The question of how human activity affects hurricanes has been much on peoples’ minds lately, for obvious reasons. But the influence of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are far broader than that, and scientists are wrestling on many different fronts with exactly the same issue: can we detect the fingerprint of human activity on any number of climate indicators?

Average salinity near ocean surface,
May 27 to June 2, 2012 as measured by satellite.

Increasingly, the answer is yes. The latest example, published in Geophysical Research Letters, looks at the planet’s hydrological cycle, the evaporation, precipitation and river flow that constantly redistribute water from ocean to sky to ocean. Theory says that global warming should pull more water from the oceans, that rainstorms should become intense in some areas as a result, and that these local deluges should leave other areas drier than they were before. Observations show that this is indeed happening. Read more

German artist Julius Popp uses technology to create work that reaches across the boundaries of art and science. Three of his works, Bit.fall, Bit.flow, and Bit.code are pictured above. Bit.fall is an installation that in some cases displays images and, in others, words selected from the internet via drops of falling water spurting out from 320 nozzles controlled by computer software and electromagnetic valves.

In Bit.flow Popp pumps liquid into a 45-meter long tube on a wall. A software program sets out a pattern which only at certain points forms readable forms or letters which then disintegrate into chaos again. Read more

Threatened by pollution and climate change, the future of Earth’s largest inland body of water is in the hands of five bordering nations.

A painting by a ten-year-old Azerbaijani girl imaginatively portrays children carrying and pouring clean water into the Caspian Sea, to combat the falling sea level and the pollution that harms the seals and fishes.

Containing some 18,800 cubic miles of water and covering more than 143,000 square miles, the Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water on Earth. It has about a third the salinity of seawater, however, so it is not the largest freshwater lake (that honor goes to Lake Baikal by volume, or to Lake Superior for area). The salinity is in large part a residue of the sea’s formation. Along with the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to its west (which are not entirely landlocked) and the Aral Sea to its east, the Caspian is a remnant of the ancient Paratethys Sea. Read more

Picture perfect, nature’s unadulterated best, untouched paradise, visual magic expressions fall short before the majesty, beauty and tranquility that the stunning Norwegian Fjords have to offer.

It would be an absolute shame for every traveler and nature lover if they did not get to visit these magical lands that still look like they are engulfed in the purity that has been unaltered since the day they started taking shape way back in the last ice age. The Norwegian Fjords are not only the home to some of the world’s largest coral reefs and most fertile fishing grounds, but are a gateway to nature’s nirvana.

Delving into its ten best portals will take you on a journey like none other on the planet, and will leave you changed forever…

Sognefjord

The spectacular Sognefjord is the crowning glory of the Norwegian Fjords, when it concerns magnitude. Offering some amazing sights with the cliffs on either side of the water rising over 1000 meters into the sky vertically, it’s the second largest fjord in the world and the largest in Norway – 205 km.The fjord reaches a maximum depth of 1,308 m below sea level and it’s 4.5 km wide on average. On top of the Sognefjord is a power line with a span of 4597 m, making it a great tourist attraction and a journey that offers a magical route on the road to fairyland. Read more

What is “responsible” use of water? How much is it ethical to use and for what purposes? Is a swimming pool a good thing? How many swimming pools, how big, serving how many people, and at what cost? Americans use two to three times as much water per capita as Europeans. Is that ethical? Maybe even the Europeans are using too much. Africans use far less, particularly West Africans living in the Sahel.

Food produced by industrial methods of agriculture has a much higher total water “footprint” than food produced by small-farms and marketed locally. Coal that is mined through “mountain-top removal” or gold that is mined and processed with water-polluting methods, or electricity produced by dams that have severely altered water ecosystems are examples of indirect consumption of water. When we use the products produced with water, we are using water. Read more