http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/geography-blog.html Geography blog from networlddirectory, the place for information. Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:11 GMT en-us http://www.networlddirectory.com/images/blogs/geography-blog.jpg http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/geography-blog.html 105 85 http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/outpace-production.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/outpace-production.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:11 GMT With the caloric needs of the planet expected to soar by 50 percent in the next 40 years, planning and investment in global agriculture will become critically important, according a new report released recently (June 25). The report, produced by Deutsche Bank, one of the world's leading global investment banks, in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, provides a framework for investing in sustainable agriculture against a backdrop of massive population growth and escalating demands for food, fiber and fuel........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/in-a-geologic-instant.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/in-a-geologic-instant.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:11 GMT Modern glaciers, such as those making up the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, are capable of undergoing periods of rapid shrinkage or retreat, as per new findings by paleoclimatologists at the University at Buffalo. The paper, published on June 21 in Nature Geoscience, describes fieldwork demonstrating that a prehistoric glacier in the Canadian Arctic rapidly retreated in just a few hundred years........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/climate-change-is-already-having-.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/climate-change-is-already-having-.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:11 GMT Extreme weather, drought, heavy rainfall and increasing temperatures are a fact of life in a number of parts of the U.S. as a result of human-induced climate change, scientists report today in a new evaluation. These and other changes will continue and likely increase in intensity into the future, the researchers found........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/global-warming-from-carbon-emissions.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/global-warming-from-carbon-emissions.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:11 GMT Damon Matthews, a professor in Concordia University's Department of Geography, Planning and the Environment has found a direct relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming. Matthews, together with colleagues from Victoria and the U.K., used a combination of global climate models and historical climate data to show that there is a simple linear relationship between total cumulative emissions and global temperature change. These findings would be reported in the next edition of Nature, to be released on June 11, 2009........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/maybe-its-raining-less-than-we-thought.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/maybe-its-raining-less-than-we-thought.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:11 GMT It's conventional wisdom in atmospheric science circles: large raindrops fall faster than smaller drops, because they're bigger and heavier. And no raindrop can fall faster than its "terminal speed"its speed when the downward force of gravity is exactly the same as the upward air resistance. Now two physicists from Michigan Technological University and his colleagues at the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico (National University of Mexico) have discovered that it ain't necessarily so........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/glass-bottles-for-an-eco-friendly-spa-table.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/glass-bottles-for-an-eco-friendly-spa-table.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:11 GMT Bring the spa look home with an eco-friendly spin. Crate and Barrel has some nifty Glass Beverage Bottles that are inspired by their plastic counterparts. Available in a small and large size, the clear glass bottles come with silicone ......... ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/population-responses-to-climate-change.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/population-responses-to-climate-change.html Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:58:08 GMT Biologists have for several years modeled how different species are likely to respond to climate change. Most such studies ignore differences between populations within a species and the interactions between species, in the interest of simplicity. An article in the recent issue of BioScience, by Eric Post of Pennsylvania State University and five colleagues, shows how these limitations can be avoided. Their approach, which relies on multi-stage analyses of how populations fluctuate over time, could allow biologists to model responses to climate change with improved accuracy. In particular, the approach could help identify regions where local populations are vulnerable to climate change, and it could elucidate species interactions that may not be obvious........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/who-will-pick-up-the-bill.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/who-will-pick-up-the-bill.html Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:58:08 GMT Ocean acidification, a direct result of increased CO2 emission, is set to change the Earth's marine ecosystems forever and may have a direct impact on our economy, resulting in substantial revenue declines and job losses. Intensive fossil-fuel burning and deforestation over the last two centuries have increased atmospheric CO2 levels by almost 40%, which has in turn fundamentally altered ocean chemistry by acidifying surface waters. Fish levels and other sea organisms such as planktons, crabs, lobsters, shrimp and corals are expected to suffer, which could leave fishing communities at the brink of economic disaster........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/sea-level-rise-may-pose-greatest-threat.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/sea-level-rise-may-pose-greatest-threat.html Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:58:08 GMT The melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet this century may drive more water than previously thought toward the already threatened coastlines of New York, Boston, Halifax and other cities in the northeastern United States and Canada, as per new research. Results of the study are being published this week in Geophysical Research Letters They suggest that moderate to high rates of ice melt from Greenland may shift ocean circulation by about 2100, causing sea levels off the northeast coast of North America to rise by about 30 to 51 centimeters (12 to 20 inches) more than other coastal areas........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/global-warming-could-be-double-previous-estimates.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/global-warming-could-be-double-previous-estimates.html Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:58:08 GMT The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that. The study uses the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, a detailed computer simulation of global economic activity and climate processes that has been developed and refined by the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change since the early part of 1990s. The new research involved 400 runs of the model with each run using slight variations in input parameters, selected so that each run has about an equal probability of being correct based on present observations and knowledge. Other research groups have estimated the probabilities of various outcomes, based on variations in the physical response of the climate system itself. But the MIT model is the only one that interactively includes detailed therapy of possible changes in human activities as well - such as the degree of economic growth, with its associated energy use, in different countries........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/concretes-carbon-footprint.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/concretes-carbon-footprint.html Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:58:08 GMT A number of researchers currently think at least 5 percent of humanity's carbon footprint comes from the concrete industry, both from energy use and the carbon dioxide (CO2) byproduct from the production of cement, one of concrete's principal components. Yet several studies have shown that small quantities of CO2 later reabsorb into concrete, even decades after it is emplaced, when elements of the material combine with CO2 to form calcite........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/biological-particles-in-high-altitude-clouds.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/biological-particles-in-high-altitude-clouds.html Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:58:08 GMT A team of atmospheric chemists has moved closer to what's considered the "holy grail" of climate change science: the first-ever direct detections of biological particles within ice clouds. The team, led by Kimberly Prather and Kerri Pratt of the University of California at San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, sampled water droplet and ice crystal residues at high speeds while flying through clouds in the skies over Wyoming........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/climate-change-and-lake-baikals-unique-biota.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/climate-change-and-lake-baikals-unique-biota.html Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:58:08 GMT Siberia's Lake Baikal, the world's largest and most biologically diverse lake, faces the prospect of severe ecological disruption as a result of climate change, as per an analysis by a joint US-Russian team in the recent issue of BioScience. The lake is considered a treasure trove for biologists and was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO because a high proportion of its rich fauna and flora are found nowhere else. Perhaps the most alarming imminent threat stems from the dependence of the lake's food web on large, endemic diatoms, which are uniquely vulnerable to expected reductions in the length of time the lake is frozen each winter........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/what-caused-earths-earliest-ice-age.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/what-caused-earths-earliest-ice-age.html Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:58:08 GMT An international team of geologists may have uncovered the answer to an age-old question - an ice-age-old question, that is. It appears that Earth's earliest ice age may have been due to the rise of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere, which consumed atmospheric greenhouse gases and chilled the earth. Researchers from the University of Maryland, including post-doctoral fellows Boswell Wing and Sang-Tae Kim, graduate student Margaret Baker, and professors Alan J. Kaufman and James Farquhar, along with colleagues in Gera number of, South Africa, Canada and the United States, uncovered evidence that the oxygenation of Earth's atmosphere - generally known as the Great Oxygenation Event - coincided with the first widespread ice age on the planet........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/natural-petroleum-seeps.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/natural-petroleum-seeps.html Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:58:08 GMT A newly released study by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) is the first to quantify the amount of oil residue in seafloor sediments that result from natural petroleum seeps off Santa Barbara, California. The newly released study shows the oil content of sediments is highest closest to the seeps and tails off with distance, creating an oil fallout shadow. It estimates the amount of oil in the sediments down current from the seeps to be the equivalent of approximately 8-80 Exxon Valdez oil spills........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/global-warming-driving-michigan-mammals-north.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/global-warming-driving-michigan-mammals-north.html Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:58:08 GMT Some Michigan mammal species are rapidly expanding their ranges northward, apparently in response to climate change, a new study shows. In the process, these historically southern species are replacing their northern counterparts. The finding, by researchers at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Ohio's Miami University, appears in the recent issue of the journal Global Change Biology........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/green-renovations-in-existing-us-schools.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/green-renovations-in-existing-us-schools.html Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:58:08 GMT Going green with new construction is a good idea, but what about renovating existing structures? Like, say, the 20 billion square feet of existing U.S. public schools, 40 percent of which have 15 million students in poor environmental conditions? These are questions at the heart of research by Ihab M.K. Elzeyadi, a professor of architecture at the University of Oregon. Elzeyadi has completed the first stage of creating a Green Classroom Toolbox for architects and planners to use in their energy retrofits and modernization plans. His second of three presentations in a three-month period will be May 13 during Solar 2009, the 38th national meeting of the American Solar Energy Society, in Buffalo, N.Y........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/west-coast-areas-most-affected-by-humans.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/west-coast-areas-most-affected-by-humans.html Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:58:08 GMT Climate change, fishing, and commercial shipping top the list of threats to the ocean off the West Coast of the United States. "Every single spot of the ocean along the West Coast," said Ben Halpern, a marine ecologist at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, "is affected by 10 to 15 different human activities annually"........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/cutting-cattle-methane.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/cutting-cattle-methane.html Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:58:08 GMT Beef farmers can breathe easier thanks to University of Alberta scientists who have developed a formula to reduce methane gas in cattle. By developing equations that balance starch, sugar, cellulose, ash, fat and other elements of feed, a Canada-wide team of researchers has given beef producers the tools to lessen the methane gas their cattle produce by as much as 25 per cent........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/glacial-advances.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/glacial-advances.html Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:58:08 GMT The vast majority of the world's glaciers are retreating as the planet gets warmer. But a few, including glaciers south of the equator in South America and New Zealand, are inching forward. A paper in this week's issue of the journal Science puts this enigma in perspective; for the last 7,000 years, New Zealand's largest glaciers have often moved out of step with glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere, pointing to strong regional variations in climate........ ]]>