Aerosols are tiny particles that are spewed into the atmosphere by human activities, including burning coal and wood. They have negative effects on air quality -- damaging human health and agricultural productivity. New work from Carnegie's Geeta Persad and Ken Caldeira demonstrates that the impact these fine particles have on the climate varies greatly depending on where they were released.
Water use for hydraulic fracturing (commonly referred to as 'fracking') in the US has been increasing at individual facilities in recent years, even as unconventional oil and gas production has more broadly declined, a new study reports. The findings emphasize the importance of water management at fracking operations, particularly if the prices of oil and natural
Babies in prams can be exposed to up to 60 percent more pollution than their parents, causing potential damage to their frontal lobe and impacting on their cognitive abilities and brain development.
A new study by UC Berkeley economists shows that between 1990 and 2008, air pollution levels plummeted. The evidence shows that environmental regulation and the associated cleanup of production processes played important roles in those steep declines. Manufacturers are producing the same types of goods, but they've taken significant steps to clean up their production processes, the authors say.
Researchers with the State of Hawai'i Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) and the Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa found a management approach that combining manual removal and outplanting native urchin was effective at reducing invasive, reef smothering macroalgae by 85 percent on a coral reef off O'ahu, Hawai'i.
An international collaboration of USTC and UCSD revealed surprising information about both the origins of life on Earth and modern sources of air pollution in China from sulfur isotope.
Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas on August 25, 2017, bringing more than 50 inches of rain and extreme flooding to the city of Houston. In addition to wreaking havoc on buildings and infrastructure, urban floodwaters harbor hidden menaces in the form of bacteria that can cause disease. Now, researchers have surveyed the microbes that lurked in Houston floodwaters, both inside and outside of homes. They report their results in Environmental Science & Technology Letters.
Proposals to inject sulfate aerosols into the upper atmosphere to block and scatter sunlight and reduce global temperatures could, some say, also increase crop yields because of reduced heat stress on plants. A UC Berkeley study shows that other effects counterbalance the positive effects of reduced heat stress. Specifically, blocking sunlight reduces photosynthesis, which offsets any improvement from slightly cooler temperatures. The team based their analysis on the effects from two previous volcanic eruptions.
Oregon, one state above California, is also having its share of fire storms and weather concerns. Five large fires/complexes are alight in the southwest corner of the state and all started on the same day with a region-wide lightning storm.
California has been dealing with record breaking fires for the past month and they aren't even halfway through their fire season. The Mendocino Complex eclipsed last year's Thomas fire which burned 283,800 acres last December 2017 in Ventura and Santa Barbara.