Warming slow-down not the end of climate change, study shows
2015-07-20
(Press-News.org) A slow-down in global warming is not a sign that climate change is ending, but a natural blip in an otherwise long-term upwards trend, research shows.
In a detailed study of more than 200 years' worth of temperature data, results backed previous findings that short-term pauses in climate change are simply the result of natural variation.
The findings support the likelihood that a current hiatus in the world's year-on-year temperature increases - which have stalled since 1998 - is temporary.
Scientists from the University of Edinburgh analysed real-world historic climate records from 1782 to 2000, comparing them with computerised climate models for the same timescale.
They were able to separate the influence on climate trends of man-made warming - such as from greenhouse gas emissions - and of natural influences in temperature - such as periods of intense sunlight or volcanic activity.
This showed that random variations can cause short term interruptions to climate patterns in the form of a pause or surge in warming, in both the real data and in the models, typically lasting up to a decade. Extreme natural forces, such as strong volcanic eruptions, were shown to disrupt climate trends for decades.
The research highlights the impact of volcanic eruptions on climate, when particles produced can reflect sunlight from Earth, causing long-lasting cooling. The eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1815 was among the biggest in recent times, causing a so-called year without summer. Scientists estimate that, if it occurred today, it would cause a 20-year climate hiatus.
Their study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, was supported by the European Commission.
Dr Andrew Schurer, of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, who led the research, said: "Human activity is causing the word to warm, and natural variability can cause this trend to slow down or speed up. Our study backs scientific understanding that climate change can experience periods of hiatus, but the overall trend is towards a warmer planet."
INFORMATION:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2015-07-20
Research findings obtained over the past decades increasingly indicate that stored memories are coded as permanent changes of neuronal communciation and the strength of neuronalinterconnections. The learning process evokes a specific pattern of electrical activity in these cells, which influences the response behavior to incoming signals, the expression of genes and the cellular morphology beyond the learning process itself.
"You might say that these changes define the cellular correlate of the memory engram" says Friedrich Johenning, researcher at the Neuroscience Research ...
2015-07-20
Researchers from the Institute and Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of São Paulo, (Brazil); the Imperial College of London, (UK); the University of Western Australia (Australia) and the University of Toronto (Canada) have just published a study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology suggesting that what had been clustered as anxiety disorders is not homogenous in terms of functioning of the serotonergic system.
The researchers reanalyzed the results of six other studies that had evaluated the effects of the acute reduction of tryptophan, the ...
2015-07-20
Microbial ecosystems such as biological wastewater treatment plants and the human gastrointestinal tract are home to a vast diversity of bacterial species. Scientists of the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) and the Life Science Research Unit (LSRU) of the University of Luxembourg, in collaboration with US researchers, have now succeeded for the first time in determining key functional genes and the organisms encoding these in such ecological systems, working from extensive data of bacterial genetics and bacterial metabolism.
Keystone species are species ...
2015-07-20
The term intellectual disability covers a large number of clinical entities, some with known cause and others of uncertain origin. For example Down syndrome is due to an extra copy of chromosome 21 and Rett syndrome is in part caused by a mutation in the control switch gene called MeCP2.
In other cases the mechanisms by which they are produced are not clearly identified. It is the case of most of those disorders classified under the large umbrella of autism. An study published in the journal Genetics in Medicine, by Manel Esteller, director of the Program Epigenetics ...
2015-07-20
Barbara Hinney and her colleagues from the Institute for Parasitology at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, screened 298 faecal samples taken from cats across Austria for single-cell intestinal parasites, so called enteric protozoa. The samples came from private households, catteries and animal shelters. Of the 298 cats sampled, 56 tested positive with at least one intestinal parasite.
Multi-cat households often affected
A significantly higher rate of positive samples was registered in households with more than one cat. Households with kittens are also ...
2015-07-20
This study has developed a unique bioinformatics approach for identifying associations between molecules from a range of vast data sources. Applied to studies with the aim to measure metabolism in tissues under variating conditions e.g. genetics, diets and environment.
Opposed to current methods that apply statistical analysis to data sets as a whole, the proposed workflow breaks the initial data into smaller groups determined by known molecular interactions. Statistical methods can then be applied to these groups resulting in more accurate results than if the analysis ...
2015-07-20
Galaxies in a cluster roughly 300 million light years from Earth could contain as much as 100 times more dark matter than visible matter, according to an Australian study.
The research, published today, used powerful computer simulations to study galaxies that have fallen into the Coma Cluster, one of the largest structures in the Universe in which thousands of galaxies are bound together by gravity.
"It found the galaxies could have fallen into the cluster as early as seven billion years ago, which, if our current theories of galaxies evolution are correct, suggests ...
2015-07-20
A new drug acts as a roadblock for malaria, curing mice of established infection, according to a study in The Journal of Experimental Medicine. Treatment was not associated with obvious side effects, suggesting that the drug may also be safe and effective in humans.
Nearly 200 million cases of malaria occur worldwide each year, and roughly 500,000 people (mostly African children) die of the disease. Malaria is caused by infection with the parasite Plasmodium falciparum (Pf), and although the disease can be treated with anti-malarial drugs, the drugs are harsh and resistance ...
2015-07-20
PORTLAND, Ore., July 20, 2015 -- More than half of chronic pain patients in a managed care setting reported using chiropractic care or acupuncture or both, but many of these patients didn't discuss this care with their primary care providers. These study results, published today in the American Journal of Managed Care, suggest that better care coordination is needed among patients and physicians.
Researchers surveyed more than 6,000 patients in Oregon and Washington who were Kaiser Permanente members from 2009 - 2011 and had three or more outpatient visits for chronic ...
2015-07-20
Berkeley -- It might not be long before consumers can just hit "print" to create an electronic circuit or wireless sensor in the comfort of their homes.
Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, in collaboration with colleagues at Taiwan's National Chiao Tung University, are expanding the already impressive portfolio of 3D printing technology to include electrical components, such as resistors, inductors, capacitors and integrated wireless electrical sensing systems. They have put the new technology to the test by printing a wireless "smart cap" for a milk ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Warming slow-down not the end of climate change, study shows
