Phys.org August 2, 2021 The strong erosion in the Himalayas was assumed to be a primary driver of Cenozoic atmospheric CO2 decline and global cooling predominantly through accelerating silicate chemical weathering in the India-Asia collision zone or through effective burial of organic carbon in the nearby Bengal Fan in South Asia. An international team of researchers (China, France) has found that the northward advance of the East Asian monsoon on tectonically inactive subtropical China induced globally significant silicate weathering atmospheric CO2 sink. The organic carbon burial flux is approximately 25% of the contemporary CO2 consumption by silicate weathering. The unusual […]
Tag Archives: global warming
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 […]
Leading scientists warn of global impacts as Antarctic nears tipping points
Phys.org June 16, 2021 According to a panel of leading Antarctic scientists human-driven climate change is pushing the Antarctic towards numerous tipping points that will impact wider earth systems, with profound implications for humanity and biodiversity. They examine how climate change is rapidly pushing five critical, interconnected processes in the Antarctic Southern Ocean towards substantial changes. They warn that disrupting these processes may disproportionately exacerbate global climate change and have widespread impacts on marine and human life worldwide, due to the region’s central role in regulating our earth systems. According to the group we can build resilience in the Antarctic […]
Researchers examine record-shattering 2020 trans-Atlantic dust storm
Phys.org May 26, 2021 For two weeks in June 2020, a massive dust plume from Saharan Africa crept westward across the Atlantic, blanketing the Caribbean and Gulf Coast states in the U.S. Researchers at the University of Kansas used satellite datasets to reconstruct the patterns that transported the dust from Africa to the Americas. According to the researchers the extreme trans-Atlantic dust event is associated with both enhanced dust emissions over western North Africa and atmospheric circulation extremes that favor long-range dust transport. An exceptionally strong African easterly jet and associated wave activities export African dust across the Atlantic toward […]
Climate change threatens one-third of global food production
Phys.org May 14, 2021 Although it is widely accepted that climate change perturbs food productions, no systematic understanding exists on where and how the major risks for entering unprecedented conditions may occur. An international team of researchers (Finland, Switzerland) has addressed this gap by introducing the concept of safe climatic space (SCS), which incorporates the decisive climatic factors of agricultural production: precipitation, temperature, and aridity. They showed that a rapid and unhalted growth of greenhouse gas emissions (SSP5–8.5) could force 31% of the global food crop and 34% of livestock production beyond the SCS by 2081–2100. The most vulnerable areas […]
Trace gases from ocean are source of particles accelerating Antarctic climate change
Phys.org May 13, 2021 An international team of researchers (UK, Spain, Saudi Arabia) studied the summertime open ocean and coastal new particle formation in the Antarctic Peninsula region based on both ship and station measurements. The rates of particle formation relative to sulfuric acid concentrations, as well as the sulfuric acid dimer-to-monomer ratios, were similar to those seen for sulfuric acid–dimethylamine–water nucleation. Numerous sulfuric acid–amine peaks were identified during new particle formation events, providing evidence that alkylamines were the bases that facilitated sulfuric acid nucleation. Most new particle formation events occurred in air masses arriving from the ice-covered Weddell Sea […]
Lightning strikes will more than double in Arctic as climate warms
Science Daily April 5, 2021 An international team of researchers (USA – UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Netherlands) projected how lightning in high-latitude boreal forests and Arctic tundra regions will change across North America and Eurasia as the climate continues warming and Arctic weather during summertime will be closer to those seen today far to the south, where lightning storms are more common. Looking at over-twenty-year-old NASA satellite data on lighting strikes in northern regions they constructed a relationship between the flash rate and climatic factors. They estimated a significant increase in lightning strikes as a result […]
World’s largest lakes reveal climate change trends
Science Daily January 21, 2021 Researchers at Michigan Technological University studied the five Laurentian Great Lakes bordering the U.S. and Canada; the three African Great Lakes, Tanganyika, Victoria, and Malawi; Lake Baikal in Russia; and Great Bear and Great Slave lakes in Canada. These 11 lakes hold more than 50% of the surface freshwater that millions of people and countless other creatures rely on. The rate of carbon fixation, that is the rate at which the algae photosynthesize, indicates change in the whole lake and that has ramifications all the way up the food chain, from the zooplankton to the […]
Number of people suffering extreme droughts will double
Science Daily January 11, 2021 Using ensemble hydrological simulations, an international team of researchers (USA – Michigan State University, Japan, Austria, Germany, UK, Greece, Switzerland, China, Belgium, the Netherlands) shows that climate change could reduce TWS (Terrestrial water storage ) in many regions, especially those in the Southern Hemisphere. Strong inter-ensemble agreement indicates high confidence in the projected changes that are driven primarily by climate forcing rather than land and water management activities. Declines in TWS translate to increases in future droughts. By the late twenty-first century, the global land area and population in extreme-to-exceptional TWS drought could more than […]