Terrestrial ecosystems are vital to regulating Earth’s climate by removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. This process, known as gross primary production (GPP), represents the largest carbon flux on Earth and serves as the foundation of the global carbon cycle. However, accurately quantifying GPP has been a longstanding challenge due to uncertainties …
Last year set a grim record as the hottest year ever documented, with unprecedented ocean temperatures and accelerated glacier melts, prompting a scramble among scientists to determine the underlying causes. While the primary suspects included the usual culprits—greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels and the natural El Niño phenomenon—these factors alone could not fully account …
The burgeoning field of climate attribution science has significantly advanced our understanding of the extent to which the climate crisis is responsible for extreme weather events that claim lives and devastate communities globally. These studies employ methodologies that rigorously compare historical data with current climatic events to elucidate the influence of human-induced global heating on …
Scientists are exploring the role of sand and dust particles in our climate and weather systems, focusing on a surprising location: Iceland. Unlike typical deserts with orange sandy dunes, Iceland’s vast desert areas—covering 44,000 km²—are flat expanses of black volcanic dust. These areas produce particles known as HLD (High-Latitude Dust), which originate near the Arctic …
Extreme weather events, by definition rare, have always demonstrated the climatic extremes our planet can endure, including ferocious storms, severe heatwaves, and intense cold snaps. However, with the rapid warming of Earth’s climate primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels, the spectrum of possible weather conditions—including extreme weather events—is expanding and altering. This alteration …
Recent research spearheaded by the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) has revealed that the Southern Ocean CO2 sink absorbs significantly more carbon dioxide than previously estimated. This groundbreaking study, utilizing direct air-sea CO2 flux measurements, shows that the ocean around Antarctica absorbs 25% more CO2, suggesting that past models and …
The NeuralGCM, a pioneering weather forecast model developed by Google’s AI group in collaboration with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, represents a significant advancement in meteorological prediction. Traditional General Circulation Models (GCMs) have been the benchmark in weather forecasting, utilizing a blend of physics-based code and empirical parameterization to handle various atmospheric processes. …
Scientists have constructed a highly advanced Earth digital twin named Destination Earth (DestinE), aimed at capturing the intricacies of global climate and weather patterns. This initiative, supported by the European Commission with over €315 million from the Digital Europe programme, represents a significant leap in our ability to forecast and respond to environmental challenges. Unlike …
The field of weather forecasting is undergoing a transformative shift with the integration of artificial intelligence, heralding a new era in how meteorological predictions are made. This revolution is epitomized by the development of AI weather forecasting models that are capable of running on desktop computers, which marks a significant departure from the traditional, computationally …
The Climate Change Adaptation Digital Twin (Climate DT) developed under the Destination Earth initiative (DestinE) of the European Commission represents a significant advancement in creating detailed, operational, and interactive capabilities for climate projections with local granularity.
