Most recent 40 articles: PHYS.ORG - Earth
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'Danger behind the beauty': More solar storms could be heading our way - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 18) |
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May 18 · Tourists normally have to pay big money and brave cold climates for a chance to see an aurora, but last weekend many people around the world simply had to look up to see these colorful displays dance across the sky.
Usually banished to the poles of Earth, the auroras strayed as far as Mexico, southern Europe and South Africa on the evening of May 10, delighting skygazers and filling social media with images of exuberant pinks, greens and purples.
But for those charged with protecting Earth from powerful solar storms such as the one that caused the auroras, a threat lurks beneath the stunning colors.
"We need to understand that behind this beauty, there is danger," ... Read more ...
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Global coral bleaching event expanding to new countries: Scientists - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 18) |
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May 18 · The massive coral bleaching episode signaled by US authorities last month is expanding and deepening in reefs around the globe, scientists warned Thursday.
Amid record ocean temperatures, coral bleaching has been recorded in 62 countries and territories since February 2023, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said - an increase of nine from its warning in April.
"This event is still growing in size and impacts," Derek Manzello, coordinator for NOAA's Coral Reef Watch program, told a press briefing, adding: "This is not something that would be happening without climate change."
New coral damage since NOAA's April 15 warning was reported in ... Read more ...
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Summer 2023 was northern hemisphere's hottest for 2,000 years, tree rings show - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 18) |
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May 18 · Across this vast area of land, encompassing Europe, Asia and North America, surface air temperatures were more than 2°C higher in June, July and August 2023 than the average summer temperature between AD1 and 1890, as reconstructed from tree ring records.
While climate change is a global phenomenon, warming on a regional scale is often stronger. And it is regional climate change, not the global average temperature, that people experience.
The Paris agreement aims to limit climate change to below 2°C and ideally 1.5°C of warming, but these figures refer to global temperature change, usually averaged over 20 years. The authors of the new research argue that ... Read more ...
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Canada's wildfire season begins - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 17) |
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May 17 · Wildfire season has arrived in full force in Canada, prompting evacuation orders and alerts in several towns in British Columbia and Alberta due to the danger of uncontrolled blazes.
Hazardous smoke from the fires has also triggered air quality alerts in Canada and the northern US. Satellite technology, including the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite and ESA's Fire Atlas, plays a crucial role in monitoring these wildfires.
The 2023 wildfire season in Canada was one of the worst on record. Over the course of the fire season that started early and ended later than usual, blazes burned an estimated 18.4 million hectares. The impact on the environment, especially air quality ... Read more ...
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Astronomers detect rare neutral atomic-carbon absorbers with deep neural network - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 17) |
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May 17 · By introducing a new method to explore galaxy formation and evolution, the team showcased the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in identifying rare weak signals in astronomical big data. The study was published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
"Neutral carbon absorbers" from cold gas with dust in the universe serve as crucial probes for studying galaxy formation and evolution. However, the signals of neutral carbon absorption lines are weak and extremely rare.
Astronomers have struggled to detect these absorbers in massive quasar spectral datasets using conventional correlation methods. "It's like looking for a needle in a haystack," said ... Read more ...
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Bolstering environmental data science with equity-centered approaches - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 17) |
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May 17 · The current debate and evolution in this area underscore the importance of embedding equity throughout research and design domains to ensure fair and unbiased outcomes.
A paradigm shift towards integrating socioecological equity into environmental data science and machine learning (ML) is advocated in a new perspective article published in the Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering.
Authored by Joe F. Bozeman III from the Georgia Institute of Technology, the paper emphasizes the importance of understanding and addressing socioecological inequity to enhance the integrity of environmental data science.
This study introduces and validates the Systemic Equity ... Read more ...
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Deep-sea sponge's 'zero-energy' flow control could inspire new energy efficient designs - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 17) |
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May 17 · Now, new research reveals yet another engineering feat of this ancient animal's structure: its ability to filter feed using only the faint ambient currents of the ocean depths, no pumping required.
This discovery of natural '"zero energy" flow control by an international research team co-led by University of Rome Tor Vergata and NYU Tandon School of Engineering could help engineers design more efficient chemical reactors, air purification systems, heat exchangers, hydraulic systems, and aerodynamic surfaces.
In a study published in Physical Review Letters, the team found through extremely high-resolution computer simulations how the skeletal structure of the Venus flower ... Read more ...
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For sale: unique piece of land in strategic Arctic archipelago - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 17) |
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May 17 · The last piece of privately owned land in the strategic Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic is up for grabs, a property likely to entice China but which Norway does not intend to let go without a fight.
The archipelago is located halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, in an Arctic region that has become a geopolitical and economic hotspot as the ice melts and relations grow ever frostier between Russia and the West.
For 300 million euros ($326 million), interested parties can acquire the remote Sore Fagerfjord property in southwestern Svalbard.
Measuring 60 square kilometers (23 square miles) - about the size of Manhattan - the property is home to ... Read more ...
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Furry thieves are running loose in a Maine forest, research shows - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 17) |
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May 17 · Brigit Humphreys, a UMaine graduate student studying ecology and environmental science, has been working in the forest, which sits about 10 miles north of Bangor, for the past two years in an effort to determine which animal personalities are predisposed to pilfering.
Humphreys has been studying the behavior of small mammals in the wild. Her research adds to a growing body of knowledge showing that the unique personalities of individual small mammals play a critical role in forest regeneration by impacting seed dispersal. It also complements a larger project that has been eight years in the making and is nearing completion.
"The point of the project was to figure out how ... Read more ...
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How heat waves are affecting Arctic phytoplankton - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 17) |
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May 17 · The basis of the marine food web in the Arctic, the phytoplankton, responds to heat waves much differently than to constantly elevated temperatures. This has been found by the first targeted experiments on the topic, which were recently conducted at the Alfred Wegener Institute's AWIPEV Station. The phytoplankton's behavior primarily depends on the cooling phases after or between heat waves, as shown in a study just released in the journal Science Advances.
Heat waves, which we've increasingly seen around the globe in recent years, are also becoming more and more common in the Arctic. During a heat wave, not only the air but also the ocean grows warmer - the temperature is ... Read more ...
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Linking leaf elemental traits to biomass across forest biomes in the Himalayas - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 17) |
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May 17 · A study led by Prof. Eryuan Liang (Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences), and Dr. Nita Dyola (Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Université du Québec à Chicoutimi), together with the co-authors, demonstrated the linkages of ten leaf element contents (carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, zinc, iron, copper and manganese) in 1,859 trees from 116 species in shaping biomass accumulation from tropical forests (80 m asl) to alpine treeline (4200 m asl) in the Kangchenjunga Landscape, located in the eastern Nepal Himalayas, which is one of the most diverse regions in the ... Read more ...
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Microplastics may slow the rate at which carbon is pulled from the sea surface to the depths - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 17) |
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May 17 · A new study co-authored by Northeastern researcher Aron Stubbins shows that microplastics may reduce the ability of the ocean to help offset the climate crisis by slowing down the rate at which carbon is taken from the sea surface to the depths.
For millennia, the ocean has been part of a carbon sink process in which dead phytoplankton clump together and fall into the deep ocean in showers of what look like "marine snow," says Stubbins, a professor of marine and environmental science.
The resulting carbon sequestration is a marine version of how trees and plants on terrestrial Earth take carbon from the atmosphere and store it in soil, he says.
"Plastics want to ... Read more ...
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Modern plant enzyme partners with surprisingly ancient protein - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 17) |
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May 17 · Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered that a protein responsible for the synthesis of a key plant material evolved much earlier than suspected. The research published in The Plant Cell, explores the origin and evolution of the biochemical machinery that builds lignin, a structural component of plant cell walls with significant impacts on the clean energy industry.
When the first land plants emerged from aquatic environments, they needed to adapt in order to survive.
Chang-Jun Liu, a senior scientist in Brookhaven's Biology Department, said, "The emergence of lignin, which provides structural support for the ... Read more ...
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New research shows the true cost of reproduction across the animal kingdom - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 17) |
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May 17 · A new study published in Science and led by Monash University biologists reveals that the energy cost of reproduction is far greater than previously believed.
The study found that the energy invested by parents in reproduction includes not only the energy contained in the offspring themselves (direct costs), but also the energy expended to produce and carry them (indirect costs). In most species, indirect costs, such as the metabolic load of pregnancy, exceed the direct costs.
While scientists have understood the direct energy costs associated with offspring (like the energy used to create and nourish them), the indirect costs - the metabolic load of pregnancy and ... Read more ...
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Research finds human activity over natural inputs determines the bacterial community in an ice core - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 17) |
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May 17 · Since glacier bacteria are largely transported from distant or local sources by atmospheric circulation, changes in source ecosystems can also affect the composition of surface glacier bacteria. Therefore, the characteristics of bacterial communities in ice cores can serve as indicators of past climates and human activities.
Meanwhile, the evenness demonstrated negative correlations with DOC and MAP, and positive correlation with δ18O, Na+, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+, Cl−, SO42-, and NO3-. These indicators collectively offer promising insights for inferring past climate and environmental changes.
Cluster A encompasses the years 1953 to 1991, Cluster B consists of 11 ... Read more ...
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Weather eases Canadian oil sands city wildfire menace - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 17) |
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May 17 · Rain and cooler weather have halted the advance of a huge wildfire threatening the Canadian city of Fort McMurray in a major oil-producing region, officials said Thursday.
There was no immediate threat to oil sands mines but production of more than 2 million barrels per day could be in jeopardy if the situation worsens.
Meanwhile, greenhouse emissions from the fires across Western Canada have hit a new high.
Alberta Wildfire spokeswoman Josee St-Onge told a news conference a fire southwest of Fort McMurray was still considered out of control, after scorching almost 21,000 hectares (52,000 acres) of forest.
But it has not gotten any closer to the city since ... Read more ...
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Nanobubble research to improve green hydrogen production - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · In a novel study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the University of Twente have made significant strides in understanding the behavior of micro- and nanobubbles on electrodes during water electrolysis. This process is crucial for (green) hydrogen production. These tiny bubbles form on the electrodes, blocking the flow of electricity and reducing the efficiency of the reaction.
A renewable hydrogen economy significantly reduces the impact of global warming compared to a fossil fuel economy. However, the production of hydrogen is significantly impeded by bubbles at the micro- and nanoscale. Therefore, researchers at the University ... Read more ...
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Brazil's Porto Alegre: a flood disaster waiting to happen - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · Porto Alegre, the Brazilian metropolis left submerged after torrential rains, had been lulled into a "false sense" of security by a vast but aging system of flood defenses, an urban drainage engineer told AFP.
Leomar Teichmann said a network of dikes, levees and a massive wall was meant to protect about 40 percent of the capital city of Rio Grande do Sul state in southern Brazil, where 150 people have died and hundreds of thousands were forced from their homes.
Teichmann is an engineering consultant and former deputy director of water and sewerage services for Porto Alegre, a city of 1.4 million people on the banks of the Guaiba estuary.
He told AFP he had already ... Read more ...
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Carbon pricing works, major meta-study finds - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · The major meta-study was led by the Berlin-based climate research institute MCC (Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change) and published in the journal Nature Communications.
"Politicians have repeatedly questioned the efficiency of curbing greenhouse gas emissions through pricing, and often focus excessively on bans and regulation instead. A policy mix is certainly needed as a rule, but the conflict of beliefs over the optimal core instrument of climate policy can be resolved with facts."
The starting point of the meta-study is a laboratory experiment-type question: how did emissions change after the start of carbon pricing, relative to a ... Read more ...
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Discovery may explain why Egyptian pyramids were built along long-lost Ahramat branch of the Nile - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · Some 31 pyramids in Egypt, including the Giza pyramid complex, may originally have been built along a 64-km-long branch of the river Nile which has long since been buried beneath farmland and desert. The findings, reported in a paper in Communications Earth & Environment, could explain why these pyramids are concentrated in what is now a narrow, inhospitable desert strip.
The Egyptian pyramid fields between Giza and Lisht, built over a nearly 1,000-year period starting approximately 4,700 years ago, now sit on the edge of the inhospitable Western Desert, part of the Sahara. Sedimentary evidence suggests that the Nile used to have a much higher discharge, with the river ... Read more ...
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Floating robots reveal just how much airborne dust fertilizes the Southern Ocean - a key climate 'shock absorber' - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · Using a fleet of robotic floats, our study published in Nature reveals that windblown dust delivers enough iron to support a third of the Southern Ocean's phytoplankton growth. Knowing this will help us understand how global warming will affect key climate processes phytoplankton are involved in.
The Southern Ocean acts as a climate "shock absorber". Its cold waters and vast area capture up to 40% of human-generated carbon dioxide (CO₂) absorbed by the planet's oceans each year.
Human-generated CO₂ mainly enters the ocean as it dissolves at the surface. However, biological processes that transfer vast quantities of CO₂ from the surface to the deep ocean ... Read more ...
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Hawaii study shows almost 75% of Maui wildfire survey participants have respiratory issues - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · The data, gathered from 679 people in January and February, comes from what researchers hope will be a long-term study of wildfire survivors lasting at least a decade. Researchers released early results from that research on Wednesday. They eventually hope to enroll 2,000 people in their study to generate what they call a snapshot of the estimated 10,000 people affected by the fires.
Dr. Alika Maunakea, one of the researchers and a professor at the university's John A. Burns School of Medicine, said those who reported higher exposure to the wildfire tended to have more symptoms.
Many study participants hadn't seen a doctor, he said. Some study participants said they ... Read more ...
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International study finds lightning storms are causing sea ice to melt faster at the North Pole - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · According to the researchers, "Until recently, lightning as a phenomenon was extremely rare in the Arctic region of the North Pole, due to the intense cold. However, due to the warming of the Earth, lightning storms have become more common there in the summers, and these storms further increase the melting process of the ice sheets—in a feedback loop."
Prof. Colin Price and MSc student Tair Plotnik from the Department of Geophysics at TAU's Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences participated in the study, alongside Dr. Anirban Guha and Dr. Joydeb Saha from Tripura University in India. The article is published in the journal Atmospheric ... Read more ...
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Ion swap dramatically improves performance of CO2-defeating catalyst - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · A catalyst normally uses a support to stabilize nanometer-sized metal particles that speed important chemical reactions. The support, through interactions with the metal particles, also helps create a unique interface with sites that can dramatically enhance reaction rate and selectivity. To improve catalytic efficiency, researchers typically try different combinations of metals and supports. ORNL's team instead focused on implanting specific elements right next to metal nanoparticles at their interface with the support to boost catalytic efficiency.
"Tuning the anion site of the catalyst support can greatly impact the metal-support interface, which leads to enhanced ... Read more ...
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Kenya floods prompt calls for warning systems - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · Kenya's worst flooding in decades highlights the urgent need for more robust mitigation efforts, including flood risk maps and early warning systems, say climate scientists.
Weeks of heavy rainfall and flooding across East Africa have triggered landslides, destroyed crops and infrastructure, and engulfed homes, leaving hundreds of thousands of people displaced across Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Ethiopia and Tanzania.
In Kenya, at least 210 people have died in the floods, with many more injured or missing.
John Recha, a Nairobi-based climate scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute, said climate change and unsustainable human activity were ... Read more ...
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Low-temperature pulse irradiation technique enables flexible optoelectronic devices - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · The strategy effectively addresses the compatibility and cost issues of traditional high-temperature synthesis, and the prepared thermoelectric films exhibit excellent optoelectronic performance in the visible and near-infrared spectrum range, which is promising for wearable electronics and integrated optoelectronic circuits.
"Scalable film fabrication is key to meeting the requirements of next-generation optoelectronic devices. Our progress in this work ingeniously avoids the difficulties with traditional thin film preparation techniques, making it more broadly applicable for practical use," said Professor Johnny Ho, Associate Vice-President (Enterprise) and Professor in the ... Read more ...
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Ocean warming triggers Indo-Pacific heat waves: Study - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · Temperatures in the Philippines and Thailand have topped 50°C this month, while Bangladesh has recorded almost 30 days of heat waves, leading to deaths from heatstroke and school closures.
Scientists say the heat waves are directly linked to climate change and ocean warming, which are likely to bring even more intense weather events such as cyclones.
While the Indian Ocean has undergone basin-wide surface warming at a rate of 0.12°C per decade between1950 and 2020, models now show that greenhouse gas emissions will likely accelerate surface warming at a rate of 0.17°C–0.38°C per decade between 2020 and 2100, says Roxy Mathew Koll, top scientist at ... Read more ...
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Research team achieves rapid and reliable room-temperature phosphorescence chiral recognition - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · Guest-host-doped RTP systems have made significant advancements in applications of various fields, including next-generation optoelectronics, high-contrast bioimaging, and chiral recognition. With increasing attention on the design of RTP systems with chiral moieties, understanding the relationship between structure and property has become crucial.
Leveraging the essential role of chirality in natural evolution, exploring richer spectral methods to understand the correlation between molecular chirality, excited states, and electron spin will elucidate fundamental principles and drive innovative technological transformations.
In their earlier work published in 2023, Prof. ... Read more ...
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Researchers calculate the carbon footprint of building a wooden house in Japan - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · The team hopes that by identifying emission hot spots in the supply chain that go into building a house, policy makers can implement strategies to reduce its climate impact. Their analysis was published in the Journal of Environmental Management.
As humanity maneuvers itself through the climate crisis, researchers and industry professionals alike have been working to identify sectors with high CO2 emissions so they can implement policies that potentially reduce greenhouse gas production. But in today's highly interconnected economy, figuring out a sector or object's greenhouse gas output is astoundingly complex.
"For example, it's easy to calculate how much CO2 a single ... Read more ...
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Revving up individual's climate action: How our plates and wheels can drive down carbon emissions - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · The global imperative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is well-established, with individual actions playing a critical role in this endeavor.
According to a study led by researcher from the Institute of Energy and the Environment at The Pennsylvania State University, personal lifestyle choices, particularly regarding transportation and diet, can significantly lower an individual's carbon footprint.
The study is published in Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering.
The study finds that personal activities such as driving and dietary choices significantly influence carbon footprints. For instance, the typical American's activities result in a carbon ... Read more ...
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Smoke from controlled burn offs and surface dust found to be leading source of particle air pollution in Australia - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · The study, "An application of low-cost sensors to monitor children's exposure to air pollution at five schools in Queensland, Australia," was published in the journal Atmospheric Environment.
First author, Ph.D. researcher Basant Pradhan from the QUT School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, said the local outdoor air quality monitoring study was a citizen science project with students.
"We chose schools for our citizen science project because children are particularly susceptible to pollution-related health effects as their lungs are still developing," Pradhan said.
"A second reason is that the measurements of two main air pollutants PM2.5 and carbon monoxide (CO) ... Read more ...
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Study analyzes the environmental sustainability of diets among children and adolescents - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · The study shows that there is both the potential and a need to make the diet of younger generations more sustainable. The study has been published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
"We sought to analyze age and temporal trends over the past 20 years," explains Professor Ute Nöthlings from the Institute for Nutritional and Food Science (IEL) at the University of Bonn. Her team drew on data from the DONALD study. The Dortmund Nutritional and Anthropometric Longitudinally Designed cohort study has been collecting detailed data on a range of factors including the diet, metabolism, development and health status of children and adolescents at regular intervals ... Read more ...
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Transformation and mechanisms of climate wet/dry change on the northern Tibetan Plateau under global warming - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · The northern margin of the Tibetan Plateau are located at the intersection of the Asian summer monsoon and mid-latitude westerly circulation. It is regional climate change has the unique complexity of the monsoon-westerly transition zone and is sensitive to climate change. The northern margin of the Tibetan Plateau is a typical area for studying climate change and its mechanisms.
Recently, based on paleo-environmental records, paleoclimate simulations and modern observations, the team of Professor Yu Li of Lanzhou University compared the wet/dry changes of the Middle Holocene (MH) warm period, the medieval climate anomaly (MCA), the modern warm period and the warm period in ... Read more ...
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Wildfire closes in on Canadian oil sands city - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 16) |
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May 16 · A wildfire in Canada's major oil-producing region doubled in size as it drew closer to the city of Fort McMurray on Wednesday, but officials were hopeful shifting winds could soon push it away.
The blaze scorched almost 21,000 hectares (52,000 acres) of forest overnight as it came within 4.5 kilometers (2.8 miles) of the city, which was partly evacuated the day before.
Alberta Wildfire spokeswoman Christie Tucker told a briefing that cooler temperatures and calmer winds were expected to "push the fire away from Fort McMurray" as well as weaken it.
However, Alberta Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis urged residents to "remain vigilant," noting that "wildfire ... Read more ...
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Trees on a university campus endure droughts with help from leaky pipes - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 15) |
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May 15 · But there's a silver lining to the less-than-perfect plumbing, according to new research. The water flowing through the creek sustains trees growing along it, allowing them to thrive during drought conditions that take a toll on trees growing along streams in more rural areas.
"Those negative effects are not canceled out," said Jay Banner, a professor in the Jackson School of Geosciences and the director of the Environmental Science Institute. "One has to weigh the unintended positive consequences with the expected and long-shown negative consequences."
The findings were published in npj Urban Sustainability.
A tree's growth is recorded in tree rings in its wood, ... Read more ...
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Heating proteins to body temperature reveals new drug targets - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 15) |
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May 15 · The findings, published in Nature, could revolutionize wide swathes of biology by fundamentally changing how protein structure is studied and leveraged for drug design. The study was led by Van Andel Institute's Juan Du, Ph.D., and Wei Lü, Ph.D.
Proteins generally are investigated at low temperatures to ensure their stability. However, the new study demonstrates that certain proteins are highly sensitive to temperature and change their shape when viewed at body temperature.
"For a long time, the methods we've used to study proteins require them to be cold or frozen. But in the real world, human proteins exist and function at body temperature," Du said. "Our study ... Read more ...
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A novel multifunctional catalyst turns methane into valuable hydrocarbons - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 15) |
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May 15 · Against this backdrop, the catalytic conversion of methane into methanol or other chemicals has attracted much attention from scientists, who are eager to find more energy-efficient and sustainable solutions. Among recently reported catalysts, copper (Cu)-containing zeolites have shown promise for methane-to-methanol conversion at mild conditions. Unfortunately, the yield and selectivity of most reported catalysts have been low, meaning that large quantities of undesirable byproducts are generated alongside methanol.
In a recent study published in Nature Communications, a research team including Associate Professor Toshiyuki Yokoi from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, ... Read more ...
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Air quality alerts are a climate change alarm - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 15) |
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May 15 · The sky over Minnesota was the subject of fascination and frustration over the weekend. Awe over solar-storm triggered northern lights turned to "Aw, not again!" over an air quality alert sparked by smoke drifting from wildfires in western Canada.
The red alert - a condition considered unhealthy for all - issued by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency was the first for 2024, following a record-setting 2023, when 21 such alerts were declared because of seemingly endless western forest fires.
The smoky air isn't just a nuisance, ruining a deceivingly delightful sunny Sunday afternoon and early Monday. It can be dangerous, especially to kids, older adults and people with ... Read more ...
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An environmental CGE model of China's economy: Modeling choices and application - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 15) |
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May 15 · Computable general equilibrium (CGE) model is an important policy guidance tool for pollution reduction and emission control objectives. An article, published in Energy and Climate Management, introduces the economic module, energy module, macroscopic closure, dynamic mechanism, algorithm and back-of-the-envelope of a CGE. Then, it shows how to extend the CGE to carbon tax and carbon trading market, energy rebound effect, environmental tax and disclosure, and carbon neutral strategies.
The general equilibrium framework of the CGE model widely used in cost-benefit analysis in the field of energy and environmental policy. Based on standard micro- and macroeconomic theories, the ... Read more ...
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Bees and butterflies on the decline in western and southern North America - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 15) |
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May 15 · Bee and butterfly populations are in decline in major regions of North America due to ongoing environmental change, and significant gaps in pollinator research limit our ability to protect these species, according to a study published May 15, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Sara Souther of Northern Arizona University, US, and colleagues.
In this study, Souther and colleagues used data compiled on four major families of bees and butterflies to construct species distribution models, enabling them to assess changes over time and space across North America.
The highest species richness was found along North America's West Coast, especially California and the ... Read more ...
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