Each year from early May to late June, researchers looked daily for the first signs of growth in plots enclosing individual plant species. "When we started studying this, I never would have imagined we'd be talking about a 26-day per decade rate of advance," said lead author Eric Post, a polar ecologist in the UC Davis Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology who has been studying the Arctic for 27 years. While how early a plant emerges from its winter slumber depends on the species, the study demonstrates that the Arctic landscape is changing rapidly. Caribou come to the study site each year during calving season to take advantage of the nutritious plants needed to recover from winter and provide for their newborns. But as the emergence of plant species in spring has shifted, the caribou internal clock, driven by seasonal changes in day length, has not kept up. "That's one example of the consequences of this for consumer species like caribou, who have a limited window to build up resources before going into the next winter," Post said. "With the most recent study, we're taking a step toward understanding how extensive and cryptic the effects of sea ice loss might be in the Arctic." As a result, fewer calves are born and more die early in years when spring plant growth outpaces the caribou calving season.
This article identified the changes happening in nature and how it could affect our ecosystems. Spring is coming sooner to some plant species in the low Arctic of Greenland, while other species are delaying their emergence amid warming winters. The changes are associated with diminishing sea ice cover, according to a study. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170223134408.htm
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In a new study, recently recovered Russian observations show an increase in sea ice from 1950 to 1975 as large as the subsequent decrease in sea ice observed from 1975 to 2005. This cooling effect may have disguised the influence of global warming on Arctic sea ice and may have resulted in sea ice growth recorded by Russian aerial surveys in the region from 1950 through 1975, according to the new research. The new study helps sort out the swings in Arctic sea ice cover that have been observed over the last 75 years, which is important for a better understanding of sea ice behavior and for predicting its behavior in the future, according to Fyfe. "The cooling impact from increasing aerosols more than masked the warming impact from increasing greenhouse gases," said John Fyfe, a senior scientist at Environment and Climate Change Canada in Victoria and a co-author of the new study accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.The new study's use of both observations and modeling is a good way to attribute the Arctic sea ice growth to sulfate aerosols, said Cecilia Bitz, a sea ice researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle who has also looked into the effects of aerosols on Arctic ice.
The importance of this article shows humans may have been altering Arctic sea ice longer than previously thought, according to researchers studying the effects of air pollution on sea ice growth in the mid-20th Century. The new results challenge the perception that Arctic sea ice extent was unperturbed by human-caused climate change until the 1970s. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170223124327.htm Under other headings, he also promised to defeat the militant group Islamic State "and other radical Islamic terror groups," rebuild the military," lower tax rates "for Americans in every tax bracket," reduce corporate taxes, issue a "moratorium" on new federal regulations, create 25 million new jobs, reduce crime and either withdraw from or renegotiate trade deals "that put the interests of insiders and the Washington elite over the hard-working men and women of this country." Trump said he was "committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies," including former President Obama's Climate Action Plan, which included reducing emissions from coal-fired power plants, and a broad rule protecting what are known as "waters of the United States" that has been heavily criticized by the mining and oil and gas industries. It promises to "use the revenues from energy production to rebuild our roads, schools, bridges and public infrastructure. Less expensive energy will be a big boost to American agriculture, as well."
The site also says the new administration "will embrace the shale oil and gas revolution" and "take advantage of "the estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil and natural gas reserves, especially those on federal lands that the American people own." http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-updates-trump-vows-broad-rollback-of-obama-1484939535-htmlstory.html President Trump told leaders of the country's largest automakers Tuesday that he will curtail "unnecessary" environmental regulations and make it easier to build plants in the United States, changes that he expects will shore up the manufacturing jobs he repeatedly promised to voters on the campaign trail. After weeks of taunting the automotive industry over Twitter, Trump made a point to meet with the chief executives of General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler just days into his term. "We have a very big push on to have auto plants and other plants, many other plants, you're not being singled out to have a lot of plants from a lot of different items built in the United States," Trump told executives Tuesday. Chief executives Mary Barra of General Motors, Mark Fields of Ford and Sergio Marchionne of Fiat Chrysler attended the meeting, along with other top executives from their companies. President Trump told the chief executives that environmental regulations are "out of control" and his administration will focus on "real regulations that mean something" while eliminating those that he finds inhospitable to business. Analysts have speculated that Trump could ease those regulations or others that impact the industry as a reward for companies creating more jobs in the United States. "There is a huge opportunity working together as an industry with government that we can improve the environment, improve safety, and improve jobs creation and the competitiveness of manufacturing," Barra told reports after the meeting. Conversely, Trump has also praised automakers who pledged to invest in the United States and add jobs here often taking credit for those decisions even when companies said they had been in the works for months or years. Trump met Monday with business leaders from a smattering of industries, including Fields and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk. The president reportedly told executives that he intends to eliminate a majority of regulations and "massively" cut corporate taxes, but that in return those companies must keep production domestic and preserve American jobs.
Now with President Trump in office he has made several changes and executive orders. One of them changing the EPA and this could continue to hurt the environment. However, we must wait and see to what may next come from the President Elect. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/11/09/trump-victory-reverses-u-s-energy-and-environmental-priorities/?utm_term=.93b2b087a531 |
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