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 […]
Tag Archives: Climatology
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 […]
China to release updated climate plans ‘in near future’: envoy
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 […]
Here’s What Ancient Climate Tipping Points May Be Able to Reveal About Earth’s Future
Science Alert July 30, 2021 In many cases, abrupt changes arise from slow changes in one component of the Earth system that eventually pass a critical threshold after which impacts cascade through coupled climate–ecological–social systems. The geological record provides the only long-term information we have on the conditions and processes that can drive physical, ecological, and social systems into new states or organizational structures that may be irreversible within human time frames. An international team of researchers (Germany, USA – Oregon State University, University Wisconsin, Arizona State University Tempe, UMass Amherst, Columbia University, USGS, University of Colorado, Northern Arizona University, […]
Major Atlantic Ocean current system might be approaching critical threshold
Science Daily August 5, 2021 The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, transports warm water masses from the tropics northward at the ocean surface and cold water southward at the ocean bottom. It influences weather systems worldwide. A potential collapse of this ocean current system could have severe consequences. An international team of researchers (Germany, UK) have developed a robust and general early-warning indicator for forthcoming critical transitions. Significant early-warning signals are found in eight independent AMOC indices, based on observational sea-surface temperature and salinity data from across the Atlantic Ocean basin. The findings support the assessment that the AMOC […]