Earth Sciences

Large improvements of air quality in China during the COVID-19 lockdown have been widely reported, but new research reveals that the two pollutants most harmful to human health, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone, were only slightly reduced.

Scientists have found the interstellar organic matter could produce an abundant supply of water by heating, suggesting that organic matter could be the source of terrestrial water.

A research led by the Department of Geography at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) has revealed that the observed average moving speed (or translation speed) of tropical cyclones making landfall over the coast of China dropped by 11% between 1961 and 2017. These slow-moving tropical cyclones brought about 20% more local total rainfall on average when compared with fast-moving ones, resulting in greater flood risks in the region.

The past is often the window to our future, especially when it comes to natural disasters. Using data from the 2018 floods that struck southwestern Japan to calibrate a machine learning model, researchers from the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS) at Tohoku University and the Japan-Peru Center for Earthquake Engineering Research and Disaster Mitigation (CISMID, in Spanish), have successfully identified the flooding caused by Typhoon Hagibis.

Low oxygen levels in water (hypoxia) pose a significant threat to marine and freshwater ecosystems worldwide, as highlighted in the latest research findings of The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) in an article titled “Low oxygen levels affect reproductive function in female fish – across multiple generations”, featured in Science for Environment Policy (Issue 536). This novel finding shows that hypoxia not only impairs reproduction in female fish (Oryzias melastigma), but the adverse effects can be passed on to their descendants in subsequent generations, posing a long-term threat to the sustainability of natural fish populations around the world.

An international collaborative study led by Professor Derrick Yuk Fo Lai at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), joined by top-tier scientists from around the world, has discovered that sustained methane emissions from the subtropical estuarine mangroves can reduce its climatic cooling effects by over 50%, over a period of 20 years. The team produced the world’s first-ever multi-year dataset of ecosystem-scale methane emissions from a subtropical estuarine mangrove based on the data collected at Mai Po Nature Reserve in Hong Kong, which points out that global warming and greater river runoff may lead to increasing methane emissions. The findings have recently been published in Global Change Biology, a top-tier journal in the field of biodiversity conservation and environmental science.

The first State Key Laboratory of The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) was opened in June 2018, in alignment with the University’s ongoing efforts to promote environmental studies as a discipline complementary to education. As a consortium member of the State Key Laboratory of Marine Pollution (SKLMP), the University’s role is to conduct pioneering research pertaining to solving imminent marine pollution problems that pose a significant threat to our environment and public health.

The present study screened known and unknown organohalogen compounds present in mussel and sediment samples from Hiroshima Bay. The results provided scientific evidence that unknown mixed halogenated compounds are ubiquitous in the coastal environment and possess bioaccumulative potential as high as persistent organic pollutants.

Even though the deeper layers of the ocean are warming at a slower pace than the surface, animals living in the deep ocean are more exposed to climate warming and will face increasing challenges to maintain their preferred thermal habitats in the future.

Wastewater could be used as a surveillance tool to monitor the invasion, spread and eradication of COVID-19 in communities.

An international research team has revealed that this ‘super-rotation’ is maintained near the equator by atmospheric tidal waves formed from solar heating on the planet’s dayside and cooling on its nightside.

Researchers who have shown great courage and integrity in standing up for science and scientific reasoning can be nominated until 11 May 2020

Springer Nature Group commits to be net carbon neutral this year, as part of an ongoing reduction in emissions and broader responsible business programme.

Communications Materials and Communications Earth & Environment join Springer Nature’s comprehensive portfolio of around 600 open access journals

A theoretical mineral physics approach based on the ab initio methods was adopted to determine the viscosity of hexagonal, close-packed iron at the extreme pressures and temperatures corresponding to the Earth’s inner core. The results are found to deny geophysical observations of large fluctuations in the inner core rotation rate. The obtained viscosity also rules out inner core translation and provides support that the dynamics of the inner core may be governed by solid-state convection.

A research team led by Professor Amos Tai, Associate Professor of the Earth System Science Programme at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), has successfully quantified and visualised the impact of Hong Kong air pollution especially ozone pollutant on plants and the environment. Although the experiment took place in a rural area and in Spring, which would usually have a lower average ozone concentration, the pollutant level still reached high enough to do significant damage to the bioindicator plant. The finding was recently published in Atmosphere.

A recent study, affiliated with South Korea's Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) has developed high‐efficiency, solution‐processed, hybrid series, tandem photovoltaic devices featuring CQDs and organic bulk heterojunction (BHJ) photoactive materials.

The theoretical mineral physics group of Ehime University led by Dr. Taku Tsuchiya has developed high-precision computational techniques for studying Earth and planetary materials based on quantum mechanical theory and reported several outcomes for Earth’s lower mantle minerals and high-pressure hydrous phases. Their insights and discoveries clarify the mineralogy of Earth’s lower mantle and new mineral phases stabilized at the deep mantle.

A recent study, affiliated with South Korea's Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) has presenter in-depth study of the interaction mechanism between the lignin nanofilms.

Policymakers will need to step up to the challenges caused by significant shifts in fish species distributions caused by climate change.

An international team of researchers has found that there is cause for optimism for now as the global loss rate of mangrove forests is now less alarming than previously suggested.

Mayor Cheol-ho Song (Ulsan, South Korea) visited the startup facilities of Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) on January 4, 2020.

2 Gold, 3 Silver, 5 Bronze, and 2 Participation Awards have been bestowed upon South Korea's Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) at this year's Samsung Humantech Paper Awards.

South Korea's Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), in collaboration with NASA in the United States, have successfully analyzed the main patterns of atmospheric circulation affecting the Arctic sea ice.

KAIST · GIST · DGIST · UNIST work together to prepare a joint innovation plan in the areas of education, research, globalization, and system.

Lattice thermal conductivities of MgSiO3 bridgmanite and postperovskite (PPv) phases under the Earth’s deepest mantle conditions were determined by quantum mechanical computer simulations. We found a substantial increase in the conductivity associated with the phase change. This indicates that the PPv phase boundary is the boundary not only of the mineralogy but also the thermal conductivity. The effect of anisotropy on the conductivity of PPv in the heat transport properties at the lowermost mantle was also found to be minor.

A study by The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) found that mangroves and other marine wetlands stored 23% more carbon from the atmosphere than previously estimated, which further established the importance of “Blue Carbon” and its contribution to countering carbon emission. This article has been published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Communications. (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-14120-2)

Water layering is intensifying significantly in about 40% of the world's oceans, which could have an impact on the marine food chain. The finding, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, could be linked to global warming.

The relationship between body size and climate in lizards and snakes is more complex than originally thought.

Rivers in southeast Asia transport more plastic to the ocean than some rivers in Europe, evidence from a new study in Environmental Research Letters suggests.