Climate

Mild winter, early runoff spur swirling sediment in Lake Erie

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A mild winter left Lake Erie nearly ice-free. On the first day of spring last week, a NASA satellite snapped a picture of the southern Great Lakes region and showed sediment clouding up the shallow lake. The colors in the image are accurate. The tan colored-water swirling around the shoreline is sediment rushing in from streams and rivers. The warm winter brought more rainfall than snow, so there was increased runoff.

Echo

University will help Great Lakes cities adapt to climate change

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The University of Michigan is helping them with a new $1.2 million research project. Dubbed the “Great Lakes Adaptation Assessment for Cities,” the project teams researchers with city decision makers in five Great Lakes cities. They’ll provide the climate change science specifically for those communities.

Echo

Sprawl, climate change, carp control hinder Chicago sewer solution

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When more than two inches of rain falls in the Chicago area, the deluge flowing into storm sewers mixes with the wastewater from homes and businesses.   Often there is more water than the metropolitan area’s treatment plants can handle, so the excess is discharged untreated into the Chicago River and its connected waterways. Such Combined Sewer Overflows — CSOs – are common in Chicago and many other U.S. cities where storm water and municipal wastewater are funneled into the same aging combined sewer pipes. Milwaukee and other cities discharge CSOs into Lake Michigan. The discharges include high levels of bacteria, parasites, viruses, toxic metals including copper and cadmium, nutrient pollutants including phosphorus, and suspended solids.

Climate

Gender gap and ice caps: Women more likely to accept climate change

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Men are from Mars and women are from Venus…

 

Well, actually, it ends up we’re from the same planet (Earth) but the phrase is still fitting to show how the two genders diverge. Like what each thinks about climate change. Researchers at Michigan State University concluded that women are more inclined to accept global warming than men. To reach this conclusion, Associate Professor of Sociology Aaron M. McCright analyzed eight years of the Gallup environmental poll data. McCright says that women are socialized to be more caring and empathetic which may be why they’re wearier of climate change consequences.