High in Alaska’s Brooks Range, streams that once ran so clear you could drink from them are now the color of rusty tea. The water looks hazy, smells metallic, and can stain rocks orange for miles.&nbsp;



Fish are struggling, insect life is smothered, and the change has arrived with startling speed. Scientists say the culprit isn’t industry. It’s <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/thawing-permafrost-could-tip-earths-climate-balance/">thawing permafrost</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-when-frozen-ground-wakes-up">When frozen ground wakes up</h2>



For millennia, Arctic permafrost - permanently frozen soil - locked minerals in place. As the region warms, that icy seal is failing. Water and oxygen seep into freshly thawed ground and set off a chain reaction in sulfide-rich rocks (pyrite is a prime example).&nbsp;



The chemistry is textbook: sulfides oxidize, sulfuric acid forms, and the acid leaches metals like <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/iron-was-lifes-first-essential-metal-and-shaped-early-evolution/">iron</a>, aluminum, and cadmium from surrounding rock. Those metals then flush into rivers and streams.



“This is what acid mine drainage looks like,” said Tim Lyons, a biogeochemist at the University of California, Riverside. “But here, there’s no mine. The permafrost is thawing and changing the chemistry of the landscape.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-astounding-changes-in-water-chemistry">Astounding changes in water chemistry</h2>



A new study zeroes in on the Salmon River, a key waterway in the Brooks Range, documenting just how far the contamination has progressed.&nbsp;



But the authors stress the pattern isn’t isolated. Similar transformations are underway across dozens of Arctic watersheds that share the same mix of geology and thaw.



“I have worked and traveled in the Brooks Range since 1976, and the recent changes in landforms and water chemistry are truly astounding,” said David Cooper, a <a href="https://www.colostate.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Colorado State University</a> research scientist and co-author of the study.



The alarm first sounded in 2019. Ecologist Paddy Sullivan of the <a href="https://www.alaska.edu/alaska/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Alaska</a> was flying into the backcountry to study northward-shifting forests when his bush pilot mentioned the Salmon hadn’t cleared after snowmelt - it looked, he said, “like sewage.”&nbsp;



Sullivan’s field observations led to a collaboration with Lyons, <a href="https://www.alaskapacific.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Alaska Pacific University</a>’s Roman Dial, and others to trace the cause and measure the ecological fallout.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-toxic-metals-in-alaska-s-rivers">Toxic metals in Alaska's rivers</h2>



The team’s analysis confirmed a geochemical cascade. Permafrost thaw exposes sulfide-bearing rocks, oxidation generates acidity, and the resulting acid mobilizes a suite of metals.&nbsp;



In small doses many metals are harmless or even essential. But at higher concentrations they become toxic to aquatic life - and the Salmon River’s waters now exceed the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">U.S. Environmental Protection Agency</a> thresholds for several metals detrimental to fish and invertebrates.



Iron is the most visible signal. As iron oxidizes, it forms fine, orange precipitates that cloud the water and coat the streambed. That haze blocks sunlight that <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/antarctic-algae-that-once-cooled-earth-are-now-disappearing/">algae</a> and aquatic plants need, and the sludge blankets the gravel and cobbles where insect larvae live and fish spawn. 



Cadmium is more insidious: it can accumulate in fish organs, potentially affecting predators from Dolly Varden <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/trout-living-in-polluted-rivers-evolved-to-tolerate-high-metal-levels-in-the-waters/">trout</a> and grayling to birds and bears.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ripple-effects-in-the-food-chain">Ripple effects in the food chain</h2>



For now, the researchers say metal levels in edible fish tissue are not considered hazardous to humans. But indirect risks loom large.&nbsp;



Chum salmon - central to the diets and culture of many Indigenous communities - lay their eggs in clean, oxygenated gravel. When those spaces fill with fine sediment and metal precipitates, the oxygen drops and eggs can suffocate. 



Changes in insect communities ripple up the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/oceans-twilight-zone-stabilizes-the-marine-food-chain/">food chain</a>, weakening the foundation that supports juvenile fish and the species that eat them.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-irreversible-shift-in-alaska-s-rivers">Irreversible shift in Alaska's rivers</h2>



Unlike mine sites - where engineers can install liners, drains, or neutralizing systems - these rivers wind through remote, roadless country, and the sources of contamination are everywhere thaw has reached the right rock. There is no single pipe to plug, no settling pond to build.



“Wherever you have the right kind of rock and thawing permafrost, this process can start,” Lyons said. And once it does, it tends to keep going. The only true “off switch” would be for the permafrost to refreeze - an unlikely prospect in a warming climate.



“There’s no fixing this once it starts,” Lyons said. “It’s another irreversible shift driven by a warming planet.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-fingerprints-of-global-warming">Fingerprints of global warming</h2>



The experts hope their findings will help communities, land managers, and fisheries prepare - by expanding water quality monitoring, identifying vulnerable spawning grounds, planning alternative harvests if runs falter, and adapting management practices as conditions change.



The broader message is sobering. The Brooks Range is about as far from cities and smokestacks as you can get. Yet its rivers are wearing the unmistakable fingerprints of global warming.



“There are few places left on Earth as untouched as these <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/alaskas-rivers-are-rusting-and-the-changes-are-visible-from-space/">rivers</a>,” Lyons said. “But even here, far from cities and highways, the fingerprint of global warming is unmistakable. No place is spared.”



Rivers once known for their wild clarity are telling a new story - one where ancient ice, long trusted to keep the land’s chemistry in check, is finally letting go.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2425644122" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>.



Image Credit: Taylor Rhoades



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Alaska's rivers are turning orange, and the changes are irreversible

High in Alaska’s Brooks Range, streams that once ran so clear you could drink from them are now the color of rusty tea. The water looks hazy, smells metallic, and can stain rocks orange for miles.&nbsp; Fish are struggling, insect life is smothered, and the change has arrived with startling speed. Scientists say the culprit isn’t industry. It’s thawing permafrost. When frozen ground wakes up For millennia, Arctic permafrost - permanently frozen soil - locked minerals in place. As the region warms, that icy seal is failing....

The United Nations' aviation arm overwhelmingly ratified an agreement Thursday to control global warming emissions from international airline flights, the first international climate-change pact to set limits on a single industry.
The agreement, adopted at the International Civil Aviation Organization's assembly meeting in Montreal, sets airlines' carbon emissions in the year 2020 as the upper limit of what carriers are allowed to discharge without penalty. Airlines that exceed that limit in future years, as most are expected to do, will have to offset their emissions growth by buying carbon credits from other industries.
The agreement is "a balanced, pragmatic, and very positive development," said ICAO Director General Liu Fang, adding that it will "serve as an important new tool to complement the emissions reduction progress already being achieved" by airlines through technological innovations, modernized operations and growing use of alternative fuels.
Countries must still act on their own to put the agreement's limits into effect. Environmentalists complained the agreement was weakened by a last minute change that removed language that would have aligned its aims with a landmark climate-change accord reached in Paris last December.
The first phase of the agreement, which is voluntary, covers 2021 to 2027. Participation becomes mandatory from 2028 through 2035. Some countries were still trying to decide whether to participate in the voluntary phase.
The 15-year agreement is expected to reduce carbon that would otherwise be emitted by 2.5 billion tons, according to an Environmental Defense Fund calculation. That's roughly equivalent to taking 35 million cars off the road every year for the life of the agreement, she said.
Among the countries with significant international air traffic that have indicated they will participate in the voluntary phase are the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and Singapore. The European Union's aviation conference, which includes 44 nations, has also indicated it intends to participate. However, Russia doesn't currently plan to participate in the voluntary phase, and India expressed reservations with portions of the pact.
The agreement has the backing of the airline industry even though it could cost airlines an estimated $5.3 billion annually in the early years and as much as $23.9 billion a year by 2035. Airlines spent $181 billion on fuel last year.
Airlines that keep their emissions down through more fuel efficient planes and aircraft operations will spend less on carbon credits. But since aviation is growing rapidly, emissions growth is expected to far outstrip increased efficiencies.
The deal applies only to international flights, which account for about 60 percent of aviation. Emissions from domestic airline flights fall under the Paris climate change accord, which goes into effect next month. That accord commits rich and poor countries to take action to curb the rise in global temperatures that is melting glaciers, raising sea levels and shifting rainfall patterns. Governments must present national plans to reduce emissions to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
Airlines that fly internationally were left out of the Paris accord because they protested that it would mean dealing with a patchwork of country-by-country regulations.
The last minute change to the aviation emissions agreement stripped out language that would have aligned the agreement with the goal of keeping global warming below a 2 degree rise.
"This deal was the world's first opportunity to test whether the new Paris Agreement would change the way we do business and rally the world toward its new goals. Yet just hours after celebrating the Paris Agreement's early entry into force, countries at ICAO are sending mixed signals about their ambition to reduce emissions by weakening the link between the aviation mechanism and the long term goals set in Paris," said Lou Leonard, vice president of the World Wildlife Fund.
Aviation accounts for less than 2 percent of the world's carbon emissions. That may seem small, but if aviation were a country it would be the world's seventh largest carbon emitter - larger than Canada or South Korea, but not as big as Germany. By the middle of the century, aviation emissions are expected to triple what they were in 2005.
Airlines say they have already made significant changes. U.S. airlines, for example, carried 24 percent more passengers and cargo in 2015 than they did in 2000, while improving their fuel efficiency by 31 percent and emitting 6 percent less CO2, according to Airlines for America, a trade association for major carriers.
---
Follow Joan Lowy at <a href="http://twitter.com/AP-Joan-Lowy.">http://twitter.com/AP-Joan-Lowy.</a> Her work can be found at<a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/content/joan-lowy">http://bigstory.ap.org/content/joan-lowy</a>
© 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.

UN reaches agreement to control global warming emissions from airplanes

The United Nations' aviation arm overwhelmingly ratified an agreement Thursday...

<div>
<div class="img-wrapper">Satellite imagery showed Hurricane Matthew's clouds already streaming over Florida on Oct. 6 as it regained Category 4 status.</div>
A visible image showing powerful Hurricane Matthew and Nicole on Oct. 6 at 1 p.m. EDT was captured by NOAA's GOES-East satellite. The image shows large Hurricane Matthew's clouds stretching from eastern Cuba and Hispaniola, over the Bahamas and extending to Florida. Matthew is west of the much smaller Tropical Storm Nicole. The image was created at the NASA/NOAA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), the eye of Hurricane Matthew was located near 25.1 degrees north latitude and 77.8 degrees west longitude. That's about 25 miles (40 km) west-northwest of Nassau, Bahamas and 180 miles (290 km) southeast of West Palm Beach, Florida.

NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the "eye is moving toward the northwest near 14 mph (22 kph) between Andros Island and Nassau in the Bahamas. This general motion is expected to continue today with a turn toward the north-northwest tonight or early Friday. On the forecast track, Matthew should cross the northwestern Bahamas later today and move close to or over the east coast of the Florida peninsula through Friday night.

Reports form an Air Force plane indicate that the maximum sustained winds are near 140 mph (220 kph) with higher gusts. Matthew is a category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Some additional strengthening is possible, and Matthew should remain a Category 4 hurricane while it approaches the Florida coast."

Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 60 miles (95 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 160 miles (260 km). The minimum central pressure estimated by an Air Force plane was 940 millibars.

---

For updated forecasts, please visit the NHC website at: <a href="http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.nhc.noaa.gov</a>.


</div>
<div></div>

Hurricane Matthew regains Category 4 status

Satellite imagery showed Hurricane Matthew's clouds already streaming over Florida...

<div>Researchers at Tel Aviv University have revealed how microalgae produce hydrogen, a clean fuel of the future, and suggest a possible mechanism to jumpstart mass production of this environmentally-friendly energy source. Their results have been published in back-to-back studies in Plant Physiology and Biotechnology for Biofuels.</div>
<div>

The research was led by Dr. Iftach Yacoby, head of TAU's renewable energy laboratory, and Rinat Semyatich, Haviva Eisenberg, Iddo Weiner and Oded Liran, his students at the School of Plant Sciences and Food Security at TAU's Faculty of Life Sciences.

Researchers in the past believed that algae only produce hydrogen in the course of a single microburst at dawn lasting just a few minutes. But Dr. Yacoby and his team used highly sensitive technology to discover that algae produce hydrogen from photosynthesis all day long. Armed with this discovery, the team harnessed genetic engineering to increase algae's production of this clean energy source 400 percent.

Increasing algae's output of hydrogen

Laboratory tests revealed that algae create hydrogen with the assistance of the enzyme hydrogenase, which breaks down when oxygen is present. The researchers discovered effective mechanisms to remove oxygen so hydrogenase can keep producing hydrogen.

"The discovery of the mechanisms makes it clear that algae have a huge underutilized potential for the production of hydrogen fuel," said Dr. Yacoby. "The next question is how to beef up production for industrial purposes -- to get the algae to overproduce the enzyme."

Some 99% of the hydrogen produced in the US comes from natural gas. But the methods used to draw hydrogen from natural gas are toxic -- and wasteful.

Answering the need for clean energy

"I grew up on a farm, dreaming of hydrogen," said Dr. Yacoby. "Since the beginning of time, we have been using agriculture to make our own food. But when it comes to energy, we are still hunter-gatherers. Cultivating energy from agriculture is really the next revolution. There may be other ways to produce hydrogen, but this is the greenest and the only agricultural one.

"The world burns in just one year energy it took the earth over a million years to produce," Dr. Yacoby continued. "We must stop being hunters and gatherers of energy. We must start producing clean energy -- for our children and for our children's children."

Dr. Yacoby is now researching synthetic enzymes capable of increasing hydrogen production from microalgae to industrial levels.
###
Tel Aviv University (TAU) is inherently linked to the cultural, scientific and entrepreneurial mecca it represents. It is one of the world's most dynamic research centers and Israel's most distinguished learning environment. Its unique-in-Israel multidisciplinary environment is highly coveted by young researchers and scholars returning to Israel from post-docs and junior faculty positions in the US.

American Friends of Tel Aviv University (AFTAU) enthusiastically and industriously pursues the advancement of TAU in the US, raising money, awareness and influence through international alliances that are vital to the future of this already impressive institution.

</div>

Algae may soon be a source of clean energy

Researchers at Tel Aviv University have revealed how microalgae produce...

<div>
<div class="img-wrapper">Scientists are increasingly concerned about the impact of climate change on the world's biodiversity and much effort has been placed into forecasting the response of species to these changes over the next century. Research aiming to forecast species' responses often assumes that species are adapted to current climate conditions and will follow their preferred climates during future climate change. However, the distribution of species today may largely be a product of the climate of the deep past, or paleoclimate.</div>
The legacy of paleoclimate on modern biodiversity patterns is the subject of a new study led by Arizona State University's John Rowan and Kaye Reed in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, along with researchers from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the University of Michigan, Jason Kamilar and Lydia Beaudrot, respectively. Rowan is a graduate student in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and Reed is a Research Associate with the Institute of Human Origins and President's Professor with the School of Human Evolution and Social Change.

The researchers statistically analyzed the relative influence of modern, mid-Holocene (~ 6,000 years ago) and Last Glacial Maximum (~ 22,000 years ago) climate on African mammal communities today. Their analysis shows that the structure of mammal communities across Africa today is actually more tightly linked to the climate of the mid-Holocene and Last Glacial Maximum than to modern climate. The mid-Holocene and Last Glacial Maximum are periods of climate extremes during the late Quaternary, with the mid-Holocene being warm and wet and the Last Glacial Maximum being cool and arid. These past climate changes drastically altered the distribution of vegetation in Africa (e.g., savannas, forests) and the mammal species that rely upon them.

[caption id="attachment_88615" align="alignleft" width="150"]<img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-88615" src="http://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/cff2.earth-com-temp.comuploads20161005191111media.eurekalert.orgmultimedia_prodpubweb123844_web-8b2c0fb19014fb88088dfb1782883f5ec91710a9-4a315c01567f97cb89662a82884f0a32a28c64bc-150x150.jpg" alt="Temperature, vegetation and human population growth changes over the last 22,000 years. " width="150" height="150" /> Temperature, vegetation and human population growth changes over the last 22,000 years.[/caption]

The study examined how the community structure of three different mammal groups (carnivorans, like lions and hyenas; primates, like gorillas and baboons; ungulates, like wildebeest and zebra) was influenced by modern and past climates. They found that, unlike all other groups, primates have closely followed their preferred climates through time. This is because primates are highly dependent on forests for their survival and have shifted their distributions in response to the changing distribution of forests through wet and dry periods over the last 22,000 years. Carnivoran and ungulate communities, like mammals overall, are more closely linked with past climate.

Their startling finding, that past climates are more important to the structure of mammal communities than modern climate, implies that African mammal species have either failed to move with their preferred environments over the last several thousand years of climate change or that these species are ecologically flexible and can persist in wide range of climatic conditions. If species have failed to move with their preferred environment through time to the present, then there is a significant time lag between climate change and species' response. Even worse, this time lag occurs under natural rates of climate change -- much slower than rates of anthropogenic climate change.

"The three- to four-degree increase from the Last Glacial Maximum to the present occurred over several thousand years," Rowan says, "and was a shift from an 'Ice Age' world to a warmer one. Now, we're looking at up to a four degree shift in less than a century, and one in which we go from a warm world to an even warmer one. The magnitude and rate of climate change we see over the next century may be unprecedented in Earth's history -- species are, in a very real sense, going to have to cope with something they've never experienced before. It's a whole new world."

On the other hand, the second possibility offers a more optimistic point of view. If African mammal species are ecologically flexible and can persist in a wide range of climate conditions, then they may be able to cope with future changes. However, the vastly faster rates of anthropogenic climate change casts doubt on this hopeful view.

"Even if species are flexible enough to have coped with gradual climate changes over the last several thousand years, we still don't know how they will respond to rapid changes. This uncertainty makes devising robust conservation actions one of the most daunting challenges of the twenty-first century," says Rowan.

"The results of this study on past climate influence can be used to compare the effects of other possible drivers of species distributions and community structure, such as human disruptions of the environment," says Reed. "This will enable forecasting in the future that will be able to analyze the effects of multiple causational factors and lead to better conservation plans for mammal species."
###
The Institute of Human Origins (IHO) and the School of Human Evolution and Social Change are units of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. IHO is one of the preeminent research organizations in the world devoted to the science of human origins.

</div>

Forecasting the impact of climate change on the world's biodiversity

Scientists are increasingly concerned about the impact of climate change...

<div>The frequency of common landslides is not likely to increase as a result of more rainstorms brought about by future climate change, new research from <a href="http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cardiff University</a> has shown.</div>
<div>

Experts at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences have shown that while the frequency of rainstorms may increase by up to 10% according to climate change projections, this would produce a long-term increase in shallow landslide frequency of less than 0.5%.

Shallow landslides are the most common type of landslide and are often caused by heavy rainfall. They occur through the collapse of soil, resulting in fast moving debris flows of rock and mud that present a very dangerous hazard to anything in their path.

The new findings, which have been published in the journal Scientific Reports, challenges current theories within the field which suggest that landslide activity could increase proportionally with increased rainfall.

Instead, the research findings show that the triggering of landslides is much more dependent on the build-up of soil - otherwise known as colluvium - on steep hillslopes, as opposed to rainfall from storms.

The research team arrived at their results by performing field investigations in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, specifically looking at how the time taken for soil to accumulate on hillslopes affected the landslide triggering rate. The team then used computer models to calculate how future landslide hazards may develop as a result of climate change.

According to the researchers, shallow landslides occur when soil slowly accumulates on a mountainside over a very long time period, from thousands to tens of thousands of years. During a storm, converging ground water flow and the infiltration of rain into the colluvium causes landslides to be triggered.

It then takes thousands of years for soil to accumulate once again on the mountainside before a landslide can occur again, so an increase in the frequency of storms during this time would have little effect on the frequency of landslides.

Lead author of the study Dr Rob Parker, from Cardiff University's School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, said: "Our results have shown that lots more storms result in very few extra landslides. Though observations tell us that heavy rainfall triggers landslides, it is the process of soil accumulation that happens in the thousands of years leading up to a landslide that can be really important in determining how often landslides occur.

"Though we still expect shallow landslides to continue to be a major hazard in our future wetter climate, we do not expect the frequency of landslides to increase in proportion to the frequency of extreme precipitation events."

"Landslides pose a major hazard to life and infrastructure, affecting around 12% of the world's population who live in mountain ranges," Dr Parker continued.

"In addition to the direct hazard they pose, landslides are the primary source of sediment in mountain ranges, with significant knock-on effects on river, floodplain and estuarine systems, as well as playing an important role in global biogeochemical cycles.

"The consequences of landslides are therefore wide-reaching, so it's vital that we get a better understanding of how they may evolve under future climate conditions."


</div>

Study: Climate change unlikely to impact landslide frequency

The frequency of common landslides is not likely to increase...

<div>Lake Victoria in East Africa will become a hotspot for hazardous thunderstorms due to climate change. This is shown by an international study led by KU Leuven (University of Leuven, Belgium). The findings were published in Nature Communications.</div>
<div>

Lake Victoria is divided among Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. With a surface close to 70,000 km2, it is the biggest lake in Africa. The lake is also a notoriously dangerous place for the 200,000 people who go fishing there at night. The International Red Cross estimates that between 3,000 and 5,000 fishermen per year lose their lives in violent storms on the lake.

That Lake Victoria can be so stormy at night is related to the circulation in the atmosphere above the enormous water surface, explains climate scientist Wim Thiery, who is affiliated with both KU Leuven and ETH Zürich.

"During the day, a breeze develops that flows from the cool water towards the warm land. At night, we see the opposite: the land breeze flows away from the cooling land towards the warmer lake. As the lake is shaped like a circle, these land breezes from all directions converge above the lake. Add evaporation to this cocktail and you get a lot of storms, rain, wind, and waves."

Thiery was able to provide scientific evidence for this pattern in collaboration with American space agency NASA: "Thanks to new NASA satellite products we were able to map the number of hazardous thunderstorms and their locations in East Africa - every 15 minutes for a period ranging from 2005 to 2013. During the day, most storms rage over the surrounding land, especially the typical afternoon thunderstorms that are caused by local upsurges of warm air. At night, these storms concentrate above Lake Victoria."

To predict the impact of climate change on this process, Thiery also ran climate simulations using an advanced computer model: "If we start from a business-as-usual scenario, whereby the emission of greenhouse gases continues to increase, the extreme amounts of rainfall over Lake Victoria will increase by twice as much as the rainfall over the surrounding land. As a result, the lake will become a hotspot for night-time storms. Superstorms that occur only once every 15 years today will occur almost every year by the end of the century."

The scientists plan to do further research to optimize existing warning systems for local fishermen: "Our results make it possible to better predict extreme storms over the lake and to reduce the vulnerability of the local fishermen. In the meantime, we have already developed a prototype of a new warning system."


</div>
<div></div>

Climate change is intensifying night-time storms over many lakes

Lake Victoria in East Africa will become a hotspot for...

Satellites continue to provide forecasters and scientists valuable data on the development and changes in Hurricane Matthew as it moves through the Bahamas and toward the Florida coast. NASA and NOAA satellites have provided visible, infrared and microwave data that enable forecasters to analyze the storm. The National Hurricane Center noted that Matthew is forecast to be a category 4 hurricane as it approaches the east coast of Florida.
<div>

On Oct. 5 at 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 UTC) the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite captured a visible image of Hurricane Matthew moving through the Bahamas.

At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland the NASA/NOAA GOES Project combined infrared and visible imagery from NOAA's GOES-East satellite into an animation of Matthew. The animation of imagery from Oct. 4 to Oct. 6 shows Hurricane Matthew making landfall on Oct. 4 in western Haiti and moving through the Bahamas on Oct. 6.

A Hurricane Warning is in effect for the Southeastern Bahamas including The Inaguas, Mayaguana, Acklins, Crooked Island, Long Cay, and Ragged Island. The warning is in effect for the Central Bahamas, Including Long Island, Exuma, Rum Cay, San Salvador, and Cat Island; the Northwestern Bahamas, including The Abacos, Andros Island, Berry Islands, Bimini, Eleuthera, Grand Bahama Island and New Providence. In Florida and Georgia, Hurricane Warnings are in effect north Of Golden Beach Florida to Altamaha Sound Georgia and Lake Okeechobee.

A Hurricane Watch is in effect from north of Altamaha Sound to South Santee River South Carolina. A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect from Chokoloskee to Golden Beach, Florida; for the Florida Keys from Seven Mile Bridge Eastward and Florida Bay. A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect from north Of Chokoloskee to Suwannee River.

[ooyala code="hyam1hNjE6uzFPDJHywpgAkJgdKOzAWf" player_id="ce75157bc770441eaf5e849ae4d1d21f" auto="true" width="896" height="746"]

At 8 a.m. EDT (1200 UTC), the eye of Hurricane Matthew was located near 24.6 degrees north latitude and 77.5 degrees west longitude. That's about 30 miles (45 km) south-southwest of Nassau, Bahamas and 215 miles (350 km) southeast of West Palm Beach, Florida.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said that Matthew is moving toward the northwest near 12 mph (19 kph), and this general motion is expected to continue today, Oct. 6. A turn toward the north-northwest is expected tonight. On the forecast track, the eye of Matthew should pass near Andros Island and New Providence in the northwestern Bahamas during the next few hours, pass near Grand Bahama Island late today, and move very close to the east coast of the Florida peninsula tonight through Friday night, Oct. 7.

NHC said that reports from an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicate that the maximum sustained winds remain near 125 mph (205 kph) with higher gusts. Matthew is a category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Additional strengthening is expected today, and Matthew is forecast to be a category 4 hurricane as it approaches the east coast of Florida.

Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 40 miles (65 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 160 miles (260 km). Nassau in the Bahamas recently reported sustained winds of 50 mph (80 kph) with a wind gust of 61 mph (98 km/h).

The latest minimum central pressure estimated by a reconnaissance aircraft was 940 millibars.

---

For updated forecasts, please visit the NHC website at : <a href="http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/" target="_blank">http://www.nhc.noaa.gov</a>.


</div>
<div></div>

Hurricane Matthew moves through the Bahamas

Satellites continue to provide forecasters and scientists valuable data on...

<div>Satellite imagery shows that Tropical Storm Nicole is less than half the size of powerful Hurricane Matthew. Matthew is moving through the Bahamas, while Nicole, positioned east of Matthew, is holding steady just below hurricane strength as it crawls toward Bermuda.</div>
<div>

On Oct. 5 at 10:35 a.m. EDT, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Nicole in the western Atlantic Ocean. Strong thunderstorms around the storm's center bubbled higher than the surrounding storms.

A visible image showing Matthew and Nicole on Oct. 6 at 7:45 a.m. EDT was captured by NOAA's GOES-East satellite. The image shows large Hurricane Matthew stretching from eastern Cuba and Hispaniola, over the Bahamas and extending to Florida. Matthew is west of the much smaller Tropical Storm Nicole. Nicole was about 400 miles south of Bermuda and although approaching hurricane strength, no eye was yet visible.

<a href="http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NOAA's National Hurricane Center</a> forecaster Cangialosi noted on the Oct. 6 Nicole discussion at 5 a.m. EDT, "The cloud pattern has generally changed little since the previous advisory, and it consists of a central dense overcast feature with some curved bands to the east of the center. Earlier microwave data did show a mid-level eye, but this feature is not apparent in geostationary satellite images."

At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC), the center of Tropical Storm Nicole was located near 26.5 degrees north latitude and 64.7 degrees west longitude. That's about 400 miles (645 km) south of Bermuda, and 565 miles (910 km) north of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Nicole was moving toward the northwest near 9 mph (15 kph). A turn toward the north-northwest is expected later today. A slow and meandering motion is forecast tonight and Friday.

Maximum sustained winds remain near 70 mph (110 kph) with higher gusts. Little change in strength is forecast today, with some weakening anticipated by late Friday.

Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 70 miles (110 km) from the center. The estimated minimum central pressure is 995 millibars.

At the same time, Matthew's maximum sustained winds were near 125 mph (205 kph). In Matthew, hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 40 miles (65 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 160 miles (260 km), so Matthew is more than twice the size of Nicole and of course much stronger.

Nicole is expected to drift erratically as a trough currently off the coast of New England is expected to move southeastward and erode the ridge. "This pattern change will likely leave Nicole in weak steering currents beginning in about 24 hours (Oct. 7)," Cangialosi said.


</div>
<div></div>

Tropical Storm Nicole seen crawling towards Bermuda

Satellite imagery shows that Tropical Storm Nicole is less than...

The federal government is using a new assessment of mineral resources on 10 million acres in six Western states to decide whether to ban potential mining on the land to protect an imperiled bird.
Scientists completed the 800-page review that looked at areas with high numbers of sage grouse and high-quality habitat for the bird. The review, requested by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, was released Tuesday.
The BLM says the study will help it evaluate the economic and environmental trade-offs of withdrawing the public lands from mining in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming for 20 years.
"The report is critical to give us an idea of what the potential is for development," said BLM spokesman Mark Mackiewicz.
The agency plans to release a draft environmental impact statement in December outlining possible alternatives.
Sage grouse are found in 11 Western states. About 200,000 to 500,000 remain, down from a peak population of about 16 million.
The proposed withdrawal of the lands - subject to an 1872 mining law meant to encourage development of Western land - is part of new U.S. policies announced in late 2015. At the same time, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said sage grouse didn't need federal protections under the Endangered Species Act, a decision that will be reviewed in about four years.
Under the 1872 mining law, federal officials don't have the discretion to deny mining claims. Withdrawing the 10 million acres from being subject to that law would allow BLM officials to block mining claims.
The 10 million acres are already under a temporary freeze from new mining claims while the BLM prepares the environmental impact statement. The freeze doesn't affect mining claims already in place.
The U.S. Geological Survey in preparing the report examined the potential mineral development in remaining sage grouse strongholds. The study found that in Wyoming, key sage grouse habitat sits atop bentonite.
The Wyoming Mining Association says bentonite has many uses, including drilling fluids and sealants, and that Wyoming is the nation's leading producer of it and cutting off access would harm the state.
"If that's the trajectory that this goes, we're absolutely going to oppose such a measure," said Travis Deti, the group's acting executive director. "We would certainly hope they would not use this as a tool to place more burdens on the mining industry in our state."
Ranchers and officials in Utah, Idaho and Nevada mounted legal challenges contending that sage grouse-related restrictions imposed on land use last year will impede economic development. Environmental groups have sued contending restrictions don't go far enough.
John Freemuth, a Boise State University professor and public lands expert, said the Geological Survey study could provide the scientific backing for whatever the BLM ultimately decides.
"You've got a trade-off between it being key habitat and it having some valuable resource," he said, "and they're going to have to figure out how to deal with that."
The publicly accessible study put together by more than 60 Geological Survey workers over about a year is expected to be a valuable resource for land managers. It will also be of interest to miners as it identifies potential mineral deposits.
"We've done all the heavy lifting of getting all the relevant data together in one easy-to-access package," said Larry Meinert, head of the USGS Mineral Resources Program. "That's a valuable resource for anybody."
© 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.

Feds weigh mineral mining ban to save the endangered sage grouse

The federal government is using a new assessment of mineral...

<div>How do you make half the mass of two continents disappear? To answer the question you first need to discover that it's missing. That's what a trio of <a href="http://www-news.uchicago.edu/" target="_blank">University of Chicago</a> geoscientists and their collaborators did. Their explanation for where the mass went significantly changes prevailing ideas about what can happen when continents collide. It also has important implications for our understanding of when the continents grew to their present size and how the chemistry of the Earth's interior has evolved through time.</div>
<div>

The study, published online Sept. 19, 2016, in Nature Geoscience, examines the collision of Eurasia and India, which began about 60 million years ago, created the Himalayas, and is still in (slow) progress. The scientists computed with unprecedented precision the amount of landmass, or "continental crust," before and after the collision.

"What we found is that half of the mass that was there 60 million years ago is missing from the earth's surface today," said Miquela Ingalls, a geophysical sciences graduate student who led the project as part of her doctoral work.

The result was unexpectedly large. After considering all other ways the mass might be accounted for, the researchers were forced to conclude that so huge a mass discrepancy could only be explained if the missing chunk had gone back down into the Earth's mantle -- something geoscientists had considered more or less impossible on such a scale.

When two tectonic plates come together, something has to give. According to plate tectonic theory, the surface of the Earth comprises a mosaic of about a dozen rigid plates in relative motion. These plates move atop the upper mantle, and plates topped with thicker, more buoyant continental crust ride higher than those topped with thinner oceanic crust. Oceanic crust can dip and slide into the mantle where it eventually mixes together with the mantle material. But continental crust like that involved in the Eurasia-India collision is less dense and geologists have long believed that when it meets the mantle, it is pushed back up like a beach ball in water, never mixing back in.

Geology 101 miscreant

"We're taught in Geology 101 that continental crust is buoyant and can't descend into the mantle," Ingalls said. The new results throw that idea out the window.

"We really have significant amounts of crust that have disappeared from the crustal reservoir and the only place that it can go is into the mantle," said David Rowley, a professor in geophysical sciences at UChicago who is one of Ingalls' advisors and a collaborator on the project. "It used to be thought that the mantle and the crust interacted only in a relatively minor way. This work suggests that, at least in certain circumstances, that's not true."

The scientists' conclusion arose out of meticulous calculations of how much mass there was before and after the collision, and a careful accounting of all possible ways it could have been distributed after. Computing the amount of crust "before" is a contentious problem involving careful dating of the ages of strata and reconstructions of past plate positions, Ingalls said. Previous workers have done similar calculations but have often tried to force the "before" and "after" numbers to balance, "trying to make the system match up with what we think we already know about how tectonics works."

Ingalls and collaborators made no such assumptions. They used recently revised estimates about plate movements to figure out how large the two plates were at the onset of collision, and synthesized more than 20 years' worth of data on the geology of various regions of the Earth to calculate how thick the crust would have been.

"By looking at all of the relevant data sets, we've been able to say what the mass of the crust was at the beginning of collision," Rowley said.

Limited options

There were only a few places for the displaced crust to go after the collision: some was thrust upward, forming the Himalayas, some was eroded and deposited as enormous sedimentary deposits in the oceans, and some was squeezed out the sides of the colliding plates, forming Southeast Asia.

"But accounting for all of these different types of mass loss, we still find that half of the continental crust involved in this collision is missing today," Ingalls said. "If we've accounted for all possible solutions at the surface, it means the remaining mass must have been recycled wholesale into the mantle."

If large areas of continental crust are recycled back into the mantle, scientists can at last explain some previously puzzling geochemistry. Elements including lead and uranium are periodically erupted from the mantle through volcanic activity. Such elements are relatively abundant in continental crust, but scarce in the mantle. Yet the composition of some mantle-derived rocks indicates that they have been in contaminated by continental crust. So how did continental material mix back into the mantle?

"The implication of our work is that, if we're seeing the India-Asia collision system as an ongoing process over Earth's history, there has been a continuous mixing of the continental crustal elements back into the mantle," said Rowley. "And they can then be re-extracted and seen in some of those volcanic materials that come out of the mantle today."


</div>
<div></div>

Half of the mass of Earth's continents has disappeared

How do you make half the mass of two continents...

<div>In a comment in this week's science journal Nature, an international group of researchers from nine countries call for a grand challenges strategy to set global priorities for developing renewable energy.</div>
The authors argue that greenhouse gas emissions are not dropping fast enough to meet even the modest goals set out in last year's Paris Agreement on climate change. They call for a targeted, internationally coordinated effort to identify and solve the scientific, policy and economic challenges standing in the way of widespread adoption of renewable energy.

"Renewable energy ... is a difficult, urgent global problem that has been neglected in terms of public research and investment. It requires big thinking, multidisciplinary approaches and supportive policies to compete with existing systems. And it is tightly coupled to global challenges, such as food and water security, poverty and health," the authors write.

They suggest an approach modeled on the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative to combat neglected diseases, launched in 2005 by the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Foundation for the US National Institutes of Health. The initiative identified 14 priority areas, including developing a genetic strategy to incapacitate insects that spread diseases such as yellow fever and Zika virus.

The authors suggest that national governments, funding partners, philanthropic foundations and other private-sector actors come together and appoint an international science board of distinguished researchers, policymakers, industry leaders and engaged citizens from developed and developing countries. The board would create a detailed list of renewable energy challenges in areas including energy harvesting and storage, smart grids and transmission, policy levers and economic models.

"Such a shared purpose ... would accommodate the many disciplines needed across the natural and social sciences, and galvanize the best investigators - regardless of country - to work together to help solve one of the world's most pressing problems," the authors conclude.

A copy of the commentary is available upon request. A complete list of signatories follows.

The comment, "Renewables need a grand-challenge strategy," will be published Thursday, Oct. 6 in Nature.
###
About CIFAR

CIFAR creates knowledge that is transforming our world. Established in 1982, the Institute brings together interdisciplinary groups of extraordinary researchers from around the globe to address questions and challenges of importance to the world. Our networks help support the growth of research leaders and are catalysts for change in business, government and society. CIFAR is generously supported by the governments of Canada, British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, Canadian and international partners, as well as individuals, foundations and corporations.

Contact:
Kurt Kleineer
Managing Editor
Canadian Institute for Advanced Research
<a href="mailto:kurt.kleiner@cifar.ca">kurt.kleiner@cifar.ca</a>
416-971-4257

List of authors and co-signatories:

Main authors:

Alan Bernstein, CIFAR President and CEO, Toronto, Canada;

Edward H. Sargent, CIFAR Senior Fellow and Director of the Bio-Inspired Solar Energy Program; and Edward S. Rogers Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada;

Alán Aspuru-Guzik, CIFAR Senior Fellow, Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA;

Richard Cogdell, CIFAR Advisor, Hooker Professor of Botany, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK;

Graham R Fleming, Melvin Calvin Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Kavli Energy Nanoscience Institute, UC Berkeley, Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bio-imaging Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, USA;

Rienk Van Grondelle, CIFAR Senior Fellow, Professor of Biophysics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;

Mario Molina, Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego and President, Mario Molina Centre for Strategic Studies on Energy and the Environment, Mexico.

Co-signatories:

Curtis P. Berlinguette, CIFAR Senior Fellow, Professor of Chemistry and Chemical &amp; Biological Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada;

Fekadu Beyene, President, Ethiopian Civil Service University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia;

Kanzunari Domen, Professor of Chemical Systems Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan;

Shaffiq Jaffer, VP Corporate Science and Technology Projects, TOTAL American Services, Inc. Boston, USA;

Can Li, Professor, State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Director, Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Dalian, China;

Gregory D. Scholes, CIFAR Senior Fellow, William S. Tod Professor of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, USA;

Vivian Wing-Wah YAM, Professor of Chemistry, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

Researchers call for global grand challenge to develop renewable energy

In a comment in this week's science journal Nature, an...

<div>New research from <a href="http://www.ncsu.edu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">North Carolina State University</a> finds that urban warming reduces growth and photosynthesis in city trees. The researchers found that insect pests are part of the problem, but that heat itself plays a more significant role.</div>
<div>

"Earlier studies have shown that urban warming increases pest abundance in street trees," says Emily Meineke, lead author of a paper describing the work. "We wanted to know how urban warming and pest abundance affect tree growth, since trees pull carbon out of the atmosphere and convert it into biomass. This is important, because we know that high levels of atmospheric carbon play a role in climate change." Meineke did the work while a Ph.D. student at NC State. She is now a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard.

To explore this issue, researchers went to 20 pairs of willow oak trees (Quercus phellos) across Raleigh, North Carolina. At each site, one tree was treated with an oil that kills insect pests, and the second tree was left untreated. The sites were located across a variety of different urban temperatures, and air temperature was monitored at each site over the course of the experiment.

The researchers tracked the growth of all 40 trees for two years. Growth was assessed in two ways: by measuring the circumference of each tree's trunk, and by measuring how much specific branches grew on each tree. The researchers also measured each tree's photosynthesis, which is how trees capture carbon from the atmosphere and is a key marker of tree health.

The researchers found that scale insects and spider mites - well known tree pests - were more abundant at hotter sites. Specifically, they found that spider mite populations more than doubled when a site's average temperature crossed a threshold of 16.4 degrees Celsius (61.5 degrees Fahrenheit). Scale insects, however, showed a linear relationship with temperature. In other words, the hotter it got, the more scale insects there were.

The researchers also found that warming negatively affected tree photosynthesis and growth, regardless of whether pests were present.

"Trees that didn't have pests had more branch growth than trees with pests," Meineke says. "But trees at warmer sites had less trunk growth, which accounts for more tree biomass, regardless of pests."

The researchers then plugged these results into a model to determine the extent to which urban warming impacted carbon storage for all of the willow oaks in Raleigh.

"We found that urban warming reduced carbon storage by all of Raleigh's willow oaks by 12 percent, or 27 metric tons per year," Meineke says.

"We think the findings are generalizable to other tree species and other cities, especially hotter cities like Atlanta, but additional work needs to be done to determine whether that's the case," Meineke says.
###
The paper, "Urban warming reduces aboveground carbon storage," is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The paper was co-authored by Elsa Youngsteadt, an entomology research associate at NC State; Rob Dunn, a professor of applied ecology at NC State; and Steve Frank, an associate professor of entomology and plant pathology at NC State. The work was supported by the Department of the Interior's Southeast Climate Science Center, under cooperative agreement numbers G11AC20471, G13AC00405 and G15AP00153; by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture, under grant number 2013-02476; and by the National Science Foundation under grants 0953390 and 1136703.

</div>

Urban warming slows tree growth and photosynthesis

New research from North Carolina State University finds that urban...

<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXXGGiynIjs
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Greenland is not sinking. In fact, it is the opposite.</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-contrasting-climate-response">A contrasting climate response</h2>



Most coastal towns are <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/sinking-land-will-intensify-the-effects-of-rising-sea-levels/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">preparing for higher sea levels</a>, but <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/greenland-no-longer-has-to-worry-about-rising-sea-levels/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Greenland presents</a> a different scenario during climate change. The ground there is rising at a remarkable rate. Over the past decade, some areas have lifted about 20 centimeters, which translates to roughly 2 meters per century. This rate significantly exceeds current projections for sea level rise.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-geological-rebound-process-through-climate-change">Geological rebound process through climate change</h2>



The mechanism behind this phenomenon is straightforward. As the ice sheet melts, the immense weight is removed from the bedrock, causing the land to rebound upward. This process resembles the way compressed material springs back when pressure is released.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-scientific-monitoring-networks">Scientific monitoring networks</h2>



Researchers at the <a href="https://www.dtu.dk/english/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Technical University of Denmark</a> are documenting this uplift using the GNET network, consisting of 61 GPS stations positioned around Greenland's coast. These sensors can detect movement with millimeter precision, providing detailed measurements of the ongoing changes.



The data reveal that current uplift rates exceed the gradual rebound occurring since the last ice age ended approximately 12,000 years ago. This acceleration corresponds directly with increased ice sheet melting rates.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-coastal-transformation">Coastal Transformation</h2>



This uplift is actively reshaping Greenland's coastline. New islands and rocky formations, called "skerries," are emerging as previously submerged land surfaces rise above the water level. This represents a notable contrast to global concerns about rising seas.



The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, demonstrates the varied regional impacts of climate change. While many locations face rising water levels, Greenland's bedrock is literally rising above the surrounding seas.



The full study was recently published in <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL104851" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Geophysical Research Letters</a>.



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Greenland's ground rises while coasts worldwide face higher seas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXXGGiynIjs Greenland is not sinking. In fact, it is the...

<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSM3EVeGHJU
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Companies like MindStudio help companies train their employees to implement the latest AI Agent building platform.</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ai-agent-training-transforms-the-workplace-fear-factor-into-a-competitive-advantage">AI agent training transforms the workplace 'fear factor' into a competitive advantage</h2>



Organizations that offer comprehensive artificial intelligence training to their workers find remarkable value that extends well beyond basic <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/mind-wandering-might-be-more-productive-than-you-think/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">productivity improvements</a>. Emerging research demonstrates that carefully crafted AI training programs <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/ai-does-not-replace-human-creativity-but-enhances-it/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">enhance</a> corporate performance, lower operational costs, and dramatically improve employee psychological well-being by turning workplace uncertainty into professional empowerment.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-addressing-the-widespread-ai-anxiety-crisis-among-us">Addressing the widespread 'AI anxiety' crisis among us</h2>



A staggering 53% of employees expressed concern that the use of AI tools to automate work tasks could make them appear disposable to their employers, according to <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Microsoft</a>'s 2024 workplace survey. Such pervasive worry about being substituted by machines has caused what researchers have termed "AI technostress" – a psychological state that can result in occupational burnout and poorer mental well-being.



Data published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/palcomms/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Humanities and Social Sciences Communications</a> showed that belief in AI learning ability was a moderator in the link between technology adoption and work pressure, and higher confidence significantly lowered negative psychological responses. Workers provided ample training to become competent with AI software have significantly lower stress.



Companies like <a href="https://www.mindstudio.ai/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">MindStudio</a> have platforms for building what are known as "AI Agents". In essence, AI Agents are simply tools that employees can build for themselves or their teams quickly and inexpensively. MindStudio will even train entire companies, from the CEO on down, at no cost. By letting MindStudio empower employees, companies avoid hiring more IT staff, buying more software, and implementing solutions to problems that do not exist.



MindStudio even has partners locally for companies, like <a href="http://www.dominnus.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Dominnus</a> with offices in the Carolinas, California, and Denver, to help build AI Agents and support employees as they become resident AI experts for their organization. The training provided by MindStudio is applicable across other AI Agent building platforms as well.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-revolutionary-productivity-through-focused-learning">Revolutionary productivity through focused learning</h2>



Organizations that implement large-scale AI training programs achieve dramatic outcomes. Employees performed tasks significantly better when they utilized AI support compared to when they didn't, according to <a href="https://www.nngroup.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nielsen Norman Group</a> research findings. Their study documented productivity increases of 66% for a variety of professional tasks.



Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis research finds workers record 33% higher productivity in time working with generative AI tools. The benefit is equivalent to 5.4% of work time savings for AI users – around 2.2 hours per week for full-time workers.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-psychological-well-being-benefits-through-ai-competence">Psychological well-being benefits through AI competence</h2>



The emotional transformation when employees are provided with proper technology training is a fundamental transformation from fear to professional confidence. A survey of 600 employees across industries, carried out by ScienceDirect, proved that AI capabilities strengthen work environment commitment and improve job satisfaction.



A <a href="https://www.lut.fi/en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">LUT University</a> study discovered that AI adoption has no direct effect on workers' well-being but does so indirectly through working conditions like task optimization and safety protocols. Strategically deployed AI that involves correct training can actually increase workplace mental well-being.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-from-replacement-anxiety-to-partnership-confidence">From 'replacement anxiety' to 'partnership confidence'</h2>



Although 35% of those interviewed in recent McKinsey studies were concerned about workforce displacement, firms with large-scale training initiatives witness such fears dissipate quickly. The World Economic Forum found that two out of three respondents believe AI competencies will enhance their career prospects and job marketability.



This shift from fear to trust has measurable implications for job satisfaction. Applied Sciences research indicates AI can create tailored wellness programs based on individual employee requirements.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-financial-benefits-of-increased-retention">Financial benefits of increased retention</h2>



The mental health advantages of AI learning have a direct impact on organizational bottom lines in the form of a positive feedback cycle with high retention of employees. Recent ROI research validates that artificial intelligence learning has a beneficial impact on employee turnover and satisfaction levels.



PriceWaterhouseCoopers' research documents 20% to 30% improvements in productivity, market speed, and revenue in organizations that attempt systematic AI adoption through comprehensive training.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-environmental-advantages-of-ai-enabled-teams">Environmental advantages of AI-enabled teams</h2>



AI training has unforeseen environmental benefits as it makes the work environment more efficient. According to a study in Scientific Reports, the carbon footprint in writing and illustrating work is significantly lower when AI performs it compared to humans. AI software produces 130 to 1,500 times less CO2 equivalent per page of text created than human authors.



In addition, AI-driven remote work functionality significantly reduces environmental impact. Research by Cornell University and Microsoft indicates that remote workers reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 54% by not commuting daily to offices. Hybrid workers working remotely two to four days a week can reduce their carbon footprint by 11% to 29%.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-cumulative-organizational-advantages">Cumulative organizational advantages</h2>



The compounding gains of better mental well-being, reduced turnover, increased productivity, and environmental benefits flow to enterprises from the pairing. McKinsey analysis estimates the long-term AI potential at $4.4 trillion in incremental productivity growth opportunity from business use cases.



As of now, 75% of knowledge workers globally utilize generative AI, mirroring widespread adoption patterns. Organizations that provide organized training and assistance see the most favorable results in productivity, worker satisfaction, and ecological sustainability.



The research overwhelmingly indicates that companies that invest in proper AI education, like that offered through <a href="https://www.mindstudio.ai" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">MindStudio</a>, establish win-win scenarios where employees are both more empowered and less stressed, and companies enjoy the gains of increased productivity, reduced turnover, and improved mental health outcomes throughout their workforce.



For more on MindStudio's free AI training for companies, visit the website's of MindStudio and Dominnus from the links below.



The research was published across a variety of peer-reviewed journals, including <a href="https://www.nature.com/palcomms/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Humanities and Social Sciences Communications</a>, <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/artificial-intelligence" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence</a>, and <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci">Applied Sciences</a>.



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MindStudio.AI: <a href="https://www.mindstudio.ai" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.mindstudio.ai</a>



Dominnus: <a href="https://www.dominnus.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.dominnus.com</a>

AI agent training boosts mental health and profits

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSM3EVeGHJU Companies like MindStudio help companies train their employees to...

<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HDXqTGEmi4
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Scientists give plants superpowers against bacterial disease</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-natural-solution-to-disease-through-crop-modification">A natural solution to disease through crop modification.</h2>



The agricultural industry stands at a crossroads between productivity and environmental responsibility, and crop modification often carries a negative connotation. While chemical pesticides have long been the go-to solution for crop protection, their harmful effects on ecosystems and human health have prompted scientists to seek alternatives. The recent breakthrough by <a href="https://www.southampton.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Southampton</a> researchers offers a promising path forward through the precise manipulation of plant-associated microbial communities.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-science-behind-microbial-partnerships">The science behind microbial partnerships</h2>



Plants naturally harbor diverse ecosystems of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms that function as biological allies. These microscopic partners contribute to disease resistance, nutrient absorption, and stress tolerance. However, until now, scientists lacked the tools to deliberately reshape these communities to enhance crop protection.



The Southampton team's approach centered on <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/engineered-plant-microbiomes-the-future-of-crop-protection/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">modifying lignin biosynthesis genes in rice plants</a>. This strategic intervention altered the plant's metabolic output, creating conditions that favored beneficial bacterial populations while suppressing harmful ones. The result was a living defense system embedded within the plant itself.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-implications-for-global-food-security">Implications for global food security</h2>



The successful demonstration against Xanthomonas oryzae, the pathogen responsible for bacterial blight in rice, represents more than a laboratory achievement. Rice feeds nearly half the world's population, and bacterial blight causes devastating crop losses annually. Traditional control methods rely heavily on pesticides that contaminate soil and water systems.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-looking-beyond-disease-resistance">Looking Beyond Disease Resistance</h2>



While disease protection represents the immediate application, the research framework opens doors to broader agricultural improvements. Future developments could engineer microbiomes to enhance nutrient uptake, reducing dependence on synthetic fertilizers. This dual benefit addresses both crop productivity and environmental sustainability.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-path-forward">The path forward</h2>



As this technology advances from laboratory to field applications, it promises to reshape sustainable agriculture. The ability to program plants with their own biological defense systems could herald a new era where crops protect themselves naturally, reducing chemical inputs while maintaining yields necessary for global food security.



The study is published in the journal&nbsp;<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-44335-3" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nature Communications</a>.



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Revolutionizing agriculture through microbiome engineering

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HDXqTGEmi4 Scientists give plants superpowers against bacterial disease A natural...

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</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Acid rain and a crisis solved.</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-don-t-we-ever-hear-about-acid-rain-anymore-the-environmental-crisis-that-was-solved">Why don't we ever hear about "acid rain" anymore? The environmental crisis that was solved</h2>



Remember the 1980s when acid rain dominated headlines? Dire warnings about rain eating buildings, killing fish, and destroying forests filled every news cycle. Then, almost like magic, acid rain vanished from public discourse. What happened? Did we actually solve one of the late 20th century's most pressing environmental challenges?



The answer might surprise you. Unlike many environmental issues that drag on indefinitely, acid rain represents one of modern history's most successful ecological recovery stories. It's a tale of science, politics, and technology working together to tackle what seemed impossible.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What was acid rain?</h2>



Acid rain isn't regular rain having a bad day – it's precipitation that became significantly more acidic due to air pollution. When power plants, factories, and vehicles burn fossil fuels, they release sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) into the atmosphere.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The science behind it</h2>



Think of acid rain as nature's chemistry experiment gone wrong. These compounds react with water, oxygen, and other chemicals to form sulfuric and nitric acids. When mixed with water vapor in clouds, they create precipitation with dangerously low pH levels.



While clean rain has a pH of about 5.6, acid rain could drop as low as 4.2 to 4.4 – roughly as acidic as tomato juice or coffee. According to US Geological Survey documentation, Scottish chemist Angus Smith first coined "acid rain" in 1872, but it didn't become a household phrase until the 1960s and 1970s when Swedish scientist Svante Odén documented its devastating effects on Scandinavian lakes and European forests.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The crisis at its peak</h2>



During the height of public concern, environmental damage was both widespread and visible. This wasn't some abstract future threat – people could see destruction happening in real-time.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Environmental devastation</h2>



The most dramatic impacts were impossible to ignore. Research documented by the Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation shows that in the Adirondack Mountains, more than 200 lakes became so acidic they couldn't support fish life. The Adirondack Council reports that 409 lakes once supported brook trout, but many lost their fish populations due to acid rain.



By 1976, when scientists cataloged all acidified lakes in the Adirondack Park, researchers found that half of the lakes over 2,000 feet above sea level had no fish, according to studies published in environmental journals. The acidification process worked like a slow-motion disaster. As acid rain fell into watersheds, it gradually lowered pH levels. Fish couldn't survive in acidic water, and their food sources died off too.



Trees at high elevations showed stress directly linked to acid rain. It weakened them by leaching nutrients and making them susceptible to disease. Historical records show Germany's Black Forest saw nearly half its trees damaged by the mid-1980s.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Economic impact</h2>



Acid rain wasn't just environmental – it was expensive. Acidic precipitation corroded infrastructure, buildings, and monuments. Historic stone structures deteriorated at accelerated rates. Tourism suffered as lakes became fishless and forests declined. EPA economic analyses from the period documented repair costs mounting into billions annually.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The solution: government action and technology</h2>



Transformation from crisis to success required unprecedented cooperation between governments, industries, and environmental groups.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Clean Air Act of 1990</h2>



The turning point came with the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, signed by President George H.W. Bush. This represented a fundamentally new approach to environmental regulation, as documented in EPA historical records.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Cap-and-trade success</h2>



Instead of mandating specific technologies, the 1990 amendments introduced something revolutionary: a cap-and-trade system for sulfur dioxide emissions. EPA program documentation shows this market-based approach set overall limits but allowed companies to trade emission allowances.



The genius was harnessing market forces to find cost-effective pollution reduction. Companies reducing emissions cheaply could sell excess allowances to those facing higher costs. Research published in environmental economics journals and EPA progress reports shows this resulted in dramatic SO2 reduction at a fraction of projected costs.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Technology advances</h2>



Policy provided the framework, but technology made reductions possible. Studies in atmospheric science journals document the widespread adoption of flue gas desulfurization systems ("scrubbers") that removed sulfur dioxide before it reached the atmosphere. By the 2000s, new installations could remove over 95% of SO2 emissions, according to EPA technical reports.



The push coincided with cleaner energy development. Natural gas produces fewer sulfur compounds than coal. Wind and solar, emerging in the 1990s, captured growing market share, reducing reliance on high-sulfur coal.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-we-don-t-hear-about-it-today">Why we don't hear about it today</h2>



Why did acid rain disappear from headlines? Simple: the problem was largely solved.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Success doesn't make news</h2>



There's an old journalism saying: "If it bleeds, it leads." Environmental success stories don't generate urgency like crisis reporting. Media attention shifted to other challenges: climate change, plastic pollution, and biodiversity loss. There's only so much environmental anxiety the public can absorb, and newer concerns replaced acid rain.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Mission accomplished</h2>



The primary reason is beautifully simple: interventions worked. EPA monitoring data shows sulfur dioxide emissions dropped over 90% since 1990. Academic research published in environmental science journals confirms pH levels in formerly affected areas returned closer to normal. This represents one of history's most dramatic environmental recoveries. Studies by the Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation show fishless lakes now support healthy populations. Forests recovered, and building damage slowed dramatically.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-is-it-really-gone">Is it really gone?</h2>



The crisis is largely resolved, but monitoring data shows the problem isn't completely eliminated – it's managed to acceptable levels. Some areas still experience occasional events during high pollution periods. International environmental research indicates that rapidly industrializing Asian countries face similar problems to what we experienced decades ago, though they're implementing successful strategies.



EPA research shows nitrogen oxide emissions proved more challenging than sulfur dioxide, coming from vehicles and mobile sources. Climate science studies suggest changing weather patterns add complexity to how acid rain forms and falls.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What this teaches us</h2>



The acid rain experience proves that seemingly intractable environmental problems can be solved with scientific understanding, political will, and technological innovation. Environmental monitoring data shows recovery speed was remarkable – within a decade, measurable improvements appeared in air quality and ecosystem health.



Success came from bipartisan support across party lines. Policy analysis studies show the market-based approach appealed to those preferring economic incentives while achieving environmental goals. This support created lasting policy surviving political changes.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Conclusion</h2>



Acid rain's disappearance from public consciousness represents environmental science's greatest success stories. Through effective regulation, technological innovation, and international cooperation, we transformed an overwhelming crisis into a manageable challenge.



Today's silence isn't because we forgot – it's because we solved it. The 1990 Clean Air Act, combined with technology and energy market changes, reduced acid rain emissions over 90%, according to comprehensive EPA data analysis.



This success offers hope for current challenges. It proves complex problems can be solved when science, policy, and technology work together. As we face climate change and plastic pollution, acid rain reminds us that dramatic positive change is possible.



Next time someone asks whether environmental regulations work, remember acid rain. It's proof that sometimes, we get it right.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Sources: This article draws from EPA official documentation and progress reports, peer-reviewed research published in environmental and atmospheric science journals, historical data from the Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation records, US Geological Survey publications, policy analysis studies, and environmental monitoring data collected over three decades.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>



1. Is acid rain completely gone? No, but EPA monitoring shows it's reduced to manageable levels. US sulfur dioxide emissions dropped over 90% since 1990, making acid rain much less severe than the 1980s crisis.



2. How long did solving take? Environmental monitoring data shows significant improvements began within 5-10 years of 1990s emission controls. Full ecosystem recovery took longer – some areas need 20-30 years for complete recovery.



3. What made the solution successful? Clear scientific understanding, visible damage motivating action, bipartisan support, available technology, and innovative market-based policies like cap-and-trade.



4. Do other countries have acid rain problems? Yes, particularly rapidly industrializing Asian countries. However, international environmental research shows many implement similar successful control strategies.



5. Could acid rain return? Potentially, if regulations weaken or we return to high-sulfur coal without controls, though effects would take years to become severe according to environmental projections.



6. Can you recommend any teaching tools on the subject of "acid rain"? The United States Environmental Protection Agency produced a wonderful teacher's guide for ages 14 and under that you can find on the EPA website here: <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2017-03/documents/teachersguide.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2017-03/documents/teachersguide.pdf</a>



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The environmental problem we actually solved

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prrq8Ql81zk Acid rain and a crisis solved. Why don't we...

Green,Ecoduct,Over,An,Empty,Highway,During,Sunset.

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A new long-term study in Monkton, Vermont, reveals that wildlife tunnels significantly reduce amphibian road mortality during seasonal migrations. 



Frogs and salamanders often cross roads to reach breeding ponds each spring, but many are killed by vehicles. 



Researchers from the <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Vermont</a>, in collaboration with local citizens and the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, installed two underpass tunnels in 2015. 



Over a 12-year monitoring period, they observed an 80.2% reduction in amphibian deaths, and up to 94% for non-climbing species like salamanders. 



The study used a before-after-control-impact design and documented more than 5,200 amphibians, highlighting the tunnels’ effectiveness even in nearby buffer zones.



Funded at $342,397 - far cheaper than wildlife crossings for large mammals - the project showcased the power of community-led conservation.



Local groups initiated the effort after observing mass amphibian deaths. Wildlife cameras later captured over 2,200 amphibians using a tunnel in just one spring, along with other species like raccoons and bobcats, indicating wider ecosystem benefits.



This marks the first peer-reviewed, long-term data set in the northeastern U.S. confirming amphibian-specific underpasses work. 



The study urges transportation departments to incorporate these designs into road planning and highlights how community action, thoughtful infrastructure, and persistence can make a real difference for biodiversity.



The full study was published in the <a href="https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1617138125000780" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Journal for Nature Conservation</a>.



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Wildlife tunnels save millions of amphibians

https://youtu.be/XYgiPzmNBTU?si=eFYY7gPHU1JznLvU A new long-term study in Monkton, Vermont, reveals that...

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



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Remote sensing will revolutionize the way we monitor trees

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

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



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



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



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



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



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;&nbsp;



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



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Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky"

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

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



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



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



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



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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Wetlands are a major source of methane emissions

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

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

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

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



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



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



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



Video/ Image Credit: NASA Goddard



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



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2022 illustrated the consequences of a warming climate

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

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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

[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



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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.

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

[sendtonews key="Ccjk8KEMzv-2550719-12187" type="single"] Today's Video of the Day from NASA...

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

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

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



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



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



Video Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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



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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