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World’s Lakes are Turning Green-Brown With Climate Change

/in , /by /Stormwater

A new study from the American Geophysical Union (AGU) finds that, if global warming persists, blue lakes worldwide are at risk of turning green-brown.

Shifts in lake water color can indicate a loss of ecosystem health. The study presents the first global inventory of lake color.

While substances such as algae and sediments can affect the color of lakes, the new study finds air temperature, precipitation, lake depth, and elevation also play important roles in determining a lake’s most common water color.

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Researchers Predict More Frequent, Severe Megastorms Due to Climate Change

/in , , /by /Times of San Diegoby City News Service

A study last week predicts that massive, often-devastating “hundred-year storms” may occur three times as often and be 20% more severe in the U.S. due to climate change. The researchers, in a paper published in the American Geophysical Union journal Earth’s Future, found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase at a rapid rate, the continental U.S. would likely see such mega-storms every 33 years.

The occurrence of historic rainfall events, like the ones that caused Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and California’s Great Flood of 1862, are likely to increase faster than lower-magnitude events, which already happen about every decade, according to UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain.

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Yes, There’s Microplastic in the Snow

/in , /by /Quartzby Zoë Schlanger

This is the year we found microplastic in the snow.

Although microplastics have been popping up everywhere from the waters of Antarctica to our table salt, the idea that it could blow in the wind or fall as precipitation back down to Earth is extremely new. The main mode of microplastic transport, as far as we knew as recently as last year, was water. It had already shown up in drinking water a few years prior. But microplastic in snow suggests something different: Microplastics carried by wind, and settling out of the air along with the frosty flakes.

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