Environment news

• NASA Data Shows Otis Devoid of Precipitation, Now a Remnant

  19-09-2017 23:48 via feedproxy.google.com
  Former Hurricane Otis was not showing any thunderstorm development or precipitation on satellite imagery on Sept. 19. As a result, the National Hurricane Center declared Otis a remnant low pressure area.
  
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• Fuel from waste and electricity?

  19-09-2017 23:34 via feedproxy.google.com
  Technologies that allow the preservation of scarce fossil resources will pave the way towards resource security. The two main factors that contribute to a sustainable future industry are the source of electric energy and the carbon feedstock. First, the electrical power production based on renewable resources, such as wind and solar energy, is promoted. Second, renewable feedstocks and waste streams are considered as valuable precursors for the production of commodities and fuels. Building a bri
  
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• Putting the power to model pollution into your hands

  19-09-2017 23:28 via feedproxy.google.com
  At Carnegie Mellon, Professor Peter Adams is working to make sure that everyone who is affected by air pollution has the tools they need to understand the quality of their air.  When we talk about studying air pollution, we typically think of official government agencies and university labs, measuring particles and tracking wind speed—and with good reason. Until very recently, modeling the movement of pollution in the air required very complex calculations—models that often took
  
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• End-of-Summer Arctic Sea Ice Extent Is Eighth Lowest on Record

  19-09-2017 23:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  Arctic sea ice appeared to have reached its yearly lowest extent on Sept. 13, NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder have reported. Analysis of satellite data by NSIDC and NASA showed that at 1.79 million square miles (4.64 million square kilometers), this year’s Arctic sea ice minimum extent is the eighth lowest in the consistent long-term satellite record, which began in 1978.
  
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• Gulf Spill Oil Dispersants Associated with Health Symptoms in Cleanup Workers

  19-09-2017 22:36 via feedproxy.google.com
  Workers who were likely exposed to dispersants while cleaning up the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill experienced a range of health symptoms including cough and wheeze, and skin and eye irritation, according to scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study appeared online Sept. 15 in Environmental Health Perspectives and is the first research to examine dispersant-related health symptoms in humans.
  
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• Ships' fumes a trigger for more lightning strikes

  19-09-2017 22:30 via theguardian.com
  Exhaust emissions blamed for changing storm clouds and generating lightning nearly twice as often directly above busy shipping lanes than in ocean areas nearbyThunderstorm aficionados, if you really want to see some action then get yourself aboard a cargo ship. A new study has shown that lightning strikes occur nearly twice as often above busy shipping lanes than in the regions to either side. It turns out the belching fumes from ship exhausts are helping to trigger extra lightning.Related: Ship
  
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• New Method to Estimate Abundance, Detect Trends in North Atlantic Right Whales Confirms Recent Population Decline

  19-09-2017 22:18 via feedproxy.google.com
  NOAA Fisheries researchers and colleagues at the New England Aquarium have developed a new model to improve estimates of abundance and population trends of endangered North Atlantic right whales, which have declined in numbers and productivity in recent years.  The findings were published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.
  
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• Rebuilding from 2011 Earthquake, Japanese Towns Choose to Go Off the Grid

  19-09-2017 22:12 via feedproxy.google.com
  Many of the cities in northern Japan damaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami are building back their electric grids with renewable energy and micro-grids — bucking the nation’s old, centralized utility system by making communities in the region self-sufficient in generating electricity, Reuters reported.
  
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• UK oil and gas reserves may last only a decade

  19-09-2017 21:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  The Scottish and UK oil industries are entering their final decade of production, research suggests.A study of output from offshore fields estimates that close to 10 per cent of the UK’s original recoverable oil and gas remains – about 11 per cent of oil and nine per cent of gas resources.The analysis also finds that fracking will be barely economically feasible in the UK, especially in Scotland, because of a lack of sites with suitable geology.
  
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• NASA Sees Tropical Depression Norma's Small Area of Strength

  19-09-2017 21:42 via feedproxy.google.com
  Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite has revealed that the area of strongest storms within now Tropical Depression Norma has diminished. 
  
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• NASA Looks Within Category 5 Hurricane Maria Before and After First Landfall

  19-09-2017 21:38 via feedproxy.google.com
  Satellite data is enabling forecasters to look inside and outside of powerful Hurricane Maria. A NASA animation of satellite imagery shows Hurricane Maria's first landfall on the island of Dominica. NASA's GPM satellite provided a 3-D look at the storms within that gave forecasters a clue to Maria strengthening into a Category 5 storm, and NASA's Aqua satellite gathered temperature data on the frigid cloud tops of the storm.
  
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• Who’s the world’s leading eco-vandal? It’s Angela Merkel | George Monbiot

  19-09-2017 21:12 via theguardian.com
  Ignore her reputation for supporting green initiatives. The German chancellor’s record on environmental policy has been a disasterWhich living person has done most to destroy the natural world and the future wellbeing of humanity? Donald Trump will soon be the correct answer, when the full force of his havoc has been felt. But for now I would place another name in the frame: Angela Merkel. Related: Germany won’t lead the free world. It barely looks beyond its own borders |
  
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• Bill Shorten demands gas market transparency to tackle 'energy crisis'

  19-09-2017 20:01 via theguardian.com
  Labor leader says Aemo should be given ‘teeth’ to give Australian manufacturers a head start in gas contract negotiationsLabor will step up pressure on the Turnbull government to increase transparency in the gas market to help manufacturers facing rising prices and tight supply, ahead of a public intervention by Australia’s competition watchdog on energy.With the chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Rod Sims, due to address the National Press Club on
  
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• We must act now to counter ash dieback | Letters

  19-09-2017 19:45 via theguardian.com
  There’s plenty the public can do to help conservation, writes Austin Brady of the Woodland TrustIt’s not just in North America where ash trees face extinction (Report, 15 September). It’s now five years since ash dieback was first confirmed in the UK. The disease has now been recorded at more than 1,300 locations and is expected to kill many thousands of trees. The spread of emerald ash borer is already a growing concern in Europe. But positive steps are being taken. Planting m
  
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• Satellites that Measure Ice Loss to Go Dark

  19-09-2017 18:46 via feedproxy.google.com
  The twin satellites that have been critical in measuring the world’s melting ice sheets for 15 years will soon shut down — months before their replacement is launched into orbit, NASA announced, creating a gap in the ice data record that has been instrumental in studying the impacts of global warming.
  
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• Black Sea Water Temperatures May Buck Global Trend

  19-09-2017 18:11 via feedproxy.google.com
  Average surface temperatures of the Black Sea may not have risen, according to the surprising results of a new study from the JRC.
  
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• Heather Kulik: Innovative modeling for chemical discovery

  19-09-2017 18:05 via feedproxy.google.com
  Without setting foot from her office, Heather Kulik, the Joseph R. Mares '24 Career Development Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, is charting unknown worlds. Her discoveries plumb “vast regions of chemical space,” she says, a domain comprised of combinations of chemical elements that do not yet exist. “Best estimates indicate that we have likely made or studied only about 1 part in 10 to the 50th of that chemical space,” she says.
  
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• Duncan Huggett obituary

  19-09-2017 17:48 via theguardian.com
  My friend and colleague Duncan Huggett, who has died aged 52 of a brain tumour, kept his love of the natural world to the fore in his work with the RSPB, the Environment Agency and the Marine Conservation Society.At the Environment Agency he was the man people turned to when flood risk management ran into conflict with conservation, and his work there was fundamental in establishing a solid scientific base for future investments in natural flood management. Continue reading...
  
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• Poorest London children face health risks from toxic air, poverty and obesity

  19-09-2017 17:45 via theguardian.com
  Schools in capital worst affected by air pollution are in most socially deprived areas with high levels of obesity, finds studyTens of thousands of the poorest children in London are facing a cocktail of health risks including air pollution, obesity and poverty that will leave them with lifelong health problems, according to a new report.The study found that schools in the capital worst affected by the UK’s air pollution crisis were also disproportionately poor, with high levels of obesity
  
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• Special Protection for Area Exposed by Larsen C Iceberg

  19-09-2017 17:43 via feedproxy.google.com
  An international agreement is now in place to give special protection to the area of ocean left exposed when one of the largest icebergs ever recorded broke free from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in July this year. The iceberg – known as A68 – is starting to move north, and it will leave behind a 5,818 km2 area of seabed exposed to open marine conditions. Much of this area may have been ice-covered since the last inter-glacial period around 120,000 years ago, providing a unique opport
  
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• Can we turn the Whitechapel fatberg into biodiesel?

  19-09-2017 17:31 via theguardian.com
  The human-waste bomb recently found clogging up a London sewer has an unlikely admirer – a Scottish renewable energy companyFor a 130-tonne mass of grease, bound as hard as concrete by thousands of tampons, wipes and used tissues, the Whitechapel fatberg is in surprisingly high demand.Last week, the Museum of London announced it wants to display a chunk of the human-waste bomb, recently unearthed in east London, as a way “to raise questions about how we live today”. Now, a Scot
  
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• Hull firefighters return to scene of acid leak at King George dock

  19-09-2017 17:12 via theguardian.com
  Reports of potential leak in second tank as emergency services go back to scene of hydrochloric acid leak in east of cityFirefighters have returned to the scene of a major acid leak in Hull that caused a vapour cloud to form over a dock in the east of the city.Emergency services had initially warned nearby residents to close their doors and windows as a precautionary measure after a tank containing 580 tonnes of hydrochloric acid sprang a leak at the King George dock late on Monday. Continue rea
  
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• Researchers building resilience amid the roiling waters

  19-09-2017 15:21 via feedproxy.google.com
  They produce winds strong enough to swallow whole islands in their maw. They whip up waves that re-shape cityscapes. And they bring rains and floods, devastating and seemingly relentless.The hurricane trifecta of Harvey, Irma and Jose have dominated headlines weeks. Irma alone has set a series of records.
  
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• A murky Mersey morning and a tribute to Kalashnikov: Tuesday's unmissable pictures

  19-09-2017 14:40 via theguardian.com
  A selection of the days best images including Rohingya refugees, a tribute to the designer of the AK-47 and an autumnal sunrise Continue reading...
  
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• Paris climate aim 'still achievable'

  19-09-2017 12:55 via bbc.co.uk
  The ambitious goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C is still within reach, a study indicates.
  
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• The Lobbying Act is stifling charities. But the Tories don’t seem to care | David Brindle

  19-09-2017 12:00 via theguardian.com
  Proposed reforms to the “gagging law” were a chance for the government to offer an olive branch to the third sector. But ministers passed it upWhat does Theresa May’s government think of charities? Beyond the customary warm words, there are growing and worrying signs that it doesn’t take them especially seriously as players in the public space. Related: Charities condemn rejection of changes to Lobbying ActContinue reading...
  
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• Major acid leak creates vapour cloud over Hull

  19-09-2017 10:53 via theguardian.com
  Residents asked to close doors and windows after cloud forms from leak of hydrochloric acid at east Hull dockPeople living in Hull have been asked to close their doors and windows after a major acid leak caused a vapour cloud to form over a dock in the east of the city.Humberside fire and rescue said 50 firefighters were called to a “major acid leak” in a tank containing 580 tonnes of hydrochloric acid at the King George dock, near the river Hull, late on Monday. Continue reading...
  
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• BHP agrees to rethink its links to Minerals Council of Australia

  19-09-2017 08:54 via theguardian.com
  Mining giant will clarify how its position on climate and energy policy differs from the industry bodies to which it belongsThe giant Anglo-Australian miner BHP has agreed to reconsider its membership of the Minerals Council of Australia, as well as other industry groups, and to clarify how BHP’s position on climate and energy policy differs from those bodies.The move comes as BHP faces a shareholder resolution urging the company to terminate membership of bodies that demonstrate a pattern
  
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• Build it and they will come? Why Britain's 1960s cycling revolution flopped

  19-09-2017 08:15 via theguardian.com
  Squint at Stevenage’s extensive 1960s protected cycleway network and you could be in the Netherlands – except for the lack of people on bikes. So why did the New Town’s residents choose the motor car over the bicycle?Stevenage, the first of England’s post-war New Towns, was widely proclaimed in the 1960s as a shining example of how the provision of high-quality, joined-up cycle infrastructure would encourage many people to cycle – not just keen cyclists. The town, 3
  
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• AGL says keeping Liddell power station open beyond 2022 could cost $900m

  19-09-2017 08:05 via theguardian.com
  Coal-fired power station’s general manager says plant should not be extended beyond 2022 and new coal power stations do not make senseKeeping the Liddell coal-fired power station open beyond 2022, as Malcolm Turnbull has urged, could cost more than $900m, AGL says, with representatives of the energy company saying the station should be shut.In a tour for journalists, in which AGL spoke about the problems facing the ageing power station, the company revealed an independent study conducted i
  
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• Spider and bee battle offers a moral dilemma

  19-09-2017 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Claxton, Norfolk Though I admire – and fear – spiders, I love bumblebees. To see this one so enmeshed required an effort of will not to interveneI saw them as I went to the bin. In the web of a female garden cross spider, a worker common carder bee hung upside down. The two were plainly engaged in combat and I crouched to observe the drama more closely.Yet there were more emotions at play in this encounter than mere curiosity. For although I admire spiders, I absolutely love bumblebe
  
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• The Guardian Essential Report, 19 September results

  19-09-2017 04:59 via theguardian.com
  This report summarises the results of a weekly poll conducted by Essential Research with data provided by Your Source. Some questions are repeated regularly (such as political preference and leadership approval), while others are unique to each week and reflect current media and social issues Continue reading...
  
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• Size matters when it comes to extinction risk

  19-09-2017 01:53 via bbc.co.uk
  The biggest and the smallest of the world's fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles are most at risk of dying out.
  
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