A new study has found that, contrary to previous claims, the ocean is not a significant source of microplastics to the atmosphere, but rather a major sink.&nbsp;



The research team used a global chemical transport model to evaluate how tiny plastic particles, known as microplastics, move around the world. 



The finding challenges past assumptions about the ocean’s role in releasing plastic fragments into the air.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-journey-of-airborne-microplastics-nbsp">The journey of airborne microplastics&nbsp;</h2>



Plastic debris in dust form is increasingly recognized as a worldwide contaminant. <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/microplastics-in-the-brain-alarming-new-details-revealed/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Microplastics</a> (particles less than 5 mm in diameter) have been detected in soils, freshwater, the ocean, and even in the air that we breathe.&nbsp;



Scientists warn that microscopic plastic bits pose risks for human health, since they can easily enter the respiratory system and the bloodstream.&nbsp;



Once airborne, these tiny pieces can travel large distances and eventually settle in remote or sensitive regions, harming wildlife and potentially impacting human populations.



But how do these particles enter the atmosphere in the first place? The planet’s primary sources of microplastics are typically found on land, from everyday materials such as vehicle tires shedding particles on roads, or synthetic clothing fibers washed out in domestic wastewater.&nbsp;



However, earlier models had suggested that there might be an additional large source at sea. Microplastics often accumulate in the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/microplastics-pose-a-greater-threat-to-some-ocean-animals/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">oceans</a>, carried there by rivers and other waterways. Then, once present in the marine environment, it was believed that they could be lofted into the air by sea spray or wind-driven wave action.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-is-the-ocean-s-contribution">What is the ocean's contribution?</h2>



Prior reports pointing to a large marine source relied on an inverse modeling technique. That method uses atmospheric measurements of particular substances and attempts to infer their origin by matching observed concentrations with predicted distributions.&nbsp;



Applied to microplastics, inverse modeling suggested the ocean might contribute hundreds of millions - or even billions - of kilograms of these fragments to the air each year.



Such massive figures were then tested experimentally, with scientists using wave tanks and other controlled setups to see how vigorously wave action or bursting bubbles could transfer plastics from the water surface into the atmosphere.&nbsp;



Those studies, however, hinted that only tens or hundreds of thousands of kilograms of plastic might plausibly be introduced into the air - orders of magnitude smaller than the figures derived from inverse modeling.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-global-chemical-transport-model">A global chemical transport model</h2>



In an effort to reconcile these contradictory outcomes, a group led by researchers at the <a href="https://mpimet.mpg.de/en/homepage" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Max Planck Institute for Meteorology</a> (MPI-M) ran a global chemical transport model. This computer model simulates the movement of substances, such as microplastic particles, through the atmosphere.&nbsp;



By prescribing a minor oceanic emission of microplastics - consistent with the low estimates from laboratory work - they were able to predict how microplastic concentrations should appear in the air at various locations around the globe.



The results aligned well with real-world measurements. Based on the model, the ocean in fact took up some of these airborne particles instead of emitting them in large quantities.&nbsp;



The scientists learned that rather than being a source, the ocean appeared to be a sink, in which 15 percent of all airborne microplastics are deposited.&nbsp;



In other words, waves, spray, and wind may occasionally lift small amounts of plastic out of the sea, but far more of the material is settling onto the water rather than emanating from it.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-airborne-microplastics-travel">How airborne microplastics travel</h2>



The study also uncovered the significant influence of particle size on how microplastics travel. Larger plastic fragments drop out of the atmosphere relatively quickly, often landing in coastal areas or not far from their point of emission.&nbsp;



By contrast, smaller particles can remain suspended for up to a year. That extended flight time allows them to cross entire oceans or continents and reach distant regions such as the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/citizen-scientists-uncover-microplastics-in-the-remote-arctic/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Arctic</a>, where they land on ice or snow.



These discoveries highlight the global character of plastic contamination, showing that microplastic dust can be widespread in places typically considered pristine.&nbsp;



They also clarify that stopping microplastic pollution at its land-based sources may be the most efficient approach, as the ocean itself is neither the greatest emitter nor the root cause.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-roadmap-for-pollution-reduction">A roadmap for pollution reduction</h2>



Given that airborne microplastics reach faraway corners of the planet, the research team’s results have immediate practical value. Any broad plan to cut plastic pollution should focus on terrestrial origins: tire wear on roads, textiles shedding fibers, and insufficiently treated wastewater.&nbsp;



Additionally, lessening single-use plastics and improving waste management at landfills can help limit microplastics before they disperse into the environment.



These findings show that ocean waters, already burdened by plastic accumulations, are predominantly sinks - taking in plastic particles from the air. They also emphasize that microplastics do not stay put in the environment: large ones settle nearby, while smaller ones can travel global distances.&nbsp;



Future models aimed at <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/plastic-pollution-is-changing-the-entire-earth-system/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">plastic pollution</a> will need to consider these dynamics in more detail, particularly when mapping out strategies to protect vulnerable ecosystems, reduce human exposure, and maintain cleaner oceans.



By settling this debate over whether the ocean is more of a source or a sink, scientists can now direct their attention to mitigating the true origins of airborne microplastics, thus improving targeted policies to help address this pressing environmental concern.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41612-025-00914-3" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">npj Climate and Atmospheric Science</a>.



-----



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Airborne microplastics: Where they come from and where they go

A new study has found that, contrary to previous claims, the ocean is not a significant source of microplastics to the atmosphere, but rather a major sink.&nbsp; The research team used a global chemical transport model to evaluate how tiny plastic particles, known as microplastics, move around the world. The finding challenges past assumptions about the ocean’s role in releasing plastic fragments into the air. The journey of airborne microplastics&nbsp; Plastic debris in dust form is increasingly recognized as a worldwide contaminant. Microplastics (particles less than 5...

Ocean acidification makes it harder for sea snails to escape from their sea star predators, according to a study from the University of <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=california&amp;form=EDGEAR&amp;qs=PF&amp;cvid=eca5e46bc2af4ceeab26513c95f76f45&amp;cc=US&amp;setlang=en-US&amp;elv=AY3%21uAY7tbNNZGZ2yiGNjfNcV7JLaCA2lHOMI7gGhmWqR8js%214i8xM*eWrfAF0M2pxIfeVSk5lDyzbg%211Ucspj88SJ6hO5RN3ciR8CUnDoEj&amp;plvar=0&amp;PC=HCTS">California</a>, Davis.

The findings, published in the journal Proceedings of The Royal Society B, suggest that by disturbing predator-prey interactions, ocean acidification could spur cascading consequences for food web systems in shoreline ecosystems. <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/ocean-biodiversity-has-remained-stable-for-over-500-million-years/">Ocean</a> acidification is changing the rules for predators

For instance, black turban snails graze on algae. If more snails are eaten by predators, algae densities could increase. Ocean acidification is changing the rules for predators

"Ocean acidification can affect individual marine organisms along the Pacific coast, by changing the chemistry of the seawater," said lead author Brittany Jellison, a Ph.D. student studying marine ecology at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory.

"But it can also alter how species interact, such as by impairing the ability of prey to avoid predators," she said.

Sea star and snail interactions under ocean acidification

Jellison and colleagues from the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory collected ochre sea stars and black turban snails -- two common species along the Pacific coastline -- from tide pools on the Bodega Marine Reserve. In lab tanks, they explored interactions between the sea stars and snails under 16 different levels of seawater pH, or acidity, ranging from present levels to those expected for rocky intertidal pools by the year 2100.

The scientists found that lower pH levels, which indicate higher acidity, did not slow the snails' movements or reduce their ability to sense the predatory sea stars. However, the more acidic waters did impair the snails' escape response.

Tipping point

Usually, when a black turban snail senses an ochre sea star, it quickly crawls up and out of the tide pool to avoid it, as sea stars rarely leave the water to eat. But when pH levels fell to 7.1 or below, the snails failed to fully implement their escape response. Neither did the snails recover their escape response when the water's acidity fluctuated between normal and more acidic levels.

The pH levels that spur these behavioral changes already occur in tide pools and are expected to become more frequent in coming decades.

More research is needed to understand why the snails show a degraded escape response, or if they may adapt to more acidic ocean conditions in the future.

More CO2, more ocean acidification

One-third of carbon dioxide emitted by humans enters the oceans, making seawater more acidic, the study noted.

Rocky tide pools may operate as an indicator for future ocean conditions. They experience pH levels that are predicted for the open ocean later. Models project a 0.3-0.4 drop in the global average of ocean pH by 2100.

"Dozens of West Coast species display escape responses to sea stars," said senior author Brian Gaylord, a professor of evolution and ecology at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory and Jellison's faculty adviser. "We don't yet know the extent to which ocean acidification could alter these additional predator-prey interactions, but there is clear potential for broader disruption of links within shoreline food webs."
###
The study's co-authors, all affiliated with the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory, include graduate student Aaron Ninokawa, Professor Tessa Hill of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Coastal Marine Science Institute, and professors Eric Sanford and Brian Gaylord of the Department of Evolution and Ecology.

The study was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, California Sea Grant and UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory.

Ocean acidification is changing the rules for predators

Ocean acidification makes it harder for sea snails to escape...

Climate study finds direct correlation between humans and greening. A multinational team led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory Climate Change Science Institute has found the first positive correlation between human activity and greening.

The research team, led by Jiafu Mao of the Ecosystem Simulation Science group in the Environmental Sciences Division, used new environmental data and strict statistical methods to discover a significant human-vegetation interaction in the northern extratropical latitudes, the section of the planet spanning 30 to 75 degrees north, roughly between the Tropic of Cancer and the North Frigid Zone above the Arctic Circle. Climate study finds direct correlation between humans and greening

"This is the first clear evidence of a discernible human fingerprint on physiological vegetation changes at the continental scale," Mao said.

With the absence of long-term observational records and suitable Earth system model (ESM) simulations, the human "touch" on northern latitude greening had not been previously identified. The team used two recently available 30-year-long leaf area index data sets, 19 ESM simulations and a formal "detection and attribution" statistical algorithm to positively attribute changes in vegetation activity in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere to anthropogenic forcings, or human-induced climate inputs such as well-mixed greenhouse gas emissions.

Leaf area index -- the ratio of leaf surface area to ground area -- is an indicator of vegetation growth and productivity derived from satellite imaging. The remote-sensing-based LAI datasets and ESM simulations showed a significant "greening" trend over the northern extratropical latitudes vegetated area between 1982 and 2011, indicating increased vegetative productivity.

When Mao and his colleagues accounted for internal climate variability and responses to natural forcings such as volcanic eruptions and incoming solar radiation, it was clear that the greening was inconsistent with simulations of purely natural factors and could only be explained by anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcings, particularly elevated carbon dioxide concentrations.

This anthropogenic greening effect has the potential to alter natural processes on a planetary scale. Continent-wide changes in vegetative productivity, such as those in the study, impact energy exchanges, water use and carbon budgets, accelerating or slowing the pace of climate change.

Accurate detection and attribution of changes in vegetation growth patterns are essential for strategic decision-making in ecosystem management, agricultural applications and sustainable development and conservation. This is the first time the detection and attribution algorithm has been applied to terrestrial ecosystem changes such as leaf area index trends, as it is typically used to study physical climate data such as extreme events and variations in temperature or precipitation.

Mao would like to see these long-term regional- and global-scale observational data sets used in similar studies as they become available. He says the detection and attribution algorithm could be applied to study broad-scale terrestrial ecosystem dynamics, and the framework developed for this study could be used to identify and correct potential errors in next-generation ESM simulations.
###
The study and its results are reported in the article "Human-induced greening of the northern extratropical land surface" in Nature Climate Change. Other ORNL participants and coauthors were Xiaoying Shi, Peter Thornton, Dan Ricciuto and Forrest Hoffman.

This study was supported by the DOE Office of Science.

ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE's Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit <a href="http://science.energy.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">science.energy.gov</a>.

Image: <a href="https://www.ornl.gov/sites/default/files/news/images/greening_figure_copy.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.ornl.gov/sites/default/files/news/images/greening_figure_copy.jpg</a>

Caption: Earth system models simulate Northern Hemisphere greening. Figure shows the spatial distribution of leaf area index trends (m2/m2/30yr) in the growing season (April-October) during the period of 1982-2011 in the mean of satellite observations (top), Earth system model (ESM) simulations with natural forcings alone (lower left) and ESM simulations with combined anthropogenic and natural forcings (lower right).

Climate study finds direct correlation between humans and greening

Climate study finds direct correlation between humans and greening. A...

University of Delaware study shows temperature warming may have reached a tipping point

Adélie penguin population being decimated by climate change. Climate has influenced the distribution patterns of Adélie penguins across <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/antarctic-ice-loss-sea-level/">Antarctica</a> for millions of years.

The geologic record shows that as glaciers expanded and covered Adélie breeding habitats with ice, penguin colonies were abandoned. When the glaciers melted during warming periods, this warming positively affected the Adélie <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin">penguins</a>, allowing them to return to their rocky breeding grounds.

But now, University of Delaware scientists and colleagues report that this beneficial warming may have reached its tipping point.

In a paper published today (June 29) in Scientific Reports, the researchers project that approximately 30 percent of current Adélie colonies may be in decline by 2060 and approximately 60 percent may be in decline by 2099.

"It is only in recent decades that we know Adélie penguins population declines are associated with warming, which suggests that many regions of Antarctica have warmed too much and that further warming is no longer positive for the species," said the paper's lead author Megan Cimino, who earned her doctoral degree at UD in May.

Co-authors on the work include Matthew Oliver, principal investigator on the project and Patricia &amp; Charles Robertson Professor of Marine Science &amp; Policy in UD's College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment; Heather J. Lynch, assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University; and Vincent S. Saba, a research fishery biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service.

Declining populations

The Adélie penguin is a species that breeds around the entire Antarctic continent. The species is experiencing population declines along the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), which is one of the most rapidly warming places on Earth, while Adélie populations in other areas around the continent where the climate is stable or even cooling remain steady or increasing.

The researchers' objective was to understand the effects of climate change on Antarctic Adélie penguin colonies. The study builds on previously published work by Oliver's research team to better understand Antarctica's shifting ecosystem by tracking penguins and their habitats. The current work used satellite data and global climate model projections to understand current and future population trends on a continental scale.

"Our study used massive amounts of data to run habitat suitability models. From other studies that used actual ground counts--people going and physically counting penguins-- and from high resolution satellite imagery, we have global estimates of Adélie penguin breeding locations, meaning where they are present and where they are absent, throughout the entire Southern Ocean. We also have estimates of population size and how their populations have changed over last few decades," explained Cimino, now a postdoctoral scholar at Scripps Institute of Oceanography.

"When we combined this data with satellite information and future climate projections on sea surface temperature and sea ice, we can look at past and future changes in Adélie penguin habitat suitability," Cimino said.

Funded through the NASA Biodiversity program, the study is based on satellite observations from 1981-2010 of sea surface temperature, sea ice and bare rock locations, and true presence-absence data of penguin population estimates from satellite imagery.

In particular, the researchers examined the number of years from 1981-2010 with novel or unusual climate during the Adélie penguin chick-rearing period from past satellite observations and used an ensemble of global climate models to make predictions about Adélie penguin habitat suitability from 2011-2099. The team validated the models with documented population trends.

The study results suggest that climate novelty, particularly warm sea surface temperature (SST), is detrimental to Adélie penguins. While the specific mechanisms for this relationship remain unknown, the study focuses attention on areas where climate change is likely to create a high frequency of unsuitable conditions during the 21st century.

Lynch noted that "One of the key advances over the last decade is our ability to find penguin colonies from space and, nearly as important, to determine which areas of Antarctica do not support penguin colonies. Having both true presence and absence across a species' global range is unique to this system, and opens up new avenues for modeling habitat suitability."

Refugia offer a glimmer of hope

According to Cimino, the southern WAP, associated islands and northern WAP regions, which are already experiencing population declines, are projected to experience the greatest frequency of novel climate this century due to warm SST. This suggests that warm sea surface temperatures may cause a decrease in the suitability of chick-rearing habitats at northerly latitudes.

"Matt and I have worked extensively at Palmer Station and we know that penguin colonies near there have declined by at least 80 percent since the 1970s. Within this region we saw the most novel climate years compared to the rest of the continent. This means the most years with warmer than normal sea surface temperature. These two things seem to be happening in the WAP at a higher rate than in other areas during the same time period," Cimino said.

By contrast, the study also suggests several refugia -- areas of relatively unaltered climate -- may exist in continental Antarctica beyond 2099, which would buffer a species-wide decline. Understanding how these refugia operate is critical to understanding the future of this species.

"The Cape Adare region of the Ross Sea is home to the earliest known penguin occupation and has the largest known Adélie penguin rookery in the world. Though the climate there is expected to warm a bit, it looks like it could be a refugia in the future, and if you look back over geologic time it was likely a refuge in the past," Cimino said.

The researchers reported that climate change impacts on penguins in the Antarctic will likely be highly site specific based on regional climate trends, and that a southward contraction in the range of Adélie penguins is likely over the next century.

"Studies like this are important because they focus our attention on areas where a species is most vulnerable to change," concluded Cimino. "The results can be used for management; they can have implications for other species that live in the area and for other ecosystem processes."

--

<a href="http://www.udel.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">University of Delaware</a>

Adélie penguin population being decimated by climate change

University of Delaware study shows temperature warming may have reached...

New cameras are keeping an eye on Western wildfires. As the summer Western wildfire season heats up, a growing network of online cameras installed on forested mountaintops is changing the way crews fight fires by allowing early detection that triggers quicker, cheaper and more tactical suppression.
The network of roughly 20 high-definition cameras being installed around the Lake Tahoe region can pan, tilt and zoom into fires. They can rotate 360 degrees. And the cameras even have night vision to supplement human lookouts that only work during daylight hours.
"At night, it becomes real easy to see a fire. Just a few days ago, we could see a fire from northern Nevada into Oregon, about 100 miles away, and it wasn't hard to see at all," said Graham Kent, director of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory and a professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.
"We know from last year with lightning strikes, it can be just one or two trees on fire and it looks like a Roman candle," he said. New cameras are keeping an eye on Western wildfires
Scientists with the University of Nevada, Reno, who built the system, are trying to teach the cameras to recognize fire and smoke and send an alert.
At the command tower, dispatchers monitor and operate the cameras remotely. The feeds should help dispatchers make more efficient decisions when it comes to deploying resources.
The cameras will augment - not replace - human fire spotters who climb high towers armed with only a radio and binoculars, scanning the forest for faraway smoke, fire officials say.
They hope to install the internet-ready cameras throughout California and other Western states.
At a seismological meeting earlier this year, the cameras were credited with the discovery of six fires and provided early intelligence on more than two dozen fires last summer, Kent said.
© 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

New cameras are keeping an eye on Western wildfires

New cameras are keeping an eye on Western wildfires. As...

Herbicides were widely used on federal lands. University of Montana researchers are giving the public its first look at the widespread use of herbicides on federal and tribal land in North America, and they urge land managers to better document it.

Herbicides originally were developed to suppress weeds in crop agriculture. Today, they also are widely used in natural areas or “wildlands” to control non-native plants, which have arrived from other regions and can cause considerable ecological and economic harm.

While the magnitude of herbicide usage is well-documented for croplands, this new study is the first to reveal the amount of herbicides sprayed on wildlands.

UM researchers Viktoria Wagner and Cara Nelson, along with ecologists Pedro Antunes of Algoma University and Michael Irvine of Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, discovered that more than 1.2 million acres of U.S. federal and tribal wildlands were sprayed with about 200 tons of herbicide in 2010.

“The numbers are much less than those for croplands, but they are astonishing,” said Wagner, a former UM postdoctoral researcher who led the study. “Imagine: The wildland area sprayed by herbicides in that year is comparable to 930,630 football fields, and the amount of herbicides used equals the weight of 13 school buses.”

Wagner said this amount is a conservative estimate, however, because data were not available for U.S. Forest Service land. The researchers used a survey to reach governmental offices and agro-statistical companies in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

“It involved a lot of emails and phone calls to get the data we wanted,” Wagner said, “but the effort was worthwhile.”

The study also exposed that glyphosate ranked as one of the most commonly used active ingredients.

“This finding was unexpected because glyphosate is a nonselective herbicide that harms grasses and herbs alike and thus has a higher potential to negatively affect desired native plants,” Wagner said.

The researchers link glyphosate’s wide popularity to its chemical properties, low price and low usage restrictions. Nelson, an associate professor in UM’s Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Science, said information about herbicide usage is critical for effective wildand management, and that study results indicate the need to improve methods of monitoring its use and effects.

“Well-designed studies on the efficacy and effects of herbicides on native plant communities, coupled with increased reporting of herbicide usage, would assist with developing best practices for effectively and safely using herbicides to manage non-native plants in wildlands,” Nelson said.

The study was supported by a grant of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry and the Invasive Species Centre, and by a postdoctoral fellowship to Wagner from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. It is published in the Journal of Applied Ecology at <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.12711/full">http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.12711/full</a>.

For more information on the research, email Wagner at <a href="mailto:viktoria.wagner@cfc.umt.edu">viktoria.wagner@cfc.umt.edu</a> or Nelson at <a href="mailto:cara.nelson@umontana.edu">cara.nelson@umontana.edu</a>.

Herbicides were widely used on federal lands

Herbicides were widely used on federal lands. University of Montana...

El Niño could drive intense fire season in the Amazon. The long-lasting effects of El Niño are projected to cause an intense fire season in the Amazon, according to the 2016 seasonal fire forecast from scientists at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA">NASA</a> and the University of <a href="http://www.earth.com/image/shasta-lake-northern-california/">California,</a> Irvine.

El Niño conditions in 2015 and early 2016 altered rainfall patterns around the world. In the Amazon, El Niño reduced rainfall during the wet season, leaving the region drier at the start of the 2016 dry season than any year since 2002, according to NASA satellite data.El Niño could drive intense fire season in the Amazon

Wildfire risk for the dry season months of July to October this year now exceeds fire risk in 2005 and 2010, drought years when wildfires burned large areas of Amazon rainforest, said Doug Morton, an Earth scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who helped create the fire forecast.

"Severe drought conditions at the start of the dry season set the stage for extreme fire risk in 2016 across the southern Amazon," Morton said.

The Amazon fire forecast uses the relationship between climate and active fire detections from NASA satellites to predict fire season severity during the region's dry season. Developed in 2011 by scientists at University of California, Irvine and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the forecast model is focused particularly on the link between sea surface temperatures and fire activity. Warmer sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific (El Niño) and Atlantic oceans shift rainfall away from the Amazon region, increasing the risk of fires during dry season months.

The team also uses data on terrestrial water storage from the joint NASA/German Aerospace Center (DLR) Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission to follow changes in groundwater during the dry season. GRACE measurements serve as a proxy for the dryness of soils and forests.

[caption id="attachment_2400590" align="alignleft" width="150"]<img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-2400590" src="http://cff1.greenatom.net/uploads/2016/06/29185433/soil-water-storage-map_1big_NASA-150x150.jpg" alt="greater soil water deficits in 2016" width="150" height="150" /> greater soil water deficits in 2016[/caption]

The NASA and UC-Irvine scientists have worked with South American official and scientists to make them aware of the forecast in recent years. Liana Anderson, a Brazilian scientist from the National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters (CEMADEN), said that "fire forecasts three to six months before peak fire activity are important to identify areas with higher fire probability for integrated planning in support of local actions."

For 2016, El Niño-driven conditions are far drier than 2005 and 2010 - the last years when the region experienced drought. The team has also developed a web tool to track the evolution of the Amazon fire season in near real time. Estimated fire emissions from each forecast region are updated daily, based on the relationship between active fire detections - made by the Moderate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite - and fire emissions data from the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED) in previous years. So far, however, the region has seen more fires to date than those years, another indicator that aligns with the fire severity forecast.

"When trees have less moisture to draw upon at the beginning of the dry season, they become more vulnerable to fire, and evaporate less water into the atmosphere," said UC-Irvine scientist Jim Randerson, who collaborated with UC-Irvine scientist Yang Chen on building the forecast model. "This puts millions of trees under stress and lowers humidity across the region, allowing fires to grow bigger than they normally would."

Fires in the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/deforestation-amazon-beef-consumption/">Amazon</a> have local, regional, and long-distance impacts. Agricultural fires that escape their intended boundaries can damage neighboring croplands and Amazon forests. Even slow-moving forest fires cause severe forest degradation, as Amazon rainforest trees are not adapted to fire. Together, intentional fires for agricultural management, deforestation, and wildfires generate massive smoke plumes that degrade regional air quality, exacerbating problems with asthma and respiratory illness. Smoke from Amazon fires eventually flows south and east over major urban centers in southern Brazil, including São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, contributing to air quality concerns.

While scientists have been working with South American officials to broadcast the results of the fire forecasts and increase awareness of fire risk, they also said that the work could lead to better wildfire forecasts in other regions of the world. The team recently identified 9 regions outside the Amazon where fire season risk can also be forecast 3-6 months ahead of peak fire activity. It may be possible to build operational seasonal fire forecasts for much of Central America and for many countries in Southeast Asia, Randerson said.

--

<a href="http://www.nasa.gov" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NASA</a>

El Niño could drive intense fire season in the Amazon

El Niño could drive intense fire season in the Amazon....

Gender-specific species responses to global warming.For the valerian plant, higher elevations in the Colorado Rocky Mountains are becoming much more co-ed. For the valerian plant, higher elevations in the Colorado Rocky Mountains are becoming much more co-ed. And the primary reason appears to be climate change.

In a study appearing in Science, University of California, Irvine environmental biologists Kailen Mooney and Will Petry and colleagues report that an altering climate over the past four decades has significantly changed the growth patterns of male and female Valeriana edulisover elevation. Their work is the first to fully explain sex-specific species responses to climate change.Gender-specific species responses to global warming

Valerian is dioecious, meaning individuals are either male or female. Unlike the majority of flowering plants, these cannot self-fertilize. Other well-known dioecious species include asparagus, ginko, papaya, holly, spinach, pistachio, willow and aspen.

In the Colorado Rockies, the sex ratio of valerian populations traditionally changed with climate from low elevation (50 percent male), where it's hot and dry, to high elevation (only 20 percent male), where it's cool and wet. At the highest elevations, the rarity of pollen-releasing males reduces the number of seeds produced by female plants.

Now all that's changing. Over the past 40 years, tests conducted through the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Crested Butte, Colo., have revealed the region to be warming and drying to such a degree that each valerian population across the elevation gradient is now experiencing a climate that was historically found at a much lower elevation.

Mooney and Petry said their study shows that as the drier, warmer climate moves "up slope," so do the arid-adapted males, shifting the sex ratios. Because of this, populations in which males were formerly rare now experience less mate limitation, enabling females to successfully produce more seed.

"Nearly all animals and many plants have separate males and females, and they almost always differ in characteristics that affect how they interact with the environment," said Petry, who earned a Ph.D. in ecology &amp; evolutionary biology at UCI this spring. "Understanding the responses of both sexes is important, because each sex must find mates of the opposite sex to reproduce, and no past work has connected ecological differences between males and females to their responses to climate change and the subsequent consequences for populations."

These elevation-based patterns of sex ratio change are due, at least in part, to a physiological difference in how males and females use water.

While the increase in males has led to flourishing valerian growth at higher altitudes, an excess of males at low elevations may ultimately result in population declines. In this way, the plants' sex-specific responses to climate change may cause the species to shift to higher elevations.

Furthermore, fluctuations in the relative abundance of valerian males and females may also have repercussions for species associated with this plant, as the two sexes support different communities of insects.

"Most past work documenting ecological responses to climate change has focused on range shifts of whole species," said Mooney, an associate professor of ecology &amp; evolutionary biology. "In our study, we instead looked at a species characteristic - the population sex ratio. We're discovering that males and females respond to climate change differently and that the pace at which this species characteristic responds to climate change is unprecedentedly fast - about 10 times the average rate that species ranges are moving in response to a changing climate."
###
Judith Soule, Amy Iler, Ana Chicas-Mosier and David Inouye of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory and Tom Miller of Rice University contributed to the study, which received support from the National Science Foundation (grants DEB-1457029 and DEB-1407318).

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is the youngest member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 30,000 students and offers 192 degree programs. It's located in one of the world's safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County's second-largest employer, contributing $5 billion annually to the local economy. For more on UCI, visit <a href="http://www.uci.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www.uci.edu</a>.

Gender-specific species responses to global warming

Gender-specific species responses to global warming.For the valerian plant, higher...

Scientists: World will not reach goal of keeping warming below 2 degrees celsius. The latest comprehensive analysis of national plans to address climate change after 2020 shows the world will not reach its target of keeping warming to below 2 degrees celsius off pre-industrial levels.

Instead, the globe could suffer a median rise of between 2.6 and 3.1C by 2100 according by the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) submitted in preparation for the 2015 climate talks in <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/inconsistent-paris-agreement-pledges/">Paris.</a>

While it is an improvement from current policy and no-policy scenarios, it still falls short of the 2C target, not to mention the hopeful goal of 1.5C warming.

Study co-author Associate Professor Malte Meinshausen, the Director of the Australian-<a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=germann&amp;cvid=85f50693b436408096d46bc7349711c8&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">German</a> <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=climate+change&amp;cvid=0f54e4db24684a029535c7249b109197&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">Climate</a> and Energy College within the Faculty of Science at the University of Melbourne, said the world will not keep its promise of limiting global warming to below 2C and 1.5C without boosting ambition. Scientists: World will not reach goal of keeping warming below 2 degrees celsius

"The international community achieved unparalleled success with the Paris Agreement -- charting out the common path towards a zero carbon economy in the second half of the century," he said. Scientists: World will not reach goal of keeping warming below 2 degrees celsius

"But national policies now have to follow the international momentum."

He attended the Paris talks and is one of the world's most respected climate policy scientists.

Associate Professor Meinshausen and his research team looked over 189 INDCs for the study -- submitted both before and after the Paris summit -- and analysed the aggregate reduction in greenhouse gases*.

The INDCs are not finite and can be amended until the point when the Paris agreement is ratified and then every five years as part of the agreement's 'ratcheting-up' mechanism.

Despite the current INDCs being insufficient, the study also indicates that the 2°C target is still achievable.

To get the world onto an economically efficient 2°C pathway, the study points to additional initiatives in the solar energy, wind energy, forestry and methane sectors, targets for the international aviation and maritime transport sectors and development of sustainable biomass in combination with carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Helping countries implement bold conditional targets would also assist.

"The challenges associated with departing from the fossil fuel path is one side of the coin," Associate Professor Meinshausen said.

"But there is an immense opportunity on the horizon, if Australia embraces a vision of becoming an energy superpower in a zero carbon world."
###
The study, which involved an international team of scientists from Austria, Germany, China, the Netherlands, Switzerland, South Africa, Brazil and Australia, has been published in latest edition of the journal Nature.

Scientists: World will not reach goal of keeping warming

Scientists: World will not reach goal of keeping warming below...

Plants need more nitrogen to combat climate change. Plants can grow faster as atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase, but only if they have enough nitrogen or partner with fungi that help them get it, according to new research published this week in Science.

The study was led by César Terrer Moreno, a Ph.D. student at Imperial College London, and included researchers from <a href="http://www.nau.edu" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Northern Arizona University</a>, the University of Antwerp (Belgium), Indiana University and New South Wales University (Australia).

The team synthesized more than 80 past experiments and found that higher CO2 boosted plant growth, as long as the plants received enough nitrogen. Without added nitrogen, CO2 had no effect, confirming the long-standing idea that nitrogen limits plant response to rising CO2. But there was a major exception: some plants--those with specialized partnerships with soil fungi--were able to respond to the extra CO2, just as much as if they had been fertilized with nitrogen. Plants need more nitrogen to combat climate change

"Nitrogen and mycorrhizae are like the X-factors in plant responses to CO2," said Bruce Hungate, Director of NAU's Center for Ecosystem Science and Society and Regents' Professor of Biological Sciences, who was a co-author on the study. "Rising CO2 is not a universal fertilizer, but neither is nitrogen limitation a universal restriction on the CO2 response. The truth is in the middle, and microbes are the key mediators," Hungate said.

Most plants associate with mycorrhizal fungi, a partnership in which the fungus provides the plant with nutrients and water and receives food from the plant in return. But not all mycorrhizae are the same. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi specialize in taking up phosphorus from the soil, but not nitrogen, and plants that associated with arbuscular mycorrhizae were unable to respond to CO2 unless extra nitrogen was added. It was the plants that form ectomycorrhizal partnerships that responded to extra CO2 without any added nitrogen fertilizer, because these fungi produce enzymes that liberate bound nitrogen from soil organic matter, and the fungi can take up the nitrogen and pass some along to the plant.

This synthesis helps resolve a long-standing debate about the role of nitrogen limitation for plant responses to CO2. Without enough nitrogen, it is thought that plants will be unable to respond much to rising CO2, and many experiments support this idea. But in some experiments where nitrogen is in short supply, the plants still grow more with elevated CO2, and the reasons have puzzled scientists for many years. The new synthesis offers a clear answer: "Plants need nitrogen to respond to high CO2, whether they find it readily available in the soil, or whether their mycorrhizal partners can help them get it," explained Hungate.

The research should help project climate change into the future. Forests, grasslands and other ecosystems around the world currently absorb about 30 percent of human CO2 emissions, without which climate change would be happening even faster than it is now. The future of this terrestrial carbon sink depends on carbon accumulation by ecosystems through plant growth. This new research shows that it is essential to take into account mycorrhizal fungi, and suggests that the next generation of global carbon cycle models should include mycorrhizae as an important control point on plant responses to rising CO2 in the atmosphere. It is well known that grasses and herbs form arbuscular mycorrhizae, and that many trees form ectomycorrhizae. Since global carbon cycle models already recognize these different plant forms, adding mycorrhizae to models of the carbon cycle should be straightforward, and the team is already moving toward that goal.

Plants need more nitrogen to combat climate change

Plants need more nitrogen to combat climate change. Plants can...

Fukushima disaster and the oceans: What do we know, 5 years on?. A major international review of the state of the oceans 5 years after the Fukushima disaster shows that radiation levels are decreasing rapidly except in the harbour area close to the nuclear plant itself where ongoing releases remain a concern. At the same time, the review's lead author expresses concern at the lack of ongoing support to continue the radiation assessment, which he says is vital to understand how the risks are changing.

These are the conclusions of a major 5 year review, with multi-international authors who are all working together as part of a <a href="http://www.whoi.edu/CMER/rio5-working-group" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) Working Group</a>. The report is being presented at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference in Japan. The review paper is also published in Annual Review of Marine Science*. The main points made by the report are:
<ul>
 	<li>The accident. The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 led to the loss of power and overheating at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plants (FDNPP), causing extensive releases of radioactive gases, volatiles and liquids, in particularly to the coastal ocean. The radioactive fall-out on land is well-documented, but the distribution of radioactivity in the seas and onto the wider oceans is much more difficult to quantify, due to variability in the ocean currents and greater difficulty in sampling.</li>
 	<li>Initial release of radioactive material. Although the FDNPP accident was one of the largest nuclear accidents and unprecedented for the ocean, the amount of 137Cs released was around 1/50th of that released by the fall out of nuclear weapons and 1/5th that released at Chernobyl. It is similar in magnitude to the intentional discharges of 137Cs from the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant Sellafield.</li>
 	<li>Initial fallout. The main release of radioactive material was the initial venting to the atmosphere. Models suggest that around 80% of the fallout fell on the ocean, the majority close to the FDNPP. There was some runoff from the land, peaking around 6 April 2011. There is a range of estimates of the total amount of 137Cs release into the ocean, with estimates clustering around 15-25 PBq (PetaBecquerel, which is 1015 Becquerel. One Becquerel is one nuclear decay per second). Other radioisotopes were also released, but the focus has been on radioactive forms of Cs given their longer half-lives for radioactive decay (134Cs = 2 yrs; 137Cs = 30 yrs) and high abundance in the FDNPP source.</li>
 	<li>Distribution in water. Cs is very soluble, so it was rapidly dispersed in the ocean. Prevailing sea currents meant that some areas received more fall-out than others due to ocean mixing processes. At its peak in 2011, the 137Cs signal right at the FDNPP was tens of millions of times higher than prior to the accident. Over time, and with distance from Japan, levels decrease significantly. By 2014 the 137Cs signal 2000km North of Hawaii was equivalent to around six times that remaining from fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests from the 1960's, and about 2-3 times higher than prior fallout levels along the west coast of N. America. Most of the fallout is concentrated in the top few hundred metres of the sea. It is likely that maximum radiation levels will be attained off the North American coast in the 2015-16 period, before declining to 1-2 Bq per cubic metre (around the level associated with background nuclear weapon testing) by 2020. Sea-floor sediments contain less than 1% of the 137Cs released by the FDNPP, although the sea-floor contamination is still high close to the FDNPP. The redistribution of sediments by bottom-feeding organisms (more common near the coast) and storms is complex.</li>
 	<li>Uptake by marine life. In 2011, around half the fish samples in coastal waters off Fukushima had radiocesium levels above the Japanese 100Bq/kg limit, but by 2015 this had dropped to less than 1% above the limit. High levels are still found in fish around the FDNPP port. High levels of 131I were measured in fish in April 2011, but as this has a short radioactive half-life, it is now below detection levels. Generally, with the exception of species close to the FDNPP, there seem to be little long-term measurable effects on marine life.</li>
 	<li>Risk to Humans. The radiation risk to human life is comparatively modest in comparison to the 15,000 lives were lost as a result to the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. So far, there have been no direct radiation deaths. The most exposed FDNPP evacuees received a total dose of 70 mSv, which (if they are representative of the general population) would increase their lifetime fatal cancer risk from 24% to 24.4%. However, there are still over 100,000 evacuees from the Fukushima area, and many industries such as fishing and tourism have been badly hit.</li>
</ul>
Lead author, Dr. Ken Buesseler (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA) said:

"This report pulls together much of the academic, industry and government studies to form a more complete picture of the amount of radioactivity released, its fate and transport in the ocean, whether we should be worried or not, and what can be predicted for the future. Overall, the results show a trend of decreasing radiation risk in oceans themselves and to marine life. This is generally true, except for the harbour at Fukushima NPP. The highest remaining oceanic contamination remains in seafloor sediments off coast of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan">Japan</a>.

Despite this, we are still concerned that there is little support to continue assessments as time goes by, in particular from the US federal agencies which have not supported any ocean studies. This is not good, as public concern is ongoing, and we can learn a lot even when levels go down in the environment, and are no longer of immediate health concern".

Prof. Bernd Grambow, Director of SUBATECH laboratory, Nantes, France and leader of the research group on interfacial reaction field chemistry of the ASRC/JAEA, Tokai, Japan, commented: "This report is an excellent summary of the impact and the fate of the release of radioactive substances to the ocean. While the distribution and impact of <a href="http://www.earth.com/video/how-to-remove-radioactive-waste-from-water/">radioactive</a> material becomes clearer with time, a lot of work still needs to be done. Discharge flux rates of Cs-137 to the ocean continue to be in the range of some TBq/yr. Forest and soil bound Cs-137 is only slowly being washed away, with waste piles accumulating in many places

The evolution of transfer mechanisms and the flux of radioactive material through soils, plants and food chain from land to ocean are still insufficiently understood and still deserve close attention of the international scientific community."

Fukushima disaster and the oceans: What do we know, 5 years on?

Fukushima disaster and the oceans: What do we know, 5...

Ocean circulation slowed with every cooling during last ice age

Ocean circulation may cause abrupt climate changes. There was a period during the last ice age when temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere went on a rollercoaster ride, plummeting and then rising again every 1,500 years or so. Those abrupt climate changes wreaked havoc on ecosystems, but their cause has been something of a mystery. New evidence published this week in the leading journal Science shows for the first time that the ocean's overturning circulation slowed during every one of those temperature plunges - at times almost stopping.

"People have long supposed this link between overturning circulation and these abrupt climate events. This evidence implicates the ocean," said L. Gene Henry, the lead author of the study and a graduate student at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth">Earth</a> Observatory.

The impact of changes in the ocean overturning circulation on climate has become a hot topic today as global temperatures rise and melting sea ice and glaciers add freshwater to the North Atlantic. A 2015 study suggested that cooling in the <a href="http://www.earth.com/image/phytoplankton-blooms-persist-in-the-north-atlantic-ocean/">North Atlantic</a> may be due to a reduction in the overturning circulation, while a 2016 study suggested there had not been enough freshwater to have an effect.

The new study explores what happened to ocean circulation when the earth went through a series of abrupt climate changes in the past during a time when ice covered part of North America and temperatures were much colder than today. It looks at the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, which distributes heat as it moves warmer surface water from the tropics toward Greenland and the high northern latitudes and carries colder, deeper water from the North Atlantic southward.

Using chemical tracers in sediment that builds up on the sea floor over time, Henry and his coauthors were able to document the relative speed of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation during each abrupt climate change during the last ice age.

The chemical tracers show that the speed of the ocean overturning circulation changed first, and that sea surface temperature changed a while later. That suggests that cooling may start with changes in the ocean circulation, influencing the northern sea surface and atmosphere, said co-author Jerry McManus, a professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Evidence from ice cores and deep-sea sediment has shown that the northern climate also cooled before the southern climate during these abrupt changes, creating a "bipolar seesaw," with the north cool while the south was warm, and the south cooling as the north warmed.

The scientists stress that more work is needed to determine whether changes in ocean circulation initiated the abrupt climate changes or were an intermediary effect initially triggered by something else. "Our study supports the view that changes in ocean circulation were at least in part responsible for causing abrupt climate changes. However, what in turn caused those changes in circulation remains a mystery," Henry said.

Also unclear is why these abrupt climate shifts, also seen in previous ice ages, haven't happened in the past 10,000 years. The instability appears to occur only in certain temperature ranges, and when there is a large amount of land ice that could contribute freshwater.

"We would all like to understand better how the earth's climate operates," McManus said. "This demonstrates the crucial role that global circulation can play. The dynamics of the deep ocean directly influence the earth's climate."

The series of abrupt climate changes studied here occurred between 60,000 and 25,000 years ago, ending as the last ice age peaked. Each followed a general pattern in the Northern Hemisphere: The cooling happening over hundreds to 1,000 years, then the frigid temperatures persisted for a few hundred years in what is known as a stadial, McManus said. Once warming started, it happened very rapidly, with a rise of 3 to 6 degrees Celsius in average sea surface temperature and larger changes over Greenland within a span of decades.

During every cold northern stadial, the overturning circulation had slowed, so it wasn't bringing as much heat northward from the tropics and Southern Hemisphere, the study shows. The chemical tracers also suggest that circulation slowed almost to a halt during certain stadials known as Heinrich events, when massive amounts of icebergs broke off and drifted away from the Laurentide ice sheet, which covered a large part of North America at the time. Icebergs carry freshwater that can affect ocean circulation, and computer models have suggested that adding that much freshwater to the Atlantic could shut down circulation. Exactly what influence the icebergs had during these periods will be the target of future research.

To determine how ocean circulation changed, the scientists measured three types of chemical tracers. By comparing the ratio of protactinium-231 to thorium-230, two daughter isotopes of uranium decay that remain in seawater for relatively short but consistently different periods of time before drifting into the seafloor, they could determine when circulation was strongest. Another isotope, carbon-13, captured in tiny shells, is more common in North Atlantic waters than in southern waters. When circulation was strong, protactinium was low and carbon 13 was high, because more protactinium was carried away by the current and more northern waters formed.

Axel Timmermann, a professor of oceanography at the University of Hawaii who studies abrupt climate changes and was not involved in this study, called it a "breakthrough analysis."

"Large changes in the North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation are thought to have played a major role in generating millennial-scale global variability, known as Dansgaard-Oechger events, during the last glacial period. The paper by Henry, McManus and colleagues finally provides supporting evidence for this fundamental scientific hypothesis," Timmermann said.
###
The other coauthors of the paper are Bill Curry of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences; Natalie Roberts and Alex Piotrowski of the University of Cambridge; and Lloyd Keigwin of Woods Hole. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Comer Science and Education Foundation, and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Climate Center.

The paper, "North Atlantic ocean circulation and abrupt climate change during the last glaciation," is available from the authors or from Science: 202-326-6440 or <a href="mailto:scipak@aaas.org">scipak@aaas.org</a>.

Ocean circulation may cause abrupt climate changes

Ocean circulation slowed with every cooling during last ice age...

<div>
<div class="img-wrapper"></div>
A variety of normally harmless bacteria can cause bleaching disease in seaweeds when the seaweeds become stressed by high water temperatures, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA">UNSW</a> Australia researchers have discovered.

Seaweeds are the "trees" of the ocean, providing vital habitat, food and shelter for many species of fish and other coastal marine <a href="http://www.earth.com/video/tiny-marine-organisms-may-affect-ocean-mixing/">organism</a>, such as crayfish and abalone.

"A lot of attention has been paid to coral bleaching, but seaweeds are also affected by temperature-related diseases," says study senior author UNSW's Dr Suhelen Egan.

"In most cases, the infectious agents that cause the diseases are unknown. Improving our understanding these disease processes is not only important for maintaining a healthy marine environment; it also has economic significance, given that seaweeds are increasingly being cultivated as sources of food and feed-stock for biofuels."

The study, by Dr Egan's team at the UNSW Centre of Marine Bio-Innovation, is published in the journal Environmental Microbiology.

The researchers collected samples of healthy and diseased red alga, Delisea pulchra, from about 8 metres under the water at different locations on the Sydney coastline. The diseased seaweeds had undergone natural bleaching, in which areas of pigment are lost.

"Bleaching reduces the ability of the seaweed to photosynthesise and harvest energy from the sun, and to reproduce. It also makes them more susceptible to grazing by fish and other herbivores in the ocean," says Dr Egan.

The researchers isolated microbes that were in greater abundance on the diseased seaweeds and cultured them. They then tested the ability of these microbes to cause bleaching disease in seaweeds in the laboratory.

"We were surprised to identify three very different kinds of bacteria which are usually present in low numbers on seaweeds, but which we now know can all cause the same bleaching disease," says Dr Egan.

"We also found that the usual balance of microbes was disturbed on the diseased seaweeds, with a lower diversity of microbes present than normal.

"We believe these kinds of opportunistic pathogens are more common in marine environment than had been realised before. They seize the chance to cause disease when the host is stressed, in the same way that normally harmless, common bacteria can cause disease in people who have weakened immune systems."

The three newly identified pathogens that cause the bleaching disease are members of the Alteromonas, Aquimarina and Agarivorans genera.
###
Media contact:

Dr Suhelen Egan
612-9385-8569
<a href="mailto:s.egan@unsw.edu.au">s.egan@unsw.edu.au</a>

UNSW Science media f officer
Deborah Smith
61-478-492-060
<a href="mailto:deborah.smith@unsw.edu.au">deborah.smith@unsw.edu.au</a>

</div>

Bacteria can cause bleaching disease in seaweeds

A variety of normally harmless bacteria can cause bleaching disease...

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.igb.illinois.edu/">Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology</a> reveals how scientists can modify common crops like soybean, rice, and wheat to protect them from heat stress.



“We need to double crop production by 2050 to feed a growing global population, and not only are we not on track to do that, but climate change is further complicating things,” said Amanda Cavanagh, a lecturer at the University of Essex. 



The study is part of Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE), an international research project that aims to develop food crops that turn the sun’s energy into food more efficiently.



“Using an engineering approach we designed multiple alternative metabolic pathways to photorespiration. Testing them in the field showed increases in productivity which led Amanda to significantly move the project forward by showing our engineered plants can withstand pretty extreme temperature stress,” said study co-author and RIPE researcher Paul South.&nbsp;



“As the climate changes and temperature stresses increase the pressure on our global food supply, farmers will need every tool available including engineering approaches like the synthetic biology used here to maintain safe and productive harvests.”



The experts tested plants modified to have more efficient photorespiration to see if they were better adapted to warmer temperatures.&nbsp;



The team found that the engineered plants produced 26 percent more biomass than the wild-type plants exposed to the same temperatures, and had 15 percent less yield loss under the higher temperatures.



Video Credit: Amanda Nguyen/University of Illinois



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Designing crops that can beat the heat

[sendtonews key="QGPzYnXEtN-1712599-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from Carl...

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes the first comprehensive estimate of carbon density in the Saharan, Sahel, and Sudanian zones of Africa. In an effort to measure the amount of carbon stored across these drylands, a team of scientists used high-resolution satellite images and artificial intelligence to map nearly 10 billion individual trees. 



"The high spatial resolution (50 cm) combined with AI and field measurements used in this study is key to improving tree inventories in drylands," said Pierre Hiernaux, a French researcher working for NASA. "The ever-increasing availability of very high-resolution satellite imagery will make it possible to assess carbon pools and their dynamics at the individual tree level on a global scale."



"This study is exceptional because it is pioneering a type of approach that will revolutionize the monitoring of trees and forests on a global scale: in the short term, it will be possible to map the world's trees from the centre of the Amazon to our schoolyards," said <a href="https://www.inrae.fr/en">INRAE</a> researcher Jean-Pierre Wigneron.



"Many fields of application will become much more efficient and accurate, such as tracking carbon stocks, biodiversity, monitoring logging and protection against illegal forest degradation, in near real time.”



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Remote sensing will revolutionize the way we monitor trees

[sendtonews key="EjmSP20gQK-2593093-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

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Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky" Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features northwest Lesotho in South Africa.



According to ESA, Lesotho is the only nation in the world that lies completely above 1,000 m in elevation. The country is famous for its tall mountains and narrow valleys, and is known as Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky."



Out of a population of around two million people, about 80 percent live in rural areas. More than 75 percent of these people are engaged in <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-change-will-have-a-global-impact-on-agriculture/">agriculture</a>, including rainfed cereal production and animal grazing.&nbsp;



ESA reports that the country’s agricultural system faces a growing number of issues, with climate-related vulnerabilities such as drought, floods and extreme temperatures occurring more frequently. 



Diamonds are amongst the minerals found in the mountains. Indeed, Lesotho can truly be called the Kingdom in the Sky. Beautiful, culturally rich, safe, affordable, and easily accessible from Durban and Johannesburg, mountainous Lesotho is a vastly underrated travel destination. the Kingdom of Lesotho (Sotho: 'Muso oa Lesotho) is an enclaved country in southern Africa. It is just over 30,000 km2 (11,583 sq mi) in size and has a population of around 2 million.



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 



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Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky"

[sendtonews key="uV9Lh2fQbV-1760058-12187" type="single"] Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky" Today’s...

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> features a visual dataset of.methane emissions from wetlands across the globe. Atmospheric methane levels have reached record highs in recent years, and wetlands are a major source of these emissions.&nbsp;



"Methane is an important greenhouse gas that contributes substantially to global warming. On a molecule by molecule basis, methane is much more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, the main driver of warming," says NASA.



"Though human activities, including agriculture, oil and natural gas production and use, and waste disposal, collectively contribute the majority of methane to the atmosphere, about a third of total methane emissions comes from wetlands."&nbsp;



According to NASA, understanding methane emissions from wetlands and other natural sources is critically important for scientists and policymakers who are working to combat climate change by reducing emissions from human activities.



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Wetlands are a major source of methane emissions

[sendtonews key="f8fukm28Vz-2491833-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> reveals the evolution of the Columbia Glacier in southeastern Alaska. Columbia is among the fastest shrinking glaciers in the world, and the video documents its rapid retreat over the years.&nbsp;



Columbia Glacier is a large, multi-branched calving glacier that flows out of the Chugach Mountains to the Prince William Sound.&nbsp;



According to USGS, Columbia had a long history of stability prior to 1980, with a length 41 miles, and small, short-lived advances or retreats.



In the years since 1980, however, satellite images have captured Columbia’s alarming retreat. By using false-color images, scientists can distinguish between snow and ice, open water, vegetation, and rocky debris on the glacier’s surface.



The series of false-color images featured in today's video were acquired over the span of 35 years. You can see that by 2021, the glacier’s main branch had retreated about 15 miles from its initial position.



The Columbia Glacier has also lost more than 50 percent of its volume, mostly due to calving. <a href="https://www.earth.com/video/nasa-reveals-3d-visual-of-an-atmospheric-river/">NASA</a> reports that while climate change likely started the retreat, mechanical processes kept the disintegration going.



The NASA images are provided by Jesse Allen, Robert Simmon, Joshua Stevens, and Lauren Dauphin using data from Landsat satellites, from the U.S. Geological Survey, and data from MODIS on NASA’s Terra satellite. The structure of Columbia’s moraine played a large role in the stability of the glacier before 1980. 



Like other tidewater glaciers, the Columbia built up a moraine over time, and the mixture of ice and rock functioned like a dam keeping out the sea. It was supported on one end by the shoreline and by the underwater terminal moraine at the other.



Video Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/&nbsp; NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes how record-breaking heat expressed itself around the world in 2022.



Scientists have determined that 2022 was the 5th warmest year since 1880. Furthermore, the last nine consecutive years have been the warmest on record.



From devastating floods and wildfires to natural disasters like Hurricane Ian, 2022 showed us yet again how a warming climate affects people across the globe.&nbsp;



"As we look back at 20:22 and years past, we see that each year we better understand the challenges we face and how important it is to meet them," says NASA.



Video/ Image Credit: NASA Goddard



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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2022 illustrated the consequences of a warming climate

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Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes Earth’s interconnected systems, and how this network is affected by rising temperatures.&nbsp;



During 2020, average global temperatures matched the hottest year on record. The hurricane season was also record-breaking, with many of the storms intensifying at extraordinary speeds. Hot water in the ocean is fuel for hurricanes. The satellite data shows that it's all one interconnected system showing how Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected.



According to NASA, dust swept up from Northern Africa plays a major role in the formation of hurricanes, and is also a key source of fertilization in the Amazon rainforest. As a result of<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/seagrass-wasting-disease-is-fueled-by-climate-change/"> climate</a> change, dust plumes are expected to decline, which will have an effect on vegetation far away.&nbsp;



Images from Earth-observing satellites show how the world’s plant life is affected by natural disasters, fires, and deforestation. Satellites also reveal how widespread changes in vegetation impact waterways,&nbsp; the climate, air quality. Satellites communicate by using radio waves to send signals to the antennas on the Earth. "Earth From Space" is a groundbreaking two-hour special that reveals a spectacular new space-based vision of our planet. 



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://welcome.miami.edu/">University of Miami</a> Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science explores how changes in water temperatures have affected tiger shark habitats and movements in the North Atlantic Ocean. The study reveals that rising temperatures have caused the sharks to shift toward the poles over the past 40 years.



“Tiger shark annual migrations have expanded poleward, paralleling rising water temperatures,” explained study lead author Neil Hammerschlag. “These results have consequences for tiger shark conservation, since shifts in their movements outside of marine protected areas may leave them more vulnerable to commercial fishing.”



The researchers analyzed nine years of tracking data from satellite-tagged tiger sharks, combined with four decades of conventional tag and recapture data provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Cooperative Shark Tagging Program.



The experts found that during the last decade of record heat, for every one-degree Celsius increase in water temperatures, tiger sharks migrated further poleward by over 400 kilometers. They also migrated two weeks earlier than usual to waters off the northeastern coast of the United States.



“Given their role as apex predators, these changes to tiger shark movements may alter predator-prey interactions, leading to ecological imbalances, and more frequent encounters with humans,” concluded Professor Hammerschlag.



Video Credit: University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Tiger sharks are shifting poleward as temperatures rise

Today’s Video of the Day from the University of Miami...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> is focused on the melt ponds that emerge during the spring and summer on the Greenland Ice Sheet, which is the largest ice mass in the northern hemisphere.



"Melt ponds are vast pools of open water that form on both sea ice and ice sheets and are visible as turquoise-blue pools of water in this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image," says ESA.



"When snow and ice melts atop glaciers, water flows in channels and streams and collects in depressions on the surface. These melt ponds can speed up the melting of the surrounding ice since they greatly reduce the ice’s ability to reflect sunlight."



"This can create a positive feedback where an increasing number of melt ponds absorb more heat which causes ice cover to melt even faster."



According to ESA, Greenland has been hit with a late-season heatwave that began in early September. This caused the type of melt event that usually occurs in the middle of summer.



"In a recent paper published in Nature Climate Change, scientists found that major sea-level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice cap is now ‘inevitable’ even if the burning of fossil fuels were to halt overnight," says ESA. "Using satellite observations of Greenland ice loss and ice cap from 2000 to 2019, the team found the losses will lead to a minimum rise of 27 cm regardless of climate change."



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Melt ponds on the Greenland Ice Sheet

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes how Earth is unique in our solar system for its ability to sustain liquid water on its surface. But now, the water cycle is shifting as the climate warms, and scientists must find ways to predict how these changes will affect water availability.



Overall, 96 percent of Earth's water is saltwater, and nearly all of freshwater is found in ice and groundwater. These sources of water are linked as it passes through solid, liquid and gas phases.



In a warmer climate, the water cycle will be transformed. It will be easier for water to evaporate and form clouds, and storms will become more frequent and intense. Some regions will get too much water, while others will be left without enough water. In addition, soil moisture will be lost - which threatens food security.



Scientists are using satellite data from over the last 40 years to track changes that are happening in the water cycle. This will ultimately help us prepare for extreme events and better manage our water resources, according to ESA.



Video Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Tracking changes in Earth's water cycle

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Saturn,-,High,Resolution,3d,Images,Presents,Planets,Of,The

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a> features images of Saturn from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The photographs capture the start of the mysterious "spoke season" on Saturn - when unexplained features appear on its rings. 



According to NASA, both the cause of the spokes and their seasonal variability have yet to be fully explained by planetary scientists.



"Like Earth, Saturn is tilted on its axis and therefore has four seasons, though because of Saturn's much larger orbit, each season lasts approximately seven Earth years. Equinox occurs when the rings are tilted edge-on to the Sun," explains NASA.



"The spokes disappear when it is near summer or winter solstice on Saturn. (When the Sun appears to reach either its highest or lowest latitude in the northern or southern hemisphere of a planet.) As the autumnal equinox of Saturn's northern hemisphere on May 6, 2025, draws near, the spokes are expected to become increasingly prominent and observable."



Experts believe that the spokes may be a product of the planet's variable magnetic field. When magnetic fields interact with solar wind, an electrically charged environment is created. This phenomenon is visible on Earth as the northern lights.&nbsp;



"Scientists think that the smallest, dust-sized icy ring particles can become charged as well, which temporarily levitates those particles above the rest of the larger icy particles and boulders in the rings," says NASA.



The spokes were first observed in the early 1980s by NASA's Voyager mission. Depending on the angle of the rings, the spokes can appear dark or light.



"Thanks to Hubble's OPAL program, which is building an archive of data on the outer solar system planets, we will have longer dedicated time to study Saturn’s spokes this season than ever before," said NASA senior planetary scientist Amy Simon, head of the Hubble Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program.



"Despite years of excellent observations by the Cassini mission, the precise beginning and duration of the spoke season is still unpredictable, rather like predicting the first storm during hurricane season."



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Mysterious "spoke season" captured on Saturn

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Closeup,Of,Fresh,Green,The,Napier,Bush,Grass,As,Animal

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="http://www.ntu.edu.sg/">NTU Singapore</a> reveals that some plants can remove toxic heavy metals from soil.&nbsp;



The researchers analyzed samples of various tropical plant species to test for levels of heavy metals and metalloids. The study showed that there are existing plants with high levels of these contaminants, which means that these species are great candidates for drawing pollutants out of the soil.&nbsp;



Among the plants examined in the study, 12 species had accumulated several types of heavy metals and metalloids. These plants are widely available, including species that are native to Singapore.



“In a small nation like Singapore, land may be repurposed to support new development plans, so it is important that we have a green and sustainable way to remediate land that is contaminated," said Professor Lam Yeng Ming.



"We set out to uncover how to better make use of tropical plants to do phytoremediation and through advanced characterization techniques, we showed how some of these tropical plant species can be an environmentally friendly and literally a 'green' way to remove contaminants in soil."&nbsp;



"Phytoremediation also has benefits of cost effectiveness, simplicity of management, aesthetic advantages, and long-term applicability and sustainability. The strategy prevents erosion and metal leaching by stabilizing or accumulating heavy metals, so that helps reduce the risk of contaminant spread.”



Video Credit: NTU Singapore



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Plants help remove heavy metals from contaminated soil

[sendtonews key="6SdlLLbt0t-1988946-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from NTU...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> describes why herbicides are not as effective in killing weeds anymore. In the 20th century, chemical companies developed thousands of herbicides. The most commonly used herbicide was glyphosate, which was introduced in 1974.



Over the past few decades, dozens of species of weeds have evolved resistance to glyphosate. Depending on the site of action, the part of the plant that an herbicide interacts with, weeds may even be resistant to herbicides that have not been developed yet.&nbsp;



With increasing resistance to glyphosate and other herbicides, weeds are - once again - becoming a major concern for farmers.&nbsp;



Video Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Weeds are becoming increasingly resistant to herbicides

[sendtonews key="gRpsplpwpe-2251464-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/">NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory</a> (JPL) describes a dust storm on Mars that was nearly twice the size of the United States. As the storm covered the southern hemisphere of the planet, some of NASA’s explorers had to delay their normal activities.



NASA’s Insight lander put itself in a "safe mode" for 11 days to conserve battery power because solar power was disrupted by the dust. The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter postponed flights until conditions improved.



"A fleet of NASA orbiters monitor Martian dust storms like this one and serve as lifelines to Earth by relaying data from the rovers and lander on the ground back to the team. This includes the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, and Odyssey," reports JPL.



"Dust storms like this recent one start close to the ground and are spread by wind as they rise – warming the cold Martian atmosphere."



The images in the video were captured by NASA’s Curiosity as the dust rolled in. A fleet of orbiters monitored the dust storm from above, relaying data from Mars’ explorers back to scientists on Earth.



Video &amp; Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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NASA monitors giant dust storms on Mars

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="http://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz. This strait provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean.



Qeshm is separated from the Iranian coast by the Clarence Strait, also known as Khuran.&nbsp;The Hara Forest Protected Area is a network of shallow waterways and forest located between the island and the mainland. This protected region is home to sea turtles, snakes, and more than 150 species of migrating birds.



Qeshm is famous for its wide range of&nbsp;ecotourist&nbsp;attractions, such as the&nbsp;Hara marine forests. According to environmentalists, about 1.5 percent of the world birds and 25 percent of Iran's native <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/female-hummingbirds-avoid-sexual-harassment-by-looking-like-males/">birds</a> annually migrate to the forests, which are the first national geo park in Iran.



Tourists are also drawn to the island to see an age-old Portuguese&nbsp;fort, historic mosques, the&nbsp;Seyyed Mozaffar&nbsp;and&nbsp;Bibi Maryam&nbsp;shrines, and the "Valley of Stars."



The average temperature on the island is 81 degress and the region is often hot and humid. From June to August, the island is described as being oppressively hot. The ideal time to visit is during the winter season. 



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Inhambane Bay in southeast Mozambique.&nbsp;



"Inhambane Bay is a deep inlet into which the small Mutamba River flows," says ESA. "On one side of the bay lies the historical city of Inhambane, capital of the Inhambane Province, while the sister city of Maxixe, the economic capital of Inhambane, sits across from it. The province is the second largest grower of cashews, after Nampula, and it also produces coconut and citrus fruits."



The beaches of Barra and Tofo are popular with tourists. There are also coral reefs along the long coastline of Inhambane, making it an ideal destination for scuba diving and snorkeling.



"Mozambique’s extensive coastline heightens the country’s vulnerability to tropical cyclones that develop in the Indian Ocean as well as storm surge flooding," says ESA.



"More than half of the population lives in low lying coastal areas, putting communities at risk. Inhambane Bay was dangerously close to where Cyclone Idai made landfall in 2019 causing widespread destruction to the country."



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Inhambane Bay in southeast Mozambique

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency </a>&nbsp;features the Kangerlussuaq Glacier, one of the largest tidewater outlet glaciers in Greenland. The glacier is located on the east coast of the Greenland ice sheet.



As human-induced climate change continues to drive up temperatures, global ice loss is accelerating at an alarming rate. ESA reports that, over the past decade alone, 3.5 trillion tons of ice have melted from the Greenland ice sheet. This is enough to cover the UK with meltwater 15 meters deep.



Based on satellite imagery, researchers determined that Kangerlussuaq entered a new phase of rapid retreat and acceleration in 2017. In their study, published in <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2019.00123/full">Frontiers in Earth Science</a>,&nbsp; the experts report that the glacier's ice front is now at its most retreated position since the early 20th century.



"Given Kangerlussuaq’s previous impacts on both the magnitude and pattern of ice sheet wide mass loss, we predict that its new phase of retreat, acceleration and thinning will markedly enhance the south-east region’s contribution to increasing discharge from the ice sheet," wrote the study authors.&nbsp;&nbsp;



"More broadly, accurate forecasting of the ice sheet’s contribution to sea level rise will require a deeper understanding of, and responses to, these non-linear ice dynamic processes."



Video Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Kangerlussuaq Glacier on the Greenland ice sheet

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes the complex relationship between ocean and climate. ESA's Climate Change Initiative will help us understand how oceans influence the climate and how climate change is impacting the oceans.&nbsp;



"Earth’s oceans are huge heat stores, soaking up 93% of the excess heat from human activity over the past 70 years. Ocean currents redistribute heat around the planet, from the Equator to the poles. Where this ocean heat goes influences weather patterns and regional climate," explains ESA.



"As well as absorbing heat, oceans are a natural carbon sink, absorbing a quarter of carbon dioxide emissions from human activity. This has led to the acidification of ocean water, threating marine life."



The amount of heat and carbon dioxide soaked up by the ocean depends on specific variables, including phytoplankton, temperatures, waves, salinity, and ice cover. Satellites can be used to measure these variables from space.



"From their unique vantage point, satellites provide key information for understanding the complexities of our planet and monitoring environmental issues," says ESA.



Video Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Ocean heat influences regional climate

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes the importance of monitoring the shape of the sea surface, which is constantly changing. These observations have many applications, such as ship routing, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/the-modem-ocean-is-a-tough-place-for-whales-to-survive/">ocean</a> current forecasting, and debris tracking.



"A project supported by the Discovery element of ESA’s Basic Activities recently investigated a new technique to measure sea surface topography very precisely," reports ESA.



"The technique involves looking at satellite navigation (GNSS) signals that have been reflected off of the sea surface at very low angles. At these so-called grazing angles, waves and surface roughness have very little impact on the reflection process; the sea surface acts as a very smooth mirror."



Estel Cardellach is the principal investigator at the Institute for Space Studies of Catalonia, who first submitted the idea for the project.



“In a mirror-like reflection the phase of the signal can be tracked – it is continuous," said Cardellach. "Different surface heights result in different phase measurements. It gives a very precise measurement of the surface altitude at a few centimetres’ precision.”



The researchers developed a GNSS receiver and set up an experiment in the Balaeric Islands to collect signals from the receiver that were reflected off the sea surface. Ultimately, these signals will provide improved measurements of the shape of the sea surface.



Image/ Video Credit: ESA



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Monitoring the dynamic shape of the sea surface

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Aerial,Photo,Of,River,In,Amazon,Rainforest,Jungle,In,Peru

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center</a> describes how scientists are using autonomous sound sensors to monitor deforestation in the Amazon. By recording soundscapes, the experts can determine which animals are present through their distinct sounds.&nbsp;



Using this method, sounds can be used as scientific measurements to analyze the effects of deforestation. The researchers will gain a better understanding of how the acoustics of a forest can be used to measure its health.&nbsp;



"From space, parts of the Amazon rainforest that have previously been logged or burned may look lush and green, like a place buzzing with activity and full of sounds. But inside the rainforest, the animal life may tell a different story, of a harsh environment and a quieter soundscape," says NASA.



Video Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center&nbsp;



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Monitoring deforestation in the Amazon through sounds

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