Experiments in the permafrost zone near Denali simulate a warmer North.
J. Madeleine Nash
Posted inFebruary 19, 2018: Unfrozen North
An unfrozen North
The world’s permafrost holds vast stores of carbon. What happens when it thaws?
Posted inNovember 23, 2015: Water Hustle
The tenuous revival of Mono Lake
Its defenders won a long fight over water with Los Angeles. Now, drought is raising new questions about its future.
Posted inDecember 23, 2013: Beauty or Beast
Eucalyptus: Beauty or Beast?
Restoration pits these exotics against California natives. But for some, they’re a natural.
Posted inDecember 23, 2013: Beauty or Beast
A forester searches for a kinder, gentler eucalyptus
On a drizzly winter day in San Francisco, a pickup truck loaded with eucalyptus seedlings pulls up to a bare hillside in the Presidio, a former U.S. Army base turned national park. A crew of shovel-wielding men starts moving across the slope, planting knee-high trees in tight formation. Dressed in a bright red rain suit, […]
Posted inDecember 23, 2013: Beauty or Beast
A native butterfly finds merit in a nonnative tree
Every fall, starting around October, tens of thousands of monarch butterflies from across the West make their way to eucalyptus groves along the California coast. There, in a quasi-torpid state, they clump together in clusters, dangling from high branches like living chandeliers. Early in the new year, they once again take wing, sailing inland to […]
Posted inOctober 1, 2010: Dancing with Climate Change
Computer model slices and dices mountain climates
BLUE RIVER, OREGON On the face of a wind-swept cliff … At the bottom of a frost-prone hollow … Beneath the canopy of an old-growth tree … Oregon State University climatologist Chris Daly and his team have positioned their instruments in some oddball places here in central Oregon’s H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest. “The World Meteorological […]
Posted inOctober 1, 2010: Dancing with Climate Change
Dancing with Climate Change
Alpine species try to adapt to a warming world
Posted inOctober 12, 2009: Silenced Springs?
Silenced Springs?
Great Basin waters face threats big and small.
Posted inMay 18, 2009: The Rise of the Minotaur
Bring in the cows
Grazing may be the best hope for a threatened butterfly
Posted inOctober 13, 2008: Back to the future
Acidifying oceans
James Zachos fishes around his desk and pulls out a plastic bag filled with chunks of deep-sea sediments. The sediments, wrested from the South Atlantic in 2003, are 55.5 million years old and ‘deep red in color because they are almost entirely clay. Missing is the abundance of shelly residue that gives abyssal sediments their typically […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2008: Back to the future
Back to the future
The earth warmed considerably some 55 million years ago. What does that tell us about our current climate dilemma?