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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.

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.

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.

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).

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.