The environmental legacy of the Bush administration is a matter of some dispute but by designating three more marine monuments in the Pacific today, George W. Bush has entered the annals of history as the protector of 335,000 square miles of ocean. In fact, environmentalists and Bush himself likened the action to President Theodore Roosevelt’s […]

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(Jan. 7, 2009) — The slow natural restoration of hazardous sediments mired beneath the Puget Sound is progressing, thanks to Mother Nature and a stiff dose of federal environmental regulations.

But, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory warn that this recovery process may take 10 to 30 years longer than first predicted, […]

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(Jan. 7, 2009) — New results from 40 years of intensive scientific research show that Loch Leven, Scotland’s freshwater ‘jewel in the crown’, is on the road to recovery after decades of water quality problems. The best water quality since restoration measures began was recorded during 2008.

The conclusions will be presented at a symposium in […]

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ON THE surface of the sea conditions can be atrocious, with freezing gales and enormous swells. Slip beneath the waves and descend into the blue, however, and you enter another world, a more tranquil place where the violence of the waves above turns into an ever-gentler to-and-fro, and the temperature never falls much below freezing.

We […]

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Ranchers in Montana are being paid by polluters to keep their grass unmowed

In the rolling foothills of the madison range in southwestern Montana, a cabin-style house sits beside a washboard dirt road. A few horses loiter in a corral outside, and spotted ranch dogs bark and jump at the fence. James Stuart, manager of Sun […]

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The waters off of Indonesia were rocked by a 7.6-magnitude earthquake at 4:43 a.m. local time Sunday, the US Geological Survey reports. The quake’s epicenter was about 150 km (95 miles) off the coast of Manokwari, in the West Papua province, and 170 km (105 miles) from the city of Sorong. It was followed by […]

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(Jan. 4, 2009) — Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon forests has flipped from a decreasing to an increasing trend, according to new annual figures recently released by the country’s space agency INPE.

Commenting on the figures, Brazilian environment minister Carlos Minc confirmed that the government will on Monday announce forest related carbon emission reduction targets, which will […]

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Coral growth has been sluggish since 1990 due to an increase in both sea temperature and acidity as a result of global warming

The largest coral reef system in the world—and the biggest sign of life on Earth, visible from space—is not growing like it used to. A sampling of 328 massive Porites coral (large structures […]

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Greenhouse gases play an important role in North American climate, but differences in regional ocean temperatures may hold a key to predicting future U.S. regional climate changes, according to a new NOAA-led scientific assessment. The assessment is one in a series of synthesis and assessment reports coordinated by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.

This latest […]

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Clearing the camp of dry Antarctic snow. The dry Antarctic snow also blows in on the wind and drifts up against the tents. (Credit: ESA)

The idea of a white Christmas may seem magical for many of us, but spare a thought for a team of scientists forgoing the festive season to take part in a […]

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