A simple, cheap material for carbon capture, perhaps from tailpipes

Science Daily  August 5, 2022 A team of researchers in the US (UC Berkely, Stanford University, Texas A&M) has demonstrated new sustainable, solid-state, polyamine-appended, cyanuric acid–stabilized melamine nano porous networks (MNNs) via dynamic combinatorial chemistry (DCC) at the kilogram scale toward effective and high-capacity carbon dioxide capture. Polyamine-appended MNNs reaction mechanisms with carbon dioxide were elucidated with double-level DCC where two-dimensional heteronuclear chemical shift correlation nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy was performed to demonstrate the interatomic interactions. They distinguished ammonium carbamate pairs and a mix of ammonium carbamate and carbamic acid during carbon dioxide chemisorption. The coordination of polyamine and cyanuric […]

Newly identified atmospheric circulation enhances heatwaves and wildfires around the Arctic

Phys.org  June 2, 2021 An international team of researchers (Japan, USA – NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, South Korea) assessed comprehensive air pollution (PM2.5) in the Arctic for the past 15 years to clarify the relationships between variations in PM2.5 and aerosols, wildfires, and the relevant climate patterns. They found 13 out of the 20 months with highest PM2.5 in the Arctic during the 15-year period were in summer. The elevated PM2.5 levels were highly correlated with relatively higher organic carbon aerosol concentrations, implying active wildfires. In those months, the wildfires likely occurred under extremely warm and dry conditions. Those […]

Permafrost carbon feedbacks threaten global climate goals

Phys.org  May 17, 2021 According to a team of researchers in the US (Research center, Harvard University) Carbon emissions from permafrost thaw and Arctic wildfires, which are not fully accounted for in global emissions budgets, will greatly reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that humans can emit to remain below 1.5 °C or 2 °C. The Paris Agreement provides ongoing opportunities to increase ambition to reduce society’s greenhouse gas emissions, which will also reduce emissions from thawing permafrost. In December 2020, more than 70 countries announced more ambitious nationally determined contributions as part of their Paris Agreement commitments; however, the […]

Reflecting sunlight could cool the Earth’s ecosystem

Science Daily  April 7, 2021 Solar radiation modification (SRM) is one potential approach to partially counteract anthropogenic warming by reflecting a small proportion of the incoming solar radiation to increase Earth’s albedo. An international team of researchers (USA – Michigan State University, Stony Brook University, UC Riverside, City University of New York, industry, UT Rio Grande Valley, University of Minnesota, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, University of Tennessee, University of Minnesota, Rutgers University, Cornell University, Canada, Hong Kong) studied the stratospheric aerosol intervention (SAI), a well-studied and relatively feasible SRM scheme that is likely to have a large impact on Earth’s […]

Alert system shows potential for reducing deforestation, mitigating climate change

Science Daily  January 4, 2021 Global Land Analysis and Discovery System (GLAD), launched in 2016, delivers alerts created by the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis and Discovery lab based on high-resolution satellite imaging from NASA’s Landsat Science program. The information is made available to subscribers via the interactive web application, Global Forest Watch. A team of researchers in the US (University of Wisconsin, Oregon State University, World Resources Institute, Washington, University of Maryland) looked at deforestation in 22 nations in the tropics in South America, Africa, and Asia between 2011 and 2018 — the last five years before GLAD […]

Brown carbon ‘tarballs’ detected in Himalayan atmosphere

Science Daily  November 4, 2020 Primary brown carbon (BrC) co-emitted with black carbon from biomass burning is an important light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosol. An international team of researchers (China, USA – Georgia Institute of Technology, UK, Hungary) detected light-absorbing tarballs at microscopic scale collected on the northern slope of the Himalayas. About 28% of thousands of individual particles were tarballs. Air mass trajectories, satellite detection, and Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled to Chemistry (WRF-Chem) simulations all indicated that these tarballs were emitted from biomass burning in the Indo-Gangetic Plain. According to the researchers climate model simulation shows a significant heating […]

Chilling Report Suggests 1 Out of 5 Countries Could Be Headed For Ecosystem Collapse

Science Alert  October 15, 2020 The world’s wealth is built on our planet’s natural ecosystems, and if those collapse, so too might our global economy, experts warn. The Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Index published by the Swiss Re Institute has found just over half of all global GDP – nearly 42 trillion US dollars – is dependent on goods and services provided by the natural world. The index was designed to give governments and businesses a benchmark for the state of local ecosystems important to their economies, in the hope that the data can help inform relevant insurance solutions for […]

Smaller scale solutions needed for rapid progress towards emissions targets

Science Daily  April 2, 2020 Of the 45 energy technologies deemed critical by the International Energy Agency for meeting global climate targets, 38 need to improve substantially in cost and performance while accelerating deployment over the next decades. An international team of researchers (Austria, UK, Portugal, Canada) focus on the appropriate scale of technological responses in the energy system on the specific needs of accelerated low-carbon transformation, synthesize evidence on energy end-use technologies in homes, transport, and industry, as well as electricity generation and energy supply and go beyond technical and economic considerations to include innovation, investment, deployment, social, and […]