Warm winter events in the arctic are becoming more frequent, lasting longer

Arctic winter warming events – winter days when temperatures peak above minus 10 degrees Celsius – are a normal part of the Arctic climate over the ice-covered Arctic Ocean, but new research finds they are becoming more frequent and lasting longer than they did three decades ago.

A new study analyzing winter air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean from 1893 to 2017 shows that since 1980, an additional six Arctic winter warming events are occurring each winter at the North Pole and these events are lasting about 12 hours longer, on average. In December 2015, scientists recorded a temperature of 2.2 degrees Celsius (36 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Central Arctic, the warmest temperature ever recorded in this region from December through March.

Prelude to global extinction: Stanford biologists say disappearance of species tells only part of the story of human impact on Earth's animals

No bells tolled when the last Catarina pupfish on Earth died. Newspapers didn’t carry the story when the Christmas Island pipistrelle vanished forever.

Type 1 diabetes risk linked to intestinal viruses

Doctors can’t predict who will develop Type 1 diabetes, a chronic autoimmune disease in which one’s own immune system destroys the cells needed to control blood-sugar levels, requiring daily insulin injections and continual monitoring.

Precipitation Extremes in the Dry Regions of China Found Closely Related to the Sea Surface Temperature

Precipitation extremes are of general interest due to their profound impacts on the society, economy, human safety, and the natural environment. Precipitation extremes exhibit high spatiotemporal variation in terms of both their frequency and intensity relative to the mean precipitation, so it is always difficult to detect extreme events and their underlying related mechanisms.

Researchers Identify Visual System Changes that May Signal Parkinson's Disease

Changes in the visual systems of newly diagnosed Parkinson’s disease patients may provide important biomarkers for the early detection and monitoring of the disease, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology.

Microbe study highlights Greenland ice sheet toxicity

The Greenland ice sheet is often seen as a pristine environment, but new research has revealed that may not be the case.

A Danish-led study, published today in the journal Environmental Research Letters, examined how microbes from the ice sheet have the potential to resist and degrade globally-emitted contaminants such as mercury, lead, PAH and PCB.

Research looks into whether sea spray is losing its sparkle

Pioneering new research has given a fresh insight into the crucial role that sea spray plays in climate change.

Sea spray, which is produced in abundance across all the world’s oceans, is one of the greatest sources of atmospheric aerosols - tiny particles that not only scatter and absorb sunlight but also influence climate indirectly through their role in cloud formation.

Understanding how these particles take up water from the atmosphere, a process known as hygroscopicity, is important because it determines how much sunlight they reflect and how well they can form clouds.

A study warns about the impact of the carp in shallow lakes with high ecological value for the preservation of waterbirds

The presence of the carp, a freshwater invasive species spread worldwide, is alarmingly reducing the populations of diving ducks and waterbirds, according to a study published in the journal Biological Conservation by the researchers Alberto Maceda Veiga, from the Biodiversity Research Institute of the University of Barcelona (IRBio) and Raquel López and Andy J. Green, from the Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC).

This is the first study which clearly shows the ecological impact of the carp on water birds in Mediterranean shallow lakes, and it warns about the dramatic effect of this invasive species on other species such as the white-headed duck (Oxyura leucocephala) and the red-crested pochard (Aythya farina), classified as endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (UICN).

New way to predict when electric cars and home batteries become cost effective

The future cost of energy storage technologies can now be predicted under different scenarios, thanks to a new tool created by Imperial researchers.

Using a large database, the team can predict how much consumers will have to pay in the future for energy storage technologies based on cumulative installed capacity, current cost and future investment.

Entering the Fast Lane — MXene Electrodes Push Charing Rate Limits in Energy Storage

Can you imagine fully charging your cell phone in just a few seconds? Researchers in Drexel University’s College of Engineering can, and they took a big step toward making it a reality with their recent work unveiling of a new battery electrode design in the journal Nature Energy.

The team, led by Yury Gogotsi, PhD,Distinguished University and Bach professor in Drexel’s College of Engineering, in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, created the new electrode designs from a highly conductive, two-dimensional material called MXene. Their design could make energy storage devices like batteries, viewed as the plodding tanker truck of energy storage technology, just as fast as the speedy supercapacitors that are used to provide energy in a pinch — often as a battery back-up or to provide quick bursts of energy for things like camera flashes.