As grasslands get abandoned, controlled burning is discussed as a labor-saving method of keeping forests at bay. A Kobe University research team found that this method results in higher biodiversity and a higher prevalence of endangered plant species in some grasslands compared to others, depending on what soils they grow on. Humans have been keeping grasslands since millennia by grazing, mowing and controlled burning, all of these are means to keep forests from overgrowing the grasslands. Grazing and mowing are,…
The UK’s peatlands face an uncertain future amid the escalating impacts of climate change Peatlands are critical ecosystems for carbon storage and biodiversity, containing more carbon than all the world’s forests despite covering just 3% of the global land surface. But new research reveals that vast areas of the UK’s peatlands, including the Flow Country UNESCO World Heritage Site, are likely to be unsuitable for peat accumulation by 2061–80 due to climate change. The researchers urge for a shift in…
Research team investigates influence of Zagros Mountains on bending Earth’s surface An international research team led by the University of Göttingen has investigated the influence of the forces exerted by the Zagros Mountains in the Kurdistan region of Iraq on how much the surface of the Earth has bent over the last 20 million years. Their research revealed that in the present day, deep below the Earth’s surface, the Neotethys oceanic plate – the ocean floor that used to be…
University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka scientists have successfully analysed more than 30 years of vital data on the thickness of landfast sea ice in Antarctica’s McMurdo Sound, which will prove useful to measure future impacts of climate change. The study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, set out to discover what key influences determine the thickness of landfast sea-ice, known as fast ice, using data from 1986 to 2022. Fast ice is frozen ocean water that…
Melbourne researchers have discovered crucial new information about how microbes consume huge amounts of carbon monoxide (CO) and help reduce levels of this deadly gas. Over two billion tonnes of carbon monoxide are released into the atmosphere globally each year. Microbes consume about 250 million tonnes of this, reducing CO to safer levels. The Monash University-led Study, published in Nature Chemical Biology, reveals at an atomic level how microbes consume CO present in the atmosphere. They use a special enzyme, called…
Ammonia Air Pollution as Seen from Space. Image Credit: Sally PusedeA groundbreaking study led by researchers from the University of Virginia has used satellite measurements to show the long-term persistence of air pollution inequalities tied to industrialized swine facilities in Eastern North Carolina. Using satellite data spanning a 15-year period from 2008–2023, the study quantifies disparities in ammonia (NH₃) — an air pollutant emitted by swine operations — for Black, Hispanic and Indigenous communities. These inequalities, exacerbated by hot and…
A major study of botanic gardens around the world has revealed their struggles with one fundamental aim: to safeguard the world’s most threatened plants from extinction. Researchers analysed a century’s worth of records – from 1921 to 2021 – from fifty botanic gardens and arboreta currently growing half a million plants, to see how the world’s living plant collections have changed over time. The results suggest that the world’s living collections have collectively reached peak capacity, and that restrictions on…
Artificial photosynthesis technology was developed with the addition of the biocatalyst L-alanine dehydrogenase, which combines ammonia with pyruvate to produce L-alanine, to the photoredox system composed of a dye and a catalyst. Image Credit: Osaka Metropolitan UniversityTechnology uses biomass-derived compounds and ammonia to produce an eco-friendly alternative plastic Nylon, the durable and elastic material, is like other plastics made from chemicals found in fossil fuels. Biodegradable plastics based on biomass-derived compounds are attracting attention as an alternative to conventional plastics,…
To protect the climate, the aim is to recover CO₂ from combustion processes for use as valuable materials. This is challenging because exhaust gases contain not only CO₂ but also other gases. An international research team led by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schuhmann from the Zentrum für Elektrochemie at Ruhr-Universität Bochum has shown how CO₂ can be electrochemically reduced even at low concentrations in order to reuse it. They report on this in the journal “Angewandte Chemie” on December 23, 2024….
Salt pollution in freshwater is a growing global concern. Excessive salt harms plants, degrades soil, and compromises water quality. In urban areas, road salts used for de-icing during winter often wash into stormwater systems, posing health concerns and challenges for infrastructure. Specifically, salts can impact the processes like filtration and contaminate retention basins that are used to manage and treat urban stormwater runoff. Megan Rippy, assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering, is on a mission to understand how salt affects plants in…
What will the future of our soils – and thus also the availability of water – look like under the influence of imminent climatic changes? An international study led by Jesse Radolinski and Michael Bahn from the Institute of Ecology at the University of Innsbruck shows how drought, warming and increased CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere change the hydrological balance in the soil and challenge the resilience of ecosystems. The results were published in the journal Science. Grasslands cover almost…
A study led by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL shows that there has been a worrying increase in the number of long droughts over the last 40 years. These affect agriculture, energy production and ecosystems, the research team warns in the scientific journal Science. For fourteen years, northern Chile has been suffering from extreme drought. The southwest of the USA recently experienced eight bone-dry years, and southern Australia three. This accumulation is no coincidence:…
A study by the University of Bern and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the USA concludes that the ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, which includes the Gulf Stream, has not weakened in the past 60 years. These results contradict previous assumptions. We owe Europe’s mild climate to the ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, which not only transports heat northwards from the equator, but also distributes oxygen and nutrients in the ocean. The collapse of this central element…
So-called foraminifera are found in all the world’s oceans. Now an international study led by the University of Hamburg has shown that the microorganisms, most of which bear shells, absorb phosphate from the water that pollutes the oceans to an unprecedented extent. The work has been published in the scientific journal “Nature”. Phosphate Use in Agriculture and Its Environmental Impact Phosphate is one of the main components of many fertilizers. It stimulates the growth of many crops – but is…
The regions of the Arctic are particularly vulnerable to climate change. However, there is a lack of comprehensive scientific information about the environmental changes there. Researchers from the Helmholtz Center Hereon have now examined inorganic carbon components, nutrients and trace elements in fjord systems. The result: the melting glacier ice is changing the chemical composition of the water in the fjords, causing ecosystems to become unbalanced. The study was recently published in the journal “Global Biogeochemical Cycles”. Impact of Freshwater…
From the persistent droughts of southern Africa and Central America in the early part of the year to the more recent devastating extreme rainfall in Spain and the deadly Hurricane Helene along America’s east coast, 2024 has been a year of climate events that affected the lives of billions of people. A “Climate-Resilient” Future In a recent paper published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, an international team of scientists led by Dr Wenxia Zhang at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese…
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