Research News

New research maps how Earth's myriad climates -- and the ecosystems that depend on them -- could move from one area to another as global temperatures rise. The approach foresees big changes for one of the planet's great carbon sponges. Boreal forests will likely shift north at a steady clip this century.

Scientists have shown that natural emissions and humanmade pollutants can both have an unexpected cooling effect on Earth's climate by making clouds brighter.

New research has mapped the most detailed forecast to date for importing potentially harmful invasive species with the ballast water of cargo ships.

(University of Hawaii ‑ SOEST) Hawaii, fortunately, has been largely free from hurricanes, only two having made landfall in more than 30 years. Now a study headed by a team of scientists at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, shows that Hawaii could see a two-to-three-fold increase in tropical cyclones by the last quarter of this century.

(DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) New Berkeley Lab research maps how Earth's myriad climates -- and the ecosystems that depend on them -- could move from one area to another as global temperatures rise. The approach foresees big changes for one of the planet's great carbon sponges. Boreal forests will likely shift north at a steady clip this century.

Will we soon be forced to eat jellyfish? Since the beginning of the 2000s, these gelatinous creatures have invaded many of the world's seas, like the Japan Sea, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, etc. Is it a cyclic phenomenon, caused by changes in marine currents or even global warming? Until now, the causes remained unknown. A new study exposes overfishing as the main factor.

(Concordia University) In a climate as prone to extremes as Canada's, buildings are often inefficient to heat, light and cool. Fortunately, innovative solutions are being explored through the NSERC Smart Net-zero Energy Buildings Strategic Network, a nationwide university initiative headquartered at Concordia, which has just received $1 million in new funding from Natural Resources Canada.

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) A NASA-led modeling study provides new evidence that global warming may increase the risk for extreme rainfall and drought.

Scientists have found unsuspected linkages between the oxidation state of iron in volcanic rocks and variations in the chemistry of the deep Earth. Not only do the trends run counter to predictions from recent decades of study, they belie a role for carbon circulating in the deep Earth.

(Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis School of Science) Gabriel Filippelli, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, has been named a Jefferson Science Fellow, a prominent advisory position with the US Department of State in which he will serve as a senior scientist on international matters related to the climat