Journal Club

Highlighting recent, timely papers selected by Academy member labs

Category Archives: Climate science

In Mesopotamia, early cities may have faltered before climate-driven collapse

Posted on February 26, 2021 by Amy McDermott

Some of the earliest cities, now buried in the soil of Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Lebanon, are thought to have collapsed because of rapid climatic change. Drought along with lower temperatures descended on these settlements some 4,200 years ago, forcing … Continue reading →

Country-level assessment hides big variations in soy’s carbon footprint

Posted on May 29, 2020 by Jyoti Madhusoodanan

Analysts usually estimate a crop’s carbon footprint based on country-level factors. But that formulation isn’t adequate, according to a new analysis of soy exports from Brazil. Published in Global Environmental Change, the study tracked soy from specific production sites in … Continue reading →

Rice gene could make “green revolution” plants greener by cutting back on fertilizer

Posted on March 6, 2020 by Carolyn Beans

The green revolution was launched, in large part, with rather squat plants. In the 1960s, farmers began using semidwarf varieties of wheat and rice that produced many grain-bearing branches known as tillers. When farmers added nitrogen fertilizer, the plants gained … Continue reading →

Climate disasters fuel only a small boost in green energy investments

Posted on July 19, 2019 by Amber Dance

In the wake of devastating floods in Germany in 2013, some affected householders recognized the connection between extreme weather and climate change and sought out green energy sources, according to analyses of insurance payouts and Internet searches conducted by … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Carbon payments could prove more profitable than mining or logging for some nations

Posted on March 15, 2019 by Amy McDermott

Logging, mining, and other activities plow through the tropical forests of developing countries, releasing 10 to 18 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change. One proposed solution is for wealthy countries to pay developing nations to keep … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Ocean wave power generator gets boost from optics insights

Posted on September 24, 2018 by Adam Mann

Engineers have long dreamed of tapping into the vast quantities of renewable energy available in the motion of ocean waves, but designing apparatuses to harness such power efficiently has so far proven difficult. Borrowing a technique from optical physics, a … Continue reading →

Journal Club: How to measure the global potential for biomass vegetation

Posted on January 12, 2018 by Carolyn Beans

Plants play a big role in removing carbon from the atmosphere. Almost a quarter of carbon from car exhaust and industry gets absorbed by vegetation. That’s a significant amount. But a recent study suggests that amount has the potential to … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Cooler temperatures might make some mosquitoes better dengue spreaders

Posted on October 20, 2017 by Amber Dance

Migrating mosquitoes that carry diseases from the tropics to cooler climes might be better at spreading disease in their new, cooler home, according to a recent study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Researchers from Yale University in … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Aerosols, global warming may dampen cyclone activity in some regions

Posted on October 6, 2017 by Charles Choi

A recent study suggests that human activity may have decreased the number of tropical cyclones in the western North Pacific. A separate study predicts that the total number of intense tropical cyclones will decrease globally in the decades to come, … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Wheat’s molecular response to full sun exposure could suggest ways to increase yield

Posted on August 25, 2017 by Carrie Arnold

A recent study points to novel ways of improving crop yields and food production by elucidating how long it takes for wheat to return to full photosynthesis when making the transition from shade to sun exposure. The Green Revolution in … Continue reading →

Journal Club: In a first, deep sea robots get a close look at giant larvaceans, a key player in the biological carbon pump

Posted on May 3, 2017 by Gayathri Vaidyanathan

Closer inspection of the giant larvacean, seen here in an undersea video taken by a remotely operated vehicle, could reveal clues about how the deep sea sequesters carbon. Image Credit: © 2017 MBARI In the deeps off Monteray Bay, Calif., … Continue reading →