Contact: Paul Preuss, (510) 486-6249, paul_preuss@lbl.gov

BERKELEY, CA — Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory were important contributors to the research on global climate change that has won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
The 2007 Peace Prize was awarded jointly to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and [...]

Contact: Paul Preuss, paul_preuss@lbl.gov

From the evidence of tree rings, the last 50 years were the warmest half-century in 1,300 years. Eleven of the past 12 years are the hottest on record since reliable record-keeping began in 1850; since 1870, sea level has risen some eight inches worldwide, and the rate is accelerating; since 1900, glaciers [...]

Contact: Allan Chen, a_chen@lbl.gov

To play its part in reducing the consequences of global warming, the state of California has embarked on a trailblazing effort to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Assembly Bill 32, recently passed by the California legislature and signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, requires the state to substantially reduce [...]

Contact: Paul Preuss, paul_preuss@lbl.gov

The oceans manage to absorb about half the greenhouse-gas CO2 produced by humans, but how long this state of affairs will last depends on many unknowns. The role of phytoplankton — tiny marine plants that absorb atmospheric CO2 and form the first link in most ocean food chains — poses some [...]

Contact: Dan Krotz, dakrotz@lbl.gov

Hurricane Katrina is expected to cause $35 billion in insurance claims, a sum the insurance industry will be able to shoulder. But what if the number of weather-related catastrophes is on the rise? Evan Mills, a scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division, has spent more than a decade tracking evidence [...]

Media Contact: Allan Chen (510) 486-4210, a_chen@lbl.gov
Technical Contact: Evan Mills (510) 486-6784, emills@lbl.gov

BERKELEY, CA – The insured share of the world’s total economic losses from weather-related catastrophes is rising, increasing from a negligible fraction in the 1950s to 25 percent in the last decade, says a scientist at the U.S. [...]

Contact: Dan Krotz, dakrotz@lbl.gov

As soon as Berkeley Lab’s Christopher Guay stepped out of the schoolhouse and onto the streets of the small Siberian village, he knew something was up. It was late May 2004, and [...]