Phys.org November 18, 2024 Should current unmitigated emissions continue, there is a growing chance of collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, one of the planetary climate tipping points at the greatest risk of being crossed. Such a collapse would subject the world to an increase of several metres in average global sea-level rise over just a few centuries. There is an academic debate about the potential of supporting glacial stability through artificial infrastructures such as an undersea ‘curtain’. However, this ‘ice sheet conservation’ would come with significant yet unforeseeable technical and environmental risks. Researchers in the UK argued that […]
Tag Archives: global warming
Capturing carbon from the air just got easier
Nanowerk October 24, 2024 The development of a durable material with high capacity, fast kinetics and low regeneration temperature for CO2 capture, especially from the intricate and dynamic atmosphere, is still lacking. An international team of researchers (USA – University of California, Saudi Arabia, Germany) synthesized a porous, crystalline covalent organic framework (COF) with olefin linkages structurally characterized and post-synthetically modified by the covalent attachment of amine initiators for producing polyamines within the pores. The COF could capture CO2 from open air with a capacity of 0.96 mmol g–1 under dry conditions and 2.05 mmol g–1 under 50% relative humidity, both from 400 ppm CO2. […]
New method successfully recycles carbon fiber composite into reusable materials
Phys.org October 31, 2024 Carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs, or composites) are increasingly replacing traditional manufacturing materials used in the automobile, aerospace, and energy sectors. With this shift, a team of researchers in the US (University of Southern California, University of Kansas) developed an end-of-life processes for CFRPs and demonstrated a strategy to upcycle pre- and postconsumer polystyrene-containing CFRPs, cross-linked with unsaturated polyesters or vinyl esters, to benzoic acid. The thermoset matrix was upgraded via biocatalysis utilizing an engineered strain of the filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans, which gave access to valuable secondary metabolites in high yields. Reactions were engineered to […]
Scientists discover molecules that store much of the carbon in space
MIT News October 24, 2024 Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are organic molecules containing adjacent aromatic rings. Infrared emission bands show that PAHs are abundant in space, but only a few specific PAHs have been detected in the interstellar medium. An international team of researchers (USA – MIT, University of Michigan, Worcester State University, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Harvard Smithsonian, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Virginia Military Institute, University of Virginia, Canada) detected 1-cyanopyrene, a cyano-substituted derivative of the related four-ring PAH pyrene, in radio observations of the dense cloud TMC-1. They estimated that pyrene contains up to 0.1% of the […]
New ice core data provide insight into climate ‘tipping points’ during the last Ice Age
Phys.org October 22, 2024 Reconstructions of Earth’s past climate show evidence for instability and abrupt change, which are of great scientific and societal importance. The Dansgaard–Oeschger (DO) oscillation of the last Ice Age, which is most clearly observed in Greenland ice cores, is the prime example of such instability. An international team of researchers (Oregon State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Miami, University of Colorado, Denmark, UK) presented ice-core records from south and coastal east Greenland to calibrate the local water isotope thermometer and provided a Greenland-wide spatial characterization of DO event magnitude. They used a series of idealized […]
The importance of wave modeling in predicting climate change’s effect on sea ice
Phys.org September 24, 2024 Researchers in Australia used a theoretical model to study water waves propagating into and through a region containing thin floating ice, for ice covers transitioning from consolidated (large floe sizes) to fully broken (small floe sizes). The degree of breaking was simulated by a mean floe length. The model predicted deterministic limits for consolidated and fully broken ice covers where the wave fields do not depend on the realization of the ice cover for a given mean floe length. The consolidated ice limit was consistent with classic flexural-gravity wave theory, and the fully broken limit was […]
Extreme weather to strengthen rapidly over next two decades, research suggests
Phys.org September 2024 While the magnitude of changes in mean and extreme climate are broadly studied, regional rates of change, a key driver of climate risk, have received less attention. Using large ensembles of climate model simulations an international team of researchers (Norway, UK) showed that nearly three quarters of the global population can expect strong and rapid changes in extreme temperatures and rainfall in the next 20 years unless greenhouse gas emissions are cut dramatically. Their research showed that 20% of the population could face extreme weather risks if emissions are cut enough to reach the aims of the […]
Scientists call for ‘major initiative’ to study whether geoengineering should be used on glaciers
Phys.org July 11, 2024 According to an international team of researchers (USA – University of Chicago, NASA Goddard Institute, MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, Germany, Finland) earth’s two large ice sheets, in Antarctica and Greenland are the major contributor to sea-level rise and the subsequent damage to natural and human systems. They are currently deteriorating and will continue to deteriorate even under the most optimistic greenhouse-gas emissions scenarios. Although they cannot be stopped, it may be possible to slow the deterioration. Over the last four decades, scientific research on ice-sheet deterioration and sea-level rise has been focused on two essential questions: […]
High-selectivity graphene membranes enhance COâ‚‚ capture efficiency
Phys.org July 6, 2024 Although membranes based on a porous two-dimensional selective layer offer the potential to achieve exceptional performance to improve energy efficiency and reduce the cost for carbon capture, competitive sorption of CO2 with the potential to yield high permeance and selectivity has remained elusive. Researchers in Switzerland showed that a simple exposure of ammonia to oxidized single-layer graphene at room temperature incorporates pyridinic nitrogen at the pore edges. This led to a highly competitive but quantitatively reversible binding of CO2 with the pore. A combination of CO2/N2 separation factor and CO2 permeance from a stream containing 20 vol% […]
Cloud engineering could be more effective ‘painkiller’ for global warming than previously thought
Phys.org April 11, 2024 Marine cloud brightening is a proposed method to tackle warming through injecting aerosols into marine clouds. However, it is unclear how aerosols influence clouds. An international team of researchers (USA – University of Birmingham, NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, University of Maryland Baltimore County, UK, Switzerland) used satellite observations of volcanic eruptions in Hawaii to quantify the aerosol fingerprint on tropical marine clouds. They observed a large enhancement in reflected sunlight, mainly due to an aerosol-induced increase in cloud cover. This suggested that the current level of global warming is driven by a weaker net radiative forcing […]