Phys.org August 3, 2021 Climate negotiators from 196 countries and the European Union as well as businesses, experts and world leaders will gather in Glasgow in November for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) summit. Under the Paris Agreement, countries are meant to have submitted updated 2030 climate targets ahead of COP26, but nearly half have yet to do so. China said they will soon release their updated plans. The United Nations is pushing for a global coalition committed to net zero carbon emissions by 2050 which will cover all countries. Many scientists now say 1.5 degrees must […]
Category Archives: Global warming
Nearly 14,000 Scientists Warn That Earth’s ‘Vital Signs’ Are Rapidly Worsening
Science Alert August 2, 2021 An international team of researchers (USA – Oregon State University, Tufts University, Australia, South Africa) suggests a “three-pronged near-term policy approach”: a significantly higher global price on carbon, a worldwide phase-out and eventual ban of fossil fuels, and development of climate reserves to protect and restore biodiversity and carbon sinks. They have presented a suite of graphical vital signs of climate change over the last 40 years for human activities that can affect GHG emissions and change the climate and climatic impacts using only relevant data sets that are clear, understandable, systematically collected for at […]
Earth’s interior is swallowing up more carbon than thought
Phys.org July 26, 2021 The best-understood parts of the carbon cycle are at or near Earth’s surface, but deep carbon stores play a key role in maintaining the habitability of our planet by regulating atmospheric CO2 levels. An international team of researchers (UK, Germany, China, France, Switzerland, Singapore) conducted a series of experiments that support growing evidence that carbonate rocks become less calcium-rich and more magnesium-rich when channeled deeper into the mantle. This chemical transformation makes carbonate less soluble meaning it doesn’t get drawn into the fluids that supply volcanoes. Instead, most of the carbonate sinks deeper into the mantle […]
Global satellite data shows clouds will amplify global heating
Phys.org July 19, 2021 Researchers in the UK used data from Earth observations and climate model simulations to develop a statistical learning analysis of how clouds respond to changes in the environment. They showed that global cloud feedback is dominated by the sensitivity of clouds to surface temperature and tropospheric stability. Considering changes in just these two factors, they were able to constrain global cloud feedback to 0.43 ± 0.35 W⋅m−2⋅K−1 (90% confidence), implying a robustly amplifying effect of clouds on global warming and only a 0.5% chance of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity below 2 K. The “cloud feedback” is the […]
A bright future: Using visible light to decompose CO2 with high efficiency
Science Daily June 21, 2021 AgIO3 is useful for the CO2 reduction reaction. However, it needs much higher energy than what visible light can provide to function as an efficient photocatalyst. Researchers in Japan developed a new photocatalyst that incorporates single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) with AgIO3 and AgI to form a three-component composite catalyst which solve both the synthesis and the electron transfer pathway problems. Spectroscopic observations using the composite showed that during the synthesis process, the encapsulated iodine molecules received charge from the SWCNT and converted into specific ions. They reacted with AgNO3 to form AgI and AgIO3 microcrystals, […]
Ocean Microbes May Actually Help Moderate Earth’s Temperature, Scientists Say
Science Alert June 18, 2021 As marine methane seeps, vast quantities of methane move through the shallow subseafloor, where it is largely consumed by microbial communities. A team of researchers in the US (Harvard University, DOE, USGS, UCLA, Caltech) conducted a continental-scale survey of seven geologically diverse seafloor seeps and found that carbonate rocks from all sites host methane-oxidizing microbial communities with substantial methanotrophic potential. In laboratory-based mesocosm incubations, chimney-like carbonates from the coast of Southern California exhibited the highest rates of anaerobic methane oxidation measured to date. After a thorough analysis of physicochemical, electrical, and biological factors, they attributed […]
Which areas will climate change render uninhabitable? Climate models alone cannot say
Phys.org June 18, 2021 Most habitability assessments, like climate risk assessments more generally, are based on “top-down” approaches that apply quantitative models using uniform methodologies and generalizable assumptions at global and regional scales. According to a team of researchers in the US (Columbia University, Oregon State University, Princeton University) there is a risk that such climate determinism minimizes the potential for human agency to find creative, locally appropriate solutions. Although top-down modeling can serve a useful purpose in identifying potential future “hot spots” for habitability decline and potential outmigration, only by integrating “bottom-up” insights related to place-based physical systems and […]
Zero to hero: Overlooked material could help reduce our carbon footprint
Science Daily May 6, 2021 Researchers in Japan designed an ion-exchanging method using an A-type zeolite (silicon/aluminum ratio of 1) because of its appropriate pore size for adsorbing CO2. The alkaline-earth ion exchange imparted a large electric field strength that, supposedly, acted as a driving force for the adsorption. They chose a doubly charged calcium ion as the exchange ion since it allowed for the greatest amount of adsorption. To investigate the underlying adsorption mechanism, they carried out far-IR measurements and backed them up with density functional theory calculations. It showed a distinct shift towards longer wavelengths following CO2 adsorption. […]
Ocean bacteria release carbon into the atmosphere
Science Daily April 12, 2021 A team of researchers in the US (University of Minnesota Twin-Cities, Boston University, Harvard University) discovered that deep-sea bacteria dissolve carbon-containing rocks, releasing excess carbon into the ocean and atmosphere. They studied sulfur-oxidizing bacteria — a group of microbes that use sulfur as an energy source — in methane seeps on the ocean floor. The seeps contain collections of limestone that trap large amounts of carbon. The sulfur-oxidizing microbes live on top of these rocks, in the process of oxidizing sulfur, the bacteria create an acidic reaction that dissolves the rocks. This releases the carbon […]
Global Warming Is ‘Fundamentally’ Changing The Structure of Our World’s Oceans
Science Alert March 25, 2021 An international team of researchers (Australia, UK, Germany, France, USA – Carnegie Mellon University) used global temperature and salinity observations obtained between 1970 and 2018 with a focus on the summer months. They found that the barrier layer separating the ocean surface and the deep layers had strengthened world-wide at a much larger rate than previously thought and contrary to their expectations, winds strengthened by climate change had also acted to deepen the ocean surface layer by five to 10 metres per decade over the last half century. The oceans play a crucial role in […]