Climate – Page 8 – PossibleThreat Articles

Scientists find ways to improve cassava, a 'crop of inequality' featured at Goalkeepers

New research has highlighted a crop of inequality called cassava, which has starchy, tuberous roots that sustain more than 500 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, yet cassava has been largely neglected by research and development compared to the staple crops of wealthier regions. Researchers have identified opportunities to improve cassava yields — which have not increased for more than fifty years in Africa.

News Science

Tale of two climate crises gives clues to the present

September 24, 2019 0 Comments Climate, Dinosaurs, Early Climate, Environmental Awareness, Environmental Issues, Fossils, Global Warming, Paleontology

Figuring out what lies ahead for our species and our planet is one of the most pressing and challenging tasks for climate scientists. While models are very useful, there is nothing quite like Earth's history to reveal details about how oceans, animals, and plants respond to and recover from a warming world.

News Science

How and when was carbon distributed on Earth?

September 24, 2019 0 Comments Air Quality, Climate, Early Climate, Forest, Global Warming, Human Evolution, Origin of Life

A magma ocean existing during the core formation is thought to have been highly depleted in carbon due to its high-siderophile (iron loving) behavior. Thus, most of the carbon forming the atmosphere and life on Earth may have been delivered by a carbon-rich embryo after the core formation. However, a new high-pressure experiment has shown that previous studies may have overestimated the amount of carbon partitioning to the core.

News Science

Scientists decode DNA of coral and all its microscopic supporters

September 24, 2019 0 Comments Climate, Coral Reefs, Ecology, Ecology Research, Extinction, Global Warming, Marine Biology, Sea Life

Scientists have seen for the first time how corals collaborate with other microscopic life to build and grow.

News Science

Is theory on Earth's climate in the last 15 million years wrong?

September 23, 2019 0 Comments Charles Darwin, Climate, Early Climate, Environmental Issues, Fossils, Global Warming, Oceanography, Origin of Life

A key theory that attributes the climate evolution of the Earth to the breakdown of Himalayan rocks may not explain the cooling over the past 15 million years, according to a new study. The study could shed more light on the causes of long-term climate change. It centers on the long-term cooling that occurred before the recent global warming tied to greenhouse gas emissions from humanity.

News Science

New evidence of the Sahara's age

September 23, 2019 0 Comments Ancient Civilizations, Climate, Desert, Early Climate, Fossils, Geography, Origin of Life, Storms

The Sahara Desert is vast, generously dusty, and surprisingly shy about its age. New research looking into what appears to be dust that the Sahara blew over to the Canary Islands is providing the first direct evidence from dry land that the age of the Sahara matches that found in deep-sea sediments: at least 4.6 million years old.

News Science

Why are mountains so high? It doesn't add up

September 23, 2019 0 Comments Climate, Earth Science, Environmental Awareness, Environmental Issues, Geography, Geology, Global Warming, Oceanography

Researchers have analyzed mountain ranges worldwide to show that a theory relating erosion and mountain height doesn't always add up.

News Science

Faults' hot streaks and slumps could change earthquake hazard assessments

September 23, 2019 0 Comments Climate, Earth Science, Earthquakes, Geochemistry, Geology, Natural Disasters, Tsunamis, Weather

For more than a century, a guiding principle in seismology has been that earthquakes recur at semi-regular intervals according to a 'seismic cycle.' In this model, strain that gradually accumulates along a locked fault is completely released in a large earthquake. Recently, however, seismologists have realized that earthquakes often occur in clusters separated by gaps, and one research group now argues that the probability of a tremor's recurrence depends upon whether a cluster is ongoing — or over.

News Science

Climate change study finds that maple syrup season may come earlier

September 23, 2019 0 Comments Agriculture and Food, Climate, Environmental Awareness, Environmental Policy, Food and Agriculture, Global Warming, Nature, Trees

Once winter nights dip below freezing and the days warm up above freezing sap begins to flow in sugar maples marking the start of the syrup season. With climate change, daily temperatures are on the rise, which affects sap flow and sugar content. By 2100, the maple syrup season in eastern North America may be one month earlier than it was during 1950 and 2017, according to a new study.

News Science

Study of ancient climate suggests future warming could accelerate

September 18, 2019 0 Comments Climate, Early Climate, Early Mammals, Environmental Awareness, Environmental Issues, Fossils, Global Warming, Origin of Life

The rate at which the planet warms in response to the ongoing buildup of heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas could increase in the future, according to new simulations of a comparable warm period more than 50 million years ago.