Global Warming Issues

The sea lamprey can’t go home again, and researchers think they know why.

Sea lampreys are anadromous, meaning they live in the open ocean for years and then migrate up a river to reproduce. Other anadromous fish, including many salmon species, return to their birth river for spawning. But a growing body of work suggests that sea lampreys don’t have this homing ability.

The latest evidence comes from John Waldman, a biologist at Queens College, and colleagues and is published in Biology Letters. They performed genetic analysis of sea lamprey samples from rivers up and down the East Coast.

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Calls to Extension offices from people looking for manure and manure compost have increased in recent months,” says Tommy Bass, Montana State University Extension livestock environment associate specialist.

Bass said that this shift in perception is good for water quality, too.

“As manure gains value, it is likely to be used more efficiently and effectively. There’s a potential for increased revenue for animal feeding operations,” he said.

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These massive swirling structures – the largest are known as gyres - can be thousands of kilometres across and can extend down as deep as 500 metres or more, a research team led by a UNSW mathematician, Dr Gary Froyland, has shown in the latest study published in Physical Review Letters.

“The water in the gyres does not mix well with the rest of the ocean, so for long periods these gyres can trap pollutants, nutrients, drifting plants and animals, and become physical barriers that divert even major ocean currents,” Dr Froyland says.

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The MILAGRO Campaign (Megacity Initiative: Local and Global Research Observations) monitored air quality in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area throughout the month of March, 2006. Headed by the Molina Center for Energy and the Environment in La Jolla, California, MILAGRO – the acronym means “miracle” in Spanish – is an international scientific collaboration supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, NASA, and other agencies in the U.S., Mexico, and Europe. Five DOE labs contributed to the study, including Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

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The Giant Mine in Canada is in the sub-arctic. It contains over 230,000 tonnes of arsenic-containing dust, making it one of the most polluted places on Earth as well as one of the most inhospitable.

“Water seeps through the mine cracks carrying the arsenic with it as it drips down the walls,” said Thomas Osborne from University College London, UK. “We discovered new types of bacteria living in biofilms on the walls of Giant Mine that consume arsenic compounds contained in the polluted water seeping through.”

Arsenic is toxic to all living cells, and in people causes fatal cancers of the lung, liver, kidney and bladder. It also causes cirrhosis and gangrene, and on a wider scale seriously damages wildlife in fragile environments. Arsenic contamination is a global problem, with some countries including Vietnam, West Bengal, Mexico, Canada, Argentina, Bangladesh and USA all severely affected.

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With the California blackouts of 2001 still a painful memory, Chris Beaudoin wants to generate some of his own electricity. He marveled the other day at how close he is to that goal, gazing at two new wind turbines atop his garage roof. They will soon be hooked to the power grid.

“I don’t care about how much it costs,” said Mr. Beaudoin, a flight attendant with United Airlines. That would be $5,000 a turbine, an expense Mr. Beaudoin is unlikely to recoup in electricity savings anytime soon.

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Announcing what it called new “surf and turf” standards, the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday set stricter antipollution rules for engines that run pleasure boats, lawn mowers and weed trimmers.

The agency said the rules would take effect in 2011 for lawn and garden equipment of 25 horsepower or less, and in 2010 for a wide range of inboard and outboard boat engines. Meeting the requirements will probably mean that catalytic converters, standard in modern cars, will become commonplace in lawn-equipment and boat engines.

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Leading ice specialists in Europe and the United States for the first time have agreed that a ring of navigable waters has opened all around the fringes of the cap of sea ice drifting on the warming Arctic Ocean.

By many expert accounts, this is the first time the Northwest Passage over North America and the Northern Sea Route over Europe and Asia have been open simultaneously in at least half a century, if not longer.

While currents and winds play a role, experts say, the expanding open water in the far north provides the latest evidence that the Arctic Ocean, long a frozen region hostile to all but nuclear submariners and seal hunters, is transforming during the summers into more of an open ocean.

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The increase in atmospheric concentrations of man-made aerosols—tiny particles suspended in the air—from such sources as transportation, industry, agriculture, and urban land use not only poses serious problems to human health, but also has an effect on weather and climate.

Recent studies suggest that increased aerosol loading may have changed the energy balance in the atmosphere and at the Earth’s surface, and altered the global water cycle in ways that make the climate system more prone to precipitation extremes.

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The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has issued a code orange air-quality advisory for today from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. in the Richmond area.

Code orange means air pollution may become unhealthy for certain sensitive groups, including children, the elderly and people suffering from asthma, heart diseases or lung diseases. Those groups can minimize the effects of air pollution by avoiding strenuous activities or outdoor exercise.

The National Weather Service is calling for sunny skies and a high of about 92 degrees in the Richmond area today.