Category: Earth
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Invasive grasses are worsening bushfires across Australia’s drylands
by Andrew Edwards, Christine Schlesinger, Ellen Ryan-Colton, Greg Barber and Peter Jacklyn, The Conversation Credit: CC0 Public Domain As the semi-arid Pilliga Scrub burns in New South Wales, many of us are thinking about fire once again. It’s an El Niño summer in the hottest year on record. And there’s a remarkable amount of grass…
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Researchers reveal linkage between wildfire activity and abrupt climate events during the Holocene
Comparison of extreme wildfire activity recorded from Qinghai Lake sediments with Holocene climatic events. Credit: Hao et al As a major Earth system component, wildfire plays an important role in the Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems and climate system, with significant impacts on the atmosphere, radiation effects, vegetation, surface properties, global biogeochemical cycles and human survival. Understanding…
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Rising and Rebuilding on a Lava Flow
Upper: Photo captured on February 13, 2016 (before the eruption) from an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. Lower: Photo captured on August 18, 2023, from an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. Two years after the eruption of Cumbre Vieja in the Canary Islands, some roads have been reconstructed. An astronaut aboard the International…
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A new map shows all above-ground biomass in the Brazilian Amazon
Distribution of above-ground biomass in the Amazon in metric tons per hectare. Riparian vegetation along watercourses can be seen to correspond to lower biomass density. Credit: Jean Pierre Ometto Publication of a new map showing all the above-ground biomass in the Brazilian Amazon is good news in the context of the severe crisis afflicting the…
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Air pollution reductions during pandemic lockdown open up a way to preserve the Himalayan glaciers, says study
by Tilo Arnhold, Leibniz-Institut für Troposphärenforschung e. V. The impacts of reduced pollution on snow brightening in the Himalayas and reduced surface water runoff, as observed during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown period. Credit: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (2023). DOI: 10.5194/acp-23-10439-2023 Reducing air pollution to levels similar to those during the coronavirus pandemic could protect the…
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Volcanic eruption lights up Iceland after weeks of earthquake warnings—a geologist explains what’s happening
The location of the fissure where magma erupted starting Dec. 18, 2023, a few miles from the town of Grindavík and just east of Svartsengi power plant and ajacent Blue Lagoon thermal spa. Credit: Icelandic Met Office Lava erupted through a fissure in Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula on Dec. 18, 2023, shooting almost 100 feet (30…
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Scientists uncover link between ocean weather and global climate, using mechanical rather than statistical analysis
This illustration by Benjamin Storer shows oceanic weather systems (mesoscale eddies) from data overlaid with atmospherically driven climate-scale currents (black lines), which can be extracted with a coarse graining technique developed in the lab of Hussein Aluie. The image reveals how these ocean weather systems are energized (red) or weakened (blue) when interacting with climate-scales,…
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Emissions and evasions in the battle against climate change
Sentiment-topic frequency distribution across the groups. A heatmap illustrating the distribution of high-frequency sentiment-topics for the social medial communications of the 8 fossil fuel firms (industry), 8 intergovernmental organizations (IGO), and 14 non-governmental organizations (NGO). Details of the tweet username and top five associated words are presented in Supplementary Tables 1 and 2, respectively. This…
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Number of people affected by tropical cyclones has increased sharply since 2002
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The number of people affected by tropical cyclones has nearly doubled from 2002 to 2019, reaching nearly 800 million people in 2019, according to a new study. While more people are affected by tropical cyclones in Asia than any other region, every affected world region saw an increase in the number…
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How long will the volcanic eruption in Iceland last? It depends how much magma needs to come out, expert says
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain The signs started appearing in early November, and people waited anxiously as earthquakes and ground swells indicated a volcanic eruption near Grindavik, Iceland, was imminent. Monday night, the volcano erupted. But the waiting game continues. “I think we’re less than 24 hours in after the actual eruption so it’s early days…