Slowing climate change requires overcoming inertia in political, technological, and geophysical systems. Of these, only geophysical warming commitment has been quantified. We estimated the commitment to future emissions and warming represented by existing carbon dioxide–emitting devices.
A consortium led by Pennsylvania State University won a federal competition for $129 million over 5 years to spur efforts to develop technologies for making buildings more energy efficient. Building 661 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard will be retrofitted and reopened to help the country wage war against two 21st century opponents: global warming and energy profligacy. It's the centerpiece of an effort to transform the entire Navy Yard complex into a test bed for reducing the carbon footprint of a sector that accounts for roughly 40% of U.S. energy consumption.
The world's most authoritative climate science body has performed well enough so far, says a new independent review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But the report, from a panel convened by a coalition of national science academies, says the increased public scrutiny IPCC is facing and the growing importance of its work mean that it must do better than that.
Each year, ocean sediments produce a quantity of methane equivalent to about half of the methane emitted to the atmosphere from all natural sources (1). Very little of the methane produced below the sea floor, however, reaches the ocean or the atmosphere; most is consumed by anaerobic microorganisms as it diffuses up through oxygen-poor (anoxic) sediments.
Since the collapse of the pelagic fisheries off southwest Africa in the late 1960s, jellyfish biomass has increased and the structure of the Benguelan fish community has shifted, making the bearded goby (Sufflogobius bibarbatus) the new predominant prey species. Despite increased predation pressure and a harsh environment, the gobies are thriving.
