It turns out microplastics have an effect on the weather and climate.
Category: climatology – Page 2
The 21st century faces an unprecedented energy challenge that demands innovative solutions. This video explores Zero Point Energy (ZPE), a groundbreaking concept rooted in quantum mechanics that promises limitless, clean, and sustainable power. Learn how the quantum vacuum—long considered empty—is teeming with virtual particles and untapped energy potential. From understanding the Casimir effect to leveraging advanced technologies like fractal energy collectors and quantum batteries, this video details how ZPE could revolutionize industries, mitigate climate change, and empower underserved communities. Dive into the science, challenges, and global implications of a ZPE-powered future.
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All of statistics and much of science depends on probability—an astonishing achievement, considering no one’s really sure what it is.
By David Spiegelhalter & Nature magazine
Life is uncertain. None of us know what is going to happen. We know little of what has happened in the past, or is happening now outside our immediate experience. Uncertainty has been called the ‘conscious awareness of ignorance’ — be it of the weather tomorrow, the next Premier League champions, the climate in 2100 or the identity of our ancient ancestors.
Healthy, stable ecosystems provide services that keep us healthy, such as supplying food and clean water, producing oxygen, and making green spaces available for our recreation and wellbeing.
Another key service ecosystems provide is disease regulation. When nature is in balance – with predators controlling herbivore populations, and herbivores controlling plant growth – it’s more difficult for pathogens to emerge in a way that causes pandemics.
But when human activities disrupt and unbalance ecosystems – such as by way of climate change and biodiversity loss – things go wrong.
As fringe as the idea of solar radiation modification once was and as generally controversial as it remains, it is gaining some traction. Last spring, the University of Chicago hired David Keith, one of the most visible proponents of solar geoengineering, to lead a new Climate Systems Engineering initiative, committing to at least 10 new faculty hires for the program. The group will study solar geoengineering, as well as other kinds of Earth system modifications aimed at addressing the climate crisis.
With this initiative, the University of Chicago is attempting to position itself as the place for serious scientific consideration of the logistics and implications of Earth system interventions aimed at reversing or counteracting climate change. It is part of a broader university effort to become a global leader in the climate and energy space.
Previously, Keith was at Harvard University, where he helped launch the Solar Geoengineering Research Program. After repeated delays and years of controversy, Harvard recently canceled a small-scale outdoor geoengineering experiment that Keith helped plan. That experiment would have involved launching a high-altitude balloon, releasing fine particles of calcium carbonate into the stratosphere, and then sending the balloon back through the cloud to monitor how those particles disperse and interact within the atmosphere, and with solar radiation.
Researchers believe dark rocks at the site of a future Mars rover landing mission may be left over from ancient volcanic eruptions, and may be protecting signs of life — if there ever was life on Mars.
There is more research than ever focused on reflecting sunlight away from the planet to cool the climate – but there are still far more questions than answers about the effects.
There’s a good chance you owe your existence to the Haber-Bosch process.
This industrial chemical reaction between hydrogen and nitrogen produces ammonia, the key ingredient in synthetic fertilizers that supply much of the world’s food supply and enabled the population explosion of the last century.
It may also threaten the existence of future generations. The process consumes about 2% of the world’s total energy supply, and the hydrogen required for the reaction mostly comes from fossil fuels.
Amazon announced a major milestone in its electric vehicle transition, officially bringing 20,000 Rivian EDVs (electric delivery vans) into its fleet.
Back in 2019, Amazon announced its Climate Pledge to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. Part of the Pledge included a partnership with Rivian for 100,000 all-electric delivery vehicles. The goal was to have all EDVs on the road and in the Amazon fleet by 2030.
The first Amazon-Rivian EDV hit the road in 2022, and since then, the vans have made it to thousands of locations across the United States.
The LOREX experiment utilizes lorandite ore to gauge historical solar neutrino flux, revealing insights about the Sun’s development and climatic effects through advanced decay rate measurements.
The Sun, Earth’s life-sustaining powerhouse, generates immense energy through nuclear fusion while emitting a steady stream of neutrinos — subatomic particles that reveal its inner workings. While modern neutrino detectors shed light on the Sun’s current behavior, key questions remain about its stability over millions of years — a timeframe encompassing human evolution and major climate changes.
Addressing these questions is the mission of the LORandite EXperiment (LOREX), which depends on accurately determining the solar neutrino cross-section for thallium. An international team of scientists has now achieved this crucial measurement using the unique Experimental Storage Ring (ESR) at GSI/FAIR in Darmstadt. Their groundbreaking results, advancing our understanding of the Sun’s long-term stability, have been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.