Some corals adjusting to rising ocean temperatures

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140424143737.htm

Climate change is having an affect on everything. Steve Palumbi is a scientist at Stanford who led research about corals affected by climate change, actually finding out that some "can quickly switch on or off certain genes in order to survive in warmer-than-average waters". The reason they have to adjust to the new water temperatures is because of climate change. For example, even 86 degree water, while seemingly normal to the human senses, is deadly for coral. So how are they coping with warmer climates every day. So how do they cope? According to Palumbi, "corals, like people, have adaptive genes that can be turned on or off when external conditions change", which is good because corals are essential to fisheries, aquaculture and storm protection, These apparent adaptive qualities found in these corals will help them survive for at least a few more years than they were predicted, according to the harsh effects of climate change.

How costly are natural hazards? Experts link cost assessment with risk management

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140426155351.htm

Risk assessment has always been a fascinating topic to me. Heidi Kreibick is a scientist at the German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ and is leading a group of international scientists in a study looking at how to better assess risk and what it would actually take to educate people more, specifically about the costs of natural hazards, which are now at "historically high levels". One of the major flaws of people's assessments on disaster costs are what are called "indirect damage". Examples of indirect damages would be factories forced to shut down. According to Kreibich, "the cost assessment cycle involved the continuous monitoring of costs associated with the natural risk management, thus enabling the early detection of inefficient risk mitigation strategies". Not only jut everyday people predict risk, but it's more important on the national level where leaders have to make precautionary decisions. In order to do so efficiently, they first must  understand the true risk.

Meeting climate targets may require reducing meat, dairy consumption

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140330193735.htm

Climate change has been a topic discussed over and over again. In the latest study from Chalmers University of Technology, they're exploring a possible cause that has yet to be addressed: dairy and meat consumption, The UN wants to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, but this may not be possible by just eliminating carbon dioxide emissions, because it turns out that's not the only issue. "Because agricultural emissions are difficult and expensive to reduce via changes in production methods or technology, these growing numbers of people, eating more meat and dairy, entail increasing amounts of climate pollution from the food sector". New technology and different food choices may help us see a better, less polluted, future without living in fear of constant climate change.

More male fish 'feminized' by pollution on Basque coast

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140328103039.htm

Scientists have found that some male fish in Spain have in fact become female due to pollution. The scientists were members of the Cell Biology in Environmental Toxicology group and the main areas where it's been proven are Gernika, Arriluze, Santurtzi, Plentzia, Ondarroa, Deba and Pasaia. The researchers have figured out that the pollutants are "acting as estrogens" and are the reason why these males have become females, as in ovocytes (immature ova) have begun appearing in them. Miren P. Cajaraville is the director of the research group and he stresses that "we have a problem with pollutants", which is clear when examining the recent study.

 Looking at the effects of the pollutants from both a chemical and biological perspective, the group ultimately came to the conclusion that "it is the pollutants that are responsible for the feminization of the male fish". Pollution has become more and more serious over the years and this is just another example of the consequences.

Great earthquakes, water under pressure, high risk: Research reveals interactions between plate tectonics, fluids and quakes

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140328075811.htm

Earthquakes have been studied by many scientists, frustrated that they're unpreventable. However, we can learn more about them in order to help cope with the destruction. Scientists from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and from Liverpool University took a closer look at the formation of earthquakes, focusing on the earthquake in Chile in 2010 that had a magnitude of 8.8. They discovered that "water trapped in the boundary between both plates has a dominant influence on the earthquake rupture process", because "the stress build-up before an earthquake and the magnitude of subsequent seismic energy release are substantially controlled by the mechanical coupling between both plates". The scientists explored an array of scientific fields, form geodesy to seismology to petrology to look at earthquakes from all different angles and come up with their theory that it's the water trapped between tectonic plates that causes such severe destruction form earthquakes.

Temperature fluctuations: Atlantic Ocean dances with the sun and volcanoes

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140331114502.htm

Many things in nature effect one another and can even depend upon each other to keep up with the homeostasis of the environment. A study by researchers at Aarhus University proved this theory by concluding that ocean "fluctuations are the result of a complex dance between the forces of nature". The scientists used the image of a couple dancing in a ballroom to prove how solar energy and volcanic activity coincide. The group examined the sun's energy cycle during a time in which the ocean temperature was greatly fluctuating, to find that it was linked to volcanic activity as well. The study was recently published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

I thought this article was particularly interesting because it reminded me how interconnected everything in nature is, and that it really is possible for science to explain almost anything.

Climate engineering: Minor potential, major risk of side-effects?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140225122519.htm

Scientists from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel have been studying the possible "consequences of several climate engineering methods" that were originally aimed to "limit the effects of climate change through the large-scale manipulation of Earth systems". However well intented, the truth is that these plans might be "unable to significantly reduce global warming if CO2 emissions remain high, or they could not be stopped without causing dangerous climate disruption". While global warming is an important issue that must be addressed every day, it's hard to think of a solution as complex as "artificially" trying to slow it down.

Some examples of this climate engineering have been ideas to "fertilize the oceans, so that stimulated plankton can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere" or to "reduce the Sun's incoming radiation with atmospheric aerosols or mirrors in space". While there may be initial benefits, these scientists are proving that the benefits are limited and the consequences could be lethal. For example, "the fertilization of the oceans allowed plankton to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but also changed the size of ocean oxygen minimum zones". Maybe what we need to fix isn't the Earth itself. Maybe we need to simply fix the way we treat it, no climate engineering required.