Global warming - problems and solutions

Plant-eating animals in highly seasonal environments, such as the Arctic, are struggling to locate nutritious food as a result of climate change, according to research that will be published in the 21 May 2008 online edition of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Led by Penn State Associate Professor of Biology Eric Post, the research, which focused on caribou, suggests that not only are these animals arriving at their breeding grounds too late in the season to enjoy the peak availability of food–the focus of previous research by Post–but they also are suffering from a reduced ability to locate the few high-quality plants that remain before these plants, too, become unavailable. Read the rest of this entry »

The sun has powered almost everything on Earth since life began, including its climate. The sun also delivers an annual and seasonal impact, changing the character of each hemisphere as Earth’s orientation shifts through the year. Since the Industrial Revolution, however, new forces have begun to exert significant influence on Earth’s climate. Read the rest of this entry »

Polar bears fighting for survival in the face of a rapid decline of polar ice have made the Arctic a poster child for the negative effects of climate change. But new research shows that species living in the tropics likely face the greatest peril in a warmer world.

A team led by University of Washington scientists has found that while temperature changes will be much more extreme at high latitudes, tropical species have a far greater risk of extinction with warming of just a degree or two. That is because they are used to living within a much smaller temperature range to begin with, and once temperatures get beyond that range many species might not be able to cope. Read the rest of this entry »

Fewer caribou calves are being born and more of them are dying in West Greenland as a result of a warming climate, according to Eric Post, a Penn State associate professor of biology. Post, who believes that caribou may serve as an indicator species for climate changes including global warming, based his conclusions on data showing that the timing of peak food availability no longer corresponds to the timing of caribou births. Read the rest of this entry »

Recent additions to the premier collection of Southern Ocean sediment cores at Florida State University’s Antarctic Marine Geology Research Facility will give international scientists a close-up look at fluctuations that occurred in Antarctica’s ice sheet and marine and terrestrial life as the climate cooled considerably between 20 and 14 million years ago. Read the rest of this entry »