"Abrupt" changes can occur over decades or less, persist for decades more, and cause substantial disruptions to human and natural systems.A new report, based on an assessment of published science literature, makes the following conclusions about the potential for abrupt climate changes from global warming during this century.Climate model simulations and observations suggest that rapid and sustained September arctic sea ice loss is likely in the 21st century.The southwestern United States may... Read Full Story

These findings will be published in the next edition of Nature, to be released on June 11, 2009.Until now, it has been difficult to estimate how much climate will warm in response to a given carbon dioxide emissions scenario because of the complex interactions between human emissions, carbon sinks, atmospheric concentrations and temperature change. Matthews and colleagues show that despite these uncertainties, each emission of carbon dioxide results in the same global temperature increase, re... Read Full Story

As a result, glacier and ice-sheet melting, sea-ice retreat, coastal erosion and sea level rise can be expected to continue.A new comprehensive scientific synthesis of past Arctic climates demonstrates for the first time the pervasive nature of Arctic climate amplification.The U.S. Geological Survey led this new assessment, which is a synthesis of published science literature and authored by a team of climate scientists from academia and government. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program com... Read Full Story

"The implications are that global emissions must peak around 2015 and be cut by roughly half between the peak and the year 2030," Steffen Kallbekken, scientist at CICERO, said.In a new paper in Nature Reports Climate Change Steffen Kallbekken, Nathan Rive, Glen P. Peters and Jan S. Fuglestvedt from CICERO Center for International Climate and Environmental Research -- Oslo, argue for a new type of climate target to be considered:"Focusing climate policy on a long-term target, such as the EU 2-... Read Full Story

"We found that what matters most in accounting for large wildfires in the Western United States is how climate influences the build up—or production—and drying of fuels," said Jeremy Littell, a research scientist with the University of Washington's Climate Impacts Group and lead investigator of the study. "Climate affects fuels in different ecosystems differently, meaning that future wildfire size and, likely, severity depends on interactions between climate and fuel availability and producti... Read Full Story

Inés Ibáñez of the University of Michigan and her colleagues examined not only historical and current climatic data, but also historical environmental information from both the native and invaded ranges of three New England invasive plants: Japanese barberry, bittersweet and winged euonymus (or burning bush). The models took into account human development, disturbances and agricultural land use; habitat measures of local ground cover, such as forest type and wetlands type, were also included.... Read Full Story

According to Booth and his colleagues, one of the biggest challenges facing ecologists today is trying to predict how climate change will impact the distribution of organisms in the future. Combining the environmental conditions that allow a particular species to exist with the output from climate models is a commonly used approach to determining where these conditions will exist in the future. However, according to the authors, there some potential problems with the correlational approach th... Read Full Story

Philip Higuera of Montana State University and his colleagues show that although changing temperatures and moisture levels set the stage for changes in wildfire frequency, they can often be trumped by changes in the distribution and abundance of plants. Vegetation plays a major role in determining the flammability of an ecosystem, he says, potentially dampening or amplifying the impacts that climate change has on fire frequencies."Climate is only one control of fire regimes, and if you only c... Read Full Story

As concern grows about climate change, a range of 'green technologies' are being developed to help reduce carbon emissions.Hybrid petrol/electric cars that use conventional metal-hydride batteries are already available but they are heavy and the cars have limited power.Professor Saiful Islam, of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Bath, is researching new materials to use in rechargeable lithium batteries, similar to those that have helped to power the worldwide 'portable revolut... Read Full Story

A team of eleven of the world's top tropical forest scientists, coordinated by the University of Leeds, warn that while cutting clearance of carbon-rich tropical forests will help reduce climate change and save species in those forests, governments could risk neglecting other forests that are home to large numbers of endangered species.Under new UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) proposals, the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) scheme would curb carbo... Read Full Story