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"The projected snow loss, a result of climate change, could get even worse by the end of the 21st century, depending on how the world reacts. Sustained action to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions could keep annual average snowfall levels steady after mid-century, but if emissions continue unabated, the study predicts that snowfall in Southern California mountains will be two-thirds less by the year 2100 than it was in the years leading up to 2000."

No less than one third of a car's fuel consumption is spent in overcoming friction, and this friction loss has a direct impact on both fuel consumption and emissions. However, new technology can reduce friction by anything from 10% to 80% in various components of a car, according to a joint study by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in USA. It should thus be possible to reduce car's fuel consumption and emissions by 18% within the next 5 to 10 years and up to 61% within 15 to 25 years.

The 2011 Arctic sea ice extent maximum that marks the beginning of the melt season appears to be tied for the lowest ever measured by satellites, say scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center.

For the first time, the melting of glaciers in Greenland could now be measured with high accuracy from space. Just in time for the tenth anniversary of the twin satellites GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) a sharp image has surface, which also renders the spatial distribution of the glacial melt more precisely. The Greenland ice shield had to cope with up to 240 gigatons of mass loss between 2002 and 2011. This corresponds to a sea level rise of about 0.7 mm per year. These statements were made possible by the high-precision measurements of the GRACE mission, whose data records result in a hitherto unequaled accurate picture of the earth's gravity. One of Newton's laws states that the gravity of an object depends directly on its mass. "When the mass of the Greenland ice sheet changes, so does the gravity there," explains Dr. Frank Flechtner from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences. "The GRACE gravity field measurements therefore give us information on mass changes, including climate-related ones."

A San Francisco State University biologist has released the initial results of her nationwide citizen science project to count bee populations and has found low numbers of bees in urban areas across America, adding weight to the theory that habitat loss is one of the primary reasons for sharp declines in the population of bees and other important pollinators.

The threat to climate change posed by thawing permafrost, which could release stocks of stored carbon, is greater than estimated, a group of scientists said on Wednesday.

Climate change could mean unthinkable loss for South Africa, which hosts talks on global warming that will bring government negotiators, scientists and lobbyists from around the world to the coastal city of Durban next week. Guy Midgley, the top climate change researcher at the South African National Biodiversity Institute, said evidence gleaned from decades of recording weather data, observing flora and fauna and conducting experiments makes it possible for scientists to "weave a tapestry of change."

Predictions of the loss of animal and plant diversity around the world are common under models of future climate change. But a new study shows that because these climate models don't account for species competition and movement, they could grossly underestimate future extinctions.

According to a new report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, human development and habitat loss are not the main contributor to the population decline of many amphibian species. In actuality, that human encroachment on natural habitat many actually be saving some of them.

The decline of large predators and other "apex consumers" at the top of the food chain has disrupted ecosystems all over the planet, according to a review of recent findings conducted by an international team of scientists and published in the July 15 issue of Science.

A NASA-led study has documented an unprecedented depletion of Earth's protective ozone layer above the Arctic last winter and spring caused by an unusually prolonged period of extremely low temperatures in the stratosphere.

Large increases in urbanization can lead to more concrete and asphalt reducing an area's flood mitigation services. Low density housing, however, has little effect on flood mitigation services but does cut down losses in the amount of land available for food and carbon storage, the study showed. Researchers investigated how a projected 16 per cent increase in the human population in Britain by 2031 would affect key ecosystem services depending on how cities expanded to meet the growing demand.

Bats in North America are under a two-pronged attack but they are not the only victim - so is the U.S. economy. Gary McCracken, head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, analyzed the economic impact of the loss of bats in North America in agriculture and found it to be in the $3.7 to $53 billion a year range.

The old saying there's plenty more fish in the sea might soon no longer apply to the Mediterranean, says Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature. A study it is releasing Tuesday, April 19, 2011 says more than 40 species of marine fish there could soon disappear - almost half the species of sharks and rays and at least 12 species of bony fish are threatened with extinction due to overfishing, pollution and loss of habitat.

panel of marine scientists who met earlier this year in Oxford, England, have concluded that the world's oceans are facing an unprecedented loss of species. As the London Independent reports today, "The seas are degenerating far faster than anyone has predicted, the report says, because of the cumulative impact of a number of severe individual stresses, ranging from climate warming and sea-water acidification, to widespread chemical pollution and gross overfishing." They concluded that the negative impacts are greater than predicted, and that mass extinctions could occur within one human generation.

"the more steps you have in the food chain the more opportunities you have for nutrients to be lost at each stage"