Environmental News

"global warming moves to the poles" I am your uninvited editor. During consistent +T since 1970's, high latitudes (and elevations) have always been fastest. But station data are less abundant than we would wish.

Permafrost defrost is activating soil microbes that metabolize methane to CO2. I am not keeping up with new publications on that well. CO2 will 'emit' more there, unless new plant growth there traps C in balance. Work is in work.

Sea-floor methane hydrates are an important concern, but 'instant' is not the adverb I'd choose.

 

US grant approvals and funding for science. Things are changing:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02557-z
The fight over science funding: Congress vs. the OMB - Ars Technica

 

On Feb 6 you asked a similar question in this thread and I responded. Other readers might recall that a bit better.

We could add that research funding in Europe also includes peer review by scientists doing similar research:
Collaboration with Research Funding Organisations - ESF - European Science Foundation.

ESF is a major funder there. I would be completely surprised if any other funders used ideological assessments by appointed government officials in funding decisions.

In summary, US, EU and China base research funding decisions on peer review. US is only recently and uniquely veering away from that.

 

Lead the element is highly toxic to animals. Very surprising that a lizard species has high tolerance:

Lead-resistant lizards in New Orleans could hold clues to combating lead poisoning | EurekAlert!

 

Heatwaves are such a bother:

More than 1,100 deaths linked to Spain's heatwave

Concordance of published evidence shows increases in frequency, duration and severity. No one here has asked to read all that.

Are global weather and climate summaries all 'cooked'? We considered that in the past, but I've not seen much 'just asking questions' recently. In old discussions I offered that individual station records, with chain of custody and all the rest of it, could be purchased for judicial assessment. No one has ever gone that route so maybe I should never repeat it again.

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But here is an interesting thing absent from published research on changing climates. Heatwaves with high humidity trouble humans but those with high humidity trouble plants. Stresses are separate with T not too high; at higher T, effects are not separate.

Your reporter is 'on that' when PriusChat distractions don't. I will summarize things here later.

 

US depends on foreign sources for many minerals, and now exerts various forms of pressure to stabilize or increase those streams. An alternative approach is to extract those minerals from domestic mining waste streams:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adw8997

This is a pay-walled publication and I have previously suggested ways to get around that. Even without such effort, the open supplemental data files are a delight for those interested in vast geochemical data. Spreadsheets!

Overall idea is that with varying levels of effort, varying amounts of minerals can be obtained from these domestic waste streams.

A Tour de force for Colorado School of Mines. And may I add, a great use of NSF research funding.

 

Media reporting on a interesting and useful study:
.
The hidden climate battle between forests and the ocean | ScienceDaily

Is marred by its lurid title. This is not a land/sea 'battle' and it is not 'hidden'. It does rely on modern remote sensing tech. I assure readers Rem Sens is not going away, regardless of particular governments' mercurial policies.

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I have long wondered if general public impression of science is influenced by how it is described in media. Those are not nearly the same thing.