Climate Change Articles
Children's IQ Can Be Affected By Mother's Exposure To Urban Air Pollutants, Study Suggests
ScienceDaily (July 20, 2009) - Prenatal exposure to environmental pollutants known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) can adversely affect a child's intelligence quotient or IQ, according to new research by the the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) at the Mailman School of Public Health. PAHs are chemicals released into the air from the burning of coal, diesel, oil and gas, or other organic substances such as tobacco. In urban areas motor vehicles are a major source of PAHs.
The study found that children exposed to high levels of PAHs in New York City had full scale and verbal IQ scores that were 4.31 and 4.67 points lower, respectively than those of less exposed children. High PAH levels were defined as above the median of 2.26 nanograms per cubic meter (ng/m3).
"These findings are of concern because these decreases in IQ could be educationally meaningful in terms of school performance," says Frederica Perera, DrPH, professor of Environmental Health Sciences and director of the CCCEH at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and study lead author. "The good news is that we have seen a decline in air pollution exposure in our cohort since 1998, testifying to the importance of policies to reduce traffic congestion and other sources of fossil fuel combustion byproducts."
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Ozone, Nitrogen Change the Way Rising CO2 Affects Earth's Water
Through a recent modeling experiment, a team of NASA-funded researchers have found that future concentrations of carbon dioxide and ozone in the atmosphere and of nitrogen in the soil are likely to have an important but overlooked effect on the cycling of water from sky to land to waterways.
The researchers concluded that models of climate change may be underestimating how much water is likely to run off the land and back into the sea as atmospheric chemistry changes. Runoff may be as much as 17 percent higher in forests of the eastern United States when models account for changes in soil nitrogen levels and atmospheric ozone exposure.
"Failure to consider the effects of nitrogen limitation and ozone on photosynthesis can lead us to underestimate regional runoff," said Benjamin Felzer, an ecosystem modeler at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. "More runoff could mean more contamination and flooding of our waterways. It could also mean fewer droughts than predicted for some areas and more water available for human consumption and farming. Either way, water resource managers need more accurate runoff estimates to plan better for the changes."
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NOAA Reports Record Ocean Surface Temperatures for June
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has reported findings of preliminary analysis from the agency's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina that shows global ocean surface temperatures for June broke the previous record set in 2005.
The combined average global/land and ocean surface temperature for June was the second warmest on record, 1.12 degrees Fahrenheit (0.62 degrees Celsius) above the 20th century average of 59.9 degrees F.
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Use of Breakthrough Chemical-Free Cleaning Tool Equivalent to Saving 93 Gallons of Gasoline and Two Barrels of Oil
Activeion Pro ROGERS, MN, July 23, 2009 --/WORLD-WIRE/-- According to the results of a new study, the Activeion Pro, a breakthrough, on-demand, hand-held cleaning tool that transforms tap water into a powerful cleaner, delivers significant environmental sustainability benefits. When compared to cleaning with traditional chemical detergents, the Activeion Pro offers a greater than 97 percent benefit across seven key indicators tied to environmental sustainability.
Adding a small charge of electricity to, or "activating," tap water makes it clean better than water in its natural state. When the trigger of the Activeion Pro is pressed, tap water flows through a water cell system that activates the water, transforming it into a powerful, general-purpose cleaner that is ideal for use on glass, stainless steel, carpet and natural stone, without added chemicals or detergents. $299 plus shipping
Click here for a demonstration of how it works.
Texas Struggles With Extreme Drought, Water Scarcity
AUSTIN, Texas, July 17, 2009 (ENS) - Texas is baking in an extensive and prolonged drought, with temperatures soaring above 100 degrees and parched soils across much of the state. In Texas Hill Country, the Guadalupe River is down by 85-90 percent from normal levels overall and is totally dry in some segments.
As a result, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality today reduced the surface water diversion to the city of Kerrville to one million gallons per day from a normal rate of 6.4 million, beginning Saturday.
"Flows on area rivers are dropping quickly due to the exceptional drought," said Al Segovia, the TCEQ's South Texas watermaster said. "These extreme conditions are forcing the TCEQ to cut off or restrict junior rights to surface water diversions in order to supply water for critical functions."
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Future Of Western U.S. Water Supply Threatened By Climate Change
ScienceDaily (July 21, 2009) - As the West warms, a drier Colorado River system could see as much as a one-in-two chance of fully depleting all of its reservoir storage by mid-century assuming current management practices continue on course, according to a new University of Colorado at Boulder study.
The study, in press in the American Geophysical Union journal, Water Resources Research, looked at the effects of a range of reductions in Colorado River stream flow on future reservoir levels and the implications of different management strategies. Roughly 30 million people depend on the Colorado River -- which hosts more than a dozen dams along its 1,450 journey from Colorado's Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California -- for drinking and irrigation water.
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Will Global Warming Melt the Permafrost Supporting the China-Tibet Railway?
Building a railway across the unstable soil of the Tibetan Plateau was an improbable endeavor from the start, but an army of Chinese government engineers did it anyway.
Now, with the frozen soil disturbed by the process of laying down the rail and a warming climate on the plateau, some scientists question whether the $4-billion rail line will survive as is or require major reconstruction.
Three years after the railway opened in 2006, international research shows that the Tibetan territories are among the fastest warming, and fastest melting, on the planet. The research into the fate of glaciers and the permafrost soils-done by the United Nations, China's scientific agencies, and several independent scientists-is not focused on the railway. But the work raises concerns that the warming ground could lead to a buckling of the railway.
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Fish 'shrinking due to global warming'
FISH have lost half their average body mass and smaller species are making up a larger proportion of European fish stocks as a result of global warming, a study has found.
"It's huge," said study author Martin Daufresne of the Cemagref Public Agricultural and Environmental Research Institute in Lyon, France. "Size is a fundamental characteristic that is linked to a number of biological functions, such as fecundity - the capacity to reproduce."
Smaller fish tend to produce fewer eggs. They also provide less sustenance for predators - including humans - which could have significant implications for the food chain and ecosystem.
...They found the individual species lost an average of 50 per cent of their body mass over the past 20 to 30 years while the average size of the overall fishing stock had shrunk by 60 per cent.
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Mountaintop Mining Legacy: Destroying Appalachian Streams [report]
...When mountains are demolished with explosives to harvest their coal seams, the millions of tons of crushed shale, sandstone, and coal detritus have to go somewhere, and the most convenient spots are nearby valleys. Mining operations clear-cut the hillsides and literally "fill" mountain hollows to the brim - and sometimes higher - with rocky debris. At the mouth of the hollow, the outer edge of the fill is typically engineered into a towering wall resembling a dam.
...Of all the environmental problems caused by mountaintop projects - decapitated peaks, deforestation, the significant carbon footprint - scientists have found that valley fills do the most damage because they destroy headwater streams and surrounding forests, which are crucial to the workings of mountain ecosystems.
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First 'climate friendly' labels appear on foods
SWEDEN is to become the first country to slap "climate-friendly" labels on food products. The hope is that the labels will prompt consumers to buy greener products, but there are worries that some companies may use the scheme to "greenwash".
A small milk producer north of Stockholm is expected to be the first company to sport the "climate-certified" tag. One way it cut its use of energy and nutrients was by switching from chemical-based fertilisers to manure.
The scheme is voluntary and firms must prove they have reduced greenhouse gas emissions in order to earn a label. "The only thing we're guaranteeing is that improvements have been made," says Anna Richert, an adviser to the Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF), and head of the team developing the criteria for labelling products. "This could mean reductions in emissions of anything from 5 to 80 per cent."
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Future aquifer water supplies could be in jeopardy
Future water supplies from the High Plains aquifer could be in jeopardy if large amounts of water are pumped out of it and if farmers continue using chemicals on land above the vast underground reservoir, the U.S. Geological Survey said in a report.
While the aquifer's water quality is good, there will have to be "some substantial changes" in how the aquifer is used "if we want to extend the life of it," said Jason Gurdak, lead author of the study.
...The aquifer is the most heavily used groundwater resource in the United States, supplying water to Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming. Most of the water is used for irrigation, but about 2 million people also depend on it for drinking water.
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