Phys.org December 13, 2022 Geothermal heat flow (GHF) can reveal past and present plate tectonic processes. In Antarctica, GHF has further consequences in predicting the response of ice sheets to climate change. In a review article an international team of researchers (Australia, Germany, USA – Stony Brook University, Colorado College) discuss variations in Antarctic GHF models based on geophysical methods and draw insights into tectonics and GHF model usage for ice sheet modelling. The inferred GHF at continental scale for West Antarctica points to numerous contributing influences, including non-steady state neotectonic processes. Combined influences cause especially high values in the […]
Tag Archives: global warming
The lightness of water vapor adds heft to global climate models
Science Daily October 24, 2022 The molar mass of water vapour is less than that of dry air, making humid air lighter than dry air at the same temperature and pressure. This effect is known as vapour buoyancy and has been considered negligibly small in large-scale climate dynamics. Using theory, reanalysis data and a hierarchy of climate models a team of researchers in the US (UC Davis, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) showed that vapour buoyancy has a similar magnitude to thermal buoyancy in the tropical free troposphere. They also showed that vapour buoyancy makes cold air […]
Getting it to stick: Designing optimal core-shell MOFs for direct air capture
Phys.org October 11, 2022 MOFs utilize porous membranes to capture large volumes of gasses and can be designed via computational modeling rather than traditional trial-and-error. However, adsorbents designed to strongly bind CO2 nearly always bind H2O strongly. A team of researchers in the US (University of Pittsburgh, DOE) has a direct air capture (DAC) strategy to remove carbon dioxide from the air using core–shell MOF design, where a high-CO2-capacity MOF “core” is protected from competitive H2O-binding via a MOF “shell” that has very slow water diffusion. They considered a high-frequency adsorption/desorption cycle that regenerates the adsorbents before water can pass […]
Solar geoengineering might work, but local temperatures could keep rising for years
Phys.org September 28, 2022 Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), the theoretical deployment of particles in the stratosphere to enhance reflection of incoming solar radiation, is one of the strategies to slow, pause, or reverse global warming. SAI is likely be for a specific aim, such as affording time to implement mitigation strategies, lessening extremes, or reducing the odds of reaching a biogeophysical tipping point. A team of researchers in the US (Colorado State University, US Naval War College, RI) used an ensemble climate model experiment that simulated the deployment of SAI in the context of an intermediate greenhouse gas trajectory quantifying […]
The Tonga Eruption’s 50 Million Tons of Water Vapor May Warm Earth For Months to Come
Scince Alert September 25, 2022 Recently, researchers calculated that the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apa spewed a staggering 50 million tons of water vapor into the atmosphere, in addition to enormous quantities of ash and volcanic gases. Particles of rock and ash can also temporarily cool the planet by blocking sunlight. Widespread and violent volcanic activity in Earth’s distant past may have contributed to global climate change, triggering mass extinctions millions of years ago. In underwater volcanoes, submarine eruptions can draw large parts of their explosive energy from the interaction of water and hot magma, which propels huge quantities of […]
Scientists evaluate Earth-cooling strategies with geoengineering simulations
Phys.org August 23, 2022 Making informed future decisions about solar radiation modification (SRM)/solar geoengineering requires projections of the climate response and associated human and ecosystem impacts using climate models and simulations. SRM modeling simulations to date typically consider only a single scenario, often with some unrealistic or arbitrarily chosen elements (such as starting deployment in 2020) and have often been chosen based on scientific rather than policy-relevant considerations. An international team of researchers (USA – Cornell University, Indiana University, NCAR, Duke University, American University, UCLA, Japan) list several scenarios that explore different choices, and present new climate model simulation results. […]
New technology can help combat climate crisis
Science Daily August 3, 2022 Researchers in the UK developed a chemical process that converts sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into acetate and oxygen to produce high-value fuels and chemicals powered by renewable energy. As part of the process, they grew CO2-fixing acetogenic bacterium Sporomusa ovata on a scalable and cost-effective photocatalyst sheet consisting of a pair of particulate semiconductors. The system effectively produces acetate and oxygen using only sunlight, CO2 and H2O, achieving a solar-to-acetate conversion efficiency of 0.7% at ambient conditions (298 K, 1 atm). The photocatalyst sheet oxidizes water to O2 and provides electrons and hydrogen to S. ovata […]
Geoengineering could return risk of malaria for one billion people
Phys. org April 20, 2022 Solar geoengineering is often framed as a stopgap measure to decrease the magnitude, impacts, and injustice of climate change. However, the benefits or costs of geoengineering for human health are largely unknown. An international team of researchers (USA – Georgetown University, University of Maryland, Rutgers University, University of Florida, Bangladesh, Germany, South Africa) has projected how geoengineering could impact malaria risk by comparing current transmission suitability and populations-at-risk under moderate and high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios with and without geoengineering. They showed that if geoengineering deployment cools the tropics, it could help protect high elevation […]
‘Sky is not the limit’ for solar geoengineering
Science Daily March 14, 2022 In a report a team of researchers in the US (Yale College Harvard University, AIAA, industry) responded to a question posed by the US National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine in a landmark study in March 2021 which recognized the need for additional research on the viability of depositing aerosols well above 20 km to deflect incoming sunlight and countervail global warming. According to the team airliners and military jets routinely cruise near 10 km, whereas 20 km is the realm of high-flying spy planes and drones. Planning to fly hundreds of thousands of […]
Dimming The Sun Is a Dangerous Gamble And Should Be Banned, Scientists Warn
Science Alert January 18, 2022 In an open letter more than 60 policy experts and scientists warned that planetary-scale engineering schemes designed to cool Earth’s surface and lessen the impact of global heating are potentially dangerous and should be blocked by governments. According to the signatories there are several reasons to reject such a course of action – artificially dimming the Sun’s radiative force is likely to disrupt monsoon rains in South Asia and western Africa, ravage the rain-fed crops upon which hundreds of millions depend for nourishment, if SRM were terminated for any reason, there is high confidence that surface […]