The importance of insects in the decomposition of wood. Living trees absorb a considerable amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and therefore play an important role in the protection of our climate. Little is known about the role of dead trees in the global carbon cycle, though. The decomposition of wood and the recycling of the nutrients it contains are among the most important processes to take place in forests. How much carbon is released from decaying wood worldwide?…

… pushes restoration towards large-scale implementation. Coral reefs’ dire status has become more and more apparent to the wider public via reports of re-occurring global bleaching and disease events and subsequent mass die-offs of corals during the last decade. In their recently published policy paper, the International Coral Reef Society urges politicians and decision makers to take immediate action. “The next ten years offer the last chance to change the trajectory of coral reefs from heading towards world-wide collapse to…

We are collectively failing to conserve the world’s biodiversity and to mobilize natural solutions to help curb global warming. A new study carried out by the Nature Map Consortium, shows that managing a strategically placed 30% of land for conservation could safeguard 70% of all considered terrestrial plant and vertebrate animal species, while simultaneously conserving more than 62% of the world’s above and below ground vulnerable carbon, and 68% of all clean water. In November, governments will convene in Glasgow…

Improving projections, predictions and protection in the face of expected sea level rise. A new assessment of flood risk in Venice indicates that the impact of higher emissions on relative sea level rise during this century will be critical in planning future defence infrastructure for Venice and other coastal cities, state the authors of a new special issue published in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences today. The special issue, with contributions lead by researchers from Università del Salento, ISMAR…

New study in “Nature”… The tropical mountain forests of Africa store more carbon per hectare in their above-ground biomass than all other tropical forests on earth. With this great storage capacity, which was previously estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to be considerably lower, they have made a major contribution to climate protection. This is the conclusion of a study published in Nature by an international network of researchers who are urging for the preservation of these…

Fossil site in Lower Austria provides deep insights into Austria’s earth history. Over 6000 unique fossils of the alpine Triassic period have been investigated by NHM Vienna-Palaeontologist Alexander Lukeneder and Palaeontologist Petra Lukeneder from the University of Vienna have investigated. The spectacular remnants are witnesses of one of most severe ecological disasters in the Earth History, the Carnian Crisis. This phase was characterized by a climate change 233 Million years ago, which lead to a gigantic global mass extinction in…

Scientists at the University of Southampton have discovered that extensive chains of volcanoes have been responsible for both emitting and then removing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) over geological time. This stabilised temperatures at Earth’s surface. The researchers, working with colleagues at the University of Sydney, Australian National University (ANU), University of Ottawa and University of Leeds, explored the combined impact of processes in the solid Earth, oceans and atmosphere over the past 400 million years. Their findings are published in…

Within the framework of the German-Brazilian joint project ATTO (Amazon Tall Tower Observatory) with its research station in the Brazilian rainforest, scientists for several years have gained valuable data and insights for climate and environmental research. For German partners, the Max Planck Society will continue to ensure the operation of the station and the research. In addition, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) will fund the project for another three years with around 5 million euros through…

The same phenomenon that causes aurorae — the magical curtains of green light often visible from the polar regions of the Earth — causes mesospheric ozone layer depletion. This depletion could have significance for global climate change and therefore, understanding this phenomenon is important. Now, a group of scientists led by Prof. Yoshizumi Miyoshi from Nagoya University, Japan, has observed, analyzed, and provided greater insight into this phenomenon. The findings are published in Nature’s Scientific Reports. In the Earth’s magnetosphere…

New research from Florida State University and Rice University is providing a better estimate of the amount of carbon in the Earth’s outer core, and the work suggests the core could be the planet’s largest reservoir of that element. The research, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, estimates that 0.3 to 2.0 percent of the Earth’s outer core is carbon. Though the percentage of carbon there is low, it’s still an enormous amount because the outer core is…

Researchers map the geothermal heat flow in West Antarctica; a new potential weak spot in the ice sheet’s stability is identified. Ice losses from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica are currently responsible for roughly four percent of the global sea-level rise. This figure could increase, since virtually no another ice stream in the Antarctic is changing as dramatically as the massive Thwaites Glacier. Until recently, experts attributed these changes to climate change and the fact that the glacier rests on…

Research vessel SONNE starts expedition to the Benguela Upwelling System. On 20 August, the German research vessel SONNE sets off on the two-month expedition “SO285” towards South Africa and Namibia. Off the coasts of the two countries lies the Benguela Upwelling System, one of the most productive and fish-rich regions of the Atlantic Ocean. The research team on board the RV SONNE wants to find out how climate change affects the marine ecosystem in order to better assess consequences for…

Treating corals with a probiotic cocktail of beneficial bacteria increases survival after a bleaching event, according to new research. This approach could be administered in advance of a predicted heat wave to help corals recover from high sea temperatures. Climate change is increasing the temperatures of the oceans, which disrupts the relationship between corals and their symbiotic photosynthetic algae and causes corals to bleach, in some cases eventually leading to their death. KAUST researchers have proposed that manipulating the coral…

Today, human sources are responsible for 60% of global methane emissions, coming primarily  from the burning of fossil fuels, decomposition in landfills and the agriculture sector. Nearly a quarter of methane emissions can be attributed to agriculture, much of which is from raising livestock. Rice cultivation and food waste are also important sources of agricultural methane, as nearly a third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. At NASA, scientists study the global methane budget to better understand the…

When Stanford University graduate student Jeff Rutherford began his doctorate in 2018, the amount of methane entering the atmosphere from oil and gas extraction operations – mostly due to fracking – had become a major matter of contention. Tracking this harmful greenhouse gas falls to the Environmental Protection Agency. To help in their accounting, the EPA uses computer models that take a “bottom-up” approach, counting the total number of well heads, storage tanks, miles of pipeline and other sources of…

Significant earthquakes, from gentle shaking to devastating tremors, are hazards caused by a sudden release of stress that has built up in geological faults. More subtle events called slow slips are attracting increasing attention as nonshaky versions of the dramatic seismic fractures of the largest earthquakes. A database of information on previous slow slips to develop a model of the mechanisms of these geological events has now been compiled by KAUST and University of Geneva researchers, in collaboration with colleagues…