Tricia Edgar

How many Emperor Penguins are there, really? They breed in the harsh, cold darkness of the Antarctic. Many of them have never encountered a human before, not even the researchers who also brave the winter to find and count them. They’re emperor penguins, and they’re vital to understanding the impacts of climate change on Antarctic ecosystems. The Emperor Penguin: Facts About An Iconic Species In spite of the fact that most humans will never see an emperor penguin, these birds that live in the chill of the Antarctic have captured the human imagination. Every year, the birds make a journey to their breeding grounds. The female leads a single egg, which the male keeps warm. Over the course of two months, the male emperor penguin takes care of the egg in an environment that we warmth-loving humans can’t even imagine. The male penguin loses over a third of his body weight during this time, since he cannot feed. After the chick hatches, the parents take turns caring for it and feeding. The Challenges of Studying the Emperor Penguin In spite of the human fascination with the penguin, we’ve never visited or counted many of the emperor penguin’s colonies. The penguin [...]

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Does the word ‘fossil’ bring to mind great swathes of dusty desert, covered in cacti, and the occasional dinosaur bone? It shouldn’t. Not always, anyway. Instead, think of rain.  Think of a dim earth covered in a thick atmosphere. Think of raindrops falling to the ground through this dense atmosphere, their imprints fossilized and found billions of years later. That’s right: billions of years. These ancient raindrops tell the story of the Earth’s climate 2.7 billion years ago. Recently, researchers at the University of Washington have used fossilized raindrop impressions to discover an intriguing tale about the earth’s atmosphere. Lead author Sanjoy Som conducted the research as part of his doctoral work in Earth and space sciences. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. Raindrop Impressions Enable Study of Earth’s Ancient Atmosphere The story of these ancient raindrops begins on a wet day 2.7 billion years ago, somewhere in the vicinity of modern day South Africa. A raindrop fell and created an impression on the ground.  Then more rain fell, making similar impressions, some of which were fossilized. While we might think of thousands of raindrops as a wet day, Som and [...]

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Biodiversity is a tricky thing. You can walk into a place and feel like you’re in a beautifully diverse landscape, full of a vast array of life. Stand in a marsh, and you’ll feel surrounded by waving reeds and bird song. However, if this marshland ecosystem has been damaged by development, cut off from the water that replenishes it, then chances are that you’re standing in an environment that’s a lot less rich than it was a hundred years ago. The Doubtful Wisdom of Wetland Management Wetlands are often in the way of development. When they are in the way, they may be considered expendable, or rather, replaceable. For years, people have been swapping wetland habitats. A wetland is damaged in one area, but more wetlands are constructed in another. The total amount of wetland is the same, or perhaps it even increases. On the surface, this sounds like a good plan, one that is sensible for both human development and wetland environments. However, a recent study by David Moreno-Mateos of the University of California Berkeley reveals that the appearance of biodiversity can deceive us. In an analysis of over 100 studies of wetland environments, Moreno-Mateos compared the diversity of [...]

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From scorching summers to monsoons off course, from crop failures to mass migration, climate change brings some frightening future pictures to mind. Climate change is a subject wrapped in controversy. It’s tempting to run away from the subject altogether, not only because it’s controversial, but also because fixes for climate change are not easy or immediate. Like a train, climate change takes a long, long time to turn around, and so these images seem inevitable and terribly frightening. Controlling carbon dioxide emissions is a big, long-term push. While we’ll feel the heat (and the cold) from the carbon that generations have emitted, we’re not necessarily going to feel the benefits of reduced carbon emissions for a while. But what if changing the temperature in the near term was possible? Could this help us pull our collective heads from the sand and work on improving the situation, so that the people of the near future would not see climate change that was as intense? Reducing Black Carbon Could Reduce The Intensity of Climate Change In a study published in the January 2012 issue of Science, Drew Shindell and his colleagues discovered that one of the keys to reducing our climate impact [...]

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Crack! That is the sound of options getting more limited for harp seals. Like the polar bear, these fluffy seals are icons of the North. Countless images of their limpid black eyes in a fluffy white face stare out at us from posters and cards, and thousands of little stuffed seals sit in stores, ready to go home to owners who will delight in their cuteness. Unfortunately, the story of the seals is not nearly as delightful. Over the last few decades, thinning sea ice due to climate change has become a feature of the seals’ East Coast breeding grounds. Harp Seals Live a Tenuous Life on the Ice Harp seals live on the edge. They give birth on thick sea ice. The pups are designed for a speedy exit from infancy, weaning after a mere 12 days of nursing. After that, the pups fast, and the fat from nursing turns into muscle. The seal becomes a lean diving machine. The harp seal’s birth and nursing habits are closely connected to the development and dispersal of the sea ice. Changes in the sea ice directly impact their populations. In a study out of Duke University, researcher David W. Johnston and [...]

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Mercury’s falling, you say. And it is, but not in the way that you might expect. A new study sheds light on increasing levels of Hg in the atmosphere, and its effects on the food chain. Mercury (Hg) is known to many of us as the forbidden fruit of the science lab, a substance that is dangerous to ingest.  In its liquid form mercury is also known as quicksilver, since it has a tendency to form into tiny, glistening balls that run rapidly away from anything that touches them. These days, it’s having a party in the atmosphere. Mercury In the Atmosphere There is naturally mercury in the atmosphere.  It comes from the soil, from the oceans, and from volcanic eruptions. However, the amount of mercury in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere is rising.  These days, the levels are likely two to three times higher than they were prior to the Industrial Revolution. The culprit? Coal, another material from the soil. Coal contains trace amounts of mercury, and when people process large amounts of it in coal-fired power plants, this mercury makes its way into the atmosphere. In a study published December 19, 2011 in the journal Nature Geoscience, [...]

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If we’d been able to look into the future of oil, would we have done things differently?  What type of energy would power our homes and factories today? If those who first started to use oil to power homes and factories and cars had understood the large-scale environmental implications of their actions, would they have chosen differently? There are a lot of us on this planet, and that means that anything that we choose to do on a large scale has the potential for a large impact. These impacts may seem small and manageable at first, but when many accumulate we begin to see the ecological impacts of our actions. The Impacts of Renewable Energy Development Now the spotlight shines on the impacts of renewable energy. Renewable energy could very well be the energy that powers many of our future endeavors. To many, it is an all round good thing. How could we go wrong by harnessing the power of the sun to power our lives, just like plants do?  But for one, we are not plants. Humans need to use external technologies to harvest solar energy, and like any technology, solar has an impact. A study released this week [...]

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For billions of years, the weather has been a hot topic.  Perhaps early organisms chatted about it as they passed each other in the primeval seas. In recent decades, the climate and the composition of the earth’s atmosphere have also become popular dinner table and conference conversation, as evidenced by the current discussions that swirl around the viability of the Kyoto Accord. A study released today focuses our attention on the small, cumulative changes that can lead to huge swings in the planet’s atmospheric and climatic systems. Some have called humans a ‘god’ species. But are we the only ones who have played with the planet’s atmosphere, causing massive change? Of course not. We’re just the only ones that we remember. The planet seems slow and unwieldy, but it is a complex system that can tip from one extreme to another. The key to one such shift is found in two billion year old Russian rocks. Scientists at Penn State acquired 3600 meters of drill core from the Russian Arctic. These rocks formed during the time when the earth’s atmosphere was becoming rich in oxygen, suitable for the growth of eukaryotic organisms. As they did routine carbon isotope studies on [...]

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  Severe winter storms: first, there was the US East Coast. Now, there’s Alaska.   You’d expect to see snow in Alaska this time of the year. But stir in 89 mph winds, storm surges, and a blizzard so thick that it’s almost impassable, and you end up with what experts are calling the Bering Sea mega storm. The storm hit Western Alaska hard on Tuesday, November 8th, causing power outages and loss of 911 service in some locations. Roofs and windows were damaged, but the full reckoning of the damage is still to come. The Bering Sea Storm Rocks Homes: Residents Seek Shelter As the fierce winds blew through Western Alaskan villages on November 8th and 9th, homes with foundations that sit in the permafrost shuddered. Residents took shelter at local schools, moving through the raging winds on snowmobiles. Schools in Alaska are built on thick pilings that can better withstand the storm. Erosion a Concern as Storm Surges Are Expected to Pummel the Coast As of the afternoon of November 9th, the winds started to abate but worries about a storm surge continued. In the face of rising water, the village of Kivalina declared a state of emergency. [...]

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Petroleum fuels the world. From ocean-based rigs to new developments in the oil sands, petroleum also fuels local and global controversy about the ways in which we extract and use fossil fuels. To many, oil extraction brings to mind an ecstatic oilman, gleefully watching as free-flowing oil gushes from the ground. While some oil flows freely, bitumen is more prosaic. It doesn’t flow well unless it is diluted with other hydrocarbons. This slow, sandy petroleum product is also known as tar, since bitumen is a slow, molasses-like substance. This is what makes up the oil sands. How Did the Tar Sands Form? Like other petroleum products, the tar sands began a long, long time ago. Once, an ocean covered the Canadian province of Alberta. Tiny creatures lived in the ocean sands. When these creatures died, the heat of the ocean and years of silt accumulation turned them into oil. Today, the oil sands cover over 87,000 square miles of Alberta’s Athabasca, Cold Lake and Peace River regions. After Saudi Arabia, the oil sands may be the largest oil reserve in the world. Environmental Impacts of Oil Sands Development Why are ancient ocean creatures so controversial? Oil sands are relatively difficult [...]

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In New York, it’s beginning to feel a lot like … Halloween? Bone-chilling cold is gripping the state, with temperatures dipping below 40 degrees. Cold, steady rain and snow flurries fell on New York this week as the temperature hovered around the freezing point. On Halloween, the temperature will rise a little and the high will be closer to 50 degrees, but the layered costume is still a fashionable and functional must this Halloween. This Halloween howler is wreaking havoc on Occupy Wall Street protesters as well, although thermal images of the area show that most have continued to stay outdoors. Snowstorm in the Northeast A fall storm is snarling traffic and creating dangerous walking and driving conditions across the Northeast.  Blizzard-like conditions were reported on Saturday night, and power was out in nearly 2 million homes.  On Saturday night, up to 12 inches of snow were expected to fall across central and eastern Pennsylvania to eastern Maine. Strong winds are making the conditions even more treacherous. Generally, the first snow in the New England region falls in early December. This snowstorm is particularly dangerous because the snow will fall on trees that have not yet lost their leaves. Residents [...]

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It’s creeping, creeping, creeping toward a log near you. Perhaps it’s hanging out in the bark mulch, slowly eating its way along. The blob is here in the forests around you, and its name is slime mold. At first glance, a slime mold appears to be a very unassuming collection of slimy bits that are often brown or yellow. It can look rather unfortunate. One of the world’s most common slime molds is also known as the “Dog Vomit” slime mold. What Are Slime Molds? For a long time, slime molds were identified as fungi. They appear to be fungi. They sit on a log, munching away on detritus rather than making their own food. They reproduce through spores. However, there is one big difference between slime molds and fungi: slime molds move. A moving plant?  Or is it an animal? Well, slime molds find those human-created categories to be inadequate to their amazing cellular properties. A slime mold streams over bark and leaves, engulfing them. While it moves like an animal, it acts like a fungus. A slime mold consumes dead material. However, a slime model does not have hard chitin in its cell walls, so it’s able to [...]

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This week was a quiet one in the oceans. There were no major hurricanes in the Atlantic or Pacific regions of North America, nor were there any large tropical storms on the horizon. Tropical Cyclone and Hurricane Forecast for the Week of October 23rd As the hurricane season moves into its last month, there are few storms upcoming in the next week. In the Pacific region, there is a less than 10 percent chance that a hurricane will form. The North Atlantic, Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico region is a little stormier, with heavy rain over Honduras and Nicaragua. There is currently an area of low pressure that is moving up toward Central America, where it could become a tropical depression early this week. The low pressure system has a 50 percent chance of becoming a tropical cyclone on Sunday, October 23rd or Monday, October 24th. When Does the North American Hurricane Season End?  Whether you’re planning to travel south, or you live there already, it’s important to plan your activities with an understanding of the prevailing weather patterns in the region. Summertime and early fall in the north is storm season in the equatorial and southern parts of [...]

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Hurricane Jova dominated the week of October 9th, with strong winds, rain, and flooding that caused property damage and several deaths in Mexico. This coming week, Tropical Storm Irwin is gaining strength, although it may not make landfall. Coming Storms: Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico Hurricanes In the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico Region there are no tropical storms at present. Coming Storms: Tropical Storm Irwin Moves Through the Eastern Pacific Region In the Eastern Pacific, Tropical Storm Irwin moved at wind speeds of 45 mph  in the area that is to the southwest of Manzanilla, Mexico. The storm appears to be on a course that will take it away from land. It is moving south-southeast at a speed of 2 mph. The storm’s ocean bound course is a relief for residents of the area, who experienced Hurricane Jova last week. Last week’s storm killed 6 people. Recovering From the Storm: Hurricane Jova Caused Flooding and Property Damage in Mexico This week, Hurricane Jova hit the Pacific coast of Mexico, causing property damage in the order of 50 million. Flooding and mudslides caused the majority of the damage. Thousands evacuated their homes, and the storm is blamed for at [...]

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Hurricane Ophelia may have been downgraded to a Category 3 storm, but she’s still no shrinking violet. As of Sunday, October 2nd, Hurricane Ophelia’s power had waned, but it was still strong enough for forecasters to predict powerful wind and rain in Newfoundland in the wee hours of Monday morning. By midday Sunday, the hurricane’s winds had decreased to 77 km/h. The storm is heading up the East Coast of Canada and will move into Eastern Newfoundland on Monday, October 3rd.  The Avalon Peninsula is under a tropical storm watch. Hurricane Ophelia Caused Widespread Flooding on Dominica Late last week on the island of Dominica, Hurricane Ophelia caused flooding and property damage after it developed into the season’s fourth hurricane of the year. Over 1000 people were cut off in communities on the island. Soon after, the hurricane moved east of Bermuda and up the East Coast.   A Moveable Beast: Hurricanes Create Stormy Weather Across the Atlantic Across the Atlantic in England, beach-goers basked in the southern sunshine, with demand for ice cream and beach chairs still going strong in October.  However, in the north of England and into Scotland, residents braced for the rain and wind from Hurricane [...]

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Shh! There’s one right over there. You point, and you shoot. Got it! Another frog photo in the camera, recorded for posterity and for science. Social media has been a force connecting frogs worldwide. You can see them now, clicking away on their tiny green computers with their sticky fingers. Wait: not quite. People worldwide have been inspired by social media to search for frogs and record them for science. This year’s Global Amphibian Bioblitz has been a social media sensation, attracting people from around the world to log onto their computers and create a digital log of the amphibians in their neighborhoods. At last count, global contributors had logged 712 of over 6000 of the earth’s amphibian species.  Citizen Science Has a Long History  This citizen science isn’t new. For a long time, there have been animal counts. The Audubon Society has been doing a winter bird count for over 100 years. This is long before the advent of social media. This is long before the advent of completely consistent postal service in some areas. While it’s fun to hunt down and count animals, this type of citizen science serves a greater purpose. Local Naturalists Reveal Changes in Plant and [...]

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Beach-lovers beware: another hurricane is approaching, and this one is called Katia. As of the evening of September 6th, the tropical storm was set to approach the US east coast but avoid most land areas. However, rough water and dangerous rip tides are forecast from Bermuda up to the east coast of Canada. What is a Rip Tide? A rip tide is common when a hurricane is approaching a beach area. While we often think of tides as water that moves outward, a rip tide begins when water pushes up against the shore. The water is trapped temporarily. Eventually, the sand behind the water collapses, creating a space.  The water moves outward very suddenly, pulling anything in the water out to sea. It is important to avoid swimming when there are potential rip tides. If you are caught in a rip tide, the power of the tide will prevent you from moving back to the land. To return to shore, move at a right angle to the current to maneuver out of the rip tide, then work your way toward the shore. What Do Hurricane Categories Mean? Early this week, Hurricane Katia became a category 2 hurricane. The hurricane is [...]

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As Hurricane Irene blasts her way through the Bahamas toward North Carolina, and people get ready for the storm season, it’s tempting to think of hurricanes as all bad. Hurricane Damage Let’s be frank. Hurricanes do an amazing amount of damage to ecosystems. At least, they cause what humans perceive to be damage. More about this in a minute. In estuaries, hurricanes mix salt and fresh water, making it hard for species adapted to one or the other to survive. They change the bottom of the estuary as well, making it muddy and creating challenging conditions for animals from shellfish to fish. Fragile coastal wetlands bear the brunt of the hurricane’s force. Reefs are destroyed. Mangroves and other wetland areas that shelter birds and harbor baby fish are rendered unrecognizable by the storm’s power. But are hurricanes all bad? Can these storm clouds have a silver lining? Benefits of Natural Disasters: Forest Fires Look for a moment to another type of disaster, this one very much land-based: the forest fire. People are not overly fond of forest fires. They destroy homes. They destroy livelihoods, whether those livelihoods are in the forest industry or in an industrial complex that is burned by the fire. [...]

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The deserts of the world look like an untapped well of nearly unlimited sunshine. As oil reserves gradually deplete and climate change becomes even more of a reality, the push for renewable energy has become more urgent. Just like oil needs to come from oil deposits and wind farms work best in places that are windy, solar energy works well in places with lot of sunlight. The Mojave desert is one such place, and the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm has plans to build on 4000 acres of this desert, creating enough energy for 165,000 homes. But there are twenty five tortoises that don’t like the idea.  Those 4000 acres are their home. Green Versus Green? The story is a journalist’s delight. In the ring today it’s green against green: renewable energy against species conservation. Who will win? Do the environmental benefits from green energy equal the loss of animal habitat? However, like any boxing match, there is a more subtle background behind this debate, one that leads in directions that are far more complex than green against green. No matter how green its energy output, any large-scale construction project will have its consequences. Since people started creating energy on a [...]

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The Ents: they’re walking, talking trees, and they are a figment of Tolkien’s imagination, right? Not quite. Tree species around the world can cooperate via their fungal friends, and they are connected to each other through a complex web of ecological interrelationships that sounds like it has leaped off of the pages of a fantasy book. Fungi and Trees: An Unseen Partnership You might know that trees and fungi are connected. You walk through the forest and you notice that certain large fungi love to sprout up next to certain types of trees. The story below the soil is even more complex. Some trees like the Red Alder (Alnus rubra) have fungal symbionts such as Alpova diplophloeus, Paxillus inuolutus, Astraeus pteridis, and Scleroderma hypogaeum. These fungi allow certain trees and other plants to move nitrogen from the air into the soil: essentially, these trees fertilize the soil as they grow. The Struggle to Survive in the Forest However, the connections between fungi and trees run deeper than that. At the beginning of their lives, baby trees have a hard go of it. The environment is dark underneath the canopy of the bigger trees, and those large trees have the ability [...]

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It used to be called a “weed tree” by foresters. Now, the superpowers of the Red Alder (Alnus rubra) are coming to light. Like a pushy neighbor, it moves into areas where it isn’t wanted. Some might call it the forests of straggly red alders pushing up to seek the sun weedy, however, the alder brings gifts, and plenty of them, in the form of nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Why is Nitrogen Fixation Important? The majority of the atmosphere is composed of nitrogen. Yet in the soil, plant growth is restricted by the availability of nitrogen. What if there were something to move nitrogen from the air into the soil? There is, in the form of nitrogen-fixing filamentous bacteria (actinomycetes) like Frankia, the bacteria that allow alders to become a key primary forest species. The Red Alder Can Grow in Harsh Environments Visit any clearcut, landslide, or recently flooded area in the Pacific Northwest, and you’ll find alder. It even grows in the most challenging of circumstances. Go to the middle of a city and look at a vacant lot. More than likely, there are alder trees growing in that lot. They might look like weeds, with the way that they spread [...]

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