Clouds may be less climate-sensitive than assumed

In a study published in Nature Geoscience, plant ecologists at the University of Bayreuth have shown how global climate change is impacting the Earth's terrestrial ecosystems. Changes in vegetation activity could in most cases be explained by temperature and soil moisture changes, while changes in solar radiation and atmospheric CO2 levels seldom played a dominant role.

Healthy, undisturbed soil sinks carbon, storing what's generated when plants and other living things decompose so it doesn't get released as a planet-warming greenhouse gas. But a new study out of UC Riverside suggests nitrogen pollution from cars and trucks and power plants might make soil release that carbon in Southern California and other similarly dry places—worsening, rather than helping to fight, climate change.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened the use of "tactical" nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine, but nuclear weapons of any kind would cause widespread devastation, according to a new position paper by a group of renowned scientists from around the world. They want to make policymakers and the public aware of the ecosystem impacts and long-lasting consequences of nuclear radiation.

Imperial researchers have observed magma taking an unexpected route beneath volcanoes, shedding light on the processes behind eruptions. The findings were based on data from a tectonic plate boundary in the Eastern Caribbean region. The results help us understand what drives the type and rate of volcanic eruptions, as well as the make-up of erupted magma. They could also help us understand why some volcanoes are more active than others, and why volcanic activity changes over time.

Scientists have discovered a new layer of partly molten rock under the Earth's crust that might help settle a long-standing debate about how tectonic plates move. Researchers had previously identified patches of melt at a similar depth. But a new study led by The University of Texas at Austin revealed for the first time the layer's global extent and its part in plate tectonics.

A previously unknown 100-to-200-meter asteroid—roughly the size of Rome's Colosseum—has been detected by an international team of European astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Their project used data from the calibration of the Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), in which the team serendipitously detected an interloping asteroid. The...

A world-first study reverses the idea that the bulk of life in the ocean is fueled by photosynthesis via sunshine, revealing that many ocean microbes in fact get their energy from hydrogen and carbon monoxide. It has always been a mystery how microbes growing in deepest parts of the sea...

An interdisciplinary team of scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU, Singapore) has found that rapid sea-level rise drove early settlers in Southeast Asia to migrate during the prehistoric period, increasing the genetic diversity of the region today. The Malay Peninsula and the islands of Sumatra, Borneo, and Java were...

The rare and unusual life of an anchoress, a woman who devoted her life to prayer while living in seclusion, has been unearthed by the University of Sheffield and Oxford Archaeology, thanks to a skeletal collection now held at the University. Analysis of the collection, which includes a staggering 667...

Canada's carbon-capturing natural areas can play a small—but effective—part in the country's overall strategy to lower greenhouse gas emissions, according to a national report including two University of Alberta experts. The recent report from the Council of Canadian Academies assessed the potential of fully protecting, restoring or expanding...

Since 1996, Duke Engineering Professor Adrian Bejan has demonstrated numerous natural phenomena that validate his constructal theory in practice. In short, the theory states that all flow systems, animate and inanimate, evolve in such a way as to provide greater access to what flows. This kind of flow typically takes the shape of a few large conduits attached to many smaller vessels, whether the phenomena be root systems of trees, effluent branches of river deltas, or the bronchial tubes that bring oxygen into the lungs.

The loss of a capsule of caesium-137, measuring 6mm by 8mm, dominated the news late last month. The capsule was found in the Western Australian outback on February 1, but in terms of losing radioactive material, we have been here before. And in at least one case, the sheer amount...

By the mid-century, many parts of the United States will experience longer summers with more extreme heat events. While swelteringly hot days are uncomfortable, they can become dangerous for some households, particularly those without air conditioning. Intense heat, stronger storms, extended droughts—climate change poses a formidable list of hazards for communities across the country in the coming decades.

National meteorological services play a central role in their country's efforts to anticipate and manage climate-related risks, and to develop effective policies for resilience and adaptation. The real-time monitoring of floods, droughts and other climate hazards—as well the various climate and weather forecasts the national meteorological services provide—help agencies make...

The science is clear: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must peak before 2025 to prevent planetary warming exceeding 1.5℃. The solution is simple: stop doing and investing in things that emit GHGs and instead protect the natural systems that remove them from the atmosphere. Disclosure of a company's emissions should...

Chinese scientists have successfully implemented a new way of quantum key distribution (QKD) which can boost the speed of intercity quantum networks. Quantum network is known for its strong resistance against eavesdropping—theoretically, it's completely hacker-free. Data transferred through this kind of network is encrypted, with the decryption key transferred through quantum mechanics.

Democracy may lead to more deforestation in the tropics. So write environmental scientist Joeri Morpurgo and his colleagues in Biological Conservation. They found that competitive elections are associated with more loss of tropical rainforest than elections without competition. "We must prevent politicians from exploiting the remaining rainforest for political power."

In disasters like the 7.8 magnitude earthquake and 7.5-magnitude aftershock that struck Syria and Turkey on February 6, 2023, international cooperation on satellite imaging plays a crucial role in the rescue and recovery efforts. Such data enables humanitarian aid to better deliver water and food by mapping the condition of...

For the first time, researchers have recorded live and in atomic detail what happens to the material in an asteroid impact. The team of Falko Langenhorst from the University of Jena and Hanns-Peter Liermann from DESY simulated an asteroid impact with the mineral quartz in the lab and pursued it in slow motion in a diamond anvil cell, while monitoring it with DESY's X-ray source PETRA III.

Alley cropping is the agricultural practice of planting rows, or alleys, of trees in fields of crops. According to a new study by an international, multidisciplinary research team led by the University of Göttingen, this type of land use rapidly leads to significant ecosystem improvements in farmland. The scientists compared different environmental measures in alley-cropping agroforestry, open fields of crops, or grassland. Their study was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.