Jul 07 2016

'The Blob' overshadows El Nino

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New research based on ocean models and near real-time data from autonomous gliders indicates that the "The Blob" and El Niño together strongly depressed productivity off the West Coast, with The Blob driving most of the impact.The research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters by scientists from NOAA Fisheries, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and University of California, Santa Cruz is among the first to assess the marine effects of the 2015-2016 El Niño off the West Coast of the United States."Last year there was a lot of speculation about the consequences of 'The Blob' and El Niño battling it out of the U.S. West Coast," said lead author Michael Jacox, of UC Santa Cruz and NOAA Fisheries' Southwest Fisheries Science Center. "We found that off California El Niño turned out to be much weaker than expected, The Blob continued to be a dominant force, and the two of them together had strongly negative impacts on marine productivity."
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Jul 07 2016

The Antarctic Ozone Hole May Be Closing

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There’s good news from Antarctica, where researchers with tools like ozonesondes — pictured above — have been following the infamous ozone hole as it waxes and wanes over the seasons. The ozone hole has shrunk by 1.5 million square miles – around 4 million square kilometers — and this “healing” trend appears to be continuing.A major ecological catastrophe has been averted, and we can cite human intervention as the reason. When the globe swept into action with 1987′s Montreal Protocol, which banned a number of substances known to contribute to ozone depletion, it apparently worked.When scientists first began to observe a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, it was a cause for grave concern. Though ozone levels actually fluctuate throughout the year, they perform an important function by blocking the sun’s harmful UV radiation.
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Jul 06 2016

Researchers improve performance of cathode material by controlling oxygen activity

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An international team of researchers has demonstrated a new way to increase the robustness and energy storage capability of a particular class of "lithium-rich" cathode materials -- by using a carbon dioxide-based gas mixture to create oxygen vacancies at the material's surface. Researchers said the treatment improved the energy density -- the amount of energy stored per unit mass -- of the cathode material by up to 30 to 40 percent.The discovery sheds light on how changing the oxygen composition of lithium-rich cathode materials could improve battery performance, particularly in high-energy applications such as electric vehicles. The findings were published July 1 in Nature Communications."We've uncovered a new mechanism at play in this class of lithium-rich cathode materials. With this study, we want to open a new pathway to explore more battery materials in which we can control oxygen activity," said Shirley Meng, nanoengineering professor at the University of California San Diego and one of the principal investigators of the study.
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Jul 06 2016

Bees' ability to forage decreases as air pollution increases

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Air pollutants interact with and break down plant-emitted scent molecules, which insect pollinators use to locate needed food, according to a team of researchers led by Penn State. The pollution-modified plant odors can confuse bees and, as a result, bees' foraging time increases and pollination efficiency decreases. This happens because the chemical interactions decrease both the scent molecules' life spans and the distances they travel.While foraging for food, insects detect floral scent molecules in the air. Wind currents can carry these molecules up to thousands of feet from their original source to where bees have their hives."Many insects have nests that are up to 3,000 feet away from their food source, which means that scents need to travel long distances before insects can detect them," said Jose D. Fuentes, professor of meteorology and atmospheric science, Penn State. "Each insect has a detection threshold for certain kinds of scents and they find food by moving from areas of low concentrations of scents to areas of high concentrations."
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Jul 06 2016

Carbon emissions from Indonesia forest fires hit new high

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Forest fires in Indonesia last year released 11.3 million tonnes of carbon per day, researchers have found. This figure exceeds the daily rate of 8.9 million tonnes of carbon emissions from the whole of the European Union, the study says.The 2015 fires were the worst since 1997, when a strong El Niño also fanned widespread fires, says the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports.Fire is widely used in South-East Asia to clear vegetation and maintain land for the growing of crops, the paper explains. Last year, fires were exacerbated by extended drought associated with El Niño, releasing 857 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from September to October 2015, the authors say. This represents 97 per cent of the country’s annual carbon emissions.
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Jul 06 2016

Penguin colonies at risk from erupting volcano

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A volcano erupting on a small island in the Sub Antarctic is depositing ash over one of the world’s largest penguin colonies.Zavodovski Island is a small island in the South Sandwich archipelago and its volcano Mt Curry has been erupting since March 2016. The island is home to over one million chinstrap penguins – the largest colony for this species in the world.
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Jul 05 2016

Characteristics improving bean resistance to drought identified

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The common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is the most important food legume in the tropics. It is an inexpensive source of proteins and minerals for almost 400 million people, mainly from Africa and Latin America. It is generally cultivated by small farmers and subject to conditions limiting their productivity. Drought affects 60% of bean crops around the world and can cause from 10% in productivity losses to a total of 100% in some cases.Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Bean Programme at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Colombia have identified drought-resistant genotypes and the morpho-physiological characteristics related to this resistance. The experiments were conducted in Palmira, Colombia, from June to September in 2012 and 2013, and the results were recently published in Frontiers in Plant Science.
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Jul 05 2016

NASA's Aqua satellite scans powerful Typhoon Nepartak

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NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Typhoon Nepartak after it became a major typhoon in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean.The second tropical cyclone of the northwestern Pacific Ocean season formed on July 3 and strengthened quickly into a tropical storm that was named Nepartak.On July 5 at 0359 UTC (11:59 p.m. EDT) infrared data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder aboard NASA's Aqua satellite detected strong thunderstorms completely surrounding the center of Nepartak with temperatures colder than minus 63 degrees Celsius (minus 81 Fahrenheit). Temperatures that could indicate very powerful thunderstorms with cloud tops high into the troposphere. Bands of powerful thunderstorms wrapped into the low-level center of circulation from the northwest and southeast.
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Jul 05 2016

California droughts caused mainly by changes in wind, not moisture

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Droughts in California are mainly controlled by wind, not by the amount of evaporated moisture in the air, new research has found. The research increases the understanding of how the water cycle is related to extreme events and could eventually help in predicting droughts and floods.The findings were published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, on June 30. The research increases the understanding of how the water cycle is related to extreme events and could eventually help in predicting droughts and floods, said lead author Jiangfeng Wei, a research scientist at The University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences."Ocean evaporation provides moisture for California precipitation but is not the reason for droughts there, although the ocean evaporation is slightly lower during droughts," Wei said.
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Jul 04 2016

Expanding Antarctic sea ice linked to natural variability

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The recent trend of increasing Antarctic sea ice extent -- seemingly at odds with climate model projections -- can largely be explained by a natural climate fluctuation, according to a new study led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).The study offers evidence that the negative phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO), which is characterized by cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific, has created favorable conditions for additional Antarctic sea ice growth since 2000.The findings, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, may resolve a longstanding mystery: Why is Antarctic sea ice expanding when climate change is causing the world to warm?
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