For decades, oceanographers assumed the surface waters circling Antarctica were becoming progressively fresher - a shift that helped lock deep heat away and nurture expansive winter sea ice.



However, new observations show the opposite is now happening. An international team led by the <a href="https://www.southampton.ac.uk/">University of Southampton</a> reported a sudden rise in surface <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/salinity-is-rising-in-coastal-areas-and-hurting-farmlands/">salinity</a> south of 50° latitude. This shift coincided with the steepest drop in Antarctic sea-ice extent ever recorded.



The analysis combines European satellite data with readings from autonomous floats that profile the water column. The result reveals an unanticipated pivot in the Southern Ocean’s salt balance sometime after 2015.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-excessive-salt-melts-sea-ice">Excessive salt melts sea ice</h2>



Cold, fresh surface water normally overlies warmer, saltier layers at depth, creating strong density “stratification” that traps heat below. When the surface grows saltier, that barrier weakens. Heat then mixes upward, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/antarcticas-melting-ice-shelves-threaten-global-sea-levels/">melting sea ice</a> from beneath and preventing extensive winter growth.



“Saltier surface water allows deep ocean heat to rise more easily, melting sea ice from below," said lead author Alessandro Silvano, an oceanographer at the University of Southampton. "It's a dangerous feedback loop: less ice leads to more heat, which leads to even less ice.” 



Since 2015, the continent has shed sea ice equivalent to the area of Greenland. Researchers call it the largest environmental shift detected anywhere on Earth in recent decades.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-sea-ice-hole-returns-after-decades">Sea ice hole returns after decades</h2>



One striking symptom is the re-opening of the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/massive-hole-polynya-the-size-of-switzerland-appeared-in-the-antarctica-sea-ice/">Maud Rise polynya</a> - a yawning hole in the Weddell Sea ice cover. It spans nearly four times the size of Wales and last appeared in the late 1970s.



“The return of the Maud Rise polynya signals just how unusual the current conditions are,” Silvano said. “If this salty, low-ice state continues, it could permanently reshape the Southern Ocean - and with it, the planet.”



Reduced Antarctic ice darkens the ocean, absorbing more sunlight and already feeding back into the global climate system. This, as Silvano put it, will give rise to “stronger <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/rapid-antarctic-sea-ice-loss-is-causing-severe-storms-around-the-world/">storms</a>, warmer oceans, and shrinking habitats for Antarctic wildlife.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-old-predictions-fall-short">Old predictions fall short</h2>



Climate models had projected eventual Antarctic sea-ice loss under greenhouse forcing. However, many scientists believed that enhanced snowfall and increased melt from continental ice sheets would keep surface waters fresh for decades, delaying large declines. The new evidence challenges that assumption.



“While scientists expected that human-driven climate change would eventually lead to Antarctic sea ice decline, the timing and nature of this shift remained uncertain,” said co-author Aditya Narayanan, a physical oceanographer at the University of Southampton.



“Previous projections emphasized enhanced surface freshening and stronger ocean stratification, which could have supported sustained sea ice cover. Instead, a rapid reduction in sea ice - an important reflector of solar radiation - has occurred, potentially accelerating global warming.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-eyes-on-the-southern-ocean">Eyes on the Southern Ocean</h2>



Because this turnaround was detected only after <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/satellites-reveal-a-sudden-drop-in-global-freshwater-levels/">satellites</a> began tracking sea-surface salinity in detail, researchers worry that other rapid transitions might be missed without constant observation.



“The new findings suggest that our current understanding may be insufficient to accurately predict future changes,” said senior author Alberto Naveira Garabato, a professor of physical oceanography at the University of Southampton.



“It makes the need for continuous satellite and in-situ monitoring all the more pressing, so we can better understand the drivers of recent and future shifts in the ice-ocean system.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-sea-ice-loss-changes-the-planet">Sea ice loss changes the planet</h2>



Antarctic sea ice acts as a reflective shield, bouncing sunlight back to space and modulating heat exchange between ocean and atmosphere.



Its precipitous decline could amplify warming worldwide, disturb wind patterns, and alter the formation of the deep water masses that power global ocean circulation.



Saltier surface layers may also influence how much carbon the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/carbon-storage-mystery-emerges-in-the-southern-ocean/">Southern Ocean</a> can absorb, potentially weakening one of Earth’s most important climate buffers.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-heat-and-salt-reinforce-sea-ice-loss">Heat and salt reinforce sea ice loss</h2>



The study leaves open questions about what triggered the sudden salinity jump. Possibilities include shifts in wind patterns, changes in precipitation, or increased intrusion of warm Circumpolar Deep Water onto the continental shelf.



Whatever the cause, the new feedback between salt and sea ice could lock the region into a self-reinforcing cycle of warming and ice loss.



Scientists stress that only sustained measurements - combining satellites, autonomous floats, and ship-based surveys - will reveal whether the Southern Ocean snaps back to its former fresher state or continues toward an unfamiliar, saltier future.



For now, the message is clear: Antarctica’s floating fringe, once thought relatively resistant to near-term change, is undergoing a rapid transformation that matters far beyond the frozen continent.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2500440122">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>.



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Antarctic sea ice collapse linked to a sudden surge in ocean salt

For decades, oceanographers assumed the surface waters circling Antarctica were becoming progressively fresher - a shift that helped lock deep heat away and nurture expansive winter sea ice. However, new observations show the opposite is now happening. An international team led by the University of Southampton reported a sudden rise in surface salinity south of 50° latitude. This shift coincided with the steepest drop in Antarctic sea-ice extent ever recorded. The analysis combines European satellite data with readings from autonomous floats that profile the water column. The...

The deep, dark twilight zone a kilometer down in the ocean is home to most of the world’s fish, but how they get enough food has largely been a mystery. Now, thanks to satellites and floating sensors, scientists have worked out how much energy is being pumped to the depths.

The ‘mesopelagic region’ is between 100 m and 1000 m below the surface and sustains one of the largest ecosystems on the planet. Sometimes called the twilight zone, because very little light penetrates this far, it remains vastly unexplored and poorly understood.

It was thought that this ecosystem is fed by a ‘rain’ of fast-sinking organic aggregates of dead plankton and waste products from organisms that live near the surface.

While this source of organic carbon is very important, marine scientists have come to realize that it simply is not enough to support the vast numbers and variety of organisms that live in this deep layer of the ocean.

Thanks to a unique approach that combines satellite measurements of ocean color made available through ESA’s Climate Change Initiative and in situ floats, which take direct measurements as they descend and ascend through the water column, it transpires that a ‘seasonal mixed-layer pump’ is responsible for supplying an important additional vital food source.

[caption id="attachment_87590" align="alignleft" width="150"]<img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-87590" src="http://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/sea-gooseberry_1big_esa-150x150.jpg" alt="Sea gooseberry" width="150" height="150" /> Sea gooseberry[/caption]

During the spring in each hemisphere, strong winds and storms mix the surface waters with the organic carbon it contains and carry non-sinking particles and dissolved organic carbon from the surface down into the depths of the twilight zone.

Critically, in summer, a shallow mixed layer forms at the surface. This effectively ‘traps’ this deeply mixed carbon inside the mesopelagic region – making this energy source available to organisms there.

While it was known that variations in the surface mixed layer could pump part of the missing carbon into the mesopelagic, there has never been a concerted effort to estimate the total amount of organic carbon that is supplied in this way across the world’s oceans.

A paper published in Nature Geoscience describes how scientists at the UK’s Plymouth Marine Laboratory used satellite and local measurements to estimate that the pump moves around 300 million tonnes of carbon each year.

In high-latitude regions, the figure represents an average of 23%, but possibly in excess of 100%, of the better-studied flux of faster-sinking, larger particles and aggregates.

Lead researcher Giorgio Dall’Olmo said, “Most methods for measuring carbon transport into the deep ocean have concentrated on the particles that sink at relatively fast rates, but have not measured how neutrally buoyant or slowly sinking organic particles are redistributed through the water column.

“This means that current global estimates of carbon export in the ocean are missing the potentially important contribution from the seasonal mixed-layer pump.

“Our new global estimates should be considered as an additional flux of organic carbon to the mesopelagic region that was previously not accounted for, and that’s important when we try to understand what sources of energy fuel the mesopelagic ecosystem.”

---

<a href="http://www.esa.int" target="_blank" rel="noopener">European Space Agency</a>

Most of the world's fish live in the oceans' twilight zone

The deep, dark twilight zone a kilometer down in the...

The federal appeals court in Washington is set to hear arguments Tuesday in the legal fight over President Barack Obama's plan to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the Clean Power Plan, which aims to slow climate change by reducing power-plant emissions by one-third.
The plan has been challenged by more than two dozen mostly Republican-led states, including Texas, and allied business and industry groups tied to fossil fuels. The states deride the carbon-cutting plan unveiled by the Environmental Protection Agency as an "unlawful power grab" that will kill coal-mining jobs and drive up electricity costs.
The Supreme Court has delayed implementation until the legal challenges are resolved.
Implementation of the rules is considered essential to the United States meeting emissions-reduction targets in a global climate agreement signed in Paris last year. The Obama administration and environmental groups also say the plan will spur new clean-energy jobs.
Regardless of which side prevails at the appeals level, the issue is considered likely to end up being decided by the Supreme Court.
The federal plan aims to help stave off the worst predicted impacts of climate change by reducing carbon dioxide emissions at existing power plants by about one-third by 2030. The plan also encourages further development of alternative energy sources such as wind and solar by further ratcheting down any emissions allowed from new coal-fired power plants.
Under the Clean Air Act, certain challenges to new EPA rules skip the federal district court and go directly to the appeals court. A three-judge panel had been scheduled to hear the case in June, but whichever side lost was considered likely to seek a review by the full appeals court.
In a rare step, the full court elected to hold an "en banc" review prior to the smaller panel's decision, which is allowed under procedural rules when the case at issue "involves a question of exceptional importance." By using its discretion to skip a step, the appeals judges are potentially shaving months off the time before the case could be heard by the high court.
The 10 appeals judges set to hear the case could lean toward Obama's position. Six were appointed by Democratic presidents.
Chief appeals judge Merrick Garland, who was nominated by Obama to fill a vacant Supreme Court seat, has recused himself from the case.
---
Follow Michael Biesecker on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/mbieseck">https://twitter.com/mbieseck</a>
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Federal appeals court set to hear Clean Power Plan case

The federal appeals court in Washington is set to hear...

More than nine out of 10 people worldwide live in areas with excessive air pollution, contributing to strokes, heart disease, lung cancer and other problems, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.
The U.N. health agency said in a new report that 92 percent of people live in areas where air quality exceeds WHO limits, with southeast Asia, eastern Mediterranean and western Pacific regions hardest hit.
The country-by-country figures come from new satellite data over rural areas to complement traditional ground measurements of pollution, mostly in cities, in about 3,000 places worldwide. A similar WHO report released in May that said 98 percent of residents in large cities of low- and middle-income countries face excessively high air pollution.
WHO says one in nine deaths worldwide is linked to indoor and outdoor pollution.
Turkmenistan has the highest rate of deaths per capita due to ambient air pollution in the WHO's classification, followed by Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Egypt and China.
Tuesday's report focuses on outdoor air pollution, which is estimated to kill about 3 million people per year based on 2012 figures, the most recent available.
"There are two things happening. One is: rich countries are getting much better in improving the quality of the air. And two: poorer countries are getting worse. That is the overall trend," said Dr. Carlos Dora, WHO coordinator for environmental and social determinants of health.
The aim is to educate both policymakers and individuals about the risks, at a time of spiraling health care costs. Dora noted, for example, that doctors could advise their patients about higher risks of heart disease in some countries, or how solar lamps could substitute for kerosene lamps that are used in many parts of the developing world.
He said WHO has no evidence that face masks like those worn in many parts of Asia and beyond help reduce exposure to fine particles.
He noted that North America is faring well compared with Europe, mostly due to Europe's greater dependence on diesel fuel and partially due to farm policies that generate agricultural ammonia and methane.
While China ranked sixth among countries with the highest number of deaths per capita tnxdue to ambient air pollution, Dora said the country is doing "an amazing amount of stuff" to fight it, such as with clean cars. But coal-fired power plants, household burning of coal and wood to produce energy, and transportation remain big generators of pollution in China, he said.
© 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

92% of global citizens suffer from excessive air pollution

More than nine out of 10 people worldwide live in...

A common marine crustacean has shown researchers that it’s all set to beat climate change – the males will get more attractive to the females, with a resulting population explosion.

The University of Adelaide study is the first to show how mating behavior could change under the warmer waters and more acidic oceans brought by climate change.

PhD student Katherine Heldt and University of Adelaide ecologist and evolutionary biologist Dr Pablo Munguia studied the herbivorous amphipod, Cymadusa pemptos, in large tanks under the elevated temperature and CO2 predicted for 100 years from now. This work was in collaboration with Professor Sean Connell, Dr Bayden Russell and PhD student Kathryn Anderson.

The amphipod family includes the land-based beach-hopper or sand flea commonly seen hopping around on beaches. In Cymadusa pemptos, like other marine amphipods, males have larger claws than females, which are used as a display to attract females or a weapon to fend off other males.

Published in the journal Scientific Reports, the study found the population increased twenty-fold under predicted warmer waters and high CO2.

“Climate change most usually comes with predictions of severe negative impacts on population sizes, if not extinctions,” says Dr Munguia, in the University’s Environment Institute. “In general, booming populations are not predicted.

“It got even more interesting, however, when we dug deeper and found that males were much larger in size than in previous generations under cooler waters and lower CO2, and their bigger claws were disproportionately larger still. Females stayed the same size.

“On top of that, where there had been variation in large claw size throughout the population, suddenly all the males had large claws. This happened within a few generations.

“It seems that sexual selection for this attractiveness trait could mean that every male was equally attractive to the females, resulting in very large numbers of females – almost 80% – becoming pregnant, causing a massive population explosion.”

Because the future climate change conditions also promoted increased growth of the marine algae which amphipods eat, constraints on competition for food were removed, allowing males to support their energy-demanding bigger claws and enabling the population to grow.

“We know that climate change will be cataclysmic for many species but in some cases it will not,” says Dr Munguia. “This is the first quantitative example of how it will be beneficial for some individual species, albeit with massive consequences to the environment overall.

“We’ve also shown how mating systems may potentially change. If all males are equals in claw size, then perhaps claws will no longer become a key trait. Our research shows how we can start remapping ideas on how mating systems may become modified under future climate.”

--

<a href="http://www.adelaide.edu.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">University of Adelaide</a>

Some species are combating climate change by getting sexier

A common marine crustacean has shown researchers that it’s all...

Tiny ocean fossils distributed widely across rock surfaces in the Transantarctic Mountains point to the potential for a substantial global sea level rise under conditions of continued global warming, according to a new study.

The study, led by Northern Illinois University geologist Reed Scherer, indicates the massive East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) has a history of instability during ancient warm periods and could be vulnerable to significant retreat and partial collapse induced by future climate change. The EAIS is the world’s largest ice sheet and most significant player in potential sea-level rise.

The evidence is in the microscopic ocean fossils, known as diatoms, the researchers say.

For decades, scientists have been embroiled in a heated debate over how the diatoms, which were first discovered in the 1980s, became incorporated into the "Sirius Group," a series of glacial sedimentary rocks exposed along the Transantarctic Mountains.

One group of scientists argued that the diatoms accumulated in a marine basin after ice sheet retreat and later, after it got much colder, were moved by the growing glaciers to the mountains. This interpretation suggested a dramatic retreat of the ice sheet between 3 million and 4.5 million years ago, during warm periods of the Pliocene Epoch. But other scientists contended the ice sheet remained stable for at least the past 5 million years, arguing that the diatoms were carried by the wind and deposited atop older sediments.

[caption id="attachment_87577" align="alignleft" width="150"]<img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-87577" src="http://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/mount-fleming-antarctica_1big_NIU-150x150.jpg" alt="Mt. Fleming in Antarctica" width="150" height="150" /> Mt. Fleming in Antarctica[/caption]

The new study, published Sept. 20, in <a href="http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160920/ncomms12957/full/ncomms12957.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nature Communications</a>, suggests that both sides were partially right and partially wrong—the ice sheet did retreat, and the wind did carry the diatoms.

Using sophisticated ice sheet and climate models, Scherer and colleagues found the ice sheet experienced a series of retreats and re-advances during the Pliocene warm periods, but the retreats were not as dramatic as some scientists earlier suggested. They were significant enough to uncover bays of open seawater in the Aurora and Wilkes basins, with conditions ripe for production of copious amounts of plankton diatoms.

But the retreat removed the weight of the ice, allowing previously submerged land strewn with diatoms to rise above sea level over the next few thousand years. Cyclonic winds then sent plumes of diatoms airborne, depositing them across the Transantarctic Mountains.

“The computer models indicate that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated during the Pliocene by some 300 miles into the interior of East Antarctica,” Scherer said, adding that most of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet also disappeared. “So our findings indicate the Sirius diatoms were windblown, but they came from areas of reduced ice in East Antarctica, where extensive diatom-rich lands became exposed to the air.”

The Antarctic ice cap holds the majority of the world’s fresh water, and a substantial melting and retreat of the ice sheet in the future would result in raised sea levels, with devastating consequences for the world’s coastal regions.

“During certain intervals of Pliocene warmth, the sea level could have been as much as 75 feet higher than it is now,” Scherer said.

[caption id="attachment_87576" align="alignleft" width="150"]<img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-87576" src="http://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/diatom-Thalassiosira_vulnifica-600x450-150x150.jpg" alt="Diatom Thalassiosira vulnifica" width="150" height="150" /> Diatom Thalassiosira vulnifica[/caption]

“The rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuel has now elevated the concentration to 400 parts per million, matching for the first time the levels of the warm Pliocene,” he added. “This makes the old debate about whether the ice sheet was notably smaller than it is now more relevant than ever.”

Models used for the research were developed by co-authors David Pollard of Pennsylvania State University and Robert M. DeConto of the University of Massachusetts.

“The question is always how quickly could sea levels rise, and we’re probably looking at several hundred years into the future before reaching a peak high that matches the Pliocene, but the problem of progressive sea-level rise is already upon us,” Scherer said. “The DeConto/Pollard models assume we continue to burn fossil fuels at the current pace. If we make improvements for the better, ice sheet reduction could be significantly delayed. We’d still have a problem, but we could keep the sea-level rise small and slow.”

The new research represents the first published study on the Sirius fossils that presents data directly related to or indicative of East Antarctic Ice Sheet thickness during the Pliocene.

“This latest work, together with other recent ice sheet modeling studies by DeConto and Pollard, clearly demonstrates the sensitivity of modern ice sheets to warming,” Scherer said. “No model is ever perfect, but these scientists use sophisticated physics and the latest data to produce atmospheric and ice models that are truly state-of-the-art, providing a picture of the past and glimpse into our future.”

Noted climate scientist Richard Alley, also of Penn State, rounds out the author list on the Nature Communications publication.

“This is another piece of a jigsaw puzzle that the community is rapidly putting together, and which appears to show that the ice sheets are more sensitive to warming than we had hoped,” Alley said. “If humans continue to warm the climate, we are likely to commit to large and perhaps rapid sea-level rise that could be very costly. No one piece of the puzzle shows this, but as they fit together, the picture is becoming clearer.”

The authors’ research was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation.

--

<a href="http://www.niu.edu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">North Illinois University</a>

Ocean fossils found in mountains cause for concern over sea level rise

Tiny ocean fossils distributed widely across rock surfaces in the...

A new study paints a picture of an Earth that is warmer than it has been in about 120,000 years, and is locked into eventually hitting its hottest mark in more than 2 million years.
As part of her doctoral dissertation at Stanford University, <a href="http://www.carolynsnyder.com/">Carolyn Snyder</a> , now a climate policy official at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, created a continuous 2 million year temperature record, much longer than a previous 22,000 year record. Snyder's temperature reconstruction, published Monday in the journal <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature">Nature</a> , doesn't estimate temperature for a single year, but averages 5,000-year time periods going back a couple million years.
Snyder based her reconstruction on 61 different sea surface temperature proxies from across the globe, such as ratios between magnesium and calcium, species makeup and acidity. But the further the study goes back in time, especially after half a million years, the fewer of those proxies are available, making the estimates less certain, she said.
These are rough estimates with large margins of errors, she said. But she also found that the temperature changes correlated well to carbon dioxide levels.
Temperatures averaged out over the most recent 5,000 years - which includes the last 125 years or so of industrial emissions of heat-trapping gases - are generally warmer than they have been since about 120,000 years ago or so, Snyder found. And two interglacial time periods, the one 120,000 years ago and another just about 2 million years ago, were the warmest Snyder tracked. They were about 3.6 degrees (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than the current 5,000-year average.
With the link to carbon dioxide levels and taking into account other factors and past trends, Snyder calculated how much warming can be expected in the future.
Snyder said if climate factors are the same as in the past - and that's a big if - Earth is already committed to another 7 degrees or so (about 4 degrees Celsius) of warming over the next few thousand years.
"This is based on what happened in the past," Snyder said. "In the past it wasn't humans messing with the atmosphere."
Scientists give various reasons for past changes in carbon dioxide and heat levels, including regular slight shifts in Earth's orbital tilt.
Four outside scientists praised the study's tracking of past temperatures, with caveats about how less certain it is as it gets deeper in the past. Jeremy Shakun of Boston College said "Snyder's work is a great contribution and future work should build on it."
But many of the same scientists said Snyder's estimate of future warming seems too high. Shakun called it unrealistic and not matching historical time periods of similar carbon dioxide levels.
A fifth scientist, Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, called the study provocative and interesting but said he remains skeptical until more research confirms it. He found the future temperature calculations "so much higher than prevailing estimates that one has to consider it somewhat of an outlier."
---
Online:
Nature: <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature">http://www.nature.com/nature</a>
---
Follow Seth Borenstein at http://twitter.com/borenbears and his work can be found at<a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/content/seth-borenstein">http://bigstory.ap.org/content/seth-borenstein</a>
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Study: Earth is hotter than it has been in over 120,000 years

A new study paints a picture of an Earth that...

Unless it does more, the United States probably will fall short of the carbon cutting goals set under last year's Paris agreement to dramatically reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases, according to a new study.

The U.S. pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels. But taking into account current efforts by state and local governments, the nation will only reach about four-fifths of that goal, according to a study in Monday's Nature Climate Change .

Looking at all types of greenhouse gases from energy and other sources- carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and various fluorocarbons - two scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab figure the U.S. will have to cut about 1,660 million tons of annual emissions. But current, proposed and even less concrete policies would only reduce about 1,330 million tons, leaving a gap around 330 million tons, they calculated.

The statistics have large margins of errors of plus or minus of hundreds of million tons.

"We can't get there with our current set of policies," said study lead author Jeffrey Greenblatt, a senior scientist at the national lab. "We would fall short of the target if there is no further action."

That doesn't mean that the U.S. can't reach its goal, it's just it has to do more and it can, Greenblatt said. He said he was optimistic that with more action the U.S. could come close to the 26 percent goal, if not achieve it.

The biggest reduction that Greenblatt and his colleague Max Wei calculate would come from the Obama administration's clean power plan that would cut carbon pollution from power plants, mostly coal. But that plan is on hold in the courts. If it doesn't go into effect, it will be even harder for the U.S. to reach its Paris goal, Greenblatt said. It's also a policy that Republicans, including Donald Trump, have vowed to repeal if they win.

Greenblatt and Wei have counted on gains from that policy, but it's still not enough.

So how could the U.S. get to its goal? Greenblatt and Wei briefly looked at a dozen possible ways, but none of them individually would bring huge reductions.

"I think it's going to be a variety of smallish efforts to get there," Greenblatt said.

By looking at sectors besides energy, and at all greenhouse gases - not just carbon dioxide, which has fallen dramatically because of a switch from coal power to natural gas for electricity, mostly because of lower gas prices - Greenblatt's reaches conclusions that are less optimistic than some advanced by others.

Six outside experts said the study's conclusions are both correct and not surprising.

Even if the courts uphold the Obama power plan, the delay makes it more difficult to cut carbon pollution in time, said MIT management professor John Sterman, who also founded a program that models climate emissions and goals. And the low cost of gasoline is prompting more driving, making it harder to reduce pollution.

"The U.S., states and cities will need to adopt more ambitious policies and soon to be able to fulfill our commitment under the Paris agreement," Sterman wrote in an email. But he said what is even more important is that the Paris deal "is not strong enough."

"To avoid the worst consequences of climate change, the U.S. and an all nations must cut emissions sooner and by more than called for under the Paris agreement," Sterman wrote. "There's simply no time to lose."

Nigel Purvis, a top environmental diplomat in the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and president of the non-governmental organization Climate Advisers , said that's why the U.S. goals are ambitious: "We didn't know how to get to the moon when JFK declared the moonshot but we worked hard, innovated and succeeded. The next administration will need to do the same to make sure the United States meets its climate goals."

---

Online:

Nature Climate Change: <a href="http://www.nature.com/nclimate" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.nature.com/nclimate</a>

---

Follow Seth Borenstein at <a href="http://twitter.com/borenbears" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://twitter.com/borenbears</a> and his work can be found at <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/content/seth-borenstein" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://bigstory.ap.org/content/seth-borenstein</a>

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US is not on track go meet 2025 carbon cutting goal

Unless it does more, the United States probably will fall...

As scientists continue finding evidence for life in the ocean more than 3 billion years ago, those ancient fossils pose a paradox.

Organisms, including the single-celled bacteria living in the ocean at that early date, need a steady supply of phosphorus, but “it’s very hard to account for this phosphorus unless it is eroding from the continents,” says Aaron Satkoski, a scientist in the geoscience department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “So that makes it really hard to explain the fossils we see at this early era.”

Satkoski, who is first author of a new report on ocean chemistry from this remote period, says the conventional wisdom of geology has envisioned an oceanic planet, with little or no land above the waves. “Starting back in the 1960s, for various reasons people claimed there was very little continental mass, and so there wasn't enough weathering to affect the chemistry of the ocean. But there wasn't much real data from more than 3 billion years ago to support that.”

Discoveries of fossil remains of bacteria from over 3 billion years ago have changed that picture, says Satkoski. “But if there was life in the ocean, you need some amount of continental weathering taking place to deliver phosphorus so the organisms can live."

The major influences on ocean chemistry today are hydrothermal flow (hot water that has circulated through the crust) and surface weathering (the river transport of material eroded from land into the ocean).

To evaluate each influence 3.26 billion years ago, geoscience Professor Clark Johnson and Satkoski collected samples from South Africa and compared isotopes in two forms of a rock called barite. The cemented granules had formed in the water, then fused after dropping to the ocean floor.

A solid, or bladed, type of barite had formed at the ocean floor. Johnson, Satkoski and colleague Brian Beard assumed that the granular rock would reflect ocean water chemistry, and therefore any eroded, continental material. The bladed barite would represent a mix of ocean chemistry and hydrothermal flow.

The study hinged on precise measurements of isotopes — atoms that are chemically identical but that have different masses. Knowing that strontium derived from land shows a slightly higher ratio of strontium 87 than strontium derived from hydrothermal circulation, the scientists compared isotopes in each type of barite.

The result was a nearly infinitesimal — but still significant — difference in the isotope ratios, signifying that the granular barite indeed was derived from sediment eroded from land. In other words, a significant amount of erosion was taking place 3.26 billion years ago.

Their report, just published online by Earth and Planetary Science Letters, pushes back the first solid date for large-scale continental erosion by 400 million years.

"It’s a guess how much of the planet's surface was land, but it could be as high as two-thirds of the area of today's continents," says Johnson, who leads the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the University of Wisconsin. "Some previous estimates had no continents at all."

"When people were thinking about ocean chemistry, it was always centered on hydrothermal flow, but there was little data," Johnson says. "We are trying to put some data into the equation."

The finding about continents jibes with evidence from igneous rocks — those sourced in hot, molten rock — which indicated that the surface became rigid enough to support mountain belts, which would have eroded, during this period. "Now that we have a more complete picture, the story becomes more coherent," Satkoski says.

The result also meshes with climate data, as intense continental weathering could result from an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Although the sun was relatively cold at that time, the oceans were not frozen, Satkoski says. "That suggests there was more greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, which would produce a warmer climate combined with increased weathering, because carbon dioxide creates carbonic acid and acid rain, which speeds chemical weathering.”

The presence of continents also indicates that the broad, slow movements of plate tectonics had started at this distant time. "Conventional wisdom says Earth had few continents because it did not have plate tectonics, which is how continents are made," Satkoski says. "Our evidence says the opposite."

Overall, the result provides a satisfying unification of diverse streams of evidence, Johnson says. "We are moving toward an explanation for the presence of life, and the nutrients in the ocean, and why Earth was not frozen. They seem to fit together, but this is a very different picture of the early Earth than we had just 20 years ago.

---

<a href="http://www.wisc.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">University of Wisconin-Madison</a>

Land erosion enabled life in the ocean to evolve over 3 billion years ago

As scientists continue finding evidence for life in the ocean...

Baby lobsters might not be able to survive in the ocean's waters if the ocean continues to warm at the expected rate.
That is the key finding of a study performed by scientists in Maine, the state most closely associated with lobster. The scientists, who are affiliated with the University of Maine Darling Marine Center and Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, said the discovery could mean bad news for the future of one of America's most beloved seafood treats, as well as the industry lobsters support.
The scientists found that lobster larvae struggled to survive when they were reared in water 5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the temperatures that are currently typical of the western Gulf of Maine, a key lobster fishing area off of New England. Five degrees is how much the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expects the Gulf of Maine's temperature to warm by the year 2100.
The paper appears this month in the scientific journal ICES Journal of Marine Science. It could serve as a wake-up call that the lobster fishery faces a looming climate crisis that is already visible in southern New England, said Jesica Waller, one of the study's authors.


[caption id="attachment_87531" align="alignleft" width="150"]<img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-87531" src="http://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/baby-lobster_1big_ap-150x150.jpg" alt="baby lobster" width="150" height="150" /> baby lobster[/caption]
"There has been a near total collapse in Rhode Island, the southern end of the fishery, and we know our waters are getting warmer," Waller said. "We are hoping this research can be a jumping off point for more research into how lobsters might do over the next century."
Right now, the country's lobster catch is strong, prices are high and steady and the industry is opening up new markets in Asia, where a growing middle class is hungry for one of America's seafood status symbols.
U.S. fishermen have topped 100 million pounds of lobster for seven years in a row after having never previously reached that mark, and their catch topped a half billion dollars in value at the docks for the first time in 2014.
But signs of the toll warming waters can do to the fishery are noticeable in its southern reaches, where scientists have said rising temperatures are contributing to the lobsters' decline. The lobster catch south of Cape Cod fell to about 3.3 million pounds in 2013, 16 years have it peaked at about 22 million in 1997.
The study's authors found higher temperatures caused baby lobsters to develop faster - something that could help them avoid predators in the wild - but few survived. They performed the work by raising more than 3,000 baby lobsters from the moment they hatched.
The authors said the study is the first of its kind to focus on how American lobsters will be impacted by warming waters and the increasing acidification of the ocean in tandem. The study found that acidification had almost no effect on young lobsters' survival, Waller said.
Michael Tlusty, an ocean scientist with the Anderson Cabot Center at the New England Aquarium, said the study is especially important because it considered both warming and changing ocean chemistry.
"This is the type of work that really needs to be done," said Tlusty, who was not affiliated with the study. "The oceans are not changing one parameter at a time."
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Study: Baby lobsters can't survive warming oceans

Baby lobsters might not be able to survive in the...

An international research team from six universities, including Virginia Tech, works to better understand how trees – one of Earth’s most vital renewable resources – adapt to climate change.

Recently the team discovered that two distantly related tree species use the same genes to adapt to the range of temperatures in their geographical region. Their results were published Thursday in the journal Science.

Jason Holliday, an associate professor of forest resources and environmental conservation in the College of Natural Resources and Environment and a Fralin Life Science Institute affiliate, as well as Haktan Suren, a Ph.D. candidate from the same department in the Genetics, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology program, are part of the team investigating how trees adapt to different climatic conditions.

“A central question in biology is: how repeatable is the evolutionary process? One way to address this question is to study different species adapting to similar environments, and ask whether the same genetic solutions enable that adaptation,” said Holliday, who is also one of the study’s co-authors, along with Suren.

After five years and with the help of more than thirty people, the team studied two different conifer tree species, lodgepole pine and interior spruce, which are widespread in western parts of the United States and Canada. They collected seed from over 250 locations in western Canada, before sequencing more than 23,000 genes in each tree.

Their large-scale analysis revealed that both pine and spruce use the same suite of 47 genes to adapt to geographic variation in temperature, and to appropriately time acquisition of cold hardiness – a trait that allows plants to tolerate the adverse conditions of winter.

This discovery was surprising due to the evolutionary distance between the two species – they began evolving independently over 140 million years, when they shared a common ancestor. Similar species often evolve similar traits, but the extent to which similarities at the genomic level amount to similar observable traits in different species had not been tested until now.

“Since we’re seeing the same genes across different species, there’s a greater likelihood that these adaptations are due to natural selection rather than just by chance,” said Sam Yeaman, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, and first author of the paper.

One implication of this work is that environmental adaptations may be genetically constrained. While variation in observable traits such as cold hardiness likely involves hundreds of genes, Holliday explained, a subset are required for adaptation to occur, even when comparing species that diverged long ago. This result has implications for ongoing adaptation of tree populations to climate change.

“We have to understand climate adaptation in other conifers so we can address trees that are becoming mismatched with local conditions due to climate change,” said Sally Aitken, a professor of forest and conservation science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and corresponding author on the study. “This will also help us offer better recommendations for forest management strategies in changing climates, and plant trees that are more likely to thrive and adapt more quickly to climate change.”

--

<a href="http://www.vt.edu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Virginia Tech</a>

Scientists learn how trees adapt to climate change

An international research team from six universities, including Virginia Tech,...

By adding highly accurate radiocarbon dating of soil to standard Earth system models, environmental scientists from the University of California, Irvine and other institutions have learned a dirty little secret: Soil will absorb far less atmospheric carbon dioxide this century than previously thought.

Researchers used carbon-14 data from 157 sample sites around the world to determine that current soil carbon is about 3,100 years old – rather than the 450 years stipulated by many Earth system models.

“This work indicates that soils have a weaker capacity to soak up carbon than we have been assuming over the past few decades,” said UCI Chancellor’s Professor of Earth system science James Randerson, senior author of a new study on the subject to be published Friday in the journal Science. “It means we have to be even more proactive in finding ways to cut emissions of fossil fuels to limit the magnitude and impacts of climate warming.”

Through photosynthesis, plants absorb CO2 from the air. When trees and vegetation die and decay, they become part of the soil, effectively locking carbon on or beneath the Earth’s surface – keeping it out of the atmosphere, where it contributes to global warming. In their study, the researchers showed that since this process unfolds over millennia versus decades or centuries, we should expect less of this land carbon sequestration in the 21st century than suggested by current Earth system models.

“A substantial amount of the greenhouse gas that we thought was being taken up and stored in the soil is actually going to stay in the atmosphere,” said study co-author Steven Allison, UCI associate professor of ecology &amp; evolutionary biology and Earth system science.

In recent years, scientists have used highly complex, computer-based Earth system models – compilations of code integrating data on the planet’s oceans, land surfaces, ice masses, atmosphere and biological systems – to draw conclusions about potential future changes in regional and global temperatures, drought, sea levels and other phenomena.

The models don’t explicitly provide the age of carbon in soils, but lead author Yujie He, a UCI postdoctoral scholar when the study was conducted, said that she and her colleagues figured out a way to improve them through simplification and the addition of dating methods well-established in the scientific community.

“Radiocarbon is an excellent tool for understanding soil dynamics,” He said. “Our study demonstrated that by working to reduce the complexity of Earth system models and combining observational data, we could get them to reveal surprising findings.”

The authors said that adding more carbon to that which has been in the ground for thousands of years is problematic given the pace at which the Earth seems capable of integrating it.

“If we waited 300, 400, 1,000 years, then that carbon – we think – would go into the soil. But that’s not going to help us in dealing with climate change, which is happening now,” Allison said. “You have to do a lot of risk assessment to say, well, what’s the actual cost of just waiting for that sequestration, and what policies should we implement to avoid that possible cost? That’s outside the realm of our actual work here, but what we can say is that the problems of carbon emission and climate change are worse than what we expected previously.”

Also contributing to the study were Susan Trumbore of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Margaret Torn and Lydia Vaughn of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Jennifer Harden of Stanford University and the U.S. Geological Survey.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is the youngest member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 30,000 students and offers 192 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $5 billion annually to the local economy.

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For more on UCI, visit <a href="http://www.uci.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.uci.edu</a>.

Soil will absorb less carbon than previously believed

By adding highly accurate radiocarbon dating of soil to standard...

California hopes to generate electricity from traffic. All those cars on California's famously gridlocked highways could be doing more than just using energy - they could be producing it.
The California Energy Commission is investing $2 million to study whether piezoelectric crystals can be used to generate electricity from the mechanical energy created by vehicles driving on roads.
The commission is in the process of choosing a company or university to take on small-scale field tests. It will study how the small crystals, which generate energy when compressed, could produce electricity for the grid if installed under asphalt. California hopes to generate electricity from traffic
Scientists already know the <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=technology&amp;cvid=c10c329a5f114ba887ad63bff520d849&amp;FORM=ANAB01&amp;PC=HCTS">technology</a> works, but the state needs to figure out whether it can produce high returns without costing too much. Similar projects in other parts of the world have been discontinued.
"It's not hard to see the opportunity in California," said Mike Gravely, the commission's deputy division chief of energy research and development. "It's an energy that's created but is just currently lost in vibration."
Scientists say it's a matter of shifting perceptions.
"No longer is driving just the act of using energy. Maybe it's also part of the process of generating it," said Paul Bunje, a scientist at a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that funds technological developments and the former founding director of UCLA's Center for Climate Change Solutions.
The hope is that the use of clean energy produced by roads will help the state reach its goal of producing 50 percent of California's electricity with renewables by 2030, Gravely said.
The state is on target to reach 25 percent by the end of the year, according to the energy commission.
Whether the technology can withstand the wear and tear of traffic is something that concerns Joe Mahoney, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle.
"One would need to consider which would last longer: the pavement or the devices," he said, adding highways need to be resurfaced every 10 to 30 years.
There is also uncertainty about whether the technology will be competitive enough with other renewables to merit full-scale investment.
California's funding to study the technology follows a series of projects in Tokyo, Italy and Israel that appear to have failed or been dropped.
Most notably, an Israeli company whose pilot test attracted global attention in 2009 is now in the process of liquidation, and the project was unsuccessful, according to the Israeli roads authority.
The company, Innowattech, also had plans to install its devices under a section of Italian highway but pulled out, according to Salini Impregilo, the Italian construction company involved.
It was the Israeli project that inspired California lawmaker Mike Gatto, a Los Angeles Democrat, to ask the energy commission to fund pilot projects in California.
Gatto submitted a bill to the Assembly in 2011 and has lauded the Israeli project in several news releases since.
He told The Associated Press that he didn't know the project apparently failed.
"Hearing these details for the first time -obviously, they're not heartening," Gatto said. "I don't want anything to be colored by one tiny experiment by one company in a different country."
Gatto said he thinks the technology is still viable.
"It's probably that there are cost issues that might have been present in Israel that might not be present here," he said. California hopes to generate electricity from traffic
Innowattech data also featured heavily in the commission's feasibility study, published by an energy consulting company in 2014. The study gathered and compared the data available from projects experimenting with the technology at the time.
But the commission's Gravely said conclusions were drawn from a range of sources, assuring him the results are reliable. He added he has spoken to several manufacturers within the United States who are eager to explore it.
Bunje noted it's not uncommon for a technology's early adopters to fail.
"Innovation comes with risk," he said. "There is a general rule that you don't know what is going to work."
Regardless of the risks, it's worth trying new things, he said.
The $2 million California is using to test the new technology will come from a renewable investment fund created by the California Public Utilities Commission. Bidding will end Nov. 18, and the commission will award the contract in the spring.
© 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

California hopes to generate electricity from traffic

California hopes to generate electricity from traffic. All those cars...

Scientists are transforming chocolate into a functional food by infusing it with probiotics and prebiotics, aiming to create a treat that satisfies cravings while supporting gut health. 



The challenge lies in maintaining chocolate's beloved texture and flavor while adding health benefits.



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Probiotics - beneficial microbes that balance gut bacteria and aid digestion - are typically fragile and can be destroyed by stomach acid or processing. 



Prebiotics act as food for these microbes, helping them thrive. Together, they form "synbiotics," a powerful health combination.



Researchers Smriti Gaur and Shubhi Singh from India's Jaypee Institute of Information Technology took an innovative approach, using natural prebiotics like corn and honey instead of complex processing methods. 



They created five chocolate varieties: a control and four synbiotic versions containing different combinations of prebiotics, probiotics (Lactobacillus strains), and flavor enhancers (cinnamon or orange).



Laboratory simulations of human digestion showed the probiotics remained viable for over five hours, suggesting they could survive long enough to benefit gut health.



Taste tests were positive, with researchers particularly enjoying the orange-flavored variety, describing it as having "vibrant citrus notes" complementing the "rich cocoa" with a "luxurious" texture.



This research represents just the beginning. With further refinement of strains, textures, and flavors, chocolate could evolve beyond mere indulgence to become a functional food that nourishes while it delights.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsfoodscitech.4c00741" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ACS Food Science &amp; Technology</a>.

Is chocolate the next nutritional powerhouse?

Scientists are transforming chocolate into a functional food by infusing...

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: Amanda Nguyen/University of Illinois



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



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Designing crops that can beat the heat

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

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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



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

Remote sensing will revolutionize the way we monitor trees

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

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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;&nbsp;



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



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.

Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky"

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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...

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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



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Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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Tiger sharks are shifting poleward as temperatures rise

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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



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.

Melt ponds on the Greenland Ice Sheet

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: ESA



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



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.

Tracking changes in Earth's water cycle

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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



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.

Mysterious "spoke season" captured on Saturn

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NTU Singapore



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



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.

Plants help remove heavy metals from contaminated soil

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



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



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



Video Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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



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.

Weeds are becoming increasingly resistant to herbicides

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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.

NASA monitors giant dust storms on Mars

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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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



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Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz

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



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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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



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Inhambane Bay in southeast Mozambique

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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: ESA



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



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Kangerlussuaq Glacier on the Greenland ice sheet

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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: ESA



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



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Ocean heat influences regional climate

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



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



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



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



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



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



Image/ Video Credit: ESA



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

Monitoring the dynamic shape of the sea surface

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