Home

On:

A new study has found that a 2011 estimate of methane emissions generated by the planet’s livestock was incorrect, with the new finding indicating that they were actually 11 percent higher than the numbers used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), leading to the guidelines and targets set out in the Paris climate accord. Methane (CH4) is produced from the decomposition of biological matter, such as livestock manure, and is a potent greenhouse gas, retaining up to 86 times more heat energy than the same mass of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
read more

On:

Although it’s (finally) not raining cats and dogs in Tamaulipas state in northeastern Mexico, on September 26 the coastal city of Tampico reported a rain of small fish from the sky, accompanying a light rainshower.

Although a rare and extremely unusual occurrence, events such as this have been explained as being caused by tornadoes or waterspouts that form over water, sucking fish high into the air, that eventually fall back down in a different area.

Strange phenomena such as this were extensively cataloged by early 20th-century writer Charles Fort, including falls of frogs, fishes, as well as other inorganic materials, leading to the term "Fortean phenomena".
read more

On:

California Governor Jerry Brown has signed a formal agreement between his state and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, linking the three regions’ carbon-emission markets. The deal, going into effect on January 1, creates the largest carbon market in North America: Ontario and Quebec are Canada’s largest provinces, with Ontario being the country’s most populous, and California itself represents the world’s sixth largest economy.
read more

On:

A recently-published study from NASA has revealed that glaciers in West Antarctica’s Marguerite Bay have increased their flow rate, speeding up by up to 25 percent, an event that has accelerated ice loss in the region from 2 to 3 meters (7 to 10 feet) per year to 10 meters (33 feet). Prior to 2008, the flow rates of the four affected glaciers had been stable for two decades, but a major calving event in 1989 left the bay with little to no ice shelf, leaving them with only grounded ice on dry land — a precarious position for its potential to affect sea level rise.
read more