Research News

(Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy) Canada's Mackenzie River basin -- among the world's most important major ecosystems -- is poorly studied, inadequately monitored, and at serious risk due to climate change and resource exploitation, a panel of international scientists warn.Largest single threat to the Basin: a potential breach in the tailings ponds at one of the large oil sand

(University of Exeter) When carbon is emitted by human activities into the atmosphere it is generally thought that about half remains in the atmosphere and the remainder is stored in the oceans and on land.

(DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) Berkeley Lab researchers, working at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, have developed the first fully integrated microfluidic test-bed for evaluating and optimizing solar-driven electrochemical energy conversion systems.

(University of California - Berkeley) A new study by the Energy Biosciences Institute at UC Berkeley has good news for the state of California: Biofuel production CAN help the state meet its ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals by 2020.

(Carnegie Institution) Using revolutionary new techniques, a team led by Carnegie's Malcolm Guthrie has made a striking discovery about how ice behaves under pressure, changing ideas that date back almost 50 years. Their findings could alter our understanding of how the water molecule responds to conditions found deep within planets and could have implications for energy science.

(University of California - Irvine) Just as wealthy nations like the United States are outsourcing their dangerous carbon dioxide emissions to China, rich coastal provinces in that country are outsourcing emissions to poorer provinces in the interior, according to UC Irvine climate change researcher Steve Davis and colleagues.

An international team of scientists has developed crop models to better forecast food production to feed a growing population -- projected to reach 9 billion by mid-century -- in the face of climate change.

(Michigan State University) An international team of scientists has developed crop models to better forecast food production to feed a growing population -- projected to reach 9 billion by mid-century -- in the face of climate change.

University and NASA researchers predict that the severity of the 2013 fire season will be considerably higher than in 2011 and 2012 for many Amazon forests in the Southern Hemisphere. The outlook is based on a fire severity model that produced a successful first forecast in 2012.

(Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) £3.27 million has been awarded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, as part of the Research Councils UK Energy programme, to four research projects to study the geological viability and safety of storing CO2 underground in depleted North Sea oil and gas fields or saline aquifers.