President Xi of China announced in September 2020 that China will “aim to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060”.
Tag: Earth Sciences
Volcanoes at fault if the Earth slips
The 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes shocked inhabitants of the western island of Kyushu, causing hundreds of casualties and serious damage to vital infrastructure.
Lesser known ozone layer’s outsized role in planet warming
New research has identified a lesser-known form of ozone playing a big role in heating the Southern Ocean — one of Earth’s main cooling systems.
Rapid glacial advance reconstructed during the time of Norse occupation in Greenland
The Greenland Ice Sheet is the second largest ice body in the world, and it has the potential to contribute significantly to global sea-level rise in a warming global climate.
Volcanism drove rapid ocean deoxygenation during the time of the dinosaurs
Ocean deoxygenation during the Mesozoic Era was much more rapid than previous thought, with CO2 induced environmental warming creating ocean ‘dead zones’ over timescales of only tens of thousands of years.
Fungus That Tastes Just Right
PNNL researchers are forming a clearer picture of how plant matter is transformed in the microbial gardens created by leaf-cutter ants
Muddied waters: sinking organics alter seafloor records
The remains of microscopic plankton blooms in near-shore ocean environments slowly sink to the seafloor, setting off processes that forever alter an important record of Earth’s history, according to research from geoscientists, including David Fike at Washington University in St. Louis.Fike is co-author of a new study published in Nature Communications.
Decisions, Decisions: Climate Change and Water
PNNL’s Framework for Assessment of Complex Environmental Tradeoffs (FACET) is designed to navigate and rigorously evaluate competing environmental, economic, and social impacts to help make decisions more equitable. In an example scenario prepared using publicly available data, FACET was applied to predict tradeoffs facing the Colorado River and to balance competing demands of river flow and temperature, along with withdrawals for cities, crop irrigation, and power generation.
Iceland’s Fagradalsfjall is erupting. This UB expert helps predict where lava may go
Mattia de’ Michieli Vitturi, a geology faculty member and a mathematician, uses computational modeling to help officials in Iceland understand where lava may flow BUFFALO, N.Y. — The eruption of Fagradalsfjall on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula, with lava emerging from multiple…

Snappy evolution was behind the success of ancient crocodiles
New research led by the University of Bristol has revealed that crocodiles once flourished on land and in the oceans as a result of fast evolution.

Younger Tyrannosaurus Rex bites were less ferocious than their adult counterparts
By closely examining the jaw mechanics of juvenile and adult tyrannosaurids, some of the fiercest dinosaurs to inhabit earth, scientists led by the University of Bristol have uncovered differences in how they bit into their prey.
Study resolves the position of fleas on the tree of life
A study of more than 1,400 protein-coding genes of fleas has resolved one of the longest standing mysteries in the evolution of insects, reordering their placement in the tree of life and pinpointing who their closest relatives are.

OpenTopography Collaboration Awarded New Four-Year Grant
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has renewed funding for OpenTopography, a science gateway that provides online access to Earth science oriented high-resolution topography data and processing tools to a broad user community advancing research and education in areas ranging from earthquake geology to ecology and hydrology.
To help students think in 3D, a geologist turns to paper model making
“Geology is a 3D science, but everything we give to students is on a 2D piece of paper,” says University at Buffalo geologist Chris Lowry, creator of the Foldable Aquifer Project. “With the foldable aquifers, students don’t have to imagine what a 2D drawing looks like in 3D.”

Six Berkeley Lab Scientists Named AAAS Fellows
Six scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).