Rising emissions and climate change boost demand for renewable energy.
Researchers have developed a method to produce hydrogen gas from water using only solar power and agricultural waste like manure or husks.
SpaceX undertook a planetary defense mission on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA) on Monday, aiming to provide scientists with tools to prevent future catastrophic cosmic impacts.
The ESA’s Hera planetary defense mission builds on NASA’s 2022 Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission and will analyze its effects, allowing scientists and engineers to gain a more comprehensive understanding for use in real-world emergencies.
New Stanford-led research unveils a hidden factor that could change our understanding of how oceans mitigate climate change. The study, published Oct. 11 in Science, reveals never-before seen mucus “parachutes” produced by microscopic marine organisms that significantly slow their sinking, putting the brakes on a process crucial for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
How can afforestation/reforestation (AR) help reduce climate change and help achieve the goal of the Paris Agreement calling for a maximum 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels? This is what a recent study published in Nature Communications hopes to address as a team of researchers from Germany investigated how AR could contribute to meeting this goal. This study holds the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, legislators, and the public better understand the steps that can be taken to mitigate the effects of climate change, for both the short and long term.
In simple terms, afforestation/reforestation (AR) is planting trees in areas that have experienced deforestation (tree removal) or areas where trees never existed. For the study, the researchers used Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) to simulate how AR could contribute to the Paris Agreement goals by conducting more than 1,200 scenarios. In the end, the researchers found that AR contributions to climate change makes its biggest impact in 2052, along with decreasing average global temperatures by 0.2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. Finally, AR could also reduce the amount of time before average global temperatures exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius by 13 years.
“These results show that global AR can in fact make an important contribution to mitigating climate change, when applied at the large sale,” said Dr. Yiannis Moustakis, who is a postdoctoral researcher at Ludwig Maximilians Universität München and lead author of the study. “But it is not a panacea and must be viewed in a more comprehensive framework that takes socioeconomic trade-offs equally into account. Planting a forest could create jobs, revenue, and promote ecosystem services, but it could also deprive people’s livelihood, exacerbate poverty, financially or physically displace people, and disturb local food networks.”
“The isotope values of these carbonates point toward extreme amounts of evaporation, suggesting that these carbonates likely formed in a climate that could only support transient liquid water,” said Dr. David Burtt.
Was the planet Mars ever habitable and what conditions led to it becoming the uninhabitable world we see today? This is what a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hopes to address as a team of researchers from the United States and Canada investigated how carbonate minerals found within Gale Crater on Mars could help paint a clearer picture of past conditions on the Red Planet and whether it was habitable. This study holds the potential to help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of Mars and whether it once had the necessary conditions to support life as we know it.
Studying carbonate minerals is important due to their ability to tell scientists how a climate formed and evolved over time, with these carbonate minerals containing large amounts of carbon and oxygen isotopes, specifically Carbon-13 and Oxygen-18, which the study notes is the highest amount of these isotopes identified on the Red Planet. Carbon-13 and Oxygen-18 are known as environmental isotopes, which are used to better understand the interactions between a planet’s ocean and atmosphere and how life could exist. While Earth is the only known planet to support life, studying these isotopes on Mars could help scientists better understand if life could have formed on Mars long ago.
Continue reading “The Habitable Mars? Examining Isotopes in Gale Crater” »
“Satellite navigation (GPS) degraded or inoperable for hours,” the SWPC warned.” Radio – HF (high frequency) radio propagation sporadic or blacked out.”
This severe geomagnetic storm is forecast at the same time Hurricane Milton is forecast to strike Florida. While the SWPC did not note if satellite issues could hinder hurricane monitoring, radio blackouts are expected.
An innovative way is being created by scientists which will help them in “growing” ice and doing the impossible job of “refreezing” the Arctic Sea as initial tests prove promising.
Scientists are aiming at pumping seawater over the frozen Arctic Ocean. They have carried out trials in the Canadian Arctic which have seen sea ice getting thickened successfully.
According to a report published in New Scientist, if no action is taken right now, the accelerating climate change will make the Arctic “ice-free in the summer in the 2030s” which will be disastrous for the planet.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153422/sprites-camera-action.
An astronaut on the International Space Station captured a red sprite over North America, a rare atmospheric phenomenon associated with powerful lightning.
