ReportWire

Tag: Climate Science

  • Modeling ocean to understand natural phenomena

    Modeling ocean to understand natural phenomena

    [ad_1]

    BYLINE: Space Time Inc.

    Newswise — Associate Professor Yoshi N. Sasaki, a specialist in Physical Oceanography, is involved in research into rising sea levels—particularly in coastal areas of Japan. He spoke about what he has learned so far about the relationship between ocean currents, sea level and climate change, what research he is currently focusing on, and the appeal of research that uses numerical modeling to uncover natural phenomena.

    Understanding future changes in sea level

    It is a common view among researchers that the global mean sea level is rising. The only question now is, by how much will it rise?

    The graph below shows global average sea level, with tide-gauge data since 1880 and satellite data since 1993. It shows that the water level rose at a rate of about 1.5 to 2 millimeters per year in the 20th century, but has increased at a faster rate of about 3 millimeters per year in the 21st century. This speed is expected to increase further in the future as global warming continues.

    Indeed, on the US coast, for example in Florida, many people live on low land, and sea levels are rising faster than in other areas of the ocean. In such areas, dike building and migration are already being considered.

    Researchers are now focusing on detailed predictions of what will cause sea level changes, when, in which areas, and to what extent.

    As this graph is a ‘global average,’ the actual situation at different locations is much more nuanced than this alone reveals. To clarify this, simulations using numerical models are being carried out.

    Sea level is the sum of multiple factors

    Sea level rise does not occur uniformly across the globe, but varies greatly from one ocean region to another. The causes also vary between global changes and changes in some ocean regions.

    There are two main causes of sea level rise on average across the globe. The first is the thermal expansion of seawater due to warming caused by global warming. The second is the melting of glaciers and ice sheets due to global warming. Water that was previously trapped on land as ice flows into the sea, increasing the mass of seawater and causing sea levels to rise.

    There are many different mechanisms by which sea level changes in different ocean regions. To give a few examples: one, variations in ocean circulation. Due to the physics of geostrophic currents, the sea level in the Northern Hemisphere is higher on the right side and lower on the left side in relation to the direction of the ocean currents. Two, changes in atmospheric pressure. Three, changes in the ground—the ground also sinks and rises, which changes the height of the coastal water table.

    In other words, to predict sea level in an area, a combination of these factors needs to be taken into account. Specifically, the effects of each of these factors can be added together to estimate the actual rise in sea level, to some extent.

    Understanding natural mechanisms using numerical models

    My research involves computer simulations, using regional ocean models of the US. In principle, the model can reproduce the state of the ocean by feeding it with observed data such as atmospheric winds and temperatures.

    For example, if we know that a change in water levels is caused by wind fluctuations, we can make predictions of future changes in water levels by knowing what the winds will be like in the future.

    Although I simply said ‘By wind fluctuations,’ it is about understanding the mechanisms of nature. For me, it’s something very enjoyable that satisfies my intellectual curiosity.

    Naturally, it is not a straightforward process. Models are very complex, and to understand the mechanism, the model must first be able to reproduce the phenomena accurately. Once that is done, a ‘simpler model’ that reproduces the same situation can be developed, revealing new principles hidden in nature. We need to look at the results of the complex models to find the essence of what is important.

    When I was doing research in the US, I discovered a new mechanism that changed the ocean circulation. To someone outside the field, it would have looked like just a diagram, but after working on it for a very long time, it suddenly looked like important information that no one had ever seen before. This is the best part of research.

    Water level fluctuations along the coast of Japan

    Water levels along the Japanese coast are also currently rising, but it is known that they did not rise all the way through the 20th century—they peaked once around 1950 and then fell.

    Our research has shown that the peak around 1950 was dominated by wind effects. In particular, it seems to have been caused by fluctuations in ocean circulation due to wind fluctuations from a low-pressure system called the Aleutian Low. On the other hand, the rise in recent years has been found to be primarily due to the effects of heat and other factors at the sea surface.

    Assessing the impact of typhoons and storm surges

    In the future, typhoons and extratropical cyclones are predicted to become stronger. So far, research has been conducted on how sea level changes on long-term time scales of a decade or more, but the possibility that short-term fluctuations, such as storm surges, could cause major damage cannot be ignored.

    In order to assess such impacts, we need to know exactly how typhoons and extratropical cyclones will strengthen in the future, and how this will affect sea levels. I am currently working on this with young students, and we are hoping to get this project off the ground.

    Sea level rise is one aspect of the wider ocean

    Right now, the resolution of ocean models for global warming simulations is approximately 100 kilometers, and can be narrowed down to 10 kilometers at the finest. This may be sufficient for some ocean regions, but it is not sufficient at all for some topographies, so I would like to create more detailed models and incorporate methods such as statistics and machine learning to estimate.

    On the other hand, there is also a conflict between effective measures and the economic aspects. For example, in the US,there were very specific discussions about the cost of migration to avoid the influence of sea level rise and the cost of building dikes, and which is better. Once you know certain things, the rest is no longer in the field of science, but in the field of politics or in the field of society. It’s about how much accuracy society demands.

    I myself would like to go back to the theme of ocean currents and look for more interesting and important phenomena caused by ocean currents once I have gone through sea level rise. I think there are still many interesting phenomena caused by ocean currents, such as ocean circulation. My dream for the future is to elucidate the mechanisms of these phenomena.

    Friendships gained in Hawaii

    After completing my doctoral studies at Hokkaido University, I chose a post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Hawai’i in the US as my first job. The University of Hawai’i was one of the world’s strongest universities in marine research, but it was a big decision for me to do research abroad where Japanese was not spoken. It was a tough decision for me, as I was so committed to my research that I felt that if I did not achieve good results in Hawai’i, I would not be able to return to Japan. But it was very rewarding. As well as research, Hawai’i is a tourist destination, so a lot of researchers come here as visitors. I made a lot of acquaintances and connections in this environment, and it still helps me to build an international network.

    [ad_2]

    Hokkaido University

    Source link

  • The scale of emissions inequality in U.S. society

    The scale of emissions inequality in U.S. society

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Researchers have linked US household income data to greenhouse gas emissions generated in creating that income, and found that 40% of total emissions are associated with income for the highest 10% of households. The paper, published in PLOS Climate suggests that an income or shareholder-based carbon tax focused on investments may have equity advantages over traditional consumer-facing cap-and-trade or carbon tax options.

    Human created climate change is an existential threat, and there is a disconnect between those facing the worst impacts and those that drive the greatest greenhouse gas emissions.

    Jared Starr of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and colleagues, took 30 years of US household-level income data, from 1990-2019, and linked it to the emissions generated in that income. They look at both income from direct emissions, such as industries like power plants, and income related to industries supplying services or commodities to those industries – such as finance or fossil fuel suppliers.

    In general, white non-Hispanic households had the highest emissions linked to income, and Black households had the lowest, predominantly because of the racial inequity of income distribution. In terms of age, emissions tend to increase with age until peaking within the 45 – 54 age group before declining again.

    Among the highest earning 1% of households, whose income is linked to 15 – 17% of national emissions, investment holdings account for 38 – 43% of their emissions. The team also identifies “super emitters” with extremely high overall emissions, and these are almost exclusively among the top 0.1% of households, which are overrepresented in finance, real estate, and insurance; manufacturing; mining and quarrying.

    The research offers a new perspective on emissions responsibility and climate finance and could be a useful policy tool to encourage decarbonization while raising revenue for climate finance.

    Starr adds: “The scale of emission disparity is quite striking. Just fifteen days of income-based emissions from an average top 0.1% household is equal to a lifetime of emissions from a bottom decile household. I find that morally troubling, especially since low-income households face disproportionate climate harms.

    I think we need to make sure that our climate policies take these disparities into account. One way to do that is to make sure that those who are financially benefitting thanks to emissions are properly incentivized to both reduce their emissions and pay for the damage caused by those emissions. I believe that an income or asset-based carbon tax would focus the minds of corporate executives, board members, and large shareholders to decarbonize their industries in order to reduce their taxes. In essence it is decarbonization and divestment out of self-interest. At the same time it would generate much needed revenue for climate finance. While no tool is perfect, I think this could be a useful new approach to encourage the most economically and politically powerful in our society to focus their minds on decarbonization.”

     

    [ad_2]

    PLOS

    Source link

  • Crucial Role of Society in Advancing Green Energy Transition

    Crucial Role of Society in Advancing Green Energy Transition

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — As wind energy emerges as a linchpin in the global push towards a cleaner future, resistance to deploying renewable energy technologies has risen. This underscores the need for a collective socio-technical approach to designing and implementing renewable energy systems.

    A recent review paper in Nature Energy promotes an interdisciplinary research approach that bridges technical ‘grand challenges’ with societal dynamics, making renewable energy truly sustainable—technically and socially. Julia Kirch Kirkegaard, leading the study, emphasizes the risks societies face if they fail to consider local communities’ values and concerns:

    “Today, design decisions are often made without much debate. And when the public then raises concerns, the response is often not taken seriously, or it’s too late. Societies, therefore, risk losing public backing to the essential energy transition,” says Julia Kirch Kirkegaard, Associate Professor at DTU Wind and Energy Systems and lead author of the recent review article published in Nature Energy on socio-technical grand challenges in wind energy.

    Silo-mentality gets in the way

    Addressing the grand challenge of climate change is often done from the perspective of individual technical disciplines. However, this is at the risk of ignoring how technologies – and their design, development, and deployment – are always social. They are set into specific places and contexts and create certain social responses.

    With local opposition against renewables rising, the paper states there is an urgent need for interdisciplinary perspectives better to address the socio-technical nature of the energy transition. In other words, to meet global decarbonization goals, the technical sciences need to collaborate more with the social sciences and humanities to engage with – and create value for – local communities and broader society.

    The need for increased public participation concerns the planning and development phases and the design and end-of-life phases. In the design phase, in particular, important decisions are made that concern whose interests are considered – and whose aren’t. And recent research shows that these decisions even go back to the algorithms found in digital design tools.

    Case in point: Wind energy. There is little doubt that wind power will play a massive role in the future energy system to meet worldwide decarbonization goals. The level of effort that made wind an initial success got us to roughly a 9% share of electricity usage. That will not be sufficient, however, to make the transformative changes required to reach the expected one-third to one-half of total electricity, according to Julia Kirch Kirkegaard.

    “Denmark, for instance, is normally seen as a pioneer in wind energy, but only a handful of wind turbines were installed onshore in 2022. With an ambition to produce four times as much solar and wind energy on land and five times as much offshore by 2030, we need to find radically new approaches so that we do not see the controversies simply multiplied,” she says.

    “While wind turbines are getting larger, and less land is becoming available, local, societal opposition to deployments of new wind energy infrastructure has been growing. We need to understand better and acknowledge why that is so—otherwise, there is a real risk that societies’ ability to meet climate ambitions is jeopardized.”

    A new approach to socio-technical grand challenges

    Better recognition of how technical and natural sciences, on the one hand, and state-of-the-art in the social sciences, on the other, address the grand challenges facing wind power is needed since, according to Julia Kirch Kirkegaard, they often do not even agree on the most significant challenges.

    The authors warn that the socio-technical research gaps may become grand challenges in their own right if the wind energy sector cannot confront them in due time. Julia Kirch Kirkegaard explains that while it will be a challenge for research, industry and society as a whole to bridge these gaps, the timing for engaging the participants in the deployment of wind energy is obvious:

    “Major technological progress is facing growing resistance from the public. Since we’ll likely see similar conflicts in the future – as we address other aspects of the energy transition and climate mitigation technologies such as Power-to-X, energy islands and more – the time to explore how to bridge these manifold perspectives is now.”

    FACT BOX: Call to action:

    The Nature Energy paper Tackling grand challenges in wind energy through a socio-technical perspective promotes a lens founded in STS (Science & Technology Studies) to push the technical sciences and the state-of-the-art in social sciences and humanities on the issue (i.e., the social acceptance literature) forward and towards more interdisciplinary research:

    • Technical sciences need to move beyond their perspective on local opposition as a barrier to be tackled through technical or economic means to appreciate better their role in society and how their design and deployment decisions shape societal dynamics. It might even make it possible to look at public opposition not as something that must be done away with but as a potential for learning and value-creation.
    • The state-of-the-art in the social sciences (the social acceptance literature) has tended to focus on the planning and development phases, largely overlooking the technologies themselves, their design, and scientific reasons. With this, they lack an appreciation of how decisions about whose concerns should count (or not) are already made in the design phase. Sometimes making solutions to tackle local opposition in the planning and development phases are in vain and too late.

    The work on the Nature Energy paper is a collaborative effort between European and American scholars – at DTU Wind and Energy Systems (Technical University of Denmark), National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and Wageningen University & Research (WUR).

    The paper is part of ten papers on the grand challenges in wind energy science, published in Science and Wind Energy Science, encompassing topics like atmosphere, environmental concerns, digitalization, etc.

    The work on grand challenges in wind energy science is facilitated by the International Energy Agency (IEA) Wind Programme, which has recently determined that for wind power to fulfil its expected role as a major global supplier of carbon-free energy, critical challenges around the design, development, and deployment of wind energy must be addressed.

    [ad_2]

    Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

    Source link

  • Combining Rock Placement on Farms with Emissions Reductions Could Assist in Achieving Crucial IPCC Carbon Removal Objective

    Combining Rock Placement on Farms with Emissions Reductions Could Assist in Achieving Crucial IPCC Carbon Removal Objective

    [ad_1]

    Key points:

    • Enhanced rock weathering makes use of a natural geologic process to store carbon long term
    • Applying 10 tons of basalt dust per hectare of crop land globally could sequester up to 217 gigatons of carbon dioxide in 75 years, above the IPCC’s lower threshold of carbon dioxide removal needed to reach climate goals, along with emissions reductions
    • Farms in the tropics have the biggest and fastest return on investment

    Newswise — WASHINGTON — Farmers around the world could help the planet reach a key carbon removal goal set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by mixing crushed volcanic rocks into their fields, a new study reports. The study also highlights wet, warm tropics as the most promising locations for this climate intervention strategy.

    The study provides one of the first global estimates of the potential carbon dioxide drawdown from basalt application on agricultural fields worldwide. It was published in Earth’s Future, AGU’s journal for interdisciplinary research on the past, present and future of our planet and its inhabitants.

    This type of climate intervention is called enhanced rock weathering. It takes advantage of the weathering process, which naturally sequesters carbon dioxide in carbonate minerals. The idea is simple: speed up weathering in a way that also benefits people. When used in parallel with emissions reductions, it can help slow the pace of climate change.

    And it may be a safer bet than other carbon drawdown approaches, according to the study authors.

    “Enhanced rock weathering poses fewer risks compared to other climate interventions,” said S. Hun Baek, a climate scientist at Yale University who led the study. “It also provides some key benefits, like rejuvenating depleted soils and countering ocean acidification, that may make it more socially desirable.”

    The new study explores the potential of applying crushed basalt, a fast-weathering rock that forms as lava cools, to agricultural fields around the world and highlights which regions can most efficiently break down the rocks.

    “There’s tremendous potential here,” said Noah Planavsky, a geochemist at Yale University who co-authored the study. “Although we still have things to learn from a basic science perspective, there is promise, and we need to focus on what we can do from market and finance perspectives.”

    A previous study used a separate method of calculating carbon dioxide removal to estimate carbon drawdown by the year 2050, but the researchers wanted to look beyond country borders and further into the future.

    The researchers used a new biogeochemical model to simulate how applying crushed basalt to global croplands would draw down carbon dioxide, to test the sensitivity of enhanced rock weathering to climate and to pinpoint the areas where the method could be most effective.

    The new model simulated enhanced rock weathering on 1,000 agricultural sites around the world under two emissions scenarios from 2006 to 2080. They found that in the 75-year study period, those agricultural sites would draw down 64 gigatons of carbon dioxide. Extrapolating that to all agricultural fields, representing the world’s total potential application of this strategy, up to 217 gigatons of carbon could be sequestered in that time period.

    “The latest IPCC report said we need to remove 100 to 1,000 gigatons of carbon by 2100 in addition to steeply reducing emissions to keep global temperature from rising more than one and a half degrees Celsius,” said Baek. “Scaling up to global croplands, the estimates of carbon removal we found are roughly comparable to the lower end of that range needed to have a fighting chance of meeting those climate goals.”

    Because weathering progresses more quickly in hot and wet environments, enhanced rock weathering would work more quickly in tropical regions than higher latitudes, the study highlights. Farmers and companies looking to invest in carbon drawdown solutions make cost- and carbon-efficient choices by targeting basalt application in tropical fields.

    The model revealed another promising result: Enhanced rock weathering works just as well, if not a little better, in warmer temperatures. Some other carbon drawdown approaches, such as those that rely on soil organic carbon storage, become less effective with continual warming.

    “Enhanced rock weathering is surprisingly resilient to climate change,” Baek said. “Our results show that it’s relatively insensitive to climate change and works about the same under moderate and severe global warming scenarios. This gives us confidence in its potential as a long-term strategy.”

    Farmers already apply millions of tons of limestone (a calcium carbonate rock that can either be a carbon source or sink) to their fields to deliver nutrients and control soil acidity, so gradually changing the rock type could mean a smooth transition to implementing enhanced rock weathering at scale, Planavsky said.

    Enhanced rock weathering has been applied on small scales on farms around the world. The next step is working toward “realistic implementation,” Planavsky said.

    #

    [ad_2]

    American Geophysical Union (AGU)

    Source link

  • Arctic Monitoring Program Plays Vital Role in Global Pollution Reduction Efforts

    Arctic Monitoring Program Plays Vital Role in Global Pollution Reduction Efforts

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Historically, the Arctic was considered a pristine region, but scientific research spanning the last three decades has revealed the harsh reality of long-range transported pollutants reaching the Arctic from different corners of the world. In response to this alarming discovery, AMAP was created with the mission to monitor pollution and its effects on the Arctic environment and human health.

    In a new article published on 26 July 2023, in the journal Environmental Science and Ecotechnology, researchers from Arctic Knowledge Ltd, presents the initiation and implementation of a systematic scientific and political cooperation in the Arctic related to environmental pollution and climate change, with a special focus on the role of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP). AMAP’s pioneering approach, with equal participation of indigenous peoples’ organizations alongside Arctic states, seamlessly blending scientific and local knowledge in assessments, has been crucial in understanding the risks posed by persistent organic pollutants (POPs), mercury, radioactivity, and oil pollution, among others. The far-reaching impacts of AMAP’s scientific results are evident as its data played a key role in establishing international agreements like the UN Stockholm Convention on POPs and the UN Minamata treaty, resulting in reduced pollution levels not only in the Arctic but also globally. Additionally, AMAP’s work has inspired initiatives beyond the Arctic, with ICIMOD establishing HIMAP based on AMAP’s model in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKM) region. Furthermore, the proposal for the Antarctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AnMAP) seeks advice from AMAP, extending the program’s influence beyond its original scope. Despite challenges in data sharing and accessing geographical areas for observations, AMAP remains steadfast in its commitment to enhance Arctic monitoring and research data accessibility for international networks and agreements. Given the rapid changes in the Arctic, AMAP’s role in fostering continued collaboration and providing science-based policy advice has become more critical than ever. In this regard, AMAP stands as a powerful example of the potential of international cooperation in addressing global challenges and promoting peace and prosperity through science.

    Highlights

    • AMAP has monitored and assessed Arctic pollution since 1991.
    • The main source of Arctic pollution is long-range transport from lower latitudes.
    • AMAP data have been fundamental in developing international chemical regulations.
    • Food advice has reduced contaminant exposure in local communities.
    • Other monitoring and assessment frameworks have been developed after AMAP’s model.

    In conclusion, AMAP’s systematic scientific and political cooperation has been instrumental in recognizing, understanding, and mitigating environmental pollution and climate change in the Arctic. Its efforts have not only led to significant reductions in pollutants in the Arctic but have also influenced global agreements and inspired similar initiatives in other regions.

    ###

    References

    DOI

    10.1016/j.ese.2023.100302

    Original Source URL

    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ese.2023.100302

    Funding information

    The authors wish to acknowledge the scientists and local communities involved in the AMAP monitoring and assessments as well as the reviewers of the scientific assessments. This long-term work would not have been possible without the dedicated contributions from the AMAP Working Group and the Secretariat. The AMAP work benefitted from financial support by the Arctic countries, the Nordic Council of Ministers, the Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO) and the Global Environment Facility Programme (GEF).

    About Environmental Science and Ecotechnology

    Environmental Science and Ecotechnology (ISSN 2666-4984) is an international, peer-reviewed, and open-access journal published by Elsevier. The journal publishes significant views and research across the full spectrum of ecology and environmental sciences, such as climate change, sustainability, biodiversity conservation, environment & health, green catalysis/processing for pollution control, and AI-driven environmental engineering. The latest impact factor of ESE is 12.6, according to the Journal Citation ReportTM 2022.

    [ad_2]

    Chinese Academy of Sciences

    Source link

  • Decarbonizing industry

    Decarbonizing industry

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have developed a training camp to help manufacturing industries reduce energy-related carbon dioxide emissions and improve cost savings.

    As part of the Department of Energy’s Better Plants Program, the Oct. 16-19 Energy Bootcamp will provide hands-on training for energy and sustainability managers, analysts, plant engineers and facility supervisors with industrial plant oversight responsibilities.

    “Petroleum, chemical, iron and steel, cement, and food and beverage manufacturers contribute more than 50% of CO2 emissions in the U.S. industrial sector and 15% of U.S. economywide total emissions,” ORNL’s Thomas Wenning said. “This bootcamp gives plant managers a better understanding of the resources available and approaches for decarbonizing these facilities.”

    The bootcamp will offer training on two ORNL-developed free software tools for identifying and quantifying energy savings — MEASUR and VERIFI — and demonstrate diagnostic tools including infrared cameras, leak detectors and combustion analyzers.

    [ad_2]

    Oak Ridge National Laboratory

    Source link

  • New recycling process could find markets for ‘junk’ plastic waste

    New recycling process could find markets for ‘junk’ plastic waste

    [ad_1]

    BYLINE: Jason Daley

    Newswise — Although many Americans dutifully deposit their plastic trash into the appropriate bins each week, many of those materials, including flexible films, multilayer materials and a lot of colored plastics, are not recyclable using conventional mechanical recycling methods. In the end, only about 9 percent of plastic in the United States is ever reused, often in low-value products. With a new technique, however, University of Wisconsin–Madison chemical engineers are turning low-value waste plastic into high-value products.

    The new method, described in the Aug. 11 issue of the journal Science, could increase the economic incentives for plastic recycling and open a door to recycling new types of plastic. The researchers estimate their methods could also reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the conventional production of these industrial chemicals by roughly 60 percent.

    The new technique relies on a couple of existing chemical processing techniques. The first is pyrolysis, in which plastics are heated to high temperatures in an oxygen-free environment. The result is pyrolysis oil, a liquid mix of various compounds. Pyrolysis oil contains large amounts of olefins — a class of simple hydrocarbons that are a central building block of today’s chemicals and polymers, including various types of polyesters, surfactants, alcohols and carboxylic acids.

    In current energy-intensive processes like steam cracking, chemical manufacturers produce olefins by subjecting petroleum to extremely high heat and pressure. In this new process, the UW–Madison team recovers olefins from pyrolysis oil and uses them in a much less energy-intensive chemical process called homogenous hydroformylation catalysis. This process converts olefins into aldehydes, which can then be further reduced into important industrial alcohols.

    “These products can be used to make a wide range of materials that are higher value,” says George Huber, a professor of chemical and biological engineering who led the work alongside postdoctoral researcher Houqian Li and PhD student Jiayang Wu.

    These higher-value materials include ingredients used to make soaps and cleaners, as well as other more useful polymers.

    “We’re really excited about the implications of this technology,” says Huber, who also directs the Department of Energy-funded Center for the Chemical Upcycling of Waste Plastics. “It’s a platform technology to upgrade plastic waste using hydroformylation chemistry.”

    The recycling industry could adopt the process soon; in recent years, at least 10 large chemical companies have built or announced plans for facilities to produce pyrolysis oils from waste plastics. Many of them run the pyrolysis oil through steam crackers to produce low-value compounds. The new chemical recycling technique could provide a more sustainable and lucrative way to use those oils.

    “Currently, these companies don’t have a really good approach to upgrade the pyrolysis oil,” says Li. “In this case, we can get high-value alcohols worth $1,200 to $6,000 per ton from waste plastics, which are only worth about $100 per ton. In addition, this process uses existing technology and techniques. It’s relatively easy to scale up.”

    The study was a collaborative effort across a few different UW–Madison departments, Huber says. Clark Landis, chair of the Department of Chemistry and a world expert on hydroformylation, suggested the possibility of applying the technique to pyrolysis oils. Chemical and biological engineering Professor Manos Mavarikakis used advanced modeling to provide molecular-level insight into the chemical processes. And chemical and biological engineering Professor Victor Zavala provided help analyzing the economics of the technique and the life cycle of the plastic waste.

    The next step for the team is to tune the process and better understand what recycled plastics and catalyst combinations produce which final chemical products.

    “There are so many different products and so many routes we can pursue with this platform technology,” says Huber. “There’s a huge market for the products we’re making. I think it really could change the plastic recycling industry.”

    George Huber is the Richard L. Antoine Professor. Manos Mavrikakis is the Ernest Micek Distinguished Chair, James A. Dumesic Professor and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor. Victor Zavala is the Baldovin-DaPra Professor. Other UW–Madison authors include Zhen Jiang and Jiaze Ma.

    The authors acknowledge support from the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Bioenergy Technologies Office under Award Number DEEE0009285; The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the DOE, Office of Science, under contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231 using NERSC award BES-ERCAP0022773; The Center for Nanoscale Materials, a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at Argonne National Laboratory supported by DOE contract DE-AC02-06CH11357; and the UW–Madison Center for High Throughput Computing supported by UW–Madison, the Advanced Computing Initiative, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, and the National Science Foundation.

    [ad_2]

    University of Wisconsin-Madison

    Source link

  • FSU expert available to comment on how humans are fueling devastating wildfires

    FSU expert available to comment on how humans are fueling devastating wildfires

    [ad_1]

    By: Patty Cox | Published: | 4:42 pm 

    In the picturesque paradise of Maui, an ominous pattern of destruction has been unfolding.  

    Devastating wildfires, once considered a rarity on the Hawaiian island, have become increasingly frequent and ferocious. As flames consume vast swaths of land this week, scientists and residents are grappling with the stark realization that these infernos are largely of our own making. 

    Florida State University Professor Kevin Speer studies climate change, from global ocean circulation to the dynamics of hydrothermal plumes. He has been director of the university’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Institute since 2011. Speer is available to speak to reporters about how humans are contributing to devastating wildfires.

    Speer pointed out four factors that contributed to the disaster in Hawaii this week: 

    Guinea grass: Beneath Maui’s serene exterior, an unwelcome guest has taken hold: Guinea grass. This invasive plant species grows quickly and provides an ideal fuel for fast-spreading fires. Hawaiian scientists have long raised concerns about the dangers posed by the plant’s unchecked spread. 

    Human activity: Human activities play a pivotal role in igniting and perpetuating devastating blazes: 80-90% of wildfire ignitions can be traced back to vehicles, power lines, careless pile burning and other human actions.  

    Land use and zoning regulations: Among the primary contributors to Maui’s wildfire crisis is the failure of land use and zoning regulations to account for the true risks of wildfires by restricting building locations, requiring use of fire-resistant materials in construction and ensuring adequate access for emergency responders. 

    A perfect storm: High winds and dry fuels, combined with low humidity, created an environment ripe for an inferno on Maui. The steep, rugged terrain that defines the Hawaiian landscape further exacerbated the challenge, making access for firefighting efforts a perilous undertaking. 

    For media seeking interviews, Speer is available by email at [email protected] or phone at (850) 644-5594.

    [ad_2]

    Florida State University

    Source link

  • New research points to possible seasonal climate patterns on early Mars

    New research points to possible seasonal climate patterns on early Mars

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Aug. 9, 2023—New observations of mud cracks made by the Curiosity Rover show that high-frequency, wet-dry cycling occurred in early Martian surface environments, indicating that the red planet may have once seen seasonal weather patterns or even flash floods. The research was published today in Nature.

    “These exciting observations of mature mud cracks are allowing us to fill in some of the missing history of water on Mars. How did Mars go from a warm, wet planet to the cold, dry place we know today? These mud cracks show us that transitional time, when liquid water was less abundant but still active on the Martian surface,” said Nina Lanza, principal investigator of the ChemCam instrument onboard the Curiosity Rover. “These features also point to the existence of wet-dry environments that on Earth are extremely conducive to the development of organic molecules and potentially life. Taken as a whole, these results a giving us a clearer picture of Mars as a habitable world.”

    The presence of long-term wet environments, such as evidence of ancient lakes on Mars, is well-documented, but far less is known about short-term climate fluctuations.

    After years of exploring terrain largely comprised of silicates, the rover entered a new area filled with sulfates, marking a major environment transition. In this new environment, the research team found a change in mud crack patterns, signifying a change in the way the surface would have dried. This indicates that water was still present on the surface of Mars episodically, meaning water could have been present for a time, evaporated, and repeated until polygons, or mud cracks, formed.

    “A major focus of the Curiosity mission, and one of the main reasons for selecting Gale Crater, is to understand the transition of a ‘warm and wet’ ancient Mars to a ‘cold and dry’ Mars we see today,” said Patrick Gasda of the Laboratory’s Space Remote Sensing and Data Science group and coauthor of the paper. “The rover’s drive from clay lakebed sediments to drier non-lakebed and sulfate-rich sediments is part of this transition.”

    On Earth, initial mud cracks in mud form a T-shaped pattern, but subsequent wetting and drying cycles cause the cracks to form more of a Y-shaped pattern, which is what Curiosity observed. Additionally, the rover found evidence that the mud cracks were only a few centimeters deep, which could mean that wet-dry cycles were seasonal, or may have even occurred more quickly, such as in a flash flood. 

    These findings could mean that Mars once had an Earth-like wet climate, with seasonal or short-term flooding, and that Mars may have been able to support life at some point.  

    “What’s important about this phenomenon is that it’s the perfect place for the formation of polymeric molecules required for life, including proteins and RNA, if the right organic molecules were present at this location,” Gasda said “Wet periods bring molecules together while dry periods drive reactions to form polymers. When these processes occur repeatedly at the same location, the chance increases that more complex molecules formed there.”

    The paper: “Sustained wet-dry cycling on early Mars.” Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06220-3

    Funding:  NASA’s Mars Exploration Program and in France is conducted under the authority of CNES. Mastcam mosaics were processed by the Mastcam team at Malin Space Science Systems. Edwin Kite funding by NASA grant 80NSSC22K0731. Lucy Thompson funding as MSL team member is provided by the CSA.

    [ad_2]

    Los Alamos National Laboratory

    Source link

  • Climate Change Exacerbates Complexity of Nitrogen Runoff Mitigation Approaches

    Climate Change Exacerbates Complexity of Nitrogen Runoff Mitigation Approaches

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Washington, DC— As climate change progresses, rising temperatures may impact nitrogen runoff from land to lakes and streams more than projected increases in total and extreme precipitation for most of the continental United States, according to new research from a team of Carnegie climate scientists led by Gang Zhao and Anna Michalak published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

    The conditions predicted by these findings are opposite to recent decades, when increasing precipitation has outpaced warming and led to more aquatic nitrogen pollution. Understanding the relative roles of changes in temperature and rainfall is critical for designing water quality management strategies that are robust to climate change while ensuring sustainable food and water supplies.

    Human activity has completely altered how nitrogen moves through the planet’s aquatic, terrestrial, and atmospheric systems. Nitrogen from fertilizer washes into waterways and, in excess, can lead to toxin-producing algal blooms or low-oxygen dead zones called hypoxia. Over the past several summers, large algal blooms in lake and coastal regions across the United States have received extensive news coverage.

    Carnegie’s Anna Michalak and her team have spent the last decade studying how climate change will affect nitrogen runoff and the subsequent risks posed to water quality. One of the biggest questions for those working to understand and prevent serious water quality impairments is the balance between how changes in temperature and changes in precipitation will affect nitrogen pollution’s ability to get into at-risk waterways.

    “The complex soil and aquatic systems through which nitrogen travels, the chemical transformations it undergoes along the way, and the various ways in which changes in temperature and precipitation will affect these processes make nutrient management a big challenge,” Zhao explained.

    For example, average and extreme precipitation affects how much nitrogen runs off the land and into waterways, as well as how long it takes for the nitrogen to reach lakes or coastal zones, where it can eventually create dangerous conditions. Temperature also indirectly impacts how much nitrogen ends up in waterways, because warming temperatures increase evaporation, preventing it from going into streams. Temperature also affects how nitrogen interacts with microbial life in the soil and sediment, potentially trapping it there or altering its course.  

    “Although the impacts of climate change-induced shifts in precipitation patterns have been explored, the effect of temperature increases on the movement of nitrogen into rivers has not been quantified at continental scales until now due to a lack of available data,” Zhao added.

    Zhao, Michalak, and their Carnegie colleagues Julian Merder and Tristan Ballard analyzed several decades of data tracking nitrogen’s movement through river systems across the continental United States and used it to project future trajectories for nitrogen movement under climate change scenarios. They determined that rising temperatures will likely offset, or even decrease, the amount of excess nitrogen flushed into rivers for the majority of the U.S., despite a predicted uptick in precipitation.

    These findings are counter to recent decades, when precipitation was the dominant factor over temperature in determining the amount of nitrogen that built up in U.S. waterways. Zhao, Michalak, and their colleagues say that this work forms a critical baseline for future research on the interplay between the nitrogen cycle and climate change.  

    “Our research illustrates the complex, and sometimes surprising, ways that climate change affects our planet’s dynamic systems,” Michalak concluded. “Untangling the various factors that are altering the climate change impacts on water quality will help farmers, land managers, and policymakers to pursue the best possible strategies for ensuring that we safeguard water quality, while simultaneously ensuring sustainable food production and water supply.”

    [ad_2]

    Carnegie Institution for Science

    Source link

  • Novel Metric Examines the Role of Organic Matter and Microbes in Ecological Communities

    Novel Metric Examines the Role of Organic Matter and Microbes in Ecological Communities

    [ad_1]

    The Science

    Ecological researchers study the relationships among different organisms and between organisms and their surroundings. This makes it critical to understand how individual features in a community, like microbes or types of chemicals, affect the overall community’s development. By examining individual features, researchers can begin to identify those community or assemblage members that drive similarities across communities. To assist in this goal, scientists developed a novel ecological metric, called βNTIfeat. Many microbes do not grow in laboratory conditions. The new metric found that these “unculturable” microbes shape the microbial communities in river corridors. The metric also revealed that organic matter is influenced by a variety of compounds that contain nitrogen and phosphorus.

    The Impact

    βNTIfeat will help researchers answer longstanding questions about ecosystems. For example, βNTIfeat can help uncover a common group of microbes that significantly affect various river corridors at different local or global scales. This will allow researchers to incorporate the dynamics of these microbes into models. In turn, these models will help scientists to generate predictions about how ecosystems may change due to climate change, wildfires, and other future disturbances.

    Summary

    Evaluating how ecological communities develop and change is one of the primary goals of ecology. By examining processes that give rise to specific community configurations across varied conditions, researchers will have a better understanding of the fundamental principles that govern community structure and will be able to improve predictions. Unfortunately, comparatively few studies examine the effects that individual features within a community or assemblage play on its overall structure. As part of this study, researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and California Lutheran University developed a new metric, called βNTIfeat, that investigates the contributions that these features make within a community.

    Researchers used βNTIfeat to evaluate feature-level ecological processes in a riverine ecosystem to reveal some key dynamics. First, the team observed that unclassified and unculturable microbial lineages often contribute to differences across the microbial communities; this observation suggests that these unclassified/uncultured lineages play an outsized role relative to their abundance. Secondly, the organic matter assemblages were often driven by nitrogen- and phosphorus-containing molecular formulas, indicating a potential connection to nitrogen/phosphorus-biogeochemical cycles. Finally, by relating the βNTIfeat values for microbes and molecular formulas using a network analysis, researchers determined that members of the microbial family Geobacteraceae often had coordinated contributions to ecological structure with both nitrogen- and phosphorous-containing molecular formulas. This observation suggests there is a complex network of ecological interactions across community types.

     

    Funding

    The initial experimental stages of this work were supported by the PREMIS Initiative at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) with funding from the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program at PNNL. The later stages of this work (e.g., data analysis, conceptual interpretation manuscript development) were supported by the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research program, as part of an Early Career Award to James C. Stegen at PNNL. A portion of the research was performed at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a DOE Office of Science user facility at PNNL.


    Journal Link: Frontiers in Microbiology, Feb-2022

    [ad_2]

    Department of Energy, Office of Science

    Source link

  • Dynamic Pricing Superior to Organic Waste Bans in Preventing Climate Change

    Dynamic Pricing Superior to Organic Waste Bans in Preventing Climate Change

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — While composting and organic waste ban policies are gaining popularity across the United States, a new study from the University of California San Diego’s Rady School of Management finds dynamic pricing could be the most effective way for grocery chains to keep perishables out of landfills, reducing food waste by 21% or more.

    During decomposition, organic waste releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Globally, food waste releases up to 10% of worldwide annual greenhouse gas emissions, which has caught the attention of lawmakers working to slow global warming. Last year, California rolled out a residential composting program and the state’s legislature recently introduced a bill to reign in “sell by” dates from manufactures, which prompts consumers to needlessly throw out food.

    More than 10 percent of food waste comes from grocery retailers that throw out surplus perishables past their expiration date. The Rady School of Management study, to be published in Marketing Science, evaluates two of the most popular programs targeted at businesses and residents to divert waste from landfills: organic waste bans, which have been introduced in nine U.S. states including California and dynamic pricing, which is more popular outside the U.S.

    The organic waste ban in California, for example, requires businesses generating at least two cubic yards of waste to recycle their organic waste by composting or donation. Aside from diverting waste away from landfills, policymakers hope that the higher disposal costs incentivize business to directly reduce waste—rather than just divert it away from landfills—much like a waste tax would do.

    Dynamic pricing, on the other hand, spurs retailers to throw less food out to begin with by applying an algorithm that determines when grocery stores should reduce the price of perishables depending on their inventory and expiration date. With dynamic pricing, vendors can change the price of food multiple times a day, compared to static pricing in which products have the same price all day, typically from the moment they arrive on the shelf until they expire.

    Dynamic pricing reduces food waste and makes healthy food more affordable

    “Oddly enough, fewer than 25% of U.S. grocery retailers offer any kind of dynamic pricing at all, while most hotels and airlines will discount rooms and seats when they have a surplus,” said the paper’s author, Robert Sanders, an assistant professor of marketing and analytics at the Rady School. “However, this research shows that the increased price flexibility of discounting food that is about to expire significantly reduces food waste and increases profit margins among retailers.”

    Sanders’ analysis shows that dynamic pricing reduces waste by 21% on average while increasing grocery chains’ gross margins by 3%. In contrast, an organic waste ban, even if it increased the cost of sending perishables to a landfill by ten times the amount it does today, reduces waste by only 4% and decreases gross margins about 1%.

    “If regulators want to directly reduce grocery-store waste, they should incentivize grocery chains to adopt dynamic pricing over imposing organic waste bans or waste taxes,” Sanders said. “It is also a market-based solution that the retailers themselves could implement.”

    An added benefit of dynamic pricing is that it makes perishables, which are less processed and generally healthier, more affordable, slightly benefiting consumers overall. On the other hand, organic waste bans slightly harm consumers by reducing retailers’ inventories, which can lead to stockouts.

    Grocers create food waste because it is profitable to do so  

    The paper’s analysis of dynamic pricing is based on a structural economic model that characterizes a grocery retailer’s behavior, as grocers have to decide how much product to order before they know how much will sell prior to hitting its expiration date. To test the predictions of the model, Sanders used data from the artisanal bread category of Pick ’n Save, a large Midwestern grocery chain.

    The dataset includes product prices, quantities, product production costs, shelf lives and consumer arrivals timestamped to the nearest minute. Sanders estimated waste and inventories indirectly using the shelf lives, sales data and production process knowledge gained from interviews with store employees. Using these data sets, his descriptive analysis shows that the retailer generates high waste because it is profitable to do so: when gross profit margins are higher, the retailer stocks its shelves more fully to make sure it doesn’t miss out on sales, but as a result, waste increases.

    Sanders then compared the impacts of dynamic pricing, if it were to be implemented across the Pick ’n Save grocery chain in the bread category, to those of static pricing for the same category in all 97 Pick ’n Save stores with a bakery.

    “The results show that if a self-interested, profit-maximizing grocery retailer adopted dynamic pricing, they could end up benefiting its own profits, its customers and society more broadly by changing its prices so that they dynamically reflect the time-varying opportunity costs of perishables,” Sanders said.  

    The model’s data was then compared to another economic model that assessed the impacts of waste bans for Pick ’n Save’s bread category—if the bans increased the price of sending organic waste to a landfill from the current cost of $32 per ton of organic waste to $320 per ton (equivalent to a tenfold increase in disposal costs).  

    Sanders increased the cost of disposing waste in the model to explore the relationship between disposal costs and the amount of waste generated.

    “I find waste is very inelastic with respect to the disposal cost,” he said. “Even if we dial up the disposal costs tenfold, which is unlikely and on the extreme end, we still don’t see the waste reduction that policymakers might hope for.”   

    He added, “Of course, waste bans could still be helpful if businesses comply and divert waste from the landfills, but the best and first thing to do is reduce the overall amount of waste generated to begin with. Dynamic pricing would likely lead to much larger reductions in retailer food waste.”

    [ad_2]

    University of California San Diego

    Source link

  • These Foods Can Help You Live Longer and Protect the Planet

    These Foods Can Help You Live Longer and Protect the Planet

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Eating more planet-friendly foods could help you live a longer, healthier life, according to new research. Researchers found that people who followed a more environmentally sustainable diet were 25% less likely to die during a follow-up period of over 30 years compared to those with a less sustainable diet. 

    The study builds upon prior research that identified foods that are a win-win for both health and the environment—such as whole grains, fruit, non-starchy vegetables, nuts, and unsaturated oils—as well as foods that could be harmful to the environment and human health, like eggs and red and processed meats. The new findings suggest eating more planet-friendly foods can help reduce a person’s risk of death from causes such as cancer, heart disease, respiratory diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases.

    “We proposed a new diet score that incorporates the best current scientific evidence of food effects on both health and the environment,” said Linh Bui, MD, a PhD candidate in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “The results confirmed our hypothesis that a higher Planetary Health Diet score was associated with a lower risk of mortality.” 

    Bui will present the findings at NUTRITION 2023, the flagship annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition held July 22–25 in Boston. 

    According to existing evidence, plant-based foods are associated with both a lower risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease, colorectal cancer, diabetes, and stroke, and reduced impacts to the environment in terms of factors like water use, land use, nutrient pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions.

    With the new study, the researchers aimed to create a simple tool that policymakers and public health practitioners could use to develop strategies to improve public health and address the climate crisis.

    “As a millennial, I have always been concerned about mitigating human impacts on the environment,” said Bui. “A sustainable dietary pattern should not only be healthy but also consistent within planetary boundaries for greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental parameters.”

    To create their Planetary Health Diet Index (PHDI), researchers reviewed existing research on the relationships between various food groups and health outcomes based on the EAT-Lancet reference diet that accounts for the environmental impacts of food production practices. They then applied the index to analyze outcomes among over 100,000 participants in two large cohort studies conducted in the United States. The data set included over 47,000 deaths during a follow-up period spanning over three decades from 1986-2018. 

    Overall, they found that people in the highest quintile (the top one-fifth of participants) for PHDI had a 25% lower risk of death from any cause compared to those in the lowest quintile. Higher PHDI scores were associated with a 15% lower risk of death from cancer or cardiovascular diseases, a 20% lower risk of death from neurodegenerative disease, and a 50% lower risk of death from respiratory diseases. 

    Bui cautioned that the PHDI does not necessarily reflect all food items and their relationships with all major diseases in all countries. People with specific health conditions, religious restrictions, or different food accessibility due to socioeconomic status or food availability may face challenges with adhering to a more sustainable diet pattern. Further research could help to elucidate and address such barriers. 

    “We hope that researchers can adapt this index to specific food cultures and validate how it is associated with chronic diseases and environmental impacts such as carbon footprint, water footprint, and land use in other populations,” said Bui. 

    Bui will present this research at 11:45 a.m. EDT on Sunday, July 23, during the Dietary Patterns Poster Session in the Hynes Convention Center Hall C (abstract; presentation details).

    NUTRITION 2023 will feature several studies using the Planetary Health Diet Index for which Bui is a co-author. Andrea Romanos-Nanclares, PhD, will present “Planetary Health Diet Index and Risk of Total and Subtypes of Breast Cancer in the Nurses’ Health Studies” at 11:45 a.m. EDT on Sunday, July 23, during the Nutritional Epidemiology (I) Poster Session (abstract; presentation details). Caleigh Sawicki, PhD, will present “Planetary Health Diet and Risk of Incident Cardiovascular Disease: Findings From Two Cohorts of US Women” at 2 p.m. EDT on Monday, July 24, during the Dietary Patterns and Health Outcomes Oral Session (abstract; presentation details).  

    Please note that abstracts presented at NUTRITION 2023 were evaluated and selected by a committee of experts but have not generally undergone the same peer review process required for publication in a scientific journal. As such, the findings presented should be considered preliminary until a peer-reviewed publication is available.

     

    About NUTRITION 2023

    NUTRITION 2023 is the flagship meeting of the American Society for Nutrition and the premier educational event for nutritional professionals around the globe. NUTRITION brings together lab scientists, practicing clinicians, population health researchers, and community intervention investigators to identify solutions to today’s greatest nutrition challenges. Our audience also includes rising leaders in the field – undergraduate, graduate, and medical students. NUTRITION 2023 will be held July 22-25, 2023 in Boston. https://nutrition.org/N23 #Nutrition2023

     

    About the American Society for Nutrition (ASN)

    ASN is the preeminent professional organization for nutrition research scientists and clinicians around the world. Founded in 1928, the society brings together the top nutrition researchers, medical practitioners, policy makers and industry leaders to advance our knowledge and application of nutrition. ASN publishes four peer-reviewed journals and provides education and professional development opportunities to advance nutrition research, practice, and education. Since 2018, the American Society of Nutrition has presented NUTRITION, the leading global annual meeting for nutrition professionals. http://www.nutrition.org

     

    Find more news briefs from NUTRITION 2023 at: https://www.eurekalert.org/newsroom/nutrition2023.

     

    ###

     

    [ad_2]

    American Society for Nutrition (ASN)

    Source link

  • Troubling Trend: Greening of Peru’s Pacific Slope Raises Concerns

    Troubling Trend: Greening of Peru’s Pacific Slope Raises Concerns

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Analysing satellite data spanning the past 20 years, the research team based at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge examined how vegetation has been changing along the Pacific coast of Peru and northern Chile. This area is known for its unique and delicate arid and semi-arid environments.

    The analysis revealed that certain areas experienced positive vegetation growth, known as greening, while others displayed negative trends, referred to as browning. Unsurprisingly, the changes in vegetation are influenced by things like farming and urban development or change in land use practices.

    But more interestingly this study, published in MDPI Remote Sensing, revealed the discovery of a huge section of the West Slope of the Andes undergoing significant greening in the past 20 years. This section, which extends from Northern Peru to Northern Chile, spanning a length of about 2000km, has seen its vegetation growing significantly over time. This greening trend varies with altitude, with different vegetation types at different elevations.

    The research team, consisting of mathematicians, geographers, biologists, and earth scientists, used satellite images from 2000 to 2020 to observe changes in vegetation over time in this area. They plotted 450 data points and developed a mathematical model to remove artificial variations (such as cloudy days) and seasonality, and used statistical analysis to ensure that they were only analysing areas with a significant trend.

    “It took three years to sort the methodology and the statistical model,” said Hugo Lepage, mathematician at the Cavendish laboratory and first author of the study. “We really needed to bulletproof it to make sure that something was really happening on a massive scale, and it was not just a fluke.”

    To verify what they were seeing in the data, the researchers conducted numerous filed trips to make observations on the ground to corroborate their numerical statements.

    “We started with a very local area to study the impact of mining on local vegetation,” explained Eustace Barnes, a geographer in the Cavendish Laboratory’s Environmental Physics Group, which ran the research. “To our surprise, the data was suggesting that the area was greening instead of browning. So, we zoomed out and realised other areas were also greening on large scale. When we went to check on the ground, we observed a similar trend.”

    Beyond the empirical observation of the greening strip itself, the researchers were struck by its surprising features.

    “First, the strip ascends as we look southward, going from 170-780 m in northern Peru to 2600-4300 m in the south of Peru”, explained Barnes. “This is counterintuitive, as we would expect the surface temperatures to drop both when moving south and ascending in altitude.”

    Even more surprisingly, this huge greening strip does not align with the climate zones established by the Köppen-Geiger classification – the widely used, vegetation-based, empirical climate classification system, whereas the greening and browning trends in the coastal deserts and high Andes, do match well.

    “Indeed, in northern Peru, the greening strip mostly lies in the climate zone corresponding to the hot arid desert,” said Lepage. “As we scan the strip going south, it ascends to lie mostly in the hot arid steppe and finally traverses to lie in the cold arid steppe. This did not match what we expected based on the climate in those regions.”

    The results of this study have far-reaching implications for environmental management and policymaking in the region. Although the exact cause or resulting consequences of this greening are not known, any large change (30-60% index increase) in vegetation will necessarily have an impact on ecosystems and the environment.

    “The Pacific slope provides water for two-thirds of the country, and this is where most of the food for Peru is coming from too,” said Barnes. “This rapid change in vegetation, and to water level and ecosystems, will inevitably have an impact on water and agricultural planning management.”

    The researchers believe their findings will contribute significantly to the scientific community’s understanding of the complex interactions between climate change and delicate ecosystems in arid and semi-arid environments.

    “This is a warning sign, like the canary in the mine. There is nothing we can do to stop changes at such a large scale. But knowing about it will help to plan better for the future,” concluded Lepage.

    This research was carried out by the Environmental Physics Group led by Prof. Crispin Barnes and funded by Universidad Nacional de Cañete (UNDC), dpto Lima, Peru.

    [ad_2]

    University of Cambridge

    Source link

  • Fiber Optic Sensing Monitors Seismic Activity Induced by Carbon Dioxide Injection at Australian Site

    Fiber Optic Sensing Monitors Seismic Activity Induced by Carbon Dioxide Injection at Australian Site

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Researchers at a field site in Victoria, Australia are among the first to use fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) for high-precision tracking of induced seismicity from a small carbon dioxide (CO2) injection, according to a new study published in Seismological Research Letters.

    The CO2CRC Otway Project in Victoria is a research test site for the subsurface storage of carbon dioxide, as one possible way to reduce the impacts of climate-warming carbon emissions. However, there is a risk of induced earthquakes after gigatons of carbon dioxide will be injected within the same geologic basin by multiple storage projects over decades of operations, and scientists would like to better understand how this seismicity is triggered and how it evolves over time.

    Among the interesting details uncovered by the new DAS deployment at Otway: the tiny earthquakes that accompanied two injection phases at the site appear to follow the saturation front of the CO2 plume within the rock, rather than the pressure front from injection.

    “As far as we know, the Otway Project remains the only CO2 storage project where induced seismicity was at the very least coincident with the saturation front movement, not the pressure front,” said study lead author Stanislav Glubokovskikh of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

    “We relied on the frequent snapshots of the storage formation to relate the CO2 plume evolution to induced seismicity,” he added. “It is hard to think of another practical monitoring system apart from the multi-well DAS vertical seismic profiling which could provide such temporal and spatial resolution for a small CO2 plume.”

    The seismic monitoring system was designed by a group of geophysicists at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, led by Roman Pevzner and Boris Gurevich, to rely on five deep boreholes outfitted with sensitive fiber optic cable to monitor a 15,000 metric ton CO2 injection, called Stage 3, at the Otway site over 610 days. They detected 17 tiny seismic events during that period, with a maximum magnitude of 0.1.

    An earlier “Stage 2C” CO2 injection at the site, of the same size, was monitored at the time using geophones buried below the surface that detected several microseismic events.

    Part of the focus of the Stage 3 injection was to look more closely at potential cost-effective, long-term monitoring of geological carbon storage, said Glubokovskikh. “To enable the long-term monitoring, we had to use a permanent downhole installation of the seismic sensors. Otherwise, deployment and demobilization of the array for each active seismic survey would be prohibitively costly and cause too much interruption to the land owners. DAS is the optimal technology for such conditions.”

    The DAS observations also revealed the seismogenic fault below the surface, which was not captured in earlier seismic images.

    Glubokovskikh said it’s still unclear exactly what mechanisms are triggering the small earthquakes at the site, although the interesting observation that the seismicity coincides with CO2 saturation may offer some clues.

    “Geochemical weakening of the reservoir faults by CO2 seems like a plausible explanation, given that some of the core samples from the injection interval broke down during CO2 core-flooding experiments,” in the lab, Glubokovskikh explained.

    But the mineralogical composition of the fault gauge and the flow and pore fluid composition at the site are still unknown, making it hard to confirm geochemical weakening, he noted.

    Apart from the seismic events triggered within the Stage 2C CO2 plume, a second group of events occurred outside of any CO2 accumulation areas. “These [second group] events occurred only during the injection operations, but showed no clear relationship to either the injection pressure or saturation plume movement,” said Glubokovskikh.

    The Otway project is moving toward a Stage 4 injection, which will occur close to the previous two CO2 plumes, he said. “Thus, we will likely get another set of induced seismic events that will provide more insights into the triggering mechanism. Even if the new injection will produce no detectable events, this fact may be perceived as another evidence of the flow-related nature of the Otway seismicity.”

    [ad_2]

    Seismological Society of America (SSA)

    Source link

  • Into the unknown: NASA space laser provides answers to a rainforest canopy mystery

    Into the unknown: NASA space laser provides answers to a rainforest canopy mystery

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — We know less about the rainforest canopy, where most of the world’s species live than we do about the surface of Mars or the bottom of the ocean. However, that is about to change thanks to GEDI—a NASA space laser that has provided a detailed structure of the world’s rainforests for the first time ever. 

    “Tropical forests are mainly unstratified especially in Amazonia and regions with lower fertility or higher temperatures” reads the title of the recently published paper in Environmental Research Ecology that details the laser’s findings. Authored by researchers from the U.S., the U.K. and Singapore, Christopher Doughty, professor in NAU’s School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems and first author on the study, believes this research is crucial—and long overdue—in finding out more about the tropical ecosystems. 

    “Most of the world’s species live in tropical forests and most of those make use of the canopy, and yet, we know so little,” Doughty said. “Rainforest structure matters because it controls how animals access resources and escape predators, and these findings will help us understand tropical forest animal’s susceptibility to climate change.” 

    Research into forest canopies has come a long way. Early western visitors described tropical forests as horror vacui (nature abhorring a vacuum) since vegetation was “anxious to fill every available space with stems and leaves.” Later, as scientists began to study tropical forests, they categorized the lush flora into forest layers—a thick upper crown and a thick mid-layer with a thin layer in between. However, this was only observed in a few well-studied locations. The structure across most tropical forests was still unknown. 

    Then came GEDI, the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation. 

    “A key difference between GEDI and many other satellites is its measurement of three-dimensional canopy structure,” said Hao Tang, professor in the Department of Geography at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and co-author on the paper. Tang, who is also a principal investigator at the NUS Centre for Nature-based Climate Solutions, added, “Conventional satellites, while providing valuable data on land cover and canopy greenness, often lack the detailed vertical information offered by GEDI. This vertical information is crucial for understanding ecosystem dynamics, carbon storage and biodiversity that cannot be easily seen from typical satellite images.”

    Launched in late 2018, NASA’s GEDI shoots an invisible laser from the International Space Station into Earth’s forests thousands of times a day. Depending on the amount of energy returned to the satellite, it can provide a detailed 3D map that shows where the leaves and branches are in a forest and how they change over time. This will help researchers understand the amounts of biomass and carbon forests store and how much they lose when disturbed—vital information for understanding Earth’s carbon cycle and how it is changing. 

    Doughty, Tang and the other authors of the paper analyzed GEDI data across all tropical forests and found that the structure was simpler and more exposed to sunlight than previously thought. Data also revealed that most tropical forests (80 percent of the Amazon and 70 percent of Southeast Asia and the Congo Basin) have a peak in the number of leaves at 15 meters instead of at the canopy top, debunking the fullest-at-the-top theory of early researchers. While forests vary, a key finding that seemed to remain constant in every scenario was that deviation from more ideal conditions (like lower fertility or higher temperatures) leads to shorter, less stratified forests with lower biomass. 

    “It was really surprising to see the dominance of this structure type because it differs from what we had learned in the classic textbooks on the topic,” Doughty said. “These finding will not only help us understand how the millions of species that live in a rainforest canopy might acclimate to changing temperatures, but also how much carbon these forests hold and how good they are at fighting climate change.” 

    [ad_2]

    Northern Arizona University

    Source link

  • Trees outcompete shrubs in the race to the top

    Trees outcompete shrubs in the race to the top

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — The findings from this study, led by Professor Eryuan Liang (Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences), were published as a research article in the journal National Science Review. The study also involved researchers from, CREAF, CSIC, Global Ecology Unit CREAF-CSIC-UAB, Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (IPE-CSIC), Spain and Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, Canada.

    Climatic warming is altering the structure and function of alpine ecosystems, including shifts of vegetation boundaries. The upward shift of alpine treelines, the uppermost limit of tree growth forming the boundary between montane forest and alpine communities, is strongly modulated by shrub-tree interactions. But little is known on the responses of such coexisting life forms to a warmer climate.

    Based on unique 8- and 10-year in situ observations of cambial phenology in sympatric trees and shrubs at two treelines on the southeastern Tibetan Plateau, researchers found an opposite pattern of cambial phenology between shrub and tree species in response to warming. Under a spring warming of +1°C, xylem resumption advances by 2-4 days in trees, but delays by 3-8 days in shrubs. The divergent phenological response to warming was due to shrubs being 3.2 times more sensitive than trees to chilling accumulation.

    “Under the same amount of chilling, shrubs required more forcing accumulation than trees, leading to a delayed onset of cambial phenology. For trees, however, forcing was less dependent on chilling, thus resulting in an earlier cambial phenology under warmer spring,” Liang says.

    The researchers further performed a global meta-analysis combined with a process-based growth model to explore drivers of phenological growth shifts in response to warming, from 344 shrubs and 575 trees paired across 11 alpine treelines in the Northern Hemisphere. Based on the cambial phenological records derived from the growth model, they further infer divergent effects of spring temperature on cambial phenology between trees and shrubs in the treelines of the northern hemisphere. Model outputs indicate trees show a higher sensitivity to spring warming than shrubs as expected. Shrubs are instead more influenced by chilling accumulation than trees. “Our meta-analysis confirmed the same mechanism across continental scales,” Liang says.

    Regardless of whether shrubs and trees at alpine treelines interact through facilitation or competition, climate warming has the potential to drive divergent shifts in their phenology. This would involve shortening the growing season for shrubs while extending it for trees. Consequently, the resulting phenological mismatch due to warming could confer a competitive advantage to trees over shrubs by increasing growth, carbon gain and improving resource availability, potentially promoting upward treeline shifts in cold mountainous regions (Figure 1).

    ###

    [ad_2]

    Science China Press

    Source link

  • FSU public health expert available to comment on dangers of extreme heat

    FSU public health expert available to comment on dangers of extreme heat

    [ad_1]

    By: Bill Wellock | Published:

    The United States has already experienced record-breaking high temperatures this summer, heat that threatens the lives of thousands of people.

    Extreme heat is the leading weather-related cause of death in the United States. Vulnerable populations, such as older adults, infants, outdoor workers and others, are at the greatest risk.

    Florida State University Associate Professor Chris Uejio studies extreme heat and public health. He is available to speak to reporters about the dangers of excessive heat and ways to lessen its impact.

    Chris Uejio, associate professor, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy

    Uejio researches how the physical environment influences human health and well-being. He co-authored the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) Framework, which was part of the 2012 President’s Climate Action Plan. He frequently works with health departments to understand and adapt to climate change. He is also a member of NASA’s Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team, which rapidly responds to public health and air quality problems. Uejio has been quoted in NBC News, Science Friday and elsewhere.

    “Extreme heat contributes to more than 5,000 excess U.S. deaths per year – more than any other weather hazard. For the health care community, extreme heat is like our sea-level rise. We know it’s already happening, and we have a pretty clear understanding that if we don’t do things differently, it’s going to get worse.”

    [ad_2]

    Florida State University

    Source link

  • Climate change threatens small, light-colored butterflies most

    Climate change threatens small, light-colored butterflies most

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Butterflies with smaller or lighter coloured wings are likely to be ‘losers’ when it comes to climate change, with the Lycaenidae family, which contains over 6,000 species of butterflies, the majority of which live in the tropics, found to be particularly vulnerable.

    Butterflies with larger or darker coloured wings are likely to fare better under increasing temperatures, but only to a point. Researchers say these butterflies could still experience dramatic declines if there were sudden heatwaves or if cool microclimates were lost through deforestation.

    The results are published today in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

    Butterflies rely on the sun’s warmth to give them the energy they need to function. They use ‘thermoregulation’ strategies to maintain a balanced body temperature against changing air temperatures.

    Generally, strategies to keep cool involve adaptive behaviours like flying to a shady spot or angling wings away from the sun (thermal buffering). But when this is not possible or temperatures become too hot, species have to rely on physiological mechanisms such as the production of heat shock proteins to withstand high temperatures (thermal tolerance). Both of these strategies are needed to cope with climate change.

    Researchers collaborated with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) to study the thermal buffering and thermal tolerance strategies of tropical butterflies. They collected data from multiple habitats in Panama.  

    Equipped with hand-held nets, ecologists took the temperature of over 1,000 butterflies using a tiny thermometer-like probe. They compared each butterfly’s temperature to that of the surrounding air or the vegetation it was perched on. This gave a measurement of thermal buffering – the ability to maintain a steady body temperature against fluctuating air temperatures.

    A second experiment was conducted at STRI Gamboa facilities and involved assessing butterflies’ thermal tolerance – their ability to withstand extreme temperatures, such as those they may experience during a heatwave. This was assessed by capturing a subset of butterflies and placing them in glass jars within a water bath – the temperature of which was steadily increased. Thermal tolerance was assessed as the temperature at which butterflies could no longer function.

    Butterflies that had large wings tended to have greater thermal buffering ability but less thermal tolerance than smaller butterflies. Indeed, in a further study conducted by the same research team, butterflies with larger, longer and narrower wings were found to be better at thermal buffering.

    Thermal buffering abilities were found to be stronger in darker-winged butterflies who could also tolerate higher temperatures than paler-winged butterflies.

    Butterflies from the Lycaenidae family which have small, bright, and often iridescent, wings had the poorest thermal buffering and low thermal tolerance. If temperatures continue to rise at the current rate, forests continue to be cut down, and cool microclimates are lost, there is a very real threat that we could lose many species in this family in the future, say the researchers.

    A trade-off in terms of butterflies’ cooling strategies was observed: those that were good at thermal buffering were less good at thermal tolerance and vice versa.

    Scientists say this suggests that tropical butterflies have evolved to cope with temperature changes using one of these strategies at the expense of the other, and that this is likely to be due to selective pressures.

    Lead author Esme Ashe-Jepson, a PhD student at Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, said: “Butterflies with physical characteristics that may help them to avoid the sun’s heat, like having large wings that enable them to fly quickly into shade, rarely experience high temperatures, and so have not evolved to cope with them. On the other hand, species which can cope with higher temperatures physiologically have experienced less selective pressure to evolve heat-avoiding behaviours.

    “As temperatures continue to rise, and forest fragments get smaller and further apart because of deforestation, butterflies which rely on their surroundings to avoid high temperatures may not be able to travel between forest fragments, or cope with increasingly common heatwaves.”

    The researchers say this means that species with large dark wings that are good at thermal buffering may initially be unaffected by warming temperatures, as they can continue to thermoregulate effectively using behaviour and microclimates, but their survival could be at risk if there are sudden heatwaves, or they can no longer escape to cool vegetation.

    “Ultimately all insects, including butterflies, the world over are likely to be affected by climate change,” said Ashe-Jepson. “Adaptation to climate change is complex and can be impacted by other factors such as habitat destruction. We need to address these two global challenges together.”

    Further research is needed to investigate the effect a warming climate may have on other life stages of butterflies, such as caterpillars and eggs, and other insect groups.

    Senior author Greg Lamarre, at the Czech Academy of Science and Research Associate at STRI said: “Worldwide, most entomologists are observing drastic declines in insect biodiversity. Understanding the causes and consequences of insect decline has become an important goal in ecology, particularly in the tropics, where most of terrestrial diversity occurs.”

    The research was funded by the GACR Czech Science Foundation, an ERC Starting Grant, a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute short-term fellowship, and the Sistema Nacional de Investigación (SENACYT), Panama.

    [ad_2]

    University of Cambridge

    Source link

  • Higher Temperatures, Higher Risk for Algal Blooms, Higher Human Vulnerability

    Higher Temperatures, Higher Risk for Algal Blooms, Higher Human Vulnerability

    [ad_1]

    In a study published in the Environmental Health Perspective, a research team made up of scientists from across the country have found that environmentally relevant exposure to toxins found in algal blooms posed a risk to women’s reproductive health by heightening the probability of irregular menstrual cycles and infertility related to ovulatory disorders. 

    Saurabh Chatterjee, PhD, professor of environmental and occupational health at the UC Irvine Program in Public Health and professor of medicine at the UC Irvine School of Medicine, served as a co-author on the publication with corresponding author, Shuo Xia, PhD from Rutgers University and is available for interview. 

    In marine and freshwater ecosystems, there is a dangerous phenomenon occurring that causes adverse health effects in humans and wildlife animals. Around the globe, large swaths of harmful cyanobacterial (or more commonly referred to as algal) blooms have been cropping up more frequently, primarily owing to the global temperature rise caused by climate change and human behavior like agricultural runoff and urbanization. Humans are exposed to this harmful microcystins via drinking water, food, algal dietary supplements, and recreational activities in polluted waters. These toxins are not routinely monitored due to the absence of federal/state regulatory guidelines, and conventional water treatments cannot completely remove dissolved cyanobacterial toxins. 

    [ad_2]

    University of California, Irvine

    Source link