Since the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) was first monitored in 2004, it has been the focus of thousands of scientific papers and even a blockbuster movie that grossed more than $552 million worldwide. New research is hoping to add another twist to the current conversation. Published in Nature Communications, Increased Asian Aerosols Drive a … Read more
The accuracy of climate models depends on many factors — greenhouse gas emissions from industrial and transportation activity, farm animal “emissions,” urban growth and loss of forests, and solar reflections off snow and ground cover. Natural phenomena like volcanic eruptions also contribute and are incorporated into models. However, some other natural processes have been overlooked. … Read more
Exposure to several combinations of toxic atmospheric pollutants may be triggering asthma symptoms among children, a recent analysis suggests. The study, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, showed that 25 different combinations of air pollutants were associated with asthma symptoms among 269 elementary school children diagnosed with asthma in Spokane, Washington. In … Read more
Americans already living in housing supported by federal housing assistance programs have significantly lower blood lead levels than counterparts who would later join these programs, according to new research led by environmental health scientists at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Tufts Medical Center. The findings appear in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health … Read more
Residential heating by coal has for decades been the major contributor to the high levels of air pollution in Kraków, Poland. New research finds a nearly 40 percent decline in the annual average concentration of respirable particulate matter (PM2.5) in Kraków, Poland, between 2010 and 2019 following the implementation of policies targeting emissions from the burning … Read more
Ammonia (NH3) is an important molecule with many applications. The end product of the famed Haber-Bosch process, it is commonly synthesized to capture nitrogen for fertilizers, and is used for refrigeration, in cleaning products, and in the production of pharmaceuticals. Recently, this modest molecule has also attracted interest as a potential resource for addressing one … Read more
A Dartmouth Engineering-led study published in Joule reported the discovery of an entirely new high-performance material for solar absorbers — the central part of a solar cell that turns light into electricity — that is stable and earth-abundant. The researchers used a unique high-throughput computational screening method to accelerate the discovery process and were able … Read more
The collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991 had social, political and economic effects worldwide. Among them was a suspected role in slowing human-generated methane emissions. Methane had been rising steadily in the atmosphere until about 1990. Atmospheric scientists theorized that economic collapse in the former USSR led to less oil and gas production, … Read more