Scientific American

Will Great Wines Prove a Moveable Feast under Global Warming?

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:00:00 EST

MONTPELLIER, France -- South Africa, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand export their wines all over the world, a feat that was unthinkable here a few decades ago. Fatalists claim it won't be long until there will be more produced in China than in Europe. To some observers, these prognostications illustrate the wide-ranging adaptive capacity of the wine grape, Vitis vinifera.

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Why Twisters Hammer Tornado Alley

Wed, 22 May 2013 17:01:00 EST

The tornado that devastated Moore , Okla. has now officially been placed into the highest category--a five on the so-called "Enhanced Fujita" scale, meaning winds in excess of 320 kilometers-per-hour. Scientific American corresponded with meteorologist Harold Brooks, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration's National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla.

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What Role Does Climate Change Play in Tornadoes?

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:31:00 EST

A powerful tornado as much as three-kilometers wide devastated the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore on May 20. The twister reportedly boasted winds above 300 kilometers-per-hour as it tore through homes and schools, leaving a path of large-scale destruction and killing dozens of people, including many children.

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Search for Survivors Races On as Dozens Feared Dead in Tornado-Hit Oklahoma

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:15:00 EST

Pre-dawn emergency workers searched feverishly for survivors in the rubble of homes, primary schools and an hospital in an Oklahoma City suburb ravaged by a massive Monday afternoon tornado feared to have killed up to 91 people and injured well over 200 residents.

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Drought Gobbles Up Texas Turkey Hunt

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:50:00 EST

Turkey hunting in Texas dried up along with the state's water due to the epic drought of 2011. And while the drought has relented, turkey season hasn't been the same.

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Heat Deaths in New York City Predicted to Rise

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:30:00 EST

Residents of Manhattan will not just sweat harder from rising temperatures in the future, says a new study; many may die.

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Who's Paying the Price for Global Warming?

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:08 EST

Climate change is already melting the Arctic, queering weather and threatening food supplies. So who's paying the price for all these global warming impacts?

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Why Manhattan's Green Roofs Don't Work--and How to Fix Them

Fri, 17 May 2013 07:00:00 EST

On a rooftop in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood, two students are collecting soil samples from boxes planted with species from two native plant communities: Hempstead Plains, which are grasses belonging to a prairie community originally found on Long Island, and Rocky Summit grasslands,which grow on the tops of mountains and ridges throughout southern New England and all of New York State. They carefully place the dirt from the soil core into a plastic bag and seal it up to be taken to the lab for analysis.

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Fracking Can Be Done Safely, but Will It Be?

Fri, 17 May 2013 06:00:00 EST

Out of sight (and smell), natural gas slowly bubbled up into Norma Fiorentino’s private water well near the town of Dimock in northeastern Pennsylvania--in the heart of the new fracking boom in the U.S. Then, on New Year's Day 2009, when a mechanical pump flicked on and provided the spark, Fiorentino's backyard exploded. She and many others blame the blast on fracking --the colloquial name for the natural gas drilling process that combines horizontal drilling and the fracturing of shale deep underground with high-pressure water to create a path for gas to flow back up the well. [More]

400 PPM: Can Artificial Trees Help Pull CO2 from the Air?

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:01:00 EST

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have touched 400 parts per million for the first time in at least 800,000 years. The jagged saw-toothed line of the Keelings' father-and-son measurements climbed above that milestone briefly this month before the budding growth of the Northern Hemisphere's spring began sucking CO2 back out of the sky. But human greenhouse gas pollution looks set to continue to rise--and photosynthetic plants on land or at sea can only do so much. As greenhouse gas levels increase further, could machines help wash the skies of the excess CO2? [More]

Amazon Be Dammed: Deforestation Undermines Future Viability of Brazil s Hydropower Projects

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:30:00 EST

The Amazon Basin is the epicenter of the world’s hydropower plants--the same gushing rains that give the region its lush foliage make it a prime destination for developers seeking to capitalize on this allegedly renewable energy source. But the long-term sustainability of these projects, which use the natural flow of water to generate electricity, is now under scrutiny.

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Snowpack, Ice Cover Shrinking on Rocky Mountains

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:30:00 EST

LONDON Around 20 percent of the snow cover in North America's greatest mountain range has been lost because of warmer springs in the last three decades.

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Climate Change Has Shifted the Locations of Earth's North and South Poles

Tue, 14 May 2013 18:15:00 EST

From Nature magazine

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Moon Base Work Yields Clean Steel Process

Mon, 13 May 2013 10:00:08 EST

Flaming cauldrons of molten metal have long been the primary venues for steel production . But blast furnaces require a lot of coal, which means greenhouse gas pollution. In fact, worldwide, steelmaking is responsible for 5 percent of annual emissions.

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West Africa Struggles to Fill a Climate Knowledge Gap

Mon, 13 May 2013 07:00:00 EST

DAKAR, Senegal – Just two seasons exist here: the rainy and the dry. At the best of times, the temperamental rains come for three or four months and turn dusty plains into green pastures, forests and fields.

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Ice Cores Reveal Green Arctic

Fri, 10 May 2013 19:14:08 EST

The Arctic wasn't always covered in ice. Samples of sediment layers beneath a frozen lake show this region used to be a lot warmer--and may thaw out again in the future. The work is in the journal Science . [Julie Brigham-Grette et al., Pliocene Warmth, Polar Amplification, and Stepped Pleistocene Cooling Recorded in NE Arctic Russia ]

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Produce Industry s Food Safety Push Takes Toll on the Environment

Fri, 10 May 2013 17:41:00 EST

Clean greens are healthy greens.

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Cutting Down Amazon for Agriculture Could Cut Yields

Fri, 10 May 2013 16:00:00 EST

LONDON – Researchers see no winners if agriculture made possible by widespread felling in the Amazon continues to expand.

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Valley Fever Throws Baseball a Curve

Thu, 09 May 2013 11:30:00 EST

Conor Jackson had a big bat and a bright future. But after he contracted a rare illness in 2009 while playing with the Arizona Diamondbacks he was never quite the same.

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Remember the BP Oil Spill? Malformed Fish Do

Sun, 05 May 2013 09:00:08 EST

You’ve heard of the canary in the coalmine. Well, a species called the Gulf killifish might be the fish in the oil well.

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