… create hundreds of tonnes of waterborne microfiber pollution. A new study has revealed that drying laundry using a condenser tumble dryer leads to hundreds of tonnes of potentially harmful microfibers being released into waterways and oceans across the UK and Europe. Researchers from Northumbria University, worked in partnership with scientists at consumer goods giant Procter and Gamble on the study, which is published today (24 May) in the scientific journal PLOS ONE. The team found that while condenser dryers…

New study finds bio-based plastic and plastic-blend textiles do not biodegrade in the ocean. First-of-its-kind experiment off Scripps Pier finds only natural fibers degrade in the marine environment; plastic fabrics remain intact one year later. Plastic pollution is seemingly omnipresent in society, and while plastic bags, cups, and bottles may first come to mind, plastics are also increasingly used to make clothing, rugs, and other textiles. A new study from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, published May 24…

Acoustic signals can be effectively used for monitoring glacial runoff and provide a cheaper and more accessible alternative to existing methods. Glaciers have been melting and shrinking at an alarming rate, raising the sea-level and causing outburst floods. Scientists are monitoring this change to gauge the meltwater contribution to the ocean and freshwater resources across the globe while also keeping an eye on the risk of glacial flooding. However, glacio-hydrological monitoring is a luxury not every country can afford. The…

From mangroves to fjords, coastal ecosystems can take up or emit greenhouse gases. But globally, they’re a vital sink. A new greenhouse gas budget shows coastal ecosystems globally are a net greenhouse gas sink for carbon dioxide (CO2) but emissions of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) counteract some of the CO2 uptake, according to international researchers led by Australia’s Southern Cross University. The new findings of the coastal greenhouse gas balance (CO2 + CH4 + N2O) in ten world…

… found to disrupt satellite signals halfway around the world. An international team has used satellite- and ground-based ionospheric observations to demonstrate that an air pressure wave triggered by volcanic eruptions could produce an equatorial plasma bubble (EPB) in the ionosphere, severely disrupting satellite-based communications. Their findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports. The ionosphere is the region of the Earth’s upper atmosphere where molecules and atoms are ionized by solar radiation, creating positively charged ions. The area with…

Climate change, human consumption and sedimentation contributing to decline. More than 50 percent of the largest lakes in the world are losing water, according to a groundbreaking new assessment published today in Science . The key culprits are not surprising: warming climate and unsustainable human consumption. But lead author Fangfang Yao, a CIRES visiting fellow, now a climate fellow at University of Virginia, said the news is not entirely bleak. With this new method of tracking lake water storage trends…

Earth scientists identify pivotal step in the Earth’s later climate development. Approximately 700,000 years ago, a “warm ice age” permanently changed the climate cycles on Earth. Contemporaneous with this exceptionally warm and moist period, the polar glaciers greatly expanded. A European research team including Earth scientists from Heidelberg University used recently acquired geological data in combination with computer simulations to identify this seemingly paradoxical connection. According to the researchers, this profound change in the Earth’s climate was responsible for the…

At certain times in the year, more soot particles reach the Amazon rainforest from bush fires in Africa than from regional fires. The Brazilian rainforest is one of the world’s few continental regions with clean air. However, this is only true during the wet season, when the concentration of particulate matter is very low. During the dry season, it’s a different story: numerous deforestation fires burn within the Amazon rainforest, as an “arc of deforestation” eats into the rainforest from…

… from pharmaceutical pollutants. Researchers from Stockholm University have developed porous crystals made from pomegranate extract to capture and degrade pharmaceutical molecules found in local municipal wastewater. The research is published in the scientific journal Nature Water. Pharmaceutical compounds affect the human body to improve our health, but they can also have unintentional adverse effects for the wellbeing of wildlife. Hence wastewater treatment plants are facing the challenge of removing emerging organic contaminants (EOCs) such as active pharmaceutical ingredients, and…

For decades, a research team from the University of Jena has travelled regularly to the Antarctic. Its most recent observations of Antarctic wildlife paint a clear picture of climate change in the southernmost part of the world. If there were ever a prize for the longest journey to work, the Jena University team led by Christina Braun would stand a good chance of winning it. To reach their research area, the polar ornithologist and her team travel some 14,000 kilometres…

Leipzig University presents LexCube 3D visualisation. Researchers from Leipzig University will present an interactive digital cube that can visualise climate data from anywhere in the world in space and time at the Building Bridges for the Next Generations conference on 16 May. As a freely accessible website, LexCube makes terabytes of data available to everyone. The programming and implementation of the data cube is the PhD project of Maximilian Söchting, supervised by Professors Gerik Scheuermann and Miguel Mahecha. Climate change…

Reusable sponge can capture and recover critical metals and heavy-metal pollutants. Northwestern University engineers have developed a new sponge that can remove metals — including toxic heavy metals like lead and critical metals like cobalt — from contaminated water, leaving safe, drinkable water behind. In proof-of-concept experiments, the researchers tested their new sponge on a highly contaminated sample of tap water, containing more than 1 part per million of lead. With one use, the sponge filtered lead to below detectable…

An international team including Simon Steidle from the Quaternary Research Group at the Department of Geology at the University of Innsbruck has reconstructed the evolution of groundwater in the Great Basin, USA – one of the driest regions on Earth – up to 350,000 years into the past with unprecedented accuracy. The results shed new light on the effects of climate change on water supply and provide important insights for the sustainable use of groundwater resources. The study was published…

Comparing single-cell sequencing across cereal crops provides clues about agricultural traits critical for adapting plants to climate change. Comparing individual cells across corn, sorghum, and millet reveals evolutionary differences among these important cereal crops, according to a new study led by New York University researchers. The findings, published in Nature, bring researchers closer to pinpointing which genes control important agricultural traits such as drought tolerance, which will help scientists faced with a changing climate adapt crops to drier environments. Corn,…

For the first time, the effects of silicon fertilization on wheat yields were investigated for a study led by the Leibniz Center for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) and published in the journal Science of the Total Environment. In a field trial in Brandenburg, the plants formed significantly more biomass: Yields increased by 80 percent compared to conventionally farmed areas. The sequestration of carbon in the soil and the availability of water also improved significantly as a result of fertilization. In…

… which could be precursor to huge freshwater release. A new study provides the first observational evidence of the stabilization of the anti-cyclonic Beaufort Gyre, which is the dominant circulation of the Canada Basin and the largest freshwater reservoir in the Arctic Ocean. The study uses a newly extended record of “dynamic ocean topography” satellite data from 2011-2019 provided by two of the co-authors, along with an extensive hydrographic dataset from 2003-2019, to quantify the changing sea surface height of…