Melting High Mountain Asia glaciers are revealed as a potential source of greenhouse gases
2021-07-15
(Press-News.org) The cryosphere, a term used to describe the areas of the Earth's surface where water exists in solid form, plays an important role in regulating the Earth's climate. Due to cryospheric retreat; for example, the melting Greenland ice sheet in the Arctic, greenhouse gases that were formerly in "frozen storage" are now being released. High Mountain Asia, also known as the Tibetan Plateau, hosts the largest volume of glaciers outside the polar regions. However, Tibetan glaciers are currently excluded from global greenhouse gas budgets.
According to Shichang Kang, leader of a group of researchers who recently became the first team to measure the flux variations of greenhouse gases (CO2 and CH4) in typical glacial basins in High Mountain Asia, it's important that Tibetan glaciers are not only included in budget calculations, but are subject to more thorough investigation.
In a paper published in the KeAi journal Fundamental Research, he and his colleagues report that cryoconite holes on the glacier surface in southern and southeastern regions of the Tibetan Plateau are strong sources of carbon with positive CH4 and CO2 fluxes. However, this is mitigated to some extent by the fact that proglacial river runoff can be a significant sink of atmospheric CO2; a fact not identified in previous studies.
Kang, who is a Professor at the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, explains: "Glaciers in High Mountain Asia contain large reservoirs of organic carbon that can influence glacial ecosystems under rapid melting. We have estimated the lateral export of carbon from glaciers to the downstream. However, no systematic data exist on the current footprint of greenhouse gases from glacial basins, which limits our understanding of the carbon cycle."
He adds: "Given the current climate change problems we are facing, the impact of glacier shrinking on CH4 and CO2 fluxes in this region needs to be further investigated and understood. Specifically, the CH4 and CO2 fluxes from the cryoconite holes, subglacial sediments and proglacial rivers."
According to Dr. Yulan Zhang, the investigator who led the study: "Until now, there were no estimates on the potential climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions from cryosphere melting in High Mountain Asia. Determining how these data are coupled with biogeochemical models, including feedback between the glacial cryosphere and atmosphere, is required to test the sensitivity of carbon sinks or sources to changes in the terrestrial cryosphere." She adds: "Our results provide new insight about the projections in the cryospheric regions. It's clear that how the climate responds to carbon and nitrogen cycles in High Mountain Asia should be thoroughly studied in the future."
INFORMATION:
Contact the corresponding author: Shichang Kang, email: shichang.kang@lzb.ac.cn, ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2115-9005, personal website: http://shichang-kang.sklcs.ac.cn/
The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 100 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-07-15
New research will help doctors identify, treat and prevent potentially dangerous irregular heartbeats in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a common heart condition in which the heart thickens and strains to pump blood.
These chaotic heart rhythms are known as atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation can be asymptomatic, but it can lead to blood clots, stroke or even heart failure. The new research, from an international team of doctors and scientists, identifies risk factors for major atrial fibrillation outcomes, such as the need for procedures or hospitalization for more than 24 ...
2021-07-15
Scientists have developed a rapid, highly accurate test to detect antibodies against the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 in human serum, opening a new avenue for understanding the full extent of the pandemic and evaluating the effectiveness of vaccines.
In the 18 months since the emergence of Covid-19 pandemic, great strides have been made in discovering and inventing various approaches to track and control the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Rapid and accurate diagnosis has always been vital in this regard. The gold standard since the beginning of the pandemic has been the RT-PCR method; however, it is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and requires sophisticated ...
2021-07-15
Single-cell RNA sequencing has revealed a subset of cells that could provide protection from a rare, but severely debilitating and fatal, lung disease. The findings were published by Nagoya University researchers and colleagues in the European Respiratory Journal. Further research could lead to new therapeutic strategies for the disease, called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).
Approximately 15 in every 100,000 people worldwide develop IPF. Its prognosis and five-year survival rate can be worse than many types of cancer. It involves the development of scar tissue on the lung, impairing gas exchange and making ...
2021-07-15
Austin, Texas (July 15, 2021)
Access to high-quality public transportation can make communities more equitable by increasing access to critical opportunities such as employment, health care and healthy food, particularly for low-income individuals and people of color. A END ...
2021-07-15
INDIANAPOLIS -- Nursing homes throughout the United States have been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic with many perceptions and misperceptions but little documentation about what has happened on a day-by -day basis to residents in these facilities. A study from Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Medicine research scientists is one of the first to describe and identify patterns in the course of COVID-19 in the typically frail individuals who reside in nursing homes.
Much has been written about number of deaths, vaccine uptake and ...
2021-07-15
Bone density, skin and hair health, and the mobility of joints depend to a great extent on the microelement of silicon. We mostly get it with food, but silicon is also consumed with some biologically active additives that promise beauty, longevity, and youth. The element can also be found in drinking water of a natural origin: usually, it is included in the compound of sodium salt and metasiliconic acid. However, in the case of microelements, one should be extremely careful: a deficiency could lead to diseases, but an overdose could bring negative effects too.
Together with colleagues from the Chuvash State University and the Hamburg Medical University, scientists of Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University studied the effect of prolonged silicon consumption in relatively ...
2021-07-15
To date, there are no effective antidotes against most virus infections. An interdisciplinary research team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now developed a new approach: they engulf and neutralize viruses with nano-capsules tailored from genetic material using the DNA origami method. The strategy has already been tested against hepatitis and adeno-associated viruses in cell cultures. It may also prove successful against corona viruses.
There are antibiotics against dangerous bacteria, but few antidotes to treat acute viral infections. Some infections can be prevented by vaccination but developing new vaccines is a long and laborious process.
Now an interdisciplinary research team from the Technical University of Munich, the Helmholtz Zentrum München and ...
2021-07-15
A new study finds that resilience is a dynamic process, rather than a fixed trait - and suggests this may have significant ramifications for the business world.
"Organizations are interested in cultivating a resilient workforce, because they want people who are able to remain committed to an organization and its goals over time," says Patrick Flynn, corresponding author of the study and an assistant professor of human resources management at North Carolina State University's Poole College of Management.
"Our work here does a couple things," Flynn says. "First it finds that resilience is more of a process than a characteristic. Second, it identifies some of the ...
2021-07-15
RUDN University chemists obtained a metal-containing complex with an unusual planar architecture. The unexpected structure was formed due to the spontaneous fixation of carbon dioxide from the air during the reaction. This compound exhibits unusual magnetic properties (spin glass behaviour). This can be useful for creating memory storage devices. The results are published in the Journal of Organometallic Chemistry
Coordination polymers are hybrid crystalline coordination compounds contained of infinitely repeating fragments (structural elements). These structural ...
2021-07-15
The mitochondrion has garnered quite the reputation for its role as the "powerhouse of the cell." These tiny, but mighty organelles play various life-sustaining roles, from powering our own cells and organs to fueling chemical and biological processes. But when they aren't working properly, a number of rare diseases can occur.
Mitochondrial diseases are a group of debilitating genetic disorders that affect one in 5,000 people throughout the world, most of them being children. Along with these diseases come a variety of health concerns including, but not limited to, heart ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Melting High Mountain Asia glaciers are revealed as a potential source of greenhouse gases
