Month: February 2016

(credit: NOAA)

One major threat from climate change is the rising global sea level. At the coast, the rising seas will wipe out infrastructure and threaten wildlife. If ocean water moves deeper into landmasses, the salt will contaminate sources required for drinking water and agriculture.

A solid understanding of how quickly the sea level is rising, and the major contributing factors, is critical to developing practical plans to limit the problems and deal with the inevitable. Recently, a team of scientists has dived head-first into this challenge.

Effect of rising sea levels

The main factors influencing rising sea level have been well documented. First, climate change has led to increased global temperatures. As its temperature rises, the sea water expands (a process called steric expansion). In addition, ice sheets and land glaciers all over the world are shrinking through evaporation and melting. All of these factors contribute to rising ocean levels.

Garmin isn't waiting for the start of Mobile World Congress to reveal its latest wearables. The company announced two new fitness trackers ahead of the conference in Barcelona next week: the premium $249 Vivoactive HR, featuring the company's new wrist-bound heart rate monitoring technology, and the more affordable $99 Vivofit 3.

The Vivoactive HR takes all of the features from Garmin's original Vivoactive sports watch and pairs it with a heart rate monitor and a new design. It looks surprisingly similar to Fitbit's Surge, with a wide silhouette and a rectangular touchscreen display. You will be able to switch out the bands with different colored ones (something you cannot do with the Surge), and its body looks slightly thicker than the original Vivoactive, as it contains a heart rate monitor on the underside of the module.

Garmin's Elevate HRM, which was introduced with the Vivosmart HR earlier this year, lets the tracker monitor heart rate all day long and activity intensity during workouts. The Vivosmart HR is also ANT+ compatible, meaning you could connect a chest strap heart-rate monitor to the device if you prefer; there's currently no indication that the Vivoactive HR has the same compatibility.

Mobile World Congress is easily the biggest mobile phone show of the year. While its January cousin, CES, may be waning in mobile relevance, MWC still reliably brings us major new flagship smartphones every year. Last year saw the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and HTC One M9, but what should we expect this year? What follows is a roundup of the more believable rumors that are floating around out there.

Samsung, LG, and Xiaomi all have events at the show, and are all expected to launch their new flagships. The major additions to just about every 2016 Android flagship will be the new Snapdragon 820, and with the addition of Android 6.0 Marshmallow's fingerprint reader support, if a device didn't come with a fingerprint reader before, it will now.

Samsung Galaxy S7—The S6 design gets a spec bump and 3D Touch

Samsung

Samsung's MWC invite.

7 more images in gallery

Samsung typically headlines the MWC festivities, and this year a big "Galaxy Unpacked 2016" press event is scheduled for February 21. Samsung launched the all-new Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge at Mobile World Congress 2015, and this year we can expect it to follow the same formula with the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge.