EurekAlert! News by Subject: Atmospheric Science - News by Subject: Atmospheric Science

Atmospheric Science

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 25-Apr-2025 09:08 ET (25-Apr-2025 13:08 GMT/UTC)

Rising CO2 likely to speed decrease in ‘space sustainability’

University of Birmingham
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The total number of satellites that can orbit in space is likely to decrease as greenhouse gases cause Earth’s upper atmosphere to contract.

Journal: Nature Sustainability

SwRI scientists identify unexpected variations in electrons connecting Jupiter with its moon Io

Southwest Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

SAN ANTONIO — March 10, 2025 — Using data collected by NASA’s Juno spacecraft as it flew past Jupiter’s highly volcanic moon Io in late 2023 and again in early 2024, a Southwest Research Institute-led team identified electrons with energies enhanced by processes in the region connecting the moon to Jupiter’s ionosphere, called an Alfvén wing. A paper published in Geophysical Research Letters emphasizes how these electrons, and their variation within that region, shape the plasma environment around Io.

Journal: Geophysical Research Letters

TTUHSC’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences hosts 37th Student Research Week

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
Meeting Announcement

TTUHSC student researchers recently participated in the university’s 37th Student Research Week, organized by the TTUHSC Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. The event allows TTUHSC students to showcase their research and hear presentations from distinguished national speakers related to the year’s theme. TTUHSC’s Department of Cell Physiology and Molecular Biophysics hosted the 2025 event, and “Let’s Get Biophysical” was the theme to highlight the host department's focus on biophysical techniques, particularly in membrane protein research.

Are volcanoes behind the oxygen we breathe?

University of Tokyo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

It is widely believed that Earth’s atmosphere has been rich in oxygen for about 2.5 billion years due to a relatively rapid increase in microorganisms capable of performing photosynthesis. Researchers, including those from the University of Tokyo, provide a mechanism to explain precursor oxygenation events, or “whiffs,” which may have opened the door for this to occur. Their findings suggest volcanic activity altered conditions enough to accelerate oxygenation, and the whiffs are an indication of this taking place.

Journal: Communications Earth & Environment
Funder: JSPS, JST

In the heart of vanilla country, farmers on the frontlines of climate change struggle to adapt

Duke University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

As erratic weather upends the seasonal rhythms that crops depend on, farmers in Madagascar are feeling the effects but struggle to adapt to the new normal. That’s according to a rsurvey of nearly 500 small-scale farmers in the country’s northern Sava region, which produces about two thirds of the world’s vanilla beans. Nearly all farmers in the area are experiencing changes in temperature and rainfall, but remarkably few are altering their farming practices to adapt.

Journal: PLOS Climate
Funder: NIH/National Institutes of Health

New technical guidelines pave the way for widespread adoption of methane-reducing feed additives in dairy and livestock

Elsevier
Peer-Reviewed Publication

After many decades of research, the dairy sector has a significant body of peer-reviewed research showing that feed additives can effectively reduce methane, the greenhouse gas that makes up most of dairy’s environmental footprint. Yet the practical use of this knowledge on farms—as well as general awareness around additive effectiveness and safety—is still gaining momentum. At this critical point in the dairy sector’s pathway to a net-zero future, the Journal of Dairy Science, the leading general dairy research journal from the American Dairy Science Association (ADSA), published by Elsevier, has released a special issue translating this nutrition innovation into detailed technical recommendations on developing and implementing feed additives. The result is a feed additive toolkit to help researchers, dairy professionals, product developers, producers, and consumers fill knowledge gaps and supercharge feed additive adoption to reduce dairy’s environmental footprint today and into the future.

Journal: Journal of Dairy Science

Time to count plastics in climate action and counter Trump effect

RMIT University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists from RMIT University are calling for countries to include carbon emissions from plastic production and waste in their climate action plans before the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP 30) in Brazil.

More than 90% of the Paris Agreement signatory countries ignore plastics within their National Determined Contribution (NDC) plans, creating a major gap in climate mitigation efforts, the team says.

Journal: Science

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