Underwater waves deep below the ocean’s surface – some as tall as 500 metres – play an important role in how the ocean stores heat and carbon, according to new research. An international team of researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, and the University of California San Diego, quantified the effect of these waves and other forms of underwater turbulence in the Atlantic Ocean and found that their importance is not being accurately reflected in…

Not melted meteorites, according to scientists. WHOI is part of a collaborative study, offering new insight into the extraterrestrial origins of our lakes, rivers and oceans. Water makes up 71% of Earth’s surface, but no one knows how or when such massive quantities of water arrived on Earth. A new study published today in the journal Nature brings scientists one step closer to answering that question. Sune Nielsen, associate scientist, Geology & Geophysics at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) co-authored the study,…

Scientists have predicted that droughts and floods will become more frequent and severe as our planet warms and climate changes, but detecting this on regional and continental scales has proven difficult. Now a new NASA-led study confirms that major droughts and pluvials – periods of excessive precipitation and water storage on land – have indeed been occurring more often. In the study published March 13, 2023, in the journal Nature Water, two NASA scientists examined 20 years of data from the NASA/German GRACE and GRACE-FO…

Hydrogen’s potential as a clean fuel could be limited by a chemical reaction in the lower atmosphere, according to research from Princeton University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. This is because hydrogen gas easily reacts in the atmosphere with the same molecule primarily responsible for breaking down methane, a potent greenhouse gas. If hydrogen emissions exceed a certain threshold, that shared reaction will likely lead to methane accumulating in the atmosphere — with decades-long climate consequences. “Hydrogen is…

How to reduce emissions in the transport sector while maintaining our mobility? “SynphOnie”, a research cluster funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) that includes a team of researchers from the University of Passau headed by Professor Tobias Harks, is developing a mathematical model of transport flows to help make transport planning both needs-based and sustainable. The transport sector is one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters. To ensure adherence to the objectives of the Paris…

Faunal organisms such as the humble mussel often play an underappreciated yet important role in protecting and building coastal ecosystems, according to a new study led by the Carbon Containment Lab at the Yale School of the Environment. Sinéad Crotty holds an Atlantic ribbed mussel, one of more than 200,000 mussels that were moved during a large-scale field experiment measuring the effects of animals on marsh accretion. Photo: Christine Angelini “As sea levels rise, coastal ecosystems have to adapt and evolve to changing…

… could switch the role of fishes in the marine carbon cycle. Fish make carbonates from marine salts within their guts and excrete them at high rates. These can sink and become part of sediments or dissolve and increase the water’s ability to neutralise acids. A new study in Nature Communications sheds light on the controls of carbonate excretion by fish. Bony fish are more often recognised as food sources than as carbon regulators. They provide an array of services…

Researchers have been using drones to map large areas of Antarctica this summer in efforts to monitor the effects on vegetation due to climate change with the support of the Federal Government’s Australian Antarctic Division. The drone-derived imagery is being used by researchers from QUT and Auckland University of Technology – with assistance from University of Wollongong – to evaluate the fragile ecosystem, particularly moss beds, and changes in the extreme environment. For almost two months, the field team was…

Researchers from North Carolina State University and Iowa State University have demonstrated an automated technology capable of accurately measuring the angle of leaves on corn plants in the field. This technology makes data collection on leaf angles significantly more efficient than conventional techniques, providing plant breeders with useful data more quickly. “The angle of a plant’s leaves, relative to its stem, is important because the leaf angle affects how efficient the plant is at performing photosynthesis,” says Lirong Xiang, first…

The 18-foot-long structures, including fascinating honeycomb-shaped tubes, are part of an effort by University of Miami researchers and scientists to help restore damaged coral reefs and protect coastal environments. The first piece of a series of concrete structures was lowered into the water off the coast of Miami Beach on Wednesday morning, a massive crane on the deck of a floating barge hoisting the unit into the air and sinking it to the seabed. During the next six hours, crewmembers…

– and avert a global supply crisis. Helium – essential for many medical and industrial processes – is in critically short supply worldwide. Production is also associated with significant carbon emissions, contributing to climate change. This study provides a new concept in gas field formation to explain why, in rare places, helium accumulates naturally in high concentrations just beneath the Earth’s surface. The findings could help locate new reservoirs of carbon-free helium – and potentially also hydrogen. Research led by…

… can facilitate environmental impact assessment. Microplastic particles separated from a sediment sample from the Guarapiranga reservoir in metropolitan São Paulo show different particle sizes. In the last decade, growing numbers of researchers have studied plastic pollution, one of the world’s most pressing environmental hazards. They have made progress but still face challenges, such as the comparability of results, especially with regard to microplastic particles. There is no standard sample collection and analysis methodology, for example. Most studies present conclusions…

Glaciers – giant blocks of moving ice – along Antarctica’s coastline are flowing faster in the summer because of a combination of melting snow and warmer ocean waters, say researchers.  On average, the glaciers travel at around one kilometre a year. But a new study has found a seasonal variation to the speed of the ice flow, which speeded up by up to 22 % in summer when temperatures are warmer. This gives an insight into the way climate change…

Electro-photonic tweezer captures and detects trace amount of nanoplastics through surface-enhanced Raman scattering, Application in safe water resource management technology. Nanoplastics are plastics that have been discarded from our daily lives and that enter ecosystems in the size scale below 1 micro-metter after their physical and chemical disintegration. Recent research has shown that the concentration of microplastics in the major rivers in South Korea is the highest worldwide; it is not unusual to find news reports about the detection of…

Data captured from seismic waves caused by earthquakes has shed new light on the deepest parts of Earth’s inner core, according to seismologists from The Australian National University (ANU). By measuring the different speeds at which these waves penetrate and pass through the Earth’s inner core, the researchers believe they’ve documented evidence of a distinct layer inside Earth known as the innermost inner core — a solid “metallic ball” that sits within the centre of the inner core. Not long…

… at the German Antarctic station Neumayer-III. Over the next 12 months, the vertical distribution of aerosol particles and clouds in the atmosphere above the German Neumayer III station of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) will be observed from the ground for the first time. These profile measurements are the first of their kind in Queen Maud Land on the Atlantic sector of Antarctica and thus in an area larger than Greenland. The measuring platform OCEANET-Atmosphere of the Leibniz Institute…