WASHINGTON, May 28 (Reuters) – Low levels of nuclear
radiation from the tsunami-damaged Fukushima power plant have
turned up in bluefin tuna off the California coast, suggesting
that these fish carried radioactive compounds across the Pacific
Ocean faster than wind or water can.

Small amounts of cesium-137 and cesium-134 were detected in
15 tuna caught near San Diego in August 2011, about four months
after these chemicals were released into the water off Japan’s
east coast, scientists reported on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Killer heat fueled by climate change could cause an additional 150,000 deaths this century in the biggest U.S. cities if no steps are taken to curb carbon emissions and improve emergency services, according to a new report.

The three cities with the highest projected heat death tolls are Louisville, with an estimated 19,000 heat-related fatalities by 2099; Detroit, with 17,900, and Cleveland, with 16,600, the Natural Resources Defense Council found in its analysis of peer-reviewed data, released on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON, May 16 (Reuters) – The number of extreme
rainstorms – deluges that dump 3 inches or more in a day -
doubled in the U.S. Midwest over the last half-century, causing
billions of dollars in flood damage in a trend climate advocates
link to a rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

Across the Midwest the biggest storms increased by 103
percent from 1961 through 2011, a study released by the Rocky
Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense
Council reported on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – On the wall of a tiny structure buried under forest debris in Guatemala, archaeologists have discovered a scribe’s notes about the Maya lunar calendar, which they say could be the first known records by an official chronicler of this ancient civilization.

These notes pertain to the same Maya calendar that is sometimes erroneously thought to predict the world’s end on or about December 22, 2012. The researchers who helped uncover and decipher the wall’s inscriptions said the Maya calendar foresaw a vast progression of time, with the December 2012 date the beginning of a new calendar cycle called a baktun.

FORT BELVOIR, Virginia (Reuters) – To sustain themselves on Afghanistan’s rugged frontlines, U.S. Army troops have learned to sip, not guzzle.

The liquid they must conserve is JP-8, a kerosene-based, all-purpose fuel the Army uses in aircraft and Humvees and to generate power for computers, lights and heat. Consumption of JP-8 – short for Jet Propellant-8 – often comes at a grim cost.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Some of Greenland’s glaciers are moving about 30 percent faster than they did 10 years ago, contributing to rising global sea levels, but that still may not be enough to reach the most extreme projections for 2100, scientists reported on Thursday.

Researchers have been monitoring the big ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica for decades as one indication of the impact of human-spurred climate change.

WASHINGTON, April 26 (Reuters) – Three out of four U.S.
voters favor regulating carbon dioxide as a greenhouse-gas
pollutant, and a majority think global warming should be a
priority for the president and Congress, a survey of American
attitudes on climate and energy reported on Thursday.

The survey was released one day after Rolling Stone magazine
published an interview with President Barack Obama in which he
suggested that climate change would become a campaign issue this
year.

WASHINGTON, April 17 (Reuters) – The number of earthquakes
in the central United States rose “spectacularly” near where oil
and gas drillers disposed of wastewater underground, a process
that may have caused geologic faults to slip, U.S. government
geologists report.

The average number of earthquakes of magnitude 3 or greater
in the U.S. midcontinent – an area that includes Arkansas,
Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas – increased to six
times the 20th century average last year, scientists at the U.S.
Geological Survey said in an abstract of their research.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – To figure out what is likely to happen to Earth’s climate this century, scientists are looking 3 million years into the past.

They have concluded that the most revealing slice of time is the Pliocene Epoch, a warm, wet period between 3.15 million and 2.85 million years ago, when the world probably looked and felt much as it does now. Global temperatures and the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were similar to today’s climate, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.