Latest news with #NatureCommunicationsEarth&Environment
India Today
24-06-2025
- Science
- India Today
Wildfires contaminate water quality for nearly a decade after the blaze
A new study has revealed that the legacy of wildfires extends far beyond the immediate devastation, with contaminants from burned forests and watersheds continuing to pollute rivers and streams for up to eight years after the flames are research, published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, is the first large-scale assessment of post-wildfire water quality and analyzed over 1,00,000 water samples from more than 500 watersheds across the by scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder, the study based on wildfires in the United States, found significant increases in organic carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, and sediment in rivers following the blazes. These contaminants can degrade water quality, posing challenges for water treatment facilities and threatening the drinking water supply for millions of people in downstream communities. Researchers have long known that fire ash and soil destruction contribute to degraded water quality. (Photo: AP) 'We were attempting to look at notable trends in post-wildfire water quality across the entire U.S. West, to help inform water management strategies in preparing for wildfire effects,' said Carli Brucker, the study's lead results showed that while the most dramatic spikes in contaminants occur in the first one to five years after a fire, elevated nitrogen and sediment levels can persist for up to eight study also found that the impact of wildfires on water quality is highly variable, depending on factors such as the proximity of the fire to rivers, the type of soil and vegetation, and local weather patterns. In some cases, sediment levels in streams were up to 2,000 times higher than before the fire, severely straining water treatment wildfires increasing in size and frequency due to drought and climate change, the findings underscore the need for long-term planning and resilience in water management.'You can't fund resilience improvements on general concerns alone. Water managers need real numbers for planning, and that's what we're providing,' Brucker the American West faces mounting wildfire risks, researchers hope their data will help communities better prepare for the prolonged environmental impacts that follow in the wake of fire.- EndsMust Watch
LeMonde
20-06-2025
- Science
- LeMonde
Blanketing an entire continent with forests: Why planting trees cannot make up for fossil fuel emissions
Scientists have been repeating it for years: The top priority in the fight against climate change should be to reduce greenhouse gas emissions rather than relying on methods to absorb CO 2 once it is in the atmosphere. A study published on Thursday, June 19, drives the point home, just hours after a group of climate scientists announced that the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C was now out of reach. The study demonstrates "the insurmountable challenges" that fossil fuel companies would face if they had to offset their future CO 2 emissions, for instance, by planting trees. Published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, the study uses as its starting point the known coal, oil and gas reserves held by the 200 largest fossil fuel companies. According to the Fossil Free Funds database, burning these reserves would generate 673 billion metric tons of CO 2 – far more than the remaining carbon budget to limit warming to 1.5°C (130 billion metric tons). In recent years, more and more fossil fuel companies have highlighted their ambition to achieve net zero emissions through offsetting projects. The British oil company Shell, for example, plans to offset about 120 million metric tons per year by 2030. An analysis published in 2023 by the UK-based Carbon Brief website also demonstrates the extent to which the largest companies, particularly those in the energy sector, base their strategies on these methods.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
How often does it flood in Carolina Beach? More often than you probably think
A new research paper raises concerns that coastal flooding in places like Carolina Beach is occurring much more frequently, and lasting longer, than official statistics show. By using localized sensors instead of relying on tidal gauges, which are often miles away from coastal areas that frequently flood, the study by researchers from N.C. State and the University of North Carolina showed how many instances of non-storm related flooding is slipping through the official cracks. "Our research shows you need land-based measures of flooding to capture the burden on coastal residents, which can inform policy and planning decisions moving forward,' said Dr. Katharine Anarde, a coastal engineer with N.C. State and co-author of the study. The paper, "Land-based Sensors Reveal High Frequency of Coastal Flooding," was published June 2 in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment. Dr. Miyuki Hino, a city and regional planning expert from UNC and the other co-author of the paper, said the study's finding are a real wake-up call for coastal communities. 'The time for getting your head around the problem and developing potential solutions and evaluating what adaptions will work in your town, that time is now," she said. "This study really points to the urgency of this problem.' Anarde and Hino also are part of the Sunny Day Flooding Project, an initiative to help researchers, officials and residents better understand chronic flooding in coastal communities and the impact it has on people, property and businesses in those areas. LIVING WITH WATER: Why nature-based climate solutions are growing in popularity in the Wilmington area Carolina Beach is a prime example of a coastal community in the bulls-eye of our changing climate. Rampant development − especially on the town's north end, decades-old and overwhelmed stormwater drainage systems, and rising seas means low-lying areas already susceptible to flooding are seeing more and more impacts from non-storm tidal events. The result is inundated streets, dangerous driving conditions, increased salt water wear-and-tear on infrastructure and property, and residents sometimes having to wade through water just to access homes and businesses. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, high-tide, sunny day or nuisance flooding − which is flooding that's not associated with storm surge kicked up by a storm − is happening twice as often as it did in 2000. But the new study asserts that the actual number of incidents of flooding places vulnerable coastal areas like Carolina Beach experience is even greater. Currently, there are two widely accepted 'thresholds' used to infer flooding on land based on tide gauge data: NOAA's high tide flooding threshold and the National Weather Service's minor flood threshold. But Wilmington's official tidal gauge is at the base of the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, nearly 14 miles north of Carolina Beach Town Hall. By using land-based sensors installed in flood-prone areas of Carolina Beach, Beaufort and Sea Level, the last two communities in Carteret County, researchers found flooding in the three N.C. coastal areas to be much more rampant than what was being officially reported − sometimes several magnitudes more. From May 2023 through April 2024, Carolina Beach flooded 65 days. Data from the local sensors also showed the flooding was lasting longer than what was captured by the federal models. Hinro and Anarde said the discrepancies between flooding on land and tide-gauge estimates are due to unique characteristics of each community, including topography and drainage issues, and incorporating heavy rainfall events that cannot be captured at tide gauges. The researchers added that coastal flooding will become much more frequent and widespread in the coming years and decades due to sea-level rise fueled by climate change, making the value of having local data that much more valuable. WATER WOES: As seas continue to rise, Carolina Beach mulls solutions to its chronic flooding woes For residents in these coastal communities, the study's findings probably don't come as a surprise. The incessant flooding also causes headaches for local officials looking for solutions that are likely to be expensive, unpopular, or both. In Carolina Beach, the town has partnered with the Sunny Day Flooding Project and a group of local residents to develop possible mitigation efforts in response to the chronic flooding woes in and around Canal Drive. Those potential solutions have been fed into a computer model that simulates a number of factors impacting flooding in the town, including wind, rain, groundwater levels and infrastructure limits. Those adaptation options, all of which carry pros and cons, will be presented to town council at its July meeting. With flooding concerns expected to keep increasing, Anarde and Hinro said they are eager to keep their research going to help local communities in their ongoing adaptation efforts. But like many scientific endeavors around the country, their research is largely funded by Washington, and that's creating a lot of uncertainty these days amid moves by the Trump administration to rein in federal spending. Still, the researchers said they are determined to keep pushing to help coastal communities become aware and develop mitigation strategies that work for their specific situations and towns. "This isn't a future problem," Anarde said. "This is a now problem." Reporter Gareth McGrath can be reached at GMcGrath@ or @GarethMcGrathSN on X/Twitter. This story was produced with financial support from the Green South Foundation and the Prentice Foundation. The USA TODAY Network maintains full editorial control of the work. This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: How often does it flood in Carolina Beach, NC?
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
How pungent poop could help Antarctica's penguins
If you have ever stood in front of a penguin enclosure at an aquarium–or better yet traveled to Antarctica, New Zealand, or parts of southern Africa to see them in the wild–one reality really sticks out about these flightless birds. The smell. Their guano (aka poop) is pungent and plentiful, and dark stains of guano sticking out on white ice have even helped scientists find previously unknown penguin colonies. The ammonia released from their poop also might help reduce some of the devastating effects of climate change. This gas helps influence cloud formation, which can cool down surface temperatures. The findings are detailed in a study published May 22 in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment. Antarctic ecosystems are under serious threat due to human-driven climate change, with some penguin colonies failing to breed altogether. Warmer temperatures means less critical sea ice for penguins, sea birds, seals, and whales. Penguins are a key species in this ecosystem at the bottom of the world and also are major emitters of ammonia in the region. Ammonia is an atmospheric gas that can increase cloud formation by reacting with gases containing sulphur. In turn, this increases the creation of aerosols–the particles that give water vapour a surface to condense upon. All of that condensation leads to cloud formation. 'Aerosol particles are necessary for cloud formation; liquid water will not condense to form cloud droplets without the presence of aerosol particles,' Matthew Boyer, a study co-author and atmospheric scientist at the University of Helsinki in Finland, tells Popular Science. 'Clouds influence the surface radiation budget, which affects surface temperature. Therefore, clouds impact climate change. This is true across the entire planet, not just in Antarctica.' Since higher concentrations of aerosol particles creates clouds that are more reflective of the sun's rays, the strength of an area's aerosol particle sources matters. 'In general, the Antarctic atmosphere is a pristine environment,' says Boyer. 'It's located far away from human pollution sources, and the background aerosol particle concentrations are low as a result. New particle formation, occurring from gases emitted from natural sources (e.g., penguins and the ocean), is therefore an important source of aerosol particles in the region.' The resulting clouds can act as insulating layers in the atmosphere and those layers often help lower surface temperatures and can affect the amount of sea ice coverage. However, the specific interaction between penguins and their ammonia filled poop and the Antarctic climate is not well understood. [ Related: A small amount of penguin poop is enough to spook krill. ] In this new study, Boyer and his colleagues measured the concentration of ammonia in the air at a site located near Marambio Base, Antarctica between January 10 and March 20, 2023. When the wind blew from the direction of a colony of 60,000-individual Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) about five miles away, the ammonia concentration increased to as high as 13.5 parts per billion. That figure is over 1,000 times higher than the baseline value that is naturally found in Antarctica (less than 10.5 parts per trillion). The ammonia enhanced the particle concentrations in the clouds up to 30 times than the background, according to Boyer. Around the end of February, the penguins migrated from the area. The ammonia concentration was still more than 100 times higher than the baseline, because the penguin guano left at the colony site still emitted the gas. 'The most surprising part for me was the strength of ammonia emissions from the penguin guano for a month after the penguins were no longer present at the colony,' says Boyer. 'They left for their annual migration, but the guano they left behind in the soils continued to emit gas ammonia at ~100 times higher than the baseline.' This indicates that the cloud-building ammonia emissions from penguins may cover even more of coastal Antarctica. To confirm that the increase in ammonia concentration eventually affected the cloud formation, the team recorded several additional atmospheric measurements during a single day. When the wind blew from the penguin colony, the number and size of the aerosol particles recorded at the site sharply increased. Approximately three hours after the wind changed, the team saw a period of fog. The team believes that this fog was likely a result of that increased aerosol particle concentration and cloud formation. According to the team, the data suggests that penguin poop may be helping reduce some of climate change's effects on an ever-warming Antarctica. 'Our measurements demonstrate that these environmental and ecosystem changes will subsequently impact the atmosphere and the climate of the region,' says Boyer. 'This matters, because changes to the climate/ecosystem in Antarctica can have consequences for global climate.'
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Wildfires are getting deadlier and costlier thanks to climate change: Study
Climate change is responsible for thousands of wildfire-related deaths and $11 billion in associated losses every year, a new study finds. This key contributor to wildfire behavior has led to approximately 15,000 deaths over 15 years and a cumulative economic burden of $160 billion, due to exposure to fine particulate matter in smoke, according to the study, published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment. 'Mitigating climate change would have huge benefits for reducing deaths and economic burdens from wildfire smoke,' senior author Nick Nassikas, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a statement. Nassikas stressed that this is true 'especially in the western U.S. where climate change accounts for up to 60 percent of wildfire PM2.5,' referring to tiny dust particles with a diameter smaller than 2.5 micrometers. To draw their conclusions, the researchers looked at how much land was burned in blazes from 2006 to 2020 and compared those numbers with the amounts that would have been destroyed if climate change wasn't a factor. Climate change, they found, expanded the areas prone to wildfire ignition, thereby resulting in more smoke pollution that has harmed people's health. The scientists observed the greatest number of climate change-related deaths induced by wildfire smoke exposure in 2020. That year alone was responsible for 34 percent of all such fatalities for the entire period, while costing the country $58 billion, according to the study. The top 10 states with the highest annual death rates attributable to this type of air pollution exposure were Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Washington, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, Louisiana and Arkansas, the researchers determined. Within the 10 most impacted counties — which were all located in California, Idaho, Oregon and Montana — the authors found that deaths linked to climate-driven wildfire smoke ranged from 9.8 to 17.1 per 100,000 individuals. As a basis of comparison, they noted that U.S. cancer mortality rates are about 17.5 to 18.5 per 100,000 people. If the effects of climate change did not exist, there would likely have been 10 percent fewer deaths linked to climate-induced wildfire smoke inhalation from 2006 through 2020, according to the study. For some Western states, those reductions could have been as much as 30 to 50 percent, the scientists noted. Going forward, the researchers emphasized a need to integrate climate and health policies in a way that accounts for increased exposures to harmful wildfire smoke. They also called for improved monitoring and forecasting of smoke events, as well as better communication to vulnerable populations. Investing in policies that decrease fossil fuel emissions and revamp wildfire-management approaches could also help mitigate future public health threats and associated costs, the authors concluded. 'Absent abrupt changes in climate trajectories, land management and population, the indirect impacts of climate change on human-health through wildfire smoke will escalate,' they added. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
