Three degrees of global warming is quite plausible and truly disastrous – The Economist
Jul 24th 2021 BY THE STANDARDS of the 21st century as a whole, 2021 will almost certainly go down as a comparatively cool year. By the standards of the rest of human history its weather looks disconcertingly like hell. Listen…
$1M NASA grant to improve carbon monitoring in East Africa
(Cornell University) Cornell University researchers will develop the first high-resolution carbon monitoring system for East Africa that combines “bottom up” ecological modeling with “top down” satellite data, thanks to a three-year, $1 million NASA grant.
RNA breakthrough creates crops that can grow 50% more potatoes, rice
(University of Chicago) A new RNA breakthrough is allowing plants to yield dramatically more crops and increase drought tolerance, which could have an impact on food scarcity and production as climate change threatens ecosystems. In initial tests, adding a gene encoding for a protein called FTO to both rice and potato plants increased their yield by 50% in field tests – and the plants grew significantly larger, produced longer root systems and were better able to tolerate drought stress.
Climate Change Comes for Rich Countries – The New York Times
By Somini Sengupta I wrote an article over the weekend about the rich world facing extreme weather disasters intensified by climate change. Since then, the skies over New York City, where I live, turned an ominous shade of red because…
Hotter here, wetter there: How and why climate change will remake our world – The Times of Israel
Left to its own devices, nature is an artwork of balance and cycles. Carbon dioxide, for example — the most abundant global warming gas — produced by the likes of oceans, erupting volcanoes and decomposing life, is absorbed by forests…
Study examines the role of deep-sea microbial predators at hydrothermal vents
(Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) The hydrothermal vent fluids from the Gorda Ridge spreading center in the northeast Pacific Ocean create a biological hub of activity in the deep sea. There, in the dark ocean, a unique food web thrives not on photosynthesis but rather on chemical energy from the venting fluids. Among the creatures having a field day feasting at the Gorda Ridge vents is a diverse assortment of microbial eukaryotes, or protists, that graze on chemosynthetic bacteria and archaea.
Arrival of land plants changed Earth’s climate control system
(University College London) In a new study, published in the journal Nature, researchers looked at samples from rocks spanning the last three billion years and found evidence of a dramatic change in how the carbon cycle functioned about 400 million years ago, when plants started to colonise land.
Southeast Amazonia is no longer a carbon sink – Nature.com
NEWS AND VIEWS 14 July 2021 Atmospheric measurements show that deforestation and rapid local warming have reduced or eliminated the capacity of the eastern Amazonian forest to absorb carbon dioxide — with worrying implications for future global warming. Scott Denning…
Community Voices: We need world solutions to climate change – The Bakersfield Californian
Are you tired of the scorching heat every summer? Yeah, me too. Are you tired of dozens of forest fires destroying trees, homes, and sometimes towns? Yeah, me too. Well, get used to it, climate change is here and it’s…
Mathematical model predicts the movement of microplastics in the ocean
(Newcastle University) Research led by Newcastle University’s Dr Hannah Kreczak is the first to identify the processes that underpin the trajectories of microplastics below the ocean surface. Publishing their findings in the journal Limnology and Oceanography the authors analysed how biofouling – the accumulation of algae on the surface of microplastics, impacts the vertical movement of buoyant particles.
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