Transcript

1.23.25 · Science Show KY

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Radioized Diary of Science and Nature, your readers,
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Kelly Taylor. I have some articles on the topics of
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science and nature, but first a reminder that RADIOI is
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a reading service intended for people who are blind or
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have other disabilities that make it difficult to reprinted material.
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Starting off from vox dot com, we have an article
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entitled this Winter's extreme cold Snaps Explained. This is January
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twenty first. Bitter cold is once again wrapping its icy
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fingers across the United States, extending the frigid start to
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the new year. The weather this week has sent freezing
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temperatures all the way down to the Gulf Coast. A
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winter storm warning is in effect for southeast Louisiana, bringing
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upward of eight inches of snow. New Orleans saw its
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first snow in fifteen years. Ice and snow have frozen pipes,
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triggered power outages, and led to road closures around Houston.
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Florida is also receiving snow in the Panhandle. This stretch
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of chilly weather comes as a bookend to one of
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the hottest years on record, and while it's freezing North America,
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the origin of this cold actually lies in the Arctic.
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There's evidence that because of climate change, cold Arctic air
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may be more likely to break containment in the northernmost
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reaches of the planet and escape southward, bringing frigid temperatures
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to lower latitudes like the continental United States. It may
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seem counterintuitive, but the fact that global average temperatures are
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rising does not preclude bounts of cold, and for some
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Arctic driven storms, it could exacerbate them. Scientists are examining
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the mechanisms connecting humanities, insatiable appetite for fossil fuels, the
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far North, and winter storms feeling a complicated picture that
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shows some of the most profound consequences of climate change
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occur in the chilliest parts of the planet and during
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the coolest times of year. As average temperatures rise rapidly,
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their effects are manifesting in surprising ways. But with more
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observations and better forecasting tools, winter storms don't have to
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be so deadly and destructive. There are a couple key
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mechanisms behind chills like winter storm Blare. One is the
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polar vortex, a spinning band of strong cold wind that
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is normally confined to ten to thirty miles above the
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north pole. The polar vortex picks up strength during the
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winter and tends to stay circular, but because of waves
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in the atmosphere, it can occasionally split into multiple swirls
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or deform into an oblong shape that reaches outside the Arctic.
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The other factor is a jet stream known as the
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polar jet. This a band of air blowing west to
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east that speeds of up to two hundred and seventy
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five miles per hour at altitudes between four and eight
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miles above the Earth's surface. When the polar jet is strong,
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it forms a well defined ring around the Arctic and
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holds the icy air in place. When it weakens, it
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wabbles and forms a flower or clover shape when viewed
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from directly above the North Pole. Within these lobes, cold
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Arctic air spills over land massages like Asia and North America.
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Disruptions in the polar vortex can combine with deviations in
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the polar jet, leading to more cold air reaching even
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further south. Such Arctic spillovers, though have occurred naturally in
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the past. How does global warming play in Jennifer Francis,
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a senior scientist at the wood Well Climate Research Center,
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co authored a review U article published in December looking
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at the body of research trying to answer this question.
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The key fact is that while Earth is warming on average,
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the Arctic is warming up to four times faster than
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the planet as a whole, a phenomenon called Arctic amplification
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that has important knock on effects. One is that a
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warmer Arctic means there is a weaker temperature gradient between
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the Arctic and its surrounding regions. France has explained that
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the steep difference between Arctic and sub Arctic temperatures is
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what powers the polar jet in the first place, so
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as the North begins to feel more like the rest
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of the planet, the jet gets weaker, making its frigid
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air more likely to meander across the northern hemisphere and
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causing more extreme winter storms like Blair. At the same time,
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the planet's oceans have warmed to extraordinary levels in recent year,
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and some of the planet's waters, such as the North
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Pacific Ocean, remain unusually balmy. That's pushing tropical air further north,
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bending the jet stream northward over the Pacific and southward
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over North America. The loss of sea ice in regions
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of the Arctic due to warming also has the potential
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to reshape the polar vortex in ways that lead to
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more chilly air reaching further south. Francis and her co
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authors acknowledge that there's a lot of uncertainty in quantifying
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exactly how much human cause warming is influencing periods of
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severe cold. It's also unclear precisely how this will proceed
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as the planet keeps eating up. The effects of warming
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don't scale linearly, especially in the Arctic, and there are
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a lot of complicated feedback mechanisms that researchers are still
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trying to map out. Melting reflect reflective sea ice, for example,
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yields to a dark heat absorbing ocean that can further
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melt more ice. There are also researchers who aren't convinced
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that climate change has had a discernible role in recent
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cold steps, or that they will become more common as
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global average temperatures rise. One study published last year using
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climate models and historical records reported that the main way
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we can see human influence on sudden periods of severe
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cold is that they aren't as cold as they used
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to be. The paper found that cold extremes are warming
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up faster than average wintertime temperatures in North America. Scientists
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generally agree that winters are heating up on average and
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are warming up faster than summers. Despite this, dangerous winter
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weather wills still on occasions spill over from the Arctic. Quote.
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Even though the Arctic is warming, it will still be
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frigid during winter for a very long time because it
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has no sunshine for six months straight. Francis said in
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an email quote. There will still be plenty of cold
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air there to feed into cold spells when the jet
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stream takes a big dip southward end quote. Researchers also
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highlight that the dangers from severe cold wasves come not
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just from the temperature, but from how well people are
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prepared to cope with them. A cold snap can prove
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deadly if it grips an area that rarely sees such
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severe chills, as when winter storm Yury froze Texas in
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twenty twenty one and killed two hundred and forty six people.
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The threat is amplified when there's little advance warning on
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this front. There's a bit of warm comfort in this
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icy weather. Forecasters are getting a better handle on the
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warning signs of cold spells. Scientists detected the polar vortex
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gathering strength last month, and meteorologists were warning since last
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week that intends cold and snow is in store across
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much of the United States. With further advances in data
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gathering and new ai forecasting tools, we'll likely be able
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to see the bitter cold more sharply in the future
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and from farther away. Our next article is going to
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come from popular mechanics. The Cascade Mountains have been hiding
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a precious natural resource. A research team just founded by
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Darren Orf January twentieth. Some bullet points at the beginning
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of the article, The American West is hunting for water
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and scientists just found a previously unmapped aquifer free times
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the size of lake meat. Next, the discovered came when
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researchers studying drill holes left behind by previous geothermal experiments
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found that rock remained wet further down that previously imagine.
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And Third, although a boon for the parched West, the
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aquifer is fed by snowpack and scientists es to make
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dramatic reductions in snow in the Cascades in the coming decades.
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As the world warms, water in the American West is
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becoming more and more vital. Lake Mead and Lake Powell,
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two of the largest reservoirs out west, were at their
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lowest levels in twenty twenty three, and severe drought in
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some places is leading to ever encroaching desertification, where fertile
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grasslands slowly turn arid as the well, metaphorically speaking, dries up.
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While this is a concerning scenario for those living in
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the southwestern US, the Pacific Northwest, while extremely dry in
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the summer months, receives a lot more rain as prevailing
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winds off the Pacific and ocean and mountain ranges such
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as the Cascades unleashed months of moisture on the region
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the Pacific Northwest that is now A new study from
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the University of Oregon says that the Cascades may have
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squirreled away a lot of that water deep underground. A
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team of researchers led by Earth scientists at the University
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of Oregon analyzed drill holes created decades ago by scientists
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surveying for geothermal energy, and after finding evidence of water
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as the holes went deeper, the researchers found that the
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Cascades could contain eighty one cubic kilometers of water that's
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three times the size of Lake Mead at its maximum capacity.
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The results of the study were published in the journal
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Quote it is
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a continental sized lake stored in the rocks at the
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top of the mountains like a big water tower, says
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Leif Carlstrom of the University of Oregon. Quote That there
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are similar large volcanic aquifers north of the Columbia Gorge
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and near Mount Shasta, likely make the Cascade Range the
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largest aquifer of its kind in the world. Finding this
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body of water came as a complete surprise. Initially, the
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teams set out to better understand how the Cascades evolved
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over time, specifically how water flowed through the region. To
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do this, they analyzed rocks where two zones of the
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Cascades collide at Santium Pass in Central Oregon. Usually, rocks
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get warmer as you dig deeper, but while analyzing these
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long abandoned drill holes, the scientists noticed that the rock's
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typical temperature gradient was disrupted, a telltale sign of water
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permeating the rock. The scientists measured where rock temps increased
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again and estimated that the Cascades were hiding one big
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aquatic secret. Because the scientists were working with holes drilled
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for geothermal purposes and not for mapping groundwater. The scientist's
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eighty one cubic meter estimate is likely on the lower
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end of how big this hidden cache of water could
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actually be. While a possible untapped source of fresh water
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is caused for celebration, the researchers also urge caution. The
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groundwater in the Cascades is fed by snow, and snowpack
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is expected to decline significantly in the Cascades in the
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coming decades. Quote. It's a big, active groundwater reservoir up
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there right now, but its longevity and resilience to change
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is set by the availability of recharging waters. Carlstrom says,
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now we go to BBC Wildlife. This article says feeding
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birds may kill them. Eight or so years ago, Dick
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Woods was attracting and estimated fifty greenfinches to the bird
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feeders outside his converted barn near Canterbury in Kent. They
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vastly outnumbered the other species, and then over just a
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couple of weeks they completely disappeared. Wood's visitors had succumbed
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to a deadly disease that is killed around seventy percent
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of British greenfinches. Trichomonosis a parasite that first jumped to
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songbirds from pigeons around two thousand and five. It's thought
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to be spread mainly on or around bird feeders, and
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this got Woods, who is a design engineer by trade, thinking.
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The result was Finch's Friend, a redesigned bird feeder that
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Woods manufactures at home and says reduces disease transmission. Trichominosis
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is spread in saliva and infected birds regurgitate their food. Quote.
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You don't want birds walking, vomiting and defecating in the
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food provided, so the first thing to do is stop that.
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He says. That means the feeder can't be open for
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birds to walk in as in some models. You also
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don't want one bird to drop food from one feeding
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position onto another below or as the feeder, or want
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the feeder to have open ports into which rain can pour.
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As the parasite survives better in wet food, similar feeders
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are better too, or I'm sorry, Smaller feeders are better
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because food isn't sitting around in them for long periods.
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Woods has also introduced nifty features that make his design
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easier to clean, but he can't say for sure that
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his products are effected. He tried to produce or persuade
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conservation groups to carry out studies to see if they
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can protect finches, but has so far been met with
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a metaphorical shrug in the shoulders. As well as greenfinches,
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chaffinches have been hit, declining by nearly forty percent. Goldfinches,
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in contrast, have largely gone the other way, benefiting from
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supplementary food for reasons that are still not fully understood.
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But finches are arguably just the most high profile victims
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of our desire to feed the songbirds in our garden,
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and estimated sixty four percent of British households do it,
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spending two hundred and fifty million pounds on one hundred
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and fifty thousand tons of sunflower and niger seed, peanuts
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and assorted fat balls. Globally, the bird food market is
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valued at five to six billion dollars and it's growing
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at four percent a year. The broader negative impact this
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is having is slowly becoming clearer in a way, points
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out Alex Lease, a reader in conservation ecology at Manchester
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Metropolitan University. We shouldn't be surprised that there is one quote.
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We've been feeding birds for a very long time and
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slowly ramped up the quantity, but we have never properly
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interrogated the consequences of what we're doing. He says, if
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you change the ecological conditions for one species in a landscape,
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then that's going to have knock on impacts for others.
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The best example in the UK is how bird feeding
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is favoring great tits and blue tits over marsh tits
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and willow tits. Number of great tits, for example, have
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nearly doubled since the nineteen sixties. The latter have more
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specialist niches, with willow tits, for example, better than the
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others at exploiting newer early succession of woodlands because they
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are the only one of the four species that creates
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its own nest holes rather than using naturally occurring nest tolls.
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But bird feeding has allowed blue and grape tits to
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flourish in numbers far exceeding their normal abundance. They then
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move into these niche habitats and displace willow tips from
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the very nest holes They have spent vital energy digging
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out where conservation groups put up nest boxes in these woodlands.
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This is further helping the generalists. Blue and grape tits,
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warmer winters a phenomenon link to humans, though not bird
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feeding in particular, are further increasing their survival rates and
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increasing numbers of great spotted woodpeckers and other beneficiary Bird
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feeding is another factor in the willow tit's demise because
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they raid their nests. Does that mean we should all
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stop feeding birds? Are we actually doing more harm than
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good even if we are meticulous about cleaning our feeders
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to stop disease spreading. Well, No, not quite or not yet.
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Conservation groups say it is. They are conducting a comprehensive
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scientific review looking at the advice that we give and
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the products we sell in light of the latest science.
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They expect to report back in early spring. Next up
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from Ours Technica, Life is thriving in the subsurface depths
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of Earth. This is January twentieth. From the flamboyant blossoms
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and birds of rainforests to the living rainbows of coral reefs.
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Earth's surfaces teeming with life, but some of its most
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diverse and fascinating biomes are thriving in the darkness below.
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We used to think that the subsurface was a far
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from ideal place for living things. Habitats that can soak
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up light and warmth from the sun have the energy
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to sustain many forms of life, and so we're viewed
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as the most diverse. That view is now changing. Led
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by Amal Rough of the Marine Biological Laboratory Woodshole, Massachusetts,
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new research has unearthed communities of under ground microbes that
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are almost as and sometimes more diverse than even reefs
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and rainforests. Rough in his team found that subsurface bacteria
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and archaea are flourishing even at depths where the energy
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supply is orders of magnitude lower than enjoyed by organisms
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in habitats that see the sun. Quote. Subsurface ecosystems may
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host more than half of all microbial cells, the researchers
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said in a study recently published in Science Advances, microbes
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have adapted to survive just about everywhere. Starting in twenty sixteen,
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Rough began collecting samples from surface and subsurface habitats all
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over the world for what would be the first global
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study to compare microbiomes above and beneath the surface. It
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is also one of the first to compare the composition
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and diversity in subsurface ecosystems below the land and ocean.
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Samples of bacteria and archaea, many of which could only
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be reached via mines or boreholes, came from rocks, aquifers,
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and deep sediments found in deserts, springs, the bottom of
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the ocean, and other habitats. Surface samples were taken from
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shallow sediments along with ocean and lake water. Also included
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were interfacing samples. Interfaces are environments right on the edge
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of surface and subsurface, such as caves and hydrothermal vents,
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where organisms on the surface may be influenced as influenced
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by processes occurring in the subsurface, such as seepage or
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vice versa. For the study, the diversity of bacteria and
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arcaea of each individual sample was determined using DNA sequences,
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and the diversity found in all samples from a particular
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biome used to determine that biome's total diversity. Marine and
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terrestrial habitats were compared, as well as surface and subsurface environments.
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It was the effort of almost a decade that unearthed
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some new details about subsurface life. So where were the
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most diverse bacterial and arcaale populations. The researchers discovered that
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species richness and evenness in many subsurface environments rival those
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in surface environments at the level of individual samples. Subsurface
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arca were more diverse in brines, caves, cold seeps, springs,
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and the deep sea. Subsurface bacteria were most diverse in
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caves and marine sediments. Per sample, the total diversity of
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arca was highest in marine, subsurface and interface environments, while
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total bacterial diversity was also highest in interface environments. The
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arcae most abundant in the marine surface include Uroarchaeota and
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as garachioda Ura. Cacchiota tend to thrive in extreme heat
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and reduce carbon dioxide to generate methane. The methane output
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of other methanogenic arca is already being used as fuel,
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which is why such organisms can be especially useful. As
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Garachiota are the closest arcao relatives of eukaryotes, or all
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organisms who cells have a nucleus within a membrane, including us.
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There is special interest in studying as garachiota for more
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insight into how eukaryotic life evolved. Nitrospirota is an arcaophyllum
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that's particularly common in the terrestrial subsurface. Some species are
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capable of oxidizing ammonia, while others can reduce it to nitrite,
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which is used by photoplank phytoplankton and also defends against
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pathogens in the human stomach, mouth, and skin. Proteobacteria is
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a bacteriophile, and that's especially abundant in the terrestrial and
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marine subsurface. Some proteobacteria live in deep ocean trenches and
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oxidize carbon monoxide, which contributes to global warming, and deplete sozone.
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Bacteria also common in the marine subsurface include desulfobacteria and
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methylo mirrablota. Desulfobacteria reduce sulfates, and other sulfate reducing bacterias
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have also already shown they can be used to help
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clean up contaminated soil. Methylo mirra Bilota can help control
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methane levels in the atmosphere by oxidizing methane. Something unexpected
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that caught Rough's attention was how total diversity went up
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with death, surprising because less energy is available at deeper levels.
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For Archaea, diversity went up with the increase in depth
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in terrestrial environments but not marine. The same happened with bacteria,
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except in marine instead of terrestrial. Much of what lies
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far below our feet still eludes us. Ruff suggests that
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single cell microbes even deeper unexplored levels of the subsurface
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may have adapted to the absence of energy by slowing
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down the metabolism so drastically it could take decades or
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even centuries for them to divide just once. If there
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really are microbes that managed to live longer than humans
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with this sub survival tectic, its possible similar species might
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be hiding on planets such as Mars, where the surface
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has long been blasted by radiation. Quote understanding deep life
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on Earth could be a model for discovering if there
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was life on Mars and if it has survived, Ruff
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said in a press release. Maybe future technology could retrieve
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samples several kilometers below the Martian's surface. Until then, keep
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digging and now from scientific American carbon scrubber, an exotic
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powder pulls CO two from the air at record speed.
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Scientists and engineers are developing big machines to suck carbon
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dioxide out of the atmosphere, but the technology sucks up
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a lot of energy and money, as well as much
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as one thousand dollars per metric ton of captured CO two.
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A team led by chemists at the University of California,
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Berkeley has created a yellow powder that might boost this
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field by absorbing CO two much more efficiently. Detailed projections
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indicate that to achieve climate targets, the world will need
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to remove far more CO two from the atmosphere than
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it is currently extracting. The US is investing billions of
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dollars in startups developing direct air capture technology, which uses
26:09
fans to blow air through alkali materials that bond with
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the slightly acidic CO two. Lye and lime powder are
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sometimes used in this process, as are amines, compounds typically
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manufactured for ammonia. For their alternative, graduate student Xu Jo
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and professor Omar Yagi, both at UC Berkeley, embedded amines
26:34
in a crystalline compound with extensive surface area, known as
26:38
a covalent organic framework. The resulting powder, which they named
26:43
COF nine ninety nine, is a microscopic scaffolding of hydrocarbons
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held together by super strong carbon nitrogen and carbon carbon bonds,
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such as those found in diamonds. The amines sit in
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the scaffoldings open spaces ready to snag passing C two molecules.
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When Joe and Yagi pumped air through a tube packed
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with COF nine ninety nine, the powder captured CO two
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at the fastest rate ever measured. Quote we were scrubbing
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the CO two out of the air entirely, Yogi says.
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The COF nine ninety nine compound might also compete with
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liquid amines used in carbon capture and storage scrubbers on
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refinery and power plant smokestacks. It's light enough two hundred
27:30
grams can draw as much CO two in a year
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as a large tree that it could potentially be used
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on board ships to strip carbon from their exhaust too.
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Companies already manufacture similar materials to capture CO two from
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smoke stacks, as well as for masks to protect against
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hazardous chemicals. If COF nine ninety nine powder hasn't yet
27:56
been tested for real life applications, for example, if it
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restricts airflow too much when coating a filter or forming
28:06
inde pellets, that could increase energy consumption by fans that
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move the air, and such engineering properties will ultimately dictate
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the cost. That's all for Today's Diary of science and nature.
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Thanks for listening, and stay tuned for the Health Corner
28:22
on RADIOI