In the “weather kitchen,” the interplay between the Azores High and Icelandic Low has a substantial effect on how much warm water the Atlantic transports to the Arctic along the Norwegian coast. But this rhythm can be thrown off for years at a time. Experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute finally have an explanation for why: Due to unusual atmospheric pressure conditions over the North Atlantic, low-pressure areas are diverted from their usual track, which disrupts the coupling between the…

Researchers led by Yuko Motizuki from the Astro-Glaciology Laboratory at the RIKEN Nishina Center in Japan have developed a new laser-based sampling system for studying the composition of ice cores taken from glaciers. The new system has a 3-mm depth-resolution—about 3 times smaller than what is currently available—meaning that it can detect temperature variations that occurred over much smaller periods of time in the past. The new laser melting sampler, or LMS, is expected to help reconstruct continuous annual temperature…

Today, fruit and vegetables are transported thousands of kilometers to Germany. A team at Fraunhofer IKTS now wants to bring horticulture to the cities with efficient and compact water, energy and gas management – and thereby strengthen regional self-sufficiency. Fresh peppers, crisp salads and juicy tomatoes – German consumers take all this for granted. Supermarket shelves are full of them. But most of these vegetables come from far away. According to the German Federal Statistical Office, a good quarter of…

A new study updates the planetary boundary framework and shows human activities are increasingly impacting the planet and, thereby, increasing the risk of triggering dramatic changes in overall Earth conditions. For over 3 billion years, the interaction between life (represented by the planetary boundary, Biosphere Integrity) and climate have controlled the overall environmental conditions on Earth. Human activities, for example replacing nature with other land uses, changing the amount of water in rivers and in soil, the introduction of synthetic…

Scientists identify how the dissection of Arctic landscapes is changing with accelerating climate change. New research co-led by Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia shows that amplified global warming in the Canadian High Arctic drove a profound shift in the structure of a river network carved into a permafrost landscape in only 60 years. Documenting a powerful interplay among climate change, the freeze-thaw dynamics of polygonal ground and the delivery of surface water by floods as well…

KIT researchers see long-term perspective for lithium extraction at geothermal plants. On the way towards climate neutrality, Europe will need large amounts of lithium for battery storage systems. So far, however, its share in the worldwide lithium extraction volume has been one percent only. For this reason, researchers of KIT study ways to extract lithium from geothermal sources. “In theory, geothermal power plants in the Upper Rhine Valley and Northern German Basin might cover between 2 and 12 percent of…

The Svalbox Digital Model Database (DMDb) just made its formal debut into the scientific community in a new article published in the journal Geosphere. The Svalbard archipelago, located north of Norway halfway to the North Pole and well within the Arctic Circle, is a remote geological wonderland. Svalbox DMDb is a new regional database which currently collates 135 digital outcrop models (DOMs), making data from 114 km2 of this incredibly difficult-to-access area freely available to anyone with internet access. Digital…

… toward Totten Ice Shelf in Southeast Antarctica. An international team of scientists has successfully conducted large-scale helicopter-based observations along the coast of East Antarctica and has identified pathways through which warm ocean water flows from the open ocean into ice shelf cavities for the first time.  During six days of observations, the team was able to retrieve temperature and other data at 67 sites covering the entire continental shelf region off the Totten Ice Shelf, the floating portion of…

Miniature robots to carry out research below the ice. The DLR project line TRIPLE enters its second phase / Joint Project TRIPLE-nanoAUV 2 coordinated by MARUM. The project line TRIPLE, funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, is entering its second funding phase. In the research project TRIPLE-nanoAUV 2, which is headquartered at MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen, a miniature autonomous vehicle is being developed for sub-ice technology missions….

Oregon State University research has uncovered a possible clue as to why glaciers that terminate at the sea are retreating at unprecedented rates: the bursting of tiny, pressurized bubbles in underwater ice. Published today in Nature Geoscience, the study shows that glacier ice, characterized by pockets of pressurized air, melts much more quickly than the bubble-free sea ice or manufactured ice typically used to research melt rates at the ocean-ice interface of tidewater glaciers. Tidewater glaciers are rapidly retreating, the…

… in the USA successfully concluded. For the first time, German researchers have measured the influence of clouds on short-term fluctuations of solar radiation in North America. They have used a globally unique network of radiation sensors that was designed and built at the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), which has been deployed in the flat prairies of the Midwest of the USA from the beginning of June until the end of August this year. So-called pyranometers have recorded…

An emerging system which combines rapid imaging with artificial intelligence could help scientists build a comprehensive picture of present and historic environmental change – by swiftly and accurately analysing pollen. Pollen grains from different plant species are unique and identifiable based on their shape. Analysing which pollen grains are captured in samples such as sediment cores from lakes helps scientists understand which plants were thriving at any given point in history, potentially dating back thousands to millions of years. Up…

University of Tübingen team studies plant growth in the northern polar region some 50 million years ago – paleoclimate with parallels to current global warming. Around 50 million years ago there were extensive, lush deciduous forests in the polar regions of the Arctic, where today there is sparse vegetation. The forests existed due to the conditions in the Eocene – a combination of a greenhouse climate and almost twice the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as there is…

New research examines role of grasses for controlling climate change. In recent years, the escalating impact of global warming has prompted efforts to reverse troubling trends, often by planting trees to capture and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it. New research from a team led by Young Zhou, from the Quinney College of Natural Resources and the Ecology Center, shows that, in addition to trees, humble grasses also play an essential role in capturing carbon — more important than…

… show the calculations of researchers. An international team of researchers has used an extensive dataset of more than 2,000 coral reef sites to determine how fish populations and diversity of fish species are faring on the world’s ocean reefs. One finding of the study, recently published in Nature Communications, is that nearly two-thirds of the sites studied are overfished below reference points aimed at maximizing catch. Fishing has been going on in coral reefs for thousands of years. As…

Green spaces in Germany could contribute far more to biodiversity conservation. Around 40 per cent of Germany’s declining and endangered native plant species could be planted in private and public green spaces, making them suitable for conservation gardening. This is the conclusion reached by researchers from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Leipzig University, who have collected the latest data on endangered Red List species in all 16 of Germany’s federal states. Their findings have now been…