Science

WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) – The science showing that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are causing a dangerous warming of the world’s climate is sound, President Barack Obama’s top scientists said on Wednesday, despite controversial e-mails stolen from climate researchers.

E-mails from Britain’s University of East Anglia, made public last month after being obtained by hackers, show climate researchers deriding global warming skeptics, who argue that the messages show that the researchers manipulated data to make climate change appear more definitive.

In the messages, researchers also asked other scientists to delete e-mails, apparently to avoid having them become public.

"There will remain after the dust settles in this controversy a very strong scientific consensus on key characteristics of the problem: global climate is changing in highly unusual ways compared to long experienced and expected natural variations," John Holdren, Obama’s science advisor, told a congressional hearing.

Read the complete story at Reuters.

Ripples created by the disclosure of global warming files now being called "ClimateGate" continue to spread, with congressional attention growing and the head of a prominent climate change group stepping aside.

Phil Jones, the head of the Climactic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, said on Tuesday that he will relinquish his post while the U.K. school conducts an investigation into allegations of scientific and professional misconduct.

Jones’ announcement comes as he and his allies, who published some of the foundational data used to support the claim that global warming exists, have been pummeled by waves of criticism. As CBSNews.com reported last week, the leaked files show that prominent scientists were so wedded to theories of man-made global warming that they ridiculed dissenters who asked for copies of their data, plotted how to keep researchers who reached different conclusions from publishing, and concealed apparently buggy computer code from being disclosed under the Freedom of Information law.

Read the complete story at CBS News. 

Nov 17 – Japanese and Indonesian researchers capture on film a newly born Coelacanth – a prehistoric fish experts see as a "missing link" between fish and amphibian creatures. See the video from Reuters at Sling.

A House hearing Wednesday will likely provide a forum for debating what widely-circulated emails among climate scientists do or don’t reveal about the state of global warming research.

The Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming hearing on climate science will feature two top administration officials: White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren, and Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Look for Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who co-sponsored the sweeping House climate bill that passed in June, to solicit testimony about the strength of research showing dangerous warming trends.

Read the complete story at The Hill.

Responding to the general warming of the northwest Atlantic Ocean over the last 40 years, a significant number of fish stocks have shifted to the north and deeper in an apparent effort to find optimal water temperature conditions, a study by NOAA researchers shows.

And some shifts are taking commercially important stocks toward the outer border of the 200-mile U.S. exclusive economic zone, the study’s authors say.

Published in the Oct. 30 edition of Marine Ecology Progress Series, the study of 36 stocks, including mainstays of the New England and Mid-Atlantic fisheries, reported that "there were clear poleward shifts consistent with warming" in 17 stocks, while four stocks appeared to shifted southward.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

Off the coast of Washington state, mysterious algae mixed with sea foam have killed more than 8,000 seabirds, puzzling scientists. A thousand miles off California, researchers have discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a swirling vortex roughly twice the size of Texas filled with tiny bits of plastic and other debris.

Every summer a dead zone of oxygen-depleted water the size of Massachusetts forms in the Gulf of Mexico; others have been found off Oregon and in the Chesapeake Bay, Lake Erie and the Baltic and Black seas. Some studies indicate that North Pole seawater could turn caustic in 10 years, and that the Southern Ocean already may be saturated with carbon dioxide.

A recent bird kill off the coast of Washington state came without warning, said Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "There will be more surprises than that," she said.

Read the complete story at McClatchy DC.

A wolffish finding was published in the Federal Register.

It has been posted along with the status review report on the NERO’s website and is available here.

Read the notice in the Federal register.

NOAA’s Fisheries Service today announced that Atlantic wolffish are not currently in danger of extinction or likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future. This is the final decision on a petition received in October 2008 requesting that the species be listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Click here to learn more.

Jane Lubchenco, chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will be among speakers Friday at the commissioner of the agency’s newest fisheries survey vessel and dedication of a new laboratory.

Both events will be held in Pascagoula.

The recently completed NOAA laboratory replaces the facility that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Read the complete story at The Picayune Item.

A new study by fisheries scientists in Woods Hole shows that about half of the 36 fish stocks they surveyed had shifted north or east toward cooler waters over the past 40 years, possibly in response to rising water temperatures due to global warming.

The study, conducted by scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service Northeast Fisheries Science Center, requires further research to factor out the effects of decades of overfishing to get a true picture of the impact of warming seas, researchers said.

But the fish migration northward could mean that fishermen will have to travel farther to catch familiar species but might also see new opportunities in species coming up from southern waters.

Still, it could mean that some species, like cod, may not find the rich food resources available on a place like Georges Bank.

Read the complete story at The Cape Cod Times.