ENVIRONMENT – Page 3

Freak Events Like 2023’s Summer Of Wildfire Smoke Require More Than AI To Help Forecast Air Quality More Traditional Methods Are Needed

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

AI, ENVIRONMENT, TECHNOLOGY

Freak Events Like 2023’s Summer Of Wildfire Smoke Require More Than AI To Help Forecast Air Quality More Traditional Methods Are Needed

AI can help forecast air quality, but freak events like 2023’s summer of wildfire smoke require traditional methods too. Wildfire smoke from Canada’s extreme fire season has left a lot of people thinking about air quality and wondering what to expect in the days ahead. All air contains gaseous compounds and small particles. But as air quality gets worse, these gases and particles can trigger asthma and exacerbate heart and respiratory problems as they enter the nose, throat and lungs and even circulate in the bloodstream. When wildfire smoke turned New York City’s skies orange in early June 2023, emergency room visits for asthma doubled. In most cities, it’s easy to find a daily air quality index score that tells you when the air is considered unhealthy or even hazardous. However, predic...

Heat-Related Illnesses Are Now Being Tracked Nationwide After The Hottest Summer On Record

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT, HEALTH & WELLNESS

Heat-Related Illnesses Are Now Being Tracked Nationwide After The Hottest Summer On Record

A new dashboard launched by the Biden administration to track heat-related illnesses will help municipalities and medical professionals with prevention efforts and assist families as they make housing decisions, particularly for older adults, experts say. The EMS HeatTracker launched last week monitors the number of heat-related illness calls emergency services receive on a county-by-county basis, as well as the gender, race, age and more of those who become ill due to high temperatures across the United States. The tracker, the first of its kind, will be updated weekly. This summer has been the hottest on record due to climate change. “Each year heat kills more people than any other type of extreme weather event, and the heat is getting worse,” said John Balbus, acting director of the ...

What 4 Factors Are Driving Extreme Heat And Climate Disasters

28Jul

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT

What 4 Factors Are Driving Extreme Heat And Climate Disasters

4 factors driving 2023’s extreme heat and climate disasters. Between the record-breaking global heat and extreme downpours, it’s hard to ignore that something unusual is going on with the weather in 2023. People have been quick to blame climate change – and they’re right, to a point: Human-caused global warming does play the biggest role. A recent study determined that the weekslong heat wave in Texas and Mexico that started in June 2023 would have been virtually impossible without it. However, the extremes this year are sharper than anthropogenic global warming alone would be expected to cause. Human activities that release greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere have been increasing temperatures gradually, at an average of 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit (0.1 Celsius) per decade. Three ad...

20Jul

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT

When Was It Ever This Hot Before?

Is it really hotter now than any time in 100,000 years? As scorching heat grips large swaths of the Earth, a lot of people are trying to put the extreme temperatures into context and asking: When was it ever this hot before? Globally, 2023 has seen some of the hottest days in modern measurements, but what about farther back, before weather stations and satellites? Some news outlets have reported that daily temperatures hit a 100,000-year high. As a paleo-climate scientist who studies temperatures of the past, I see where this claim comes from, but I cringe at the inexact headlines. While this claim may well be correct, there are no detailed temperature records extending back 100,000 years, so we don’t know for sure. Here’s what we can confidently say about when Earth was last this hot....

As Global Ocean Temperatures Hit Record Highs Corals Are Starting To Bleach

14Jul

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT

As Global Ocean Temperatures Hit Record Highs Corals Are Starting To Bleach

Corals are starting to bleach as global ocean temperatures hit record highs. The water off South Florida is over 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) in mid-July, and scientists are already seeing signs of coral bleaching off Central and South America. Particularly concerning is how early in the summer we are seeing these high ocean temperatures. If the extreme heat persists, it could have dire consequences for coral reefs. Just like humans, corals can handle some degree of stress, but the longer it lasts, the more harm it can do. Corals can’t move to cooler areas when water temperatures rise to dangerous levels. They are stuck in it. For those that are particularly sensitive to temperature stress, that can be devastating. I lead the Coral Program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad...

The Heat Dome — The Weather Phenomenon Baking Texas And Forecast To Expand

1Jul

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT

The Heat Dome — The Weather Phenomenon Baking Texas And Forecast To Expand

What is a heat dome? An atmospheric scientist explains the weather phenomenon baking Texas and forecast to expand. A heat dome occurs when a persistent region of high pressure traps heat over an area. The heat dome can stretch over several states and linger for days to weeks, leaving the people, crops and animals below to suffer through stagnant, hot air that can feel like an oven. Typically, heat domes are tied to the behavior of the jet stream, a band of fast winds high in the atmosphere that generally runs west to east. Normally, the jet stream has a wavelike pattern, meandering north and then south and then north again. When these meanders in the jet stream become bigger, they move slower and can become stationary. That’s when heat domes can occur. Heat domes involve high-pressure ar...

More Climate Change Problems — Dirty Air, Wildfire Smoke, Solutions For A World On Fire

19Jun

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT

Most Of The Earth’s Limits Have Already Breached — A Safer, Fairer Future Means Treading Lightly — It’s Not Just Climate

It’s not just climate – we’ve already breached most of the Earth’s limits. A safer, fairer future means treading lightly. People once believed the planet could always accommodate us. That the resilience of the Earth system meant nature would always provide. But we now know this is not necessarily the case. As big as the world is, our impact is bigger. In research released today, an international team of scientists from the Earth Commission, of which we were part, identified eight “safe” and “just” boundaries spanning five vital planetary systems: climate change, the biosphere, freshwater, nutrient use in fertilisers and air pollution. This is the first time an assessment of boundaries has quantified the harms to people from changes to the Earth system. “Safe” means boundaries maintaini...

Bringing Record Global Warming Heat By Year 2028 — Probably The First Above 1.5°C Limit

25May

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT

Bringing Record Global Warming Heat By Year 2028 — Probably The First Above 1.5°C Limit

Global warming to bring record hot year by 2028 – probably our first above 1.5°C limit. One year in the next five will almost certainly be the hottest on record and there’s a two-in-three chance a single year will cross the crucial 1.5℃ global warming threshold, an alarming new report by the World Meteorological Organization predicts. The report, known as the Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update, warns if humanity fails to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero, increasingly worse heat records will tumble beyond this decade. So what is driving the bleak outlook for the next five years? An expected El Niño, on top of the overall global warming trend, will likely push the global temperature to record levels. Has the Paris Agreement already failed if the global average temperature ...

Superglue A Recyclable, Cheap, Oil-Free Plastic Alternative

11May

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT

Superglue A Recyclable, Cheap, Oil-Free Plastic Alternative

Researchers turned superglue into a recyclable, cheap, oil-free plastic alternative. Our team used superglue as a starting material to develop a low-cost, recyclable and easily produced transparent plastic called polyethyl cyanoacrylate that has properties similar to those of plastics used for single-use products like cutlery, cups and packaging. Unlike most traditional plastics, this new plastic can be easily converted back to its starting materials, even when combined with unwashed municipal plastic waste. To make a plastic from superglue, we first had to address the very issue that makes superglue so “super” – it sticks to just about everything. When superglue is used to stick something together, it is actually reacting with moisture in the air or on the surface of whatever is being gl...