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69 news posts in Climate action

Climate action

17 Nov 2022

Vast phytoplankton blooms may be lurking beneath Antarctic ice

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com Researchers using NASA’s Earth observing system find that Antarctic sea ice allows enough light in to let hidden phytoplankton bloom in the Southern Ocean. Until now, we thought the packed sea ice of the Southern Ocean blocked all light from reaching the sea beneath, preventing phytoplankton — tiny algae which are the base of aquatic food webs — from growing there. The less light available, the less the phytoplankton can photosynthesize and therefore the less phytoplankton there will be, heavily restricting life beneath the ice. But research inspired by increasing under-ice blooms of phytoplankton in the Arctic has shown that Antarctic waters also have unexpected denizens, indicating that there is underestimated ecological variability under the ice. Blooms are often spotted as soon as the sea ice begins its seasonal retreat, supported by plenty of light and freshwater with high iron content. Yet a team led by Dr Christopher Horvat of Brown University and the University of Auckland suspected that there would already be potential phytoplankton blooms in waiting. Writing in Frontiers in Marine Science, they described using sampling from independent BGC-Argo floats and climate model output to estimate light availability beneath […]

Climate action

04 Nov 2022

From ghost gear to microbe memories: 4 Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, many often fly under the radar. Here are just four amazing papers you may have missed. The hunt for ghost gear 25-30% of the plastic waste in the sea is lost fishing gear, or ‘ghost gear’, some of it now up to 60 years old. This ghost gear devastates the environment not only through continuing to trap fish, but also by shedding microplastics into the environment which then enter the food chain. Once it sinks as far as the sea floor, it becomes invisible from above – a hidden threat to the marine ecosystem. A team led by Andrea Stolte from the World Wildlife Foundation, writing in Frontiers in Marine Science, reported a successful ghost-hunting collaboration between fisherfolk, scientists, and divers in the Baltic Sea. This coalition of stakeholders had several options for hunting down the ghost gear. Traditionally, when lost gear is spotted, fisherfolk use search hooks and other similar tools to try to retrieve it. However, this proved to be inefficient and damaging to the […]

Climate action

24 Oct 2022

CO2 ventilation breakthrough could turn city rooftops into bumper vegetable gardens

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com Scientists find that expelled air from ventilation systems can make corn and spinach grow taller and larger, recycling CO2-rich indoor air to fertilize edible plants. As the world’s cities grow, the hunt is on for ways to make them greener, more sustainable, and more livable. Rooftop farms and gardens that take advantage of underutilized roof space are a popular option, providing new food resources while simultaneously cooling the surrounding area, increasing building insulation, and improving air quality. But the conditions on rooftops — greater solar radiation, more wind exposure, lesser soil moisture — often mean that plants are smaller and less healthy. A team led by Dr Sarabeth Buckley, now at the University of Cambridge, theorized that repurposing the CO2 from building exhaust as a kind of fertilizer might help counter some of these challenges. To explore this, they grew corn and spinach on the roof of a campus building at Boston University. “We wanted to test whether there is an untapped resource inside buildings that could be used to make plants grow larger in rooftop farms,” said Buckley, whose team named their experimental garden BIG GRO and published their work […]

Climate action

29 Sep 2022

UK politicians lack awareness of the links between climate change and mental health

By Lucy T Pirkle from the Department of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, UK Image credit: WikiWitch / Wikimedia Commons It’s essential that today’s politicians and decision makers recognize the many and severe risks that the climate crisis poses not just for our physical health, but also for our mental wellbeing. Unfortunately, at least in the UK, politicians so far have demonstrated little awareness of the direct and indirect links between climate and mental health. That’s the worrying conclusion of a recent study in Frontiers in Public Health, where researchers mined the public records of all debates in the UK’s House of Commons and House of Lords between 1995 and 2020. The authors found that on the few occasions that speakers showed any awareness of these links, the focus of their speeches was always on the association between flooding and anxiety. But no-one mentioned any of the other proven mental health impacts of climate change. For example, higher temperatures are associated with higher suicide rates and more hospitalizations for mental disorders. Likewise, extreme weather events such as wildfires, floods, droughts, and severe storms are associated with worse mental health in affected populations. And research has shown that […]

Climate action

13 Sep 2022

Putting sharks on the map: a new standard to identify important, global habitats

By Tayyibah Aziz, science writer Image: Shutterstock Many existing marine protected areas fail to adequately consider the needs of sharks, rays, and chimaeras, as data about many species is limited. In a new publication, scientists have developed a new framework to consider the species’ biological and ecological needs and inform planning to secure the protection they desperately need in the face of extinction. To date, shark, ray, and chimaera species have not been sufficiently considered in the planning of marine protected areas. However, a publication in Frontiers in Marine Science by researchers from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Shark Specialist Group (SSC), IUCN’s Ocean Team, and the IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Taskforce have developed a new framework to fundamentally change how sharks are considered in the design of protected areas and therefore support the protection they desperately need in the face of extinction. Ciaran Hyde, consultant to the IUCN Ocean Team, explained: “We still have so much to learn about many shark, ray, and chimaera species, but unfortunately several studies indicate that many protected areas are failing to adequately meet their needs. However, Important Shark and Ray Areas (ISRAs) will help to identify areas for these […]

Climate action

05 Aug 2022

Worrying finding in California’s multi-billion-dollar climate initiative reveals problem with using forests to offset CO2 emissions

By Suzanna Burgelman, Frontiers science writer Image: Zack Frank/Shutterstock.com Researchers have found that California’s forest carbon buffer pool, designed to ensure the durability of the state’s multi-billion-dollar carbon offset program, is severely undercapitalized. The results show that, within the offset program’s first 10 years, estimated carbon losses from wildfires have depleted at least 95% of the contributions set aside to protect against all fire risks over 100 years. This means that the buffer pool is unable to guarantee that credited forest carbon remains out of the atmosphere for at least 100 years. The results, published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, illustrate that the program, one of the world’s largest, is likely not meeting its set requirements. Carbon offset programs have become popular action plans to combat the climate crisis. California’s carbon offset program was established to utilize the ability of trees to absorb and store carbon and applies to around 75% of statewide emissions allowances. The program allows forest owners to earn ‘carbon credits’ for preserving trees. Polluters buy credits so that they can emit more CO2 than they’d otherwise be allowed to under state law. Each credit represents one ton of CO2. This exchange is supposed to […]

Climate action

28 Jul 2022

Carbon removal using ‘blue carbon’ habitats ‘uncertain and unreliable’

By Cat Bartman / Media Centre, University of East Anglia Eelgrass beds are a form of Blue Carbon Restoring coastal vegetation – so called ‘blue carbon’ habitats – may not be the nature-based climate solution it is claimed to be, according to a new study. In their analysis researchers from the University of East Anglia (UEA), the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the OACIS initiative of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, challenge the widely held view that restoring areas such as mangroves, saltmarsh, and seagrass can remove large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.  The findings of their review, published today in the journal Frontiers in Climate, identify seven reasons why carbon accounting for coastal ecosystems is not only extremely challenging but risky. These include the high variability in carbon burial rates, vulnerability to future climate change, and fluxes of methane and nitrous oxide. The authors, who also looked at information on restoration costs, warn that extra measurements can reduce these risks, but would mean much higher costs. However, they stress that blue carbon habitats should still be protected and, where possible, restored, as they have benefits for climate adaptation, coastal protection, […]

Climate action

15 Jul 2022

Is declaring a climate emergency enough to stop the climate crisis? What we can learn from the Covid-19 pandemic

By Jordi Mazon, David Pino, and Mireia Vinyoles Image: Piyaset/Shutterstock.com Dr. Jordi Mazon is professor of meteorology at the Department of physics in the Technical University of Catalonia (BarcelonaTech) and teaches higher-level physics in the international baccalaureate in Aula higher school in Barcelona. In addition, he is currently Deputy Mayor of energy transition, mobility, and city cleaning management in Viladecans, a municipality of the metropolitan area of Barcelona. His research is focused on several topics of the atmospheric physics, the numerical simulation of coastal fronts, and severe meteorological events. Now, he explains what lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic we can apply to our fight against the climate crisis. If someone looks up the definition of emergency in any dictionary (for example in the Cambridge Dictionary), the following description can be read: “something dangerous or serious, that happens suddenly or unexpectedly and needs fast action in order to avoid harmful results for people or properties”. Keeping in mind the recent declaration of the state of emergency due to the climate crisis  by many scientists, administrations, and institutions worldwide, it is clear that fast actions must be taken to avoid harmful results for human societies and the Earth’s ecosystems. Accepting the declaration […]

Climate action

05 Apr 2022

The hidden effects of deforestation on our planet and 3 other fascinating Frontiers articles you may have missed

By Colm Gorey, Frontiers Science Communications Manager Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, many often fly under the radar. Now, as part of new series each month, Frontiers will highlight just some of those amazing papers you may have missed. The Unseen Effects of Deforestation: Biophysical Effects on Climate Research published to Frontiers in Forests and Global Change offers the most comprehensive and detailed evidence to date that forests are more important to the climate – both globally and locally – than we think due to the way in which they physically transform the atmosphere. The first-ever research conducted by a team from the US pinpointed the local, regional and global non-CO2 benefits of specific forest zones worldwide to find that the entire world gains the most benefits from the band of tropical rainforests spanning Latin America, central Africa and Southeast Asia. It finds that, together, forests keep the planet at least half of a degree Celsius cooler when we account for the understudied biophysical effects – from chemical compounds to turbulence and the reflection of light. These effects in […]

Climate action

23 Feb 2022

Sharp drop in flower abundance caused by climate crisis will leave pollinators searching further for food

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Image credit: Ellen D Moss Researchers simulated the warmer, wetter conditions predicted for northern Europe under climate change, by locally heating agricultural fields by 1.5 ºC and increasing irrigation by 40%. These conditions immediately lead to changes in the community of wildflowers and their associated insects. Most plant species were ‘losers’: they grew fewer flowers, secreted less nectar, and set fewer or lighter seeds. This reduced the food resources for pollinators, stimulating them to visit a wider range of plants. It is predicted that global average temperatures will have risen by between 0.9 and 2.0 ºC around the middle of this century, according to the IPCC’s intermediate emission scenario RCP4.5. As a result, many species, especially specialists with highly specific requirements for food, habitat, and reproduction, won’t be able to adapt. Because approximately 35% of our crops depend on insects for pollination, it is necessary to study impact of global warming on the fitness of insects and the wildflowers on which they depend for food. Once we understand the likely changes, we may be able to mitigate the negative effects for wild and crop plants. Here, a study by scientists from Newcastle University in […]