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By Judith Hartl
Here it is! The very first picture of a black hole. At six press conferences simultaneously — in Brussels, Washington, Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai, Santiago de Chile — researchers presented the remarkable photo: A dark circle with a flaming orange ring of light.
'A World Without Clouds': New Study Details Possibility of Devastating Climate Feedback Loop
By Jessica Corbett
As people across the globe mobilize to demand bold action to combat the climate crisis and scientific findings about looming "environmental breakdown" pile up, a startling new study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience warns that human-caused global warming could cause stratocumulus clouds to totally disappear in as little as a century, triggering up to 8°C (14°F) of additional warming.
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By Marlene Cimons
When Swedish chemist and inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel died in 1896, he left his considerable fortune to fund annual prizes given to individuals who had conferred "the greatest benefits" to humanity during the previous year. But his vision only included five fields deemed worthy of recognition at the time: chemistry, physics, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. Later, Sweden's central bank also created a sixth prize in economics in his memory.
By Marlene Cimons
Warren Washington can trace at least one of the origins of his extraordinary scientific career—more than half a century of groundbreaking advances in computer climate modeling—to a youthful curiosity about the color of egg yolks.
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Lower Sea Level Rise but More ‘Climate Chaos’? Two New Studies Predict Polar Ice Melt Consequences
There's good news and there's bad news. Two new studies focusing on ice melt in Antarctica and Greenland have revised down the worst-case scenario for the amount of sea level rise the world could see by 2100, but say the overall climate impacts of melt water entering the oceans could be devastating.
"The sea-level estimates maybe aren't as bad as we thought, but the climate predictions are worse," lead author of one of the studies and Antarctic Research Center of the University of Victoria, Wellington climate scientist Nick Golledge told National Geographic.
'Last Chance': Warming Could Be Limited to 1.5°C With Immediate Phaseout of Fossil Fuel Infrastructure, Researchers Say
It is still possible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications found, as long as we act immediately to phase out fossil fuels.
The study used a climate model to determine what would happen if, beginning at the end of 2018, all existing fossil fuel infrastructure—from industrial equipment to cars to planes to ships to power plants—was replaced with renewable alternatives at the end of its design lifetime. The researchers found there would be a 64 percent chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, in line with the most ambitious goal of the Paris agreement.
The use of traditional plastics poses a major threat to the world's oceans: If current trends continue, plastics will outnumber fish by 2050. But the oceans might also contain the solution to this massive problem, researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) have discovered.
A partial government shutdown continued for a third day Monday as legislators left the capital for the holidays, CNBC reported Monday. The shutdown is due to an impasse between President Donald Trump and Congress over $5 billion in funding for Trump's border wall, a construction project that would have devastating consequences for wildlife in the region.
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Scientists Combine House Plant With Rabbit Gene to Form 'Green Liver' Against Indoor Air Pollution
Scientists at the University of Washington (UW) may have found an unexpected way to tackle persistent indoor air pollution: a common houseplant modified with rabbit DNA.
Researchers wanted to find a way to remove the toxic compounds chloroform and benzene from the home, a UW press release explained. Chloroform enters the air through chlorinated water and benzene comes from gasoline and enters the home through showers, the boiling of hot water and fumes from cars or other vehicles stored in garages attached to the home. Both have been linked to cancer, but not much has been done to try and remove them. Until now.
Melting Discovered in East Antarctic Region Holding Ice 'Equivalent to Four Greenlands'
Ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica have been melting at alarming rates in recent years, but at least the glaciers of East Antarctica were believed to be relatively stable. Until now. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists have discovered that glaciers covering one-eighth of Antarctica's eastern coast have lost ice in the past 10 years. If the region keeps melting, it has enough ice in its drainage basins to add 28 meters (approximately 92 feet) to global sea level rise, BBC News reported.
Great Barrier Reefs Resist Back-to-Back Bleaching Events Through ‘Ecological Memory’
The Great Barrier Reef has been hit hard by climate change. As waters warm, the higher ocean temperatures force the coral to expel the algae that lives inside of it, providing it with both its nutrients and its brilliant colors. If the water does not cool fast enough and the algae does not return, the coral dies.