Urbanization shapes the environment, but the way in which it does so depends on where and how cities grow. In an effort to forecast how urbanization over the next couple of decades might affect biodiversity and the carbon cycle around the world, researchers have made detailed predictions about how urban areas are likely to grow. Continue reading How future urban sprawl maps out
Tag Archives: Environment
Fish trawling reshapes deep-sea canyons
Deep-sea trawling smoothes out the wrinkles of canyons on the continental slope, making marine mountainsides look more like ploughed fields, changing the habitat of deep-sea creatures. The process rivals landslides and storms as a shaper of the deep sea, according to work published today in Nature. Continue reading Fish trawling reshapes deep-sea canyons
Carbon Sampling Takes Flight
Last month, aerial photographer and biologist Matevž Lenarčič flew a single-seat airplane across 2000 kilometers of airspace between Easter Island and Totegegie Airport in French Polynesia (right). That lonesome leg was one hop on a 3-month journey around the world, during which Lenarčič and his tiny, lightweight aircraft, a Pipistrel Virus (inset), also touched down on Antarctica, a rare solo feat. Between piloting the plane and collecting photographs for an upcoming book on water, Lenarčič has also collected data on black carbon, or soot, concentrations in the atmosphere. His 290-kilogram plane carries a much-lighter-than-normal Aethalometer, designed by aerosol scientist Griša Močnik of Aerosol in Ljubljana, Slovenia, that measures the optical absorption of the atmosphere and converts it to a rough estimate of soot concentration. Continue reading Carbon Sampling Takes Flight
Synthetic Stones Capture Carbon
While scrubbers in smokestacks at coal plants can pull out toxic gases like sulfur dioxide, scientists haven’t yet developed a cost-effective technology to remove carbon dioxide from industrial exhaust. Now European researchers have tinkered with the chemical composition of limestone to produce a material that absorbs almost twice as much CO2 as the natural mineral can (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es2034697).