This year’s Arctic Report Card from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration finds that the northernmost part of the Earth is warming faster than the global average, leading to melting glaciers, shifting fish populations, and rivers running orange.
Barbara Moran
WBUR
Posted inNPR
Arctic tundra now emits planet-warming pollution, federal report finds
Arctic tundra is releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as hotter temperatures melt frozen ground and wildfires increase.
Posted inArticle, Environment, South Coast Bureau
Rising seas threaten Mass. South Coast and prosperous fishing port, report finds. Here are 5 takeaways
A new report from an environmental nonprofit finds that Massachusetts’ southern coast will see increased flooding and erosion, as well as more destructive bombardment from storms.
Posted inArticle, Environment
Massachusetts Wants To Turn Cranberry Bogs Into Wetlands. It's Gritty Work
Alex Hackman picks up a shovel and digs in to what used to be a cranberry bog. Down through an inch or two of tough green cranberry vines, down into the sandy soil beneath. Down, down, down. “It’s tough going,” says Hackman, stopping to catch his breath. “This is, you know, a century of effort by […]
Posted inArticle, Environment
How A Tough New England Coral May Help Its Tropical Cousins
Koty Sharp emerges from the ocean off the coast of Fort Wetherill, Rhode Island, and walks onto the rocky beach. She’s wearing scuba gear and carrying a red mesh bag. Sharp is an ecologist at Roger Williams University in nearby Bristol, and the red bag holds a treasure. She opens it for inspection. “This what a coral […]
Posted inArticle, Environment
Researchers Find Another Threat For New England Corals: Plastic
Boston University biologist Randi Rotjan has been studying coral reefs for more than a decade. A couple years ago, she started to notice tiny bits of plastic “in all of our samples from everywhere,” she says. To understand how corals grow, she decided she was going to have to study how plastic gets into their bodies, how […]
Posted inArticle, Environment
Climate Change Is Altering The Color Of The Ocean
Climate change is already having profound effects on our planet, and here’s one more: It’s changing the color of the oceans, with the blues getting bluer and the greens getting greener.
Posted inArticle, Environment, Politics
Federal Shutdown Curtails New England EPA Inspections And Enforcement
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Region 1 office, which covers New England and is headquartered in Boston, is operating with only about 22 employees during the partial federal shutdown, instead of the usual 516.
Posted inArticle, Environment, Health
Study: ‘No Scientific Basis’ For Challenges To EPA Endangerment Finding
There’s more proof that greenhouse gases are dangerous to human health. That’s the conclusion of a study published Thursday in the journal Science, for which researchers reviewed hundreds of scientific papers on climate change published since 2009. The study supports the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” which labeled six greenhouse gases as pollutants that could be regulated under the […]
Posted inArticle, Environment
Climate Change Means Slow-Growing Sugar Maples, Study Finds
Sugar maple trees need snow to grow. A new study from Boston University finds when snow is reduced, the trees grow more slowly and store less carbon in the soil. As climate change reduces the amount of deep snow in New England that spells trouble. About 65 percent of northeastern sugar maples get a deep […]
