For the first time, NASA data about nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a harmful air pollutant, is available in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) widely used Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool (EJScreen). This update marks a crucial step in addressing air quality disparities in overburdened communities across the United States.
read more
For the first time, a new study shows that the center – not just the edges – of Greenland’s ice sheet melted away in the recent geological past. The results, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicate that the ice-covered island was once home to a green, tundra landscape and that the giant ice sheet is more fragile than originally thought.
read more
UMass Amherst survey aims to help food industry understand consumers’ perceptions of sustainability in packaging and educate them to make more Earth-friendly choices
read more
The atmosphere, the ocean and life on Earth interacted over the past 500-plus million years in ways that improved conditions for early organisms to thrive. Now, an interdisciplinary team of scientists has produced a perspective article of this co-evolutionary history published in multidisciplinary open-access journal National Science Review
read more
A new tool that can be used to predict the emergence of unusually large and unpredictable waves at sea—known as rogue waves—up to five minutes into the future is presented in a study published in Scientific Reports.
read more
Rechargeable solid-state lithium batteries have the potential to power cell phones and laptops for days with a single charge. However, these batteries are not environmentally friendly as almost everything goes to waste during the current recycling process.
read more
A new study finds that a doubling of the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere could cause an increase in the average temperature of earth from 7 to as much as 14 degrees. These findings, published in Nature Communications, represent a temperature rise that is much larger than previously estimated.
read more
A team of Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists plan to use artificial intelligence modeling to forecast, and better understand, a growing threat to water caused by toxic algal blooms. Fueled by climate change and rising water temperatures, these harmful algal blooms, or HABs, have grown in intensity and frequency. They have now been reported in all 50 U.S. states.
read more
A common type of ocean algae plays a significant role in producing a massively abundant compound that helps cool the Earth’s climate, new research has discovered.
read more
A team of scientists released the first comprehensive list of birds that have not been seen in over a decade. Their methods, along with the list, are described in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
read more
Juvenile male Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins establish strong social bonds to practice the reproductive behaviors they will use as adults. The time spent doing these play behaviors predicts how many offspring males will sire as adults.
read more
A global warming episode millions of years ago triggered the evolution of fast-swimming, open-water sharks from bottom dwellers. These sharks responded to the heat with elongated pectoral fins that allowed them to swim in ocean regions with more oxygen.
read more
Researchers discovered that the fungus Parengyodontium album can break down the plastic polyethylene. P. album can only break down plastic that has first has been exposed to UV radiation, meaning it degrades plastic floating near the surface.
read more
Satellite data provides the first evidence of ocean water intrusion beneath Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier – nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier. This intrusion can lead to faster glacier melting and potentially devastating sea level rise.
read more
Researchers combined citizen science, photographs, and morphological and genetic data to show that the Atlantic cownose ray has recently made a new home in Bermuda. Dramatic oceanography changes in the North Atlantic Ocean likely shifted the rays’ range to Bermuda.
read more