Warming-Driven Regime Shifts and Rebound Potential in Coral Reefs (29 May 2015)
More evidence that many reef corals are capable of adapting fast enough to survive current rates of global environmental change...
Animals (Earthworms) -- Summary (29 May 2015)
How will earthworms be affected as the air's CO2 content continues to climb? And how will the world's other worms fare?...
Fine Roots of Loblolly Pine Trees Growing in CO2-Enriched Air (28 May 2015)
They play a much bigger role in overall tree growth and development than is suggested by their very small size; and in CO2-enriched air, they do it even better...
Plant Growth Database (28 May 2015)
Our latest result of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific literature is for Perl Millet (Lakshmi et al., 2014)...
Pathogen Pressure on Seagrass: Helped or Hindered by Warming? (27 May 2015)
Chalk another one up for warming being the purveyor of good news for a species of plant faced with the prospect of suffering the ill effects of wasting disease...
Elevated Atmospheric CO2 Enhances the Healthiness of Lake Water (27 May 2015)
Another important "plus" of the historical and still-ongoing-rise in the air's CO2 content for the entire world, which is rarely discussed in the scientific - or popular - literature...
Calcareous Green Algae Tolerating OA Conditions at a CO2 Seep (26 May 2015)
Some macroalgae not only tolerate CO2-induced ocean acidification, they actually thrive in it...
How Well Do AR4 Climate Models Simulate Precipitation in India? (26 May 2015)
Anandhi and Nanjundiah (2015) analyzed the several models' abilities to simulate daily precipitation over India on a 2.5° x 2.5° latitude by longitude basis throughout the 20th century...
A Case of Tropical-to-Temperate Phenological Adaptation in Maize (25 May 2015)
If earth's climate were ever to begin to warm again and continue to a stage where most of its crops were no longer suited to the climates in which they are presently grown, is there anything we could do about it?...
Some Sea Life Does Not Adapt to OA; It Makes OA Adapt to Them (25 May 2015)
Marine plant life has spent many millennia developing means by which it can deal with atmospheric-CO2-induced ocean acidification; and we're beginning to see the benefits of it now...
Cooling Impacts Childhood Respiratory Tract Infections in China (22 May 2015)
Once again, we have another set of data that demonstrates the grater negative health effects of cold spells compared to those of heat waves, with an emphasis on children...
Long-term Mesocosm Study of OA Effects on a Sea Urchin Species (21 May 2015)
Improved procedures in an experimental assessment of the effects of ocean acidification on important sea urchin bodily functions and properties suggest that they may be little affected by even the worst-case scenario of earth's projected end-of-century atmospheric CO2 concentration...
Plant Growth Database (21 May 2015)
Our latest result of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific literature is for Sunflower (Lakshmi et al., 2014)...
An Ectotherm Tolerating More Heat than Once Thought Possible (20 May 2015)
Would you believe approximately 20°C both above and below typical daily maximum and minimum temperatures?...
Impending Desertification Prevented by Termites?? How Is It Done? (20 May 2015)
"Termites and other ecosystem engineers may buffer the effects of anthropogenic global change in some of the world's most environmentally and socioeconomically sensitive regions"...
Tropical Cyclones in High-Resolution Global Climate Models (19 May 2015)
As has been the case in most studies that have compared climate hind-casts with real-world observations, even the most up-to-date and sophisticated climate models have been found to have great difficulty simulating reality; and in the case of tropical cyclones this "standard," as it were, continues to be upheld...
The Ants are Coming! The Ants are Coming!! ... or Are They???? (19 May 2015)
Jumping to conclusions about the effects of climate-model-projected changes in global temperatures between the present and AD 2080 has unfortunately been rather dis-informative, as shown by the first global risk assessment of invasive ants driven by the model projections...
Adapting to Global Warming: How Bird and Reptile Embryos Do It (18 May 2015)
It's never too early to do what it takes to successfully cope with a perceived increase in the temperature of one's immediate environment ... even before birth, or in the case of birds and reptiles, before hatching...
The Progressive Nitrogen Limitation Hypothesis Takes Another Hit (18 May 2015)
The once-famous contention that low concentrations of soil nitrogen will gradually reduce the growth-promoting strength of the aerial fertilization effect of atmospheric CO2 enrichment is once again shown to be false...
Positive Effects of Elevated CO2 on an Important Brazilian Shrub (15 May 2015)
A new study reveals ten amazing ways by which a doubling of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration can enhance the growth and development of a Neotropical plant that is often found in harsh environments, the aerial parts of which plants have significant medicinal value...
Western Spruce Budworm Outbreaks in Central British Columbia (15 May 2015)
New research demonstrates that this current scourge of the Canadian province is not the result of what climate alarmists consider to be concomitant unprecedented global warming, but rather a recurring phenomenon with a mean return interval of approximately 30 years that has been in play for at least the past four and a half centuries...
Climate Model Inadequacies (Soil Moisture) -- Summary (14 May 2015)
Until global climate models better integrate and evaluate the many biological, chemical and physical components of the Earth's climate system, their ability to forecast the future of each such component will ever be suspect, as demonstrated here for the case of soil moisture...
Plant Growth Database (14 May 2015)
Our latest result of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific literature is for Potato (Fleisher et al., 2013)...
Pigeonpeas Grow in Importance as the Air's CO2 Content Rises (13 May 2015)
Another example of the indisputable fact that atmospheric CO2 enrichment tends to bring out the best in the agricultural crops that support and sustain all mankind...
Climate Model Biases in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (13 May 2015)
In many situations it is important to know the nature of the local atmospheric boundary layer; and in many cases the world's most advanced climate models are unable to provide a satisfactory characterization of it...
Leaf Area and Land Cover Output of CMIP5 Earth System Models (12 May 2015)
Twelve Chinese researchers assessed the abilities of a dozen Earth system models from the CMIP5 program "to reproduce satellite-derived vegetation biological variables over the Tibetan Plateau (TP)." And in doing so, they discovered a number of ways in which the models failed to produce that which they had hoped to have them do...
Benthic Primary Production of an Upwelling-Influenced Coral Reef (12 May 2015)
Periodically, the reef's primary producers take a licking, as it were, when temperatures rise to levels that cause resident corals to bleach; but somehow, they make a comeback and keep on ticking...
CMIP5 Decadal Hindcasts of Australian Precipitation Conditions (11 May 2015)
Try as they might, the brilliant minds of the climate modelling community have yet to devise a set of models for predicting precipitation over annual to decadal timescales that are good enough to use for policy development and decision making...
CMIP3 & CMIP5 Climate Models: Still Trying to Get Things Right (11 May 2015)
Even in attempting to simulate the current spatial structure of sea surface temperature variability throughout the Earth's major ocean basins, the most up-to-date state-of-the-art climate models still have some serious problems that need fixing...
Impacts of a Non-Lethal Coral Bleaching on a Coral-Dwelling Fish (8 May 2015)
The researchers of this study observed "no effect on the body condition of D. aruanus" after coral bleaching, and they thus concluded they "would expect other non-corallivorous coral-associated fishes to also be relatively unaffected (e.g., coral gobies, crouchers), particularly species that are more mobile and move between corals (e.g., other damselfish species, hawkfish)"...
How Blue Mussels Are Expanding Their Presence in the High Arctic (7 May 2015)
They appear to be a lot tougher than what many people may have expected...
Plant Growth Database (7 May 2015)
Our latest result of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific literature is for Rice (Singh et al., 2013)...
Dying from Heat and Cold in Australia and the United Kingdom (6 May 2015)
Whereas the total number of deaths currently caused by both cold and hot weather extremes in the UK is approximately 64 per 100,000 people, it is projected to decline to about 51 per 100,000 people in the 2080s. Likewise, whereas the yearly number of current deaths caused by both cold and hot weather extremes in Australia is 35 per 100,000 people, this number is projected to decline to about 27 per 100,000 people in the 2080s...
Extreme Temperature Trends in China's Qiantang River Basin (6 May 2015)
As the trends of the past several decades continue, "the study region is becoming 'less cold', rather than becoming hotter"...
A Chinese Academy of Sciences El Niño-Southern Oscillation Model (5 May 2015)
Although the model does some things right, it fails to adequately complete an even greater number of essential replicative tasks...
Various Means by which Butterflies Can Tolerate Climate Warming (5 May 2015)
Some are known and some are yet-to-be-known; and in the case of butterflies, both categories appear to apply...
Seagrasses Buffering the Negative Effects of OA on Invertebrates (4 May 2015)
An analysis of real-world responses of real-world invertebrates to real-world ocean acidification suggests that most of them will likely do real fine out in the real world of nature...
Algal Symbionts Increase Heat Tolerance of Corals after Bleaching (4 May 2015)
A new study demonstrates that in situations where it might not be expected, reef corals can survive heat-induced bleaching and come back even more prepared to successfully weather subsequent heat stress events...