AWI long-term time series shows: due to changed winds and currents in the Southern Ocean, more heat is transported from the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to the depths of the Weddell Sea Over the past three decades, the depths of the Antarctic Weddell Sea have warmed five times faster than the rest of the ocean at depths exceeding 2,000 metres. This was the main finding of an article just published by oceanographers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar…
Two open-ocean hydrographic stations record 40 years of change in the subtropical North Atlantic Ocean. New research published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment uses data from two sustained open-ocean hydrographic stations in the North Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda to demonstrate recent changes in ocean physics and chemistry since the 1980s. The study shows decadal variability and recent acceleration of surface warming, salinification, deoxygenation, and changes in carbon dioxide (CO2)-carbonate chemistry that drives ocean acidification. The study utilized datasets from…
A soil scientist from RUDN University discovered the effect of fertilization on the ability of the soil to retain carbon. To understand this mechanism, he and his team studied the movement of organic carbon in the soil of rice paddies. The results of the study can help increase the fertility of the paddies while at the same time reducing the volume of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. An article about the study was published in the Soil Biology and Biochemistry…
Scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and international collaborators demonstrated a new method for mapping the location and size of trees growing outside of forests, discovering billions of trees in arid and semi-arid regions and laying the groundwork for more accurate global measurement of carbon storage on land. Using powerful supercomputers and machine learning algorithms, the team mapped the crown diameter – the width of a tree when viewed from above – of more than 1.8…
The entire endemic megafauna of Madagascar and the Mascarene islands Mauritius and Rodrigues was eliminated during the past millennium. To investigate possible drivers of this extinction, an international team of scientists constructed an 8000-year record of the islands’ past climate. Their findings imply that the ecosystem was resilient to prior climate stress but ultimately collapsed with an increase in human activities. The results have now been published in Science Advances. Nearly all of Madagascan megafauna – including the famous Dodo…
International MOSAiC expedition successfully completed Researchers from TROPOS and Leipzig University contribute to the success of the largest Arctic expeditio. With the return of the Polarstern, the largest Arctic expedition of all times has come to a successful end. For more than a year, the German research icebreaker travelled in 5 cruise legs with more than 400 people from 20 countries to investigate the epicentre of climate change more precisely than ever before. At the end of the expedition, which…
Pioneering new research has helped geologists solve a long-standing puzzle that could help pinpoint new, untapped concentrations of some the most valuable rare earth deposits. A team of geologists, led by Professor Frances Wall from the Camborne School of Mines, have discovered a new hypothesis to predict where rare earth elements neodymium and dysprosium could be found. The elements are among the most sought after, because they are an essential part of digital and clean energy manufacturing, including magnets in…
According to a team of ecologists from RUDN University, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) can be used as pollution indicators and help monitor the movement of pollutants in environmental components such as soils, plants, and water. To find this out, the team conducted a large-scale study of a variety of soil, water, and plant samples collected from a vast area from China to the Antarctic. The results of the study were published in the Applied Geochemistry journal. Geochemical barriers mark the…
Smoke from the many wildfires burning in the West have made air quality hazardous for millions of people in the United States. And it is the very tiniest of the aerosol particles in that air that make it particularly harmful to human health. But for decades, we haven’t known how long these particles actually stay aloft. New research by Colorado State University scientists is giving us a much better understanding of this process, which can help not only in air…
To tap into geothermal reservoirs, boreholes must be drilled deeply into the earth’s crust. Due to the extreme pressures and temperatures involved, this is expensive and time consuming. A research team from Fraunhofer IEG has now developed a test rig that simulates downhole conditions at several thousands of meters below the earth’s surface. Analyzing these experiments enables operators to optimize drilling during the planning and the operating stage and helps them develop and test new drilling tools, thus minimizing costs…
University of Southampton scientists investigating ways of removing carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases from our atmosphere believe volcanic ash could play an important role. A team from the University’s School of Ocean and Earth Science has modelled the impact of spreading volcanic ash from a ship to an area of ocean floor to help amplify natural processes which lock away CO2 in the seabed. They found the technique has the potential to be cheaper, technologically simpler and less…
Possible link to the Pleistocene epoch, the period of the Ice Ages? When the brightness of the star Betelgeuse dropped dramatically a few months ago, some observers suspected an impending supernova – a stellar explosion that could also cause damage on Earth. While Betelgeuse has returned to normal, physicists from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have found evidence of a supernova that exploded near the Earth around 2.5 million years ago. The life of stars with a mass more…
Widespread wildfires in the far north aren’t just bigger; they’re different. “Zombie fires” and burning of fire-resistant vegetation are new features driving Arctic fires–with strong consequences for the global climate–warn international fire scientists in a commentary published in Nature Geoscience. The 2020 Arctic wildfire season began two months early and was unprecedented in scope. “It’s not just the amount of burned area that is alarming,” said Dr. Merritt Turetsky, a coauthor of the study who is a fire and permafrost…
A marine heatwave (ocean heatwave) is an extended period of time in which the water temperature in a particular ocean region is abnormally high. In recent years, heatwaves of this kind have caused considerable changes to the ecosystems in the open seas and at the coast. Their list of negative effects is long: Marine heatwaves can lead to increased mortality among birds, fish and marine mammals, they can trigger harmful algal blooms, and greatly reduce the supply of nutrients in…
Bayreuth geoscientist discovers causes of sudden eruptions Tiny crystals, ten thousand times thinner than a human hair, can cause explosive volcanic eruptions. This surprising connection has recently been discovered by a German-British research team led by Dr. Danilo Di Genova from the Bavarian Research Institute of Experimental Geochemistry & Geophysics (BGI) at the University of Bayreuth. The crystals increase the viscosity of the underground magma. As a result, a build-up of rising gases occurs. The continuously rising pressure finally discharges…
UAlberta PhD student authors paper shedding new light on Earth’s deepest mechanisms using information from diamonds. A new study led by a University of Alberta PhD student–and published in Nature–is examining the Earth’s carbon cycle in new depth, using diamonds as breadcrumbs of insight into some of Earth’s deepest geologic mechanisms. “Geologists have recently come to the realization that some of the largest, most valuable diamonds are from the deepest portions of our planet,” said Margo Regier, PhD student in…
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