New research from Northern Arizona University researchers challenges long-held assumptions that phosphorus limits aboveground plant growth mainly in tropical regions but not others. The paper, published this week in Nature Communications, suggests that this important nutrient actually helps govern plant production in temperate regions, too, and on every continent except Read more…
Stephen Porder from Brown University will talk about how to move universities off of fossil fuels.
The abrupt thawing of permafrost may affect up to half of all carbon stored in the layer of frozen Arctic soil, according to a new study in Nature Geoscience, and could double permafrost’s contributions to global climate warming compared to some previous model estimates that focused on gradual thaw alone. Read more…
If the fate of carbon is a test that planet Earth is taking right now, one of the answer keys is likely to be found in soil, where microorganisms—which account for nearly 15 percent of global biomass, by some estimates—eat, store and respire carbon and other nutrients. As Earth warms, Read more…
Like a long-distance food delivery app with no apparent highway, fungi that associate with shallow-rooted shrubs in the tundra are accessing deep stores of nitrogen being released by thawing permafrost. The findings by Northern Arizona University researchers, announced this week in New Phytologist, could change scientists’ understanding of who accesses Read more…
Use this guide to find where Ecoss scientists will be presenting at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco, Dec. 9 – 13, 2019. If you’re tweeting during AGU, or want to follow along from afar, find us on Twitter @EcossNAU #AGU2019.
NAU joins with ASU, UA and Arizona communities to confront climate crisis As Arizona confronts the impacts of a hotter world, Northern Arizona University is joining partners from Arizona State University, the University of Arizona and communities from throughout the state to convene the first statewide, solutions-focused climate summit. Climate Read more…
Wired red oak is first of its kind in North America. As trees across the U.S. continue their picturesque march toward autumn, one 100-year-old oak tree in Massachusetts is attracting a crowd of admirers online. The tree is a scientific wonder—not because of its unique looks or a special way Read more…
Ecoss postdoc Drew Peltier led a 2 hour class on tree ring science and climate change at Mangum Ranch on the North rim of the Grand Canyon. Drew joined a Grand Canyon Trust Climate change research trip, where Flagstaff High school students were helping with climate change research at the Read more…
The world’s oceans are getting hotter and acidifying under climate change at unprecedented rates, threatening coastal and high-mountain communities, marine ecosystems, and global fishing stocks, according to a new Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) released this week by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel Read more…