Phys.org June 24, 2022 According to researchers in Canada human activities have caused global temperatures to increase by 1.25°C, and the current emissions trajectory suggests that we will exceed 1.5°C in less than 10 years. Though the growth rate of global carbon dioxide emissions has slowed, and many countries have strengthened their emissions targets, current midcentury net zero goals are insufficient to limit global warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial temperatures. The primary barriers to the achievement of a 1.5°C-compatible pathway are not geophysical but rather reflect inertia in our political and technological systems. Both political and corporate leadership are needed […]
Tag Archives: Climatology
A huge Atlantic Ocean current is slowing down—if it collapses, La Niña could become the norm for Australia
Phys.org June 7, 2022 Climate projections suggest a weakening or collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) under global warming, with evidence that a slowdown is already underway. This could have significant ramifications for Atlantic Ocean heat transport, Arctic Sea ice extent and regional North Atlantic climate. However, the potential for far-reaching effects, such as teleconnections to adjacent basins and into the Southern Hemisphere, remains unclear. Researchers in Australia used a global climate model to show that AMOC collapse can accelerate the Pacific trade winds and Walker circulation by leaving an excess of heat in the tropical South Atlantic. […]
Rescued Victorian rainfall data smashes former records
Science Daily March 25, 2022 An international team of researchers (UK, Ireland) led the rainfall Rescue Project to digitize 5.2 million rainfall observations, recorded by hand on paper sheets now stored in the Met Office archives. The UK National Meteorological Archive recently scanned more than 66,000 paper sheets containing 5.28 million hand-written monthly rainfall observations taken across the UK and Ireland between 1677 and 1960. Only a small fraction of these observations was previously digitally available for climate scientists to analyze. More than 16,000 volunteer citizen scientists completed the transcription of these sheets of observations during early 2020 using the […]
Warming oceans will significantly alter how sound travels underwater
Phys.org March 24, 2022 A considerable fraction of marine life depends on sound, marine mammals exploit sound in all aspects of their life. Researchers in Italy studied the impact of climate change in sound propagation by computing the three-dimensional global field of underwater sound speed based on present conditions (2006–2016) and a future climate scenario identifying two “acoustic hotspots” where larger sound speed variations are expected. Their results indicated that the identified acoustic hotspots would present substantial climate-change-induced sound speed variations toward the end of the century, potentially affecting the vital activities of species in the areas. They provided evidence […]
Scientists call for a moratorium on climate change research until governments take real action
Phys.org January 11, 2022 There is an unwritten social contract between science and society. Public investment in science is intended to improve understanding about our world and support beneficial societal outcomes. According to the authors the contract is broken. Science demonstrates why this is occurring, that it is getting worse, the implications for human well-being and social-ecological systems and substantiates action. Governments agree that the science is settled. The tragedy of climate change science is that at the same time as compelling evidence is gathered, fresh warnings issued, and novel methodologies developed, indicators of adverse global change rise year upon […]
Where will the next pandemic begin? The Amazon rainforest offers troubling clues
Phys.org November 22, 2021 According to the scientists the next pandemic is likely to emerge from a community as people demolish forest, they not only accelerate global warming but also dramatically increase their risk of exposure to disease. Lurking in mammals and birds are about 1.6 million viruses, some of which will be deadly when they leap to humans. Scientists say that disease hot zones are multiplying from Africa to South America, and that deforestation has already triggered a rise in infectious disease. Zoologists have traced about a third of all known outbreaks around the world to rapid land use […]
Better models of atmospheric ‘detergent’ can help predict climate change
Phys.org November 1, 2021 The hydroxyl radical (OH) sets the oxidative capacity of the atmosphere and thus, profoundly affects the removal rate of pollutants and reactive greenhouse gases. OH estimates for past and future periods rely primarily on global atmospheric chemistry models. The models disagree ± 30% in mean OH and in its changes from the preindustrial to late 21st century. A simple steady-state relationship that accounts for ozone photolysis frequencies, water vapor, and the ratio of reactive nitrogen to carbon emissions explains temporal variability within most models, but not intermodal differences. A team of researchers in the US (University […]
Lightning strikes may trigger short-term thinning in the ozone layer
Phys.org October 11, 2021 An international team of researchers (USA – University of Colorado, Finland) used detailed computer simulations to follow what happened in the atmosphere after Hurricane Patricia that struck Texas and Mexico in 2015 and had more than 33,000 lightning strikes over the span of just two-and-a-half hours, the May 1917 storm in the Caribbean, and the 2013 storm over Nebraska. As the storms progressed, the electron energy raining down to Earth began to react with gasses high in Earth’s atmosphere, concentrations of certain molecules in the air, including hydrogen oxides and nitrogen oxides, shot up almost at […]
Research on levitating oil droplets may help reduce air pollution
Phys.org October 13, 2021 Unsaturated fatty acids contribute to urban cooking emissions and sea spray aerosols. The phase state of organic aerosols is a significant factor in determining aerosol reactivity, water uptake and atmospheric lifetime with wide implications for cloud formation, climate, air quality and human health. Researchers in the UK studied physical and chemical changes in crystalline acid–soap complex in acoustically levitated oleic acid–sodium oleate particles during exposure to humidity and the atmospheric oxidant ozone. It revealed a phase gradient consisting of a disordered liquid crystalline shell and crystalline core. Ozonolysis is significantly slower in the crystalline phase compared […]
‘Tipping points’ in Earth’s system triggered rapid climate change 55 million years ago
Science Daily August 31, 2021 The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a period of geologically-rapid carbon release and global warming ~56 million years ago. Although modelling, outcrop and proxy records suggest volcanic carbon release occurred, it has not yet been possible to identify the PETM trigger, or if multiple reservoirs of carbon were involved. An international team of researchers (UK, Denmark, USA – UC Riverside) report that elevated levels of mercury relative to organic carbon—a proxy for volcanism—directly preceding and within the early PETM from two North Sea sedimentary cores, signifying pulsed volcanism from the North Atlantic Igneous Province likely […]