New analysis highlights importance of groundwater discharge into oceans
A global assessment of the impact of groundwater on ocean chemistry is important for understanding the weathering of rocks and its effects on climate
2021-01-08
(Press-News.org) An invisible flow of groundwater seeps into the ocean along coastlines all over the world. Scientists have tended to disregard its contributions to ocean chemistry, focusing on the far greater volumes of water and dissolved material entering the sea from rivers and streams, but a new study finds groundwater discharge plays a more significant role than had been thought.
The new findings, published January 8 in Nature Communications, have implications for global models of biogeochemical cycles and for the interpretation of isotope records of Earth's climate history.
"It's really hard to characterize groundwater discharge, so it has been a source of uncertainty in the modeling of global cycles," said first author Kimberley Mayfield, who led the study as a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz. "It took a large effort by researchers around the world who came together to make this happen."
The researchers focused on five key elements--lithium, magnesium, calcium, strontium, and barium--measuring concentrations and isotope ratios in coastal groundwater at 20 sites around the world, and using previously published data from additional sites.
"Those elements are important because they come from the weathering of rocks, and weathering of silicate rocks accounts for a huge uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over long time scales," Mayfield explained.
Coauthor Adina Paytan, a research professor in UCSC's Institute of Marine Sciences, said groundwater is an important source of inputs to the oceans, but has been easy to ignore because it is unseen and hard to measure.
"This is the first global assessment of groundwater discharge for most of these elements," Paytan said. "This information is useful for our understanding of how weathering of rock is related to climate, not only in the present but also in the past."
The study estimated that the amount of these elements entering the sea from groundwater is at least 5%, and up to 16%, of the contributions from rivers based on the latest global groundwater flux estimates. The results also showed that the isotopic composition of groundwater discharge can be different from that of rivers.
"The composition of groundwater discharge is very dependent on coastal geology, whereas river water is more influenced by the interiors of continents," Mayfield said. "It's important to recognize that groundwater makes a difference globally, and now that we have this large data set, people can keep improving it with more sampling and develop better models of global groundwater discharge."
INFORMATION:
In addition to Mayfield and Paytan, the coauthors of the paper include Tristan Horner, Matt Charette, Bernhard Peucker-Ehrenbrink, and Maureen Auro at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, as well as researchers at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Germany, Princeton University, Czech Geological Survey, Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research, Kiel University, U.S. Geological Survey, and the University of Hawaii, Manoa. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation and U.S. Geological Survey.
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-01-08
Pleiotropy analysis, which provides insight on how individual genes result in multiple characteristics, has become increasingly valuable as medicine continues to lean into mining genetics to inform disease treatments. Privacy stipulations, though, make it difficult to perform comprehensive pleiotropy analysis because individual patient data often can't be easily and regularly shared between sites. However, a statistical method called Sum-Share, developed at Penn Medicine, can pull summary information from many different sites to generate significant insights. In a test of the method, published in Nature Communications, Sum-Share's developers were able to detect more than 1,700 DNA-level variations that ...
2021-01-08
A joint group of scientists from Finland, Russia, China and the USA have demonstrated that temperature difference can be used to entangle pairs of electrons in superconducting structures. The experimental discovery, published in Nature Communications, promises powerful applications in quantum devices, bringing us one step closer towards applications of the second quantum revolution.
The team, led by Professor Pertti Hakonen from Aalto University, has shown that the thermoelectric effect provides a new method for producing entangled electrons in a new device. "Quantum entanglement is the cornerstone of the novel quantum technologies. This concept, however, has puzzled many physicists over the years, including Albert Einstein who worried a lot about the ...
2021-01-08
Reactive molecules, such as free radicals, can be produced in the body after exposure to certain environments or substances and go on to cause cell damage. Antioxidants can minimize this damage by interacting with the radicals before they affect cells.
Led by Enrique Gomez, professor of chemical engineering and materials science and engineering, Penn State researchers have applied this concept to prevent imaging damage to conducting polymers that comprise soft electronic devices, such as organic solar cells, organic transistors, bioelectronic devices and flexible electronics. The researchers ...
2021-01-08
Jan. 8, 2021 - A new study published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society examines the recovery of lung function and overall wellness in individuals who had varying degrees of COVID-19 severity. Little is known about lung health following infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and whether later respiratory problems, fatigue and ill health are associated with the disease's initial severity.
In " END ...
2021-01-08
Researchers from Oklahoma State University, University of Missouri, Iowa State University, and University of Georgia published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that investigates the question of how salespeople should balance advocacy for the seller with advocacy for the customer.
The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Salesperson Dual Agency in Price Negotiations" and is authored by Justin Lawrence, Lisa Scheer, Andrew Crecelius, and Son Lam.
How should salespeople represent both the seller and the customer when their interests diverge, as in pricing negotiations? The research team extends a dual agency framework to the sales domain and examines the salesperson's role throughout the three stages of the discount process: (a) the ...
2021-01-08
Ribosomes are the complexes of ribonucleoproteins at the heart of protein synthesis in cells. However in the absence of conclusive evidence, how these complexes operate has been open to debate. Now Hirotatsu Imai and Noriyuki Kodera at Kanazawa University, alongside Toshio Uchiumi at Niigata University in Japan, show visualizations of the structural dynamics and factor pooling that take place at ribosome stalk proteins as they build new proteins.
Ribosomes were first discovered in the 1950s and their broad function has been widely understood for some time - they read messenger RNA sequences and from that generate sequences of correctly ordered amino acids into new proteins. The ribosome stalk protein in particular plays an ...
2021-01-08
Noise exposure accounts for 22% of worldwide work-related health problems. Excessive noise not only causes hearing loss and tinnitus, but also increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases. To provide protection, workers normally wear earplugs. However, commonly available earplugs are often uncomfortable, since they don't fit everyone's ears equally well.
How could we improve the comfort and effectiveness of these earplugs? What aspects of the ear canal must be taken into account? To answer these questions, researchers from the École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS University) and the Institut de recherche en santé et sécurité ...
2021-01-08
Non-violent offenders serving time for drug use or possession should be freed immediately and their convictions erased, according to research published in the peer-reviewed The American Journal of Bioethics.
More than 60 international experts including bioethicists, psychologists and drug experts have joined forces to call for an end to the war on drugs which they argue feeds racism.
All drugs currently deemed illicit - even crack cocaine and heroin - should be decriminalized as a matter of urgency, according to this new alliance. Legalisation and regulation should then follow with restrictions on age, advertising and licensing, they say.
They have analysed evidence from over 150 studies and reports, concluding that prohibition unfairly affects Black people, damages communities, ...
2021-01-08
A new study has found that spending time outdoors and switching off our devices is associated with higher levels of happiness during a period of COVID-19 restrictions.
Previous academic studies have indicated how being outdoors, particularly in green spaces, can improve mental health by promoting more positive body image, and lowering levels of depression and anxiety.
Jointly led by academics from Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in the UK, the Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences in Austria, and Perdana University in Malaysia, this new research examined how levels ...
2021-01-08
PHILADELPHIA--Medications to treat high blood pressure did not affect outcomes among patients hospitalized with COVID-19, found an international team led by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The study, published today in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, is the first randomized controlled trial to show there is no risk for patients continuing these medications while hospitalized for COVID-19.
As part of the REPLACE COVID trial, investigators examined whether ACE inhibitors (ACEIs) or Angiotensin Receptor Blockers (ARBs) -- two classes of medications to treat high blood pressure -- ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] New analysis highlights importance of groundwater discharge into oceans
A global assessment of the impact of groundwater on ocean chemistry is important for understanding the weathering of rocks and its effects on climate
