Most recent 40 articles: PHYS.ORG - Earth
|
Highest-level rainstorm warning issued in south China's Guangdong - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 23) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
When red-hot isn't enough: New government heat risk tool sets magenta as most dangerous level - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 23) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
Why is methane seeping on Mars? NASA scientists have new ideas - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
A comprehensive monitoring and evaluation of disaster risk due to linkage of residual coal pillars and rock strata - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
AI weather forecasts can capture destructive path of major storms, new study shows - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
Czechs 3D-print Eiffel Tower from ocean waste for Olympics - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
Earth Day 2024: Four effective strategies to reduce household food waste - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
Europe suffered record number of 'extreme heat stress' days in 2023: Monitors - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
Feedback loop that is melting ice shelves in West Antarctica revealed - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
How spicy does mustard get depending on the soil? - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
In Ecuadoran Amazon, butterflies provide a gauge of climate change - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
Investigating the porosity of sedimentary rock with neutrons - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
Look to deadly Venus to find life in the universe, new paper argues - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
Mangrove blue carbon at higher risk of microplastic pollution - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
NASA's Voyager 1 resumes sending engineering updates to Earth - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
Research showcases Indigenous stewardship's role in forest ecosystem resilience - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
Researchers uncover kinky metal alloy that won't crack at extreme temperatures at the atomic level - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
Three dead, tens of thousands evacuated as storms strike south China - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
Turning to nature to improve vital water treatment - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
World's oases threatened by desertification, even as humans expand them - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 22) |
|
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 ... |
|
|
Malians struggle to cope after deadly heat wave - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 21) |
|
Apr 21 · In Mali's capital Bamako, Aboubacar Pamateck runs a scarf under a trickle of water and wraps it around his head to cope with the West African nation's soaring heat. Africa's Sahel region experienced a deadly heat wave in early April, exceptional both in terms of duration and intensity. "I drink a lot of water and wear my turban, which I often get wet," Pamateck said. "I even avoid wearing nylon boubous. I prefer to wear small cotton boubous to avoid the heat." From April 1 to April 5, temperatures in Mali exceeded 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) and peaked at a record 48.5C in the western city of Kayes. A few days later, the thermometer fell back ... Read more ... |
|
|
Planet sees 10 straight months of record-breaking heat - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 21) |
|
Apr 21 · Californians have had weekend after weekend of cool, stormy weather and the Sierra Nevada has been blessed with a healthy snowpack. But the reality is that even the last few months have been more than 2 degrees hotter than average. The planet is experiencing a horrifying streak of record-breaking heat, with March marking the 10th month in a row that the average global temperature has been the highest ever recorded. It would be shocking if it wasn't so predictable. Despite everything we know about the effects of burning fossil fuels, humanity is still going in the wrong direction with self-destructive abandon. Last year greenhouse gas pollution climbed to a new high, a ... Read more ... |
|
|
Q&A: B.C.'s 2024 wildfire season has started - here's what to know - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 21) |
|
Apr 21 · Dr. Daniels is the Koerner Chair in the Center for Wildfire Coexistence at UBC, focusing on proactive management to increase ecosystem and community resilience to climate change and wildfires. Dr. Bourbonnais is a former wildland firefighter and now assistant professor at UBC Okanagan who employs advanced technologies to study wildfire risk and behavior. Drs. Daniels and Bourbonnais answer questions on the outlook for wildfire season, and how communities can prepare for a challenging year. What should we expect in terms of wildfire magnitude and severity this year? LD: Predicting the fire season is challenging, but we are hoping for spring rains after the dry ... Read more ... |
|
|
Australia's Great Barrier Reef struggles to survive - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 20) |
|
Apr 20 · Australia's famed Great Barrier Reef is suffering one of the most severe coral bleaching events on record, leaving scientists fearful for its survival as the impact of climate change worsens. For 33 years marine biologist Anne Hoggett has lived and worked on Lizard Island, a small slice of tropical paradise off Australia's northeast tip. She affectionately dubs it "Blizzard Island". The only relief from the wind and teeming showers is in the powder blue waters, where sea turtles and tiger sharks rove along the Great Barrier Reef. As Hoggett snorkels, schools of fish swim gracefully, feeding on the coral or darting between it. Some are as small as her little finger, ... Read more ... |
|
|
Climate impacts set to cut 2050 global GDP by nearly a fifth - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 20) |
|
Apr 20 · Climate change caused by CO2 emissions already in the atmosphere will shrink global GDP in 2050 by about $38 trillion, or almost a fifth, no matter how aggressively humanity cuts carbon pollution, researchers said Wednesday. But slashing greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible remains crucial to avoid even more devastating economic impacts after mid-century, they reported in the journal Nature. Economic fallout from climate change, the study shows, could increase tens of trillions of dollars per year by 2100 if the planet were to warm significantly beyond two degrees Celsius above mid-19th century levels. Earth's average surface temperature has already ... Read more ... |
|
|
This ancient snake in India might have been longer than a school bus and weighed a ton - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 20) |
|
Apr 20 · Fossils found near a coal mine revealed a snake that stretched an estimated 36 feet (11 meters) to 50 feet (15 meters). It's comparable to the largest known snake at about 42 feet (13 meters) that once lived in what is now Colombia. The largest living snake today is Asia's reticulated python at 33 feet (10 meters). The newly discovered behemoth lived 47 million years ago in western India's swampy evergreen forests. It could have weighed up to 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms), researchers said in the journal Scientific Reports. They gave it the name Vasuki indicus after "the mythical snake king Vasuki, who wraps around the neck of the Hindu deity Shiva," said Debajit ... Read more ... |
|
|
'Green muscle memory' and climate education promote behavior change: Report - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 19) |
|
Apr 19 · A new report, released in time for global attention for Earth Day on April 22, highlights the impact of climate education on promoting behavior change in the next generation. Despite people's deep connection to their local environment—whether it's blackouts in Toronto caused by raccoons, communities gearing up for a total solar eclipse lasting only minutes, chasing northern lights or hundreds of Manitoba kids excited about ice fishing—there remains inertia in climate action. Sparking global momentum and energy in young people can go a long way to addressing climate change now and in the near future, says Bryce Coon, author of the report and Earth Day's ... Read more ... |
|
|
A hydrocarbon molecule as supplier and energy storage solution for solar energy - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 19) |
|
Apr 19 · This could pave the way for entirely new organic solar modules. The fundamentals for conversion and storage using the molecule have now been published in the journal Nature Chemistry. Hopes remain high that solar energy will be a major driver of the energy transformation. However, as sunlight is a highly volatile source of energy, a solution must be found for storing energy efficiently. "Until now, we have transferred electricity from solar modules that is not consumed immediately into a battery, where it can be used as and when required," explains Prof. Dr. Julien Bachmann, Chair of Chemistry of Thin Film Materials (CTFM) at FAU. "By repeatedly changing between chemical ... Read more ... |
|
|
AI for Earth: How NASA's artificial intelligence and open science efforts combat climate change - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 19) |
|
Apr 19 · In 2023, NASA teamed up with IBM Research to create an AI geospatial foundation model. Trained on vast amounts of NASA's widely used Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 (HLS) data, the model provides a base for a variety of AI-powered studies to tackle environmental challenges. In keeping with open science principles, the model is freely available for anyone to access. Foundation models serve as a baseline from which scientists can develop a diverse set of applications, enabling powerful and efficient solutions. "Foundation models only know what things are represented in the data," explained Manil Maskey, the data science lead at NASA's Office of the Chief Science Data Officer ... Read more ... |
|
|
Cosmic rays streamed through Earth's atmosphere 41,000 years ago: New findings on the Laschamps excursion - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 19) |
|
Apr 19 · Earth's magnetic field protects us from the dangerous radiation of space, but it is not as permanent as we might believe. Scientists at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly present new information about an 'excursion' 41,000 years ago where our planet's magnetic field waned, and harmful space rays bombarded the planet. Earth's magnetic field cocoons our planet from the onslaught of cosmic radiation streaming through space while also shielding us from charged particles hurled outward by the sun. But the geomagnetic field is not stationary. Not only does magnetic north wobble, straying from true north (a geographically defined location), but occasionally, it flips. ... Read more ... |
|
|
Ghost particle on the scales: Research offers more precise determination of neutrino mass - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 19) |
|
Apr 19 · What is the mass of a neutrino at rest? This is one of the big unanswered questions in physics. Neutrinos play a central role in nature. A team led by Klaus Blaum, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, has now made an important contribution in "weighing" neutrinos as part of the international ECHo collaboration. Their findings are published in Nature Physics. Using a Penning trap, it has measured the change in mass of a holmium-163 isotope with extreme precision when its nucleus captures an electron and turns into dysprosium-163. From this, it was able to determine the Q value 50 times more accurately than before. Using a more precise Q-value, ... Read more ... |
|
|
It never rains but it pours: Intense rain and flash floods have increased inland in eastern Australia - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 19) |
|
Apr 19 · But that's changing. Now we get flash floods much further inland, such as Broken Hill in 2012 and 2022 and Cobar, Bourke and Nyngan in 2022. Flash floods are those beginning between one and six hours after rainfall, while riverine floods take longer to build. Why? Global warming is amplifying the climate drivers affecting where flash floods occur and how often. All around the world, we're seeing intense dumps of rain in a short period, triggering flooding—just as we saw in Dubai this week. This means these systems, which usually bring most of the east coast's rain during cooler months, are now dumping more rain out at sea. Instead, we're seeing warm, moist air ... Read more ... |
|
|
Merging nuclear physics experiments and astronomical observations to advance equation-of-state research - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 19) |
|
Apr 19 · "In nuclear physics, we are often confined to studying small systems, but we know exactly what particles are in our nuclear systems. Stars provide us an unbelievable opportunity, because they are large systems where nuclear physics plays a vital role, but we do not know for sure what particles are in their interiors," said Lynch, professor of nuclear physics at FRIB and in the Michigan State University (MSU) Department of Physics and Astronomy. "They are interesting because the density varies greatly within such large systems. Nuclear forces play a dominant role within them, yet we know comparatively little about that role." When a star with a mass that is 20–30 ... Read more ... |
|
|
Researchers reveal sources of black carbon in southeastern Qinghai-Tibet plateau - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 19) |
|
Apr 19 · The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) is China's most developed cryosphere region, where glaciers are shrinking rapidly due to light-absorbing impurities such as BC. Both modeling and geochemical evidence indicate that BC emitted from this region can be transported across the Himalayas and reach the interior of the QTP, contributing over 60% of its BC. This mainly affects the southern and central regions of the QTP. However, there is a lack of sufficient online monitoring of BC in the glacier area of the QTP, which requires stronger integration with model simulations. Prof. Kang Shichang's research team from the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources of the ... Read more ... |
|
|
Scotland is ditching its flagship 2030 climate goal - why legally binding targets really matter - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 19) |
|
Apr 19 · Scotland is still subject to the 2030 carbon target for the UK as a whole. This was set in law by the UK parliament in 2016. Still, Scotland's move raises questions about the credibility of national (or in this case subnational) carbon targets and the usefulness of putting them into law. Having credible carbon targets, and sticking to them, matters enormously. Globally, 88% of all greenhouse gas emissions are now subject to a net zero emissions target. If these were implemented to the letter, global mean temperatures would remain below 2°C, the upper target of the 2015 Paris agreement. They won't be, of course. If we judge climate commitments based on the carbon ... Read more ... |
|
|
The Italian central Apennines are a source of CO₂, study finds - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 19) |
|
Apr 19 · In the central Italian Apennine Mountains, researchers led by Erica Erlanger and Niels Hovius from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and Aaron Bufe from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München have now investigated and balanced all of these processes in one region for the first time—using, among others, analyses of the CO2 content in mountain rivers and springs. They found that weathering in this region leads to an overall CO2 uptake. However, these near-surface processes only determine the CO2 balance in areas with a thick and cold crust. On the western side of the Central Apennines, the crust is thinner and the heat flow is higher. There, CO2 ... Read more ... |
|
|
Warming of Antarctic deep-sea waters contribute to sea level rise in North Atlantic, study finds - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 19) |
|
Apr 19 · Analysis of mooring observations and hydrographic data suggest the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation deep water limb in the North Atlantic has weakened. Two decades of continual observations provide a greater understanding of the Earth's climate regulating system. A new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience led by scientists at University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, found that human-induced environmental changes around Antarctica are contributing to sea level rise in the North Atlantic. "Although ... Read more ... |
|
|
Weather prediction models can also forecast satellite displacements - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 19) |
|
Apr 19 · By leveraging these models, the researchers gained insights into how LEO satellites respond to weather events below, such as tropical cyclones with tall and reflective clouds. The results were published in the Journal of Geophysical Research in April. In the study, the researchers utilized numerical weather models. They are sophisticated computer simulators that predict future atmospheric conditions based on current observations and laws of physics. "Numerical weather models not only simulate weather patterns but also calculate various parameters, including the Earth's energy emissions and reflections under various weather conditions. "By analyzing these ... Read more ... |
|
|
NASA's Juno gives aerial views of mountain and lava lake on Io - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 18) |
|
Apr 18 · Scientists on NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter have transformed data collected during two recent flybys of Io into animations that highlight two of the Jovian moon's most dramatic features: a mountain and an almost glass-smooth lake of cooling lava. Other recent science results from the solar-powered spacecraft include updates on Jupiter's polar cyclones and water abundance. The new findings were announced Wednesday, April 16, by Juno's principal investigator Scott Bolton during a news conference at the European Geophysical Union General Assembly in Vienna. Juno made extremely close flybys of Io in December 2023 and February 2024, getting within about 930 miles (1,500 ... Read more ... |
|
|
Baby white sharks prefer being closer to shore, scientists find - PHYS.ORG - Earth  (Apr 18) |
|
Apr 18 · Now, marine scientists have shown for the first time that juvenile great white sharks select warm and shallow waters to aggregate within one kilometer from the shore. These results, published in Frontiers in Marine Science, are important for conservation of great white sharks—especially as ocean temperatures increase due to climate change—and for protecting the public from negative shark encounters. Baby great white sharks ("pups") don't receive any maternal care after birth. In the studied population off Padaro Beach near Santa Barbara in central California, pups and juveniles gather in "nurseries," unaccompanied by adults. "This is one of the largest and ... Read more ... |
|
|