If an extraterrestrial civilization existed with technology comparable to ours, would they be able to detect Earth and recognize evidence of human activity? If so, what signals would be most visible, and from how far away?



These thought-provoking questions have been explored in a new study led by Dr. Sofia Sheikh of the SETI Institute.



Using a theoretical, model-based approach, this research is the first to analyze multiple types of technosignatures - the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/searching-for-technosignatures-from-intelligent-life-in-the-cosmos/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">indicators</a> of advanced technology - together, rather than examining them separately. 



The results suggest that radio signals, particularly planetary radar emissions from the now-defunct Arecibo Observatory, would be the most detectable human-made signatures. These signals are potentially visible from as far as 12,000 light-years away.



Other signals, such as atmospheric pollutants, could also be detected, though at significantly shorter distances.&nbsp;



As observational technology continues to improve, scientists may be able to identify similar signatures on distant exoplanets, offering new ways to search for intelligent extraterrestrial life.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-earth-s-most-detectable-signals">Earth’s most detectable signals</h2>



Among all of the potential signals emanating from Earth, radio transmissions appear to be the most prominent on a galactic scale.&nbsp;



Radio telescopes remain the primary tool for <a href="https://www.seti.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SETI</a> (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) research, as scientists scan the skies for unnatural radio waves that might originate from advanced civilizations.&nbsp;



Given the strength of Earth's planetary radar emissions, researchers hypothesize that if extraterrestrials use similar technology to search for signals, Earth might stand out as a detectable world.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-exploring-atmospheric-technosignatures">Exploring atmospheric technosignatures</h2>



Beyond radio waves, the study explored atmospheric technosignatures, including <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/air-pollution-will-increase-dramatically-in-a-hotter-climate/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pollutants</a> such as nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) - a byproduct of industrial activity.&nbsp;



Recent advances in space-based instruments, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and the upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), could enable astronomers to detect such gases in exoplanet atmospheres.



According to the study’s findings, extraterrestrials equipped with similarly advanced telescopes could detect Earth's atmospheric pollutants from a maximum distance of 5.7 light-years, just beyond Proxima Centauri, the closest known exoplanetary system.



This suggests that industrial emissions could serve as an indirect way of identifying advanced civilizations. If scientists were to detect unusual levels of pollutants in an exoplanet’s atmosphere, it might hint at the presence of a technologically developed society.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-would-aliens-detect-on-earth">What would aliens detect on Earth?</h2>



As an observer approaches our planet, additional technosignatures become detectable. At closer distances, extraterrestrial astronomers would begin to detect multiple forms of human activity on Earth. 



City lights from urban centers could be visible from space. High-powered laser emissions used for communication, military applications, and scientific research would also be detectable. 



The thermal signature of cities, where artificial structures retain more heat than surrounding natural landscapes, would reveal urban heat islands. Additionally, the growing number of satellites and debris in Earth's orbit could be observed by advanced extraterrestrial telescopes.



Taken together, these overlapping signals would paint a compelling picture of an industrialized world, potentially making Earth one of the most recognizable planets to an alien observer.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-using-earth-as-a-cosmic-mirror">Using Earth as a cosmic mirror</h2>



The experts emphasized that understanding Earth’s own technosignatures is critical for refining the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. By identifying which of our own signals are most detectable, researchers can better anticipate what kinds of signatures to look for on <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/exoplanet-discovery-nasa-identifies-over-5500-distant-worlds/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">exoplanets</a>.



Study co-author Macy Huston is a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley’s Department of Astronomy.



“Our goal with this project was to bring SETI back 'down to Earth' for a moment and think about where we really are today with Earth's technosignatures and detection capabilities,” explained Huston.&nbsp;



“In SETI, we should never assume other life and technology would be just like ours, but quantifying what 'ours' means can help put SETI searches into perspective.”



Sheikh echoed a similar sentiment, emphasizing that studying Earth's own impact on its environment can provide valuable insights into how extraterrestrial civilizations might be identified.



“One of the most satisfying aspects of this work was getting to use SETI as a cosmic mirror: what does Earth look like to the rest of the galaxy? And how would our current impacts on our planet be perceived?” said Sheikh.



“While of course we cannot know the answer, this work allowed us to extrapolate and imagine what we might assume if we ever discover a planet with, say, high concentrations of pollutants in its atmosphere.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-future-of-technosignature-research">The future of technosignature research</h2>



SETI research has long focused on <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/are-aliens-sending-radio-signals-to-each-other/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">radio signals</a> as the primary method for detecting extraterrestrial intelligence, but this study demonstrates the importance of a multi-wavelength approach - examining different forms of technosignatures across the electromagnetic spectrum.



Current and future telescopes will improve detection sensitivity, allowing scientists to expand the search for life beyond Earth. Advanced observatories may eventually identify new atmospheric technosignatures, such as alternative industrial pollutants or artificial climate alterations.



Additionally, long-term studies tracking the evolution of Earth's technosignatures may provide fresh insights into how civilizations modify their environments over time.



As new space-based observatories come online and human activities continue to reshape Earth’s atmospheric composition, periodic reassessments of the planet's detectability could refine our approach to discovering extraterrestrial life.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-implications-of-the-nbsp-study">Implications of the&nbsp;study</h2>



Ultimately, this study highlights both the strengths and limitations of current SETI efforts. While Earth is highly detectable via radio waves, other technosignatures - such as pollution - would require relatively close proximity for extraterrestrials to observe.&nbsp;



As astronomers continue their search, understanding these limitations will help shape strategies for identifying distant technological civilizations.



Whether or not intelligent extraterrestrial beings are currently observing Earth, this research emphasizes the importance of looking outward to understand our place in the cosmos.



-----



Like what you read? <a href="https://www.earth.com/subscribe/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Subscribe to our newsletter</a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-ralls/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Eric Ralls</a> and Earth.com.



-----

If aliens could detect Earth, what would they see?

If an extraterrestrial civilization existed with technology comparable to ours, would they be able to detect Earth and recognize evidence of human activity? If so, what signals would be most visible, and from how far away? These thought-provoking questions have been explored in a new study led by Dr. Sofia Sheikh of the SETI Institute. Using a theoretical, model-based approach, this research is the first to analyze multiple types of technosignatures - the indicators of advanced technology - together, rather than examining them separately.  The results suggest...

Deep, old water explains why Antarctic Ocean hasn't warmed. The waters surrounding Antarctica may be one of the last places to experience human-driven climate change. New research from the University of Washington and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology finds that ocean currents explain why the Antarctic Ocean has stayed at roughly the same temperature while most of the rest of the planet has warmed.
<div>

The study resolves a scientific conundrum, and an inconsistent pattern of warming often seized on by climate deniers. Observations and climate models show that the unique currents around Antarctica continually pull deep, centuries-old water up to the surface - seawater that last touched Earth's atmosphere before the machine age, and has never experienced fossil fuel-related climate change. The paper is published May 30 in Nature Geoscience.

"With rising carbon dioxide you would expect more warming at both poles, but we only see it at one of the poles, so something else must be going on," said lead author Kyle Armour, a UW assistant professor of oceanography and of atmospheric sciences. "We show that it's for really simple reasons, and ocean currents are the hero here."

Gale-force westerly winds that constantly whip around Antarctica act to push surface water north, continually drawing up water from below. The Southern Ocean's water comes from such great depths, and from sources that are so distant, that it will take centuries before the water reaching the surface has experienced modern global warming.

Other places in the oceans, like the west coast of the Americas and the equator, draw seawater up from a few hundred meters depth, but that doesn't have the same effect.

[caption id="attachment_2392835" align="alignleft" width="150"]<img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-2392835" src="http://cff1.greenatom.net/uploads/2016/05/31091626/global-warming-map-150x150.jpg" alt="Observed warming over the past 50 years" width="150" height="150" /> Observed warming over the past 50 years[/caption]

"The Southern Ocean is unique because it's bringing water up from several thousand meters [as much as 2 miles]," Armour said. "It's really deep, old water that's coming up to the surface, all around the continent. You have a lot of water coming to the surface, and that water hasn't seen the atmosphere for hundreds of years."

The water surfacing off Antarctica last saw Earth's atmosphere centuries ago in the North Atlantic, then sank and followed circuitous paths through the world's oceans before resurfacing off Antarctica, hundreds or even a thousand years later.

Delayed warming of the <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/unexpected-region-of-east-antarctica-is-rapidly-melting/">Antarctic Ocean</a> is commonly seen in global climate models. But the culprit had been wrongly identified as churning, frigid seas mixing extra heat downward. The study used data from Argo observational floats and other instruments to trace the path of the missing heat.

"The old idea was that heat taken up at the surface would just mix downward, and that's the reason for the slow warming," Armour said. "But the observations show that heat is actually being carried away from Antarctica, northward along the surface."Deep, old water explains why Antarctic Ocean hasn't warmed

In the Atlantic, the northward flow of the ocean's surface continues all the way to the Arctic. The study used dyes in model simulations to show that seawater that has experienced the most climate change tends to clump up around the North Pole. This is another reason why the Arctic's ocean and sea ice are bearing the brunt of global warming, while Antarctica is largely oblivious.

"The oceans are acting to enhance warming in the Arctic while damping warming around Antarctica," Armour said. "You can't directly compare warming at the poles, because it's occurring on top of very different ocean circulations."

Knowing where the extra heat trapped by greenhouse gases goes, and identifying why the poles are warming at different rates, will help to better predict temperatures in the future.

"When we hear the term 'global warming,' we think of warming everywhere at the same rate," Armour said. "We are moving away from this idea of global warming and more toward the idea of regional patterns of warming, which are strongly shaped by ocean currents."
###
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA. Co-authors are Aaron Donohoe and Emily Newsom at the UW, and John Marshall and Jeffery Scott at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

For more information, contact Armour at <a href="mailto:karmour@uw.edu">karmour@uw.edu</a> or 206-221-4402.

</div>

Deep, old water explains why Antarctic Ocean hasn't warmed

Deep, old water explains why Antarctic Ocean hasn't warmed. The...

Scientists: More grassland burning needed to maintain ecosystem. Kansas State University researchers have found a three-year absence of fire is the tipping point for the tallgrass prairie ecosystem and advise an increase in burning.
<div>

A collaborative study, recently publish in Elsevier's journal, Rangeland Ecology and Management, suggests many land managers in the Flint Hills need to increase grassland burning frequency to more than once every three years to keep the tallgrass prairie ecosystem from transitioning to woodland. The study applied 40 years of data collected at Konza Prairie Biological Station, an 8,600-acre native tallgrass prairie jointly owned by Kansas State University and The Nature Conservancy, to satellite fire maps of the Flint Hills from 2000 to 2010. Scientists: More grassland burning needed to maintain ecosystem

The satellite data used in the study -- "Assessing the Potential for Transitions from Tallgrass Prairie to Woodland: Are We Operating Beyond Critical Fire Thresholds? " -- indicated at least 50 percent of the tallgrass prairie in the Flint Hills is burned every three to four years or less frequently and is susceptible to becoming shrubland. Fire intervals greater than 10 years apart or complete fire suppression have drastic effects -- particularly in the absence of grazing.

"In this area, if we completely exclude fire, the landscape can go from tallgrass prairie to a cedar forest in as little as 30-40 years," said John Briggs, director of Konza Prairie and one of the authors of the study. "Once it gets to that point, we are not confident that fire alone is going to bring that back."

According to Briggs, also a professor of biology, the tallgrass prairie is one of the most altered ecosystems in North America with only 4 percent remaining. The grasslands are conducive to cattle ranching and provide economic stability for the area. Native grasses filter freshwater, prevent soil erosion, provide wildlife habitat for grassland birds like the prairie chicken, and mitigate nutrient loading. Briggs also said that if woody vegetation increases near human settlements, so will the chances of dangerous wildfire.

"We knew some areas around the Flint Hills were beyond these fire thresholds but we were still surprised how much of the region is susceptible to shrub and tree expansion," said Zak Ratajczak, the study's lead author and Kansas State University doctoral alumnus.

Ratajczak, now a National Science postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia, started comparing the results from the Konza Prairie fire experiments with the fire maps from K-State's geography researchers as part of his doctoral studies at Kansas State University. Assisting with the study were Doug Goodin, professor of geography, Lei Luo, master's student in geography, and Jesse Nippert, associate professor of biology, all from Kansas State University; Rhett Mohler, <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/nine-states-obesity-rate/">Kansas State</a> University alumnus and assistant professor of geography at Saginaw Valley State University; and Brian Obermeyer, director of The Nature Conservancy's Flint Hills Initiative.

"Prescribed fire is the most effective tool owners have to manage their land," Briggs said. "Other means, such as mechanically removing woody vegetation or using herbicides, are very expensive and very harmful. Fire is pennies per acre to implement; the other methods can be dollars per acre. That can really add up."

Managed by the university's Division of Biology, Konza Prairie has more than 50 sections of land called watersheds -- because they are partitioned based on water flow -- that are burned at varying frequencies -- from annually to every 20 years -- since the land was donated in 1971. The areas of the station with one- and two-year fire intervals have minimal large shrubs compared to a nearby watershed that is burned at three-and-a-half-year intervals and that has lost 40 percent of its area to shrub expansion.

This comparison, combined with the satellite data of the region, is one reason the researchers are advising an increase in burning in many areas, even though they realize this might stimulate discussion locally and for communities downwind.

"This comes at a time where people are really concerned about smoke and our suggestion to increase burning comes with a trade-off," Briggs said. "We are going to have more fire and more smoke, which can affect the air quality in the region and other parts of North America."

To find solutions for this problem, Briggs said land managers are working with fire cooperatives and the Kansas Flint Hills Smoke Management to find best practices and compromise. Briggs said a tour of Konza can give land managers access to research data and might help them establish collaborative practices to reduce the abundance of smoke.

"There is always a conflict to burning," Briggs said. "Most people think that the remaining tallgrass prairie should be a fenced-off preserve. They think that it will take care of itself, but this system is fire derived and historically fire maintained. Aside from the sustainable and ecological aspects, it is critical to people's livelihoods and necessary to ranching communities."
###
National Science Foundation Long-Term Ecological Research program, The Nature Conservancy, Kansas State University's Agricultural Experimental Research Station and the Division of Biology in Kansas State University's College of Arts &amp; Sciences provide funding and resources for Konza Prairie research.

</div>

Scientists: More grassland burning needed to maintain ecosystem

Scientists: More grassland burning needed to maintain ecosystem. Kansas State...

<div>

Sorghum has great potential as a biofuel. A weedy plant found on the roadside in northern Australia has stems ripe for biofuel production.

Scientists from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Walls at the University of Adelaide have discovered that a variety of sorghum growing wild in Australia, Arun, has the potential to yield over 10,000 litres of bioethanol per hectare per year.

In a study published in the journal PLOS ONE, the researchers assessed the stems of 12 varieties of sorghum for sugar content and ease of conversion to bioethanol. These included cultivated varieties and wild relatives, including Arun, which yielded significantly more bioethanol than other varieties.

"Two key advantages of using stem (rather than leaves or grain) to make biofuel is that we can produce this material in low input systems; and as we do not eat this part of the plant we avoid the food versus fuel debate," says Dr Caitlin Byrt, Postdoctoral Fellow in the University's School of Agriculture, Food and Wine.

Despite Arun stem containing high levels of a component thought to inhibit bioethanol production, this appears to be negated by a high level of an easily fermentable sugar. Sorghum has great potential as a biofuel

The researchers say that a large pool of untapped diversity exists in other species and subspecies of sorghum which opens new avenues of research to generate sorghum lines optimised for biofuel production.

Arcadia Biosciences - a Davis, <a href="http://www.earth.com/image/august-complex-fire-has-become-the-largest-in-californias-history/">California</a>-based agricultural technology company - is a partner in the Centre's research and is working with the Centre to commercialise these findings.

"Commercial application of this work could easily extend to production areas outside Australia," said Raj Ketkar, Chief Executive Officer of Arcadia. "We remain keenly interested in collaborating with the Centre and other partners to explore the use of sorghum as an alternative and sustainable energy source."
###
Media Contact:

Dr Caitlin Byrt (currently in Switzerland), Mobile: +61 (0) 410 159 306 <a href="mailto:caitlin.byrt@adelaide.edu.au">caitlin.byrt@adelaide.edu.au</a>

Associate Professor Rachel Burton, Program Leader (currently in Germany) Mobile: +61 (0) 419 769 713, <a href="mailto:rachel.burton@adelaide.edu.au">rachel.burton@adelaide.edu.au</a>.

Robyn Mills, Media Officer. Phone: +61 8 8313 6341, Mobile: +61 (0)410 689 084, <a href="mailto:robyn.mills@adelaide.edu.au">robyn.mills@adelaide.edu.au</a>

</div>

Sorghum has great potential as a biofuel

Sorghum has great potential as a biofuel. A weedy plant...

<div>

Shifting bird distribution indicates a changing Arctic. Shifts in the distribution of Spectacled Eiders, a predatory bird at the top of the Bering Sea's benthic food web, indicate possible changes in the Arctic's marine ecosystem, according to new research in The Condor: Ornithological Applications.

Matt Sexson of the USGS <a href="http://www.earth.com/image/dust-streams-over-the-gulf-of-alaska/">Alaska</a> Science Center and his colleagues compared recent satellite telemetry data from molting eiders with data from the mid-1990s. They found that in two of the species' four primary molting areas, the birds have shifted their range significantly in the intervening decades, and the researchers interpret this as an indicator of ecosystem change--eiders go where their prey is, and their movements could indicate big changes in the community of bottom-dwelling, cold-water-dependent invertebrates they eat.

It's easier to track marine predators than it is to track their prey, explains Sexson. "It's tough to speculate on the connection with climate change because the data are so sparse, but we know that the north Pacific is changing," he says. "There's a lot of corresponding evidence that together all says something big is happening here, and eiders provide a readily available indicator that changes are occurring."

Sexson and his colleagues spent months at a time in the remote Arctic to catch eiders on land during their breeding season, luring them into nets before making a two-hour trek back to base camp with each bird to surgically implant a satellite transmitter. "It's a lot of hard work, but it's a lot of fun," Sexson says. "I used to just flip past the eiders in bird field guides, thinking I'd never see any of these. Now five years later I'm catching them and holding them. I've really developed a love for this group of birds--how unique they are, how beautiful they are. I've just become attached."

According to the University of Maryland's Jackie Grebmeier, an expert on Arctic marine ecosystems who was not involved with the new study, "The results of this research provide an important finding of biological response of an upper-trophic-level seabird to climate warming and sea ice retreat, another piece in the puzzle to address ecosystem change in the Pacific Arctic region." As Arctic water warms, whole communities of animals are moving north--and there's only so far they can go.
###
"Shifts in the distribution of molting Spectacled Eiders (Somateria fischeri) indicate ecosystem change in the Arctic" will be available June 1, 2016 at <a href="http://www.aoucospubs.org/doi/full/10.1650/CONDOR-15-139.1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www. aoucospubs. org/ doi/ full/ 10. 1650/ CONDOR-15-139. 1</a> (issue URL <a href="http://www.aoucospubs.org/toc/cond/118/3" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www. aoucospubs. org/ toc/ cond/ 118/ 3</a>).

About the journal: The Condor: Ornithological Applications is a peer-reviewed, international journal of ornithology. It began in 1899 as the journal of the Cooper Ornithological Club, a group of ornithologists in California that became the Cooper Ornithological Society.

</div>

Shifting bird distribution indicates a changing Arctic

Shifting bird distribution indicates a changing Arctic. Shifts in the...

<div>

Scientists study the effect of smoke particles on Earth's climate. A scientist at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science is leading an upcoming international research campaign to study a significant contributor to regional climate warming - smoke. The first-of-its-kind research experiment begins on June 1, 2016 from Ascension Island in the southeastern Atlantic Ocean. The experiment, called LASIC (Layered Atlantic Smoke Interactions with Clouds), is part of a broader international scientific collaboration led by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility deployment. The broad collaboration is detailed in a new article in the July <a href="http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00082.1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society</a>.

Southern Africa is the world's largest emitter of smoke particles in the atmosphere, known as biomass-burning aerosols, from the burning of grasslands and other biomass. The project will help researchers better understand the effects of widespread biomass burning on Earth's climate. Scientists study the effect of smoke particles on Earth's climate

The study will investigate how smoke particles flowing far offshore from the African continent affect the remote and cloudy southeast Atlantic climate. Smoke, which absorbs sunlight, is a warming agent in the climate system when located above a bright surface, such as clouds. The smoke overlying the southeast Atlantic provides one of the largest aerosol-based warming of climate on the planet, since the region is also home to one of the largest low-cloud decks on the planet.

"Ascension Island is an ideal location since it is very remote and allows us to sample the smoke after it is well-aged, about which less is known," said Paquita Zuidema, professor of atmospheric sciences at the UM Rosenstiel School and principal investigator of the research experiment. The long deployment time will allow us to characterize the marine low clouds both with and without the presence of smoke. This is ultimately valuable for understanding the <a href="http://www.earth.com/video/earth-from-space-houston-texas/">Earth's</a> energy balance."

By evaluating how the low clouds respond to the presence of sunlight-absorbing aerosols, scientists can better understand low cloud behavior, which is currently an uncertainty in model predictions of future climate, since no fundamental theory on low cloud processes is yet in place.

Low clouds dominate the atmosphere over the southeast Atlantic Ocean all year. Bright white cloud appears darker when viewed from above when smoke is present. The southeast Atlantic overall is brighter, not darker when smoke is present, suggesting that the clouds become thicker and more extensive when smoke is present.

Zuidema received a $365,050 seed grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to plan the study. And a $440,225 grant from NASA which further supports related aircraft investigations as part of the NASA Earth Venture Suborbital-2 ORACLES project.

NASA will complement the DOE surface-based measurements with airborne experiments during a month of each year in 2016-2018. This will allow researchers to take airborne samples of smoke particles as it ages, information that will improve satellite retrievals of this mixed smoke-cloud regime. The United Kingdom will also participate with its research aircraft, and French, Namibian, and South African scientists will collect and interpret aircraft and ground-based measurements closer to the Namibian coast.

The UM Rosenstiel School-led research team will study how smoke is transported through the atmosphere and across the Atlantic, how the aerosols change when transported, and the response of the low-lying clouds to the smoke. The information from the experiments will ultimately be used to improve global aerosol models and climate change forecasts.
###
About the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School

The University of Miami is one of the largest private research institutions in the southeastern United States. The University's mission is to provide quality education, attract and retain outstanding students, support the faculty and their research, and build an endowment for University initiatives. Founded in the 1940's, the Rosenstiel School of Marine &amp; Atmospheric Science has grown into one of the world's premier marine and atmospheric research institutions. Offering dynamic interdisciplinary academics, the Rosenstiel School is dedicated to helping communities to better understand the planet, participating in the establishment of environmental policies, and aiding in the improvement of society and quality of life. For more information, visit: <a href="http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www. rsmas. miami. edu</a> and <a href="http://www.climate.miami.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www. climate. miami. edu</a>

</div>

Scientists study the effect of smoke particles on Earth's climate

Scientists study the effect of smoke particles on Earth's climate....

Big Sur Coast Of California

PRISM instrument brings coasts and coral into focus. A coastal scene with deep blue seas and a coral reef is beautiful to look at, but if you try to record the scene with a camera or a scientific instrument, the results are almost always disappointing. Most cameras can't "see" underwater objects in such scenes because they're so dim and wash out the glaring seashore. These problems don't just ruin vacation photos. They're a serious hindrance for scientists who need images of the coastline to study how these ecosystems are being affected by climate change, development and other hazards.

To the rescue: the new Portable Remote Imaging Spectrometer, created at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. PRISM is an <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/far-uvc-light-kills-99-9-percent-of-airborne-coronaviruses/">airborne</a> instrument designed to observe hard-to-see coastal water phenomena. In NASA's upcoming Coral Reef Airborne Laboratory (CORAL) field experiment, PRISM will observe entire reef ecosystems in more of the world's reef area – hundreds of times more -- than has ever been observed before.

"Coastal ocean science has specific requirements that had not been met with other instruments" when PRISM was initially proposed, said Pantazis Mouroulis of JPL, who designed the instrument. "At that time, it was not even known whether anyone could design an instrument with those characteristics. We had to devise new techniques for assembling and aligning the instrument, and even new technologies for the components."

With devastating coral bleaching taking place around the world, a sensor that can collect a detailed, uniform, large-scale dataset on coral reefs could hardly be more timely. "The value of doing this investigation right now is unimaginable because of the speed at which the environment is changing, and PRISM is the perfect instrument at the perfect time," said JPL's David Thompson, who is designing a computer model to use with PRISM's measurements for CORAL. "It's such a sensitive instrument -- beyond anything I've worked with before."

How it works

The PRISM instrument is a spectrometer, an instrument that splits light into its spectrum of wavelengths and measures the intensity of the light at each individual wavelength. Every type of molecule absorbs a unique combination of wavelengths, leaving dark gaps in the spectrum of light. The pattern of gaps is a sort of spectral "bar code" for that molecule. Spectrometers collect light and record these spectral patterns in it.

PRISM's spectrometer collects spectra in the visible, ultraviolet and near-infrared wavelengths, which encompass the "bar codes" for most phenomena of interest along coastlines. Because it is an airborne instrument, PRISM can measure wide swaths of coastline repeatedly in a short period of time -- important when monitoring rapidly changing conditions such as rising floodwaters -- and it creates a dataset on a regional scale, but with an amount of detail approaching what can be collected by boat-based campaigns. Boat campaigns can only produce local-scale datasets, because they are so expensive and labor intensive.

PRISM measures all spectra in the entire scene below its airborne perch. Each airborne campaign that uses the instrument can select just the spectra it needs for its area of study. For the CORAL campaign, "We're after that fraction of light that makes it all the way to the bottom of the ocean and comes back to the sensor, which carries the signal of the health of the coral reef," said Thompson. Thompson designed his computer algorithms to eliminate the unneeded light and isolate just the seafloor spectra. "You can think of it as peeling back the layers of an onion," he said. "Atmospheric haze is different from the surface glint off the ocean, which is different from light that's gone partway down into the ocean, which is different from light that's gone all the way down [to the seafloor and back]. All those other optical paths have to be eliminated in our modeling."

To test Thompson's model, the light from each "onion layer" is compared against measurements of the same thing -- the amount of atmospheric haze and the light-changing properties of the ocean water, for example -- taken aboard boats at a few points along the plane's path at the same time the instrument flies overhead. "It's critical for the math [in the model] to be tied down at different points with actual, physical measurements," Thompson said. When a shipboard measurement of the water's murkiness agrees with the model's calculation of the same thing, for example, it gives confidence that the model is correctly interpreting the spectra collected by PRISM.

How it's working

Heidi Dierssen, an oceanographer and professor at the University of Connecticut, Groton, and co-investigator in the CORAL campaign, worked on the development of PRISM and took the instrument on its first field campaign to study eelgrass in California's coastal waters. Dierssen has used many different instruments to gather coastal data in the past. When she used sensors that were optimized for land to observe the ocean, "They failed to give us good signals," she said. "When you looked at a spectrum it was often wavy, and you had to spend a lot of effort to calibrate it to what you measured in the water." When she used PRISM, "I was shocked," she said. "The first time we collected imagery, we got very good agreement with the field data. That instrument is truly a leap forward."

CORAL's project scientist, Michelle Gierach of JPL, has seen PRISM's data from Dierssen's study and used the instrument to observe ocean color (which can indicate phytoplankton presence) in the sea around Antarctica last winter. "We have only begun to scratch the surface of what PRISM is capable of doing, from eelgrass to biology within the Southern Ocean to now assessing coral reefs throughout the western tropical Pacific," she said. "Those are just some of the things that PRISM has in its arsenal. There's so much more that is possible."

NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA uses airborne and ground-based instruments to develop new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.

For more information about NASA's Earth science activities, visit:

<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/earth" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www.nasa.gov/earth</a>

PRISM instrument brings coasts and coral into focus

PRISM instrument brings coasts and coral into focus. A coastal...

California Drought

Slow-moving landslides reflect California's drying climate. Merged data from on-the-ground measurements, aerial photography, satellite imagery and satellite-radar imaging have unveiled an unexpected geological consequence of northern California's ongoing drought.
<div>

Initially, University of <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/unequal-treatment-protestors/">Oregon</a> scientists were perplexed by new satellite data that indicated that trees and rocks atop 98 slow-moving landslides in northern California's Eel River Basin were no longer flowing at historical rates seen between 1944 and the turn of the century. Many of the formations, they could see, had barely moved in the last three years.

"We realized that this slowing down of the landslides was a massive signature of California's drought," said Joshua Roering, a professor in the UO Department of Geological Sciences. "Finding this was an accident. We didn't set out to connect our research to climate. We discovered this by being frustrated by the data."

The research, led by Roering's postdoctoral researcher Georgie L. Bennett, is detailed in a paper accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The findings, she said, are important to scientists monitoring landslides worldwide, including at similar sites she has visited in Italy.

Many Eel River Basin landslides have been slowly moving for thousands of years. The new study shows that the landslides, based on the 10 most-scrutinized landslides, slowed by half twice between 2009 and 2015, a period when the region experienced unprecedented drought.

Rates of historical movement vary by the size and depth of individual formations, Roering said, adding that, in general, the landslides had averaged "a few feet" annually. Small landslides are more sensitive to seasonal periods of rainfall and drought, while larger landslides more likely average out impacts from climate variability, the researchers found.

"Landslides move highways and make things really difficult for engineers all over the western U.S., and all over the world," Roering said.

Understanding the interior plumbing of landslides, especially how moisture affects "the conveyor belt" that keeps them moving along the surface is vital to maintaining safety and for projecting conditions that may indicate a catastrophic collapse that could dam a river or destroy a highway, he said.

"The landslide outflows we studied are typical in many places in the world," said Bennett, now a postdoctoral research associate with the U.S. Forest Service and Colorado State University. "This paper is important to helping understand how landslides respond to rainfall, and it provides data that should eventually help in terms of forecasting how landslides will respond to climate change. Smaller outflows are more sensitive to increasing or declining amounts of precipitation."

The study area covered an 86-square-mile stretch along the 200-mile-long river, which meanders through the coastal mountain range from just north of California's wine country to near Fortuna, where it meets the Pacific Ocean.

Data collection on such a scale had not been done before, Roering said. "The difference here is the amount of data we looked at," he said. "People have been putting equipment on landslides and watching them for years -- long before GPS and lasers. We were able to do this on a massive scale. This was a systematic look at the whole landscape -- what it's doing -- not just of one feature."

Researchers found that the rocks and soil have dried substantially, based on groundwater data gathered at one of the locations. The current lack of moisture, Roering said, means there is no longer enough lubrication to allow for movement.

This summer, his team, in collaboration with a team led by UO seismologist Amanda Thomas, will place 80 small seismometers in various locations on one of the landslides. The project aims to locate the underlying water table.

"A question now is how much water will it take, and how long will it take to get water down the depths at the base of these sliding surfaces to reduce the friction and get them to start moving again," Roering said. "The site we will be instrumenting should help us better understand the structure and plumbing of landslides."

Data merged in the research came from manual measurements of movement based on tracking trees as they surfed on the surface of earthflows between aerial photographs from 1944 to 2006 and from automatic measurements obtained through satellite pixel tracking from high-resolution imagery spanning 2009-2015. The satellite tracking was validated using the remote sensing technology interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR).

Bennett, who soon will join the faculty at the University of East Anglia in England, compared the data on landslide movement from 1944 onward with an index of drought known as the Palmer Drought Severity Index.
###
Co-authors with Bennett and Roering were: former UO doctoral student Benjamin H. Mackey; Al L. Handwerger, a courtesy research associate in the Department of Geological Sciences; David A. Schmidt, a professor of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington; and Benoit P. Guillod, a researcher in the Environmental Change Institute of the University of Oxford.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration supported the research.

Sources: Josh Roering, professor of geological sciences, 541-346-5574, <a href="mailto:jroering@uoregon.edu">jroering@uoregon.edu</a>; and Georgie Bennett, former UO postdoctoral researcher temporarily with the U.S. Forest Service and Colorado State University, 970-498-1249, <a href="mailto:georgieb@colostate.edu">georgieb@colostate.edu</a>

Note: The UO is equipped with an on-campus television studio with a point-of-origin Vyvx connection, which provides broadcast-quality video to networks worldwide via fiber optic network. There also is video access to satellite uplink and audio access to an ISDN codec for broadcast-quality radio interviews.

VIDEO: Shown is the main stem of northern California's Eel River Basin, near Alder Point. As the animation rolls, yellow polygons mark the margins of active, slow-moving landslides as mapped by the UO's Ben Mackey, Georgie Bennett and Alex Handwerger. (Courtesy of Joshua Roering) LINK: <a href="https://youtu.be/hGItNBKbcSY" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https:/ / youtu. be/ hGItNBKbcSY</a>

UO Department of Geological Sciences: <a href="http://geology.uoregon.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://geology. uoregon. edu/ </a>

Roering faculty page: <a href="http://geology.uoregon.edu/profile/jroering/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://geology. uoregon. edu/ profile/ jroering/ </a>

Bennett research page: <a href="https://georgielbennett.wordpress.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https:/ / georgielbennett. wordpress. com/ </a>

</div>

Slow-moving landslides reflect California's drying climate

Slow-moving landslides reflect California's drying climate. Merged data from on-the-ground...

110873423

<div>

What happens to hydraulic fracturing wastewater on cropland. The use of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," has grown rapidly in the U.S. over the past 15 years -- but concerns persist that the oil and gas extraction method could harm the environment and people's health. To better understand its potential effects, scientists simulated what would happen to the wastewater produced by the technique after a spill. They published their findings in the ACS journal Environmental Science &amp; Technology.

This spring, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that hydraulic fracturing accounts for two-thirds of the country's natural gas production. Customers have benefited from lower gas bills, but the technique's growth comes with some risks. The <a href="http://www.earth.com/image/cameron-peak-fire-is-now-the-largest-in-colorados-recorded-history/">Colorado</a> Oil and Gas Conservation Commission received reports of 838 spills that released a total of more than 660,000 gallons of fluids associated with fracking in 2014. Since hydraulic fracturing and, potentially, any associated spills often occur near agricultural land, Jens Blotevogel, Thomas Borch and colleagues wanted to find out whether compounds in the wastewater biodegrade or stick around in the soil where they might be taken up by crops.

The researchers tested the fates of three common hydraulic fracturing additives in agricultural topsoil. The surfactant polyethylene glycol completely degraded within 42 to 71 days. But the surfactant did not break down when combined with another hydraulic fracturing additive called a biocide at a salt concentration typical for wastewater produced during oil and gas extraction. The researchers say their findings highlight the need for further testing to better understand spills' potential effects on crops and the environment.
###
The authors acknowledge funding from <a href="http://www.colostate.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Colorado State University</a> and by the Borch-Hoppess Fund for Environmental Contaminant Research.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With nearly 157,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact <a href="mailto:newsroom@acs.org">newsroom@acs.org</a>.

Follow us: <a href="https://twitter.com/ACSpressroom" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Twitter</a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/American-Chemical-Society-Pressroom/130342583687829" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Facebook</a>

</div>

What happens to hydraulic fracturing wastewater on cropland

What happens to hydraulic fracturing wastewater on cropland. The use...

Antarctic coastline has been losing ice for 40 years. Part of Antarctica has been losing ice to the ocean for far longer than had been expected, satellite pictures reveal.
<div>

A study of images along 2000km of the West <a href="http://www.earth.com/news/antarctica-is-melting-faster-than-models-predict-due-to-climate-variability/">Antarctica</a> coastline has shown the loss of about 1000km2 of ice - an area equivalent to the city of Berlin - over the past 40 years.

Researchers were surprised to find that the region has been losing ice for such a length of time. Their findings will help improve estimates of global sea level rise caused by ice melt.Antarctic coastline has been losing ice for 40 years

A research team from the University of Edinburgh analysed hundreds of satellite photographs of the ice margin captured by NASA, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the European Space Agency (ESA).

They found that ice has been retreating consistently along almost the entire coastline of Antarctica's Bellingshausen Sea since satellite records began.

The team also monitored ice thickness and thinning rates using data taken from satellites and the air. This showed that some of the largest changes, where ice has rapidly thinned and retreated several miles since 1975, correspond to where the ice front is deepest.

Scientists suggest the loss of ice is probably caused by warmer ocean waters reaching Antarctica's coast, rather than rising air temperatures. They say further satellite monitoring is needed to enable scientists to track progress of the ice sheet.

Their study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, was carried out in collaboration with Temple University in the US. It was supported by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the Natural Environment Research Council and the ESA.

Frazer Christie, a PhD student in the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, who co-led the study, said: "We knew that ice had been retreating from this region recently but now, thanks to a wealth of freely available satellite data, we know this has been occurring pervasively along the coastline for almost half a century."

Dr Robert Bingham, also of the School of GeoSciences, said: "This study provides important context for our understanding of what is causing ice to retreat around the continent. We now know change to West Antarctica has been longstanding, and the challenge ahead is to determine what has been causing these ice losses for so long."


</div>
<div></div>

Antarctic coastline has been losing ice for 40 years

Antarctic coastline has been losing ice for 40 years. Part...

<div>

Politics often pollutes support for pro-science environmental solutions. Mentioning politics in a message about an environmental issue may turn people -- even people informed about the issue -- away from supporting a pro-science solution, according to a team of researchers.

In a study, conservative participants who were asked to react to a message about excess water runoff showed lower support for an environmental science improvement project when the message was framed around global warming terminology, according to Lee Ahern, associate professor of advertising and public relations, <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=penn+state&amp;cvid=720ec3b10d00462588230c58584182e9&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">Penn State</a>. The effect was even stronger among those conservatives with more knowledge about the issue, he added.

"It's the framing of the issue that's really important," said Ahern. "This is really a message for scientists and science communicators: don't pollute and politicize the information environment around the issue, because once you do that, people's <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-threats-iowa-political/">political</a> identities are going to get engaged."

This study, along with others, has established that having more knowledge about science does not necessarily translate into more support for pro-science policies, according to Ahern, who added that, in this case, the environmental solution was to add more green surface infrastructure, such as green roofs.

The researchers, who report their findings in a recent issue of Science Communication, suggest that a reader's political and social identities can be activated when politicized terms or concepts are used in a message. This activation may then cause people to withdraw support from solutions they may have backed.

"The issue with the public's support for pro-science solutions for things like global warming, in particular, as well as other environmental issues that have socially contested policy solutions, is that the political identity of the people who are thinking about these issues often becomes activated," said Ahern, who worked with Colleen Connolly-Ahern, associate professor of advertising and public relations, Penn State and Jennifer Hoewe, assistant professor of journalism, University of Alabama.

Ahern said that all political ideologies, not just conservatives, are susceptible to this type of motivated reasoning.

"This is not unique to conservatives," said Ahern. "It works both ways. Studies have been done on other issues, for example, nuclear power and genetically modified organisms, that have shown similar effects among liberals."

The researchers suggest that scientists hoping to reach consensus on solutions should avoid political rhetoric in their communication.

"This is really a message for the scientists, not necessarily the public," said Ahern. "It's interesting for people to understand what's happening, but the people who really need to change what they are doing are the scientists and science communicators."

The researchers recruited 964 participants to take an online survey on local water quality in the Philadelphia area. The participants were asked what political party they supported and how strongly they supported the party. They were also asked to respond to questions that would group them into a range of egalitarian-hierarchical or individualist-collectivist worldviews.

The researchers measured the participants' knowledge of storm water runoff issues in Philadelphia and also used a quiz from the National Science Foundation to test their general science knowledge.

The study had two conditions. A normal condition attributed the water runoff problem to excess rain, while the global warming condition framed the problems around climate change. Statements and phrases, such as "stopping global warming will require international agreements" and "human-caused global warming," were used to frame the subject around climate issues.

Among solid or strong Democrats in the global warming condition, participants with high knowledge reported stronger willingness to pay for environmental solutions, such as adding green roofs. Solid or strong Republicans with high knowledge, on the other hand, reported stronger support in the normal condition for the environmental solutions, but not in the global warming condition. They were even more resistant to the solutions than low-knowledge Republicans.

"In fact, support among the low-knowledge Republicans increased in the global warming condition," said Ahern.
###
The William Penn Foundation supported this work.

</div>

Politics often pollutes support for pro-science environmental solutions

Politics often pollutes support for pro-science environmental solutions. Mentioning politics...

Sentinel satellites give major support to environmental monitoring. The unprecedented frequency of Sentinel observations capture rapid changes in agricultural production from national to field scale, serving as a major support for environmental monitoring and agricultural subsidy control.

The Sentinel satellites of Europe’s environmental Copernicus programme are used, among other things, to study changes in farming on a weekly basis, with a 10 m resolution, and with a free and open data policy.

Europe’s Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites allow us to observe subtle changes in land use. For instance, which crops are being grown and how fast or well they are developing, as well as spotting differences within single, larger fields. Sentinel <a href="https://www.earth.com/image/satellites-help-observe-glaciers-in-alaska/">satellites</a> give major support to environmental monitoring

This information can be used for different purposes – from predicting seasonal yields to preventing hunger in some parts of the world. Planning can help to mitigate an expected bad harvest, for example.

Agricultural mapping and monitoring is a key application for Earth observation because of its need for recurrent and frequent data, to produce seasonal and annual information on crop production.

The Sentinels are explicitly designed to support the implementation and monitoring of European policies, such as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) at national to regional scale.

The EU spends some 40% of its budget on agriculture subsidies, and whether farmers are declaring everything correctly can be checked through satellite data. The CAP aims to improve agricultural production and sustainable use of natural resources, while considering global issues such as food security and climate change.

At the recent Living Planet Symposium in Prague, ESA launched a national crop map, together with the EU’s Joint Research Centre and the Czech State Agriculture Intervention Fund, covering the Czech Republic.

“This Czech crop map is a key proof-of-concept, linking the free and open data streams from the Sentinels with Member State’s geographical data infrastructure to generate information for a broad community of users in agriculture,” says Guido Lemoine, from the Joint Research Centre.

This national presentation was conceived as a demonstration of what could be achieved in Europe, through the combined use of in-situ information from the Land Parcel Identification Systems (part of the CAP management), together with the dense time series from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites.

The frequent radar data coverage of Sentinel-1 alone was able to distinguish the seven main crop types in the country, including cereals, maize and rapeseed, through their distinct seasonal temporal behaviour, viewed in the data.

Lucie Šavelková from the State Agriculture Intervention Fund says, “The results of the Czech-Agri project are very promising for the implementation in daily activities of the Czech Paying Agency.

“These results indicate high potential of the use of Sentinel data in the agricultural sector, providing useful information in supporting the administration and control of the European Common Agriculture subsidies. “

Renáta Suchá, also from the Fund, adds, “The wide Sentinel data coverage means the outcomes of the activities can be monitored on the overall national and regional level, providing a framework for the analyses of impact of agricultural policies and activities on the environment.”

---

<a href="http://www.esa.int" target="_blank" rel="noopener">European Space Agency</a>

Sentinel satellites give major support to environmental monitoring

Sentinel satellites give major support to environmental monitoring. The unprecedented...

Wildfire on warming planet requires adaptive capacity. Industrialized nations that view wildfire as the enemy have much to learn from people in some parts of the world who have learned to live compatibly with wildfire, says a team of fire research scientists.
<div>

The interdisciplinary team say there is much to be learned from these "fire-adaptive communities" and they are calling on policy makers to tap that knowledge, particularly in the wake of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/greenland-glaciers-face-a-triple-threat-from-global-warming/">global warming.</a>

Such a move is critical as climate change makes some landscapes where fire isn't the norm even more prone to fire, say the scientists in a new report published in a special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Wildfire on warming planet requires adaptive capacity

"We tend to treat modern fire problems as unique, and new to our planet," said fire anthropologist Christopher Roos, Southern Methodist University, <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=dallas&amp;cvid=da09b3220f864c1b8ae22cc4ebf49e5c&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">Dallas,</a> lead author of the report. "As a result, we have missed the opportunity to recognize the successful properties of communities that have a high capacity to adapt to living in flammable landscapes -- in some cases for centuries or millennia."

One such society is the ethnically Basque communities in the French Western Pyrenees, who practice fire management to maintain seasonally flammable grassland, shrub and woodland patches for forage and grazing animals. But the practice is slowly being lost as young people leave farming.

Additionally, Aboriginal people in the grasslands of Western Australia use fire as part of their traditional hunting practices. Children begin burning at a very young age, and the everyday practice is passed down. These fires improve hunting successes but also reduce the impact of drought on the size and ecological severity of lightning fires.

Social institutions support individual benefits, preserve common good

Fire-adaptive communities have social institutions in place that support individual benefits from fire-maintained landscapes while preserving the common good, said Roos, whose fire research includes long-term archaeological and ecological partnerships with the Pueblo of Jemez in New Mexico.

"These institutions have been shaped by long-histories with wildfire, appropriate fire-use, and the development of social mechanisms to adjudicate conflicts of interest," said Roos, an associate professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology. "There is a wealth of tried and tested information that should be considered in designing local fire management."

The authors note that globally, a large number of people use fire as a tool to sustain livelihoods in ways that have been handed down across many generations. These include indigenous Australians and North Americans, South Asian forest dwellers, European farmers, and also hunters, farmers and herders in tropical savannahs.

Global Warming will likely bring new fire problems, more flammable landscapes

Global Warming will likely bring new fire problems, such as making some landscapes more flammable, Roos said. More effort will be required to balance conflicting fire management practices between adjacent cultures. Currently most fire-related research tends to be undertaken by physical or biological scientists from Europe, the United States and Australia. Often the research treats fire challenges as exclusively contemporary phenomena for which history is either absent or irrelevant.

"We need national policy that recognizes these dynamic challenges and that will support local solutions and traditional fire knowledge, while providing ways to disseminate scientific information about fire," Roos said.

The authors point out that one of the greatest policy challenges of fire on a warming planet are the international consequences of smoke plumes and potential positive feedbacks on climate through carbon emissions. Most infamously, wildfire smoke plumes have had extraordinary health impacts during Southeast Asian "haze" events, which result in increased hospitalization and mortality in the region.

Not all fire is a disaster; we must learn to live with and manage fire

Carbon emissions from wildfires can be as much as 40 percent of fossil fuel emissions in any given year over the last decade. Although only deforestation fires and land conversion are a net carbon source to the atmosphere, the contribution of wildfires to global carbon emissions is non-trivial and should be a formal component of international climate dialogs.

"It is important to emphasize that not all fire is a disaster and we must learn how to both live with as well as manage fire," said co-author Andrew Scott, earth sciences professor at Royal Holloway University of London.

The report, "Living on a flammable planet: interdisciplinary, cross-scalar and varied cultural lessons, prospects and challenges," was published May 23, 2016 by The Royal Society, the U.K.'s independent scientific academy.

Authors call for holistic study of fire on Earth

The authors are from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa and Spain. The synthesis emerged from four days of international meetings sponsored by the Royal Society - the first of its kind for fire sciences.

The authors advocate for greater collaboration among researchers studying all aspects of fire.

Pyrogeography -- the holistic study of fire on Earth, "may be one way to provide unity to the varied fire research programs across the globe," the authors write.

"Fire researchers across disciplines from engineering, the natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities need to develop a common language to create a holistic wildfire science," said Roos. "The magnitude of the wildfire challenges we face on a warming planet will demand greater collaboration and integration across disciplines, but our job won't be done unless we are also able to translate our research for policymakers, land managers, and the general public."
###
Other co-authors on the scientific paper include Andrew C. Scott, Claire M. Belcher, William G. Chaloner, Jonathan Aylen, Rebecca Bliege Bird, Michael R. Coughlan, Bart R. Johnson, Fay H. Johnston, Julia McMorrow, Toddi Steelman, and the Fire and Mankind Discussion Group.

</div>

Wildfire on warming planet requires adaptive capacity

Wildfire on warming planet requires adaptive capacity. Industrialized nations that...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="0ynNMYkMKa-2340414-12187" type="single"]</div>



Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Nushagak Bay, a large estuary in southwest Alaska. Nushagak runs mainly north to south and exits in Bristol Bay, a large body of water in the Bering Sea.



"The bay is primarily fed by the Nushagak River, which begins in the Alaska Range and flows southwest approximately 450 km. The bay is also fed by several additional rivers including the Wood, Igushik, Snake and Weary rivers," says ESA.



"The dark colors of the Nushagak River are most likely due to tannins or lignins (chemical substances found in plants). Tannins and lignins from roots, leaves, seeds, bark and soil can leach into the water and give it a brown or even black colour. The sediments then flow southwards where it is mixed with the bluer waters of the bay."



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



---



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

Nushagak Bay in southwest Alaska

[sendtonews key="0ynNMYkMKa-2340414-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="G9bUoxcjr4-2511624-12187" type="single"]</div>



Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> (ACS) reveals that proteins on flu viruses are actually flexible, tilting and waving in a “breath-like” motion. According to the experts, these proteins could be used to better defend against the flu.



"The main antigenic targets of influenza virus are two surface glycoproteins, hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). Whereas the structural and dynamical properties of both glycoproteins have been studied previously, the understanding of their plasticity in the whole-virion context is fragmented," wrote the researchers.



To investigate, the team conducted detailed simulations of the influenza A H1N1 virion, or the swine flu. The experts concluded that the visualizations show many new vulnerable states of flu viruses, which could improve future vaccines and antiviral drugs.



Video/ Image Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



---



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.

Flu viruses are more flexible than expected

[sendtonews key="G9bUoxcjr4-2511624-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from the...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="3upvlAaHgO-2256633-12187" type="single"]</div>



Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Lake Trasimeno, which is located west of Perugia in central Italy. It is the fourth largest lake in the country. While Trasimeno’s water level varies, it has a maximum depth of approximately six meters.&nbsp;



"In this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image, captured on 6 August 2022, the lake’s emerald green colour is likely due to the presence of phytoplankton. Streaks in the water, particularly visible in the west, indicate the presence of soil and sediments which have been stirred up by winds. Dark colored waters in the southern part of the lake indicate a presence of submerged and floating macrophytes (aquatic plants) as well as algae," says ESA.



"Surrounded by hills on three sides, Trasimeno is subject to heavy storms created by winds, especially from the north and west. There are three islets in the lake: Maggiore, Minore and Polvese (the largest). The lake’s shores are sparsely inhabited with only two popular villages: Castiglione del Lago and Passignano sul Trasimeno."



"Italy is experiencing its worst drought in 70 years which has affected drinking water supplies, hydroelectric power and agricultural production. High temperatures, hot winds and lack of rainfall are the main causes of drought in the Umbrian region which saw Lake Trasimeno’s drop 1.3 m, reaching the limit of the hydrometric zero in July 2022."



Video/Image Credit: ESA&nbsp;



---



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

Lake Trasimeno in Central Italy

[sendtonews key="3upvlAaHgO-2256633-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="LvS8v8bp9z-2564889-12187" type="single"]</div>



Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> describes a new self-powered nanosensor that can instantly detect mercury contamination with the tap of a finger.&nbsp;



The oxidized form of mercury can be harmful when it is ingested through contaminated water or food. This makes it necessary for experts to develop sensors that can quickly and accurately detect the presence of mercury.&nbsp;



Zong-Hong Lin and colleagues have now created a triboelectric nanosensor (TENS) that can detect mercury by simply by touching a sample. According to the researchers, their TENS could serve as the basis for similar devices to safely and remotely monitor other pollutants.



Video Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



---



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.

Detecting mercury contamination with the tap of a finger

[sendtonews key="LvS8v8bp9z-2564889-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from the...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="iuA5mpp3jv-1641775-12187" type="single"]</div>



Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Kainji Lake, a reservoir on the Niger River.



In 1968, Kainji Lake was created by the construction of the Kainji Dam. The Niger River, the third longest in Africa, enters the lake in the north.&nbsp;



According to <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/rivers-in-the-american-west-are-a-lifesaving-resource-for-birds/">ESA</a>, the creation of the lake submerged Foge Island and the town of Bussa and permanently flooded other riverine settlements, leaving around 50,000 people displaced.&nbsp;



Large parts of Foge Island are temporarily exposed during low water tides, and the land is often used by migrating fishermen. Kainji Dam is a dam across the Niger River in Niger State of Central Nigeria. 



Wild mammals occur at relatively low densities due to illegal hunting. Lake Kainji has suffered a dramatic decline as a fishery due to the high numbers of artisanal and subsistence fisherfolk using the lake. It has been suggested that a period of closure, together with controlled fishing rights may help improve fish stocks.



Kainji Lake National Park is the oldest of its kind in Nigeria. The park contains three distinct areas: a part of the Kainji Lake, the Borgu Game Reserve to the west of the lake, and the Zugurma Game Reserve to the southeast. The park is home to around 65 mammal species, 350 bird species, and 30 species of reptiles and amphibians. 



Video/ Image Credit: European Space Agency&nbsp;



---



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.

Kainji Lake in north central Nigeria

[sendtonews key="iuA5mpp3jv-1641775-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="QGPzYnXEtN-1712599-12187" type="single"]</div>



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



---



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...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="X0f6OHYoI4-2310561-12187" type="single"]</div>



Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> explores the ability of salt to transform the way that foods and beverages taste. Salt is known to cover up undesirable flavors, such as bitterness in coffee or beer, but how exactly does sodium chloride change the taste of other compounds?



One previous study showed that, not only does salt suppress bitterness, but also enhances sweetness and sourness. Another study revealed that bitterness reduction by salt seems to be happening at the tongue receptor level as well as in the brain.&nbsp;



While it is known that salt taste is mediated by the presence of sodium channels in the form of taste buds, experts believe that there is also an unknown receptor responsible for how we taste salt that has not yet been identified.&nbsp;



Video Credit: ACS Reactions



---



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.

How does salt makes things taste better?

[sendtonews key="X0f6OHYoI4-2310561-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="JRaP49ISmm-2357509-12187" type="single"]</div>



Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Santiago, the capital city of Chile. The city is located in the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Region, which has a population of about eight million people.&nbsp;



'The weather of Santiago resembles the Mediterranean climate with dry and warm summers with temperatures reaching up to 35°C (from October to March) and cool and humid winters that can drop to 0°C (from April to September)."



"The city lies in the centre of the country’s central valley around 80 km from the Pacific Ocean to the west and borders Argentina to the east. A tiny part of Argentina is visible in the top-right corner of the image where the mountain crest of the Andes Mountains acts as a divider between the two countries," says ESA.



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



---



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.

Santiago, Chile in South America

[sendtonews key="JRaP49ISmm-2357509-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

Spiral,Galaxy,,Illustration,Of,Milky,Way

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="e4ZG0Jawp3-2374785-12187" type="single"]</div>



Astronomers at <a href="https://www.jhu.edu/">Johns Hopkins University</a> have created an interactive map of the universe, including the actual position and real colors of 200,000 galaxies. The map allows the public to access data that was previously only available to scientists.



The map was developed using data collected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. For over two decades, a telescope in New Mexico was aimed at slightly different locations to capture the night sky.&nbsp;



"Growing up I was very inspired by astronomy pictures, stars, nebulae and galaxies, and now it's our time to create a new type of picture to inspire people," said map creator Brice Ménard, a professor at Johns Hopkins. "Astrophysicists around the world have been analyzing this data for years, leading to thousands of scientific papers and discoveries. But nobody took the time to create a map that is beautiful, scientifically accurate, and accessible to people who are not scientists. Our goal here is to show everybody what the universe really looks like."



"In this map, we are just a speck at the very bottom, just one pixel. And when I say we, I mean our galaxy, the Milky Way which has billions of stars and planets. We are used to seeing astronomical pictures showing one galaxy here, one galaxy there or perhaps a group of galaxies. But what this map shows is a very, very different scale."



"From this speck at the bottom, we are able to map out galaxies across the entire universe, and that says something about the power of science."



The <a href="https://mapoftheuniverse.net/">interactive map</a> is available online, where it can be downloaded for free.



Video Credit: Johns Hopkins&nbsp;



---



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.

Interactive map of the universe includes 200,000 galaxies

[sendtonews key="e4ZG0Jawp3-2374785-12187" type="single"] Astronomers at Johns Hopkins University have created...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="EjmSP20gQK-2593093-12187" type="single"]</div>



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;



---



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...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="qjvhBOBnY8-2426650-12187" type="single"]</div>



Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Dublin, the capital and largest city of Ireland. Beyond its pub culture, Dublin is known as a modern culinary destination and a UNESCO City of Literature.



"Dublin is located near the midpoint of Ireland’s east coast in the province of Leinster. The city, which covers an area of around 115 square kilometers, is bordered by the Dublin Mountains, a low mountain range to the south, and is surrounded by flat farmland to the north and west," says ESA.



"The city straddles the River Liffey, which rises in the Wicklow Mountains and flows around 80 kilometers eastwards through the city of Dublin, in which it is canalised and bordered with quays. It then empties into Dublin Bay, an arm of the Irish Sea."



Dublin has an abundance of green spaces, including one of the largest enclosed public parks in any European capital city. Phoenix Park, which was originally formed as a royal hunting park in the 1660s, includes 707 hectares of green space.



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



---



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.

The city of Dublin on Ireland's east coast

[sendtonews key="qjvhBOBnY8-2426650-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from the...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="oL4FnPTGCV-2384527-12187" type="single"]</div>



Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features the province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain. The image was captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.



"Together with the provinces of Huesca and Teruel, Zaragoza formed the old kingdom of Aragon. Its capital, also called Zaragoza (not visible in this image) is home to around half of Aragon’s population," says ESA.



"The Ebro River can be seen winding its way through the province from west to east in this image. Between its source in the Cantabrian Mountains in the northwest and its delta on the Mediterranean coast, the Ebro River is fed by more than 200 tributaries as it flows 910 km across much of northern Spain."



Since rainfall is very scarce in this region, irrigation in the Ebro basin is critically important. In the valleys surrounding the Ebro River, many fields are used for growing crops such as corn, wheat, and barley.



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



---



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.

The province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain

[sendtonews key="oL4FnPTGCV-2384527-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from the...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="f8fukm28Vz-2491833-12187" type="single"]</div>



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



---



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.

Wetlands are a major source of methane emissions

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

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="0879czfG3k-1785905-12187" type="single"]</div>



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



---



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.

The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

[sendtonews key="0879czfG3k-1785905-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from NASA...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="6HyfrAJTBI-1831843-12187" type="single"]</div>



Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features the Pyrenees Mountains, which form a natural boundary between France and Spain in southwest Europe.



The mountain range is 430 kilometers in length. It stretches from the Mediterranean Sea on the east to the Atlantic Ocean on the west.



At an elevation of 3404 meters, Pico de Aneto is the highest mountain peak in the Pyrenees, and the third-highest peak in Spain. Pico de Aneto is located in the Posets-Maladeta Natural Park, which spans more than 82,000 acres.&nbsp;



"Geological studies have revealed that the Pyrenees Mountains have been around for longer than the Alps, with their sediments first deposited in coastal basins during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras," reports ESA.



"The entire mountain range formed due to the upwelling of large sedimentary rocks by the collision of the Iberian and the Eurasian plate around 100 to 150 million years ago, followed by intense erosion from ice and water."



The western Pyrenees receive more precipitation due to moisture blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean. The mountain range contains many lakes, several small glaciers, and some of the highest waterfalls in Europe.



Video &amp; Image Credit: ESA



---



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.

The Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

[sendtonews key="6HyfrAJTBI-1831843-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from the...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="0dEcERCq61-2283382-12187" type="single"]</div>



Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.stowers.org/">Stowers Institute for Medical Research</a> describes why experts are studying zebrafish to gain a better understanding of how the immune system responds to injury. Zebrafish have the ability to repair and regenerate organs.



“Organ regeneration offers an exciting opportunity for studying the immune system and to inquire why some species can regenerate organs like the heart or missing limbs while others like humans cannot,” explained Dr. Tatjana Piotrowski.



Zebrafish sensory organ hair cells are an ideal system to investigate the pathways and cell types involved in regeneration since they are easily destroyed with antibiotics and begin regenerating within five hours. This enabled the researchers to identify the exact timing and genetic programs for each anti-inflammatory macrophage activation state.&nbsp;



“Our hypothesis is that human macrophages do not receive the proper chemical activation 'cocktail' to instruct pro-regenerative processes,” said Dr. Nicolas Denans. “Identifying the molecular recipe of macrophage activation in zebrafish may one day enable us to design regenerative immunotherapies in humans.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“The new evidence is a valuable resource for comparative studies on the genetic programs involved in macrophage-mediated repair and regeneration. In other words, different types of injuries may induce different kinds of inflammatory responses. We want to decipher whether this 'language' is universal or if there are a variety of dialects."



Video Credit: Stowers Institute for Medical Research&nbsp;



---



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.

How the immune system responds to injury

[sendtonews key="0dEcERCq61-2283382-12187" type="single"] Today’s Video of the Day from Stowers...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="3UUsNkFOuS-2487333-12187" type="single"]</div>



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



---



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.

2022 illustrated the consequences of a warming climate

[sendtonews key="3UUsNkFOuS-2487333-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

Earth,Like,Exoplanet,3d,Render

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="QIoVYJqRBi-2434608-12187" type="single"]</div>



Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes two exoplanets that are orbiting a star 218 light-years away. A team of researchers led by the University of Montreal has found evidence that these planets are "water worlds."



The experts used data from NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes. They discovered that exoplanets Kepler-138 c and Kepler-138 could be composed largely of water.



"We previously thought that planets that were a bit larger than Earth were big balls of metal and rock, like scaled-up versions of Earth, and that's why we called them super-Earths," explained study co-author Björn Benneke.&nbsp;



"However, we have now shown that these two planets, Kepler-138 c and d, are quite different in nature and that a big fraction of their entire volume is likely composed of water. It is the best evidence yet for water worlds, a type of planet that was theorized by astronomers to exist for a long time."



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and Leah Hustak (STScI)



---



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.

Two distant planets may be "water worlds"

[sendtonews key="QIoVYJqRBi-2434608-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

<div class="wp-block-sendtonews-playerselector">[sendtonews key="JbW4VsY53O-1632195-12187" type="single"]</div>



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;



---



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.

Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

[sendtonews key="JbW4VsY53O-1632195-12187" type="single"] Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected...

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



---



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.

Tiger sharks are shifting poleward as temperatures rise

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