From state-of-the-art research trucks to drones and satellites, Flux Lab uses an arsenal of tools in its quest to measure greenhouse gas emissions across Canada. In Western Canada’s oil and gas fields, Dave Risk’s trucks have become a familiar sight. These mobile labs, which resemble the trucks used by storm chasers and cost $250,000 each, […]
climate change
Virtual Reality Preserves Disappearing Land
Coastal communities are capturing their cultures and landscapes in virtual reality before sea level rise steals them for good. It’s a sunny day in southern Louisiana, and I’m sitting on a porch listening to 91-year-old Wenceslaus Billiot, the oldest member of the Isle de Jean Charles band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw, describe how the island has […]
Oysters to Fight Erosion and Help Preserve Southern Louisiana History
As erosion claims land, local scientists explore using oysters to preserve parts of the Mississippi delta. In southern Louisiana, the land is disappearing fast. The region loses 25,000 acres of coastal land every year — the equivalent of a football field every 15 minutes. The land loss is devastating for the people and economy of […]
Can We Hold Back the Glaciers?
Massive geoengineering projects to hold back glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica could slow sea level rise. A major threat from climate change is rising sea levels, and much of that threat comes from glaciers melting into the oceans. By the end of the century, sea levels are predicted to be a meter higher, causing frequent […]
Climate researchers press Trudeau to renew Canadian Arctic research program
The Canadian government should renew funding for a soon-to-end Arctic climate and atmospheric research program, a group of more than 250 international climate scientists is arguing in an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Read more in Science.
The Climate Bomb Lurking Under Arctic Permafrost
New research aims to better understand how much methane – a potent greenhouse gas – is burbling to the surface of the Mackenzie Valley in Canada’s Northwest Territories as the permafrost melts. Hidden beneath the frozen ground of the Arctic could be a ticking time bomb. Vast reservoirs of methane – a greenhouse gas 30 times more […]
Plant Trees and Chill
Software helps a conservation group see where shade trees will best cool a river. Then the hard work starts. In 2011, the city of Medford in Oregon had a problem. The treated water being released into the Rogue River from its sewage treatment plant was too warm, threatening the river’s fish. The historically cool Rogue […]
Snowball Earth melting led to freshwater ocean 2 kilometres deep
A little more than 600 million years ago, you could have drunk from the ocean. After an extreme ice age known as snowball Earth, in which glaciers extended to the tropics and ice up to a kilometre thick covered the oceans, the melt formed a thick freshwater layer that floated on the super-salty oceans. Read more […]
Canada Foundation for Innovation awards $18 million to Amundsen
CFI aims to secure ongoing operation and maintenance funds for research facilities including Canada’s only research icebreaker. Laval University has received more than $18 million for the research icebreaker CCGS Amundsen in the latest round of funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s Major Science Initiatives Fund. Over the next five years, the funding will […]
Snow will melt more slowly in a warmer world – here’s why
As global temperatures rise, snow will melt more slowly. Yes, you read that right – more slowly. Warmer global temperatures will lead to less snow in many mountainous areas, says Keith Musselman, a hydrologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. That thinner layer of snow will be less likely to last […]