected areas covering 26 percent of marine waters, said Lauren Wenzel, director of NOAA's National Marine Protected Areas Center. But the majority allow fishing or some other form of resource extraction.

The Papahānaumokuākea expansion increases the portion of "no-take" areas from 3 percent to 13 percent of U.S. marine waters.Almost all of that protected ocean-more than 98 percent-is in Papahānaumokuākea.

Despite popular proposals to protect some of the last great troves of marine biodiversity in the East, such as Cashes Ledge in the Gulf of Maine, or the canyons and seamounts off New England's continental shelf, so far no marine monument has been created in the Atlantic Ocean. The history and power of the 400-year-old New England fishing industry make that a more difficult political challenge, said Robin Kundis Craig, a University of Utah law professor who specializes in the oceans. "Some of this is protecting what's easier," Craig said of the Papahānaumokuākea expansion.

Citing that imbalance and the impact to Hawaii's longline fleet, the fishing industry vigorously fought the Papahānaumokuākea expansion-in TV ads and YouTube videos, in town hall meetings and in the capitols in Washington and Honolulu. Ultimately, support from Hawaii lawmakers helped cinch the president's decision. U.S. Senator Brian Schatz brokered a compromise that maintained the monument's existing boundary on its far eastern end, allowing fishermen from Kauai and Niihau to continue working their traditional grounds inside the EEZ.

Edwin Ebisui Jr., chairman of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, isn't happy with the compromise. He and leaders of the seven other councils that manage regional fisheries along the U.S. coastline all wrote to President Obama to urge that they be allowed to continue managing fisheries in any monuments created under the Antiquities Act.

But the longliners who once fished for tuna inside the newly expanded Papahānaumokuākea will now have to stop. Although the name of the monument is meant to honor Native Hawaiian culture, which considers the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands sacred, Ebisui sees the expansion as a blow to that culture. "To the native Hawaiian, access to marine resources is very, very important and always will be," he said. "I don't see how quadrupling the size of the prohibited fishing area in any way furthers their cultural interests."

"With so much of our EEZ off-limits, it feels as if Hawaiians are taking it for the team again," Ebisui said, referring to the long history of reserves established on and around the Hawaiian Islands, by Democratic and Republican presidents alike.

Although the Antiquities Act was signed into law in 1906 by a Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt, the modern GOP has drawn a bead on it. Obama has so far created 25 national monuments, some as small as individual buildings. ( Read about a large monument he established in New Mexico.) The Republican platform adopted at the party convention this summer in Cleveland calls for a change in the law to require monuments to be approved by both Congress and state legislatures.

But the power of the Antiquities Act, said historian Douglas Brinkley, author of environmental biographies of both Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt, lies in its ability to transcend industrial or regional influence to protect lands and waters of overarching interest to all Americans. "Presidents in their last year of office need to do what's visionary," Brinkley said. "It's not about 'what I can get in the last year.' It's about the long-term, which is the essence of conservation." ( Read the Act; it's only a page long.)

When Congress passed the Antiquities Act, the focus was on preserving southwestern prehistoric sites such as burial mounds and cliff-dwellings. By the time Teddy Roosevelt left office less than three years later, however, he had used his new privilege to protect 18 national monuments, and they included iconic landscapes such as Mount Olympus in Washington and Muir Woods in California as well as archeological sites. One of Roosevelt's designations was the Grand Canyon. At the time, its protection was vehemently opposed by locals who called the area "strictly mineral country."

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Hawaii Is Now Home to an Ocean Reserve Twice the Size of Texas

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Capping a week of 100 th anniversary celebrations for the National Park Service, President Barack Obama on Friday turned to the ocean to create the largest protected area anywhere on Earth-a half-million-square-mile arc of remote Pacific waters known for both exceptional marine life and importance to native Hawaiian culture.

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President Obama just quadrupled the size of a national marine monument off northwestern Hawaii.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/obama-creates-world-s-largest-park-off-hawaii/

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Humans utilise forests and watercourses in a way that depletes ecosystem habitats, biodiversity and ecosystem services. Many areas are restored to break the trend, but to succeed you need to consider not only the ecosystem in mind, but also surrounding ecosystems. This according to researchers in Umeå in Sweden in an article published in BioScience.

"Despite evident correlations between land and water ecosystems, forests and watercourses are nearly always restored separately in small-scale projects. When a forest ecosystem abounding in water has been depleted, it can be a struggle to retain its original status by restoring only one part of it. Instead, both land and aquatic environments need to be integrated in the restoration," says Christer Nilsson, Professor at the Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences at Umeå University.

Riparian zones along forest rivers are environments where forests and water meet and benefit from each other. The line of trees along the riparian zones provides shade and wood. Leaves and insects falling into the water are favourable for aquatic insects and bugs and eventually also for fish. Floodings wash up sediment, seeds and other plant parts onto riparian forest zones. New plants grow, which increases production and diversity. Aquatic larvae make up a good food source for insects, spiders, crustaceans, lizards and birds on land. Decaying fish carcasses removed from the river by large animals encourage the growth of riparian trees by enriching riparian areas with nitrogen. That in turn helps trees to grow and to shed more branches and leaves into the water.

"This natural interplay makes riparian forests key areas for diversity in the landscape. Hence, restoring riparian vegetation is an essential part in achieving great variety of species and making the ecosystem more sustainable at the same time as it makes them more hardy and better equipped for climate changes," says Christer Nilsson.

Climate change has had direct and indirect effects on both land and aquatic environments, but at present the understanding of how climate change affects the interplay between forests and watercourses is insufficient. That is also a reason why that factor is often neglected when restorations are planned. Free-flowing rivers surrounded by natural forest are expected to be more resistant to climate change than streams surrounded by clearcuts or urbanised areas.

Another problem is that most studies are conducted at a local level with focus on short-term effects. Long-term recovery is often unknown and in the few cases where restorations of watercourses and forests have been coordinated, they have rarely been evaluated. Both well thought-out, basic measurements and reference areas are needed for comparisons. Good knowledge on ecosystems and their functions in the landscape are necessary to evaluate and improve the measures taken in a restoration project.

"There are complex correlations over large areas to take into account, which means that seeing the final results of small-scale projects take time. Large-scale restoration projects with a landscape perspective stand a much higher chance of succeeding. Researchers and practicians who undertake restorations are faced with immense challenges ahead," says Christer Nilsson.

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ecology research; nature; trees; endangered plants; ecology; ecosystems; forest; rainforests

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Forest and watercourse interplay important for restorations

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Humans utilize forests and watercourses in a way that depletes ecosystem habitats, biodiversity and ecosystem services. Many areas are restored to break the trend, but to succeed you need to consider not only the ecosystem in mind, but also surrounding ecosystems.

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What Happened?. (2016). Fukushima on the Globe. Retrieved 26 August 2016, from http://fukushimaontheglobe.com/the-earthquake-and-the-nuclear-accident/whats-happened
There was a nuclear disaster in Fukushima due to an earthquake and tsunami. radioactive water still leakes into the ocean because of the disaster.
the water leveles are about thousandth of what they were after the accident.

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A group of undersea divers discover a stubby squid closely to the cuttlefish. Looking like a cute little kids toy.AJ Willingham, C. (2016). 'Googly-eyed' squid charms scientists. CNN. Retrieved 26 August 2016, from http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/16/health/googly-eyed-squid-charms-scientists-trnd/index.html

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http://www.livescience.com/39144-platinum.html
their will be no phones in the future.Its also used in gas and fuel cell.

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160824212227.htm
New map shows alarming growth of the human footprint

New map shows alarming growth of the human footprint. (2016). ScienceDaily. Retrieved 26 August 2016, from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20
Human ecological footprints can be found on 97% of species rich areas. They have been altered because of human behavior. However, the percent of alterations have not been as drastic as the percent of population growth.

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eather Bombs' Could 'X-Ray' Earth to Help Detect Quakes

'Weather Bombs' Could 'X-Ray' Earth to Help Detect Quakes. (2016). Live Science. Retrieved 26 August 2016, from http://www.livescience.com/55889-weather-bombs-could-x-ray-earth.html

These so called weather bombs are going to make the earth move and shift, because of all the preasure on the earth.

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Federal regulators want to shut down swimming with dolphins in Hawaii

Federal regulators want to shut down swimming with dolphins in Hawaii. (2016). NBC News. Retrieved 26 August 2016, from http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-want-ban-swimming-hawaii-dolphins-n637031

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-want-ban-swimming-hawaii-dolphins-n637031

Official are thinking about shutting down swimming with dolphins because it stresses the dolphins out and they don't get enough time to rest. They are thinking about shutting down anything in two nautical miles which includes most of hawaii's attractions.

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Corn is the main crop used in the United States to produce biofuel.

Credit: Stuart Monk / Shutterstock.com

Most gasoline sold in the U.S. contains some ethanol, and the findings, published in Climatic Change, were controversial. They rejected years of work by other scientists who have relied on a more traditional approach to judging climate impacts from bioenergy - an approach called life-cycle analysis.

Following the hottest month on record globally, and with temperatures nearly 2°F warmer and tides more half a foot higher than they were in the 1800s, the implications of biofuels causing more harm to the climate than good would be sweeping.

The research was financially supported by the American Petroleum Institute, which represents fossil fuel industry companies and has sued the federal government over its biofuel rules.

"I'm bluntly telling the life-cycle analysis community, 'Your method is inappropriate,'" said professor John DeCicco, who led the work. "I evaluated to what extent have we increased the rate at which the carbon dioxide is being removed from the atmosphere?"

Lifecycle analyses assume that all carbon pollution from biofuels is eventually absorbed by growing crops. DeCicco's analysis found that energy crops were responsible for additional plant growth that absorbed just 37 percent of biofuel pollution from 2005 to 2013, leaving most of it in the atmosphere, where it traps heat.

"The question, 'How does the overall greenhouse gas emission impact of corn ethanol compare to that of gasoline?' does not have a scientific answer," DeCicco said. "What I can say definitively is that, whatever the magnitude of the emissions impact is, it is unambiguously worse than petroleum gasoline."

The findings were criticized by scientists whose work is directly challenged by them.

Argonne National Laboratory scientist Michael Wang, who has led lifecycle analyses that found climate benefits from different biofuels, called the research "highly questionable" for a range of technical reasons, including its focus on growth by American crops instead of the global network of farms.

Driven by federal and Californian policies that promote biofuels to slow global warming, the use of ethanol, biodiesel and similar products more than trebled nationwide during the years studied, providing 6 percent of Americans' fuel by 2013. Federal data shows gasoline sold in the U.S. last year contained about 10 percent corn ethanol.

Thursday's paper provided fresh fuel for a heated debate among opposing groups of scientists over bioenergy's climate impacts. Some are certain it's a helper in the fight against climate change. Others are convinced it's a threat.

"In the long run, there's no question that biofuels displacing petroleum is a benefit," said Daniel Schrag, a geology professor at Harvard who advises the EPA on bioenergy climate impacts. His views sharply oppose those of DeCicco. "It's just a question of how long you have to wait."

Schrag dismissed Thursday's findings, saying there's no reason to develop a new approach to measuring biofuels' impacts. He said the proposed new approach fails because it doesn't account for the years it can take for bioenergy to benefit the climate.

Analyses by scientists who have studied the life-cycle impacts of growing corn and other crops to produce ethanol have generally concluded biofuels can create between 10 percent to 50 percent less carbon dioxide pollution than gasoline.

Those estimates have been based on the notion that although bioenergy releases an initial blast of carbon dioxide pollution, the benefits of it accrue over time, as crops, trees and grass grow and suck that carbon dioxide back into their roots, flowers and leaves.

Such benefits are more conceptual than scientific, turning scientific debates at the EPA and elsewhere over how to calculate them into seemingly intractable policy quagmires.

"What timescale should we look at?," Schrag said. "Some of the fundamental questions about timescale are not scientific questions. They are societal questions."

The University of Michigan scientists dispensed with the timescale-based approach altogether, eliminating the need for policy decisions about which timeframes should be used. Instead, their research provided an overview of eight years of overall climate impacts of America's multibillion-dollar biofuel sector.

The findings from the new approach were welcomed by Timothy Searchinger, a Princeton researcher who has been a vocal critic of bioenergy. He has been speaking out for years about the shortcomings of traditional approaches used to measure its climate impacts.

Searchinger said the approach developed in Michigan provides an "additional calculation" to help overcome the flawed assumption that climate pollution released when bioenergy burns does not matter.

Although European officials have warned of the limitations of the use of lifecycle analyses in assessing the climate impacts of bioenergy, the EPA has been steadfast for more than five years in its attempts to create a new regulatory framework that would continue to embrace the approach.

"The U.S. is not coming close to offsetting the carbon released by burning biofuels through additional crop growth," Searchinger said.

You May Also Like:
Study Suggests Earlier Onset of Human-Driven Warming
The Future of National Parks is Going to be a Lot Hotter
In Streak of Extreme Storms, What's the Role of Warming?

Original article on Climate Central.

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Are Biofuels Worse than Gasoline for the Climate?

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Most gasoline sold in the U.S. contains some ethanol, and the findings, published in Climatic Change, were controversial. They rejected years of work by other scientists who have relied on a more traditional approach to judging climate impacts from bioenergy - an approach called life-cycle analysis.

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Are Biofuels Worse than Gasoline for the Climate?

Are Biofuels Worse than Gasoline for the Climate?. (2016). Live Science. Retrieved 26 August 2016, from http://www.livescience.com/55888-are-biofuels-worse-than-gasoline-for-climate.html
http://www.livescience.com/55888-are-biofuels-worse-than-gasoline-for-climate.html
There is a serious debate about biofuels and gasoline. As both of these types of gas are extremely harmful and damaging to the enironment and especially the climate. Biofuels are claimed that can cause climate change while gasoline can release huge amount of carbon dioxide which we are trying to eliminated from the atmosphere.

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160824110856.htm
Forest and watercourse interplay important for restorations. (2016).ScienceDaily. Retrieved 26 August 2016, from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160824110856.htm
Renewing some of the forests ecosytem helps but renewing the ecosytems around that area is better.

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Forest and watercourse interplay important for restorations

Forest and watercourse interplay important for restorations. (2016).ScienceDaily. Retrieved 26 August 2016, from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160824110856.htm

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160824110856.htm
Climate change has something to do with the water and the things in the water. When it floods things from land get dragged back into the water.

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Biodiversity in salt marshes builds climate resilience | NSF - National Science Foundation

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NSF's mission is to advance the progress of science, a mission accomplished by funding proposals for research and education made by scientists, engineers, and educators from across the country.

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You may think that cloth masks reduce the amount of harmful things you breath into your lungs, this may not be all true.

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Ribbed mussels give grasses the water that the grass need in order to survive. With the mussels help, the grasses can recover from the drought within a decade.
https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=189416&org=NSF&from=news
Biodiversity in salt marshes builds climate resilience | NSF - National Science Foundation. (2016). Nsf.gov. Retrieved 25 August 2016, from https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=189416&org=NSF&from=news

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Summertime is primetime for national parks. As snow melts, wildflowers bloom and waterfalls roar, generations of visitors have flocked to the natural wonders that dot the American landscape (to say nothing of all the amazing cultural sites the National Park Service protects).

The National Park Service was created a century ago-August 25, 1916 to be exact-to keep an eye on the growing treasure trove of national parks. It's been a good century as more and more land has been set aside and annual visitors now number more than 300 million, but it's also not been without challenges. Chief among them is climate change, which will drastically alter national park landscapes in the coming decades including cranking up the heat.

As part of Climate Central's ongoing States at Risk project, we analyzed just how much hotter parks are projected to get later this century. We looked at the future summer temperatures in all the parks in the Lower 48 states except Dry Tortugas National Park (sorry, Fort Jefferson lovers!) assuming greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trend. To put it in clearer context, we mapped out what places today are most comparable to park's climates of tomorrow.

The results could make you sweat. Parks are projected to have summers that are 8-12°F hotter by 2100. That means currently cool mountainous parks could be as hot as the plains. Parks in the Southeast, already a pretty hot place, will face even more extreme temperatures with a climate more like southern Texas. And otherworldly Joshua Tree National Park in southern California will face the greatest geographical climate shift, with temperatures more like Abu Dhabi by 2100.

We also analyzed how many more days with extreme heat the parks could face. Extreme heat is a hallmark of global warming, and its impact will be most arresting in the national parks where people go, by design, to be outside in the summer. Like the rest of the country, parks are going to be seeing more dangerously hot days above 90°F, 95°F, and 100°F.

By 2100, the glaciers of Montana's Glacier National Park will be long gone and rising temperatures will be one of the big reasons why. Visitors will not only have to contend with an ice-free landscape, but also hotter temperatures. Today the park sees an average of only one 90°F day each year. It could see 27 days with temperatures above 90°F by the end of the century.

Yosemite National Park, high in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, currently sees about two weeks of 90°F weather every year. By 2050, it could see nearly a month of those temperatures, and by 2100 it could get nearly 50 such days each year.

And the Great Smoky Mountains, currently the most-visited National Park, could go from fewer than 10 days above 90°F each year, on average now, to three months with those scorching temperatures.

In numerous other parks, the number of days above 100°F is projected to skyrocket. Big Bend National Park in Texas could see more than 110 days above 100°F each year, on average. And Great Basin National Park in Nevada, which currently doesn't have any days above 100°F in a typical year, could see a month of those temperatures each year by 2100.

It's likely that parks on the more extreme end of the temperature scale will see a drop in summer visitation, but more visitors are likely to show up in fall and spring when it won't be fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk hot. That may stretch park resources thin as most parks are set up to handle summer crowds and quieter shoulder seasons. How parks deal with the change in visitation season is an open question.

And all this is to say nothing about the impacts extreme heat will have on the natural resources around which we created national parks in the first place. Joshua Tree could become too hot for its namesake trees and there's evidence that extreme summer days could create more rockfalls in Yosemite, which could change the face of the stunning valley at the center of the park. Wildfire risk will also skyrocket across the West and could make summer park vacations not only more hot but more smoky.

Those are just the most visible changes. Whole ecosystems are likely to be disrupted and there are consequences scientists probably haven't even uncovered yet (those are the ones that could be the worst since we'll be least prepared).

Despite the daunting situation facing the National Park Service in its second century, there are signs it's up for the challenge. It's already addressing climate change from the coast to the high mountains and has an A-Team team of experts to help parks answer the gnarly questions they face.

There's no denying that national parks will look a lot different by the end of the century, but that won't make them any less a part of the fabric of American identity.
Analysis by James Bronzan and Alyson Kenward, PhD. Methodology: Future temperatures for 47 National Parks were calculated based on the median of 29 spatially downscaled climate models (CMIP5) at 1/8 degree scale, then averaged within park boundaries. National parks in Alaska and Hawaii, along with Dry Tortugas National Park, were excluded because projections at this resolution were unavailable. Temperatures for 2050 are based on the 20-year average of 2041-2060 and for 2100 are based on the period 2080-2099. Projected temperatures assume that greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rate (RCP8.5). The interactive map features the average summer daily high temperature (June-August), while days over 90oF, 95oF, and 100oF were counted annually. The current period values for parks and climate divisions are based on the 1991-2010 average calculated using a gridded observational dataset by Ed Maurer of Santa Clara University. This article is reproduced with permission from Climate Central. The article was first published on August 24, 2016.

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The Future of National Parks is Going to be a Lot Hotter

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Summertime is primetime for national parks. As snow melts, wildflowers bloom and waterfalls roar, generations of visitors have flocked to the natural wonders that dot the American landscape (to say nothing of all the amazing cultural sites the National Park Service protects).

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In the national parks the landscape is very nice to look at and admire but the land will change soon.  Many people think that the landscape will change because within the next 100 years the heat is supposed to inscrease drasticly and will change how many people go to the park and what it looks like.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-future-of-national-parks-is-going-to-be-a-lot-hotter/

Period 6 Current Events #3 . (2016).Padlet.com. Retrieved 25 August 2016, from https://padlet.com/molly_maish/byoq12q9

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http://www.livescience.com/55813-migrating-himalayan-gorge.html
In the mountains they have been saying they are getting larger and taller. The shifting of the tectonic plates makes the theory correct.