Computing the Climate – How We Know What We Know About Climate Change, Steve M. Easterbrook, University of Toronto “How do we know that climate change is an emergency? How did the scientific community reach this conclusion all but unanimously, and what tools did they use to do it? This book tells the story of… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Environmental Law
Hurricane forecasting, data and visualizations
Tropical Tidbits – “I (Levi Cowan) created Tropical Tidbits in 2012 out of my college dorm room. At the time, it was simply meant to be a place to host my hurricane forecasting blog and video discussions that I had been posting on Wunderground since 2005. I still post these videos during the Atlantic hurricane… Continue Reading
DHS Community Leaders New Resources to Prepare for Extreme Temperature Events
“With roughly 130 million Americans across 22 states under heat alerts, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are releasing new resources to help communities manage extreme heat, which is growing in intensity due to the climate crisis. Heat remains the number one weather-related cause of death in… Continue Reading
America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow
“Overuse is draining and damaging aquifers nationwide, a New York Times data investigation revealed…Global warming has focused concern on land and sky as soaring temperatures intensify hurricanes, droughts and wildfires. But another climate crisis is unfolding, underfoot and out of view. Many of the aquifers that supply 90 percent of the nation’s water systems, and… Continue Reading
Air Quality—A Major Issue of Our Time
Ground Truths – The war on bad air from raging wildfires to respiratory viruses, inside and outside – “I’m Eric Topol and I’m really delighted to have with me in person, Professor Linsey Marr from Virginia Tech. And we’re going to be discussing air quality. and I’m going to go back to a remarkable op-ed… Continue Reading
ChemExpo Knowledgebase: A New Way to Explore Chemical Use Information
“There are tens of thousands of chemicals registered for use in commercial, industrial, and consumer products in the US. Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), EPA is required to assess, manage, and evaluate the safety of existing chemicals, including their exposure potential. A wide variety of exposure-relevant data are necessary to support these chemical… Continue Reading
NASA’s High-Resolution Air Quality Control Instrument Launches
“A NASA instrument to provide unprecedented resolution of monitoring major air pollutants – down to four square miles – lifted off on its way to geostationary orbit at 12:30 a.m. EDT Friday. The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument will improve life on Earth by revolutionizing the way scientists observe air quality from space.… Continue Reading
Sail & Explore Association Partnership Expands Microplastics Database
“The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) archives data collected by a variety of scientists and institutions. The partnership between NCEI and nonprofit organization Sail & Explore Association has improved and expanded the Marine Microplastics database. The goal of this partnership is to not only expand the database, but to establish a diverse international community… Continue Reading
IBM selling The Weather Channel and the rest of its weather business
CNBC: “IBM said Tuesday it’s selling its weather unit, including The Weather Channel mobile app and websites, Weather.com, Weather Underground and Storm Radar. IBM will sell The Weather Company and its assets to Francisco Partners, a tech-focused private equity firm, for an undisclosed sum; as part of the deal, IBM will retain access to the… Continue Reading
How Do We Inventory the Materials Needed To Build Wind and Solar Farms?
New Database Quantifies What the Country Needs To Meet Its Big Clean Energy Goals – Wind and sun may be nearly infinite resources. But the materials needed to build wind turbines and solar panels are not always common. Take the rare earth metals—neodymium, dysprosium, and praseodymium—for example. Chances are those names are just as unfamiliar… Continue Reading
How Geology Shapes History
Library of Congress, By M. Amelia Raines, Reference Librarian, Geography and Map Division: “Many of the most important cities in the eastern United States owe much of their history to a geological phenomenon which began 250 million years ago. The results of the processes which shaped the Earth itself can be seen on modern maps… Continue Reading
Environmental users abandoned Twitter after Musk takeover
Trends in Ecology, Environmental users abandoned Twitter after Musk takeover. Published: August 15, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2023.07.002 – “In our sample of 380,000 environmentally oriented users, nearly 50% became inactive on Twitter after it was sold in October 2022, a rate much higher than a control sample. Given Twitter’s importance for public communication, our finding has… Continue Reading
