Enviro

The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service releases its annual findings which show that globally 2021 was among the seven warmest on record. Europe experienced a summer of extremes with severe heatwaves in the Mediterranean and floods in central Europe. Meanwhile, global concentrations of carbon dioxide and – very substantially – methane continued to increase. […]

Prague – In the past five years, the number of butterflies in the large herbivore reserve in the former military training area of Milovice near Prague has grown significantly. While carrying out regular monitoring, scientists have found out that the number of butterflies has increased from 4,592 in 2016 to 12,506 in 2021. That means […]

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) today published the newest editions of its lists of the top corporate air and water polluters and top greenhouse gas emitters in the United States, based on the most recent data available from the Environmental Protection Agency. The Toxic 100 Air and Toxic 100 Water […]

In an oceanic omen for climate change’s intensifying effects, new research shows that seagrass suffers from a lesion-filled wasting disease through large swaths of intertidal meadows in the Pacific Northwest. The grasses’ once-vibrant plant root systems are deteriorating, too. The research was published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. “Not only are we seeing more seagrass wasting […]

WASHINGTON, December 9, 2021— Entanglement in fishing gear has become a leading threat to endangered whales and sea turtles on all U.S. coastlines. So the Center for Biological Diversity formally petitioned the National Marine Fisheries Service today to require crab, lobster and other trap fisheries to convert to new ropeless or “pop-up” gear within the next five […]

A previously unknown source of the strong greenhouse gas nitrous oxide has been found in East Siberian Yedoma permafrost. Published in Nature Communications today, the observation was made by an international group of researchers, with the lead of researchers from the University of Eastern Finland. Nitrous oxide (N2O) is the third-most important greenhouse gas after […]

BOISE, Idaho, December 6, 2021 — Ten conservation groups filed a lawsuit today challenging Idaho’s extreme wolf-trapping rules, which facilitate the slaughter of up to 90% of Idaho’s gray wolf population. The lawsuit contends that continued and expanded wolf trapping and snaring will injure and kill non-target grizzly bears and Canada lynx, which are federally protected species. The […]

Washington, DC, November 30, 2021—By today’s deadline, seafood-exporting nations worldwide must have adopted regulations to reduce entanglements of whales, dolphins, and seals in fishing gear or face a US import ban. Under a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) rule published in 2016, foreign fishing operations must meet the same marine mammal protection standards applied to US fisheries […]

Sea-level rise is one of the most immediate consequences of climate change, as highlighted recently through urgent pleas from leaders of island nations at the COP26 summit. Global measures of sea-level rise are imperative to underpinning global policy and for strategies to protect coastlines and low-lying lands. Measuring tiny differences in the height of the […]

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), the only ocean current that circumnavigates the planet, is speeding up. For the first time, scientists are able to tell that this is happening by taking advantage of a decades-long set of observational records.  Researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Chinese […]

LIBREVILLE, Gabon (November 18, 2021) – The most comprehensive survey conducted of elephant numbers in the Central African nation of Gabon since the late 1980s has found elephants occurring in higher numbers than previously thought. The study, which was conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Gabon’s National Park Agency (ANPN) and Vulcan using a new non-invasive survey […]

WASHINGTON, November 15, 2021 – The Environmental Protection Agency has determined that the endocrine-disrupting pesticide atrazine and cancer-linked pesticide glyphosate are each likely to harm more than 1,000 of the nation’s most endangered plants and animals. The finalized evaluations found that use of the herbicide glyphosate is likely causing harm to 1,676 of the plants and animals protected under […]

November 15, 2021 – An international team of scientists from the USA, France, Australia, and Germany, including Senckenberg researcher Uwe Fritz, just published the ninth edition of the atlas “Turtles of the World.” The publication includes not only detailed descriptions of all 357 turtle species, but also information on the at-risk status of all species […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. November 9, 2021 – With the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, soon to be signed into law by President Biden, national forest roads and trails will finally get much needed attention. The legislation permanently authorizes the Forest Service Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Program and provides vital funding. Recognizing […]

November 8, 2021 – The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the European Commission with funding from the EU, routinely publishes monthly climate bulletins reporting on the changes observed in global surface air temperature, sea ice cover and hydrological variables. All the reported findings […]

November 4, 2021 – Glaciers across the globe have lost over nine trillion tonnes of ice in half a century. How will glaciers look over the coming decades? “It all depends on what humans are doing now in terms of greenhouse gas emissions:” this is the message one scientist delivered during an ESA-led expedition to […]

November 3, 2021 – Industrial emissions of carbon dioxide have returned close to pre-pandemic levels, according to new research published Nov. 4. Surging consumption of coal and natural gas for power plants and industry is driving the rebound – especially in China – even as transportation emissions remain down and renewable energy use ramps up. […]

RENO, Nevada November 2, 2021 – While forests of pine and fir trees get a lot of attention, the more ubiquitous and colorful quaking aspen is a keystone species that is experiencing substantial increases in mortality and decreases in growth over the past three decades across most parts of its geographic range in North America, […]

A new book by Michael Moore, veterinarian, and marine scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), examines the plight and future of the North Atlantic right whale, one of the most critically endangered species on the planet, and draws on Moore’s 40 years of fieldwork to offer possible solutions. We Are All Whalers: The Plight of […]

Researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and the University of California, Irvine, have discovered an ice process that may have caused a Delaware-size iceberg to break off Antarctica’s immense Larsen C ice shelf in the Southern Hemisphere winter of 2017. The finding that mélange – a mixture of windblown snow, iceberg bits, […]