…as a gauge of the coming sea level rise. Ice-Ocean Interactions: The History Book of West Antarctica’s Climate. Of all the polar regions, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is the most sensitive to a warming ocean due to climate change. This is already causing a long-term ice sheet melt, and the question is how fast that melting process will take place. It may be that this enormous mass of ice already passed the tipping point, with irreversibly fast melting. This…

A new USC study provides clear evidence that the Earth’s inner core began to decrease its speed around 2010. USC scientists have proven that the Earth’s inner core is backtracking — slowing down — in relation to the planet’s surface, as shown in new research published Wednesday in Nature. Movement of the inner core has been debated by the scientific community for two decades, with some research indicating that the inner core rotates faster than the planet’s surface. The new USC…

WLAN routers made from aluminum, equipped with a versatile multifunctional surface, and made according to the newest EU ecodesign standards: That is the objective of a German-Polish consortium of research and industry partners. With much less plastic used in the design and its circuit boards substantially brought down in size, the proposed routers offer far greater resource efficiency and circularity. WLAN routers are a ubiquitous and inevitable part of today’s connected world. As radar technology and case designs continue to…

Galveston Island was used as an example to predict damage that would occur as a result of hurricanes of varying intensities. Beginning annually on June 1, hurricane season poses a major threat to Texas coastal communities, causing both physical and financial damage to the areas they hit. This damage can be staggering; when Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017, it cost Galveston $132.73 billion in damages. Texas A&M University researchers have collaborated to understand the impacts of storm surge floods before…

The depths of the Weddell Sea are home to diverse biotic communities. Moreover, as climate change progresses, this ice-ladden region could offer a refuge for ice-dependent algae and fauna. In the new EU project WOBEC, the AWI, as the coordinator of a consortium of eleven institutions, will establish the basis for systematic, long-term observations of potential changes in this unique ecosystem. The project, which has been allocated ca. 1.9 million euros of funding, will develop a strategy for monitoring changes…

Researchers find that air turbulence in earth’s thermosphere is governed by the same principles as those in the troposphere. In a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, researchers have discovered that the turbulence in the thermosphere exhibits the same physical laws as the wind in the lower atmosphere. Furthermore, wind in the thermosphere predominantly rotates in a cyclonic direction, in that it rotates counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. The findings reveal a new unified…

… comes into sharper focus. Giant earthquakes and tsunamis have hit the western U.S. and Canada―and almost certainly will again. Off the coasts of southern British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and northern California lies a 600 mile-long strip where the Pacific Ocean floor is slowly diving eastward under North America. This area, called the Cascadia Subduction Zone, hosts a megathrust fault, a place where tectonic plates move against each other in a highly dangerous way. The plates can periodically lock up…

At the intersection of plants and nanomedicine perhaps lies a solution to current unsustainable agricultural practices and meeting increasing global food demands. Nano-agriculture: Sustainable solutions for global food security Researchers in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University are using findings from nanomedicine and digital twin technologies to understand the new field of Plant Nanobiotechnology, address unsustainable agricultural practices, and meet increasing global food demands. Currently, agriculture accounts for 14-28% of global greenhouse gas emissions and…

Even the German Bight is warmer than ever before. Researchers around the globe are sounding the alarm: ocean temperatures are the warmest ever recorded. In 2023, the North Sea also experienced dramatic record highs, as readings taken by the Alfred Wegener Institute’s Biological Institute Helgoland indicate. As data from the time series “Helgoland Reede” also reveal: it’s not the first year in which the German Bight experienced marine heatwaves. The high temperatures and extreme weather events are a product of…

Irrigation with treated wastewater and sewage sludge brings tire additives into the leafy vegetables. Car tires contain hundreds of chemical additives that can leach out of them. This is how they end up in crops and subsequently in the food chain. Researchers at the Center for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science at the University of Vienna and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have now detected these chemical residues in leafy vegetables for the first time. Although the concentrations were low,…

A fungus living in the sea can break down the plastic polyethylene, provided it has first been exposed to UV radiation from sunlight. Researchers from, among others, NIOZ published their results in the scientific journal Science of the Total Environment. They expect that many more plastic degrading fungi are living in deeper parts of the ocean. The fungus Parengyodontium album lives together with other marine microbes in thin layers on plastic litter in the ocean. Marine microbiologists from the Royal…

The findings should help scientists refine predictions of future sea-level rise. As they seep and calve into the sea, melting glaciers and ice sheets are raising global water levels at unprecedented rates. To predict and prepare for future sea-level rise, scientists need a better understanding of how fast glaciers melt and what influences their flow. Now, a study by MIT scientists offers a new picture of glacier flow, based on microscopic deformation in the ice. The results show that a glacier’s flow depends strongly on…

SLF researchers investigate in deep holes whether satellite data accurately show snowmelt to improve hydrological discharge forecasts. Francesca Carletti takes a hammer to the ground. She drives the water probe deeper and deeper into the snow to determine the snow water equivalent (SWE, see box). This is just one of the many data she is measuring on this sunny day in March at the Weissfluhjoch test site near Davos. Her goal: to develop a strategy that more accurately indicates the…

Not a climate tipping element, but nevertheless far-reaching impacts. AWI experts find no evidence of a global climate tipping point in connection with permafrost; rather, permafrost soils are thawing in step with global warming. Permafrost soils store large quantities of organic carbon and are often portrayed as a critical tipping element in the Earth system. Based on the scientific data currently available, the image is deceptive, as an international team led by the AWI has shown. According to their findings,…

Emperor penguins are an endangered species. Scientists are protecting the largest of all penguins by monitoring their numbers precisely and investigating which factors affect their population. A team led by researchers at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) has now developed a reliable method that can predict the number of breeding pairs and chicks and serve as an early warning system for climate change in the Antarctic Ocean. The research team has published its findings in the journal “Nature Communications”. Monitoring the global…

A team from Graz University of Technology has analysed the risk and damage potential of hydrogen vehicles in tunnels and derived recommendations. Their conclusion? Any damage would be extensive, but its occurrence is unlikely. In addition to electric vehicles, hydrogen-powered vehicles are also seen as an alternative to conventionally powered vehicles. However, an increase in the number of such cars with fuel cells (fuel cell electric vehicles – FCEVs) would also result in completely new hazard scenarios, especially in tunnels….