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Category: climatology – Page 46

Volcanoes or Asteroid? AI Ends Debate Over Dinosaur Extinction Event

To address the long-standing debate about whether a massive asteroid impact or volcanic activity caused the extinction of dinosaurs and numerous other species 66 million years ago, a team at Dartmouth College took an innovative approach — they removed scientists from the debate and let the computers decide.

The researchers report in the journal Science a new modeling method powered by interconnected processors that can work through reams of geological and climate data without human input. They tasked nearly 130 processors with analyzing the fossil record in reverse to pinpoint the events and conditions that led to the Cretaceous –Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event that cleared the way for the ascendance of mammals, including the primates that would lead to early humans.

New UK funding for space technology projects

The Enabling Technologies Programme (ETP) provides opportunities for the UK space sector to accelerate the development of leading-edge technologies that could be used to tackle global problems and benefit the work of space organisations internationally.

The total government funding is £4 million — made up of £3.2 million from the UK Space Agency with £800,000 contributed by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

The projects from academia and industry explore how space can be used more efficiently for purposes such as weather prediction, climate-change monitoring, and space debris removal through methods of propulsion, sterilisation, in-orbit servicing, imaging, and more.

Using the world’s three most powerful particle accelerators to reveal the space-time geometry of quark matter

Physicists from the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) have been conducting research on the matter constituting the atomic nucleus utilizing the world’s three most powerful particle accelerators. Their focus has been on mapping the “primordial soup” that filled the universe in the first millionth of a second following its inception.

Intriguingly, their measurements showed that the movement of observed particles bears resemblance to the search for prey of marine predators, the patterns of climate change, and the fluctuations of stock market.

In the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang, temperatures were so extreme that atomic nuclei could not exists, nor could nucleons, their building blocks. Hence, in this first instance the universe was filled with a “” of quarks and gluons.

AI: A tool for climate resilience and farming

AI probably won’t replace the need for humans in the climate change fight, but it could make their work faster and more effective.

Valentinrussanov/iStock.

But a Silicon Valley startup called ClimateAi uses artificial intelligence to help farmers cope with the warming temperatures. The startup has created a platform to assess any place’s climate, water, and soil conditions and forecast its suitability for growing crops in the next 20 years.

What caused dinosaurs’ demise? Study says it wasn’t only asteroids

Another event — volcanic eruptions — might have played a major role in wiping out the dinosaurs.

Ugurhan/iStock.

Two main events that could be responsible for all the chaos happened at the same time: massive volcanic activity called the Deccan Traps in India and Seychelles and a huge meteorite hitting Earth, creating the Chicxulub crater in Mexico.

New research maps 14 potential evolutionary dead ends for humanity and ways to avoid them

Humankind on the verge of evolutionary traps, a new study: …For the first time, scientists have used the concept of evolutionary traps on human societies at large.

For the first time, scientists have used the concept of evolutionary traps on human societies at large. They find that humankind risks getting stuck in 14 evolutionary dead ends, ranging from global climate tipping points to misaligned artificial intelligence, chemical pollution, and accelerating infectious diseases.

The evolution of humankind has been an extraordinary success story. But the Anthropocene—the proposed geological epoch shaped by us humans—is showing more and more cracks. Multiple global crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, , , financial crises, and conflicts have started to occur simultaneously in something which scientists refer to as a polycrisis.

Humans are incredibly creative as a species. We are able to innovate and adapt to many circumstances and can cooperate on surprisingly large scales. But these capabilities turn out to have unintentional consequences. Simply speaking, you could say that the human species has been too successful and, in some ways, too smart for its own future good, says Peter Søgaard Jørgensen, researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Center at Stockholm University and at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere program and Anthropocene laboratory.

Nineteen volcanos erupt at the same time

More than a dozen volcanos are erupting at the same time worldwide, and three new eruptions joined the list this week.

The Smithsonian Institute’s Global Volcanism Program tracks new eruptions and updates its list of currently erupting volcanos on Wednesdays. The most recent update shows three new eruptions, bringing the list’s total to 19 eruptions at once. The list doesn’t include all erupting volcanos.

The new volcanic eruptions have some people voicing their concerns on social media.

Well-designed cities can withstand 21st-century weather extremes

“Regardless of the size of a city, well planned urban land patterns can reduce population exposures to weather extremes.”

Urban planning and design are crucial for creating resilient cities that can withstand and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Now, University of Delaware researcher Jing Gao, assistant professor in the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment and a resident faculty member in the Data Science Institute, and colleague Melissa Bukovsky, associate professor in the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming, are exploring how future populations’ exposure to weather extremes under climatic circumstances present at the end of the twenty-first century will be impacted by changes in urban design.