Most recent 40 articles: PHYS.ORG - Earth
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Morocco's farming revolution: Defying drought with science - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 2) |
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May 2 · In the heart of sun-soaked Morocco, scientists are cultivating a future where tough crops defy a relentless drought, now in its sixth year. "Look at these beautiful ears of wheat," said Wuletaw Tadesse Degu, the head of wheat breeding at the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA). "The difference in quality between our field and others is striking," he said, pointing towards a lush expanse in Marchouch, south of Rabat, that stood in stark contrast with the barren lands elsewhere. By 2040, Morocco is poised to face "extremely high" water stress, a dire prediction from the World Resources Institute, a non-profit research ... Read more ... |
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April temperatures in Bangladesh hottest on record - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · Bangladesh's weather bureau said Wednesday that last month was the hottest April on record, with the South Asian nation and much of the region still enduring a suffocating heat wave. Extensive scientific research has found climate change is causing heat waves to become longer, more frequent and more intense. Punishing heat last month prompted Bangladesh's government to close schools across the country, keeping an estimated 32 million students at home. "This year the heat wave covered around 80 percent of the country. We've not seen such unbroken and expansive heat waves before," Bangladesh Meteorological Department senior forecaster Muhammad Abul Kalam Mallik told AFP. Read more ... |
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EPA underestimates methane emissions from landfills and urban areas, researchers find - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · "Methane is the second largest contributor to climate change behind carbon dioxide so it's really important that we quantify methane emissions at the highest possible resolution to pinpoint what sources it is coming from," said Hannah Nesser, a former Ph.D. student at SEAS and first author of the paper. Nesser is currently a NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) Fellow in the Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The EPA estimates that landfills are the third-largest source of human-caused methane emissions in the U.S., but the EPA uses a bottom-up accounting method that often doesn't match observations of atmospheric methane. The EPA methane ... Read more ... |
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Every breath you take: Following the journey of inhaled plastic particle pollution - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · Led by Senior Lecturer of Mechanical Engineering Dr. Suvash Saha, the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) research team has used computational fluid-particle dynamics (CFPD) to study the transfer and deposition of nano and microplastic particles of different sizes and shapes depending on the rate of breathing. The results of the modeling, published in the journal Environmental Advances, have pinpointed hotspots in the human respiratory system where plastic particles can accumulate, from the nasal cavity and larynx and into the lungs. The paper is titled, "Transport and deposition of microplastics and nanoplastics in the human respiratory tract." Dr. Saha said evidence ... Read more ... |
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Floods strand dozens of tourists in Kenya's Maasai Mara - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · Nearly 100 tourists were among people marooned after a river overflowed in Kenya's famed Maasai Mara wildlife reserve following a heavy downpour, a local administrator said Wednesday, as the death toll from flood-related disasters neared 180. Torrential rains, amplified by the El Niño weather pattern, have lashed much of the East African country and destroyed roads, bridges and other infrastructure. "Approximately 100 or more tourists" were stranded in more than a dozen lodges, hotels and camps, Narok West sub-county administrator Stephen Nakola told AFP. "That is the preliminary number as of now because some of the camps are unaccessible," he said. The ... Read more ... |
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Fungal resistance in plants associated with heritable differences in microbiota abundances - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · Sunflowers can be harvested for a number of products including seeds and oil, for which consumer demand has increased significantly in recent years. They may also contribute to climate resilience, researchers note, since they can adapt to various weather conditions, and sunflower sprouts contain nutrients that can promote human health. Unfortunately, like many other plants, sunflowers are susceptible to disease, which can cause significant crop losses. For example, white mold, which is caused by the fungal pathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, is responsible for average annual sunflower crop losses of more than 1%. It can also affect beans, eggplants, lettuce, peanuts, potatoes ... Read more ... |
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Investigating coal emissions reductions and mortality in China - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · Annual coal consumption fell between 2013 and 2017, which led to observed dramatic decreases in mean daily fine particulate matter (PM2.5) levels. In 2018, a new program, known as "Three-Year Action Plan for Winning the Blue Sky Defense Battle," began, and in the same year, PM2.5 concentrations were further reduced by 9.3% from 2017 levels. In this context, Xiaoming Shi and colleagues used accountability analysis to assess whether the acute health effects of PM2.5 changed from 2013 to 2018 in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, which was the most heavily polluted region. The study is published in the journal PNAS Nexus. The acute effects of PM2.5 were significantly ... Read more ... |
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Kenya's devastating floods expose decades of poor urban planning and bad land management - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · Floods are the natural consequence of storm rainfall and have an important ecological role. They inundate flood plains where silts settle, riverbed aquifers are recharged and nutrients are gathered. Annual rainfall in Kenya varies from 2,000 mm in the western region to less than 250 mm in the drylands covering over 80% of Kenya. But storm rainfalls are widespread. This means that floods can occur in any part of the country. The impact of floods has become more severe due to a number of factors. The first is how much water runs off. In rural areas, changes to the landscape have meant that there's been an increase in the amount of storm runoff generated from rainfall. This ... Read more ... |
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Mystery behind huge opening in Antarctic sea ice solved - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · A study published in Science Advances reveals a key process that had eluded scientists as to how the opening, called a polynya, was able to form and persist for several weeks. The paper is titled "Ekman-Driven Salt Transport as a Key Mechanism for Open-Ocean Polynya Formation at Maud Rise." The team of researchers from the University of Southampton, the University of Gothenburg and the University of California San Diego studied the Maud Rise polynya—named after the submerged mountain-like feature in the Weddell Sea, over which it grows. They found the polynya was brought on by complex interactions between the wind, ocean currents, and the unique geography of the ... Read more ... |
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New climate study shows cloud cover is easier to affect than previously thought - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · Clouds are among the least understood entities in the climate system and the largest source of uncertainty in predicting future climate change. To describe clouds, you need to understand weather systems on the scale of up to hundreds of kilometers and microphysics down to the scale of molecules. The new study sheds new light on what happens at the molecular scale, focusing on cloud condensation nuclei in marine stratus clouds—low-level, horizontally layered clouds. The study, "Supersaturation and Critical Size of Cloud Condensation Nuclei in Marine Stratus Clouds," is published in Geophysical Research Letters. It is well-known that cloud formation depends on two ... Read more ... |
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New computer algorithm supercharges climate models and could lead to better predictions of future climate change - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · However, climate modelers have long faced a major problem. Because Earth System Models integrate many complicated processes, they cannot immediately run a simulation; they must first ensure that it has reached a stable equilibrium representative of real-world conditions before the industrial revolution. Without this initial settling period—referred to as the "spin-up" phase—the model can "drift," simulating changes that may be erroneously attributed to manmade factors. Unfortunately, this process is extremely slow as it requires running the model for many thousands of model years which, for IPCC simulations, can take as much as two years on some of the world's most ... Read more ... |
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New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · "It is difficult for manganese oxide to form on the surface of Mars, so we didn't expect to find it in such high concentrations in a shoreline deposit," said Patrick Gasda, of Los Alamos National Laboratory's Space Science and Applications group and lead author on the study. "On Earth, these types of deposits happen all the time because of the high oxygen in our atmosphere produced by photosynthetic life, and from microbes that help catalyze those manganese oxidation reactions. "On Mars, we don't have evidence for life, and the mechanism to produce oxygen in Mars's ancient atmosphere is unclear, so how the manganese oxide was formed and concentrated here is really ... Read more ... |
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Precipitation may brighten Colorado River's future, says modeling study - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · Precipitation falling in the river's headwaters region is likely to be more abundant than during the prior two decades. The work, published in the Journal of Climate, comes as policymakers, water managers, states, and tribes look for answers on how to govern the Colorado River's flows beyond 2025. "It's a sort of nuanced message," said Balaji Rajagopalan, CIRES Fellow and co-author of the study. "Yes, the temperature is warming, but that's not the full story—you add precipitation and you get a fuller picture." CIRES affiliate Martin Hoerling and Fellow Balaji Rajagopalan worked with colleagues from several other institutions to analyze data from a suite of models, ... Read more ... |
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Satellite images of plants' fluorescence can predict crop yields - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · In many parts of the world, crop yields are dropping, largely due to the effects of climate change. According to a recent Cornell study, over the last four decades, for every 1 degree Celsius of warming, net farm income decreased by 66%. Farmers in developed countries can often rely on big datasets and risk management tools to help reduce the impacts of extreme heat on their yield and income. But in developing countries, data is scarce, and it is often difficult to accurately measure crop yield. In a paper appearing in Environmental Research Letters, the scientists suggest using satellite photos to remotely measure solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) as a way of ... Read more ... |
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Scientists find five new hydrothermal vents in Pacific Ocean - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · The pace of discovery in the oceans leaped forward thanks to teamwork between a deep-sea robot and a human occupied submarine leading to the recent discovery of five new hydrothermal vents in the eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean. A team of ocean scientists, led by chief scientist and Lehigh faculty member Jill McDermott, returned to port March 26 in San Diego from a research expedition in the eastern Pacific Ocean where they discovered the new deep-sea hydrothermal vent sites on the seafloor at 2,550 meters (8,366 feet, or 1.6 miles) depth. The venting fluids are all hotter than 300°C (570°F). The discovery was supported, and in many ways accelerated, by making use of the ... Read more ... |
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Some communities are more vulnerable to weather-related power outages in New York State - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · Weather-related power outages in the United States have become nearly twice as common in the last 10 years compared to the previous decade. These outages, which can last most of a day, are more than an inconvenience: lack of power and related indoor temperature discomfort can exacerbate health conditions; lack of power also endangers the lives of people who are reliant on electricity-powered medical devices and/or elevators. A study led environmental health scientists at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the University of Washington examines the link between various types of extreme weather and outages in New York State between 2017 and 2020 and who is ... Read more ... |
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Study says El Nino, not climate change, was key driver of low rainfall that snarled Panama Canal - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · The climate phenomenon known as El Niño - and not climate change - was a key driver in low rainfall that disrupted shipping at the Panama Canal last year, scientists said Wednesday. A team of international scientists found that El Niño - a natural warming of the central Pacific that changes weather worldwide - doubled the likelihood of the low precipitation Panama received during last year's rainy season. That dryness reduced water levels at the reservoir that feeds freshwater to the Panama Canal and provides drinking water for more than half of the Central American country. Human-caused climate change was not a primary driver of the Central American country's unusually ... Read more ... |
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Texans should prepare for hotter temperatures, greater risk of fire and flooding - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · The newly updated assessment of extreme weather in Texas draws on data from 1900 to 2023 to predict trends through the year 2036, and shows a significant uptick in extreme temperatures and droughts, wildfire conditions and urban flooding risks, among other changes. The report was authored by Nielsen-Gammon, a Regents Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, in collaboration with the nonprofit public policy organization Texas 2036. "We have national climate assessments, but they can't do justice to Texas' specific climate conditions," Nielsen-Gammon said. "With this Texas-specific study, we focused on observed trends as much as possible rather than emphasizing ... Read more ... |
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Wondering what Australia might look like in a hotter world? Take a glimpse into the distant past - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (May 1) |
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May 1 · Wouldn't it be useful to go back in time and see what Australia looked like during those periods in the distant past? Well, scientists—including us—have done just that. These studies, which largely involve examining sediments and fossils, reveal a radically different Australia to the one we inhabit. The continent was warmer and wetter, and filled with unfamiliar plant and animal species. It suggests Australia may be much wetter, and look very different, in centuries and millennia to come. Then and now: Measuring CO₂ Atmospheric CO₂ is measured in "parts per million"—in other words, how many CO₂ molecules are present in each ... Read more ... |
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New study looks at US Drought Monitor to see how it has reflected climate change since 2000 - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · Though generated by experts and informed by data, it is in some ways a subjective interpretation of drought conditions. And it carries significant political and economic ramifications—the USDM informs state declarations of emergency, as well as drought relief payments issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDM classifies localities into six drought categories, ranging from "none" to "exceptional." Each category is based on thresholds of event rarity. Some weeks, the placid white representing normal conditions blankets much of the country; other weeks, splotchy maroon pockets of exceptional drought pop off the map like blistered burns. In a study ... Read more ... |
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A virus could help save billions of gallons of wastewater produced by fracking - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · In a new study published in the journal Water, researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso have identified a novel means of treating the wastewater generated by oil and gas production: bacteriophages. Ramón Antonio Sánchez, a doctoral candidate within UTEP's chemistry program, is the first author on the publication, detailing how bacteriophages, viruses that are often highly specific and lethal to a single species of bacteria, can be used as a rapid and cost-effective method to treat produced water on an industrial scale. Sánchez said if the work is successful, it would give the oil and gas industry a means of treating, reusing and recycling ... Read more ... |
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Abrupt permafrost thaw found to intensify warming effects on soil CO₂ emission - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · According to a recent study published in Nature Geoscience, scientists have found that soil carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are more sensitive to climate warming in permafrost-collapsed areas than in non-collapsed areas. This study, based on field warming experiments combined with laboratory incubation of soils from a large-scale sampling, provides new insights about permafrost carbon–climate feedback in the context of future climate warming. Warmer temperatures have led to rapid permafrost thawing in high-latitude and high-altitude permafrost regions. Abrupt permafrost thaw, known as thermokarst, occurs in approximately 20% of the northern permafrost region, but this ... Read more ... |
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Atmospheric 'teleconnections' sustain warm blobs in the northeast Pacific Ocean - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · The first warm patch discovered in the northeast Pacific Ocean was the "Blob" event of 2013–2016, followed by another warm blob in 2019–2020. The Blob stretched from coastal Alaska to the Baja region of California, with sea surface temperatures as much as 6°C above normal. Vital fish stocks such as sockeye salmon and Pacific cod were impacted, and the event saw geographical shifts of a number of species, including phytoplankton, as well as the closures of important fisheries and mass strandings of marine mammals and seabirds. But some species increased in numbers, such as pyrosomes, bioluminescent colonies of millimeter-sized individuals and commonly called ... Read more ... |
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Believing environmental damage is done by others can cause 'race to the bottom' - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · Common-pool resources, such as forests, fisheries, and groundwater, need to be managed effectively to reduce over-harvesting and environmental damage. Researchers knew that strong boundaries around a community's common-pool resource could promote effective management, but they weren't exactly sure why. The new research—in collaboration with mangrove-dependent communities in Tanzania—reveals that boundaries don't just keep others out, but also promote good conservation practices by community members. Without effective boundaries, communities can be subject to theft from neighbors. The study reveals that if they then believe that this theft is causing ... Read more ... |
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Big data reveals true climate impact of worldwide air travel - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · When countries signed the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty, high-income countries were required to report their aviation-related emissions. But 151 middle and lower income countries, including China and India, were not required to report these emissions, although they could do so voluntarily. This matters because the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change relies on country reports of emissions during negotiations on country-specific emissions cuts. "Our work fills the reporting gap, so that this can inform policy and hopefully improve future negotiations," says Jan Klenner, a Ph.D. candidate at NTNU's Industrial Ecology ... Read more ... |
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Clouds blanket the night side of the hot exoplanet WASP-43b - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · Violent winds transport the searing hot air to the nightside, where it cools to 600°C, allowing clouds to form and blanket the entire hemisphere. These tempests impair chemical reactions so much that methane can barely form, even though it should be abundant under calmer conditions. Hot Jupiters are extreme gas giant exoplanets that orbit their host stars in close proximity, leading to several exotic properties regarding temperature, density, composition, chemistry, and weather. With the advent of groundbreakingly sensitive telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have begun to study their atmospheres in great detail. An international ... Read more ... |
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Enceladus spills its guts through strike–slip motion - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · At Enceladus's south pole, a large number of jets spray icy particles out from a set of jagged, 150-kilometer-long faults—known as the tiger-stripe faults—and this ejected material coalesces above the moon's surface to form a plume. Samples of this plume material analyzed by NASA's Cassini mission suggests that the chemical conditions believed to be necessary for life may exist in the ocean deep beneath Enceladus's surface. Now, new research led by graduate student Alexander Berne (MS '22), working with Mark Simons, the John W. and Herberta M. Miles Professor of Geophysics and director of the Brinson Exploration Hub at Caltech, uses a detailed geophysical model to ... Read more ... |
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Exploiting disorder to harvest heat energy: The potentialities of 2D magnets for thermoelectric applications - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · However, despite more than 100 years of intense research, thermoelectric efficiencies are still lower than that of conventional heat engines, making thermoelectrics only suitable for niche applications. That is why one of the main endeavors of scientists today is to find new strategies to improve this efficiency. Our latest article "Impact of spin-entropy on the thermoelectric properties of a 2D magnet," published in Nano Letters, demonstrates that a solution could lie in circuits based on two-dimensional (2D) magnetic layers. Tuning the entropy in magnets Thermoelectric properties are significantly influenced by entropy, which quantifies the disorder in a system. ... Read more ... |
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G7 to phase out coal-fired power plants by mid-2030s - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · G7 ministers agreed a timeframe Tuesday for phasing out coal-fired power plants, setting as a goal the mid-2030s, in a move hailed as significant by some environmentalists but slammed as "too late" by others. The Group of Seven two-day meeting in Turin was the first big political session since the world pledged at the UN's COP28 annual climate summit in Dubai in December to transition away from coal, oil and gas. The G7 commits to "phase out existing unabated coal power generation in our energy systems during the first half of 2030s," the final statement from energy and climate ministers read. However it left some wiggle room, saying nations could follow "a ... Read more ... |
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How the plant world shapes the climate cycle - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, Earth has lived through a series of climatic shifts, shaping the planet as we know it today. Past changes in CO2 levels and temperature can help us understand the planet's response to global warming today. As part of a growing field called biogeodynamics, researchers are racing to understand how such changes have impacted life on the planet in the past. "We're trying to understand processes relevant to the present using the geological past," says Julian Rogger, who focuses on biogeodynamics at the Institute of Geophysics at ETH Zurich. Rogger is fascinated by the interplay of plant life and climate. So far our planet is ... Read more ... |
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Measuring your food waste for six weeks can change your habits, according to new study - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · The fact that there is often little or no conscious thought involved in routine daily food preparation means that ingredients that must be used before they expire are often left to go off. Every year, 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted globally. This is the equivalent of one-third of all the food produced for human consumption. In the UK alone, households wasted 6.4 million tons of food between 2021 and 2022. Accounting for the fossil energy used to grow and harvest that food, as well as the greenhouse gases released when it rots in fields or landfills, this waste equates to 18 million tons of CO₂ emissions. Food waste harms the environment, but reducing how ... Read more ... |
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Only four G20 countries set for positive ecological footprint by 2050, study finds - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · In a study led by Professor Lenny Koh from Sheffield's Energy Institute and published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers have revealed that only Argentina, Brazil, Canada and Russia are expected to have a positive impact on the environment by 2050—the milestone for net zero. The study also presents a new method for predicting ecological impacts using AI, which could be more accurate at predicting future trends. This analysis used key data for each G20 nation, such as consumption per capita, biocapacity per capita, area per capita, GDP per capita, electricity use per capita, emissions per capita, and fossil fuel consumption per capita. These variables ... Read more ... |
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Researchers reveal water-assisted oxidative redispersion of metal nanoparticles - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · In addition, most support surfaces, such as γ-Al2O3, SiO2, and CeO2, could undergo hydroxylation in a moist atmosphere to form abundant surface OH groups that captured migrating Cu species. The "push" (migration) and "pull" (anchoring) effects of gaseous H2O facilitated the structural transformation of Cu species from Cu nanoparticles to Cu single atoms at RT, thereby enhancing their catalytic activity in the reverse water-gas shift (RWGS) and preferential oxidation of carbon monoxide (CO-PROX) reaction. This study highlighted the significant role of H2O in the dynamic structural evolution of supported metal nanocatalysts and developed a simple strategy for the ... Read more ... |
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Scientists show that ancient village adapted to drought, rising seas - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · Previously, archaeologists believed that this abrupt shift in global climate, called the 8.2ka event, may have led to the widespread abandonment of coastal settlements in the southern Levant. In a recent study published in the journal Antiquity, researchers at UC San Diego, the University of Haifa and Bar-Ilan University share new evidence suggesting at least one village formerly thought abandoned not only remained occupied, but thrived throughout this period. "This [study] helped fill a gap in our understanding of the early settlement of the Eastern Mediterranean coastline," said Thomas Levy, a co-author on the paper, co-director of the Center for Cyber-Archaeology and ... Read more ... |
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Should chatbots chime in on climate change? Study explore potential of AI platforms for climate literacy - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · "I think what we found is that it's OK to use artificial intelligence, you just have to be careful and you can't take it word-for-word," said Gina Girgente, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in geography last spring. "It's definitely not a foolproof method." Girgente was part of an interdisciplinary research team that posed questions about three climate change-related hazards—tropical storms, floods, and droughts—in 191 countries to both free and paid versions of ChatGPT. Developed by OpenAI Inc., ChatGPT is a large-language model designed to understand questions and generate text responses based on requests from users. The group then compared the ... Read more ... |
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Study shows climate change and mercury pollution stressed plants for millions of years - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · Extreme climate change, from the release of carbon dioxide, degradation of the ozone layer due to the injection of damaging chemicals, and the emissions of toxic pollutants are all seen as contributing factors. One toxic element stands out: mercury. As one of the most toxic elements on Earth, Hg is a metal that is emitted from volcanoes in gaseous form and thus has the capacity to spread worldwide. A new study in Nature Communications adds new compelling evidence for the combined effects of global warming and widespread mercury pollution that continued to stress plants long after volcanic activity had ceased. An international team of Dutch, Chinese, Danish, British, and ... Read more ... |
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Unveiling nature's custodians: Study highlights crucial role of scavengers in wetlands - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 29) |
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Apr 29 · The article, published in Biological Reviews, emphasizes that the benefits provided by scavengers far outweigh the potential drawbacks. Among their essential functions are the recycling and transportation of nutrients and the regulation of water quality, benefiting the entire ecosystem, from soil and plants to birds and mammals. Historically, animals that feed on other dead animals have received less attention from society, and they have even been assigned a secondary role in ecosystems. However, recent studies have shown that scavengers play a crucial ecological role in eliminating organic matter and rapidly recycling nutrients into the ecosystem. But despite the increased ... Read more ... |
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Bangladesh again closes schools nationwide due to heat wave - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 29) |
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Apr 29 · A Bangladeshi court ordered a nationwide shutdown of schools on Monday due to an ongoing heat wave, the day after the government sent millions of children back to class despite searing temperatures. Extensive scientific research has found climate change is causing heat waves to become longer, more frequent and more intense. Average temperatures in the capital Dhaka over the past week have been 4-5 degrees Celsius (7.2-9 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the 30-year average for the same period. The government said at least seven people had died as a result of the extreme heat since the start of April, with maximum temperatures in the capital forecast to remain above ... Read more ... |
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China's bid to decarbonize may have hidden costs - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 29) |
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Apr 29 · In a paper published in Communications Earth & Environment, Stefano Galelli, associate professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, in Cornell Engineering, and colleagues attempt to quantify how decarbonizing the China Southern Power Grid, which provides electricity to more than 300 million people, will negatively impact river basins, most of which run from China into downstream countries, and will reduce the amount of cropland in China. "If we think of any major technological change, they always have costs and unintended consequences," Galelli said. "The sooner we realize and address them, the more sustainable and equitable the energy transition will be. We ... Read more ... |
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China's cement industry: Potential contributor to carbon neutrality - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 29) |
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Apr 29 · In a recent study published in Science China Earth Sciences, researchers from the Institute of Applied Ecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have unveiled new advances in the carbon capture capabilities of China's cement industry and its potential contribution to carbon neutrality. Cement production is a significant source of human-induced carbon emissions. China accounts for more than half of the world's annual cement production. The industry's carbon emissions are estimated to be about 7% of the country's total emissions. However, the alkaline compounds in cement materials can slowly absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the surrounding environment through mineral ... Read more ... |
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