Greenland's glaciers are hemorrhaging ice at an increasingly faster rate but not at the breakneck pace that scientists once feared, a new study says.

The loss of ice from the glaciers that cover the island is about 30 percent faster than it was a decade ago, researchers said. That means Greenland's contribution to future sea level rise would be about 4 inches by the year 2100 if ice loss doesn't speed up much more, a study author said.

Last Call at the Oasis highlights global water crisis but opines that the "glass is half full."

A new enviro documentary about water by the "company that brought you An Inconvenient Truth, Food, Inc. and Waiting for Superman" [video] attempts to accomplish three things: inspire you with the beauty of water, scare the bejesus out of you about a

Original Story

UC Irvine professor Jay Famiglietti sits with his arms politely crossed, watching an irate Central Valley farmer wrest a microphone out of a conservationist’s hand. The two are dueling over the urgency of irrigation for 25 percent of America’s food supply versus cancelling crop production to save water.

 The early 21st century has been typified by exceptional warming and prolonged aridity in the Southwest. New climate model studies and paleoclimatological data indicate that although the current drought is consistent with the anticipated impacts of greenhouse gas forced climate change, it remains within the bounds of natural variability. An outstanding question in anticipating the impacts of continued warming is how the Pacific Ocean will react.

An Orange County man is co-author of a new UC Irvine study that offers precision analysis of smoke plumes from tropical burning — a feat in itself, because he began the work as a 17-year-old high school student.

Alex Krolewski, now a 19-year-old freshman at Harvard University, says he simply thought it would be “cool” to do some scientific research while in his junior year at University High School in Irvine.

Simply put, the total biomass and net primary productivity (NPP) of a forest stand is a function of two things:  the mass and production of the average tree in the stand, and the number of trees in the stand.  The first of these, individual tree mass and production, has received the bulk of research attention and is largely a function of rates of tree carbon fixation and respiration.  In contrast, the number of trees in a stand is a function of demographic rates (birth and death rates), and mechanisms controlling demographic rates can be largely independent of those controlli

For the last half-baked seminar before spring break Tyler Sutterley has kindly agreed to present some of his ongoing work on:

Working to Reconcile Ice Sheet Mass Balance

As usual this will be at 4p.m. on Friday in Rm 3101 so come and celebrate the end of the winter quarter. Refreshments will be available!