Most recent 40 articles: PHYS.ORG - Earth
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Is life possible on a Jupiter moon? NASA goes to investigate - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 14, 2024) |
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Oct 14, 2024 · Is there anywhere else in our solar system that could support life? An imposing NASA probe is due to lift off on Monday on a five-and-a-half-year journey to Europa, one of Jupiter's many moons, to take the first detailed step toward finding out.
The Europa Clipper mission will allow the US space agency to uncover new details about the moon, which scientists believe could hold an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy surface.
Liftoff is scheduled for "no earlier than" Monday, October 14, from Cape Canaveral in Florida aboard a powerful SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, NASA said in a statement.
"Europa is one of the most promising places to look for life beyond Earth," ... Read more ...
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Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 14, 2024) |
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Oct 14, 2024 · A new study has shown that selective breeding can lead to a modest rise in coral heat tolerance.
Led by experts at Newcastle University's Coralassist Lab, the study documents the world's first effort to selectively breed adult corals for enhanced heat tolerance, i.e. the ability of adult corals to survive intense marine heat waves. The breeding effort was a success, showing that it is possible to improve the heat tolerance of adult coral offspring, even in a single generation.
However, the improvement was modest in comparison to future marine heat waves expected under climate change. The authors stress that rapid reductions of global greenhouse gas emissions are an ... Read more ...
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Eight dead as heavy rain thrashes Brazil after long drought - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 13, 2024) |
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Oct 13, 2024 · At least eight people died after heavy rains in Brazil, authorities said Saturday, as storms swept parts of the country following a severe drought that fueled a record wave of wildfires.
Central and southeastern Brazil have been pounded since Friday by winds reaching 62 miles (100 kilometers) per hour and up to four inches (10 cm) of daily rainfall, according to the National Institute of Meteorology.
Seven people died in Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populated state, mainly due to falling trees and walls toppled by violent winds and rain, according to the state civil defense.
Blackouts struck large parts of Sao Paulo city, and energy firm Enel said around 1.6 million ... Read more ...
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In a first, Starship megarocket booster caught by SpaceX's 'chopsticks' - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 13, 2024) |
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Oct 13, 2024 · SpaceX on Sunday successfully flew the first-stage booster of its Starship megarocket back to the launch pad after a test flight, a technical tour de force that furthers the company's quest for rapid reusability.
The "super heavy booster" had blasted off attached to the uncrewed Starship rocket minutes earlier, then made a picture-perfect controlled return to the same pad in Texas, where a pair of huge mechanical "chopsticks" reached out from the launch tower to bring the slowly descending booster to a halt, according to a livestream from Elon Musk's SpaceX company.
Not long afterward, the upper stage of Starship splashed down, as planned, in the Indian Ocean, a ... Read more ...
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New survey reveals doubt, and hope, that world will achieve climate targets - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 13, 2024) |
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Oct 13, 2024 · How hot is it going to get? This is one of the most important and difficult remaining questions about our changing climate. The answer depends not only on how sensitive our climate is to greenhouse gases, but also on how much carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases we as a civilization choose to emit over coming decades.
In order to help think more clearly about this question, we asked authors who have contributed to the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to share their best guesses about where the world is headed.
The results of our recently published study show that most of the responding climate experts believe our planet will ... Read more ...
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Why hurricanes like Milton in the US and cyclones in Australia are becoming more intense and harder to predict - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 13, 2024) |
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Oct 13, 2024 · Tropical cyclones, known as hurricanes and typhoons in other parts of the world, have caused huge damage in many places recently. The United States has just been hit by Hurricane Milton, within two weeks of Hurricane Helene. Climate change likely made their impacts worse.
In Australia, the tropical cyclone season (November to April) is approaching. The Bureau of Meteorology this week released its long-range forecast for this season.
It predicts an average number of tropical cyclones, 11, are likely to form in the region. Four are expected to cross the Australian coast. However, the risk of severe cyclones is higher than average.
So what does an average number ... Read more ...
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'Killer electrons': Lightning storms play cosmic pinball with space weather - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 12, 2024) |
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Oct 12, 2024 · When lightning strikes, the electrons come pouring down. In a new study, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, led by an undergraduate student, have discovered a novel connection between weather on Earth and space weather. The team utilized satellite data to reveal that lightning storms on our planet can dislodge particularly high-energy, or "extra-hot," electrons from the inner radiation belt - a region of space enveloped by charged particles that surround Earth like an inner tube.
The team's results could help satellites and even astronauts avoid dangerous radiation in space. This is one kind of downpour you don't want to get caught in, said lead author and ... Read more ...
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AI empowers iNaturalist to map California plants with unprecedented precision - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 12, 2024) |
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Oct 12, 2024 · Utilizing advanced artificial intelligence and citizen science data from the iNaturalist app, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed some of the most detailed maps yet showcasing the distribution of California plant species.
iNaturalist is a widely-used cellphone app, originally developed by UC Berkeley students, that allows people to upload photos and the location data of plants, animals or any other life they encounter and then crowdsource their identity. The app currently has more than 8 million users worldwide who collectively have uploaded more than 200 million observations.
Botanists usually build high-quality maps of species by ... Read more ...
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Ancient climate analysis reveals unknown global processes - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 12, 2024) |
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Oct 12, 2024 · According to highly cited conventional models, cooling and a major drop in sea levels about 34 million years ago should have led to widespread continental erosion and deposited gargantuan amounts of sandy material onto the ocean floor. This was, after all, one of the most drastic climate transitions on Earth since the demise of the dinosaurs.
Yet a new Stanford review of hundreds of studies going back decades contrastingly reports that across the margins of all seven continents, little to no sediment has ever been found dating back to this transition. The discovery of this globally extensive gap in the geologic record was published this week in Earth-Science ... Read more ...
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Climate change: Care for humans, other species and the natural environment is the key to a just transition - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 12, 2024) |
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Oct 12, 2024 · Communities across the world are facing two worsening crises: a climate crisis and a care crisis.
The evidence and urgency on the climate crisis has been expertly illustrated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The root cause of this crisis is the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This is due to excessive exploitation of fossil fuels, deforestation and industrial processes. In short, it is a result of development processes that have not been based on caring for the environment.
Less discussed is the care crisis. This refers to a society's capacity to maintain livelihoods in households, raise children and sustain communities. In short, ... Read more ...
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How mainstream climate science endorsed the fantasy of a global warming time machine - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 12, 2024) |
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Oct 12, 2024 · When the Paris agreement on climate change was gaveled into being in December 2015, it briefly looked like that rarest of things: a political victory for climate activists and delegates from the poorest regions of the world that, due to colonization by today's wealthy nations, have contributed little to the climate crisis - but stand to suffer its worst ravages.
The world had finally agreed an upper limit for global warming. And in a move that stunned most experts, it had embraced the stretch target of 1.5°C, the boundary that small island states, acutely threatened by sea-level rise, had tirelessly pushed for years.
Or so, at least, it seemed. For soon, the ambitious ... Read more ...
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Humanity's future depends on our ability to live in harmony with nature - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 12, 2024) |
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Oct 12, 2024 · The world is facing multiple - potentially catastrophic - crises, including inequality, poverty, food insecurity, climate change and biodiversity loss. These issues are interconnected and require systemic solutions, as changes in one system affects others.
However, human systems have largely failed to acknowledge their connection to ecological systems. Most modern societies have dominating and exploitative relationships with nature, which are underpinned by imperialist and dualistic thinking that divides living beings into racial, gender, class or species hierarchies.
Our current mindset, with its focus on competition, growth and profit, has been a key contributor to ... Read more ...
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Saturday Citations: All that sparkles is plastic; woke tree diversity; the gravitational basin in which we reside - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 12, 2024) |
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Oct 12, 2024 · This week, astronomers considered whether dark energy varies over cosmic timescales. Via neutron analysis, physicists revealed that some Early Iron Age swords were altered recently by swindlers in order to be more historically exciting. And a professor in New Jersey solved two fundamental problems that have baffled mathematicians for decades. Additionally, there were developments in children's crafting supplies, carbon sequestration and the shifting map of the universe:
Microplastics are toxic to ocean species, and they're often consumed by land animals, causing a range of problems including starvation and gastrointestinal abrasions. And unlike such sources as degrading ... Read more ...
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Research vessel provides comprehensive assessment of the changing Central Arctic Ocean - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 11, 2024) |
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Oct 11, 2024 · Sparse sea ice, thousands of data points and samples, a surprising number of animals and hydrothermal vents - those are the impressions and outcomes that an international research team is now bringing back from a Polarstern expedition to the Central Arctic. After a four-month-long Arctic season, the Alfred Wegener Institute's research icebreaker is expected to arrive back in Bremerhaven with the morning high tide on Sunday.
When the research icebreaker Polarstern returns to Bremerhaven, tentatively on Sunday, 13 October 2024, the ArcWatch-2 expedition will bring home an up-to-date scientific overview of the Eurasian and Central Arctic. Researchers from 17 countries and 24 ... Read more ...
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Shaping nanocrystals: Unlocking the future of screens, solar and medical tech - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 11, 2024) |
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Oct 11, 2024 · From brighter TV screens to better medical diagnostics and more efficient solar panels, new Curtin-led research has discovered how to make more molecules stick to the surface of tiny nanocrystals, in a breakthrough that could lead to improvements in everyday technology.
Lead author Associate Professor Guohua Jia from Curtin's School of Molecular and Life Sciences, said the study investigated how the shape of zinc sulfide nanocrystals affected how well molecules, known as ligands, stick to their surface. The full study titled "Deciphering surface ligand density of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals: Shape matters" is published in the Journal of the American Chemical ... Read more ...
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Evacuating in disasters like Hurricane Milton - there are reasons people stay, and it's not just stubbornness - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 11, 2024) |
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Oct 11, 2024 · As Hurricane Milton roared ashore near Sarasota, Florida, tens of thousands of people were in evacuation shelters. Hundreds of thousands more had fled coastal regions ahead of the storm, crowding highways headed north and south as their counties issued evacuation orders.
But not everyone left, despite dire warnings about a hurricane that had been one of the strongest on record two days earlier.
As Milton's rain and storm surge flooded neighborhoods late on Oct. 9, 2024, 911 calls poured in. In Tampa's Hillsborough County, more than 500 people had to be rescued, including residents of an assisted living community and families trapped in a flooding home after a tree ... Read more ...
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'Party atmosphere': Skygazers treated to another aurora show - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 11, 2024) |
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Oct 11, 2024 · Scientist Jim Wild has traveled to the Arctic Circle numerous times to study the northern lights, but on Thursday night he only needed to look out of his bedroom window in the English city of Lancaster.
For at least the second time this year, skygazers in many parts of the world were treated to colorful auroras at latitudes beyond the polar extremes where they normally light up the skies.
The dazzling celestial shows were caused by a gigantic ball of plasma - and an accompanying magnetic field - which erupted from the sun earlier this week.
When this eruption, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), arrived at Earth at around 1600 GMT on Thursday, it triggered a ... Read more ...
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'Widespread noncompliance and poor performance' in world's largest nature-based carbon removal projects - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 11, 2024) |
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Oct 11, 2024 · One of the largest types of carbon offset projects the Australian government is using to meet climate change targets and reduce carbon in the atmosphere is failing to do so, new research has shown. The findings are published in The Rangeland Journal.
The projects aim to regenerate native forests across large parts of Australia, but analysis shows most of the selected areas have never had forests, are unsuitable for forest regeneration and are not producing the increase in tree canopy cover that projects are being credited for.
Australian human-induced forest regeneration (HIR) projects are the largest pure carbon removal nature-based offset type in the world. They are ... Read more ...
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A geomagnetic storm is hitting the northern part of the US. Here's how the solar event may impact you - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 11, 2024) |
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Oct 11, 2024 · Warnings about Hurricane Milton hitting Florida have dominated news reports this week. But there have been warnings from forecasters with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center about another storm brewing: a severe geomagnetic storm.
According to Jonathan Blazek, an assistant professor of physics at Northeastern University, these events are triggered by a coronal mass ejection, which is when the sun lets off a mass ejection of particles. Sometimes, these particles hit Earth and interact with our magnetic field and upper layers of the atmosphere. This, Blazek says, is a geomagnetic storm.
Blazek, who specializes in ... Read more ...
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A quantum material could be the future of high-energy X-ray imaging and particle detection - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 11, 2024) |
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Oct 11, 2024 · Scintillators are detectors that make high-energy X-rays or particles visible through flashes of light to form an image. Their many applications include particle physics, medical imaging, X-ray security and more.
Despite their usefulness, however, scintillators have presented researchers with a conundrum. Until recently, scientists had to decide whether fast imaging or optimal performance was more important when choosing the appropriate scintillator technology for a particular experiment.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory may have found a way to resolve this dilemma. It involves a scintillator material composed of spherical ... Read more ...
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Experts warn 'crazy busy' Atlantic hurricane season is far from over - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 11, 2024) |
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Oct 11, 2024 · Millions of people in the southeastern U.S. still are reeling from the catastrophic damage caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, but scientists warn that the Atlantic hurricane season is far from over.
"As far as hurricane landfalls in the U.S., it's been crazy busy," said Jeff Masters, meteorologist for Yale Climate Connections. So far five hurricanes have made landfall in the U.S. - and the record is six.
Masters said it's possible that record will be matched since tropical cyclone activity is expected to be above-average for the rest of October and November.
Hurricane season officially ends Nov. 30 and peaks from mid-August to mid-October due to warm ocean ... Read more ...
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Machine learning could improve extreme weather warnings - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 11, 2024) |
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Oct 11, 2024 · Because small changes in atmospheric and surface conditions can have large, difficult-to-predict effects on future weather, traditional weather forecasts are released only about 10 days in advance. A longer lead time could help communities better prepare for what's to come, especially extreme events such as the record-breaking June 2021 U.S. Pacific Northwest heat wave, which melted train power lines, destroyed crops, and caused hundreds of deaths.
Meteorologists commonly use adjoint models to determine how sensitive a forecast is to inaccuracies in initial conditions. These models help determine how small changes in temperature or atmospheric water vapor, for example, can ... Read more ...
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Researchers uncover role of plasma waves in mysterious heating of sun's corona - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 11, 2024) |
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Oct 11, 2024 · There is a profound mystery in our sun. While the sun's surface temperature measures around 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, its outer atmosphere, known as the solar corona, measures more like 2 million degrees Fahrenheit, about 200 times hotter.
This increase in temperature away from the sun is perplexing and has been an unsolved mystery since 1939, when the high temperature of the corona was first identified. In the ensuing decades, scientists have tried to determine the mechanism that could cause this unexpected heating, but so far, they have not succeeded.
Now, a team led by Sayak Bose, a researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics ... Read more ...
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Up in smoke: DIY tech to combat wildfires - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 11, 2024) |
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Oct 11, 2024 · As wildfires become a more frequent and dangerous part of life, especially in the Pacific Northwest, finding solutions that everyone can use is more important than ever. By June 2024, the Pacific Northwest had already seen more trees burn than in all of 2023.
At Portland State University's Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, two engineers, Joshua Mendez and Elliott Gall, are working on a wildfire research project that could change how we respond to wildfires. Their approaches rely partially on open-source and low-cost technologies, which means they are available for anyone to use, adapt, and improve.
Wildfires don't just affect the areas where they burn. ... Read more ...
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Huge waves in the atmosphere dump extreme rain on northern Australia - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · In 2023, almost a year's worth of rain fell over ten days in parts of northwestern Australia, leading to catastrophic flooding in the town of Fitzroy Crossing and surrounds. The rainfall was linked to a tropical cyclone, but there were also lesser-known forces at work: huge, planet-scale oscillations called atmospheric waves which bring heavy rain to northern Australia.
While climate drivers such as El Niño and La Niña are becoming more familiar to many Australians, fewer understand the significant role played by atmospheric waves, which are like vast musical notes resonating around the globe. These waves can greatly influence rainfall and extreme weather events in Australia - ... Read more ...
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Microscopic marine organisms can create parachute-like mucus structures that stall CO2 absorption from atmosphere - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · New Stanford-led research unveils a hidden factor that could change our understanding of how oceans mitigate climate change. The study, published Oct. 11 in Science, reveals never-before seen mucus "parachutes" produced by microscopic marine organisms that significantly slow their sinking, putting the brakes on a process crucial for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The surprising discovery implies that previous estimates of the ocean's carbon sequestration potential may have been overestimated, but also paves the way toward improving climate models and informing policymakers in their efforts to slow climate change.
"We haven't been looking the right way," ... Read more ...
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Scientists track and analyze lofted embers that cause spot fires - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · In the chaos of a wildfire, heat, wind, flames and fuel interact to produce embers that are lofted into surrounding areas, starting new spot fires and spreading destruction and property loss in California's wildland-urban interface.
In a paper published in the journal Physics of Fluids, UC Irvine team members describe their setup at the UC Berkeley Blodgett Forest Research Station in California's Sierra Nevada mountain range. They built a burn pile of wood from ponderosa pine and Douglas fir trees, including branches and needles - materials that are the main fuel supply in Sierra wildfires.
During nighttime experiments, the researchers used high-speed imaging instruments ... Read more ...
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Amazon rainforest near tipping point partly driven by UK consumers, WWF says - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · The Amazon rainforest could be reaching an irreversible tipping point beyond which it will decline until "we're just left with scrub," conservationists have warned.
WWF's biennial Living Planet report said the world's largest rainforest has been ravaged by deforestation, extreme drought and catastrophic wildfires to such an extent that the ecosystem could now collapse.
It also warned that United Kingdom consumers are contributing to the destruction, and called on the government to bring forward legislation that bans the sale of commodities linked to global deforestation.
Known as the lungs of the earth and home to 10% of the world's species, the Amazon helps ... Read more ...
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Biased metrics threaten climate investment where it's needed most, researchers warn - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · In a new article published by Nature, experts from the Sustainable Finance Hub say that, although low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) face the most threat from climate change, their ability to respond and adapt to its effects is threatened by a lack of funds, which are urgently required to transition their economies to more sustainable systems.
Because climate change is driven by cumulative global emissions, the lack of funds will make it harder for everyone to achieve the goals of the Paris agreement, while ultimately failing to protect investors from exposure to climate risks.
At the upcoming UN Climate Conference, COP29, set to take place in Baku, Azerbaijan in ... Read more ...
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Catastrophically warm predictions are more plausible than previously thought, say climate scientists - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · What will the future climate be like? Scientists around the world are studying climate change, putting together models of the Earth's system and large observational datasets in the hopes of understanding - and predicting over the next 100 years - the planet's climate. But which models are the most plausible and reflect the future of the planet's climate the best?
In an attempt to answer that question and evaluate the plausibility of a given model, EPFL scientists have developed a rating system and classified climate model outputs generated by the global climate community and included in the recent IPCC report.
The EPFL climate scientists find that roughly a third of the ... Read more ...
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Climate change can alter methane emission and uptake in the Amazon - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · Extreme temperatures and humidity levels (excessive rain or drought) projected for the Amazon in the context of climate change may increase the volume of methane-producing microorganisms in flooded areas and reduce potential uptake of this greenhouse gas in upland forests by 70%, with global impacts, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil.
An article reporting their findings is published in the journal Environmental Microbiome. Effective conservation and management policies are all the more important in light of the results, the researchers said.
For at least six months every year, more than 800,000 square kilometers ... Read more ...
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Declines in plant resilience threaten carbon storage in the Arctic - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · Rapid warming has impacted the northern ecosystem so significantly that scientists are concerned the region's vegetation is losing the ability to recover from climate shocks, suggests a new study.
Their findings revealed that due to frequent disturbances like wildfires that raze down vegetation and persistent drought and deforestation that starve both the land and wildlife, the resilience of many plant communities in southern boreal forests - or their ability to recover after these events - significantly decreased over time.
This may affect the Arctic carbon budget, foreshadowing a future where the region is likely to become a carbon source instead of remaining a carbon ... Read more ...
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Extreme floods, like those caused by Hurricane Helene, are becoming more frequent - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · Late last month, Hurricane Helene drenched the Southwest United States. Devastating floods hit communities on the Gulf Coast and southern Appalachia. The storm killed more than 200 people and destroyed billions of dollars of property.
As relief efforts begin to put the pieces back together, many are left wondering if the norms of extreme weather in America have changed. Was this unprecedented storm a freak occurrence or a new precedent?
Albert Kettner is the associate director of INSTAAR and the director of the DFO Flood Observatory (formerly the Dartmouth Flood Observatory). Since he took over the observatory in 2019, Kettner has tracked precipitation, drought and ... Read more ...
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First greenhouse gas plumes detected with NASA-designed instrument - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · The imaging spectrometer aboard the Carbon Mapper Coalition's Tanager-1 satellite has identified methane and carbon dioxide plumes in the United States and internationally.
Using data from an instrument designed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the nonprofit Carbon Mapper has released the first methane and carbon dioxide detections from the Tanager-1 satellite. The detections highlight methane plumes in Pakistan and Texas, as well as a carbon dioxide plume in South Africa.
The data contributes to Carbon Mapper's goal to identify and measure greenhouse gas point-source emissions on a global scale and make that information accessible and actionable. Read more ...
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Geologist helps track lead pollution in a Tibetan glacier, revealing global impact of human activities - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · A collaborative research team involving Texas A&M University geologist Dr. Franco Marcantonio has examined the source of lead contamination in a Tibetan glacier, concluding that human activities have introduced the pollutant metal into some of the most remote regions of the world.
The team's findings, detailed in the paper titled "Source of lead in a Tibetan glacier since the Stone Age," were recently published in Communications Earth & Environment.
The Tibetan Plateau, a vast highland region in Asia, is often described as the "Roof of the World" because it's the highest and largest plateau on Earth, located mostly in southwestern China near the Himalayas and roughly ... Read more ...
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How climate change is powering stronger hurricanes - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · As climate change accelerates, hurricanes are becoming more intense and destructive, bringing heavier rains, stronger winds and devastating storm surges. Hurricanes Helene and Milton serve as stark examples of this - both storms grew stronger due to the warmer waters of the Gulf of Mexico and left behind flooded cities and overwhelmed communities.
To gain a deeper insight into how climate change is fueling hurricanes, The Daily sat down with Peter Whiting, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of earth, environmental, and planetary sciences at Case Western Reserve University.
As the planet warms, more water evaporates from the land surface and ... Read more ...
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How the 'social cost of carbon' measurement can hide economic inequalities and mask climate suffering - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · The social cost of carbon (SCC) is an essential tool for climate decision-making around the world. SCC is essentially a large cost-benefit calculation that helps policymakers compare the benefits of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to the society-wide costs of continued use.
The "right" SCC has long been an open debate, with several studies attempting to estimate it using a range of methods. In fact, there are more than 323 studies that provide varying SCC estimates in one form or another.
Most studies focus on the global level working with aggregate SCC values from countries around the world. This global value, however, hides an important nuance. When one looks ... Read more ...
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Hurricane Milton spawned high number of destructive, deadly tornadoes - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · Dozens of tornadoes spawned by Hurricane Milton caught many Floridians by surprise as they braced for heavy rain, strong winds and storm surges. Violent twisters were seen crossing highways, ripping off roofs and downing trees and power lines.
When Debbie Jones felt a drop in pressure and her ears popping in the Holiday Pines neighborhood of Ft. Pierce, she knew it was a tornado.
"All of a sudden, the the power went out. I started hearing the wind pick up and debris start hitting very loudly. So I cranked the hurricane shutters shut and bolted out of there with them," said Megan Brown, whose boyfriend is Jones' son. The family barricaded togehter with their four dogs in ... Read more ...
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Indonesia biomass drive threatens key forests: Report - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · Indonesia's push to add wood-burning to its energy mix and exports is driving deforestation, including in key habitats for endangered species such as orangutans, a report said Thursday.
Bioenergy, which uses organic material like trees to produce power, is considered renewable by the International Energy Agency as carbon released by burning biomass can theoretically be absorbed by planting more trees.
But critics say biomass power plants emit more carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced than modern coal plants, and warn that using biomass to "co-fire" coal plants is just a way to extend the life of the polluting fossil fuel.
Producing the wood pellets and chips ... Read more ...
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Loss of lake ice has wide-ranging environmental and societal consequences, analysis suggests - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Oct 10, 2024) |
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Oct 10, 2024 · The world's freshwater lakes are freezing over for shorter periods of time due to climate change. This shift has major implications for human safety, as well as water quality, biodiversity, and global nutrient cycles, according to a review from an international team of researchers led by Carnegie Science's Stephanie Hampton.
Undertaken by scientists based in the United States, Canada, and Sweden, this analysis represents a major call-to-action for wintertime freshwater ecology research. It is published in Science.
The world has millions of freshwater lakes, most of which freeze during the winter. The team's rigorous review indicates a massive shift in lake ice duration ... Read more ...
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