PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Deep learning illuminates atmospheric blocking events of past, future

Deep learning illuminates atmospheric blocking events of past, future
2024-10-16
(Press-News.org) Atmospheric blocking events are persistent, high-impact weather patterns that occur when large-scale high-pressure systems become stationary and divert the jet stream and storm tracks for days to weeks, and can be associated with record-breaking flooding or heat waves, such as in Europe in 2023. In a new study, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa atmospheric scientist Christina Karamperidou used a deep learning model to infer the frequency of blocking events over the past 1,000 years and shed light on how future climate change may impact these significant phenomena.   

“This study set out to extract a paleoweather signal from paleoclimate records using a deep learning model that infers atmospheric blocking frequency from surface temperature,” said Karamperidou. “This is a unique study and the first attempt to reconstruct a long record of blocking frequencies based on their relationship with surface temperature, which is complex and unknown. Machine learning methods can be very powerful for such tasks.”

Training the deep learning model

Karamperidou developed a specialized deep learning model, which she trained using historical data and large ensembles of climate model simulations. The model was then capable of inferring the frequency of blocking events from anomalies in seasonal temperature reconstructions over the Last Millennium. These past temperature reconstructions are relatively well-constrained by extensive networks of tree-ring records sensitive to temperature during the growing season. 

“This approach demonstrates that deep learning models are powerful tools to overcome the long-standing problem of extracting paleoweather from paleoclimate,” said Karamperidou. “This approach can also be used for the instrumental period of climate history, which began in the 18th century when routine weather measurements were made, since we only have reliable data to identify blocking since the 1940s, or possibly only the satellite era (post-1979).”

Frequency of future blocking events

There isn’t yet a scientific consensus regarding how climate change will change the frequency of blocking events. These strong, persistent mid-latitude high-pressure systems can have significant impacts for Hawai‘i, where flooding has accompanied persistent North Pacific blocks, and also worldwide, for example, in the Pacific Northwest and Europe, where summertime blocking can bring extreme heat waves. 

So understanding changes in the frequency of these events, especially as they relate to the other big players for climate, such as El Niño and the long-term patterns of sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific, is very important for Hawai‘i. This study allowed Karamperidou to relate blocking frequencies in the mid- and high-latitudes to tropical Pacific climate variability in the long context of the last millennium, which is essential for climate model validation and to narrow down uncertainties in future climate projections of blocking. 

Open research and transparency

Karamperidou worked with two UH Mānoa students to create a unique web-interface to explore the deep learning model and the resulting reconstructions. She highlighted that sharing results and methods in this way is important for Open Research best practices and transparency, especially as the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence expands rapidly into many aspects of daily life. The web-interface is hosted on Jetstream-2, an NSF-supported cloud computing system whose regional partners include the University of Hawai‘i Information Technology Services - Cyberinfrastructure and the Hawai‘i Data Science Institute.  

In the future, Karamperidou plans to explore a range of features and architectural enhancements of the deep learning model to expand its applications for climate phenomena and variables directly related to high socioeconomic impacts. 

END

[Attachments] See images for this press release:
Deep learning illuminates atmospheric blocking events of past, future Deep learning illuminates atmospheric blocking events of past, future 2

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Kidney transplantation among those with HIV infections shown safe and effective

2024-10-16
It is just as safe and effective for people with HIV in need of kidney transplantation to get their organ from donors who are also HIV positive as it is from donors who are not infected with the virus, a new study shows. Survival rates for organ recipients one and three years after the procedure were the same for donors with or without HIV. Also the same were risks of serious side effects, such as infection, fever, and rejection in the donated organ. In what is the largest comparative trial of the experimental procedures since the first transplant was performed in the United States in 2016, researchers ...

Longer-term data from SWOG S1826 trial confirm nivolumab-AVD benefit in Hodgkin lymphoma

2024-10-16
In mid-2023, the SWOG S1826 phase 3 trial in advanced Hodgkin lymphoma reported highly positive primary results earlier than expected, after the trial’s second planned interim analysis found the preset threshold for efficacy had already been reached.  Now, a follow-up analysis with additional data – a median follow-up of 2.1 years – confirms the durability of those initial findings: among the 970 newly diagnosed adolescents and adults randomized to the trial, those who received a combination of nivolumab plus AVD chemotherapy (N-AVD) had a significantly lower risk of cancer progression ...

In landmark study, immunotherapy boosts survival of advanced Hodgkin lymphoma

2024-10-16
A treatment that rallies the immune system to destroy cancer raised the survival rate for advanced Hodgkin lymphoma patients to a remarkable 92 percent, suggesting a new standard therapy for the disease. The New England Journal of Medicine published the innovative clinical trial results this week. Young people are most at risk to get Hodgkin lymphoma, an uncommon blood and immune system cancer that falls within the general category of lymphomas. With this new treatment, scientists believe they ...

Kidney transplantation between donors and recipients with HIV is safe

Kidney transplantation between donors and recipients with HIV is safe
2024-10-16
WHAT:  Kidney transplantation from deceased donors with HIV (HIV D+) to recipients with HIV (HIV R+) was safe and comparable to kidney transplantation from donors without HIV (HIV D-) in a multicenter observational study in the United States. The clinical outcomes observed were consistent with smaller pilot studies, but this National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded clinical trial was the first statistically powered to demonstrate noninferiority, which means that an approach being studied is as good as standard clinical practice. The results were published today ...

Brown researchers show how gut hormones control aging in flies and how it relates to human biology

Brown researchers show how gut hormones control aging in flies and how it relates to human biology
2024-10-16
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Biologists at Brown University have discovered how a neuropeptide hormone made in the gut of flies can control their lifespan. The findings, published in PNAS, have implications for humans, too, the researchers say — especially as new diabetes and obesity medications based on gut hormones in the same family of the fly hormone are becoming more widespread. For the past two decades, study author Marc Tatar, a professor of biology affiliated with the Center on the Biology of Aging at Brown University, has studied how the hormones insulin and insulin-like ...

Which clot-busting drug is tied to better recovery after stroke?

2024-10-16
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – For people with ischemic stroke, treatment with the clot-busting drug tenecteplase is associated with a slightly higher likelihood of an excellent recovery and reduced disability three months later than the drug alteplase, according to a meta-analysis published in the October 16, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers found that the likelihood of good recovery was similar ...

Study: breast cancer drug shows potential for rare appendix cancer

Study: breast cancer drug shows potential for rare appendix cancer
2024-10-16
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine found an FDA-approved drug used to treat breast cancer has the potential to be an effective therapeutic for a specific type of appendix cancer.  The clinical trial results, publishing in the October 16, 2024 online edition of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, showed the oral medication, known as palbociclib, stabilized tumor growth and reduced blood tumor marker levels in patients with peritoneal mucinous carcinomatosis (PMC). This form of cancer originates in the appendix and is often resistant to standard chemotherapy. “Finding that a breast cancer drug is ...

Specific type of DNA could be a target of future cancer therapies

2024-10-16
Research published in Nature Genetics on Oct.14, by Yale Cancer Center researchers at Yale School of Medicine, found a higher concentration of a specific kind of DNA — extrachromosomal or ecDNA — in more aggressive and advanced cancers that could mark them as targets for future therapies.  Using data available from The Cancer Genome Atlas, the International Cancer Genomics Consortium, the Hartwig Medical Foundation, and the Glioma Longitudinal Analysis Consortium, the researchers considered more than 8,000 tumor samples, divided between newly diagnosed untreated tumors and those that had been through previous treatments ...

New Director of the Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing

New Director of the Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing
2024-10-16
PHILADELPHIA (October 16, 2024) – J. Margo Brooks Carthon, PhD, RN, FAAN, the Tyson Family Endowed Term Chair for Gerontological Research; Professor of Nursing in the Department of Family and Community Health; and Associate Director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research, has been appointed the new Director of the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing (Bates Center), the preeminent history of nursing research center and archive. The Bates Center amplifies the importance of the history of nursing and healthcare to the development of crafting effective health policies and strategies to improve health for all. “The ...

Scientists developing microchips with brain and lung tissue to study viral neuroinflammation

Scientists developing microchips with brain and lung tissue to study viral neuroinflammation
2024-10-16
Scientists are developing advanced tools to understand and treat neurological symptoms such as brain fog associated with respiratory diseases like influenza. The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), awarded a three-year contract to researchers at the University of Rochester to develop a technology to model respiratory disease effects on the brain ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Study tracks chromium chemistry in irradiated molten salts

Scientists: the beautiful game is a silver bullet for global health

Being physically active, even just a couple of days a week, may be key to better health

High-fat diet promote breast cancer metastasis in animal models

A router for photons

Nurses and AI collaborate to save lives, reduce hospital stays

Multi-resistance in bacteria predicted by AI model

Tinker Tots: A citizen science project to explore ethical dilemmas in embryo selection

Sensing sickness

Cost to build multifamily housing in California more than twice as high as in Texas

Program takes aim at drinking, unsafe sex, and sexual assault on college campuses

Inability to pay for healthcare reaches record high in U.S.

Science ‘storytelling’ urgently needed amid climate and biodiversity crisis

KAIST Develops Retinal Therapy to Restore Lost Vision​

Adipocyte-hepatocyte signaling mechanism uncovered in endoplasmic reticulum stress response

Mammals were adapting from life in the trees to living on the ground before dinosaur-killing asteroid

Low LDL cholesterol levels linked to reduced risk of dementia

Thickening of the eye’s retina associated with greater risk and severity of postoperative delirium in older patients

Almost one in ten people surveyed report having been harmed by the NHS in the last three years

Enhancing light control with complex frequency excitations

New research finds novel drug target for acute myeloid leukemia, bringing hope for cancer patients

New insight into factors associated with a common disease among dogs and humans

Illuminating single atoms for sustainable propylene production

New study finds Rocky Mountain snow contamination

Study examines lactation in critically ill patients

UVA Engineering Dean Jennifer West earns AIMBE’s 2025 Pierre Galletti Award

Doubling down on metasurfaces

New Cedars-Sinai study shows how specialized diet can improve gut disorders

Making moves and hitting the breaks: Owl journeys surprise researchers in western Montana

PKU Scientists simulate the origin and evolution of the North Atlantic Oscillation

[Press-News.org] Deep learning illuminates atmospheric blocking events of past, future