News

ND @ COP XXI

As the historic 21st Conference of Parties gets underway in Paris, members of the Notre Dame community are finding a variety of ways to stay informed and engage in the climate negotiations.

Paris climate talks: What comes next?

The more than 190 countries that have gathered in France for worldwide climate talks did much of their work in advance. Before the summit, at least 181 nations had already announced their plans to lower their carbon emissions in order to help slow the pace of global warming.

These Countries Have The Most To Lose If Paris Climate Talks Fail

Warming-fueled droughts and storms imperil populations, industries and even the existence of some countries. Climate change may be the one thing that threatens everyone on Earth. But the peril is much more dire for people in some countries if negotiators fail to reach a climate deal in Paris in the...

Author: Alex Gumm

Algal blooms a 20-year problem for Lake Erie

If you don't live on the West Coast, you don't understand what it's like to not have access to water in the United States, right? One year ago, a half million Toledo residents experienced their own kind of water shortage – one that left 400,000 people with no clean drinking water from their...

Replacing culverts with bridges could help fish passage

Replacing culverts with bridges may benefit fish because of improved connectivity of streams in a watershed, a pilot project in the Huron-Manistee National Forests shows. But doing so also creates risks of more pathways for invasive species to spread and of fine sediments that can smother fish spawning beds, a study by U.S. Forest...

Conflict makes countries more vulnerable to climate change - index

BARCELONA, Nov 17 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Syria, Libya and Yemen are among the countries whose ability to withstand climate change shocks and stresses has deteriorated most in the past five years, suggesting conflict makes people more vulnerable to climate impacts, researchers said. The University of Notre Dame Global Adaptation...

Taking attendance with eDNA

Ecologists study the mix of organisms that live together in a habitat. Sometimes they’ll focus on one member of this ecosystem. But “there are many cases where you’d like to look at a whole community [of organisms],” says Michael Pfrender. He’s a geneticist at the University of Notre Dame in...

ND-LEEF pavilion receives award from Indiana AIA

The Morrison Family Education and Outreach Pavilion, the inaugural building at the University of Notre Dame’s Linked Experimental Ecosystem Facility (ND-LEEF) at St. Patrick’s County Park, received a 2015 Citation Award from the American Institute of Architects (AIA)…

Author: Alex Gumm

Will the Snowpack Be Back?

A back-country skier skins up a slope in the North Cascades. Photos by Rylan Schoen It was mid-January 2015. And Carson Guy, an enthusiastic Alpine skier who’s usually on the slopes between 50 and 100 days each year, was headed to Alpental. OK, so it looked like rain at the...

ND-LEEF Science Sunday event to take place Sept. 20

The Notre Dame Linked Experimental Ecosystem Facility (ND-LEEF), a unique environmental research collaboration between the University of Notre Dame and St. Patrick’s County Park, will host its third annual public Science Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday (Sept. 20).

Faith and science can find common ground

In recent weeks, we have learned that Pope Francis enticed Cuban President Raúl Castro to consider a return to Catholicism, and has ended a dispute involving US nuns that will allow them to return to serving the poor free from the suspicion of heresy.   Perhaps most surprisingly, at least...