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Category: climatology – Page 132

In 1110, The Moon Vanished From The Sky. We Might Finally Know What Caused It

Almost a millennium ago, a major upheaval occurred in Earth’s atmosphere: a giant cloud of sulphur-rich particles flowed throughout the stratosphere, turning skies dark for months or even years, before ultimately falling down to Earth.

We know this event happened because researchers have drilled and analysed ice cores — samples taken from deep within ice sheets or glaciers, which have trapped sulphur aerosols produced by volcanic eruptions reaching the stratosphere and settling back on the surface.

Ice can thus preserve evidence of volcanism over incredibly long timescales, but pinpointing the precise date of an event that shows up in the layers of an ice core is still tricky business.

New Study Predicts the Ocean Ecosystem Will Collapse This Decade

“The world is currently rightly focused on tackling the global health emergency,” Mark Wright, science director of the U.K. branch of the World Wildlife Fund, told The Guardian. “However, this new research reinforces that, after we are through this extremely difficult time, we will need renewed ambitious action to address the climate and nature crisis.”

More on the environment: Doomsday Report Author: Earth’s Leaders Have Failed

Up next__elon musk says he’ll be working on the tesla assembly line today.

Visualising algae-eating viruses from space

Algae isn’t just found in your garden pond or local river. Sometimes it explodes into vast “blooms” far out to sea, that can be the size of a small country. Such algal blooms can match even a rainforest at taking carbon out of the air. And then, in just a week or two, they are gone – sometimes consumed by viruses.

Given the scale of blooms and their vital role in both marine ecology and climate regulation we must know more about these viruses. Research conducted with our Weizmann Institute colleague Yoav Lehahn and others and published in the journal Current Biology, is the first attempt to quantify the affect of viruses on large scale algal blooms.

Algae in this context refers to tiny sea organisms known as phytoplankton which exist right at the bottom of the marine food web, providing the ultimate source of all organic matter in the sea. They do this by consuming carbon dioxide during photosynthesis, “fixing” this carbon into organic matter (themselves) in the same way trees take carbon out of the air.

Algae Water Purification

This can be good to purify the oceans and lakes.

Grow algae to reclaim water! Algae feed on the nutrients in wastewater, effectively purifying the water and producing oxygen during the process. Sunlight and LED lighting help the organisms to feed and grow, therefore our algae generators stand in the daylight filled Third Climate Zone. Water slowly recirculates through the six algae tubes, each of which has a steel base containing zeolite, a mineral that acts as a microbial filter, absorbing microorganisms that are not otherwise digested by the algae. The algae generators at Green Solution House are an important element of our on-site biological water purification system. The entire system can process 500 liters of water a day, which is used for irrigating the green wall and gardens and has the potential to be used for flushing public toilets in the building. The water cleaned by the algae is separated and further purified by UV light to reach drinking water quality.

Who’s behind it: Rambøll.

Where you’ll find it: In the Third Climate Zone.

That Unusually Large Ozone Hole Over The Arctic Has Closed Up Again

Earlier this year, the layer of ozone over the Arctic thinned out enough to be considered a serious sized hole. It wasn’t exactly impressive compared with its southern cousin, but it was certainly a lot bigger than we’d ever seen it before.

Now, according to surveillance by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), we can breathe a sigh of relief. It’s healed up again.

That’s great news for ecosystems below, which rely on concentrations of ozone gas high up in the stratosphere to act as a planetary-scale sunscreen against damaging showers of UV radiation.

Over 20 tornadoes hammered the South on Wednesday, more expected Thursday

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SOUTHERN UNITED STATES — Over 20 tornadoes touched down in the southern United States Wednesday, April 22 and more are expected Thursday, April 23. At one point, there were four distinct supercells on radar producing a tornado in Oklahoma.

Many of these storms lasted for hours and the threat for severe weather on Thursday, April 23 is aimed at the southeast.

More than 45 volcanoes are erupting right now

Volcano activity update.

Although detailed statistics are not kept on daily activity, generally there are around 20 volcanoes actively erupting at any particular time.

Overall there are 45 volcanoes with ongoing eruptions as of the Stop Dates indicated, and as reported through the last data update (17 April 2020) and shown in the diagram below.

Just a reminder that yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the Redoubt volcanic eruption on April 21, 1990. Here a picture: