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5 December 2019
Can Arctic ‘ice management’ combat climate change?
Both sea ice retreat and global warming could be slowed by millions of wind-powered pumps, drifting in the sea ice, to promote ice formation during the Arctic winter. Researchers have now, for the first time, tested the concept using a complex climate model.
28 August 2019
Upper Nile will experience more water scarcity due to hotter, drier periods
An increase in hotter, drier years in the coming decades due to climate change may worsen water scarcity issues in the Upper Nile Basin. These impacts are likely to cause an increase in agricultural failure in Ethiopia and may potentially lead to civil strife, according to the authors of a new study published in Earth’s Future, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
5 June 2019
One third of the African urban population exposed to extreme heat by 2090
An international team of researchers has combined demographic projections and climate scenarios across Africa for the first time. Rapid urbanization combined with climate change is having a major impact on the living conditions of city-dwellers in Africa, especially in terms of exposure to extreme – or even lethal – temperatures.
7 March 2019
Arctic change has widespread impacts
As the Arctic warms faster than the rest of the globe, permafrost, land ice and sea ice are disappearing at unprecedented rates. And these changes not only affect the infrastructure, economies and cultures of the Arctic, they have significant impacts elsewhere as well.
31 January 2019
Beach building is keeping the Atlantic Coast from going under
The artificial build-up of beaches is buffering the U.S. Atlantic coastline against the effects of sea level rise, but that benefit may not last as sand gets harder to come by in the coming decades.
21 November 2018
Study: Climate change could force outdoor workers to wake up far earlier
A new study published in Earth’s Future, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, indicates that if society tries to avoid the economic impacts of climate change on outdoor labor by shifting working hours, outdoor workers in many regions will need to start working well before dawn at the end of this century to avoid the effect of excessive heat stress.
20 November 2018
Pacific Ocean typhoons could be intensifying more than previously projected
Changes to the uppermost layer of Earth’s oceans due to rising temperatures are likely causing an increase in intense Pacific Ocean typhoons, suggesting strong typhoons may occur more frequently than scientists project in the coming decades, according to new research.
1 October 2018
Half-degree of warming could have big impact on water availability
Approximately 117 million more people could face water shortages if global temperatures increase 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels compared to a 1.5-degree Celsius increase in temperatures, a new study suggests. The world’s water cycle, including evaporation and precipitation, is expected to intensify with global warming, according to the study. This could affect the distribution of freshwater and constrain the global water supply, which poses risks to national food security, economic prosperity and societal well-being.
8 June 2018
New study examines impacts of fracking on water supplies worldwide
By Larry O’Hanlon Using hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and natural gas from shale is a common technique used worldwide. Because the technique requires large amounts of water, however, it raises the question of whether it could lead to water shortages or competition with other water uses, especially agriculture. In a new paper in the AGU journal Earth’s Future, Lorenzo Rosa and his colleagues evaluated the impacts of hydraulic fracturing …
6 April 2018
Early climate action has big effect on rising sea levels
Rising sea levels will accelerate this century and beyond, exposing hundreds of millions of people to flooding and other coastal hazards by the year 2300. But acting early to lower greenhouse gas emissions can slow that rise, say scientists in two new studies in Earth’s Future, an open access journal published by the American Geophysical Union.
GeoSpace is a blog on Earth and space science, managed by AGU’s Public Information staff. The blog features posts by AGU writers and guest contributors on all sorts of relevant science topics, but with a focus on new research and geo and space sciences-related stories that are currently in the news.