Humans play role in Australia's 'angry' hot summer
2013-06-28
(Press-News.org) Human influences through global warming are likely to have played a role in Australia's recent "angry" hot summer, the hottest in Australia's observational record, new research has found.
The research led by the University of Melbourne, has shown that global warming increased the chances of Australians experiencing record hot summers such as the summer of 2013, by more than five times.
Lead author, Dr Sophie Lewis from the University of Melbourne and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Systems Science said the study showed it was possible to say with more than 90 per cent confidence, that human influences on the atmosphere dramatically increased the likelihood of the extreme summer of 2013.
"Our research has shown that due to greenhouse gas emissions, these types of extreme summers will become even more frequent and more severe in the future," she said.
The study Anthropogenic contributions to Australia's record summer temperatures of 2013 has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
The study used climate observations and more than 90 climate model simulations of summer temperatures in Australia over the past 100 years.
Professor David Karoly, a co-author on the paper said the observations, coupled with a suite of climate model runs comparing human and natural influences in parallel experiments, indicated we have experienced a very unusual summer at a time when it was not expected.
"This extreme summer is not only remarkable for its record-breaking nature but also because it occurred at a time of weak La Niña to neutral conditions, which generally produce cooler summers," he said.
"Importantly, our research shows the natural variability of El Niño Southern Oscillation is unlikely to explain the recent record temperatures."
This analysis of the causes of the record 2013 Australian summer is one of the fastest ever performed worldwide for a significant climate event.
This fast-response analysis was made possible because data from many existing climate models and observations were made available through Centre of Excellence collaborations with CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and the National Computational Infrastructure in Australia.
"The new data resource means scientists are able to work on understanding and addressing the problems of extreme climate events sooner," Professor Karoly said.
The researchers are now turning their attention to other recent extreme climate events.
INFORMATION: END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2013-06-28
MANHATTAN, Kan. -- The world's food supply got a little more plentiful thanks to a scientific breakthrough.
Eduard Akhunov, associate professor of plant pathology at Kansas State University, and his colleague, Jorge Dubcovsky from the University of California-Davis, led a research project that identified a gene that gives wheat plants resistance to one of the most deadly races of the wheat stem rust pathogen -- called Ug99 -- that was first discovered in Uganda in 1999. The discovery may help scientists develop new wheat varieties and strategies that protect the world's ...
2013-06-28
WASHINGTON D.C., June 27, 2013 -- Indium tin oxide (ITO) has become a standard material in light-emitting diodes, flat panel plasma displays, electronic ink and other applications because of its high performance, moisture resistance, and capacity for being finely etched. But indium is also rare and expensive, and it requires a costly deposition process to make opto-electronic devices and makes for a brittle electrode. Replacing indium as the default material in transparent electrodes is a high priority for the electronics industry.
Now, in a paper appearing in APL Materials, ...
2013-06-28
Michael Graner, PhD, is a CU Cancer Center investigator and associate professor of neurosurgery at the CU School of Medicine. So when his 12-year-old Great Dane got sick, he knew what to do.
"We got Star from the Mid-Atlantic Great Dane Rescue," Graner says. "She got her name because she was always smiling, like a movie star waiting for photos. She'd already been to so many shelters, we didn't want to change her name again and so we kept it."
At 12, after many years with the Graners, Star had already reached about double the average lifespan for the breed. When she ...
2013-06-28
WASHINGTON D.C., June 28, 2013 -- The search for thermoelectrics, exotic materials that convert heat directly into electricity, has received a boost from researchers at the California Institute of Technology and the University of Tokyo, who have found the best way to identify them.
In the new open-access journal APL Materials, the team shows that a relatively simple technique called the "rigid band approximation" can predict a material's properties more accurately than a competing, more complicated method.
"The rigid band approach still supplies the simple, predictive ...
2013-06-28
Scientists have discovered a diverse multitude of microbes colonizing and thriving on flecks of plastic that have polluted the oceans—a vast new human-made flotilla of microbial communities that they have dubbed the "plastisphere."
In a study recently published online in Environmental Science & Technology, the scientists say the plastisphere represents a novel ecological habitat in the ocean and raises a host of questions: How will it change environmental conditions for marine microbes, favoring some that compete with others? How will it change the overall ocean ecosystem ...
2013-06-28
New Rochelle, NY, June 26, 2013—Everyone who climbs to high altitude will develop pulmonary hypertension, a temporary constriction of blood vessels that results in increasing strain on the right heart. It is a normal adaptive mechanism but if exaggerated can have serious consequences, resulting in life-threatening disorders and remodeling of the pulmonary circulation. Five mini-Review articles that comprise a Special Topic section in High Altitude Medicine & Biology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers provide an up-to-date overview of the clinical ...
2013-06-28
PITTSBURGH—Lying awake in bed plagues everyone occasionally, but for those with seasonal affective disorder, sleeplessness is routine. University of Pittsburgh researchers report in the Journal of Affective Disorders that individuals with seasonal affective disorder (SAD)—a winter depression that leads to loss of motivation and interest in daily activities—have misconceptions about their sleep habits similar to those of insomniacs. These findings open the door for treating seasonal affective disorder similar to the way doctors treat insomnia.
Kathryn Roecklein, primary ...
2013-06-28
AMHERST, Mass. – Reporting this month in Molecular Microbiology, Peter Chien and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst describe using a combination of biochemistry and mass spectrometry to "trap" scores of new candidate substrates of the protease ClpXP to reveal how protein degradation is critical to cell cycle progression and bacterial development. The new understanding could lead to identifying new antibiotic targets.
As Chien (pronounced Chen) explains, to carry out fundamental life processes such as growing and dividing, cells must orchestrate, in ...
2013-06-28
In stunning color, new biodiversity research from North Carolina State University maps out priority areas worldwide that hold the key to protecting vulnerable species and focusing conservation efforts.
The research, published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pinpoints the highest global concentrations of mammals, amphibians and birds on a scale that's 100 times finer than previous assessments. The findings can be used to make the most of available conservation resources, said Dr. Clinton Jenkins, lead author and research scholar at NC State ...
2013-06-28
A protein secreted with insulin travels through the bloodstream and accumulates in the brains of individuals with type 2 diabetes and dementia, in the same manner as the amyloid beta Αβ plaques that are associated with Alzheimer's disease, a study by researchers with the UC Davis Alzheimer's Disease Center has found.
The study is the first to identify deposits of the protein, called amylin, in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease, as well as combined deposits of amylin and plaques, suggesting that amylin is a second amyloid as well as a new biomarker ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Humans play role in Australia's 'angry' hot summer