Most recent 20 articles: Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems
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These seeds could hold the genetic key to protecting Western forests - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (Oct 14, 2024) |
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Oct 14, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
In the Western U.S., small mesh cages adorn the towering whitebark pines that dot high-elevation landscapes.
The cages have been placed around the trees’ pine cones to protect their increasingly precious contents: seeds.
The survival of the slow-growing whitebark pine is threatened by an array of pressures: an invasive fungus called blister rust, a hungry beetle, and wildfires that have grown increasingly intense on a landscape parched by human-caused climate change.
Blister rust arrived in the United States from Asia around the year 1900. ... Read more ...
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A new financing model could speed up forest thinning projects - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (Sep 25, 2024) |
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Sep 25, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
Thinning dense forests can help reduce the risk of intense wildfires as the climate warms.
But getting forest restoration work funded can take a long time – and hold up this critical work.
So the nonprofit Blue Forest created a new approach to financing projects.
Anna Yip of Blue Forest says private investors fund what’s called a forest resilience bond. It provides the upfront capital needed for the Forest Service or other partner to do the restoration work.
Yip: “The financing dollars allow for the implementation to happen at a ... Read more ...
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How a stream restoration project in Indiana is helping to reduce flooding - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (Sep 10, 2024) |
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Sep 10, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
When it rains, the Duck Creek Tributary in northwest Indiana often floods, filling nearby roads with water.
Schleizer: “When it floods, it gets real messy … so people were, you know, getting stuck and not being able to travel like they used to.”
Bill Schleizer is with the nonprofit Delta Institute.
He says during storms, pollution from farms, road salt, and sediment also wash into the creek. And as climate change brings more intense rain, the risk of flooding is growing.
So Schleizer’s group is working with local officials to restore ... Read more ...
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Fireflies face 'one-two punch’ of climate change, habitat loss, and light pollution - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (Sep 05, 2024) |
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Sep 05, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
On warm summer evenings across the U.S., you can glimpse the twinkling lights of fireflies.
These magical insects are threatened by light pollution and habitat loss. But a new study adds another risk to that list: climate change.
McNeil: “Those factors … coupled with the effects of climate change are probably going to be the one-two punch for many firefly populations.”
D.J. McNeil is an ecologist at the University of Kentucky.
He and his colleagues studied the relationship between environmental conditions and firefly numbers, using ... Read more ...
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Tree-planting project aims to identify climate-resilient trees - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (Aug 26, 2024) |
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Aug 26, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
In 2020, about 200 volunteers helped plant trees at Crosby Farm Regional Park near the Mississippi River in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
They helped launch a 20-year project that seeks to identify which tree species will grow well in the region as the climate warms and precipitation becomes more extreme.
Emma Vanhdy of the nonprofit Mississippi Park Connection coordinates volunteers for the project.
She says they planted more than 1,000 trees across 24 research plots. Some plots contain species already common in the area.
Vanhdy: “So mainly ... Read more ...
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Invasive insect could accelerate release of climate pollution from forests - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (Aug 23, 2024) |
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Aug 23, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
As climate change has caused warmer winters, an invasive insect called the hemlock woolly adelgid has spread across forests in the Eastern U.S., killing hemlock trees from Maine to Alabama.
And scientists are worried that this insect’s spread could also accelerate climate change.
Hemlocks, like other trees, absorb planet-warming carbon from the atmosphere as they grow.
Danielle Ignace of the University of British Columbia explains that when hemlock needles fall, the carbon they contain is stored in the soil for a long time.
Ignace: ... Read more ...
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The bold plan to save coral reefs - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (Aug 21, 2024) |
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Aug 21, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
For 20 years now, Ken Nedimyer has been strapping on his scuba gear and diving into the waters off the Florida coast in a desperate effort to restore coral reefs that have been decimated by climate change and pollution. In 2019, he founded his latest venture, Reef Renewal USA. The group’s YouTube channel shows Nedimyer and other members underwater, carefully attaching nursery-grown coral to structures designed to build healthy reefs.
“We’re working hard under pressure with innovation, speed, and efficiency to repopulate our coral reefs,” the narrator says. Read more ...
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Climate change threatens the already endangered Karner blue butterfly - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (Aug 16, 2024) |
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Aug 16, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
The Karner blue – a tiny, powder blue butterfly – used to live in oak savannas and pine barrens across the Midwest and Northeast.
But over time, much of the Karner blue’s habitat has been destroyed – and today only a few small populations remain in places like Michigan, Wisconsin, and New York.
Now climate change is posing a whole new threat to this endangered butterfly.
Karner blue caterpillars only eat a plant called wild lupine. But as winters have grown warmer, the caterpillars have started hatching earlier in the year, before the ... Read more ...
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Long-term whitebark pine restoration project aims to save the trees for future generations - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (Jul 31, 2024) |
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Jul 31, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
In the Rocky Mountains, vast areas of whitebark pine trees have been killed by wildfires, mountain pine beetles, and a fungus called blister rust.
But even in hard-hit areas, a handful of trees survive.
Durglo: “There in the middle of all these dead hundreds of trees, you’ll see a green one.”
That’s Mike Durglo of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana.
He says whitebark pines provide vital wildlife habitat. And their shade helps slow down mountain snowmelt. For communities downstream, that helps reduce the risk ... Read more ...
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The climate benefits of mangroves - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (Jul 15, 2024) |
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Jul 15, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
Mangroves are trees and shrubs that grow in thick groves right along the ocean’s edge, often with a tangle of roots and branches that weave in and out of the water.
During a storm, these roots and branches can help calm choppy waves and reduce the risk of flood damage farther inland.
So as climate change creates more extreme weather, mangrove thickets can help protect coastal communities from increasingly intense storms.
Mangroves can also help reduce global warming.
That’s because mangroves grow very quickly. And as they grow, they ... Read more ...
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Eelgrass makes a comeback along the Virginia coast - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (Jul 10, 2024) |
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Jul 10, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
In shallows off the Virginia coast, thick meadows of bright green and spindly plants called eelgrass sway in the waves.
Bieri: “It’s kind of like the forests of the underwater world, you know, it provides structure and habitat, refuge, food, a place to raise young, a place for juvenile fish, soft-shell crabs to seek refuge.”
Jill Bieri is with the Nature Conservancy’s Virginia Coast Reserve, a 75-mile-long protected area along the coastline.
In the 1930s, disease and hurricanes wiped out Virginia’s eelgrass.
But by the late 1990s, a ... Read more ...
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Partnership helps Chicagoans plant trees in underserved neighborhoods - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (Jun 05, 2024) |
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Jun 05, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
During a storm, trees help soak up excess water. And on a hot day, they provide cooling shade.
But in many cities, decades of disinvestment have left low-income communities of color with little tree cover.
Bweza Itaagi is with Grow Greater Englewood, a nonprofit based in a primarily Black neighborhood of Chicago.
Itaagi: “Englewood has some of the highest temperatures in the city. And … when it rains, we have significant flooding throughout the area because a lot of the spaces are vacant and are very paved.”
So her group is ... Read more ...
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Brook trout are in trouble in Adirondacks lakes - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (May 13, 2024) |
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May 13, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
The Adirondacks region of New York is famous for its brook trout fishing. But as the climate warms, this cold-water fish is in trouble.
Stephen Jane is a postdoctoral fellow at Notre Dame University. He says in the summer, the sun warms the water near a lake’s surface. Warm water is less dense than cold water, so it forms a layer that floats on top of the cooler water below.
Jane: “In many lakes, it stays that way until late in the fall when the air temperatures cool down.”
That top layer can get too hot for brook trout. And it’s getting ... Read more ...
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In praise of shade trees - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (May 10, 2024) |
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May 10, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
If you go to a city park on a hot, summer day, you might sit under a big, shady tree to cool off.
But that tree is helping you beat the heat, even when you’re not standing directly under it.
One study found that on very hot days, greener areas of Baltimore and Washington, D.C. can be more than 15 degrees cooler than areas of those same cities with fewer trees.
One reason for this dramatic difference in temperatures is that dark-colored roads and rooftops get scorchingly hot when the sun shines down on them. Then those surfaces release the ... Read more ...
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Prescribed burning can reduce wildfire damage - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (May 07, 2024) |
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May 07, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
In 2020, the Cameron Peak Fire raged across more than 200,000 acres of Colorado.
But the damage could have been more severe if not for how government agencies and landowners had managed some forested land before the fire.
In some areas, they had conducted prescribed burns - intentional fires that are carefully monitored and managed.
Schultz: “When I interviewed land managers, they said where they had done prescribed fire, they were able to hold that wildfire, because it came in and it would kind of settle down, and they were able to manage ... Read more ...
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Startup mimics nature to produce zero-carbon cement - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (May 03, 2024) |
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May 03, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
One day you may walk down a sidewalk made from algae. A startup called Prometheus Materials is working to make that a reality to reduce the climate impact of concrete.
Concrete is made from cement. And the traditional process used to make that cement causes about 8% of global carbon emissions.
Loren Burnett of Prometheus says making cement from algae does not emit any carbon pollution.
Burnett: “We don’t mine heavy limestone. We’re not using fossil fuels to transport that heavy limestone to a cement plant. We’re not using ... Read more ...
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Climate change threatens Africa’s rhinos - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (May 01, 2024) |
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May 01, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
In the grasslands of sub-Saharan Africa, few animals are as instantly recognizable as the rhinoceros.
But both black and white rhinos have been under intense pressure from poaching and habitat loss, which have pushed these species close to extinction.
And a new study warns that rhinos now face another threat - climate change.
National parks like Kruger in South Africa and Etosha in Namibia, home to some of the last rhinos in Africa, are expected to get hotter in coming decades.
Randhir: “Rhinos need really unique ... Read more ...
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How 'assisted migration’ could help species survive climate change - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (Mar 12, 2024) |
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Mar 12, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
Among the most consequential effects of a warming globe is the disruption or even destruction of habitats for plants and animals, from the blue whales and giant sequoias to the tiniest of bacteria. Some species are mobile and flexible enough that they can move or adapt on their own - by, say, moving uphill or toward the poles. Others, like sequoias, are not so lucky; woven into their current locations by multiple factors, they lack the capacity to change as quickly as the climate and ecosystem around them. These species may need a little help from humans. ... Read more ...
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Amphibians are in trouble - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (Jan 02, 2024) |
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Jan 02, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
There are more than 8,000 known species of amphibians: newts, salamanders, big warty toads, and frogs of every color.
These semiaquatic critters provide food for birds, snakes, and fish. And they help humans by eating insects, including disease-spreading mosquitoes.
But many amphibians are in trouble.
According to the latest Global Amphibian Assessment, about 40% of species are considered globally threatened.
Della Togna: “And I think it’s very important for the public and for the community to understand that this is a very ... Read more ...
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These cryopreserved baby corals are the first to reach adulthood - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems (Dec 11, 2023) |
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Dec 11, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
Arah Narida leans over a microscope to gaze into a plastic petri dish containing a hood coral. The animal - a pebbled blue-white disk roughly half the size of a pencil eraser - is a marvel. Just three weeks ago, the coral was smaller than a grain of rice. It was also frozen solid. That is, until Narida, a graduate student at National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan, thawed it with the zap of a laser. Now, just beneath the coral’s tentacles, she spies a slight divot in the skeleton where a second coral is beginning to bud. That small cavity is evidence that ... Read more ...
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