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Categories: Geoscience: Environmental Issues, Geoscience: Landslides

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While increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere encourage plant growth, they also reduce the nutritional value of plants, which can have a larger impact on nutrition and food safety worldwide. Researchers have discovered a new way plants are adapting to the changing climate -- information that can be used to help plants grow strong while also maintaining their nutritional value.

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Environmental scientists have developed a circular process for eliminating the risk posed by phosphoric acid plant wastewater. The process turns the environmentally toxic wastewater into clean water while recovering valuable acids. Phosphoric acid is the main ingredient in industrial fertilizers, a massive industry worldwide.

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The water stored in reservoirs ensures our supply of drinking water. Good water quality is therefore important -- but is at significant risk due to climate change. In a model study of the Rappbode reservoir in the Harz region, a research team demonstrated how the climate-related disappearance of forests in the catchment area for Germany's largest drinking water reservoir can affect water quality. The problem of such indirect consequences of climate change is seriously underestimated, the scientists warn. Water quality is of critical importance, especially for drinking water reservoirs, as subsequent treatment in the waterworks must continually meet high standards.

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Worldwide, plants emit about 100 million tons of monoterpenes into the atmosphere each year. These volatile organic molecules include many fragrances such as the molecule pinene -- known for its pine fresh scent. Since these molecules are highly reactive and can form tiny aerosol particles that can grow into nuclei for clouds droplets, natural emissions play an important role in our climate. Therefore, it is important for climate predictions to know how monoterpene emissions will change as temperatures rise.

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The 2019/20 wildfires in Australia transported more smoke into the atmosphere than observed ever before anywhere in the world. In the so-called Black Summer, three times as many particles reached high air layers as in the previous record wildfires in Canada during summer 2017. Research now reveals the climate impact of these huge fires: Smoke particles with a total mass of around one million tonnes spread across the southern hemisphere and affected the climate for about one and a half years by warming the upper atmosphere and cooling the lower atmosphere close to Earth's surface.

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High levels of hydroxyl radicals (OH) can be generated indoors, simply due to the presence of people and ozone.

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Researchers quantify the risk to forests from climate change along three dimensions: carbon storage, biodiversity and forest loss from disturbance, such as fire or drought. The results show forests in some regions experiencing clear and consistent risks. In other regions, the risk profile is less clear, because different approaches that account for disparate aspects of climate risk yield diverging answers.

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University of Cincinnati geologists reconstructed a massive landslide in Nevada that wiped out an area the size of a small city more than 5 million years ago. Researchers pieced together details of the Blue Diamond landslide, a natural disaster that sent rocks and boulders tumbling more than 6 miles across what is now a desert outside Las Vegas. The landslide in Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area had such mass and force that it propelled fragmented rock 2 miles uphill, cresting the enormous Blue Diamond Hill, and flattened an area larger than downtown Cincinnati. Rubble from the landslide stretches over an area of more than 7 square miles.

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Ethanol can help plants survive in times of drought says a new study. Adding ethanol to soil allows plants, including rice and wheat, to thrive after two weeks without any water. As ethanol is safe, cheap, and widely available, this finding offers a practical way to increase food production all over the world when water is scarce, without the need for costly, time-consuming, and sometimes controversial production of genetically modified plants.

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Researchers have developed a new method for assessing the impacts of ozone-destroying substances that threaten the recovery of the ozone layer.

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Marked differences in how climate change will affect different parts of Europe require further focus and political attention if European agriculture is to adapt to future climatic conditions, say researchers.

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A new study highlights that global demand for sulfuric acid is set to rise significantly from '246 to 400 million tons' by 2040 -- a result of more intensive agriculture and the world moving away from fossil fuels. A projected shortage of sulfuric acid, a crucial chemical in our modern industrial society, could stifle green technology advancement and threaten global food security, according to a new study.

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A new study investigates how different mammals react to climate change. Animals that live for a long time and/or produce less offspring -- like bears and bison -- are more resilient than small animals with a short life -- like mice and lemmings.

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Images of damaged coastlines, oily sheens, containment booms and endangered wildlife are part of every offshore oil spill. And while a response team arrives and the clean up gets underway, researchers are now exploring how to effectively handle the waste created from that spill.

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Researchers from the Gulf Long-term Follow-up Study (GuLF STUDY) found that workers involved in cleaning up the nation's largest oil spill were 60% more likely than those who did not work on the cleanup to be diagnosed with asthma or experience asthma symptoms one to three years after the spill.

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Simultaneous extreme heat and drought events have consequences in a variety of areas -- for example the economy, health and food production. In addition, due to complex socio-economic connections, such extreme events can cause knock-on effects, researchers have shown. More systematic risk assessments are needed to make affected regions more resilient.

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Calcium is a very special nutrient. In the cells of most living beings calcium ions function as so-called second messengers to transmit important signals. The same applies equally to animal, plant and fungal cells.

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Scientists are proposing management changes on western federal lands that they say would result in more wolves and beavers and would re-establish ecological processes.

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With record temperatures this summer along with dry conditions, ongoing concerns about food security, wildlife habitats and biodiversity, having a healthy soil system is more vital and challenging than ever before. But what does the term 'soil health' mean and how should we measure it? New research says that how we think about, measure and study soil must be changed to give a better understanding of how to manage this resource effectively, with academics proposing an entirely new approach for assessing soil health.

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New evidence from Antarctica shows that toxic 'fluorinated forever chemicals' have increased markedly in the remote environment in recent decades and scientists believe CFC-replacements could be among likely sources.