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Category: Climate Change

11 Oct

Professors call for more research into climate-change related threats to civilization

by TMR Desk
Climate Change
An opinion piece published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences, urgently calls for more research into the specific pathways by which civilization could potentially collapse due to climate change. "Scientists have warned that climate change threatens the habitability of large regions of the Earth and even civilization itself, but surprisingly little research exists about how collapse could happen and what can be done to prevent it," says Dr. Daniel Steel of the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia. "A better understanding of the risks of collapse is essential for climate ethics and policy." In the article, Dr. Steel and his colleagues, Dr. C. Tyler DesRoches...
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30 Sep

New research can help electric utilities account for climate change

by TMR Desk
Climate Change
Researchers have devised a method to determine the impact of climate change on the supply and variability of local renewable energy. An increase in unusual weather patterns related to climate change means the demand for power and the availability of solar, hydro and wind energy can all become more variable. The method by researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute and in Spain will help local energy planners determine the optimal mix of renewable energy sources and energy storage needs. The research was published in August in the journal Land. Geophysical Institute atmospheric sciences professor Uma Bhatt is the lead author. "It is important for society to understand the impact of climate change and variability on renewable energy resources in order to design...
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22 Sep

Researchers discover expanding and intensifying low-oxygen zone in the Arabian gulf

by TMR Desk
Climate Change
A team of researchers from the Arabian Center for Climate and Environmental Sciences (ACCESS) at NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) studied the evolution of dissolved oxygen in the Arabian Gulf over three decades and discovered a significant decline in oxygen concentrations and the expansion of the seasonal near-bottom hypoxic zone (lower oxygen levels near the bottom of the Gulf in certain seasons). The researchers conclude that changes in local climate are altering the Gulf's physical and biogeochemical environment with potential implications for the ecosystems and the fisheries of the region. In the paper titled, "Recent expansion and intensification of hypoxia in the Arabian Gulf and its drivers," published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, the researchers used a sophisticated ocean model to...
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22 Sep

A better understanding of crop yields under climate change

by TMR Desk
Agriculture, Climate Change
Research solves long-standing mystery of how water impacts agricultural production You don't need a PhD in agriculture to know that water is critical to crop production. But for years, people like Jonathan Proctor, who has a PhD in Agriculture and Resource Economics from the University of California Berkeley, have been trying to explain why the importance of water isn't showing up in statistical models of crop yield. "Studies analyzing how crop yields respond to temperature and rainfall tend to find that temperature matters much more than water, even though we understand from plant physiology that temperature and water supply are both really important for crops," said Proctor, a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Peter Huybers' group at the Harvard John A. Paulson School...
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22 Sep

Climate change may impact marine environments more than anything else

by TMR Desk
Climate Change
Promoting the sustainable development of marine environments requires planning, just as we have long had spatial planning for land-based activities. Now researchers from the University of Gothenburg and elsewhere are showing that marine planning must take climate change into consideration -- something that it does not currently do. The researchers' models show that changes to temperature and salt content may impact ecosystems and species as much as all other effects on the environment combined. Symphony is a digital tool that has existed for the past few years. It uses GIS maps that show the distribution of important ecosystems and species along Sweden's coastlines and how by environmental disturbances, such as nutrient pollution, boat traffic and fishing, affect them in different areas....
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17 Sep

Byzantine solar eclipse records illuminate obscure history of Earth’s rotation

by TMR Desk
Climate Change
Witnessing a total solar eclipse is an unforgettable experience and may have been even more impressive throughout history before we were able to understand and accurately predict their occurrence. But the historical records of these remarkable astronomical spectacles are more than mere curiosities -- they provide invaluable information on changes in the Earth's movement. In a new study in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Japanese researchers combed through records from the Byzantine Empire to identify and locate total solar eclipses observed around the Eastern Mediterranean in the 4th-7th centuries CE, a period for which previously identified solar eclipse records are particularly scarce. These records are crucial for understanding the variability of the Earth's rotation throughout history. However, because the people...
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17 Sep

Researchers go ‘outside the box’ to delineate major ocean currents

by TMR Desk
Climate Change
For the first time University of Rochester researchers have quantified the energy of ocean currents larger than 1,000 kilometers. In the process, they and their collaborators have discovered that the most energetic is the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, some 9,000 kilometers in diameter. The team, led by Hussein Aluie, associate professor of mechanical engineering, used the same coarse-graining technique developed by his lab to previously document energy transfer at the other end of the scale, during the "eddy-killing" that occurs when wind interacts with temporary, circular currents of water less than 260 kilometers in size. These new results, reported in Nature Communications, show how the coarse-graining technique can provide a new window for understanding oceanic circulation in all its multiscale complexity, says lead author...
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17 Sep

Mexican mangroves have been capturing carbon for 5,000 years

by TMR Desk
Climate Change
Researchers have identified a new reason to protect mangrove forests: they've been quietly keeping carbon out of Earth's atmosphere for the past 5,000 years. Mangroves thrive in conditions most plants cannot tolerate, like salty coastal waters. Some species have air-conducting, vertical roots that act like snorkels when tides are high, giving the appearance of trees floating on stilts. A UC Riverside and UC San Diego-led research team set out to understand how marine mangroves off the coast of La Paz, Mexico, absorb and release elements like nitrogen and carbon, processes called biogeochemical cycling. As these processes are largely driven by microbes, the team also wanted to learn which bacteria and fungi are thriving there. The team expected that carbon would be found in the...
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15 Sep

Are we missing a crucial component of sea-level rise?

by TMR Desk
Climate Change, Oceans
Recent efforts using computational modeling to understand how melting ice in Antarctica will impact the planet's oceans have focused on ice-sheet geometry, fracture, and surface melting -- processes that could potentially trigger or accelerate ice-sheet mass loss. Now, researchers have identified an additional process that could have a similarly significant effect on the ice sheet's future: thawing of the bed, known as basal thaw, at the interface of the land and the miles-thick ice sheet above it. The new study identifies areas that are not currently losing large amounts of mass but could be poised to match some of the largest contributors to sea-level rise -- such as Thwaites Glacier -- if they thawed. Antarctica is roughly the size of the...
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15 Sep

Climate change is affecting drinking water quality

by TMR Desk
Climate Change, Water
The disappearance of forests will have consequences for water quality in reservoirs The water stored in reservoirs ensures our supply of drinking water. Good water quality is therefore important -- but is at significant risk due to climate change. In a model study of the Rappbode reservoir in the Harz region, a research team from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) demonstrated how the climate-related disappearance of forests in the catchment area for Germany's largest drinking water reservoir can affect water quality. The problem of such indirect consequences of climate change is seriously underestimated, the scientists warn in Water Research. Water quality is of critical importance, especially for drinking water reservoirs, as subsequent treatment in the waterworks must continually meet...
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