complex

A record warm January

March 4, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Americans experienced unusually cold and wintery weather in January. Places like southern Louisiana and Florida saw appreciable amounts of snow. For those who experienced January’s Arctic blast, it was a cold January. But despite that, January was the world’s warmest on record, extending a run of extraordinary heat in which 18 out of the last 19 months saw an average global temperature more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. In fact, the global average temperature in January was 1.75 degrees above the pre-industrial average.

The exceptional warmth was surprising to climate researchers. It happened despite the emergence of La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean, which tend to lower global temperatures, at least for a while.

Researchers are investigating whether there is something beyond the effects of greenhouse gas emissions that is boosting temperatures to an unexpected degree. It is true that emissions, associated with the burning of coal, gas, and oil, reached record levels in both 2023 and 2024. But January’s warmth was still something of a surprise.

One prevalent theory is that cutting dangerous pollution is playing a role in causing global warming to accelerate. As regulators have curbed sulfate pollution to protect people’s lungs, the cooling effect of these particles that help form more and brighter clouds has diminished.

January demonstrates that the global climate system is complex and the weather in any particular region does not necessarily reflect what is happening to the planet as a whole.

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Global Temperatures Shattered Records in January

Photo, posted December 22, 2013, courtesy of SD Anderson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

A new way to help purify water

February 27, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Engineers at the University of Michigan and Rice University have developed a new technology for removing boron from seawater, an important step in turning seawater into safe drinking water.

Boron is a natural component of seawater that remains a toxic contaminant in drinking water after conventional filters remove salts from seawater. The boron levels in seawater are about twice as high as the World Health Organization’s most lenient limits for safe drinking water and 5 to 12 times higher than what many agricultural plants can tolerate.

Boron passes through the reverse osmosis membranes used in desalination plants in the form of boric acid. To remove it, the desalination plants normally add a base to the treated water that causes the boric acid to become negatively charged. An additional membrane then removes the charged boron, and an acid is then added to neutralize the water. All of this is expensive and complicated.

The new technology uses electrodes that remove boron by trapping it inside pores studded with oxygen-containing structures that bind with boron but let other ions pass through. Capturing boron with electrodes enables treatment plants to avoid the need for a second stage of reverse osmosis.

Global desalination capacity reached 95 million cubic meters a day in 2019. The new membranes could save nearly $7 billion a year. Such savings could make seawater a more accessible source of drinking water for a thirsty world. Freshwater supplies are expected to meet only 40% of the world’s demand by 2030.

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New water purification technology helps turn seawater into drinking water without tons of chemicals

Photo, posted August 21, 2018, courtesy of Alachua County via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Seabirds rescuing coral reefs

January 8, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

A new study by researchers at Lancaster University in the UK has found that the presence of seabirds on islands adjacent to tropical coral reefs can more than double the coral growth rates on those reefs.

The study found that when coral reefs grow faster, they can bounce back more quickly from bleaching events that occur when the seas become too warm. The focus of the study was a type of coral called Acropora, which provides complex structures supporting fish populations and reef growth.

The researchers found that Acropora around islands populated by seabirds recovered from bleaching events about 10 months faster than reefs located away from seabird colonies. Speeding up coral recovery times could prove the difference between continuing to bounce back from bleaching events and dying off.

The seabirds are helping the coral reefs with their droppings. The birds feed on fish in the open ocean far from islands and then return to the islands to roost. They deposit nitrogen- and phosphorus-rich nutrients in the form of guano, some of which is washed off of the islands by rain and into the surrounding seas. The nutrients fertilize corals and other marine species.

To determine whether the faster growth rates were really due to the bird-supplied nutrients, the researchers studied rat-infested islands that had no bird populations. The study confirmed that it was the presence of seabirds that provided enhanced nutrients for the coral reefs. In fact, a primary outcome of the study was to add further weight to the growing body of evidence of the ecological damage across ecosystems on land and sea from invasive rats on tropical islands.

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Feathered friends can become unlikely helpers for tropical coral reefs facing climate change threat

Photo, posted September 15, 2019, courtesy of Rickard Zerpe via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Too Many Bison | Earth Wise

September 21, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

In the northern part of Yellowstone National Park, an historically large bison herd is hampering the comeback of quaking aspen trees, whose numbers were greatly diminished by decades of over-browsing by elk. Restoring the balance of ecosystems at Yellowstone is proving to be a complicated matter.

Long ago, the bison population in the Great Plains was as much as 30 million. The population sharply decreased in the 1800s. By the 1830s, there were no bison east of the Mississippi River. Fifty years later, the Plains bison was nearly extinct. Several small herds lived near Yellowstone Park when it was established in 1872, but poachers killed off nearly of them by the turn of the century. Protective measures were taken and by 1925, Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley herd had grown to more than 750. After that, occasional culling took place for over 40 years.

When gray wolves and cougars were removed from the park, elk populations boomed, and the elk gradually decimated the growth of quaking aspen, cottonwood, willow, and berry-producing shrubs. Both elk and bison were regularly culled until 1968 when public and congressional outcry intervened.

The return of wolves and cougars to the park made some progress in restoring ecosystem balance, particularly with respect to the elk population which has dropped from 20,000 to 5,000. But bison numbers have grown to over 4,000 over past 20 years and the damage once caused by elk is now continuing from bison.

Park administrators are faced with complex management decisions about how to best preserve the ecosystems at Yellowstone National Park.

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Bison in northern Yellowstone proving to be too much of a good thing

Photo, posted October 6, 2016, courtesy of Christian Collins via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Electricity From Bacteria | Earth Wise

June 3, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Microbiologists at Radboud University in the Netherlands have demonstrated in the laboratory that methane-consuming bacteria can generate electrical power. Their study was recently published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

The bacteria studied is called Candidatus Methanoperedens and in the natural environment it consumes methane in water sources that are contaminated with nitrogen including places like water-filled ditches and some lakes. The bacteria in the study make use of the nitrates in the water to break down and digest the methane. Methanogens, which are bacteria that reduce carbon dioxide to form methane, are the source of the methane in these places.

The researchers exploited these complex interactions of bacteria to create a source of electrical power that is essentially a kind of battery with two terminals. One of the terminals is a chemical terminal and one is a biological terminal. They grew the bacteria on one of the electrodes where the bacteria donate electrons that result from its conversion of methane. (Other microbiologists at the same institution had previously demonstrated electrical generation from a similar battery containing anammox bacteria that use ammonium rather than methane in their metabolic processing).

In the study, the Radboud scientists managed to convert 31% of the methane in the water into electricity but they are aiming at higher efficiencies.

This approach represents a potential alternative to conventional biogas electricity generation. In those installations, methane is produced by microorganisms digesting plant materials and the methane is subsequently burned to drive a turbine to generate power. Those systems in fact have an efficiency of less than 50%. The researchers want to determine whether microorganisms can do a better job of generating electricity from biological sources than combustion and turbines can do.

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Bacteria generate electricity from methane

Photo, posted December 3, 2008, courtesy of Martin Sutherland via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Potential Of Artificial Photosynthesis | Earth Wise

August 2, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The sun is the primary source of energy on the earth. Enough solar energy hits the earth in one hour to meet all of human civilization’s energy needs for an entire year. The two leading forms of renewable energy – photovoltaic solar power and wind power – are ways of making use of the sun’s energy. Wind power is indirectly provided by the sun; photovoltaic power uses sunlight to generate electricity.

The most efficient use of solar energy on the planet is one perfected by plants millions of years ago: photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is a complex sequence of processes by which plants convert sunlight and water into usable energy in the form of glucose. Plants utilize a combination of pigments, proteins, enzymes, and metals to perform their magic. If we can develop artificial photosynthesis, it would be a dramatic improvement of humans’ ability to power society cleanly and efficiently. Whereas photovoltaics capture about 20% of the sun’s energy, photosynthesis stores 60% of the sun’s energy as chemical energy.

Researchers across the globe are working to develop artificial photosynthesis. A group at Purdue university has been making progress in trying to mimic the ability of leaves to collect light and split water molecules to generate hydrogen. This is a critical step in photosynthesis that is accomplished by protein and pigment complexes known as “photosystems II”. The Purdue group is experimenting with these proteins and various synthetic catalysts in order to try to develop artificial leaves based on abundant, nontoxic materials.

It is likely to take a decade or more for artificial photosynthesis technology to become part of our energy system, but its ultimate potential is enormous.

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Soaking up the sun: Artificial photosynthesis promises a clean, sustainable source of energy

Photo, posted June 14, 2007, courtesy of Alex Holyoake via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Living On Trash | Earth Wise

March 16, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Litter is persistent and widespread in rivers worldwide. The world’s major rivers and estuaries are hotspots for plastic waste. Trash and microparticles wash down tributaries and build up before rivers enter oceans.

New research published in the journal Freshwater Biology has found that as this waste accumulates, aquatic river species like insects and snails are increasingly choosing to settle on plastic rather than on natural features like rocks and fallen branches.

Researchers from the University of Nottingham in the UK collected plastic waste from three rivers in eastern Britain along with rocks from the same rivers. Their analysis of all the macroinvertebrates on the items’ surfaces found that the surfaces of plastic waste items had nearly four times the diversity of the small animals as did the rocks. In addition, the more complex the plastic’s surface was, the higher the diversity.

The growing abundance of plastic waste coincides with a decline in natural habitat features in urban rivers. This is a result of increasing amounts of sedimentation from development that blankets riverbeds in silt and sand, restricting the supply and movement of rocks, fallen tree branches, and aquatic plants.

Clearly litter can serve as a place for various species to colonize, but trash is not a good environment for them. Trash can release toxic chemicals and entangle animals. Microplastics pose risks for the animals if ingested.

Estimates are that between 1.15 and 2.41 million tons of plastic waste enter the ocean every year from rivers around the world. Natural habitats have become rare in urban rivers. River ecosystems built around piles of trash are not a good thing.

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As Plastic Pollution in Rivers Gets Worse, Species Are Increasingly Living on Litter

Photo, posted August 17, 2010, courtesy of Renee_McGurk via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Predicting Lightning Strikes

November 19, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Lightning is one of the most unpredictable phenomena in nature. Approximately 100 lightning bolts strike earth’s surface every second, and each lightning bolt can contain up to one billion volts of electricity. Lightning regularly kills both people and animals and sets homes and forests on fire. It’s also been known to ground airplanes.

Researchers at EPFL – a research institute and university in Switzerland – have developed a novel way to predict where and when lightning will strike. The system relies on a combination of standard data from weather stations and artificial intelligence to predict lightning strikes to the nearest 10 to 30 minutes and within a radius of less than 20 miles. The simple and inexpensive system was outlined in a research paper recently published in Climate and Atmospheric Science, a Nature partner journal.

According to researchers, the current systems for predicting lightning strikes are slow, expensive, and complex, relying on external data acquired by satellite and radar. The new inexpensive system from EPFL uses real time data that can be obtained from any weather station, meaning it can cover remote regions that are out of radar and satellite range and where communication networks are lacking. The quick predictions from the system allow alerts to be issued before a storm has even formed.

The system uses a machine-learning algorithm that’s been trained to recognize conditions that lead to lightning. The researchers took into account atmospheric pressure, air temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed, among other things. After training the algorithm, the system was able to predict lightning strikes accurately nearly 80% of the time.

This system is a simple way to predict a complex phenomenon.

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Using AI to predict where and when lightning will strike

Photo, posted December 14, 2018, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The ‘Biggest Ever’ Arctic Expedition

October 3, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Arctic is warming faster than any other region on Earth. In fact, it’s warming at a rate of almost twice the global average. And, since what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic, the world is already feeling the effects: rising sea levels, changes in climate and precipitation patterns, increasing severe weather events, and so on.

As a result, researchers from more than a dozen countries have launched the biggest and most complex expedition ever attempted in the Arctic. They plan to freeze Germany’s largest research vessel, the Polarstern, into Arctic sea ice, where it will remain trapped for twelve months. The ship will drift with the sea ice as the sea ice drifts. The vessel will serve as a research laboratory, hosting a rotating crew of 300 scientists. The ice, the ocean, the atmosphere, and even the wildlife will all be sampled. This year-long journey will give researchers their closest look at how the polar climate and its fragile ecosystems are changing.

Led by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate project (or MOSAiC) is expected to cost about $150 million.

One major goal of MOSAiC is to improve strikingly uncertain climate projections for the Arctic. Climate models disagree on how much more the Arctic will warm as the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere rises and sea ice shrinks. Some project a 5ºC rise by 2100 relative to the 1986-2005 average. Others predict a 10ºC increase.

Understanding the complex processes occurring in the Arctic is essential for projecting the future impacts of climate change.

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Climate scientists prepare for largest ever Arctic expedition

Climate change: Polarstern leaves for ‘biggest ever’ Arctic expedition

Image courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Degraded Permafrost In The Arctic

July 11, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Permafrost is defined as rock or soil that has been at or below the freezing point of water for two or more years. Most of it is located in high latitudes in and around the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Permafrost covers nearly a quarter of the exposed land in the Northern Hemisphere.

Permafrost can contain many different materials including bedrock, sediment, organic matter, water and ice. Because of the presence of organic matter, permafrost is potentially the source of significant methane emissions if it thaws and the trapped biomass begins to rot.

A recent study looked at the results of 30 years of aerial surveys and extensive ground mapping of an area of Canada’s high Arctic polar desert known as the Eureka Sound Lowlands. This area has an extremely cold climate and the permafrost there is over 1/3 of a mile thick. It has long been assumed that this landscape was stable.

Research led by McGill University in Montreal has found that this is not the case. The increases in summer air temperatures seen in recent years are initiating widespread changes in the landscape.

A particular landform known as a retrogressive thaw slump that forms when ice within permafrost melts and the land slips down is widely occurring in the area. The absence of vegetation and layers of organic soil in these polar deserts make permafrost in the area particularly vulnerable to increases in summer air temperatures.

The research indicates that despite the cold polar desert conditions that characterize much of the high Arctic, the interaction between ice-rich permafrost systems and climate factors is complex and the links between global warming and permafrost degradation are not well understood.

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Widespread permafrost degradation seen in high Arctic terrain

Photo, posted August 11, 2018, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Building For Climate Change

May 13, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The manifestations of climate change are creating increasingly familiar images: floodwaters rising up house windows, charred buildings in the wake of wildfires, and homes and businesses demolished by storm winds. As these sorts of calamities become ever more common, changes to how houses are built are going to be necessary.

How can homes become more resilient against severe and unpredictable weather?

Research at Carlton University’s Sprott School of Business looks at this issue.

As an example, houses can be framed and finished in certain ways that help protect them from wind and flooding. But such methods are currently only happening in the custom-build fringes of the housing sector. Widespread adoption will require, at the minimum, significant changes to building codes.

Revising building codes is not an easy matter. The codes themselves are highly technical and complex, and beyond that, the process Is often politicized.

Even simple things like hurricane ties, which are small pieces of hardware that prevent a roof from lifting during a severe wind are not now included in building codes. Insurance companies support their use as inexpensive protection for houses. But even though the overall cost is relatively minor, the building industry pushes back at the additional expense.

The need to reduce carbon emissions has created a push for sustainable housing. But the increasingly erratic weather means that houses also need resilience and adaptation. These features will inevitably add costs and incorporating them into building codes requires producing convincing business cases.

The U.S. experienced 394 natural catastrophe events last year costing $225 billion in damage. Finding ways to make homes and businesses more resilient is not just a good idea; it is essential.

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How to Start Weather-Proofing Homes for Unpredictable Weather

Photo, posted June 12, 2008, courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Value Of Biodiversity

July 16, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

It is often said that biodiversity is crucial for staving off extinctions. Ecosystems are complex and are essentially defined by the interdependencies among the various animals and plants. It stands to reason that removing species from an ecosystem can have significant effects up and down the food chain. Extinctions are much more likely when biodiversity diminishes.