Global warming

6 articles
  • NOAA February temp anomaly

    Wild-Winter Whodunnit—Climate Change Over the U.S. With a Slow Jet Stream?

    This map produced by NOAA shows the land-surface temperature anomaly: how the temperature deviated from normal, on average, over the month. The darkest red areas were 12 degrees Celsius (22 degrees Fahrenheit) above average, while the darkest blue areas were 12 degrees Celsius below average.NOAA A question hangs like a cloud over the deeply weird […]
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    Searching for Disappearing Species in the US’ Deepest Wilds

    Michael Lucid photographs samples found during the Multispecies Baseline Initiative (MBI).Ben Goldfarb In 2010, Michael Lucid, a biologist with the Idaho Department of Fish & Game, captured a surprise in a beer-baited gastropod trap—a slug that didn’t genetically resemble any of the ones he’d caught before. On a hunch, Lucid sent the mysterious invertebrate to […]
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    Born of Meteor Dust, Unusual Clouds Appear in the Night Sky

    Martin Koitmäe via Flickr If you look to the darkening sky after the end of a long summer day, you might see tendril-like clouds with a blueish tinge that hang at the edge of space. They appear when conditions are right, generally at latitudes close to the North or South Poles, and only when the […]
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    One Weird Trick to Save the World (Using Polar Bears)

    This is exactly the kind of photo you would not see in environmentalist literature.BMJ / Shutterstock When environmentalists petitioned to designate the polar bear a threatened animal under the Endangered Species Act in 2005, they were not, in fact, out to save the polar bear. They were out to save the world. Since the polar […]
  • FSR_062813-titbird

    In Changeable Times, Inventiveness Could Save Your Species

    There’s no doubt that the climate in many parts of the planet is changing quickly. The planet is getting hotter, sea levels are rising, storms are intensifying, many lands are drying up—and there are going to be more changes that will test organisms’ ability to adapt and survive. While many species on the planet are […]
  • Hurricane Sandy damage Belmar NJ

    In Global Warming’s “New Normal,” Florida May Be Uninsurable

    This afternoon, President Obama gave a major speech at Georgetown University laying out his administration’s climate and energy policy. The most notable bit was probably that he’s directing the EPA to take the unprecedented step of creating federal limits on power plants’ emissions of carbon dioxide, the gas that is the main driver of global […]