History
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We know from archaeological ruins that there have been great civilizations in the past that seemingly disappeared from view. Some of those may have been decimated by disease or warfare, but some of them almost certainly were harmed by changes in climate such as multi-year droughts that may have made it impossible for them to…
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Today is the 200th anniversary of the birthday of Eunice Foote, one of the first scientists to study climate science and start to understand how carbon dioxide can affect earth’s atmosphere. My colleague Dr. Marshall Shepherd wrote a blog post about Foote in today’s Forbes.com. In the article he says: What exactly did Eunice Foote…
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In the news today (see first story below) was a story that we can put a dent in climate change by planting billions or even trillions of trees, which will absorb and store carbon dioxide. While that will help slow the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, it really only buys some time, since the…
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Did you know that most of the Southeast used to be covered by grasslands? Now, of course, much of the land is either cultivated for crops or planted as forest, much of which produces agricultural products like timber or wood pellets as well. Here is an interesting story about the grasslands of the Southeast and…
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The Cahokia Mounds outside St. Louis are the remains of one of North America’s largest indigenous population. Many archaeologists estimate that at its peak around the year 1100, Cahokia housed 10,000 to 20,000 people, with up to 50,000 inhabitants living in the surrounding area—a population size rivalling or surpassing concurrent European cities. But archaeologists are…
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Science Friday of National Public Radio (where I was once an intern) has a book club which introduces listeners to new books that discuss interesting aspects of science. This review of N.K. Jemisin’s ‘The Fifth Season’ describes a new book which describes how volcanic eruptions and the atmospheric effects which followed them affected the art…
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If you love history, you will be fascinated by this story about a stubborn meteorologist who made the crucial forecast for the launch of the first US satellite in January 1958 following the flight of the USSR’s Sputnik in late 1957 . They could not afford to get the launch wrong and depended on him…