Featured News
Providing a local perspective on global climate change
Tuesday, June 30th, 2020
By Abby Leeds How important is climate change to you personally? This question is guaranteed to produce a wide range of opinions across America. The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication groups the American public into six audiences – alarmed, concerned, cautious, disengaged, doubtful and dismissive. Considering the range of opinions and sometimes misguided information,…
Read More
Balancing impacts of range-shifting species: Invasives vs biodiversity
Friday, May 1st, 2020
Ecologists urge greater discussion on consequences of range-shifting species AMHERST, Mass. – For many years, the conservation community has embraced the idea that improving connectivity, that is, creating corridors so species can follow their preferred climate, will benefit biodiversity, says Toni Lyn Morelli at the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Climate Adaptation Science Center. But, she…
Read More
Nature paper offers global map to understand changing forests
Wednesday, May 15th, 2019
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – An international collaboration of hundreds of scientists – led in part by the Forest Advanced Computing and Artificial Intelligence (FACAI) Laboratory in Purdue’s Department of Forestry and Natural Resources – has developed the world’s first global map of tree symbioses. The map is key to understanding how forests are changing and…
Read More
Large-scale forest carbon sequestration could cause food prices to skyrocket
Wednesday, May 1st, 2019
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Paris Agreement calls for reducing greenhouse gases enough to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels. This could be done by reducing emissions or capturing and storing atmospheric carbon. One of the cheapest and most efficient ways to capture and store carbon is through…
Read More
U.S. forests’ changes are double-edged sword for environment
Monday, April 15th, 2019
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Climate change, nitrogen deposition and fire suppression are leading to shifts in the types of trees that dominate American forests. These changes will have environmental consequences, potentially positive and negative, according to a Purdue University study. Songlin Fei, a forest ecologist in Purdue’s Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, with colleagues…
Read More
How to feed the world and preserve the environment
Wednesday, April 10th, 2019
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Farmers bear much of the burden for growing the food to feed billions of people as the world’s population continually trends upward. But to do so, those farmers have to keep crops healthy and high-yielding. That necessitates using fertilizers and pesticides, which help crops but can have an inadvertent, negative impact…
Read More
Climate scientist Hayhoe to address ‘science in a fact-free world’ at Purdue symposium
Thursday, March 14th, 2019
Purdue’s Ecological Sciences and Engineering program will partner with the Purdue Climate Change Research Center to host Katharine Hayhoe, a world-renowned climate communicator, at ESE’s annual symposium March 26-27. This year’s ESE symposium is titled “In Data We Trust? Perceptions of Science in a Post-truth World.” The main event, featuring Hayhoe’s lecture, “Science in a…
Read More
Energy demand, sources will change with Indiana’s climate
Wednesday, February 20th, 2019
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Hoosiers will heat homes and businesses less but rely more on air conditioning as Indiana’s climate warms. They’ll also get more of their energy from natural gas and renewable sources as those become more cost-effective throughout the rest of the century. That’s according to the latest Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment…
Read More
Climate drives link between forest biodiversity and productivity
Thursday, January 24th, 2019
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Some ecologists believe that species richness is positively related to ecosystem productivity, while others conclude that the relationship is bell-shaped or they are unrelated. Using big data, Purdue University scientists now know which theory is correct – all of them. Biodiversity-productivity relationships would be useful to natural resource managers who want…
Read More
To understand climate change, we need to understand weather now
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Climate scientists have known for decades that there’s more to climate change than higher temperatures. Sea levels are rising, wildfires are blazing and droughts are diminishing water supplies across the globe. Extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and thunderstorms, are likely to get worse as well. But in order to predict…
Read More
