Articles on or after 4/22/2024: |
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| Climate Crocks,Huffington Post,DeSmogBlog,Skeptical Science,VOX -Environment,PHYS.ORG - Earth,PHYS.ORG - Technology |
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Huffington Post:
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New Report Details Just How Quickly Europe Is Warming - Huffington Post (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · NAPLES, Italy (AP) - Europe is the fastest-warming continent and its temperatures are rising at roughly twice the global average, two top climate monitoring organizations reported Monday, warning of the consequences for human health, glacier melt and economic activity.
The U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s climate agency, Copernicus, said in a joint report the continent has the opportunity to develop targeted strategies to speed up the transition to renewable resources like wind, solar and hydroelectric power in response to the effects of climate change.
The continent generated 43% of its electricity from renewable resources last year, up ... Read more ...
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PHYS.ORG - Earth:
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A comprehensive monitoring and evaluation of disaster risk due to linkage of residual coal pillars and rock strata - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · In extreme cases, such instability can trigger disasters like mine earthquakes and widespread collapse of goaf areas, potentially leading to casualties. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out monitoring and evaluation research on the risk of instability and disaster caused by the linkage of residual coal pillars and rock strata.
The challenge of instability linkage between residual coal pillars and rock strata is complex, as it not only involves the interaction between these pillars and strata but also engenders a cascade of linkage disasters. Present research efforts mostly lack a holistic assessment of the instability and disaster risks arising from the interaction between ... Read more ...
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AI weather forecasts can capture destructive path of major storms, new study shows - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Professor Andrew Charlton-Perez, who led the study, said, "AI is transforming weather forecasting before our eyes. Two years ago, modern machine learning techniques were rarely being applied to make weather forecasts. Now we have multiple models that can produce 10-day global forecasts in minutes.
"There is a great deal we can learn about AI weather forecasts by stress-testing them on extreme events like Storm Ciarán. We can identify their strengths and weaknesses and guide the development of even better AI forecasting technology to help protect people and property. This is an exciting and important time for weather forecasting."
Promise and pitfalls
To ... Read more ...
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Czechs 3D-print Eiffel Tower from ocean waste for Olympics - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · A Czech company is 3D-printing a giant Eiffel Tower model for a local Olympics event, using recycled ocean waste as the primary material.
The 14-meter-high (46-foot) model will be installed at an Olympic festival in the north of the Czech Republic, where the public can try different Olympic sports during the Paris Games in July and August.
Jan Hrebabecky, the owner of the 3DDen printing farm, uses printing filament made from ocean waste.
"The material for the Eiffel Tower comes from the shores of Thailand," he told AFP.
"It has excellent mechanic and chemical qualities, great UV resistance, and it is practically immortal."
Collected by Thai fishermen, ... Read more ...
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Earth Day 2024: Four effective strategies to reduce household food waste - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · 1.3 billion tons of food is enough to feed more than 3 billion people.
Food waste contributes to nearly 8% to 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions. That level of emissions is on the scale of what a large country would produce—just under total emission estimates of the United States and China—posing serious contributions to climate change.
The greatest contributors to food waste are high-income countries, where the average consumer wastes between 95–115 kilograms of food per year. In Canada, approximately 60% of food produced is lost or wasted per year, costing an estimated $49.5 billion. This figure constitutes about half the annual food purchase costs ... Read more ...
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Europe suffered record number of 'extreme heat stress' days in 2023: Monitors - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Europe endured a record number of "extreme heat stress" days in 2023, two leading climate monitors said Monday, underscoring the threat of increasingly deadly summers across the continent.
In a year of contrasting extremes, Europe witnessed scorching heat waves but also catastrophic flooding, withering droughts, violent storms and its largest wildfire.
These disasters inflicted billions of dollars in damages and impacted more than two million people, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service and the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in a new joint report.
The consequences for health were particularly acute, with heat singled out by these agencies ... Read more ...
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Feedback loop that is melting ice shelves in West Antarctica revealed - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · The study, titled "Antarctic Slope Undercurrent and onshore heat transport driven by ice shelf melting" and published in Science Advances, sheds new light on the mechanisms driving the melting of ice shelves beneath the surface of the ocean, which have been unclear until now.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been losing mass in recent decades, contributing to global sea level rise. If it were to melt entirely, global sea levels would rise by around five meters.
It's known that Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW), a water mass that is up to 4°C above local freezing temperatures, is flowing beneath the ice shelves in West Antarctica and melting them from below. Since so much ... Read more ...
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Highest-level rainstorm warning issued in south China's Guangdong - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · More than 100,000 people have been evacuated due to heavy rain and fatal floods in southern China, with the government issuing its highest-level rainstorm warning for the affected area on Tuesday.
Torrential rains have lashed Guangdong in recent days, swelling rivers and raising fears of severe flooding that state media said could be of the sort only "seen around once a century".
On Tuesday, the megacity of Shenzhen was among the areas listed as experiencing "heavy to very heavy downpours", the city's meteorological observatory said, adding the risk of flash floods was "very high".
Images from Qingyuan - a city in northern Guangdong that is part of the low-lying ... Read more ...
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How spicy does mustard get depending on the soil? - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Can microbes in the soil also contribute to taste?
In a recent study published in New Phytologist, former Ph.D. student Corrine Walsh at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder and CIRES Fellow Noah Fierer have run one of the first experiments to determine whether soil microorganisms like bacteria and fungi influence the flavor of a crop. Their target: the spiciness of mustard seeds.
"I thought that was an interesting question," Walsh said. "We know microbes and plants communicate via chemicals—could those chemicals impact plant flavor?"
Previous research has confirmed that soil properties ... Read more ...
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In Ecuadoran Amazon, butterflies provide a gauge of climate change - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Biologists on a trail in the Ecuadoran Amazon hold their breath as they distribute a foul-smelling delicacy to lure butterflies, critical pollinators increasingly threatened by climate change.
A team has hung 32 traps made of green nets, each baited with rotting fish and fermented bananas. They are meant to blend in with the forest canopy. Their pungent odor clearly does not.
Since last August, a team of biologists and park rangers has been monitoring butterfly numbers in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, a park famed for its abundant flora and fauna.
They catch and document the colorful insects, releasing most with an identifying mark on their wings. Some of them, ... Read more ...
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Investigating the porosity of sedimentary rock with neutrons - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · At the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Research Neutron Source (FRM II) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the networks of micropores were characterized using small and very small angle neutron scattering.
Dense, dark, compact—at first glance, the sedimentary rock samples that Dr. Amirsaman Rezaeyan has on his lab desk are only slightly different. Pores are not visible to the naked eye.
Nevertheless, it is precisely the pores that give the mudrocks their special properties: The pores, ranging from a few micrometers to sub-nanometers in size, are formed during sedimentation and compacted over time, determining the permeability. These pores are the decisive factor for ... Read more ...
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Look to deadly Venus to find life in the universe, new paper argues - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · "We often assume that Earth is the model of habitability, but if you consider this planet in isolation, we don't know where the boundaries and limitations are," said UC Riverside astrophysicist and paper first author Stephen Kane. "Venus gives us that."
Though it also features a pressure cooker-like atmosphere that would instantly flatten a human, Earth, and Venus share some similarities. They have roughly the same mass and radius. Given the proximity to that planet, it's natural to wonder why Earth turned out so differently.
Many scientists assume that insolation flux, the amount of energy Venus receives from the sun, caused a runaway greenhouse situation that ruined ... Read more ...
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Mangrove blue carbon at higher risk of microplastic pollution - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Microplastic pollution (particles <5 mm diameter) is one such issue affecting mangroves in particular. These tiny fragments can be of primary origin, such as microbeads used in personal care products like face washes and even toothpaste, or secondary from the decomposition of larger plastic pieces, such as water bottles and plastic bags.
Previous research has estimated that up to 12.7 million tons of plastic pollution entered the oceans in 2010, which is expected to have doubled by 2025 without appropriate intervention, and is carried globally via wind and currents.
Associate Professor Peng Zhang, of Guangdong Ocean University, China, and colleagues investigated the ... Read more ...
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NASA's Voyager 1 resumes sending engineering updates to Earth - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · For the first time since November, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars).
Voyager 1 stopped sending readable science and engineering data back to Earth on Nov. 14, 2023, even though mission controllers could tell the spacecraft was still receiving their commands and otherwise operating normally. In March, the Voyager engineering team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed ... Read more ...
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Research showcases Indigenous stewardship's role in forest ecosystem resilience - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Western scientists and land managers have become increasingly cognizant of cultural burning, but its extent and purpose are generally absent from fire modeling research, said Skye Greenler, who led the partnership when she was a graduate research fellow in the OSU College of Forestry.
"We developed this project in collaboration with the Karuk Tribe to explore the impact of cultural burning at a landscape scale in a completely new way," she said. "The information that went into this model is not new at all—it's been held by Karuk Tribal members for millennia—but we developed new methods to bring the knowledge together and display it in a way that showcases the ... Read more ...
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Researchers uncover kinky metal alloy that won't crack at extreme temperatures at the atomic level - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · In this context, strength is defined as how much force a material can withstand before it is permanently deformed from its original shape, and toughness is its resistance to fracturing (cracking). The alloy's resilience to bending and fracture across an enormous range of conditions could open the door for a novel class of materials for next-generation engines that can operate at higher efficiencies.
The team, led by Robert Ritchie at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley, in collaboration with the groups led by professors Diran Apelian at UC Irvine and Enrique Lavernia at Texas A&M University, discovered the alloy's surprising properties and then ... Read more ...
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Three dead, tens of thousands evacuated as storms strike south China - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Three people are dead and 11 others missing following storms that battered southern China, state media said Monday, with tens of thousands evacuated away from the torrential downpours.
Heavy rain has descended upon the vast southern province of Guangdong in recent days, swelling rivers and raising fears of severe flooding that state media said could be of the sort only "seen around once a century".
"The three deaths were reported in Zhaoqing City. They were trapped due to the rainfall and were found to have died at the site," state broadcaster Xinhua reported, citing local authorities.
Eleven others remain missing as search and rescue efforts in the area continue ... Read more ...
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Turning to nature to improve vital water treatment - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Escalating industrialization, urbanization and climate change in Asia present a significant challenge to maintaining water quality.
In an effort to improve water treatment, RMIT has collaborated in an international team supporting pilot projects in Vietnam, Sri Lanka and the Philippines through an Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research project.
Led by RMIT's Professor Jega Jegatheesan, the pilots included the construction of floating wetlands in Can Tho, Vietnam and Kandy, Sri Lanka, green roofs in Ho Chi Minh City and constructed wetland in the Philippines.
This saw 40 students at Can Tho University trained to build and install the structures in two ... Read more ...
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When red-hot isn't enough: New government heat risk tool sets magenta as most dangerous level - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · The National Weather Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday—Earth Day—presented a new online heat risk system that combines meteorological and medical risk factors with a seven-day forecast that's simplified and color-coded for a warming world of worsening heat waves.
"For the first time we'll be able to know how hot is too hot for health and not just for today but for coming weeks," Dr. Ari Bernstein, director of the National Center for Environmental Health, said at a joint news conference by government health and weather agencies.
Magenta is the worst and deadliest of five heat threat categories, hitting everybody with what the ... Read more ...
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Why is methane seeping on Mars? NASA scientists have new ideas - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Living creatures produce most of the methane on Earth. But scientists haven't found convincing signs of current or ancient life on Mars, and thus didn't expect to find methane there. Yet, the portable chemistry lab aboard Curiosity, known as SAM, or Sample Analysis at Mars, has continually sniffed out traces of the gas near the surface of Gale Crater, the only place on the surface of Mars where methane has been detected thus far. Its likely source, scientists assume, are geological mechanisms that involve water and rocks deep underground.
If that were the whole story, things would be easy. However, SAM has found that methane behaves in unexpected ways in Gale Crater. It ... Read more ...
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World's oases threatened by desertification, even as humans expand them - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · "Although the scientific community has always emphasized the importance of oases, there has not been a clear map of the global distribution of oases," said Dongwei Gui, a geoscientist at the Chinese Academy of Science, who led the study. "Oasis research has both theoretical and practical significance for achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and promoting sustainable development in arid regions."
The study found that oases around the world grew by more than 220,149 square kilometers (85,000 square miles) from 1995 to 2020, mostly due to intentional oasis expansion projects in Asia. But desertification drove the loss of 134,300 square kilometers (51,854 square ... Read more ...
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PHYS.ORG - Technology:
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Amazon sold a chemical that led to 15 deaths: Who is responsible? - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · In December 2020, 15-year-old Tyler Schmidt took a deadly chemical to a wooded area near his home in Camas, Clark County, Washington.
His body was found two days later. The chemical was determined to be his cause of death.
That year, four more individuals died the same way. In 2021 and 2022, 10 more died after ingesting the same chemical.
All 15 individuals purchased the chemical - a substance that can be used as a food preservative or in medical lab settings in a low purity form - from Amazon. It was sold there with 99% purity.
The families of those 15 people have sued Amazon in six separate cases since 2022 - including one filed last month - alleging the ... Read more ...
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An ultralow-concentration electrolyte for lithium-ion batteries - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Lithium salts make batteries powerful but expensive. An ultralow-concentration electrolyte based on the lithium salt LiDFOB may be a more economical and more sustainable alternative. Cells using these electrolytes and conventional electrodes have been demonstrated to have high performance, as reported by a research team in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition. In addition, the electrolyte could facilitate both production and recycling of the batteries.
Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) provide power to smartphones and tablets, drive electric vehicles, and store electricity at power plants. The main components of most LIBs are lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) cathodes, ... Read more ...
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Denmark launches its biggest offshore wind farm tender - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · The Danish Energy Agency on Monday launched its biggest tender for the construction of offshore wind farms, aimed at producing six gigawatts by 2030 - more than double Denmark's current capacity.
Offshore wind is one of the major sources of green energy that Europe is counting on to decarbonize electricity production and reach its 2050 target of net zero carbon production, but it remains far off the pace needed to hit its targets.
Denmark's offshore wind parks currently generate 2.7 gigawatts of electricity, with another one GW due in 2027.
The tender covers six sites in four zones in Danish waters: North Sea I, Kattegat, Kriegers Flak II and Hesselo.
"We are ... Read more ...
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Honda to build major EV plant in Canada: govt source - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · Japanese auto giant Honda will open an electric vehicle plant in eastern Canada, a Canadian government source familiar with the multibillion-dollar project told AFP on Monday.
The federal government as well as the province of Ontario, where the plant will be built, will both provide some financial incentives for the deal, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official announcement is due Thursday, though Ontario premier Doug Ford hinted at the deal on Monday.
"This week, we've landed a new deal. It will be the largest deal in Canadian history. It'll be double the size of Volkswagen," he said, referring to a battery plant announced last ... Read more ...
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Ion thermoelectric conversion devices for near room temperature - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Prof. Zeng Wei of the Institute of Chemical Engineering, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, said that at the beginning, the research team mainly carried out study based on the thermal diffusion effect and published a series of research results. In spite of this, their results never realized the expected effect, and the prospect of practical application was not optimistic.
Later, they tried to make a further enhancement on the basis of the thermal current effect; that is, to incorporate the redox reaction of the electrode. The reason for this is that the thermal current effect is redox in the electrolyte, so the gain and loss of electrons mainly occur in the solution, and the ... Read more ...
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Q&A: Could automation, electrification of long-haul trucking reduce environmental impacts? - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · For long-haul routes below 300 miles, electrification can reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas damages by 13%, or $587 million annually, according to the study. For long-haul routes above 300 miles, electrification of just the urban segments facilitated by hub-based automation of highway driving can reduce damages by 35%, or $220 million annually.
"It's the first study we know of that simultaneously studies a realistic model of automation and a realistic model of electrification—things that are feasible in the near term—and assesses their environmental benefits," said lead author Parth Vaishnav, assistant professor at the U-M School for Environment and ... Read more ...
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Tesla cuts the price of its 'Full Self Driving' system by a third to $8,000 - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Tesla knocked roughly a third off the price of its "Full Self Driving" system - which can't drive itself and so drivers must remain alert and be ready to intervene - to $8,000 from $12,000, according to the company website.
Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk promised in 2019 that there would be a fleet of robotaxis on the road in 2020, but the promise has yet to materialize, and the system still has to be supervised by humans.
The cuts, which occurred on Saturday, follow Tesla's moves to slash $2,000 off the prices of three of its five models in the United States late Friday. That's the latest evidence of the challenges facing the electric vehicle maker.
Tesla ... Read more ...
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Tesla earnings a 'moment of truth' for Musk after stumbles - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · Tesla CEO Elon Musk faces heightened pressure with Tuesday's earnings report to reassure investors that recent stumbles are simply unexpected speed bumps - and not indications of a road to decline.
The electric car maker, which enjoyed scorching growth for most of 2022 and 2023, has experienced setbacks that analysts say have raised the stakes for the first-quarter report.
Tuesday's earnings and conference call are a "moment of truth" for Tesla and Musk, constituting "one of the most important moments in the company's history in our view," said a note from Wedbush.
Heading into 2024, Tesla watchers were already girding for a tougher path, with Musk's once-dominant ... Read more ...
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Wind and solar in limbo: Long waitlists to get on the grid are a 'leading barrier' - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Ninety miles west of Chicago, the corn and soybean fields stretch to the sky, and dreams of the clean energy future dangle - just out of reach.
To the east of Route 52, there's the first phase of the 9,500-acre Steward Creek solar farm, in the works since 2019.
To the west, there's South Dixon Solar, which once hoped to begin construction on 3,800 acres in 2022.
Both projects have been approved by the Lee County Board. But neither can be built, according to a county official, due to PJM Interconnection, a powerful but little-known entity that controls access to the high-voltage electric grid in northern Illinois.
"There isn't anything we can do to help the ... Read more ...
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Skeptical Science:
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At a glance - The difference between weather and climate - Skeptical Science (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a "bump" for our ask. This week features "The difference between weather and climate". More will follow in the upcoming weeks. Please follow the Further Reading link at the bottom to read the full rebuttal and to join the discussion in the comment thread there.
How do you go about weather forecasting by yourself? Study the computer models. With experience, you will become familiar with the ... Read more ...
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VOX -Environment:
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Climate change is disrupting our sense of home - VOX -Environment (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Climate change is personal. It is not abstract. The warming climate impacts our economies, influences our politics and culture, threatens the food we eat and the water we drink; it even affects our love lives.
As climate change accelerates and extreme heat and climate disasters displace more people around the world, the crisis is increasingly disrupting our fundamental sense of where we belong and what we consider home.
We saw that last summer, in Maui, Hawaii, when the deadliest wildfire in the US in more than a century leveled the historic town of Lahaina, killed more than 100 people, and displaced thousands of residents from their homes.
In the immediate wake of ... Read more ...
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